4 item(s) were returned.
President
The Stella Group, LTD
This month, reports surfaced that critical energy savings programs like ENERGY STAR could be defunded as part of the Trump Administration’s FY’18 budget. Last week, the President’s Budget Blueprint confirmed the rumors to be true. According to E&E news, a draft of the proposed budget cuts contained language stating “EPA should begin developing legislative options and associated groundwork for transferring ownership and implementation of ENERGY STAR to a non-governmental entity.” Today, millions of consumers and businesses choose ENERGY STAR—demonstrating that the program has earned credibility in the marketplace. When the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency developed the… [more]
View Insight
Senior Scientist
UFA Ventures, Inc.
There have been many voices lately saying that renewables could produce 80% or more of the world’s energy by 2050 in order to limit global warming to 2.5°C, as long as we develop sufficient energy storage and bring up efficiency and conservation. But the real issue is raw materials. It takes about 500 tons of steel and 1000 tons of concrete per MW of wind power. Even more to connect them to the grid. The United States has used 40 million tons of steel to build 48,800 wind turbines totaling 74,512 MW and costing about 150 billion dollars. Wind energy… [more]
View Insight
The Senate recently passed the bipartisan Energy Policy Modernization Act (S.2012), co-authored by Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), by a vote of 85-12. In 2015, the House passed its own comprehensive energy efficiency bill, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015 (H.R.8). The bills will shortly head to a Conference committee whose efforts to reconcile different language, in areas like energy efficiency, could face a difficult challenge. The White House strongly opposes H.R.8, stating that it “undermines successful initiatives designed to modernize the Nation’s energy infrastructure and increase our energy efficiency.” According to an… [more]
View Insight
President
The Stella Group, LTD
Over 20 states are reviewing their net-metering rules for solar energy and at least 10 are conducting value of distributed generation studies. But is this just delaying the inevitable — that states must embrace policies that promote energy conservation technologies rather than sustain their traditional grids? And are solar energy systems the only culprit? In fact, energy conservation technologies have already significantly impacted baseload demand patterns. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), light-emitting diode (LED) installations increased in all applications between 2012 and 2014, more than quadrupling to 215 million units overall. Energy Star notes “In 2014…American families and… [more]
View Insight