A recent conversation at the grocery store gave me an idea for a new thread—debunking some energy and energy-efficiency myths.  Despite the Spring-like conditions in the Northeast, it really is summer, and I’ll start off with a few cooling myths.

MYTH:  Using a programmable thermostat—or adjusting manually—and ratcheting back your heating or cooling where no one is home doesn’t really save energy.  Quite simply, yes it does!   The longer your house stays at a higher temperature when in cooling mode (or at a lower temperature when heating), the more energy and money you will save. This is because heating and cooling cost depends mostly on the difference between indoor and outdoor temperature—the closer the temperatures indoors and out, the less energy you use.  Depending on usage, on how far you change the setting while you’re gone, and how efficient your home is, you could expect to save 5 to15%.  A programmable thermostat can adjust temperatures automatically for you.   (Caveat:  in areas with variable rates—peak summer rates are often late afternoon.  You’ll use less energy back turning off the A/C while you’re gone—but you may pay more.  The answer here is to make your house as efficient as possible to get the cool air in and keep the heat out!)

MYTH:  Turning off the A/C, but leaving the fan on to mix the air saves energy.  Nope.  First, you’re actually using energy—and creating heat—with the fan.  Second, most duct systems leak air to the outside—keeping the fan on actually increases this leakage, so you may lose the cool air even faster. 

MYTH: The lower you set your thermostat, the faster you’re A/C will cool your house.
False.  You should set the thermostat at the temperature you want–it will reach that point just as quickly as if you set it lower.  Setting it lower means you’re likely to forget or to “catch” it at the right time, making the room colder and wasting energy.

A lot more home energy misconceptions out there—and I’ll try to hit some them in the coming months.

Thanks,
Mike

Oil prices–when they’re up, they’re up, and when they’re down, they’re down, and when they’re only halfway up, they’re neither up nor down.

There are people betting prices will go one way or the other.  I’d rather bet that I’ll use less by investing in energy-efficiency.

And even as the U.S. considers limits on speculation (today’s NY Times), I think we can count on oil prices jumping around–and moving up–in the long term.   The long term drivers in increased demand in China and India and decreasing supply remain in place.  And short term problems caused by hurricanes, wars, and other unpredictable events will continue to impact prices.  One certainty is that prices will be uncertain. 

Thanks,
Mike

Just last week I suggested that we lead with energy-efficiency and that wind farms in Texas weren’t going to solve our energy problems.  And yesterday, we get word that the tycoon T. Boone Pickens’s plans for such a farm have stalled.  As suggested,

“In Texas, the problem lies in getting power from the proposed site in the panhandle to a distribution system, Pickens said in an interview with The Associated Press in New York. He’d hoped to build his own transmission lines but he said there were technical problems.”

See the story, and the old commercial at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/07/t_boone_pickens_wind_farm_plan.html

This issue isn’t limited to wind–it would affect coal, nukes, solar, anything where we want to generate massive amount of electricity one place and then move it somewhere else.  Generation alone won’t get us where we need to be. 

Thanks,
Mike

A NY Times story today talks about the volatility in oil prices, including the impact rollercoastering oil prices have on consumers’ and businesses’ abilities to predict costs.  Whether in their homes, or in their businesses, people like to know what to expect.  Oil moving between $50 and $150 per barrel makes that difficult.  But there is a way to rein that uncertainity in–and get bigger returns for doing it, standing the risk/return tradeoff on its head.  And as goes oil, so goes gas and electricity, even if those changes get smoothed out a bit be utility regulatory processes.

Let’s say you heat with oil (could be gas–or we could be taking about electricity and A/C).   If you spend $1,500 per year at “normal” prices, but that could double to $2,500 per year, you’re looking at a large swing–up to an additional $1,000.  Now let’s say you improve the efficiency of your home by 50%, reducing your “normal” costs to $750.  If prices spike, your bill goes up to $1,250–still less than you’re paying now, and $1,750 less than you’d spend on energy in your current inefficient house!  And if prices don’t spike, you save $750/year.

You cannot control wars in the Middle East, bickering between Russia and Europe over natural gas pipelines, oil price speculation, or hurricanes that disrupt production.   You cannot control the price of oil, gas, or electricity.  But you can have an enormous impact on how these prices affect you.  The choice is to ride the stormy seas and risk getting sunk–or protect yourself from changing prices.  It’s better than insurance though, because you save if energy prices go up, and you save if they don’t!  That’s just plain smart.

