According to a survey commissioned by the Johns Manville company (a leading manufacturer of an extensive line of energy-efficient building products, such as insulation materials) most Americans think that the transportation sector (cars, trucks, buses, etc) is the number one user of energy in the country.
Americans are incorrect in their thinking.
The family car is not the number one user of energy, it’s the family home. (Since most homes are energized by fossil fuels, American homes are also responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions.)
The reality check comes from the May, 2007 report from the McKinsey Global Institute titled “Curbing Global Energy Demand Growth: The Energy Productivity Opportunity“ which showed that the US residential sector ranks as the single largest energy consumer in the world, and homes worldwide account for 25 percent of total energy use, ENN.com reported.
Why are US homes the number one energy consumers? According to the Harvard University School of Public Health, 46 million, or 65 percent of US homes, are currently under-insulated. The US Department of Energy estimates that 40 percent of all air leaks in the average home are in the attic. (Johns Manville of course, and correctly so, would like to help in that regard by encouraging people to stuff more insulation up there.)
Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy had this to say about homes, “Many homeowners don’t realize that a typical house releases almost twice as much carbon dioxide annually as a typical car. But when you consider the energy needed for heating, cooling, lighting and appliances, it becomes apparent that today’s homes can be real energy users.“
Kateri is absolutely correct, of course. There’s a whole cornucopia of techologies readily available to cut energy consumption and thus greenhouse gas emissions from homes. Further, the building and building systems industries continue to add new ideas, new concepts, new products to the already bursting horn of plenty.
For example Johnson Controls recently completed the design and installation of a unique heat pump-based HVAC system and controls for the new headquarters (a refurbished bank branch) of Integrated Design Associates (IDeAs), the IDeAs Z2 Design Facility in San Jose, California. The efficient heat-pump system circulates either warm or cool water through the concrete floor slab to create radiant heating or cooling, depending on the season. Note the key phrase “warm or cool water through the concrete floor slab to create radiant heating or cooling.“ Typlically heat pumps are known as moving warm or cool air through ductwork in a building to heat or air condition it. Radiant heating is considered the most comfortable and most efficient way to heat a building, home or commercial.
There are also solar panels on the roof to run all systems and equipment in the building. Skylights and high-efficiency windows working in conjunction with energy-efficient lighting that include sensors that will switch off most of the facility’s lighting to decrease energy consumption.
The building is one of the first net-zero energy, zero carbon emission commercial office buildings in the US.
In Europe, where energy efficiency has been the mantra for decades, there’s already a standard for ultra-low energy homes--the passivhaus building standard developed in Germany.
There are over 5000 homes built in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that do not need central heating despite a cool temperate climate, according to CEPHEUS,
To meet the passivhaus standard, triple-glazed windows need to be optimized for south-facing and contribute close to 40 percent of space heating demand. The building envelope, as well as window frames, must be superinsulated and air tight.
Aside from solar thermal heating from windows the buildings must use heat recovery systems and latent heat recovery from hot exhaust air as well as subsoil heat exchangers for fresh air preheating. To keep air from getting stale inside there’s directed air flow throughout the homes with exhaust air extracted from damp rooms.
Heat for domestic water comes from renewable sources, perhaps stylish and readily available pellet water heaters. And, high efficiency, low energy consumption,electric appliances complete the package by slashing power consumption by 50 percent.

Hybrid Charger has a lithium ion battery that will store the energy you capture from the sun as you cross the campus quad.

