The $30 billion jobs opportunity

In an election year, you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a political ad, photo op, or campaigning politician. In a country still reeling in many ways from the economic collapse of six years ago, the largest talking point still centers around job growth. Regardless of one's opinion on how many jobs we really need as we develop more and more efficient ways to maintain our quality of life, the current state of affairs in Illinois comes down to 433,000 people who want and need to work who cannot find a job. With approximately 150,000 to 200,000 job openings in Illinois going unfulfilled, we would need to create about 250,000 new jobs in order to obtain full employment. With manufacturing making a slow recovery, and nowhere near fast enough to create that kind of growth, where can we turn for good paying, productive jobs?

Clean energy and energy efficiency.

Currently, Illinois' residential and small business consumers spend over $30 billion a year for energy. Almost all of that capital leaves the state, with only a small portion getting recycled back into the Illinois economy. If we can find a way to tap into that capital already being spent, and turn that into job growth, we can both improve our employment situation and create a cleaner, healthier future. In addition, that $30 billion, at current rates of escalation, can be $35-40 billion within only a year or two, so economically, it behooves us to move quickly.

The key to the job growth comes from the need for almost all energy efficiency and clean energy work to use local labor. The fixing up of homes and small commercial buildings, installation of solar panels, and construction of wind turbines uses, almost exclusively, local labor. Dirty energy industries, including nuclear, employ somewhere between 5 and 8 people for every $1 million spent. Clean energy and energy efficiency employ about 16 to 17 in good, median income-scale jobs. That means that our $30 billion each year could fund as many as 495,000 jobs in Illinois. Even if we only took half of our current energy expenditures and switched them to clean energy or energy efficiency, we would more than eliminate our current unemployment. In addition, we would build a stronger, more resilient economy less susceptible to shocks from energy price increases.

It will take much work in our financial sector to develop the mechanisms to make this change happen, but it can happen within months, not years. We have the capacity to train workers through our robust community college network. We have the knowhow through years of programs managed by local consultants and non-profits. All it takes is for the financial system to let small building owners tap into the same tools to which institutions and large customers already have access. Tools like on-bill financing, property-assessed clean energy, and community energy cooperatives provide the mechanism that can turn $30 billion a year in energy expenditures into a $500 billion construction program.

It will also take political will...to bring big energy companies and utilities to the table when any program like this is in the interest of the consumer but not large energy companies. It will be interesting to see if either candidate for Governor has the insight or will to make something like this happen.

Friday Five: September 26, 2014

As over half a million people made their voices heard last Sunday, it is disheartening to know that it likely will have a minimal impact on the politics...and it desperately needs to have a significant impact on the politics. 
Why the (awesome) climate march won't change American politics
"The march slogan was, “to change everything, we need everyone,” which is telling, because it won’t change everything, because it didn’t include everyone. Specifically, it won’t change American politics because it didn’t include conservatives."

The politics are so difficult, not only for the demographic reasons noted above, but also because of how much those in control of the market stand to lose...enough to make it worth it to them to threaten the lives of everyone on the planet.
The new Abolitionism
"The last time in American history that some powerful set of interests relinquished its claim on $10 trillion of wealth was in 1865—and then only after four years and more than 600,000 lives lost in the bloodiest, most horrific war we’ve ever fought."

Even those who distribute the energy have much to lose, and without a political solution, they will continue to fight the expansion of renewable energy at a time when we desperately need their support.
Berkeley Lab report quantifies the financial impacts of customer-sited photovoltaics on electric utilities
"A core purpose of the study was to evaluate measures that could be pursued by utilities and regulators to reduce the financial impacts of distributed PV. The report considered a large number of such measures, including changes to utility rate design and ratemaking processes, mechanisms that allow utilities to recoup revenues lost due to distributed PV or to earn profits on distributed PV, and a variety of other strategies."

Because no matter what conventional industry may say, the substitution of one fossil fuel for another fossil fuel does not improve our chances of survival.
Natural gas is not a good climate solution, even without methane leakage
"The only case in which more abundant natural gas would take a bite out of emissions, according to our modeling, was with a renewable energy mandate. We looked at a case in which utilities were required to get a certain percentage of their electricity from renewables, rising year after year to reach 50 percent by 2050. In that case, the competition between natural gas and renewables would be minimized — so natural gas would compete primarily with coal, making cumulative emissions about 13 percent lower."

You know what does improve our chances of survival? Every one of these people...not only through their teaching, but also through their doing.
Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators (PIAEE) winners
"The Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators recognizes outstanding kindergarten through grade 12 teachers who employ innovative approaches to environmental education and use the environment as a context for learning for their students. Up to two teachers from each of EPA's 10 regions, from different states, will be selected to receive this award. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers this award to nationally honor, support and encourage educators who incorporate environmental education in their classrooms & teaching methods."

Happy Friday!

Adrees Latif/REUTERS

Friday Five: August 29, 2014

Our driving mantra in everything we do should be quality of life. If we improve quality of life, we will actually reduce population, decrease stress on resources, and avoid environmental catastrophe. Win/win/win/....
How can we stop the world from having too many babies? Feed more people
"We can make the pie bigger through scientific advances — increasing farm yields and finding more efficient sources of energy. We can reduce the number of forks with family-planning programs, providing access to contraception and giving women more power over their bodies and finances. We can promote better table manners, that is, more equitable sharing, through, well, either more government or less. 'The "better manners" school calls for freer markets or socialism (depending on taste),' Cohen writes."

The plastic bag is actually a marvel of design. It easily carries far more than it's weight, and stores easily. Trouble is, we had a couple other "marvels of design" in the past: asbestos, lead in paint and gasoline...sometimes the elegant solution masks the dangers. I am sure the asbestos industry was not happy when it was banned, but we are the better for it.
Banning the plastic bag shouldn't be this hard
"The opponents of the bill — mainly, bag makers — have said it would be a job killer, even though the legislation includes $2 million to help manufacturers transition to making thicker, reusable plastic bags ... A third of Californians, including shoppers in the city of Los Angeles, live in communities that have eliminated single-use plastic bags, and there has been little blowback to the bans."

It's really simple folks: do nothing, and if we were right - we are doomed...do something, and if we were wrong we get cleaner air, more reliable energy, and better quality of life. It's not that hard.
U.N. draft report lists unchecked emissions' risks
"The new report found that it was still technically possible to limit global warming to an internationally agreed upper bound of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level. But continued political delays for another decade or two will make that unachievable without severe economic disruption, the report said."

