efficiency posts, articles, and infographics

Do Lighting Standard Delays Threaten Consumer Choice?

December 21, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 305 views

In just under two weeks, standard 100 Watt incandescent light bulbs will be officially banned in the US, in the first step of a gradual phaseout of Edison's technology. However, as a result of recent Congressional action, enforcement of this regulation has been delayed by about a year, leaving the bulbs and the retailers who sell them in a temporary limbo. [read more]

Appropriations Bill Amendment Attempts To Derail Efficient Lighting

December 21, 2011 by Steve Nadel
with 221 views

It is unfortunate that some members of Congress have inserted a provision in the federal appropriations bill seeking to derail implementation of lighting efficiency standards enacted in 2007 and signed by then-President Bush. Contrary to misinformation being spread by some lamp standard opponents, the standards do not ban incandescent lamps, but merely require incandescent lamps to be more efficient. [read more]

oPower's Gaming Technology Gets Neighbors to Compete to Save Energy

November 3, 2011 by Gernot Wagner
with 255 views

Wasting time Playing games online is fun. Even staid old utilities are catching on by now. In truth, ConEd didn’t come up with much of a game. It’s more like a guided tour of energy savings around your house, even though the link may say “play now.” Other companies, however, are designing real online games. oPower is famous for getting... [read more]

No Free Lunch on Climate

September 6, 2011 by Gernot Wagner
with 255 views

Plenty of studies show how we can save the planet and save money all at once. Many of them happen to be produced by McKinsey. Economists tend to deride them. If you could really save money by being green, why wouldn’t everyone be green all the time? [read more]

Lighting, Sensors and Lumens, Oh My

June 7, 2011 by Scott Edward Anderson
with 593 views

From poor lighting in the Hilton's Trianon Room to the endless parade of LED products on display in the Exhibit Hall lighting was the word at Con Ed's Energy Efficiency Summit in New York on Wednesday. Mike Jackson, director of sales with VC-backed Digital Lumens, even brought along a prop for his presentation in the Pitch Stop, Con... [read more]

How LED Lights Can Reduce Air Conditioning Costs This Summer

May 17, 2011 by Peter Troast
with 649 views

We all know that LED lights save energy, help the planet, reduce electrical costs, and last a whole lot longer than incandescent bulbs (the Cree LR6 Downlight LED, for example, is rated to last up to 50,000 hours -- somewhere between 25 and 50 times the lifespan of an incandescent bulb). But they also have another benefit: they can... [read more]

Opportunities in Power Market Design: Wind Power, Capacity Markets, Optimization Software

May 10, 2011 by Michael Giberson
with 223 views

Michael Giberson A handful of stories raising power market design issues: The Oregonian, ”Northwest wind power to double but inconsistency creates nightmare“: “The value of BPA’s surplus power sales are already being undermined by wind energy sloshing into the market. That ultimately increases rates for its public utility customers... [read more]

Pump-As-Turbine Powered By Falling Industrial Wastewater

May 5, 2011 by Helmuth Ziegler
with 614 views

As one of Europe’s largest production and research site, the Industriepark Höchst, (in Frankfurt Germany) is home to 90+ companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, basic and specialty chemicals, crop protection, food additives and services.The waste water these companies generate is treated in a double stage biological treatment... [read more]

Is It True That the More Efficient a Product Becomes, the More Its Owner Will Use It?

May 4, 2011 by Steve Nadel
with 345 views

Two recent articles have argued that as the energy efficiency of products improve, it becomes less expensive to operate these products and as a result, people increase their use of these products, increasing energy use and potentially wiping out the energy savings caused by the efficiency gains. In “Solid-State Lighting: An Energy-... [read more]

Walmart: The Power–And Limits–Of Efficiency

April 24, 2011 by Marc Gunther
with 484 views

Arguably, Walmart has done more than any environmental group, politician, government regulator or Silicon Valley clean tech firm to nudge the U.S. economy towards sustainability in the last five years. Walmart’s 2011 Global Responsibility Report, published last week, makes clear that despite the recession and some revently... [read more]

Interview: Siemens CTO on Building Energy-Efficient Cities

April 6, 2011 by Helmuth Ziegler
with 638 views

Siemens Energy CTO Dr. Michael Weinhold

At Hanover Fair I met Dr. Michael Weinhold, chief technology officer of Siemens Energy. Here are his thoughts on how to make cities more energy-efficient. [read more]

Cleaner, Cheaper and Faster: Why Efficiency Beats Drilling

March 10, 2011 by Luke Tonachel
with 1,104 views

With oil prices back above $100 per barrel and gasoline prices rapidly jumping up in the last two weeks, drivers are feeling the pain at the pump and unease about the future. While some in Washington advocate drilling as the solution, there are better ways to provide stability for consumers and cut our oil dependence. By 2030, efficiency... [read more]

Six Misconceptions about Rebound and Backfire

January 24, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
with 629 views

David Owen's recent New Yorker article on energy efficiency and rebound phenomena has sparked a lively debate in a number of blog posts but it has also resulted in some confusion. The purpose of this post is to lend clarity to the rebound debate by dispelling some misconceptions about rebound. Rebound comes from several sources, requiring important distinctions. Typically, rebound analysts distinguish consumer-side effects from producer-side effects. A second distinction frequently called upon is between so-called direct and indirect rebound. On top of these rebound classifications, some analysts identify a so-called macroeconomic effect. [read more]

Jevons Paradox and Energy Efficiency

January 6, 2011 by June Lin
with 1,507 views

Recently I wrote a post about how if we start producing energy more efficiently, we can decrease dependence on fossil fuels and bide time until renewable energies become truly viable. Elementary economics states, however, that as the price of something decreases, demand for it will go up. The Jevons paradox occurs when the rebound effect... [read more]

Efficiency lives — the rebound effect, not so much - Shining some light on bad analysis in The Economist

September 13, 2010 by Joseph Romm
with 966 views

Today’s guest debunker is Evan Mills, a leading scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a widely-published expert on energy efficiency, which remains THE core climate solution and the biggest low-carbon resource by far. Misreading of a new Sandia National Laboratories study on efficient lighting has led The... [read more]