Ettenson told me that the funding comes from the part of the budget that California’s regulated utilities may use to invest in conventional electricity. This may include “negawatts”or energy efficiency measures. This is not just cheaper than building new plants and transmission, but also easier to implement, as it is not subject to the NIMBYism and transmission issues that has impeded development of utility scale solar and wind projects that California utilities must add to meet RPS requirements of getting 20% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2010. Currently it is at 14%.

This giant leap in funding could jump-start the new low-carbon economy in California; helping grow all the businesses that create cutting edge efficiency in cooling and heating, lighting, building materials, windows, insulation, appliances and smart grid technologies that reduce energy use.

Ettenson gave me some examples of uses for the funding in practical terms:

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A surge in the number of mercury-bearing energy-efficient light bulbs in use in Minnesota is expected to overwhelm recycling programs in the next few years and there’s no plan yet on how to recycle more of them.

Fluorescent light bulbs use only one-fourth as much energy per unit of light produced as incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. One CFL bulb contains 5 milligrams of mercury, about one-fifth the amount in a watch battery.

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Cree Inc. will be fitting Wedge 5 of the Pentagon with over 4,000 LED light fixtures.The U.S. Department of Energy said that LED lighting saved the country about 8.7 trillion watt hours in 2007. This is out of the 765 trillion watt hours used for lighting in the United States.

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Projections from the International Energy Agency show global energy demand growing by close to 30 percent by 2020, setting the stage for massive growth in the carbon dioxide emissions that are warming our planet. But dramatically ramping up energy efficiency would allow the world to not only avoid growth in energy demand but actually reduce global demand to below 2006 levels by 2020.

We can reduce the amount of energy we use by preventing the waste of heat and electricity in buildings and industrial processes and by switching to efficient lighting and appliances. We can also save an enormous amount of energy by restructuring the transportation sector. Many of the needed energy efficiency measures can be enacted relatively quickly and pay for themselves.

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The lights are still bright, but thanks to theater owners and The Broadway League teaming up with the NRDC and the city, the lights are also LEDs and compact fluorescents on Broadway.

On Tuesday, the cast of Wicked and Mayor Bloomberg announced the roll out of Broadway Goes Green. Along with replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs and CFLs, theaters are taking steps like using eco-friendly detergent to wash their costumes and icing performers’ sore muscles with bags of frozen peas rather than chemical ice packs.

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The revolution has an emphasis on using Venezuelan produced products like PVC pipes to construct homes. Another major component of the revolution includes an initiative to make Venezuela more self-sufficient in food production, thus quelling the need to import food. Projects to provide additional electrical power through alternative energies like wind and solar technologies are also commencing.

The most notable and measurable success to date for the so-called energy revolution, however, has been Venezuela’s effort to change out standard light bulbs across the country for CFLS (energy-saving compact flourescent light bulbs) exactly like those Chávez donated to Texans. So far, 72.3 million light bulbs have been changed. But the story is perhaps not as simple as it would seem (as is almost any story about Chávez and his schemes).

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>>See also: European Union Bans Incandescent Light Bulbs

The micro-mini’s size is one of its biggest appeals and is what jumped out at me right away. Featuring an ultra-small ¼ inch tube diameter and a compact integral electronic ballast, the 13W micro-mini is the smallest CFL on today’s market.

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Green Light New Orleans

Established in 2006 after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Green Light New Orleans is the brainchild of Swiss-born musician Andi Hoffmann, who’s now a resident of the Big Easy. Hoffman started the program first as a way to offset the greenhouse gas pollution he and his band b-goes generated during their tours to Europe. It’s since taken on a greater goal: to reduce New Orleanians’ energy costs and help fight climate change.

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People who live in energy-efficient (EE) houses are sexier because:

1. Their houses are not drafty, so in winter they can walk around in sexy lingerie instead of heavy bathrobes and bunny slippers.

2. They can talk knowledgeably about “blower door tests” and “weather stripping” at parties.

3. Men who live in EE houses get to brag about the size of their carbon footprint.

4. Dimmable CFLs are so much more romantic.

5. Nothing dampens romance so much as an argument over money: and people who live in EE houses save hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars a year.

Now is the time to get that energy audit so that your house can be energy efficient for next winter, and you can be a sexier person. Check out the DIY Home Energy Saver site from the Department of Energy. If you need a pro to figure out what to do, hire a professional energy auditor who will provide a prioritized list of energy-saving actions. Find lists of energy raters in your area at Resnet (Residential Energy Services Network).