Should I be scared when a bank agrees with me? Maybe they've been reading my blog.
UBS analysts: 'Large-scale power stations could be on path to extinction'
"UBS contends that centralized fossil-fuel generation will become “extinct” -- and that it will happen a lot sooner than most people realize.
The bank predicts that a significant number of large-scale centralized plants could be gone within a decade. 'Not all of them will have disappeared by 2025, but we would be bold enough to say that most of those plants retiring in the future will not be replaced.'"

You read right....MINNESOTA!
Power surge in Minnesota's solar industry
"The year-old solar array in Slayton, Minn., the size of eight football fields, could soon lose its mantle as Minnesota’s largest. Its output is 2 megawatts, or 2 million watts. Now, projects five times that size are planned. One project proposed by Geronimo Energy in Chisago County is rated at 50 megawatts, enough to power about 6,000 homes and an output equivalent to a small natural gas power plant. Minneapolis-based Xcel is considering several 'utility-scale' projects whose size offers economies of scale. 'The prices appear to be competitive,' said Dave Sparby, Xcel’s chief executive for the Minnesota region."

Happy Friday!

David Brewster/Star Tribune

Friday Five: July 25, 2014

We hear politicians rail against regulation and how much it can harm business. I think we forget that we are a "nation of laws, not men" and that regulations play an important role in expressing our communal desires. We organize businesses to get things done with the least risk possible, and having an equally robust definition of what we will accept as a country and society does nothing to impair that...in fact, without it, business will not always do what is in the best interest of the people.
Proposed oil train safety rules include lower speeds, improved braking
"In any case, the outcome is likely to force the retirement of at least 35,000 of the nation’s estimated 98,000 tank cars that haul flammable liquids, according to Brigham McCown, former chief of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
In addition to the tank-car standards, the regulations would impose new speed restrictions on trains carrying crude. One option would reduce oil train speeds to 40 mph nationwide, while two others would impose limits only in certain urban areas. The speed limits could broadly affect all freight movements because the oil trains would effectively hold back other traffic, rail experts have said."

No one would accuse Germany - with all of its regulation and popular expression of the role of business and government - of being an inefficient economy that delivers a low quality of life. In fact, with the same global economic constraints, it has pushed forward on both improved quality of life and improved economic footing.
Study ranks Germany as the world's most energy efficient economy
"On a more serious note, Ackermann added that Germany is proud of its efforts to improve energy efficiency and lower its carbon footprint – all while growing its economy. "We all agree, I think – the cheapest energy in the energy you don’t have to produce in the first place. Our long term goal is to fully decouple economic growth from energy use," he said."

We see the worst of this clash of business and community will play out in the small towns most hit by the franking boom. Through every manner of pandering and strong-arming, companies are trying to work their way around the will of the people to not have fracking fields in their backyard. If government were not available as a tool to help give these people voice, how would they defend themselves?
Living next to natural gas wells is no fun
"Colorado has relatively stringent requirements for air quality reporting, but they rely on companies to do the reporting themselves. There is also the issue of access to the wells, which of course the gas companies do not grant to independent researchers. Nonetheless, a 2012 study by the University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Health found VOCs in Garfield County five times above the EPA’s Hazard Index level."

The only time we really understand the benefit of robust, enforced, and reasonable regulation is when a disaster strikes. Do we need another Texas chemical factory to explode, or another North Dakota train derailment, or a Three Mile Island failure to remind us that oversight that has both the capability and the strength to match up with business actually makes our lives...and business for that matter...better.
US nuclear power agency still playing with fire
"Beginning in the early 1990s, studies revealed that some types of material used for electric cable insulation, called fire wraps, did not meet the 1980 standard's requirement to withstand a fire lasting as long as three hours. To compensate, many plant owners began to use measures -- particularly what the industry calls 'manual actions' -- that the NRC had not approved or authorized. For example, if a fire damaged primary and backup system cables, the plant would dispatch workers to manually turn on pumps, close valves, or take whatever steps necessary to control the situation. NRC regulations permit manual actions, but only when they have been formally reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis."

Now is the time to have a debate about the role energy will play in our lives, and specifically the institutions we have enshrined in law to deliver energy to our lives. They have outlived their usefulness in the current model, and if we do not act soon, we will be left behind in the world economy.
Dismantling the utility model is the fastest path to a cleaner electricity infrastructure
"Utilities have come under increasing pressure from constituents, customers, and politicians in recent decades. Grueling battles are fought over how fast to reduce the industry’s air pollution, how much to spend to reduce water use, what generation plants should be built, and how progressive utility rates should be. Many of these issues have migrated from the states to Washington for resolution, and national politicians find themselves in increasingly uncomfortable and untenable positions."

Happy Friday!

Scott Morgan/AP

Here comes the sun....and it's more than alright

We just signed up to participate in a program called Solar Chicago that looks to expand the installed, distributed solar capacity by bringing affordable installations to residential customers. Solar reached grid parity in southern US climates years ago, but is just starting to approach that here in northern Illinois. The program looks to help increase the demand for solar by incentivizing early adopters with financial terms that should help make the case for a future of distributed solar. On the surface, the numbers look good.

Currently, on the real-time pricing program with ComEd, we pay around $0.06 per kilo-watt hour (kWh) for electricity. That averages out to about 5% less than the ComEd flat rate, and just under the current City of Chicago municipal aggregation rate. The cold winter, surprisingly enough, was the major reason for the spike, as we have been paying about $0.055 per kWh this summer. If a solar project is to work, it would make sense for it to cost less than $0.06 per kWh as a starting point.

The Solar Chicago quote we received priced out a 3 kW system for about $13,500. If we participate, we get a $4,000 tax credit off our 2014 federal income tax, reducing the net cost of the installation to $9,500. An Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity rebate would offset another $3,500 in cost, lowering the final installed cost to $6,000. The program managers know this is an important target because a 3 kW system can produce around 4,380 kWh of total electricity over the year. Since the system will last a minimum of 25 years, that means that it will produce a total of 109,500 kWh over the lifespan. For the installed cost of $6,000, that equates to $0.0548 per kWh...just under the current market rate for electricity.

This financial analysis assumes that the price for electricity will remain constant relative to inflation. Since this has not happened in any decade over the past sixty years, and certainly not since the deregulation of the Illinois electricity market, the solar electricity will cost less than market price moving forward, meaning the installation makes better economic sense than remaining a full utility customer.

