On July 30, 2009, the venerable New York Times reported that a new study by the consulting firm, McKinsey, had released a study saying that making our homes and businesses more energy efficient could reduce our projected energy use by 23 percent by 2020. Where in blazes have they been?

Sorry Sarah, but we may not have to destroy the Arctic Wild Life Reserve to replace fossil fuels from abroad, if you'll pardon the pun. No drill, no spill.

Biofuels, like ethanol made from corn, consume lots of energy and water and take a lot of land to produce. Cellulosic materials, like wood chips and grass are more efficient than corn and take no crops out of the food chain. A new start-up company based in Cambridge, MA, named Joule Biotechnologies, claims they can make 20,000 gallons of biofuels per year per acre. This is phenomenal since so far only algae-based biofuels come even close to this new technology, only producing from 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre per year. This new process is of the scale of production that can make biofuels a viable substitute for fossil fuels. It could mean that biofuels could replace all fossil fuels for transportation. How are these quantities achieved and what is the process?...

Kenneth Harney’s column in the Star’s business section reports that a new generation of energy-efficient mortgages are being offered by the FHA, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae. The FHA was directed to offer a minimum of 50,000 new energy-efficient mortgages. An energy-efficient house is defined as one in which energy consumption is reduced by 20 percent after renovations. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were directed to develop new mortgage products and more flexible underwriting guidelines to reward energy conscious borrowers and builders…

Statistics can lie, or at least tell partial truths. It is frequently reported that we consume 400 million gallons of gasoline every day, 13 million barrels of oil are imported every 24 hours, and with 4 percent of the world’s population we consume 25 percent of the world’s oil.

There is problem with these statistics:...

Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted renewable energy standards requiring electric service providers to increase the amount of renewable energy sources. In my home state of Arizona it is currently 15%. At this moment in time President Obama has proposed a new Federal law mandating electric energy providers to generate 12% of their electricity from renewables, such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, or geothermal sources by 2012, and 25% by 2025. Both houses of Congress are considering different versions of this proposal, but their goal is only a meager 3% to 6%. The fox is in the chicken coop...

I heard a journalist on NPR this morning lamenting the demise of newspapers, due in part to TV and the Internet. I like newspapers, and I like the immediacy of the Internet too. Both technologies are useful. Watching Charles Osgood's Sunday Morning TV show with the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee in hand is one of the best moments in most weeks. But the journalist was critical of bloggers and others who can really say anything and never reveal their bias...

In part one of this blog subject, relative to how I live the green life, I revealed that I drove a a gas guzzler and why. I have other transgressions that you may as well know about. No one's perfect, at least no one that I know. When I bought my retirement home in Tucson, Arizona, I asked the Realtor...

One of our biggest problems relative to the energy crisis is “energy literacy.”  Peak Oil News, a website that provides feeds to articles on the World Wide Web about energy and climate, reports that a study by a non-profit research group, Public Agenda, titled “The Energy Learning Curve,” presented some disappointing information. Most people are clueless. It’s January, 2009 survey of over 1000 American adults found the following...