Recently in Conservation of Energy Category
Almost every state offers incentives for various alternative energy purchases or conservation actions taken by local citizens. This is to reduce the need to build new energy generating plants that use polluting energies such as coal, natural gas or oil. Incentives are sometimes tax deductions on purchases that will benefit the community as well as the consumer. For example, the Federal tax credit for purchasing an alternative fuel or hybrid vehicle.
Rebates are "after the fact" reinbursement of expenditures on fuel or energy efficient equipment, etc.
Incentives usually have a short lifespan...and are implemented to encourage people to take early action. Once a regulation goes into effect requiring the energy conservation measure -- incentives are usually ended.
It pays to invest early! You can save with incentives and rebates.
David Roland-Holst, a professor of agriculture and resource economics at UC Berkeley. "We cannot afford to miss this market opportunity."
California's per-capita electricity use is about 40% less than the national average, Roland-Holst said, largely because of government-mandated energy efficiency standards for utilities, buildings and appliances put into effect over the last four decades.
Roland-Holst found that the lower use has enabled Californians to save $56 billion on energy since 1972. That money was spent in the local economy, he said, instead of on imported oil, out-of-state electricity or building new power plants. The result: 1.5 million additional California jobs with a total payroll exceeding $45 billion.
Programs like AB 32 will have a multiplier effect
California's Environmental Innovation Advantage
Some of California's leading companies agree with Roland-Holst's assessment that environmental innovation could become a pillar of the California economy.Read more about the report: Energy Efficiency, Innovation, and Job Creation in California (by David Roland-Holst, UC Berkeley, Oct. 2008)
- Use compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent...but turn them off more and use light from your windows. Or...go outside for reading or playing -- sunlight is healthier than indoors!
- Use the microwave to cook small meals instead of your range that is sized for large meals!
- Buy energy efficient appliances when you replace old ones. Buying the right equipment makes using LESS so much easier every time you use the appliance.
Some policy experts argue that blind faith in technology is a harmful distraction from the hard sacrifices needed to control global warming.
"The temptation is to say, 'Let's get John Wayne on horseback or Bill Gates . . . and solve this problem,' " said Dale Jamieson, director of environmental studies at New York University.
But some scientists say that the potential of such ideas cannot be ignored given the world's political paralysis on controlling emissions and its myopic addiction to cheap and dirty coal. LA TIMES
So it's technology VS conservation VS politics...? Or is it all three in balance and harmony? And maybe a few additional ingredients such as education, values and discipline, collaboration, and paying attention to history lessons about how our ancestors lived, thrived, and survived challenges.
Technologists work their way through the "heavy industrial" stage to get to more practical applications of their breakthrough solutions. The cost of that maturation is sometimes born by a society that eventually have to clean up the damage created by this long pathway. When diversity is included, technology solutions can draw on the elegance of nature's design, history lessons, and common sense based on affordability to vett the technology. Great designers have generous doses of those inspirational sources within one person...others work in teams of siblings or families or buddies to balance their perspectives.
But diversity has been shown time and again to be very smart in the solution process. DIVERSITY takes into account the diverse ingredients in reality.
for growth in renewable energy supply.
In 2007, total utility green power sales exceeded 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), about a 20% increase over 2006. Approximately 600,000 customers are participating in utility customer choice programs nationwide.
Green Power Marketing Industry
Utility green pricing programs are one segment of a larger green power marketing industry that counts Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and colleges and universities among its customers, and helps support more than 3,000 MW of new renewable electricity generation capacity.Green Marketing Tips
NREL analysts attribute the success of many programs to persistence in marketing and creative marketing strategies, including in some cases, utility partnerships with independent green power marketers. In addition, the rate premium that customers pay for green power continues to drop.NREL performs analyses of green power market trends and is funded by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.
Pricing programs give consumers clean power choices
April 22, 2008 -- The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) annual ranking of leading utility green power programs provides insights into how consumers change their power-use behaviors.Under these voluntary programs, consumers can choose to help support additional electricity production from renewable resources such as solar and wind. More than 800 utilities across the United States offer these programs.
Using information provided by utilities, NREL develops a Top 10 ranking of utility programs in the following categories:
- total sales of renewable energy to program participants
- total number of customer participants
- customer participation rate, green power sales as a percentage of
- total utility retail electricity sales
- the lowest price premium charged for a green power program using new renewable resources.