There are several concerns that must be addressed when making this decision as a homeowner. Unless one plans to live in the house for the full 25 years, it must make sense to pass on the value or the cost to a future homeowner. Solar homes have shown a propensity to higher market value than non-solar homes, but this is temperamental. It would be better if we had a market mechanism, such as property-assessed clean energy (PACE) which allows the homeowner to pay for the system using funds provided by the taxing body, then pay for the installation over the property tax bill for 25 years. Alternatively, the utility could get into the game and provide the system using on-bill financing, which would also transfer to the next tenant. Any of these would lower the risk to the new owner.

As for us, we plan to approach the bank to finance the project over a reasonable term, and hopefully using the system itself and not the home as collateral. We expect that to be a difficult conversation, but the financial community needs to find creative ways to finance these types of projects. The City of Chicago name on the program should help this conversation, and there will be financial entities willing to help. We just hope that it comes from our local bank so that almost everything we do provides some benefit to the community.

Stay tuned for more details as we move forward.

Friday Five: July 18, 2014

This week has seen a great number of stories about increased numbers of earthquakes, water shortages, and fracking chemical disclosure. With my birthday coming up, I am using my author's prerogative to focus on the positive and forward-thinking...it also helps that almost every one of these supports statements I have been making for several years now.

We start with the electric car revolution, and how it will not only change transportation, but also the ways we produce and use power at home. Combined with smart-grid communications technology, it will also change the way grid operators manage distributed resources. We have heard so much about the cost of battery storage for solar, and assumed it had to be a stand-alone battery system in the basement. What if the battery is sitting in your driveway surrounded by soft, bucket seats and an eight-CD sound system?
Electric cars will change the way you power your home
"The most striking data was from EV owners who also had solar panels. From 7 a.m. to midnight, they used about one-fourth as much power from the grid as the typical household, because they were getting power from their rooftops and often selling power back to the grid. In other words, they took very little from the grid when demand was high — at times even helping to increase supply — and took much more from the grid when demand was low. They helped smooth out demand."

Of course, in the future I see, there isn't a car in every driveway...but maybe we can adapt the plan a little bit to store cars around the city so they can balance out the grid and provide the same benefit as if they were parked right outside ones house.
Helsinki's ambitious plan to make car ownership pointless in 10 years
"Subscribers would specify an origin and a destination, and perhaps a few preferences. The app would then function as both journey planner and universal payment platform, knitting everything from driverless cars and nimble little buses to shared bikes and ferries into a single, supple mesh of mobility. Imagine the popular transit planner Citymapper fused to a cycle hire service and a taxi app such as Hailo or Uber, with only one payment required, and the whole thing run as a public utility, and you begin to understand the scale of ambition here."

Creating a space like this, powered by low-to-no cost renewable energy, with ubiquitous, low-cost public transportation, and full of the culture and activity that urban areas provide...it might just bring back a whole host of cities that we had left for dead.
What's the key to turning around Rust Belt cities?
"Some cities effectively prepared for this change, Piiparinen said. Pittsburgh’s educational institutions, for example, produced developers with strong tech skills who could create start-ups in Pittsburgh, especially in the areas of robotics. Buffalo just completed a clinical sciences building, part of $4.4 billion of medicine-related development announced in 2012. Cleveland’s new strengths are rooted in medical device companies, largely because of the Cleveland Clinic, which started doing heart research and married manufacturing and health sciences."

We can even look past carbon to other destructive forms of energy extraction, and if we trust our ingenuity, we can make sure that when we use energy to improve our quality of life, we do not threaten anyone's life or quality of life in the process.
As more nuclear plants shut down can distributed energy fill the gap?
"In the last couple of years, five nuclear power plants in the U.S. have been put on the list for closure. These plants are getting challenged from two sides: competitive natural gas and renewables are eroding the economics of merchant projects, while technical challenges associated with age are making the plants more expensive to operate. In this week's show, we'll look at whether renewables and efficiency are capable of filling the gap left by retired nuclear plants, including the SONGS plant in southern California."

As I predicted, utilities are at the crossroads: either get behind distributed renewables and energy efficiency, or go down fighting - but you will go down. We are already seeing that play out. We cannot life in a country based upon liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then tell someone they have to support a monopolistic business enterprise if it does not make sense to them. Those enterprises do not have to exist in that fashion...and the successful ones are already changing their business model willingly.
Green Mountain is a perfect example of how utilities can embrace distributed renewables
"Enter, Green Mountain Power, the leading electricity provider in the state of Vermont. Rather than simply working against the (likely inevitable) spread of distributed generation, the utility has been transforming itself a company with a business model that puts renewable energy and distributed generation at its core."
In Iowa, solar is fighting back against utilities, and winning
"IPL, the local utility, noticed the solar panels going up, and promptly complained to the Dubuque City Council. The local utility board agreed with IPL in March 2012, but Eagle Point appealed, and in April of last year, the Polk County District Court overturned the utility board’s decision, partly because, as the ruling put it, “The customer will still be connected to the grid, will still be an IPL customer, and must continue to purchase energy and capacity from IPL. Eagle Point is neither attempting to replace or sever the link between IPL and the city. it is simply allowing the city to decrease its demand for electricity from the grid.” In other words, the solar panels weren’t any more illegal than an energy-efficient appliance would be."

Happy Friday!

An exercise in utility: Don't tell the Mayor about my water bill

Over the past two years, our family has taken some steps to reduce the impact that utility bills have on our bottom line.  This partly came out of necessity, and partly to lay the groundwork for future finances.  In this installment, I look at the impact of our water bill on our family economy.

Talk to someone about water conservation in the city of Chicago, and the eyes glaze over, they look to the east, and get a look of, "What are you talking about?" on their face. We live next to the largest source of naturally-occuring fresh water on the planet, so thoughts of water conservation make little sense.

For years, the way that the City of Chicago billed citizens for water use reflected that relationship.  The City could have cared less how much water a building used, the property owner paid based upon the frontage (distance along the property parallel to the street).  Every year, the departments that manage the water and sewer pipes would put together their annual budgets, and that would get divided evenly over the length of street-front across the city.  This meant that two neighbors who used vastly different amounts of water would have the same annual bill for water and sewer.  We know that pricing a commodity in that way does not promote efficient use of the resource, but rather, it promotes waste.