December 28th, 2007 by Jim Gunshinan

Broke Your CFL? Don’t Panic!

The typical dose of mercury in a CFL is about the sizeof a pen tip 

(circled in red), and these doses have been getting smaller and smaller. 

(Photo provided by EPA.)

Australia has already begun to phase out the incandescent light bulb,

and the energy legislation recently signed by President Bush has

begun that process in the United States. Every time I turnaround,

it seems, someone is handing me a brand new

compact fluorescent light (CFL) to advance the cause of energy

efficiency and help save the planet. CFLs are becoming ubiquitous

in households all over California. We taught them in the pages of

Home Energy all the time. And that’s a goodthing, right?

Brandy Bridges, of Ellsworth, Maine may not think so. A cleaning

company quoted her a price of $2,000 to clean her house after

she broke a CFL.The benefits of CFLs are many–they use about75%

less energy than incandescents and last up to ten times longer.

Replacing a 75W incandescent with an 18W CFL will save you about $46

in electricity costs over the life of the bulb, and thatis at current

electricity prices, which no doubt will go up, making today’s CFLs an

even better deal. Energy Star CFLs (www.energystar.gov/cfls) won’t

flicker, give warmer light, and there area variety of them, from

the ubiquitous A-line bulb, to candelabras.

But, and it’s a big but, CFLs won’t give light without mercury.

The average CFL on the shelf at your local hardware store has about

4 mg of mercury in it. Mercury vapor is harmful to humans,and there

is enough mercury accumulated in some of the fish we eat

to make this Californian think twice about ordering salmon for dinner.

Thankfully, there are ways to clean up a broken CFL thatdon’t involve

an overly frightened and/or greedy cleaning company

(www.epa.gov/CFLcleanup), and recycling centers are available, if not

yet ubiquitous (that word again!) (www.lamprecycle.org).

Even if the worst happens and you break a CFL bulb, the EPA estimates

that at most only 6.8% of the 4 mg of mercury will be released, or about

0.27 mg, since most of it is in the glass, electrodes, and in the phosphor

coating on the inside of the glass. Incinerating a bulb willpotentially

release more mercury vapor, if there are no pollution controls on the incinerator.

But even if the CFL released all of it’s mercury–according to Richard Benware,

a graduate student at Cornell who researched CFLs last summer for EPA’s

Energy Star program–it would still be a better choice than an incandescent,

because over its lifetime, the 15W CFL will have preventedthe release of 5.67 mg

of mercury from an average power plant.

Of course, recycling is best, and that is still a problem. Alan Meier,

Home Energy’s senior executive editor, admits to turning

part of his garage into a “temporary hazardous waste holding facility” to

hold his family’s used CFLs, since the nearest CFL recycling center is

13 miles away from his home in Berkeley, through “one of the worst traffic

jams in the United States.” There is help in finding those recycling centers,

near and far (www.earth911.org).

But we need to put the same effort used in making CFLs ubiquitous into making

disposing of them in a clean safe manner just as ubiquitously easy.

You know what I mean.

I would think that by now most of us know that the ways that we currently produce most of our energy cannot continue into the long term. Supplies of fossil fuels like oil and coal are finite…and polluting. Of course, a lot of that pollution comes from the burning of those fossil fuels, which effects our air quality – electricity production is the leading cause of industrial air pollution in the US. But did you know that it can also affect the quality of our water? Pollution resulting from driving eventually settles to the ground and is washed into our rivers and oceans as urban runoff. Due to this, reducing energy use is essential for both improved air and water quality.

Another concept that was relatively new to me was that of “vampire power”. If it sounds insidious, that’s because it is. I’d heard that you should unplug your charging devices (for your cell phone, for example) as they draw energy whether anything is charging or not. But what I didn’t know is that some electronic devices actually use MOST of their power while inactive. VCRs and DVD player draw 93% of their power while inactive! A simple cure: power strips (You thought I was going to say to unplug it, didn’t you?) By plugging all non-essential items into one strip, you can disable the power at the source without having to unplug each one individually. Much easier!

Power strips will certainly help, but there are three key ways to really reduce your energy usage:

1. Install compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Yes, you’ve heard this one before and you’re going to keep hearing it because lighting accounts for about 12 percent of home electricity use. Using CFLs will cut that by 75%, and save you money. Plus, once you’ve made the switch, you’re done! You can even determine your payback period at the Johnny Greenseed calculator.

