NEWSENERGY EFFICIENCY

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI -- pronounced Reggie) is something I care a lot about. It was the first cap-and-trade initiative in the United States and has been highly successful. Of course, anything that's successful at encouraging clean energy and energy efficiency, and thus slowing catastrophic climate change, is heftily attacked by the Tea Party and it's number one funder, Koch Industries. And RGGI is no exception.

If you're not familiar with the Koch brothers, they are two of the richest people in the world (tied for 5th-richest in the United States) and have made most of their money off of oil and gas. They are strongly opposed to government regulations on polluters (or anything) and fund the some of the largest Tea Party and far-right-wing groups in the nation. The idea that the Tea Party is a grassroots movement is a joke -- it is a Koch Industries movement geared at making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Greenpeace exposed the Koch brothers and their anti-environmental efforts last year and, since that time, I think nearly every major media outlet has picked up on the story. But the Koch Brothers and their front groups (most notably, Americans for Prosperity) haven't slowed in their efforts to undermine clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action.

It's been a few months since I first covered RGGI here on Change. If you don't remember or didn't read that post, RGGI (pronounced Reggie) is a regional cap and trade program in the Northeast that includes 10 states and has generated over $700 million in revenue since it was launched approximately 2 years ago. Over 50 percent of that revenue has gone into energy efficiency programs that help to cut people's Editenergy bills and 11 percent has gone into renewable energy investments. Another 14 percent has helped offset electricity bills for low-income families. Some of it has even been inappropriately used to help balance suffering state budgets.

The threat that I wrote about previously was that Tea Partiers who had gained a bit of control in New York and New Jersey were looking to withdraw their states from the regional program (counterproductive to say the least).

Since that time, it has actually been New Hampshire that has made the biggest move in that direction. The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to exit RGGI about one month ago. The State Senate, which is largely Republican, will probably vote the same way soon. Unfortunately, the Democratic Governor won't even be able to veto this decision due to the large percentage of Representatives who voted to exit.

It’s no secret that advertisers love to sell products with scantily clad women. But does an exploitative ploy used to peddle beer and lingerie belong in an environmental campaign?

That’s the question that’s been debated since the debut of the Renewable Girls calendar, a collection of 12 risqué photos pairing girls in barely-there clothing with solar powered gadgets. The professed aim of the calendar is to “shift the public perception of renewable energy away from left leaning or crunch,” and to, presumably, make it more fun and accessible.

On a surface level, this makes sense. Sex sells, and if there’s anything that needs to be sold to a stubbornly-apprehensive public, it’s renewable energy, the politically-squandered beacon of hope for our environmental and economic future.

There's no doubt the world is facing a crunch when it comes to water availability—a shortage that will be compounded in coming decades by climate change and increasing population. A report released this summer warned that one-third of U.S. counties will be facing increasing water shortage by 2050—and that's all over the U.S., not just in the desert southwest.

Just last week Treehugger reported that more money is projected to go to desalination projects in coming years—specifically, $3.3 billion more per year by 2016, according to Global Water Intelligence. This is a nearly 200 percent increase in spending. Looking for solutions to our water problems is key, but from what I've seen of desal technology so far, I'm extremely wary that this is the best way to direct our resources.

There are big risks associated with desal as a drinking water solution, the least of which is the expense. At this point, we have to be smart about our solutions and think about the bigger picture—trying to solve a water problem with an energy-intensive technology (especially if this is fossil fuel-driven energy consumption) in the age of global warming is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The briney waste that's leftover is a huge environmental negative, and in some facilities without proper safeguards for withdrawing ocean water, marine life can be lost.

At this point, we’ll take what we can get. This is the resigned tune being sung by many environmentalists and clean energy advocates as Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Neb.) unveiled a proposal to implement a national renewable electricity standard on Tuesday. And, amazingly enough, it looks like the votes are actually there.