We should care about the waste, not just because of the availability, but also the impact of what happens after we use the water.  Although we will not dry up Lake Michigan anytime soon, low lake levels influence the effectiveness of water withdrawals, and create issues with balance between the lake and surrounding bodies of water - namely the Chicago River and the I&M Shipping Canal.  In addition, the Chicago area sewer system does not process water for return to the Lake, but rather, toward the Mississippi River.  This means that we draw water from the Lake, and send it away, then when rain falls on the city, most of it gets swept away from the Lake Michigan - where it should recharge the source - and instead ends up in the Mississippi Delta.  This contributes to flooding along all the tributaries leading to, and including, the Mississippi, and damages the ecosystems of the Delta by introducing more freshwater than desired.

With all these impacts, we should focus on using water more wisely, and over the past decade, the City has moved to installing water meters on all properties and charging the owners not just for the infrastructure necessary to deliver water and transport sewage, but based on the total water consumed.  Whereas the old bill had two flat fees for water and sewer, the new bill has a per-gallon charge for each of water and sewer.  It is interesting to see the impact of this switch in fee structure.

In our home, we have 3.5 "full-time equivalent" occupants.  My wife, youngest child, and I live in the house full-time, and we have one college-aged child living mostly away from home, then two high-school aged children who live with us part of the time.  Over the course of a year, we consume approximately 12,000 gallons of water, which, when divided over the people who live in the house over the course of the year, equates to about 10 gallons of water per person per day of direct, at-home water use.  This puts us well below average, and so any pricing system should recognize that and charge use accordingly.

Please don't tell the Mayor, but it totally does.

Prior to metering, we paid approximately $900 per year in water/sewer bills, or about 7.5 cents per gallon of water.  Not bad, considering that bottled water costs about $5.00 per gallon.  Under the current model, however, we pay a whopping....$0.0028 per gallon, or about $70 per year.

The City made a smart consumer move and promised users that their bills would be capped at previous levels (with allowable rate increases), but it would seem that someday soon that will have to go away.  For every home like ours that uses one-tenth the water, another customer must be using more.  Right now, there is no guarantee that customer will pay enough to make up the difference.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out moving forward.

Where are the "creative financial instruments" to reduce resource consumption

The financial tools of our economy are supposed to find the most efficient way possible to deliver the priorities of our society.  In that sense, they can provide one of the most democratic tools to improving our quality of life.  All to often, however, the financial industry seeks only to creat wealth for the sake of increasing wealth and not to promote the furtherance of societal good.  As we saw in the financial collapse of 2008, the financial sector - free from the constraints of Glass-Stegall - found more and more complex ways to manipulate the economy in ways that increased risk instead of lessening it.  The time has come for us to put the creativity of the financial sector to use in promoting increased quality of life across all economic classes, while minimizing the need for commodity resources to attain that high quality of life.

For the past several years, Elevate Energy (formerly CNT Energy) has worked across disciplines to promote conversations that will lead to financial instruments readily available to all consumers that will allow them to reduce energy consumption cost effectively.  As summarized in a recent post, the challenges still remain, most notably in the areas of scale and delivery.  To address this we need creative risk-takers and willing communities to blaze the trail. Some opportunities include:

1.  Extending the utility energy efficiency portfolio requirements to include on-bill financing of any improvements that deliver a positive return on investment within five years.

2.  Utilizing property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing whereby municipalities and other units of government can leverage future property taxes to make improvements to a property that deliver energy savings that provide a net positive ROI within ten years.

3.  Provide financial stability through loan guarantees to neighborhood building & loan-type entities that fund energy efficiency efforts.

4.  Utilize the existing network of home-improvement retail outlets and service professionals to aggregate a customer base, then fund the work through service contracts.

Any of these alone or in combination minimize risk and create opportunity.  As the Elevate Energy piece notes, demand has to lead supply, so options like the third and fourth allow for a gradual building of the marketplace to a point where the first and second can accelerate to scale.

This list only scratches the surface.  We need more people working on this effort, and finding opportunities to ease the lives of middle-class and lower-class renters and owners.  This will improve not only our national economy, but our quality of life.

An exercise in utility: real-time electricity

Over the past two years, our family has taken some steps to reduce the impact that utility bills have on our bottom line.  This partly came out of necessity, and partly to lay the groundwork for future finances.  In the next couple of weeks, I will review how these performed, and hopefully give you some idea as to whether they might make sense for you as a consumer.

About two years ago, we changed our electricity service from ComEd's flat-rate program to a program called Residential Real-Time Pricing.  We did this for two reason.  First, at the time, the City of Chicago had moved to aggregate all residential customers under a single, flat-rate managed through the City, and second, a local community member had just a year previous mentioned that she worked for the program and gave me some details on how it worked.  This combination of opportunity and familiarity made the decision simple for us.

From my point of view as a consumer, the straightforward program looks no different when paying my bill.  Like either the ComEd flat-rate program or the City's flat-rate program, I receive only the one bill from ComEd that I pay each month.  The difference comes from how ComEd computes the supply portion of the bill.

Taking a quick step backward, each bill you receive as a utility customer has charges for the electrical energy you use (supply) and for the maintenance of the cables and infrastructure that bring the energy to your home or business (delivery).  Except for a few municipalities, ComEd delivers all the electricity to the residents in Northeast Illinois, and that delivery charge only changes when ComEd gets approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission to change it; otherwise, the consumer has no way of changing it.  The supply portion of the bill has changed greatly in the last decade or so.  Prior to 2000, residents paid for the supply of energy the same as delivery - through a rate set by the utility and approved by the ICC.  When the state deregulated the electricity market, that changed, and the utilities no longer produced electricity, they merely provided the infrastructure.  For a long time, they entered into contracts on behalf of their customers, but still did not own the assets.  In recent years, energy suppliers have marketed directly to residents, or to cities through aggregation, to completely sever the utility from all supply issues except for billing.  It is this supply portion that consumers can affect.

Back to my bill, on a flat-rate bill, the total energy used for the month gets multiplied by a flat-rate (or sometimes two rates...one for "peak" times and one for "off-peak" times) to determine the supply portion of the bill.  In the Real-Time program, the usage for each half-hour gets multiplied by rate for that specific half-hour in order to determine how much we pay.  This means that for some half-hours, we pay much more than the flat rate, but that for many, we pay much less.  It also means that if we have information on when rates most likely will top out over the flat rate, we can decide whether or not to use certain energy-consuming equipment like dishwashers and washing machines.  Instead of paying 5 cents (the flat rate) or 14 cents (a high-demand peak rate), we can pay as little as 2 or 3 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity.

