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Technology and information management for low-carbon building
Category: Uncategorized
Green = $$$: How It Pays to Go Green – Literally!
In a recent article on generating your own renewable energy, I outlined how this practice is not only environmentally friendly — it can also drastically reduce your energy bills. This is just one example of the financial benefits of going green. The fact is, going green can actually make you money. A few weeks ago, […]
Hydrogen: A Fuel for the Future
For many years now, there has been a strong public push toward electric vehicles — a push which, as I discussed in my last article, has not been entirely successful. Yet there has been very little public attention paid to another incredibly promising source of power for our vehicles: hydrogen. As SAE International reported in […]
The Fallacy in the EPA’s Push to Electric Vehicles
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules in its efforts to push the car industry toward electric vehicles. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the new rules, which govern how much greenhouse gasses new vehicles can emit, “ratchet up more gradually than regulators originally proposed, pushing the car industry toward majority EV sales by early next […]
Why We Can’t Just Switch to All-Electric
In several recent pieces, I’ve discussed why the current push to all-electric is a flawed approach toward addressing the climate crisis. I’ve discussed cost and the actual environmental benefits (or lack thereof) —but there is another massive factor in why the emphasis on a rapid shift to all-electric is bound to fail: the electrical grid […]
Want to Save Costs—and Cut Emissions? Generate Your Own Renewable Electricity.
In my recent piece on the Department of Energy’s recent push to accelerate the production and use of heat pumps, I mentioned that generally speaking, from an energy perspective, electric heat pumps are neither more cost effective nor better for the environment. The same is true of electric vehicles. Why? Because both use electricity—and if […]
Why Consumers Aren’t Buying Heat Pumps
At the beginning of August, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced it was giving $85 million to four heat pump manufacturers to “accelerate the manufacturing of electric heat pumps, heat pump hot water heaters and heat pump components at five factories in New York, Tennessee, Texas and Rhode Island.” This new investment was on top […]
Jumpstart Climate Action by Harnessing Market Forces
In a recent opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Steven E. Koonin examines how the global transition to low- emission energy systems has progressed since the strategy was put forward in the 2015 Paris Climate Accords—and, rightly, finds it lacking. “The significant global emissions reductions envisioned in Paris are now a fantasy,” he writes. […]
Climate Change Conversations: The Power of the Consumer
I have long argued — and have just done so again in my recent article “A Better Option Than Mandates” — that the best way to combat climate change is by harnessing the power of the consumer. In a free market economy, the consumer has the power. Ultimately, consumer demand decides what manufacturers produce, not […]
Climate Change Conversations: A Better Option Than Mandates
Recently, the current administration in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Conservative party, were forced into an embarrassing backtrack on a proposed climate-related mandate. The Sunak administration, along with climate activists around the world, have been on a mission to eliminate natural gas boilers, which the majority of […]