Save and Conserve

Politicians from New Jersey and California - probably the two friendliest residential solar energy states in America - have written a new Act designed to protect consumer's rights to install and receive benefit from residential solar systems.

This type of legislation is critical to future growth in alternative energy usage. Not only does it make sense to protect the rights of Americans who are willing to spend more for clean, renewable energy ... it also sends a signal to businesses up and down the entire supply chain that demand for solar energy is protected looking out into the future. This, in turn, will lead to investment and ultimately to lower costs for solar power.

Solar power is a beautiful thing, but it is still way too expensive to go mainstream. Efficiency gains and cost reduction have to come as soon as possible - or else we'll run out of time to scale up installations. And that would be a shame, since solar should be part of the solution to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, especially with regard to residential power.

I'm liking the direction this new Congress is pointing the country. Let's hope this legislation passes into law.

The legislation contains the following provisions:

Net Metering: Requires utilities, within 1 year of the date of enactment, to provide net metering for customer-owned solar power systems up to 2 MW in size at retail electric rates. Ownership of renewable energy credits (RECs) resides with the solar system owner for purposes of selling or trading to meet a state or federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS)

Interconnection: Requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, within 1 year of the date of enactment, to publish model standards for physical connection between the electric grid and customer-owned solar systems up to 20 MW in size. The model standards shall have separate expedited procedures for systems under 15 kW and for systems between 15 kW and 2 MW.

Solar Siting Rights: Instructs the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to issue regulations within 180 days of the law's enactment that 1) prohibit any private covenant, contract provision, lease provision, homeowners' association rule or bylaw, or similar restriction that impairs homeowners' ability to install and use a solar energy system and 2) expedite the approval, where such approval is required, of applications to install systems.

Cap on Permitting and Licensing Fees: Requires that permitting and licensing fee costs are $500 or less for residential installations, and $10,000 or less for commercial installations.

Renewable Energy Contracts for Federal Agencies: Allows federal agencies to enter into power purchase agreements with renewable energy providers for up to 30 years.

Posted by tom c. at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a saver and conserver, I've always been on top of my check book. I'm not one of those people who have only a vague idea about how much money they have left in their account. I've never overdrawn any of my accounts. One might say I'm very anal about keeping track of the bottom line. And one would be right.

However, being anal about your bank account balance doesn't equate with saving money. In order to start to reduce the amount of money you spend, you first need to know where you spend your money.

At the beginning of 2007 my fiancee and I decided to start keeping track of our spending by creating a budget. We somehow stumbled upon PeachBudget, and it's turned out to be an easy-to-use, valuable tool that tells us where we're spending our money.

PeachBudget is a simple Microsoft Excel file with multiple, linked worksheets. You create spend categories like: rent, transportation, groceries, etc. and allocate a monthly spending target to each category. Then, as the month progresses, you simply enter in your individual costs. At the end of the month, PeachBudget tells you how much you spent in each category and whether or not you exceeded your budget amount.

As I said, in order to start saving money, you first need to know where you spend money today so you can stop bleeding cash. So, the first few months of using PeachBudget is really more about diagnosing the problem (identifying over-spending). After the diagnosis is made, you can switch to action mode and start to tighten the purse strings where necessary.

PeachBudget: a free tool you can use to profile your spending ways.

Posted by tom c. at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The numbers are in, and we now know that the period from December 2006 through February 2007 was the warmest winter in the Earth's history.

The 3-month winter period December 2006 through February 2007 had an average temperature +0.72°C (+1.30°F) above normal, beating the previous record set in 2004 by a substantial +0.12°C. Cooler than normal temperatures were observed over less than 15% of the globe, and nowhere did the cooling exceed 3° C (Figure 1). Record warmth was particularly noteworthy over land areas of the Northern Hemisphere poleward of 45° latitude, where temperatures a remarkable 5°C (9°F) above normal were common.

Read the whole post over at Wunder Blog.

Posted by tom c. at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Being fascinated by renewable sources of energy, I like to learn and read about where renewable energy is heading. I should, however, spend more time becoming familiar with the options available in the here and now. One option I know next to nothing about is geothermal energy. This article on geothermal heat pumps caught my eye, so I decided to do a little digging to find out more about this renewable source.

What is a geothermal heat pump?

A geothermal exchange heat pump, also known as a ground source heat pump or GSHP, is a heat pump that uses the Earth as either a heat source, when operating in heating mode, or a heat sink when operating in cooling mode. All geothermal heat pumps are characterised by an external loop containing water or a water/antifreeze mixture (propylene glycol, denatured alcohol or methanol), and a much smaller internal loop containing a refrigerant. Both loops pass through the heat exchanger.

Geothermal heat pumps have the ability to act as either a heat source or heat sink because the Earth's temperature below the frost line remains relatively constant.

During the winter, the fluid collects heat from the earth and carries it through the system and into the building. During the summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building by pulling heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in the ground. This process creates free hot water in the summer and delivers substantial hot water savings in the winter.

Sounds pretty brilliant, doesn't it? Must be a catch ...