So how did we do with this volatility of pricing?  All in all, pretty well.  For calendar year 2013, we spent about $500 for the year on electricity....or about $0.015 per square foot per month.  If we had remained in the ComEd flat-rate program, we would have spent $580 for the year (or $0.017 per square foot per month), meaning we saved about 14% on our annual bill.  [Side note, since we started the program in May of 2012, we have saved about 35%, but that comes from higher prices from old ComEd contracts in 2012 that changed in 2013.]  We have been happy with that savings, but the average ComEd RTP customer has done even better.  Over the same time period, the average customer has saved about 28% on their electricity supply through the program or about $240 per year.

Our performance relative to the average does not affect our satisfaction with the program.  First, the lowest aggregation rate saves somewhere between 2 and 8% relative to the ComEd flat rate, so we have not missed any opportunity.  Second, the average usage by a resident in the program sits around 12,000 kWh per year; on average, we use 3,500 kWh per year, so although they save more, they also spend more.  Given that the average sized home in the City sits somewhere between 1,400 and 2,000 square feet, they pay approximately $0.03 per square foot for the year.  Because much of this comes from equipment we do not generally use - air conditioners and second/third televisions - we have fewer items to shift, and therefore realize less savings.

I will talk more about home efficiency (which leads to why our usage sits far lower than average), but even at our low usage, real-time pricing makes sense.  The program sends us text messages when prices will exceed our threshold so we can take action, and provides us with a web portal to view our usage and day-ahead predictions of price.  I have used it only as an occasional check on our lifestyle, so it has not added any real work to achieve the savings.  If one has a larger bill, they can realize significant savings, even without significant effort; if one wanted to put more time in, they could far exceed the average savings of 28%.  An additional $240 to $500 a year can be an additional .5% to 1% increase in available cash for a median family.  In a tight economy, that makes a difference.

Next up:  Energy efficiency and our natural gas bill

Friday Five: May 2, 2014

This week we learned a great lesson of economics: it is not a predictive field of study, only a reactive one.  As much as we like to think we can foretell the future, when it comes to basing our quality of life on the availability of limited commodities, we build our houses on sand instead of rock.
Factbox: Energy Future Holdings' road to bankruptcy
"Energy Future Holdings filed for Chapter 11 protection on Tuesday, seven years after it was taken private in the largest-ever leveraged buyout. Over the last five years, the company used a number of financial maneuvers to manage a significant debt load, but ultimately could not convince its many and disparate creditors to restructure its balance sheet outside of bankruptcy court."

Case in point...six years ago when several of us were talking about the looming horizon of grid-parity for solar, the vast majority did not believe. Now, it is a reality. Next up: buildings that need no outside energy source other than what's available on site. They will be so widely available that they will be a code requirement within 10 years.
When it comes to solar power, the market is finally making environmentalism easy
"Little Sun is a good example of how the market and environmentalism don’t have to compete: Both the company and its evangelists are motivated to propagate an affordable form of non-polluting energy. The economics are working in concert with solar’s advantages of sustainability and independence over traditional power sources. And, suddenly, that intersection of efficacy and impact is making solar power as a whole more desirable than it’s ever been before."

One of the greatest challenges to a clean energy economy has come from unchecked conservatism. Conservatism that demands proof before implementation provides great value to society; conservatism that in the face of science, economics, and law holds onto a harmful status quo has no place in our society.
WSJ overruled by Supreme Court on clean air laws
"The regulations of smog and soot pollution will yield up to $280 billion in health benefits nationwide by preventing hospital visits and avoiding lost work days, according to the EPA's cost-benefit analysis. The human benefits are just as stark, with The American Thoracic Society estimating the new transfer rule could prevent upwards of 40,000 premature deaths annually."

I believe this in large part because of the bad business decisions that such extreme conservatism begets. Utilities can play a strong and stabilizing role in the transition to a clean energy future. However, as long as their leaders cling to the entitlement that they deserve guaranteed return on bad investments, we will continue to threaten the quality of our existence.
What future role for today's utilities
"Maybe our current utilities will provide enabling infrastructure, or maybe they will become insignificantly small players – or disappear. After all, the grid as enabling infrastructure might get smaller, and communities can own the grid and provide other enabling services – storage comes to mind. In the end, what is at stake in the energy transition is not just a choice between various low-carbon sources of electricity. It is also a choice between 1) corporations promising consumers low energy prices (and you can go to hell if you don’t want the giant project near your home) and 2) local renewables that may look more expensive, but you pay those higher prices back to you and your neighbors – and you have input into what gets built in your community."

Sound business thinking not only recognizes and accepts, but fully embraces, the limitations of the natural systems that underpin our entire existence. Requiring business leaders to act responsibly when it comes to protecting our quality of life does not place unreasonable obstacles in the way of progress any more than requiring a credit check places an unreasonable restriction on borrowing money. We need to mandate a minimum amount of protection to continue our existence, and not allow irresponsible behavior to jeopardize our future.
The one thing every business dies without
"So take a day this week to think hard about how the planet underpins the business, and how your company and sector should deal with that reality. Consider three steps. First, ask some leading questions: What do climate change and extreme weather mean for your business, your customers, and your supply chain? How do growing resource constraints like water shortages, or rising commodity prices, affect your value chain and your margins?"

Happy Friday!

(Photo: raulbaenacasado/Shutterstock)

How to solve the problem of fossil fuels in fewer than 100 years.

Last week, I had a reunion of sorts with several colleagues whom I met during graduate school.  Among the pleasant conversations about family and work, we got onto the topic of fossil fuel energy and its place in our world.  As we all met working on "green energy" projects, we all agreed on the need to get away from fossil fuels, but disagreed on the timeframe.  One friend noted it would be one hundred years before we were able to eliminate them from the bulk of our economy, and challenged me to come up with the actions I would take if I had all the capital and power in the world to make them happen.  I considered the question for most of the week, and came up with the following:

1.  Buy up all leases for fossil fuel deposits, all American public utilities, and all the aging fossil fuel reliant infrastructure and capital.
Sunk costs for electricity-generating assets and infrastructure, as well as the expected profits associated with future development of fossil fuels weigh heavily on the economics of switching to an efficient and renewable future for energy.  The next great financial bubble will come from the over-valuation of the carbon resources in the earth, resulting in another potential - and perhaps even more devastating - market correction.  The need to recover sunk costs puts a cyclical burden on the transition to a green energy future.  First, we prolong the use of the infrastructure in order to allow the utility to make back its investment with a guaranteed return, then we make complementary investments in infrastructure that works with the existing in order to meet growth.  We need to break both of these cycles in order to move forward at a rapid enough pace.  In addition, I would buy up all the used parts and pieces I could, disassemble them into their constituent parts, and repurpose the raw materials for green energy development.