So how does reducing your home energy use by 50% sound?

Thanks,
Mike

Vermont Congressman Peter Welch held a press conference earlier this week.   Congressman Welch did a great job explaining the positive impact of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) that passed the House on June 26.  He did a great job explaining the positive impacts of the bill and how it considered and minimzed the impacts on a variety of industries, from agriculate, to steel, to mining.  Check out an excerpt as reported by Vermont Public Radio.  (And listen closely for a brief snippet of me speaking.)

Thanks,
Mike

You’ll hear “energy independence” batted around.  Some folks will undoubtedly be tying it to Independence Day, the 4^th of July, in the U.S.  And it is a great aspirational goal. 

Let’s blow away the smoke, though.  Energy independence for the U.S. will not happen overnight.  It won’t happen in a decade.  It may never happen completely as it may always make more sense for the Northeastern U.S. to get some of electricity from hydroelectric plants in Canada.  And we may find it makes sense to continue to import some “energy” from Mexico and Canada for raw energy or for products where petroleum or natural gas is the best feedstock.

Let’s also be clear that real energy independence is not about drilling for more oil in this country.  We simply don’t have enough to quench our current thirst.  It’s not about switching more to coal—we already generate more than half our electricity from coal, and we simply cannot afford the damage to our air, mountains, streams, and lakes.  But nor is it just about building massive wind farms in Texas or massive solar farms in Nevada.  We cannot generate enough that way to meet our current demands in the next decade, and even if we could, we would have to think about how to move electricity from Texas to Chicago and beyond.

But I’m very optimistic about a cleaner energy future.  Not only is it urgently needed, but it also makes a lot of sense for economic, security, and environment reasons.

The place to start of course, is energy-efficiency.  The McKinsey cost curve (here, as depicted in National Geographic) illustrates this perfectly.  It’s almost one of those “duh” observations—but an observation that we unfortunately haven’t embraced yet.   The “increased cost” argument is a red herring on the efficiency side.  Wasting less energy—wasting less, period—saving us money!   As DOE Secretary Chu put it, “Energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruit; it is fruit lying on the ground.”    If we make the efforts to do more, do it better, and do it with less, we win.  And if we decrease our need for energy, the supply side of the equation becomes more simpler.  We don’t need as much, electricity, gas, oil, ethanol, etc.   The scale of our wind farms and PV arrays can be smaller.  We don’t have to worry as much about massive energy distribution infrastructure.   Energy-efficiency is the critical first step, and it makes the next steps more achievable.  Once we start making significant inroads there, we can tackle more manage supply issues, especially including renewables.

The good news is that this creates economic opportunity.  “Green” jobs are certainly a big part of this.  These jobs are for the most part very local.  They cannot be exported our outsourced.  The ensure that money that was formerly sent overseas stays in our communities.  And obviously good jobs give the economy a boost.  It doesn’t stop there, though.  As businesses save energy, they save money.  Money that formerly went up a chimney, flue, or smokestack can be reinvested in the core business, creating new and better widgets, improved services, and stronger competitiveness.  In short, the less businesses waste, the easier it is for us to maintain a leadership role. 

This same principal holds at the household level.  These less money we spend on energy, the more we have to send our kids to school, pay our mortgages, and protect ourselves from the ups and downs of a global market and global energy costs.

There are upfront costs for energy-efficiency.  But they are actually less than the costs to build and maintain new power plants, new power lines and gas pipelines, and the fossil-fuels needed to run them. 

Total energy independence may be a far-off dream.   There is absolutely no good reason, though, we shouldn’t begin running in that direction, and saving money and increasing our resilience, right now.  With energy-efficiency first.

Thanks,
Mike

It’s good to see some journalists getting this right.   In a June 8 article, Thomas Content of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal pointed out the need to look at energy-efficiency first, before renewables like  wind.  Drawing on the McKinsey cost curve (here, as depicted in National Geographic) and other studies, showing as he quotes DOE Secretary Chu, “Energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruit; it is fruit lying on the ground.”

