Tag Archives: Power Conservation

Wind turbines – coming to a home near you

From the New York Times on Saturday, February 14, 2009:

Wind turbines typically spin from tall towers on hills and plains. But in these green times, some companies hope smaller turbines will soon rise above a more domestic spot: homes and garages.

An Energy Ball turbine. Adam Bird for The New York Times

The rooftop turbines send the electricity they generate straight on to the home’s circuit box. Then owners in a suitably wind-swept location can watch the needle on their electricity meter turn backward instead of forward, reducing their utility bills while using a renewable resource.

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Grand plan for wind energy transmission

New York Times, 2/10/09

From the New York Times on Tuesday, February 10, 2009:

… This study covered the United States east of the Rockies, minus Texas and Florida, and was prompted by the utilities’ concern that state quotas for renewable energy, already in place — or a proposed federal mandate — would have to be met with wind energy generated much farther from the point of consumption than is common today.

The plan is “conceptual” and the system would not be completed until 2024.

The Joint Coordinated System Plan, as it is called, has been in development for months, according to the Midwest Independent System Operator, which is steering the project — and the full report will not be ready until the fall. But details of the plan were revealed on Monday in order to coincide with debate over the stimulus bill.

“This is information we believe that our leaders need to consider as they begin work under a new administration and start defining our energy future,” said John Bear, the president and chief executive of the Midwest I.S.O.

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Line drying clothes can save up to 10% of home energy costs

From the Los Angeles Times on Friday, January 6, 2009:

When clothes dryers account for at least 6% of the electricity used by U.S. households, is it any wonder that line-drying is coming back? In places where the practice is banned as an unsightly nuisance to neighbors, right-to-dry activists and blogging eco-moms are forming an alliance. Their cause: to reduce energy consumption and to call upon sunlight rather than bleach to get those whites even whiter.

The movement also includes homeowners pinched by rising electric bills as well as some celebrity converts. Yes, there’s even a blog dedicated to tracking who’s who in L.A. line-drying. (For the curious, it’s blog.linedryit.com/eco_facts/, which lists the likes of “The O.C.” actress Rachel Bilson and singer Olivia Newton-John.)

Click here to read the whole article. Also, be sure to click on the two links in the story for more information.

Google introduces home "smart energy" meters

From the New York Times on Tuesday, February 10, 2009:

If people knew how much electricity they are using every time they turn on the lights, fire up the oven or lower the thermostat on their air conditioner, they would make smarter decisions about their energy use, and presumably, conserve more.

That’s the idea behind a prototype service that Google unveiled Tuesday, which my colleague Matthew Wald and I wrote about in Tuesday’s paper. The service, which will be called Google PowerMeter, will allow users to measure their energy use in real time. It one of many new consumer products that would-be enabled by so-called “smart grid” technologies, and it is one of Google many new initiatives in the energy area.

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Obama's plans for "smarter" electric grid awaited

From New York Times on Friday, February 6, 2009:

Environmentalists dream of a bigger and “smarter” electric grid that could move vast amounts of clean electricity from windswept plains and sunny deserts to distant cities.

Such a grid, they argue, could help utilities match demand with supply on the hottest afternoons, allow customers to decide when to run their appliances and decrease the risk of blackouts, like the one that paralyzed much of the East in 2003.

The Obama administration has vowed to make the grid smarter and tougher, allocating $11 billion in grants and loan guarantees to the task in the economic stimulus package passed by the House last week.

But it will take a lot more than money to transform the grid from a form that served well in the last century, when electricity was produced mostly near the point of consumption, and when the imperative was meeting demand, no matter how high it grew.

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Governor Palin proposes energy corporation

From the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, February 8, 2009:

Gov. Sarah Palin plans to introduce a bill calling for creating a joint corporation of the six Railbelt electric utilities.

Palin says such an entity could unite a “fragmented group of rival utilities” and could save rate payers $40 million annually.

The utilities are Fairbanks-based Golden Valley Electric Association, Homer Electric Association, Anchorage’s Municipal Light and Power, Chugach Electric Association, the City of Seward and Matanuska Electric Association.

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Fridge-less kitchens catching on

From the New York Times on Wednesday, February 4, 2009:

FOR the last two years, Rachel Muston, a 32-year-old information-technology worker for the Canadian government in Ottawa, has been taking steps to reduce her carbon footprint — composting, line-drying clothes, installing an efficient furnace in her three-story house downtown.

About a year ago, though, she decided to “go big” in her effort to be more environmentally responsible, she said. After mulling the idea over for several weeks, she and her husband, Scott Young, did something many would find unthinkable: they unplugged their refrigerator. For good.

“It’s been a while, and we’re pretty happy,” Ms. Muston said recently. “We’re surprised at how easy it’s been.”

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Wind and solar manufacturers feeling the economic pinch

From the New York Times on Tuesday, February 3, 2009:

Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and solar power is plummeting.

Towers for wind turbines on the ground at the DMI Industries plant in West Fargo, N.D. Falling sales and tight credit have forced the company to lay off nearly 20 percent of its employees.

Factories building parts for these industries have announced a wave of layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in installation of new equipment, barring more help from the government.

Prices for turbines and solar panels, which soared when the boom began a few years ago, are falling. Communities that were patting themselves on the back just last year for attracting a wind or solar plant are now coping with cutbacks.

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Land dispute may delay Fairbanks alternative energy project

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Monday, February 2, 2009:

Businessman Bernie Karl said he’s ready to move ahead with a prototype power system: A small-scale energy plant he’d link to indoor food production and biofuel cultivation.

The project — which he said he started eyeing a few years ago — has drawn recent interest from public officials and researchers looking to ride Karl’s coattails.

The original plan — for a 400 kilowatt, carbon-neutral, co-generation, vegetation and waste-paper-fed energy plant between Fairbanks and North Pole — carries the prospect of benefitting from a proposed agriculture project on 600 acres nearby.

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Alaska's Kenai Peninsula eyed for hydropower projects

From the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, February 1, 2009:

An effort to find new sources of renewable “small hydro” power for the Railbelt is running into opposition from advocates of another, equally noble environmental cause: protection of the mountain headwaters of the fish-rich Kenai River.

Electric Association, working with a private consortium, is studying “low impact” small-hydro projects for four mountain lakes and streams around Moose Pass and Cooper Landing.

But the state-funded studies ran into loud opposition in the last two weeks from local residents, who foresee plenty of possible impacts from the proposed diversion pipelines and access roads, including threats to the scenic area’s salmon spawning and its tourist-based economy.

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