Energy benchmarking can unlock $9 billion in energy savings by 2020, suggests a recent report by the Institute of Market Transformation. Despite our lofty aspirations of energy independence and tackling global climate change, we are only beginning to implement the first step in the multifamily building sector – understanding our energy use. Multifamily (more…)

Is all this effort to save energy worth it?

Consider this. Had we neglected energy efficiency from 1980 to 2010, worldwide energy use would be 35 percent higher. What does this mean? Look at the amount of energy used in the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China. That’s about how much energy the world saved. (more…)

Bill Powers, of Solar Done Right, tells Business Week in a timely article about the political hitches holding solar back in the U.S., that “economically and technologically, the game is over. The hang-ups in the U.S. are strictly political,” he said. Oil and gas still dominate the agenda of the political debate and alternative energy is treated with a certain indifference. (more…)

“In Europe, over 250 ice rink operators have started to use a vortex process technology, to lay and resurface ice rinks. This technology removes micro-bubbles from water by spinning the water into an ordered vortex movement. Through this process, micro- bubbles are driven to the inside of the swirl (more…)

When I picked up a gallon of milk at the store today, I looked at it in a new way. I was buying energy.

This insight came courtesy of the US Energy Information Administration‘s recent ‘Today in Energy’ article about industrial energy consumption.

It turns out that we use about 30 percent of our (more…)

A data center has a massive demand for electricity to run all of its servers 24/7/365. A typical data center uses the same amount of electricity to run the servers as it does to run the air conditioning to keep those servers cool enough to function.

If left to their own devices, servers would overheat (more…)

Now that you’ve installed efficient light bulbs in your house, do you think: “Guess I’ll leave my lights on all night. What the heck – it won’t cost me any extra.”

Probably not. But some extreme critics of energy efficiency would have us believe this is the end result of appliance standards and energy savings (more…)

The Green Deal is due to be launched in October 2012 and, therefore, plans for the scheme are in their final stages. The first batch of Green Deal providers, who will arrange the finances for, and installation of, the energy saving devices, have been published. Qualifying energy saving devices have also been made public. However, there are still some key details (more…)

John Lennon wrote that life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Apparently, the same is true of energy efficiency. Energy savings happen when we’re busy doing other things – Internet-based things specifically.

We use email, bank online and download music not (more…)

We all know someone who always seems to have it before you can buy it. My best friend, Joel, is a prime example. From backpack-sized car phones and the Turbografx 16 (although the gaming system was an epic fail, Bonk’s Revenge was the jam) to Reebok pumps and a portable mini-disc player, Joel has been first in line for a lot of stuff. Joel is a classic example of (more…)