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TIME for New Energy-Saving Strategies

Being a reader of Time, I was nerdishly delighted to receive the latest issue featuring ‘The 50 Best Inventions of 2010’.  Flying cars.  Sarcasm detection.  (No, really.)  The first synthetic cell.   A road-straddling bus.  The list goes on, and every mind-blowing item beckons that age-old question, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Especially exciting to me were all the advancements that have been made in energy savings, so indulge me as I describe a few things I’ll be adding to my holiday wish list.  Deep Green’s Underwater Kites have the ‘power’ (sorry) to generate energy by tethering kites affixed with small turbines to the ocean floor.  Seawater is denser than air, so the ocean’s currents have the ability to generate even more power than wind.  The (almost) waterless washing machine largely utilizes reusable, stain-absorbing nylon beads in lieu of water and uses 90% less water in all compared to your average washer.  Electric-car charging stations may not be too far off here in Arlington.  Coulomb Technologies is developing a system of utility-connected charging stations in public places.  Lastly, my personal favorite is the power-aware cord.  Wires are imbedded around cords to produce light relative to how much electricity is being drawn off the grid by a given device.  The more power is being used, the brighter and faster the blue spirals.  The idea here is that if your home looks like the interior of a Techno club, you might be inclined to unplug a few devices not is use. 

Those are just a few developments that are catching my attention, but what about you?  Are there any energy-saving inventions of 2010 that you’re excited about?

The Gas-powered Alarm Clock

Remember a couple months ago when ENERGY STAR shut down their entire labeling program? You know, the gas-powered alarm clock that achieved an ENERGY STAR label. 

Well, the program has started back up again as of April 16th, 2010.  Wonder what changed? See links below…

EPA/DOE Joint Press Release

EPA/DOE Joint Letter to Administration

EPA Letter to Manufacturers

Highlights –

• All electronic submissions will require staff review of lab reports showing product meets criteria.
• Self-testing is acceptable until the end of the year, after then the plan is for all products to be tested in a 3^rd party accredited lab. 
• All manufacturers will soon be required participation in an ongoing verification testing program to ensure continued compliance.
• Stricter rules on use of the ENERGY STAR logo have been implemented.

It's worth noting that ENERGY STAR already had been doing off-the-shelf spot check testing on labeled products and found that 98 percent of the products comply with ENERGY STAR criteria.  Also worth noting is that the company that manufactures gas-powered alarm clock is fictitious (as is the alarm clock), created by the GAO to show how vulnerable the program is to fraud. However, with more organizations and communities specifying ENERGY STAR in purchasing policies and development policies, this scrutiny couldn't have come at a better time.  Here's to hoping we won't see anything like Tropical Thunder Appliance's "Air Cleaner" on the shelves at Home Depot.

International Day of Climate Action - How It Went

Saturday was the International Day of Climate Action organized by 350.org. Check out their website for the photos, which are inspiring. I personally participated in three different events. The site claims over 5200 events in 181 countries, which is enormously impressive, but might be padded slightly based on my own experience.

The first event took place in the Twittersphere. Between noon and 1:00 PM EDT, everyone with a twitter account was to twitter to Barack Obama this message: "@barackobama USA MUST formally adopt the 350ppm CO2 target at Copenhagen 09 – the ONLY WAY to prevent runaway climate change NO EXCUSES!"

For those not familiar with Twitter, the "@" sign is used to direct a message to a particular twitterer, but all your followers can see it, too. The idea was that the White House would receive literally thousands of tweets with this message in it. Unfortunately, by my count, fewer than 200 people actually did it (including me; you can follow me on twitter at twitter.com/steveoffutt).

Second was an event at Bourbon Coffee at 21st and L. I wanted to join the big rally at the White House at about 4:00, which I was biking to, so I passed literally right past the coffee shop. This event was described on the site thus:
Come to Bourbon Coffee on at 21st & L Streets NW at 3:50 pm! Join other like-minded 350.org supporters in grabbing an afternoon coffee drink.
I used this as an excuse to get a cup of coffee to take with me to the rally. The girl behind the counter when I got there (at 4:03) had no idea what I was talking about. Good thing I stopped in, so at least that event had one participant.

Finally I got to the rally at the White House. This event had started in Malcolm X Park at noon with entertainment, speeches and other activities. The crowd then marched down 16th St. to Lafayette Park, which is where I met up with them. They got soaked on the march, because it was raining like crazy (I got a bit wet, too, on my bike).

This event was more successful. Even with the rain, there were probably at least 1000 people there at the White House with a 350 foot banner, encouraging the administration to take a strong leadership role in the Copenhagen negotiations in December.

I hope you were able to participate in an event. If not, keep an eye on 350.org for more opportunities to help in the effort to avert dangerous climate change.

-----------------------------
Steve Offutt, Arlington resident

For more information about the U.S. DoE Solar Decathlon

The Department of Energy is holding an hour long webinar on September 15, 2009 starting at noon EST.  Some of the topics the webinar will address are the history of the U.S. DOE Solar Decathlon, the technology, and the students who make it happen.  From homeowners, professors to residential and commercial industry professionals anyone who is interested in solar energy can participate.  Check it out; it’s free but registration is required.

A dashboard for a building?

Yup, you heard it right...a dashboard for a building.  Think about the dashboard of a car and all the information it provides - speed, fuel level, power, miles traveled, and any indication of problems with the vehicle engine.  Now take that times 10...and boom...a building dashboard!

What some of us may not realize is that our homes - and buildings in general - pollute more than our cars and vehicles.  If we need all those elements on a vehicle dashboard to manage our driving, we certainly need the same, if not even more, information to manage our homes and buildings.  Imagine knowing, in real time, how much energy your office or residence is using...while you're in it!  Having that information at that moment is incredibly powerful.  Talk about behavior change!!! 

And there are folks out there doing just that.  The University of Richmond is using, in my opinion, an amazing buidling dashboard utility.  Not only can users see how much, or little, energy is being used/consumed, users can see the information in a variety of metrics.  Having the variety of metrics allows more people to understand and process the information in a way that is most meaningful to them.  Of course, all the history is there too, and not just on one building, the entire campus!  I urge you to check this out for yourself...let us know what you think.