Ah, yes. GSHPs cost more upfront than conventional heating/cooling systems. In our two-second-attention-span, profit-obsessed society, anything that costs more money upfront - even if it pays down the line - seems to get benched in favor of the option that saves the most five minutes ago. The more you look at renewable, the more you see that the need for immediate profits is the single biggest barrier to more widespread adoption.

According to the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association, "[GSHP] Investments can be recouped in as little as three years." Plus, GSHPs are very efficient:

The GSHP is one of the most efficient residential heating and cooling systems available today, with heating efficiencies 50 to 70% higher than other heating systems and cooling efficiencies 20 to 40% higher than available air conditioners. That directly translates into savings for you on your utility bills.

GSHPs are also durable, long lasting systems:

The GSHP contains fewer mechanical components, and all components are either buried in the ground or located inside the home, which protects them from outside conditions. The underground pipe carries up to a 50-year warranty.

I'm not seeing a lot on the negative side of the whiteboard. In fact, I'm starting to fall in love with GSHPs:

GSHP systems conserve energy and, because they move heat that already exists rather than burning something to create heat, they reduce the amount of toxic emissions in the atmosphere. They use renewable energy from the sun, and because the system doesn't rely on outside air, it keeps the air inside of buildings cleaner and free from pollens, outdoor pollutants, mold spores, and other allergens.

Are you concerned about the environment and looking to reduce your energy or carbon footprint? Then maybe you should consider installing a GSHP system in your residence. For a list of available financial incentives, check this site out.

I'm going to dig for some less positive information about GSHPs. If and when I locate anything, I'll update this post.

Posted by tom c. at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times has a piece today about the plight of Pemex, Mexico's state oil company. The full headline of the article is: Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Gets the Blame. That headline is quite misleading, if you happen to know anything about Hubbert Linearization.

The headline makes it seem like, were it not for political issues, Mexico would have no problem increasing oil production. In fact, the Hubbert model forecasts falling production due to geological factors. To put it another way, Mexico has extracted about 50% of the total recoverable oil and is now on the backside of its oil production curve.

The Hubbert models indicate that Mexico does indeed have "tens of billions of barrels of untapped oil reserves" - that much appears to be true. The key thing that most of these writers seem to miss (evade) is the rate of production. Those remaining billions of barrels will be the most difficult oil to reach and take the most time and money to produce. In other words, the 50% that is left is the bottom of the barrel.

I have no doubt that politics plays some kind of role in this story. But it is also obvious to me that geology plays a more significant role. Anyone commenting on oil production rates and history and forward projections should be familiar with the Hubbert model. To ignore that part of the story is to ignore a major piece of relevant information. And that makes for unreliable, misleading reporting.

Posted by tom c. at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a wonderful article from Outside Magazine that shows it is possible for industrialized nations to cut energy consumption, turn to renewable sources of energy, and prosper by doing it.

In fact, Samsø has spent the past decade becoming an eco-wonderland, setting up wind, solar, biofuels, and other renewable technologies to satisfy its energy needs. The island has even gone beyond "carbon neutrality," the cherished environmental goal of zeroing out the production of CO2, the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming.

Samsø is an island in Denmark rich in the wind resource. They get so much wind that they can't use all of the electricity their turbines produce, so they sell the excess to the main electric grid. And even individuals are leveraging the wind.

Turbines are owned by private investors like Tranberg, by the government, or by cooperatives of people who bought shares to finance their construction. The process is democratic in the way so many things are in Denmark; shares cost about $360 each. Tranberg, for his part, took out a loan to buy his $1 million windmill six years ago, but the government guaranteed him an above-market price for his power. And the wind, which blows lustily here most days of the year, proved to be an even better friend than he and other islanders had hoped. Investors have seen returns of 8 percent or so a year, which works out to roughly $100,000 per onshore turbine. Tranberg's is already paid off. "It's enough income for me that I don't have to work, but I like to work," he says. Besides, he adds, talking tough for a man in clogs, "we can't put all that shit in the sky from coal. There's too much shit in the air."

The article has much, much more about this inspiring community that clearly "gets it". Check out the link to read the entire thing.

Posted by tom c. at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Been an interesting week, hasn't it?

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over 400 points. At one point around 3pm, the NYSE trading systems that had been overloaded with sell orders were switched over to a backup system and the sells all executed within a span of minutes. The Dow plunged about 150 points. Basically, we had a mini-crash on Tuesday.

And it was probably due mainly to the crappy economic picture that is coming into focus. Can you say credit crunch?

Also, our northernly neighbors in Canada are experiencing an outright gas shortage. 25 Petro-Canada gas stations just closed in the Toronto area. That's Toronto - not Saskatchewan. Seems like a pretty big deal to me.

Across the province, 75 of the company's 440 stations ran out of gas on Wednesday. The gas shortage has left some motorists and taxi drivers hunting for open stations, then facing lengthy lines when they find one.

The good news is the shortage will only persist for about "seven to 10 days". Wow ...

And this morning the good old Dow was back to its tricks from Tuesday. As this post put it: Uh Oh. The market rebounded from the morning jitters, but all in all you have to be intrigued by the intensity of the bad things happening out there this week.

Posted by tom c. at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)