A renewable electricity standard, or RES, requires that a certain percentage of America’s energy come from renewable energy sources. If you’re thinking to yourself “well what percentage?” then you’ve figured out the problem.

A strong renewable standard promotes the expansion of clean energy technologies such as wind, solar and geothermal. A weak standard doesn’t really do much that wouldn't happen anyway. Last year, Sen. Bingaman proposed a 20 percent RES that was knocked down to 15 percent to win support from some Republicans. The new proposal again seeks that 15 percent target by 2021.

With the recent failures of a climate bill, numerous incarnations of an energy bill and an oil spill response bill, it is hard to criticize a well-meaning senator who is clearly on the right path. Unfortunately, he’s kind of jumping in place instead of moving forward.

By 2017, I want to be tooling around town in a flying car. But if that doesn’t turn out to be technologically feasible by then (which of course it won’t, just like moving sidewalks and jetpacks and meals-in-a-pill), I’ll settle for a car that is lighter on the earth even if it is still bound to the road.

Turns out, those cars already exist. A guy named Craig Henderson, for instance, just completed a drive from Canada to Mexico on one tank of gas. That’s a mere 12.4 gallons of petrol to complete the nearly 1500-mile journey. Henderson’s car, called the Avion, averaged 119.1 miles-per-gallon (mpg) on the trip. That’s slightly better than the 103.7 mpg Henderson got the first time he completed the cross-country trip (and way better than the 35.5 mpg federal law requires automakers to average by 2016).

The real kicker, though? That first trip was in 1986. In case you are slow with the math, that’s 24 years ago that Henderson and his partner, a chap named Bill Green, built a car that could get over 100 miles per gallon of gas — yet more proof, as if we needed it, that the technology is there, but the push to make these cars is not. Back then, fuel efficiency wasn’t on people’s minds the way it is today, so the Avion never made it to market. Which is a shame, because in the intervening years we got the Hummer and any number of gas-guzzling SUVs instead.

Henderson and Green haven’t invented the only car that gets triple-digit gas mileage. The Progressive Automotive X Prize and its $10 million dollar jackpot was recently awarded to three automobiles that also get more than 100 miles to the gallon. The so-called “mainstream” winner — meaning it had four wheels and four seats — was the Edison2 Very Light Car. The Edison2 gets 102.5 mpg by using lightweight materials — the car only weighs 830 pounds! — and employing some seriously aerodynamic design features.

Of course, all-electric vehicles or even hybrids are popularly considered far greener than a car with an internal combustion engine, which the Edison2 uses (burning E85 ethanol). And indeed, the other two winners, created by Li-Ion Motors and Peraves X-Tracer Team Switzerland, were electric vehicles. Those two got a whopping 187 mpg and 187.6 mpg, respectively. But they also weighed 2,176 and 1,436 pounds. The Edison2 manages to be so much lighter because it uses an internal combustion engine; hybrid or electric vehicles, in contrast, require some seriously heavy batteries. So while we do currently have options for super-high mileage cars (both Li-Ion Motors and Peraves X-Tracer Team Switzerland say they’re ready to take your order), there is plenty of innovation left to be done, it would seem.

In other words: It's time to break the 200 mpg barrier (if not the bonds of gravity, of course; I ain't giving up on the flying car that easy).

Like the Avion, however, these cars have yet to prove their commercial viability. But the new fuel economy standards for 2017 to 2025 being considered by the Obama Administration, which Jess Leber reported on here, could certainly help drive interest in these high-mileage vehicles. Save Our Environment has a nifty little online petition so you can submit comments in support of the administration setting these standards as high as possible.

Signing may not bring us any closer to a flying car, but you might soon get to feel better about flying down the highway.

Image credit: Bob Jagendorf

Follow Change.org's Environment page on Facebook and Twitter.

When it comes to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, there's no shortage of whiz-bang technologies to talk about. Often lost in the buzz is an option that's as important as it is boring: energy efficiency. After all, what’s the fun of weatherproofing when there are hydrogen fuel cells to drool over?