2.  Reissue the resource and utility leases as a package deal, with a twist.
In order to continue the services that the utilities facilitate, but with a minimum of damage to human health, I would auction off the leases to fossil fuels, but link them (by energy content) to management of a utility.  This would link production and performance.  Then, I would restructure the utility in two ways.  One, the utility would provide the end service (i.e. heat, light, access to entertainment) instead of energy.  Customers would pay for the service instead of the units of energy, and thus reward those who provide the best end result, not the ones whom they are forced to pay.  Then, at the end of each year, these new utilities would receive a bonus payment based upon the amount of resource remaining in the ground.  They would not only increase profitability by using fewer resources in efficiently delivering services, they would receive incentive payments for leaving more of the carbon resources in the earth.

3.  Carbon tax to meet the real cost of using the energy and eliminate all subsidies.
The mining, transporting, processing, transferring, and eventual releasing of energy associated with fossil fuels has myriad negative impacts, and currently receive almost $700 billion in worldwide subsidies.  Currently, the fossil fuel industry only pays direct costs (transportation, storage, processing) but does not pay for ecological restoration of mined areas, healthcare costs for those located near combustion sites, property damage associated with polluted air, or other similar indirect costs.  To start with, we would end any subsidy to a fossil-fuel based company, using the money to subsidize a transition for those who cannot immediately afford the increased costs that might result from the end of that subsidy.  Then, each year, the insurance industry would determine the tax level based upon the reinsurance costs for each of the indirect impacts.  Governments would collect the tax to continue to provide the services they do to make up for the slight from industry, and would offset the new tax collected by lowering the overall income tax to balance.  Companies could lower their tax burden by including some of the indirect costs into their direct costs.  They can do this by taking over ecological restoration of mined areas, implementing complete carbon capture and repurposing (the act of preparing the carbon or carbon dioxide for benign storage and reuse in a specific industry...this means no sequestration without a plan for reuse), completely scrubbing exhaust streams for particulates of all size, and reducing waste heat to benign levels.

Tar sands mining area

4.  Require 99.99999% reliability from fossil fuel infrastructure and complete restoration of ecological services.
Currently, we tolerate too many oil spills, coal ash pollution incidents, and mine collapses as "the cost of doing business".  Industries know what they need to do in order to ensure near perfect performance records.  We need, as a society, to expect that they deliver.  In addition, when they complete mining activities or do have an environmental issue, we need to expect the complete restoration of ecological services.

5.  Immediately implement ecological valuation into the world economy.
Perhaps the best way to make sure capital flows to poorer regions of the world without the extractive growth that fueled southeast Asia and continued our damaging ways comes from the concept of ecological valuation.  Scientists and economists working together determine the real-time value of watersheds, forest systems, plains, species, etc., then include that value in a nation's asset sheet.  This would provide incentive for investment and restoration, while providing a mechanism for richer countries to offset their activities by investing in the preservation of existing ecosystems.  This provides the resources for developing economies to increase quality of life without the health sacrifices we had to make.

6.  Capitalize a series of building and loans in each 50-75,000 person community whose investment portfolio carries only energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in that community.
These nearly 5,000 banks would provide the needed capital to drive the shift from extractive energy reliance to neighborhood energy reliance.  The development of local businesses, and the expansion of local manufacturing to meet this demand would build a more resilient economy while improving the quality of life.  The banks would remain independent entities, beholden to shareholders like any bank, with the only restriction being the boundary of their investment region.  They could link their risk through insurance products, or state/regional-government based loan guarantee programs, in order to minimize their exposure.

7.  Provide free college tuition to top students entering the field of clean energy research and development.
Currently, the top students go into the financial sector or into fields associated with the extractive economy.  Fewer enter the fields of medicine or engineering associated with life-supporting activities.  We want the best ideas to prepare us for a future without fossil fuel energy, and need to provide the incentive to get them into those fields.

8.  Place clean-energy-based restrictions on the not-for-profit status of university endowments.
University endowments represent a significant portion of the nations held wealth, and as such, they wield great power.  For the significant benefit they receive from their tax-exempt status, the universities can bear a certain level of restriction over what they can do with those assets.  First, all of them must divest from all fossil-fuel investments.  Second, they must commit one-third of their asset portfolio to clean energy or energy efficiency projects; they choose the ones that maximize their return.  Third, they must make all buildings on all properties that they own net zero impact buildings within a decade; this includes all existing buildings as well as new and recently constructed.  The knowledge base and technology exist to make this happen, and institutions that have a forty to one-hundred year horizon for building ownership have the ability to recoup their investment easily.

9.  Change the current way we discount future life value.
We need to make all energy and quality of life decisions providing equal value to a life seven generations from now as we do to a current life.  We conveniently employ a discount rate that makes positive impacts on the future have to save ten lives to have equal value to saving one life today.  For non-life threatening activities, discounting the future has merit, for it favors conservative allocation of resources.  For activities that damage human health, however, this practice amounts to a death sentence for the future.

10.  Manage a smart transition for developing economies.
In addition to the economic development incentives offered by ecological valuation, we need to provide reasonable support and incentives for the developing world.  Unlike the developed world, these economies cannot easily remove fossil fuels from their quality of life systems.  People in these parts of the world still have underdeveloped fresh water systems, little or no electrification, and must travel great distances for basic needs.  We do not need to enable reliance on fossil fuels for new development, but cannot pull the rug out from under their current way of life.  Pursuing the above strategies will free resources to help manage this process, and ensure that developing economies avoid our pitfalls while raising the quality of life for nearly half of the world's population.  People are resourceful, and right now they are finding the simplest way they can to develop with the most readily available technology.  If we put the right technologies in front of people, they will innovate and find the right solution with the best outcomes.  We do not need to do things for them, but we need to make the right pieces available to them.

