The quality of air within your home affects everything from your AC’s efficiency to your family’s respiratory health. Unfortunately, many families do not realize just how many airborne toxins and irritants are lingering in their walls, ducts, bedrooms, and hallways. Here are five simple steps you can take to begin improving your indoor air quality (IAQ) today.
Toss the Clutter (more…)
Everyone experiences pest problems in their homes at one time or another. But you don’t need to use potentially toxic chemicals that can negatively impact your health and the environment to get rid of them. There are environmentally friendly ways to get rid of pests that you can use the next time you notice those unwelcome guests in your home. Here are four non-toxic alternatives to commercial products that you may consider using. (more…)
We do a lot of things in the hopes of reducing our carbon footprint. We purchase compact fluorescent light bulbs, carpool to work, use programmable thermostats, take shorter showers and look for energy star electronics to make sure our homes are well as green as possible. All of these methods are great but you may be wasting energy in one simple way without realizing it.
How many objects in just your living room are plugged in 24/7 that you use a remote or power on off button when you want to use them or turn them off? (more…)
Here’s a quick note to report that I did two on-camera interviews at the Solar Power International show today—both within the span of less than 30 minutes. The second of the two, which I did for the Korean titan LG, was the more interesting, in that an extremely bright LG rep off-camera was firing questions at me for at least five minutes on the drivers I perceive that lie behind the rapid migration to renewables. (more…)
Terrific day at the Solar Power International (SPI) show yesterday. I had the opportunity to take in a 30-minute presentation by an extremely senior analyst at Bloomberg, though it really wasn’t particularly good news for distributed solar.
The over-supply midday means very low wholesale prices, which is a tricky problem to solve. One possible solution is time-of-use metering, causing power consumers to shift their use from early evening (the peak) into the middle of the day, though it’s currently unknown how much demand elasticity this new pricing model will produce. (more…)
I’m i
n Las Vegas Tuesday and Wednesday for Solar Power International (SPI), one of the two largest shows (along with Intersolar) on solar energy internationally. In addition to meeting an important client, I look forward to milling around the enormity of the LV Convention Center and meeting literally hundreds of people representing everything from solar PV cells and panels to fasteners, inverters, test equipment, new financing options, governmental programs, media, and data services–not to mention a wealth of development on concentrated solar power (CSP).
As always, I love to meet any of our readers should they be in the area. If interested, hit me up through the contact button and I’ll arrange a time and place.
It’s interesting to note what’s trending in pop culture. I’m not talking about things like body piercing, but rather about the more highbrow stuff. In particular, it’s cool that infographics have had such a marvelous impact on how most people come to understand important matters. (more…)
It appears that the first VW employee responsible for the emissions scandal, an engineer, James Robert Liang, is headed off to prison, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, commit wire fraud and violate the Clean Air Act. What will become of his numerous co-conspirators is anyone’s guess. The whole proceeding is bound to take many years, as Liang is fully cooperating with the Justice Department, and will likely rat out people far higher in the food chain than a lowly engineer. We can only hope that happens; the DoJ clearly wants the big fish, and they just may get them. (more…)
Here’s a video I just saw on Facebook providing a completely fraudulent concept in energy. Apparently, the guy who posted it believes that:
• Energy comes from nowhere, and (more…)
Frank P. Devine writes about the meme to the left: “Ex vice president Gore and his cronies made billions from this.”
Frank: You may want to consider reading a bit on this before making ridiculous and hateful claims. You could start here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global…. Volcanoes emit about 0.2% of the CO2 that humans do each year.
