The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced support for energy-saving commercial building projects as part of an ongoing effort by DOE to improve the energy efficiency of buildings in the United States. With money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, DOE's national laboratories will select and fund technical experts to provide technical guidance to commercial building owners and operators. The goal of this Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative is to increase the energy efficiency of selected new and existing buildings. DOE's CB … Continue reading

Efficiency Vermont, Vermont's statewide provider of energy efficiency services, has announced a new program promoting the replacement of T12 and HID High-Bay lighting with more efficient technology.  The newLIGHT program is being made available from April 1st to December 31st, 2010, and is offering businesses significantly enhanced rebates for upgrading their old T12 fluorescent and HID high-bay lighting systems to more efficient equipment.  This comes as the Department of Energy has passed new regulations that will ban the manufacture of T12 fluorescent lamps for sal … Continue reading

If you are in or around Washington DC on March 10th, 2010, you may want to register to attend the Great Energy Efficiency Day event being held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building.  The event is organized by the Alliance to Save Energy and promises an in-depth discussion on funding, technology and policy measures required to realize energy efficiency's full potential. Thie Great Energy Efficiency Day, which has been going on since 2004, has a very impressive roster of confirmed speakers that will focus on the following topics: Federal, State and Local Stimulus Do … Continue reading

There has been a flurry of media attention being given to Bloom Energy as they get ready to come out of stealth mode with their Bloom Box fuel cell technology.  Bloom Energy has been developing their fuel cell for almost a decade and has received approximately $400M in capital investment from some of Silicon Valley's biggest names. K.R. Sridhar, the company's rocket scientist founder, believes that his fuel cells will be able to power your home in five years at a price tag of around $3,000.  In order to get there, they're going to have to drive the cost of … Continue reading

At this years TED talks, Bill Gates unveiled his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050. You can watch his whole talk below or visit the TED site to view other interesting talks. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. The conf … Continue reading

On February 12th, the Obama Administration announced a multi-agency initiative to spur regional economic growth while making buildings more energy efficient.  Seven federal agencies, including the Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Labor and the Small Business Administration, issued a combined Funding Opportunity Announcement of nearly $130 million over five years to create a regional research center that will develop new building efficiency technologies and work with local partners to implement the technologies in area buildings. Since buildings account for nearly 40 percent … Continue reading