The challenge presented to me gave me no limit on my power or wealth, so I have not concerned myself with the economic impact of these activities.  Over the coming months, I will investigate them further and evaluate the costs and benefits of them.  We need to pursue these, and all other ideas for realizing a clean energy future, with a great sense of urgency.  We do not have the one-hundred years my friend conjectures we need to fully transition.  From this point forward, we need to stop enabling our dependence on fossil fuels merely because it is hard to do otherwise.  We need to expect more of ourselves; we have the knowledge, resources, and ability...now all we need is the will.

If Indiana is against energy efficiency, then what are they for?

Indiana's governor, Mike Pence has a serious decision to make.  The Indiana General Assembly has come out against energy efficiency with an overwhelming vote to end the popular, and by most accounts effective, Energizing Indiana program.  Senate Bill 340 originally sought to give large industrial customers a chance to opt-out of the program - shifting more of the responsibility to small and mid-sized customers.  The House hijacked it, however, and turned it into a bill that as of December 31, 2014 would make it illegal for the Indiana regulatory commission to require an energy efficiency program.  In 2009, that regulatory body enacted the program to help drive energy efficiency and boost job growth in the state, keeping up with programs enacted in most of the neighboring states.  Since its inception, the program has created as many as 5,000 permanent, direct jobs, resulted in three times as many indirect jobs, and saved almost a billion kilowatt hours at a cost of approximately $500 million.

More importantly, the programs have reduced demand by 100 MW, and if continued would reduce it by almost 1800 MW in 2020 when the program would have cost $2 billion.  We often think of building new power plants to meet increased demand, but given the size of our current demand, we can offset increases by reducing usage elsewhere.  Every dollar we spend on permanent energy efficiency avoids us having to build a power plant.  Currently, the reductions of energy efficiency cost about $5 per kilowatt of power.  By 2020, the 1800 MW reduction will have cost about $1 per kilowatt.  Compared with $6 per kilowatt of nuclear, $2.3 per kilowatt for coal, and $1 per kilowatt for natural gas, the investment makes the most economic sense.  This is especially true when factoring in the job creation impact.  Energy efficiency creates twice as many jobs per dollar invested as any of the fossil fuels, and just slightly more than nuclear energy.

The reason for the backlash against the bill comes from the utility industry in Indiana.  Although they accurately claim no direct sponsorship of the bill, their interests get ignored if the program continues. In Indiana, unlike other states, the utilities still control both the generation assets and the delivery network, and their profits are coupled to usage: as people use more energy, they receive more revenue and profit.  In deregulated states, utilities can decouple their charges from usage, recouping the cost of investment even as usage flattens out or drops.  Although this creates a whole set of issues that all utilities will have to deal with by changing their business model, it at least gives the utility economic incentive to improve reliability and efficiency.

The other issue, and perhaps more important one, comes from the fact that the program resulted not from direct legislation, but rather from a legal order from a regulatory agency.  Although fully supported by the governor at the time, and even the majority of the legislature, the program did not come from a newly enacted law as in other nearby states.  This perceived "over-reach" provides an opportunity for those who would oppose the effect to claim that the rules do not have the appropriate legitimacy.

Both of the objections raise valid arguments, and after nearly four years, it makes sense to revisit programs to make sure they maintain relevancy and effectiveness.  Mike Pence has a hard decision because his own party did not deliver him the most important thing he needs right now....

Options.

By making it an all-or-nothing, the governor faces the decision to either eliminate jobs and create a further burden on the middle class, or further enrage a portion of the corporate base.  (I should note that business groups come down on both sides of this issue as many large and small businesses have seen growth in the marketplace because of the program.)  If the legislature had proposed a fix that addressed the concerns of utilities, and provided some realistic relief for large corporate customers, the decision would not be about a politically-charged ending of a program, but rather a fix.  There are many possibilities the legislature could have proposed: scaling the contribution based upon customer size, fully deregulating the utilities to allow them to decouple cost from usage, and/or setting the rate of contribution at the cost of new investment to ensure that energy efficiency targets only the most cost-effective programs.  Any of these would have made reasonable sense, and given the governor options.

But right now, he really has no options.  He must veto this bill and tell the Assembly to start anew.

Friday Five: March 14, 2014

All the arguments about climate change and carbon dioxide emissions ignores another great challenge of fossil fuel pollution, and one that industry has yet to find an adequate solution for: fine particulate matter.  The unburned, solid carbon creates a whole host of health issues, and left unaddressed, it will continue to plague us.
New research shows air pollution might make you bad at your job
"What they found was that every 10-microgram per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 levels decreased worker productivity by 0.6%, as measured by the number pear boxes packed by each worker. Since workers were paid piecemeal, this translated to a decrease of roughly 41 cents per hour, per 10 micrograms of PM2.5."

The urban pollution caused largely by automobile emissions, but also by industrial activity and building heating, leads to consequences that affect our nations poor and people of color at rates higher than that of other population groups.
Dyin' to live: Biggie Smalls and the silent killers in urban America
"Cancer and heart disease are still the top causes for premature deaths in Brooklyn today. Environmental factors have long been suspected as possible causes for both. The National Cancer Institute conducted a study in the 1990s in Long Island (just north of Brooklyn) to examine the role of environmental factors in the high breast cancer rates in that area. The researchers found a “modest increase” in cancer risk due to exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), cancer-causing agents formed mostly from burning fossil fuels. A 2008 study found a link between PAH exposure and heart disease, and concluded that “chronic environmental stress is an important determinant” in cardiovascular disease risk."

Over the last several years, I have called for a planned, stable transition from utilities of infrastructure to utilities of service.  In order for utilities to survive, they have to make that transition, and it looks like in the nations on the forefront of renewable energy, that transition has started...to a point.
The future of large German utilities: It's already here
"If I would have written this paper two years ago and included the following, I would have called it utopia. Nobody would have believed it. But this unbelievable story actually happened. These four large German utilities decided to become 'green.' This can be seen from their recent advertisements, which show that all of the four major German utilities are 'solarized.'"

