Clean Energy Springfield

Spring isn't quite here yet, but we had a warm weekend, so my wife and I have opened up our windows a little bit. The storm windows will come down tomorrow (we're probably suckers here, but spring is all about hope, right?).

I also put up the clothes line this weekend and did some laundry. Depending on how much laundry you do, line drying your clothes can save up to 800 kWh per year (via Grist's Ask Umbra), which is a half metric ton of carbon not going into the air (or 1/10th of a car not being driven for the year). That's a big impact for a simple thing to do. Umbra has some other tips on getting started. And if you really want to do it right, check out Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts or Laundry. Both the library (and Home Comforts is available both for checkout and as a reference book!) and Barnes and Noble have it.

How to green your electronics.

The garden took me to the west-side Lowe's this weekend--no, really, I had no choice. While there, I saw some good and I saw some bad. First, the good: Lowe's is carrying a composter that does pretty well in urban areas (i.e., it's not open air, so you won't bug your neighbors). Sadly, it doesn't appear that the news has made it to their website, so I can't help you buy it. But it's basically the Smith & Hawken Biostack, only branded Miracle Gro Organic. In fact! this is the kind of compost bin I have, when it was still S&H. It's a good one. Now, if only Lowe's will start stocking rain barrels.

And here's the bad: my wife and I went spent a little time imagining that we were rich and could replace all of our appliances. And, since we're saintly in our lavish imaginary spending habits, we wanted only the most efficient models available. Unfortunately, the Lowe's we were at only had Energy Guide tags (those yellow tags that give you estimated lifetime energy costs, for comparison purposes) on about half of their models. Those tags ought to be on every floor model! How else can a rational consumer weigh her options?

I'll be honest, I don't have any sense how big a problem this is in Springfield, but I figure we're mostly an office-culture kind of place, so I thought I'd toss it out. InfoWorld has a piece on how bad corporate habits (and I imagine you can read "bad state government habits" here as well) eat up money through poor IT planning, adding extra computing capacity when the corporation may only be using 15% of their current capacity anyway. And, of course, "eating up money" means "unnecessary carbon pollution." If you do this kind of stuff, go read it.

For everybody else, though, there's this concluding paragraph:

One of the real take-aways for me reading this report, though, is a lot of companies are in need of a serious wake-up call if they're willing to tolerate the kind of costly wastefulness that the Gartner report describes. Someone at your company needs to take charge at devise a strategy. Perhaps it's your CTO. Maybe you need to consider enlisting some new blood, such as a chief sustainability officer, to shake up the corporate culture. But you certainly can't afford to rest on your laurels, waiting around for some magic technology or formula to make everything better.

This, I think, is the real take-away here. Companies and agencies are made of people, so they often replicate all of the problems that people fall into, and habit is a monster. Taking the time to stop periodically reassess what you do on daily basis can be invaluable to the company, agency, or individual interested in sustainability. It doesn't have to be an always-on thing--that route takes you to neurosis. But there are a few big structuring decisions that you only have to make occasionally, and for most people, these are ripe for review.

ALSO: In other corporate environmental news, check out Yahoo's commitment to becoming carbon neutral.

I've collected quite a little treasure trove of bicycling oddities lately, which are all pretty exciting.

First, take a look at this compendium of 82 photographs of cyclists in Amsterdam, taken during a 73-minute period along one street. Some of the themes the photographer notes: people dressed up on bikes, multiple people on bikes, bike modifications, big chains, and cheap bikes.

Second, speaking of bike modifications, check out this video and discussion of a hybrid bike mod--wiring a small electric engine onto a bike to give a power boost on start-ups (important to keeping up with traffic in intersections and for going uphill). This sort of modification can really make cycling a mode of transportation for everyone.

Third, Melvin Davis, local to Springfield, made his own bike modification to recharge AA and AAA batteries while he's biking around. His explanation and a photo are below the fold.

One of the things I've been remiss in not mentioning is CWLP's enhanced energy efficiency rebates. You may recall that as part of the Sierra Club agreement, CWLP is increasing its spending on energy efficiency programs from $40,000 per year to $400,000 per year. They're going to be conducting a study to see how best to use that money; in the interim, however, they're supercharging their existing insulation rebate program, offering to cover 30% of the cost, up to $500. Insulation is always the place the start when you're looking at your home energy use.

And if you're not sure where to begin, consider either getting a home energy audit, where someone will come out and go through your house with you, helping you to prioritize what you can do to lower your energy use, or attending a low cost/no cost workshop, which gives you insight and experience in plugging all the little gaps in your home.

Over 20 utilities and other organizations were recognized last week for their efforts to help customers reduce energy use and energy costs through energy efficiency. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C., issued its Second National Review and Recognition of Exemplary Energy Efficiency Programs.

The program categories covered a wide range of customer types and technologies, including low-income energy assistance; residential lighting and appliance upgrades; commercial motor and HVAC replacement; industrial lighting efficiency; emerging technologies; and small business assistance. Several municipal utilities were recognized, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Eugene Water & Electric Board, Long Island Power Authority and Tucson Electric Power.

The profiles of these top quality programs should be a great resource for CWLP’s energy planners. They can be used to benchmark existing energy efficiency efforts and serve as a model for new programs and initiatives.

The first place to start in reducing your energy use has always been an energy audit. CWLP, which has long offered such audits, appears to have just revamped them a little bit by adding a money-back guarantee. This isn't your regular money-back guarantee, though. After CWLP comes out, does a blower door test, and walks through your house showing you what you can do, if you do any of the recommended actions and bring them back in to check your work, you can get the $25 cost of the audit refunded, along with up to $25 in expenses for some of those retrofits.

Not only that, if you don't know the business end of a caulking gun, you can attend a low-cost/no-cost energy efficiency workshop (which covers most of the things you'll probably hear about when you get an audit)--the next one is November 3.