Summer driving season is officially underway and the good news is Americans look set to save on gasoline compared with last summer, but not by much.
The US Energy Information Administration just released their Summer Fuels Outlook and expect “that regularâ€Âgrade gasoline retail prices, which averaged $3.69 per gallon last summer, will average $3.63 per gallon during the current summer (April through September) driving season.” Keep reading →
Flying, although faster, still isn’t a very pleasant way to travel. First, there’s the massive amount of fuel required to hoist a jet airliner carrying over 100 people into the air. Second, there’s the fact that when inside, one gets the sensation of a sardine stuffed inside a metal tube.
It turns out that aviation scientists have known for years that the tubular fuselage and bird wind design is far from efficient, but it’s the best they could do. Now, researchers at NASA have developed a “hybrid wing” shape that could dramatically reduce fuel consumption. Keep reading →
Tuesday night, Obama championed his commitment to more oil and gas exploration, as well as reinforced the doubling of U.S. clean energy production under his leadership. And Romney, advocating our energy independence, solidified his strong commitment to drilling and promoting a surplus of oil and gas.
What I’d like to know, however, is their plans on the other side of the energy equation: the demand side. No matter how much new generation we bring to the table, energy independence just isn’t possible without curbing our exponentially rising need for electricity. And so far, neither candidate has pontificated on how to make this possible. Keep reading →
The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub, a public-private organization whose largest funder is the U.S. Department of Energy, is leading an ambitious charge to reduce energy consumption in Philadelphia’s commercial buildings. The hope is the model can be replicated in other cities across the US.
Because of the Hub’s efforts to “start moving the needle” on discussion of energy retrofits, the City of Philadelphia is likely to have a successful response to its new law requiring energy disclosure for large buildings, predicted Marla Thalheimer, Director of Sustainability at Liberty Property Trust, a commercial real estate firm and Hub partner. Keep reading →
Around 3,000 commercial building owners and contractors are weighing a new request for proposals on energy retrofits from an institution that’s a national leader in reducing energy consumption by existing buildings.
The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub, a public-private organization whose largest funder is the U.S. Department of Energy, sent out the RFPs on October 12 as the latest step toward fulfilling its ambitious goal of reducing energy use by commercial buildings in the Philadelphia region by 20 percent by 2020. Keep reading →
Touted by movie stars, discussed in presidential debates, solar and wind energy are the technological ‘it girls’ of our time. Meanwhile, combined heat and power, 100 years old and shaped like a box, can’t get a date with popular culture.
Such was the lament that threaded through last week’s annual gathering in Washington, D.C. of about 120 industry supporters of CHP, as the technology is more commonly known (for those who know it). Keep reading →
Downtown Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
When Americans think about the states that lead in energy, they conjure up Texas, California, perhaps Alaska or West Virginia and – with fracking – now Pennsylvania and Ohio. Maryland isn’t an obvious choice. Keep reading →
Energy efficiency and solar are the low hanging fruit for American companies both at home and overseas, former President Bill Clinton said yesterday.
“We should pick the low hanging fruit. It always begins with efficiency. We’re much more energy efficient than we used to be but we have not made a serious attempt to get it to scale,” Clinton said in the closing keynote of the National Clean Energy Conference in Las Vegas last week. Keep reading →
Data-center consumption of energy and water for server-cooling has reached astonishing volumes, but a pair of innovative companies is applying the brakes to this runaway train.
The ambitious partnership and its technologies were presented during a July 25 “analysts day” at the Danbury, CT headquarters of Inertech, which designs, engineers and manufactures modular data pods and energy-efficient cooling systems for a wide range of industries. Keep reading →
Geothermal energy technology is moving beyond volcanos, and popping up in unexpected spots like oilfields.
The technology developed in the last century to tap the earth’s heat has been most productive in regions where hotter layers are closer to the earth’s surface, like hot springs and active volcanic formations. Steam produced in those layers is used to generate electricity. Keep reading →
Jared Anderson
Conway Irwin
Peter Gardett