Not all renewable energy systems need be an eyesore London-based Better Energy Systems, which makes portable solar chargers, has produced a 5-watt photovoltaic stick that should be able charge many of your hand-held devices. (It will not charge your laptop, however.)
The Hybrid 1000 is an attractive device less than 8 inches long and 4 inches wide. Better Energy also sells the lovely, fanlike Solio Classic Universal Hybrid Charger, Boston.com reported.
The Hybrid, available Oct. 25, has a lithium ion battery that will store the energy you capture from the sun as you cross the campus quad. And you’ll look good doing it. The Hybrid is available in orange or gray and has a carabineer clip, so you can hang the device from your backpack, bike messenger bag.
Hardcore urban cyclists and backpackers take note: The Hybrid weighs a little more than one pound, something to consider when every ounce counts.
Better Energy also says the Hybrid will be carbon neutral, because it will offset the carbon dioxide used to make the Hybrid with donations to renewable energy projects in Africa. We’ll see.
The Hybrid (about $80 at solio.com) comes with an adapter cable and tips to make the device compatible with your iPhone or iPod, or your cell phone. The Hybrid is also compatible with MP3 players. You can also plug the Hybrid into your PC’s USB port to charge the charger’s battery. The Hybrid draws energy from your PC, rather than the other way around. This USB dongle can connect to an ordinary telephone.
Meanwhile, a team of seven engineering students at an all women poly-technique college in Puduchery, India, has designed a mobile phone charger that generates electricity from wind energy.
This wind-powered mobile charger replicates the wind turbine principle and consists of a fan, plastic box, battery back up, cordless phone battery motor and charging circuits.
“The turbine consists of a DC generator with a fan that will generate current in your generator. That generator current is stored in battery, internal battery in our project. That battery will again charge our mobile phone battery,“ said J. Gandhi Mohan, lecturer at the Electronics and Communication Department of the college.
The charger is claimed to prove a major help for train and bus commuters who take up long journeys but fail to locate any socket for recharging their cellular phone batteries.
“During traveling, we can use this (charger). There is no external DC supply to charge a mobile phone. During the train, bus or other journeys, we can use wind to charge this mobile phone,“ said Ashta Lakshmi, a student and one of the designers of wind powered mobile charger.
This model has bagged the first prize at a competition organized by the state ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
India produces 845 megawatt (mw) of wind energy annually, a miniscule portion of its total power generation of 100,000 megawatts, which is nearly 12 percent less than total demand.

In 20 years since 1981, there had been an annual loss of about $5 billion for the major cereal crops in the world.

Global warming is taking a heavy toll on cereal crops. A new study on the impact of global warming on global food production by researchers of a US university says that in 20 years since 1981, there had been an annual loss of about $5 billion for the major cereal crops in the world.
The report has caused ripples among researchers and scientists across the globe. The Indian Council for Agricultural Research is already acting on this by undertaking long-term climate change impact studies, Rediff.com reported.
The Chennai-based MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) is implementing a project on vulnerability assessment and enhancing adaptive capacity to climate change in semi-arid India.
According to the first study on the impact of climate change on global food production from 1981 to 2002, fields of wheat, corn and barley throughout the world have produced a combined 40 million ton less a year because of the increase in temperatures caused by human activities.
Annual global temperatures increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit between 1980 and 2002, with even larger changes observed in several regions.
David Lobell, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, the lead author of the study on climate change impact, said, “There is clearly a negative response of global yields to increased temperatures“.
“Though the impacts are relatively small compared to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate that the negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at the global scale are already occurring.“
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the US department of energy’s national nuclear security administration.
“Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future, but this study shows that warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on the global food supply,“ said Christopher Field, co-author of the study and director of Carnegie Institution’s department of global ecology. The importance of this study, the authors say, was that it demonstrated a clear and simple relationship at the global scale, with yields dropping by approximately 3 percent to 5 percent for a one-degree Fahrenheit increase.
“A key to moving forward is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world,“ Lobell said.
The stagnation in Indian cereal production is not entirely attributed to climate change. However, deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in Chennai recently that a one degree rise in temperature in northern India would reduce wheat production by 10 percent.

Algae is set to eclipse all other biofuel feedstocks as the cheapest, easiest, and most environmentally friendly way to produce liquid fuel.

