Energy conservation

United States on an energy conservation quest

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President Obama is willing to save his country a lot of money : $40 billion, or around 30 billion euros, annually. These huge sums of money equal to reducing energy use in commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020. As Elisa Wood wrote on Cleantechies : ” To achieve the goal, the Obama administration in 2011 … Read more

France unveils measures to decrease energy use

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Here is another post I wrote for Cleantechies, this time on energy conservation : ” Even after the election of François Hollande as President of France, an energy conservation measure of the previous government will be implemented.” ” The Sarkozy government wanted to require shops and offices to turn off their unnecessary lights at nights. … Read more

The importance of good insulation

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The building I live in (Google maps)My current apartment in Valenciennes – Northern France – is located in a recent building (2000). And far from me the idea of bragging, but until temperatures dropped below zero (Celcius) I almost didn’t not use my electric heaters.

My flat has double glazing windows and quite well insulated thick walls. The thermometer located in my flat indicates 19°C indoors while we are nearing zero outdoors, and this with little to no heating.

This is empirical proof that good thermal insulation – or weatherproofing – not only works but also saves a LOT of money as you just use little to no heating.

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Energy efficiency is slowly gaining traction

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I reported at the very beginning of this year that 2011 could be the year of energy efficiency. It seems to be the case as I have been witnessing an increasing interest for conservation and efficiency.

These are good news as efficiency is the panacea to our energy and climate problems as “73% of global energy use could be saved through energy efficiency improvements.”

As I browsed the selection of my September tweets, I found several articles on how efficiency is getting more and more popular.

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US Government raise cars average fuel economy

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As GreenTech Media notes : ” President Obama and leaders from major automakers today heralded an agreement to raise the average fuel economy for light trucks and cars to 54.5 miles per gallon.” (Today they are at 28.3 MPG.)

 –$1.7 trillion. (around 1,200 billion euros) That’s the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. “

I believe this is a good thing but I am still not satisfied. Indeed, American cars consume to date much more than their European and Japanese counterparts.

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Will 2011 be the year of energy efficiency ?

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Late last year GreenTech Media published an article stating that this year will be the one dedicated to energy efficiency. As you know the potential of energy savings is quite huge. As the author notes there :

” I believe that this is the year that we will really see cleantech companies which are focused on energy efficiency take off. We’re already seeing the groundwork being laid for this development. “

Fully addressing the challenge of doing more with much less will require all the ingeniosity Humans are capable of. This is an exciting – and vital – challenge as fossil fuels are peaking.

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Armies thinking about a post-oil world

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While browsing CleanTechnica I found an interesting article on peak oil. According to a leaked military report from the German Bundeswehr, peak oil will occur this year and the consequences will be dramatic.

Among them are market failures and tremendous risks for democracy itself. As Cleantechnica notes “ it is unlikely that any nation would be unaffected by such crises. “ This is not exactly encouraging news.

Meanwhile, the US Army is also thinking about the risks of peak oil and may stop completely using this energy source by 2040.

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China becomes the world’s first energy consumer

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According to the International Energy Agency, China became in 2009 the world’s biggest energy consumer in front of the USA. Indeed it consumed 2.25 billion tons of oil equivalent (TOE) while the latter consumed 2.17 billions.

To the Wall Street Journal : ” China’s total energy consumption was just half that of the U.S. 10 years ago, but in many of the years since, China saw annual double-digit growth rates. “

The IEA notes that these figures would be much higher without the important energy efficiency efforts carried out in the past few years.

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Worth an article – my April 2010 tweets

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I have been committed for three years to bring you each month a selection of the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector.

However, I don’t blog as much as I would like to and generally write around 25 posts per month. However, many more great news are worth reading and blogging about so I had to find a way to share them with you.

This solution came last year with my use of Twitter as I use my account to share with my followers news that are worth your time. Here is a selection of the most interesting ones.

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The huge potential savings of small changes

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This week I read an article from GreenTech Media titled When sleep saves.  This shows that a single company is due to save $400,000 (290,000 euros) this year just by putting all its computers in sleep mode when possible.

I am amazed at how such a simple thing can save so much money. If such a thing was generalized among all companies around the world, the savings would be staggering.

Around the world, hundreds of coal-fired plants are spewing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants for nothing. It is high time we tackle the issue.

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