Energy Exchange

Sprung a Leak? Smart Water Meters to the Rescue

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: September 8, 2014

Source: freshserviceinc.com

A few months ago I logged into my online utility account and noticed it was more than twice the amount I usually pay, all of the excess going to water. Given the kind of work I do, I scour my bill every month, comparing electric and water usage month-to-month and over the course of the year. We are water and electricity savers in our household, so what on earth could this spike be?

I immediately called the City of Austin, and they sent someone out to check the meter. Nope, nothing on that end. Then we brought in a plumber, who spent many hours and many of our dollars searching and found a leak in the toilet. By the time we went through all of that and got the toilet fixed, we had to pay our enormous bill plus the plumber’s bill. Why should I have to go through that rigmarole just to find a leak?

Wouldn’t it be easier if a smart water meter could send my utility and me a message the moment the toilet starts leaking?

Unfortunately, water infrastructure in this country is sorely in need of a reboot. The American Society for Civil Engineers gave the U.S. drinking water infrastructure a grade of a “D” in its 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, stating there are 240,000 water main breaks per year. And we’re still using antiquated “technology” in much of the sector. Read More »

Also posted in Energy-Water Nexus, Grid Modernization / Comments are closed

Changing Light Bulbs Can Mean a Wealth of Energy Savings

By EDF Blogs / Published: September 5, 2014

By: Karunakaren MH, student at the Thunderbird School of Global Management

A few months ago, I traveled halfway across the world from the bright, hot tropical beaches of south-east Asia into a gloomy, chilly Chicago summer to begin my journey as an EDF Climate Corps fellow. A week before I started at Associated Materials, a thunderstorm flooded the entire ground floor of the corporate office, and the place needed to be completely restored. What a cliché! Because of how quickly they recovered, I arrived at the office knowing that its resilience to adversity and commitment to energy efficiency goals would mean I had a great summer ahead of me.

Associated Materials (AMI) is a vertically integrated company in the exterior building products industry with 11 manufacturing locations and over 120 distribution centers catering to the North American market. It spends about $15 million annually on energy utilities and, this summer, hired two EDF Climate Corp fellows to look for opportunities to reduce energy costs. I worked on the manufacturing locations and my colleague, Vinnakota Krishna, looked at the supply centers. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy / Tagged LED | Comments are closed

Clean Power Plan to Reward Texas, not Wyoming Coal-Backers

By Jim Marston / Published: September 2, 2014

Source: Aurora Lights

Chronicle readers would be forgiven if they opened their papers last weekend and thought it was 2005. That’s because the Koch brothers-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation published an editorial that echoed the pro-coal rhetoric we heard nearly 10 years ago when then-TXU wanted to build new power plants across Texas that would burn Wyoming coal.

Sure, this weekend’s piece had a different news hook – the new Clean Power Plan that will require Texas to reduce carbon emissions from power plants like every other state. But TPPF’s conclusion was the same: better, cleaner technology is bad and coal is king. As Yogi Berra would have said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Texas is the number one carbon emitter in the U.S. and power plants, together, are the largest emitters. Our state represents close to 10 percent of the entire nation’s carbon emissions. The Clean Power Plan will simply require Texas to adhere to the rules all other states have to follow. I love Texas more than the average person, but I don’t think we should get special treatment simply because some of our energy companies doubled-down on fossil fuels. And I certainly don’t think we should rely on Wyoming coal when Texas is the nation’s energy powerhouse. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Power Plan, Climate, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy / Read 1 Response

2014 is the Year of the Energy-Water Nexus

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: September 2, 2014

Source: worldwaterweek Flickr

2014 is shaping up to be the year of the energy-water nexus. First, the United Nation’s World Water Day centered on this topic. Then, the U.S. Department of Energy released a 250-page report on the energy-water nexus and indicated that it will be included in its Quadrennial Energy Review. And, this week, the biggest international water conference, World Water Week, is taking on the nexus.

Held every year in Stockholm, Sweden, World Water Week is led by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and serves as a platform for over 200 collaborating organizations and 2,500 participants from 130 countries around the world to discuss global water and development issues.

In choosing the energy-water nexus as this year’s theme, SIWI and its supporters are affirming – on a global stage – what policy experts have been saying for years: energy and water are inextricably linked, and the best way to set the energy-water system on a sustainable course is to plan for both resources holistically. Read More »

Also posted in Energy-Water Nexus / Comments are closed

Clean Energy Conferences Roundup: September 2014

By EDF Blogs / Published: September 1, 2014

Source: National Retail Federation Flickr

Each month, the Energy Exchange rounds up a list of top clean energy conferences around the country. Our list includes conferences at which experts from the EDF Clean Energy Program will be speaking, plus additional events that we think our readers may benefit from marking on their calendars.

Top clean energy conferences featuring EDF experts in September:

Sept 4-5: Energy Policy Research Conference, San Francisco, CA
Speaker: Jamie Fine, Senior Economist

Energy Policy Institute’s (EPI) 4th Annual Energy Policy Research Conference (EPRC) is the premier energy policy research conference held in the Western United States. EPI is thrilled to welcome Dr. Steven Chu as the Keynote Speaker for the event! This conference is for you if you are seeking to present or discuss energy policy research with participants and panelists from academia, think-tanks and research institutes, NGOs, national laboratories, industry, and government. Read More »

Also posted in General / Comments are closed

Forward-Looking Analyses are Key to Comparing Clean Energy Benefits

By Peter Sopher / Published: August 28, 2014

Source: Kuebi, Armin Kübelbeck

Good science should spark debate. It’s the nature of the field, after all. You ask questions, search for data and then debate what it means or what actions the data should spur. Such a debate is underway now, and it is adding fuel to an old fire.

In May 2014, Dr. Charles R. Frank of the Brookings Institution published a working paper comparing the net benefits of replacing coal and gas plants with five no- and low-carbon fuels – solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear, and combined cycle natural gas. Avoided carbon emissions and low energy and capacity costs are deemed benefits, whereas higher emissions, energy and capacity costs, and unique fuel-specific deficiencies (i.e. toxic waste from nuclear power, intermittency of wind, solar, and hydro, etc.) comprise costs.

In late July, The Economist promoted several of this working paper’s primary findings, namely that wind and solar are expensive fuel sources with relatively sparse net benefits – compared to nuclear, combined cycle gas, and hydropower – when replacing coal plants.

Many refute the validity of this conclusion, and response from the scientific community was swift. Read More »

Also posted in Renewable Energy / Read 1 Response