That’s too bad, because hydrogen as an energy source is largely hype and will likely remain so for decades, while energy efficiency is the great untapped resource we can get at today. In California over the last few decades, population has doubled and the economy has exploded (even with the current deep recession). During that same time, the state's energy use has remained constant—thanks to energy efficiency (largely government-spurred or mandated, it so happens). In the Pacific Northwest, the interstate agency that directs regional resource issues indicates Washington, Oregon and Idaho can meet 58 percent of new electricity demand through 2015 by improving efficiency alone.

More recently, the buzz around energy efficiency has been growing. Home weatherization is one of the “shovel-ready” projects that received a lot of stimulus money—$327 million in Texas alone [subscription only]. Over at the Environmental Defense Fund, they’re helping companies add millions to their bottom lines through energy efficiency (and conservation) with no corresponding drop in productivity. And RiskMetrics, a New York-based firm that does risk management and financial research, recently issued a report showing how the high-tech industries can find their next big wave of growth in energy efficiency products and services.

But the Big Kahuna of E.E. is automobiles. In the U.S., the transport sector accounts for 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 47 percent of the growth over the last two decades. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which are set by Washington, didn’t change for cars during the entire administrations of both Clinton and Bush—a period during which the auto industry revved up production of gas-guzzling SUVs.

Last week, a Montreal suburb mayor proposed a new rule: All new roofs in his jurisdiction should be painted white.

No, he's not indulging some crazy design fetish. Instead, he wants his jurisdiction to take a chill pill. Energy experts say white roofs rather than your usual dark ones can cut air conditioning bills by about 10 percent—saving money and reducing energy consumption and fossil fuel emissions to boot.

Mayor Croteau is far from the only local leader embracing a new "cool roofs" trend. He is joined by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who collaborated this summer to coat 1 million square feet of rooftops in reflective paint. And one cool roof advocate—Hashem Akbari of Montreal's Concordia University—is on a mission to get many more big city mayors around the world to commit to at the very least making their municipal roofs join the cool crowd. He calls his program "A Hundred Cool Cities," and, according to NPR, Philadelphia is also on the verge of accepting his challenge. 

Hippies, rejoice: The world's first cannabis electric car may soon hit the roads of Canada. And guess what? The amusing auto is a truly inspiring feat of engineering.

Developed by Alberta-based Motive Industries, the car prototype—known as the Kestrel—is made from a biocomposite partly derived from local hemp. Because the material is uber-light, it reduces the car's electricity consumption. And it's cheaper, more renewable and less health-hazardous than standard fiberglass to boot. (The only possible hitch so far is the speed of the vehicle. It is projected to max out just under 60 miles an hour at maximum.)

As the car's designer told Fox News (which wrote a surprisingly positive story about it), "Electric Cars need to be efficient, therefore the Kestrel design had to be simple and light weight, while still being unique and eye catching."

Mortgages. They're not exactly the sexiest topic in the world. In fact, before the Great Recession slapped us all in the face with the ugly truth about our crooked financial system, I pretty much tuned out when an acquaintance started going on about their fixed rate, this or that.

But the SAVE Act—a bill that would require mortgage lenders to consider energy costs before granting a borrower a federally-insured mortgage—has gotten my attention. Backed by Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, the SAVE Act would apply to all government-sponsored mortgage enterprises. That includes our pals Fannie and Freddie, as well as the Federal Housing Administration. According to The Economist, those three amigos currently guarantee more than 90 percent of all new loans.

Why should lenders care about energy efficiency? Because borrowers who spend less on utility bills have more cash to drop on their mortgage payments. Jonathan Hiskes at Grist breaks it down: the average energy costs over a 30-year loan amount to $70,000. Lay that on the table next to $170,000, the median home price in the U.S., and you start to see how significant a consideration energy costs should be.