All posts published in 2016
Daylight Saving: A perfect time to switch to LED light bulbs Newton Daily News, November 4, 2016 With daylight saving time just around the corner on Sunday, there’s no better time for consumers to make the switch to LED light bulbs. During the winter months, there’s less daylight, so our lights are on longer, said … Read more
Santa Monica City Council Votes in the World’s First Zero-Net Energy Building Requirement; Implementation Begins in 2017 City of Santa Monica Newsroom, October 27, 2016 The Santa Monica City Council voted this week to approve an ordinance requiring all new single-family construction in the City of Santa Monica to be zero-net energy (ZNE), the first … Read more
Katie Robinson, ERS, for Zondits The Girl Scouts of Northern California teamed up with Stanford University to create Girls Learning Environment and Energy (GLEE), a program that teaches energy conservation and environmental leadership through four- or five-week courses with Girl Scout troops. Right now they offer two GLEE courses: Home Energy, which focuses on ways … Read more
Behavior Change Programs: Status and Impact American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), October 18, 2016 Behavior change programs are becoming a common method for reducing energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency. But what types of programs are out there, why do they work (or fail to work), and how effective are they? This report … Read more
Why Tesla’s new solar roof tiles and home battery are such a big deal TechCrunch, October 31, 2016 On October 28, Tesla unveiled its new solar roof tiles. Few of us in attendance, if any, realized the solar roofing tiles were actual functional solar panels until Elon Musk said so. Sure, it’s a neat trick, but … Read more
Ryan Pollin, ERS, for Zondits The Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection has canceled its procurement of natural gas pipeline resources. As a result, Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast project, spanning parts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, is now virtually guaranteed not to proceed. Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court … Read more
Walter Schaefer, ERS, for Zondits Data centers are great. The servers they contain do much of the computational heavy lifting that makes our smartphones so powerful, allows us to stay connected to email and social media from seemingly anywhere, and facilitates endless Netflix binge-watching. Yet despite all of the wonderful things data centers do for … Read more
High times: Vertical farming is on the rise — but can it save the planet? Salon, September 25, 2016 Farming as we know it is failing. Mom-and-pop operations are struggling to survive and Big Ag cares far more about its bottom line than about your health, or the health of the planet. Ecologists, anti-GMO activists, even … Read more
Gita Subramony, ERS, for Zondits The discussion on distributed and clean energy often focuses on societies or groups of people who have access to electricity but are hoping for cleaner alternatives. But what about the 1.2 billion people in the world who do not have reliable or consistent access to electricity? How do we address … Read more
Hundreds Of Cities Have Cost-Effective Opportunities To Boost Renewable Energy Use Clean Technica, October 20, 2016 A new report estimating energy usage in 3,649 cities has found that, while there is no one-size-fits-all solution, every city nevertheless has massive potential to cost-effectively increase the use of renewable energy at a local level. Published on the … Read more