Want to learn how you can make your house green? Or how you can start a green business? West Coast Green is having it's big show coming up this September 20th-22nd, in San Francisco.
They say, "West Coast Green is a feast of innovations, ideas and opportunities designed to expand your business, widen your vision, and stimulate your thinking with the latest, best practices and key players in green building."
If you want passes to the whole event, you'll need to shell out $450 bucks or so, but a day pass to the Saturday "Homeowners Day" is only $25. See ya'll there!
Archive for the 'housing' Category
Want to learn how you can make your house green? Or how you can start a green business? West Coast Green is having it's big show coming up this September 20th-22nd, in San Francisco.
They say, "West Coast Green is a feast of innovations, ideas and opportunities designed to expand your business, widen your vision, and stimulate your thinking with the latest, best practices and key players in green building."
If you want passes to the whole event, you'll need to shell out $450 bucks or so, but a day pass to the Saturday "Homeowners Day" is only $25. See ya'll there!
In my previous post, I mentioned that McKinsey noted how important energy efficiency in your house is. Well, if you've taken that guidance to heart, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy have a checklist for action.
They've got the list divided up into things you can do today, this week, and this year. A good one is to "turn down the temperature of your water heater to the warm setting (120°F). You'll not only save energy, you'll avoid scalding your hands."
It's sour grapes for sure, but since they dinged me when I was interviewing with them during school, I've always distrusted those braniacs at McKinsey.
Nevertheless, Diana Farrell at McKinsey's Global Institute recently listed the five most important things, (in their opinion) which which will help stave off a climate disaster, under the title, "A Simple Plan to Cut Energy Demand Growth and Carbon Emissions."
According to Ms. Farrell, "it starts with China." She lists the following:
1. Make Chinese manufacturing more efficient.
2. Make Chinese energy plants more efficient.
3 .Make Chinese buildings more efficient.
Simple! Once we fix China, then we move on to the rest of the world....
5. Reduce fuel subsidies.
"Reduce fuel subsidies that shield consumers from the true price of energy they use—and therefore encourage over consumption. We estimate that reducing fuel subsidies by 80% globally (largely in the Middle East, Venezuela, and Mexico) would reduce global demand for road transportation fuel by 5% of the global sector's demand in 2020."Needless to say, all of the prescriptions listed above will require concerted effort by governments working together. So don't forget to contact your representatives in government. You may have noticed I skipped number 4, because you can actually do something about that one. Here's what it is... 4. Make U.S. homes more efficient.
U.S. homes are the biggest consumers of energy in the world, and "if the energy efficiency of all U.S. households were to increase to the levels of California or Europe, global residential energy demand in 2020 could decline by more than a third—the equivalent of nearly 4 million barrels of oil a day."
So don't forget to think about your house, and how you can cut your energy consumption. In case you're out of ideas, we have some ideas listed here!
I've already posted about flourescent bulbs before, but here's a cool spreadsheet that I found on the Energy Star site which will help you figure out how much CFLs will save you in the long run over traditional incandescent bulbs: www.energystar.gov/ia/business/bulk_purchasing/bpsavings_calc/Calc_CFLs.xls
If you end up making the switch to flourescents (or already use them today), don't forget to properly recycle them! CFLs contain small amounts of mercury and should therefore be disposed of at a Household Hazardous Waste site. Check out Earth911.org which will help you locate disposal options by ZIP Code.
OK, OK, last post of the day. This is a record for me - 3 in one day!
There's a new series on PBS starting next month on green homebuilding. It's called "Building Green" and follows host Kevin Contreras as he builds his green dream home. Check out the details here and get your TiVo ready.