Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Solberg calculates that 75 percent of energy use and costs for heating could be eliminated in commercial, health care and residential buildings through AHR, even in the frosty Midwest. He points to a new health club in Edina, Minnesota, which is already saving on construction costs and projected to see 50 percent lower operating costs.
In a city like Charleston, with deep cultural roots and more historic buildings than you can count, the effects of development on neighborhood preservation and the growing impacts of climate change demand a new approach that can address both issues simultaneously.
As the rest of the country continues to go back and forth over the possibility of a nationwide Green New Deal, New York City is forging ahead with its own version.
The research team analysed the reasons behind changes in CO2 emissions in countries where emissions declined significantly between 2005 and 2015. The findings, published in Nature Climate Change, show that the fall in CO2 emissions was mainly due to renewable energy replacing fossil fuels and to decreasing energy use.
Are investments in energy transition, especially for public dollars in the form of incentives or subsidies, worth it? Do investments in energy efficiency truly pay off, or does efficiency just make energy cheaper because we’re using less of it, encouraging customers to use more of it—a phenomenon known as the rebound effect, the backfire hypothesis, and the Jevons Paradox?
The research suggests that improving energy efficiency – chiefly by saving on everyday energy use – could play a major role in restricting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which is the aspirational target of the Paris Agreement.
To focus on energy efficiency is to make present ways of life non-negotiable. However, transforming present ways of life is key to mitigating climate change and decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels.
Debates about the so-called rebound effect go back to William Stanley Jevons’ work in the 19th century, although they had been forgotten for too long. Rebound effects occur if a reduction of inputs per unit of output (efficiency) generates an absolute increase in output (growth).
In which we learn how a sensible family of limited financial means achieved their goal of reducing their energy usage and utility bills.
UK heating must be virtually zero-carbon by 2050, says the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
Improving efficiency is almost always easier and cheaper than generating new power, so efficiency should be our first target in energy transition. But it’s usually the last.
Now one might think with all these heat losses that going all-electric isn’t a good idea until all our electricity is produced by hydro and renewables. One would be wrong.