Sari Krieger of the Wall Street Journal also covers this in her June 15 article “Before Adding, Try Reducing”.   She quotes Peter Welch of Vemont, “We should have the policy of efficiency first.”

Thanks,
Mike

Now that summer is officially here, let’s get to those cooling tips I promised earlier.  Some of the tips are simple things you can do yourself.  Some are more involved are likely are best handled by a contractor.

1. Keep the heat out!  During the day, if it’s cooler inside than outside, keep windows shut.  And keep window shades down to block out direct sunlight.  Open the windows at night if it’s cooler outside than in.  Solar shades can help.  And the more ambitious project, new low-e windows with a low “solar heat gain coefficient” (SHGC) can block the heat from the sun.
2. Ceiling fans (and other fans) help you stay comfortable—but only while you’re in the room.  The fan motors actually generate heat, so turn them off when you’re not there.
3. Use a bath fan vented to the outside to remove the heat and moisture created by showering.  If you don’t have a bath fan, install one.
4. Similarly, use a kitchen exhaust fan to remove heat and moisture created by cooking.  This has the added benefit of removing pollutants, especially if you cook with gas.
5. Use efficient lighting and appliances.  Incandescent and halogen lights actually use most of their energy creating heat instead of light.  Not only does this means you’re overpaying for lighting, but in the summer you’re creating a lot of unwanted heat in the rooms you’re trying to keep cool.  Compact florescent light bulbs have improved greatly over the past several years.  The humming, slow starts, and ghoulish colors of years past are gone.  With lighting or appliances, look for ENERGY STAR models.
6. Do you have a forced air heating or cooling system? If so, make sure to seal and insulate the ductwork in attics and crawl spaces.  As much as 30% of the air you cool can escape outside through leaky ducts.
7. Insulate and air-seal your attic.  In the summer, temperatures in the attic often climb to more than 140^o.    Proper insulation can keep this heat from conducting down into your home, but first…  Remember that your insulation only works if air isn’t moving through it.  Seal around chimneys, flues, plumbing penetrations, and recessed lighting, for example.   See my previous post Insulate to Stay Cool .  (Tax credits may apply)
8. If you have a central air-conditioner, keep it tuned up.   If it’s more than 10 years old, consider replacing with a high-efficiency unit, one that at least qualifies for ENERGY STAR.  If your buying a window air-conditioner or dehumidifier, look for the ENERGY STAR, too.  (Tax credits may apply)
9. Planting deciduous trees on the south and west sides of a house can help keep your home cool in the summer.  In many parts of the country, maples, oaks, and birches are good trees to consider.  Because they drop their leaves in the fall, they let sunlight through to help warm your house in the winter.
10. To really find the trouble spots in your home, and to be sure that they’re addressed properly, get a comprehensive home assessment like those recommended in the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program.  GreenHomes America can provide this, and GreenHomes trained and certified crews can even install your improvements.

And whether you do the work yourself or you have it done by a contractor, after you tighten the house you should have any combustion equipment like furnaces and water heaters tested to make sure they’re running safely and efficiently.  GreenHomes does this testing on every project it completes.

Thanks,
Mike

Thursday evening the House pass a bill to address climate change and energy use, a big part of Obama’s agenda.  Of course, Obama can’t sign these provisions into law unless a similar bill passes the Senate.  An energy bill has solid support there, but many expect the climate portion to present a bigger challenge.

My favorite part of the bill is the energy-efficiency direction introduced by Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont which would help bring Home Performance with ENERGY STAR to more states around the country so homeowners can experience the results seen by participants in New York and New Jersey, for example.

See more in articles in the NY Times or the Washington Post.

[See update, Peter Welch's remarks on the energy bill.]

Thanks,
Mike

I wanted to send out a big hello and thank you to Jeff Barrie and everyone visiting via his newsletter.  Jeff is one of the country’s grassroots champions of energy-efficiency and the creator of the award-winning documentary, Kilowatt Ours.  (Now that Kilowatts Ours has been playing PBS stations around the country, he’s not quite as underground as he used to be.)  If you haven’t seen the movie, check it out.  And please consider taking action to reduce your energy use and supporting his organization to help spread the word!  Jeff, thanks for pointing your readers to the energy-efficiency and renewable energy content here.

Thanks,
Mike