Making change that has lasting economic impact requires correctly identifying the value of the improvement and working that into the business plan of those developing, improving, or refurbishing.  Many homeowners and developers avoid improvements with long-term benefits because they cannot monetize those in the present.  A system that correctly values the improvements - and holds developers especially accountable for their performance - provides the proper incentive to make choices that improve quality of life. 
How to help appraisers fairly value home energy efficiency improvements
"Nothing works in the appraisal process unless high performance homes are consistently documented. Right now, the majority of home appraisers use Fannie Mae’s Uniform Residential Appraisal Report to provide opinions on the market value of a given property. But, this form lacks an adequate section in which to document energy efficiency features."

Economics can produce poor decisions.  The economics of developing, maintaining, and decommissioning nuclear energy do not really work, and the risk of catastrophe only exacerbates the point.  That said, in a nation whose economy depends on a fixed level of energy cost, it is tempting to go back to it...even when it has already damaged your country and its people.
Nuclear power in Japan: Start 'em up
"The sense of urgency is driven, first, by the mounting costs of doing without the nuclear plants. One by one, nearly all reactors were shut down in 2011-12. Utilities fired up conventional power stations to make up for lost electricity generation. But the cost of importing extra oil, coal and gas has been all the steeper with a weak yen. The trade deficit has climbed, along with electricity charges, particularly for businesses. Should nuclear plants be left idle, the programme of Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, to revive the economy could be in doubt."

Happy Friday!

Friday Five(s): March 7, 2014...Cabin Fever Edition

Through a combination of cabin-fever-inspired restlessness, and a measurable uptick in environmental news this week, I cannot bring my brain to choose only five, so I am going with a double-dose...including shorter intros by me.


This should scare the livin' bejeezus out of everyone. (And note, 'bejeezus' is recognized as a word by my autocorrect.)
Chevron launches "news" site
"Ritchie said the site also offers a new model for the future of journalism — one that is funded directly by corporations. 'We believe the website has the potential to blaze the trail for a new model of corporate-sponsored, community-generated news,' the website reads."

The market has changed, and large energy companies - and especially investor-owned utilities - face extinction if they do not find new models.
Schadenfreude about RWE unwarranted
"What should RWE do? ... Maybe we need to be open to the idea that large power corporations were needed for central-station power plants, but that their role in a renewable future will be much smaller. At the moment, even the proposal to have them leverage their size to set up an enabling infrastructure – such as charging stations for electric cars – seems unlikely. The firms don't even have the liquidity anymore."

I forgive the inappropriate use of 'global warming' in the headline because the article discusses an industry I love. I am inspired to act.
Slope & change: The ski industry struggles to get its act together on global warming
"So what, you might ask, does the ski industry lobby for in Washington, if not for climate action? In the past, it has pushed for looser immigration rules (who’ll wash all those restaurant dishes and change the hotel sheets?) and to make sure that we can continue to import cheap shred threads from China (because, you know, we’ve gotta look good out there)."

In principle, I do not have an issue with natural gas as a bridging fuel if it is employed in retrofit of existing plants, and if carbon capture is required...but until the methane leakage issue is 100% solved, natural gas is as bad as coal...period.
How to make natural gas more climate-friendly
"It doesn’t have to be this way. The technology already exists to dramatically reduce methane leakage for a reasonable price. Environmental groups have put out reports outlining how. They could serve as a template for the oil and gas industry to follow voluntarily, or for the EPA to require under the Clean Air Act."

Good consequence, incentives for industry to capture, sequester, and even mine CO2...unintended consequence without regulation, continue depleting fossil fuels as source of "high quality CO2".
Don't waste CO2, turn it into bottles and glue
"If humanity is to avoid dangerous climate change, we need to capture hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. But what to do with it all? There is no shortage of places to bury it, but we can at least put some of it to good use. A few start-up companies view CO2 as a resource rather than a waste product. They are using CO2 as the raw material for making products including superglue and fertilizer."

It's said that collapsing societies burned their last tree to boil their last pot of water to eat their last meal...if we are to avoid that fate, we need to examine our priorities. Maybe cultural icons will help awaken minds.
Syndey Opera House and Statue of Liberty 'will be lost to sea level rise'
"Marzeion said that in Europe, particularly vulnerable sites included the leaning tower of Pisa, which is not directly on the coast but would be affected by sea level rises as a result of even a low temperature increase because it is very low-lying. He also cited Venice, which 'in a sense you can say is being impacted right now' and Hanseatic League cities including Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen in Germany."

If the loss of Lady Liberty doesn't move us, how about the loss of large sections of a state?
Louisiana's coastline is disappearing too quickly for mappers to keep up
"Each year, this part of the coastline loses around 16 square miles of land, according to David Muth, the state director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Mississippi River Delta Restoration Project. And until quite recently, even the most advanced maps of the area did little to reflect the changing environmental reality. But in the last few years, renewed mapping efforts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have begun to catalog these changes. These new maps show water where there was once marshy land, and bays where there were once small inlets."

Speaking of water, unless you live in CA or SD, you may not know how tentative our life is under "feast and famine" deluge-drought cycles.
Americans have no idea how much water we use - or how to conserve it
"Perhaps most troubling, Americans overwhelmingly believe that changing their habits, as opposed to improving the efficiency of their plumbing, is the most effective way to cut down on water consumption. Seventy-six percent of those surveyed said curtailment methods, such as flushing less frequently, are the best way to reduce water use. Only 10 percent chose more preventative measures, such as installing new toilets that use just 1.6 gallons per flush in lieu of old toilets that use five to six gallons."

Of course there is hope if we listen to free market economists and make rational decisions that are in our best economic self-interest. (Hint: That means divesting from fossil fuels and investing in clean energy & energy efficiency solutions.)
Energy efficiency creates 387% return on investment for US Southeast
"A wide range of economic benefits contributed to the overall $78.3 million in regional economic output created by SEEA’s energy efficiency upgrades. $55.7 million in economic output and 240 jobs were created through direct effects from program spending, while $22.2 million in economic output and 106 jobs were created via direct effects like efficiency goods and services. Induced effects from households or workers spending newfound money on consumer goods or services created an additional $366,471 in economic impacts."

And maybe there is something with tapping into the "keeping up with the Jones'" zeitgeist. Whatever it takes to give my grandkids a high quality of life.
With energy reports, it's game on
"But research has shown that neighbor comparisons are the most effective way to get people to conserve energy, he said. More people respond to hearing what their neighbors are doing than to the prospect of helping the environment or saving money. The comparisons work, he said; the first group of ComEd customers to get the reports, in 2009, reduced their electricity use by 2 percent."

Happy Friday!