2. Purchase green power or green power credits. Though you’ll likely pay a small premium for green power, these fees often go towards the development of additional renewable energy sources. Some energy providers, like Los Angeles’ LADWP, also give users free energy efficient products and services that help to offset additional costs. Purchasing credits, on the other hand, will help to “green up” the entire energy supply by adding renewable energy to the grid.

3. Pay attention to the heating and cooling of your home. This seems like a no-brainer, but incremental improvements can have a big effect. In the winter, each degree that the furnace is set above 68 degrees uses 3-5% more energy. Putting on a sweater is much cheaper.

So take a look at your home – where can you have the biggest impact on your energy usage? Simple changes can add up to big results.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that mercury exposure is a common misconception when it comes to CFLs. Fortunately, these myths are easily debunked.

Myth: There is a large amount of mercury in CFL bulbs.

Fact: Yes, there is mercury in CFLs. Generally, this amount is about 4 milligrams of mercury per bulb. To put this in perspective, a mercury thermometer has 500 milligrams of mercury in it, and older thermostats can contain as much as 3000 milligrams.

Interestingly enough, the use of CFLs can actually prevent mercury from entering our air. Burning fossil fuels produces more mercury in the air we breathe than any other source. Since CFLs use less energy, hence, fossil fuels, less mercury is put in the air. The EPA calculates that a power plant will emit 10 milligrams of mercury to produce the electricity needed to power an incandescent bulb over the course of its lifetime, but only 2.4 milligrams of mercury to power a CFL for the same amount of time.

Myth: There are no proper disposal guidelines for CFLs that have burned out.

Fact: CFLs are not technically considered hazardous waste by the government, but it is recommended that you use proper precautions when disposing of burnouts or breaks. Earth911.org can give you specific directions for disposal in your area. In general, you should dispose of CFLs like you would batteries, paint, or oil.

Myth: If a CFL breaks in your home, it will cost thousands of dollars to properly clean up the mercury released.

Fact: This is a myth that actually has an interesting story behind it. It apparently started when Steve Milloy published a story on Fox News claiming that a woman named Brandy Bridges broke a CFL in her child's bedroom and was concerned about spilled mercury contaminating the carpet. When she called Home Depot, her local Poison Control, and finally the Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Maine, she claims they recommended a $2,000 carpet cleaning. Milloy used one line out of the original story about Bridges, published in Maine's Ellsworth American, and neglects to mention that the story goes on to say that there is a simple, inexpensive, and safe method for cleaning up a spill such as this, and the DEP has now said that it "isn't necessary to hire professionals at all" for a CFL break. Read a more thorough debunking here (via Treehugger).

In short, don't believe the hype. You can breathe easy when it comes to using CFLs in your home.

By making the switch, Australia could cut global warming pollution by 4 million tons in the next 5 years and cut household electric bills by up to 66 percent with the new legislation. Bulbs that do not meet energy efficiency requirements would be gradually banned from sale. Exemptions would be made for special circumstances like medical lighting.

CFLs use about 20 percent of the power as traditional bulbs to make the same amount of light. With traditional bulbs, most of the energy is lost in the form of heat.

Clean energy supporters applauded the energy efficiency plan as a good first step to cutting global warming pollution, but pointed out that the vast majority of Australia’s emissions comes from industrial sources like coal-fired power plants. To make real cuts in pollution, they argue that Australia must follow up the light bulb legislation with more cuts to global warming pollution from power plants and encourage renewable energy.

Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard is a bit of a newbie when it comes to energy policy: he only recently agreed that humans are causing global warming. But the light bulb legislation is still more than the U.S. government has done, and they’ve acknowledged for years that humans are contributing to global warming.

To get CFLs for your own home, check out your local hardware store or your utility may even sell them. I’ve personally found a good selection of styles at Home Depot. For more info on CFLs, check out Green Options’ Tip o’ the Day and the Green Life Guide.

International Business Times
Groovy Green

UPDATE: There appears to be some discrepency inside the Bush Administration as to whether humans are causing global warming. Although reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency link human activity to higher temperatures, Dick Cheney said in a recent interview that it’s still unclear whether humans or “natural cycles” are to blame. Check out the full ABC news story here.