Forget corn, sugarcane, and even switchgrass. Some experts believe that algae is set to eclipse all other biofuel feedstocks as the cheapest, easiest, and most environmentally friendly way to produce liquid fuel, reports Kiplinger’s Biofuels Market Alert. “It is easy to get excited about algae,“ says Worldwatch Institute biofuels expert Raya Widenoja. “It looks like such a promising fuel source, especially if it’s combined with advances in biodiesel processing.“
The inputs for algae are simple: the single-celled organisms only need sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to grow. They can quadruple in biomass in just one day, and they help remove carbon from the air and nitrogen from wastewater, another environmental benefit. Some types of algae comprise more than 50 percent oil, and an average acre of algae grown today for pharmaceutical industries can produce 5,000 gallons (19,000 liters) of biodiesel each year. By comparison, an average acre of corn produces 420 gallons (1,600 liters) of ethanol per year, and an acre of soybeans yields just 70 gallons (265 liters) of biodiesel per year, ENN.com said.
“Your bang for your buck is just bigger because you can really do this on a much smaller amount of land and yet yield much, much higher biomass,“ said Michael S. Atkins, CEO of San Francisco area-based Ocean Technology & Environmental Consulting (OTEC). Douglas Henston, CEO of Solix Biofuels, a company that grows algae for biofuels, has estimated that replacing all current US diesel fuel use with algae biodiesel would require using only about one half of 1 percent of the farmland in production today. Algae can also grow on marginal lands, such as in desert areas where the groundwater is saline.
But creating an optimal environment for algae can be difficult--and costly. Open ponds are often host to a wide range of other species, including invasives, and balancing temperature needs, light levels, fluid circulation, and other factors can raise the price tag quickly. According to a recent Worldwatch report on biofuels, in the near term, algae production for fuel is only likely to be economical in cases where the organisms are grown near power plants, where they can also help soak up the pollution. A Massachusetts company, GreenFuel Technologies, is building such systems in Arizona, Louisiana, and Germany, and hopes to capture as much as 80 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted from the plants during daylight hours.
On its Web site, Solix Biofuels notes that rising gas prices are making algae-based biofuel more attractive. With it and other companies now investing in the technology, experts estimate that large-scale commercial production of algae fuel could be just five years away, Kiplinger’s reports.

Greenpeace campaigners have staged a protest at a power plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired station for 20 years.
More than 50 activists said they wanted Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reject the proposal for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Peninsula, in Kent.
They also aim to take the plant off the National Grid.
E.ON, UK’s largest integrated power and gas company, said protesters had been at the gates with some inside the facility, but insisted it was still operational, BBC said.
Kent Police said it sent negotiators to the scene after being called at about 0600 BST on Oct. 8, and marine and climbing units were also on standby.
A statement said: “It is thought that 23 Greenpeace protesters are currently on power station property and several of them have chained themselves to generators.
“Police have closed surrounding roads and have already moved on 30 people from the outskirts of the site.“
E.ON UK announced in October 2006 that it planned to build two new coal units at Kingsnorth, saying they would be cleaner and more efficient than the current ones with “state-of-the-art technology“ reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Greenpeace said more than 13,000 objections had been sent to Medway Council, but “in the next couple of weeks the decision will go to Gordon Brown“.
The climate campaigners said their message to the prime minister was: “Don’t bottle it on climate change.“
They scaled fences at the site just after 0500 BST on Oct. 8.
One protester, 22-year-old Joss Garman from north London, said he and others had climbed up coal conveyors, pressed the emergency stop buttons and chained themselves to the belts.
“There is another team who are scaling the 250m-high (820ft) smoke stack, and they’ve got enough supplies to last for a few days,“ he said.
Garman claimed the new coal units planned for Kingsnorth would do little to reduce carbon emissions.
“This power station [currently] wastes over two-thirds of the energy that it produces... although it will be slightly more efficient, this new plant will still lose over half the energy it will create.“
He added that protesters hoped to have taken the power station off the National Grid, but claimed there would be no blackouts as a result.
E.ON UK spokesman Jonathan Smith said: “They’re in a number of places inside the power station, but they aren’t actually causing it to stop running just yet.
Smith also said the proposals were for a “cleaner coal development“.
“The new units will be carbon capture-ready, which means they would have the pipework on them to actually capture the carbon dioxide and to store it underground once that technology is proven.“
The company estimates the two new units will reduce carbon emissions by about two million tons a year.