Category — ENERGY

Utilities won't spend the money to fix the system

As the clean up continues across North Eastern America, 1.7m were still without power Tuesday night according to Associated Press.The realization is dawning that if you live outside a major conurbation with its underground power grid, you can no longer depend on your electricity supply. That means each household ensuring it has its own backup, including batteries and a means of surviving for several days without the Utility.

Consolidated Edison “has gotten so unbelievably bad,” David Kirschstein, an 83-year-old retired patent lawyer,  told the New York Times. Kirschstein has been living in the same house in Chappaqua, N.Y., for 44 years.
“The winters used to be much worse, but even with the big snows, we had nothing like the outages over the past four or five years,” he continued. People who make preparations for the next big outage can end up deciding they no longer need the Utility company at all. (more…)

Up in smoke

They look great but that homey glow real fires produce sends heat right up the chimney as the fire sucks warm air from the rest of the house.

“Ninety-five percent of the heat is lost,” said Prof Kevin Eigel, who studies energy use in homes. “The rest of the house gets cold even while it’s warm right around the fireplace.”

Fortunately, homeowners have more options than ever to get more use and heat from the fireplace.

Options range from a simple blower system that costs less than $1,000 to wood-burning inserts that can cost more than $5,000 but can heat an entire home. (more…)

Message from govt: tax fuel to subsidise energy corps

With average real incomes heading down and average fuel bills going up, the typical British household will be in “fuel poverty” by the  2015 if energy bills stay on their current path.

Fuel prices have almost doubled as a share of median income since 2004, and an official target to spend £200bn on new infrastructure by 2020, mainly on the so-called Smart Grid,  will intensify the price rises.

Next month, the average annual bill for a “dual fuel” (Gas and electric) customer will reach £1,293, or 6 per cent of median household income, compared with 3.3 per cent in 2004. (more…)

Laurence Kemball-Cook ponders his invention

Paving slabs that convert energy from people’s footsteps into electricity are being tested in London and may then be applied in some of the world’s off-grid slums in major cities.

The special slabs are set to help power Europe’s largest urban mall, at the 2012 London Olympics site. The recycled rubber “PaveGen” paving slabs harvest kinetic energy from the impact of people stepping on them and instantly deliver tiny bursts of electricity to nearby appliances. The slabs can also store energy for up to three days in an on-board battery, according to its creator, Laurence Kemball-Cook, a 25-year-old engineering graduate who developed the prototype during his final year of university in 2009. (more…)

Outside woodburners deliver cheaper heat

With cold weather approaching and household budgets tight, homeowners are looking for ways to lower their heating costs.

The often-heard advice to make sure windows are completely sealed, change furnace air filters and turn down the heat when you’re not home isn’t always enough.

To cuts costs, some are looking to new technology, while others are reverting to older methods, but with 21st century twists.

Wood-burners are now highly engineered to consume every last ounce of energy from their fuel, and outside burners can be fed with huge logs, cutting cost and effort.

New heat pump systems are now using solar panels to warm entire homes, with the unused energy routed to pay for additional utilities. (more…)

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.
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Going fridgless, to most people would be paramount to going topless, many people couldn’t imagine living their lives without having a 19+/- cubic foot energy eating, leftover storing, inefficient cold box sitting in their kitchen. Now days refrigerators do so much, in my old life, I worked for a big box electronics store, the one with the blue shirts and the little yellow price tag, they were starting to put computers in the door, not just electronics, but a real computer screen that could access the internet and help you with your shopping and let you watch TV on your fridge. (more…)

Hopkins (left) - Did he sell too cheap?

The  BBC’s top-rated TV show Dragons’ Den gave a cautious thumbs-up to Solar in the first show of its new series.  But the valuation they placed on the solar panel company in question was disappointing.
Chris Hopkins, owner of Ploughcroft Solar gave his sales speech to convince the panel as to the benefits ofsolar energy, and the financial rewards that can be reaped from the Government’s feed-in-tariff (Fit) scheme.Seeking £100,000 for a 10% equity share in his company, the entrepreneur received offers from all but one of the Dragons. But the eventual deal was so low as to be almost derisory. (See the pitch here) (more…)

Smart meters - a new spy in the home

Australian power companies have been caught trying to grab an extra $500 million to pay for its smart meter roll-out.
Smart meters are being promoted s around the world, as the energy industry tries to cement the present system into place via the massive investment required to build the smart grid.
In Britain, fear is growing that the big six energy suppliers (more…)