What do dieting and energy policy have in common? The SnackWell effect. The name comes from those tasty little cookies that are advertised as being lower in fat and sugar. And they are–which often leads dieters to eat more of them than regular cookies and then wonder why they’re not losing weight.

It turns out there’s a SnackWell effect for energy use too–and it may make it tougher for us to cut back on carbon. When environmentally conscious consumers buy an energy-efficient dishwasher, for example, they may feel less guilty about running the machine more often and as a result may not end up saving much on their utility bills. Owners of new tankless hot water heaters consume more hot water because they can and don’t realize they’re offsetting any monetary benefit of the system’s higher efficiency. Likewise, studies indicate that people who install more-energy-efficient lights lose 5% to 12% of the expected savings by leaving them on longer.

Much like dieters eating too many SnackWell’s, we can hamstring our attempts to save energy and money. So resist the urge to raise your thermostat after you buy a more efficient furnace; lower the temperature by a degree and shave another 1% off your heating bill.

But even if we do what Jimmy Carter did and wear a stylin’ ’70s sweater all winter, we may end up spending those energy savings somewhere else–like on a plane ride to Bermuda. Although studies are scant, a 2007 report by the UK Energy Research Centre estimated that globally, this rebound effect could reduce the savings from energy efficiency by 10% or more.

That doesn’t mean energy-efficiency measures are useless–or that we should never go on vacation. But it does mean that cutting back on energy consumption, like dieting, is not an excuse to gorge ourselves on less guilty pleasures.

By: Bill McKibben

Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal. It was a mixed and judicious appraisal. “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.” And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”

I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks, and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet. Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil” and last week, the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning “a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome” on a nearly party-line vote.

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GBI Research has published its “North America Renewable Energy Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2015” report giving an in-depth analysis of the North America renewable energy market and providing forecasts up to 2015. Offshore wind and photovoltaic solar are expected to perform well, although infrastructure bottlenecks and a skills shortage could hamper growth.

The report analyses the growth and evolution of the North America wind, solar and biopower markets up to 2008 and gives historical and forecast statistics for 2001-2015. This research looks at the market scenarios for these technologies and regulatory policies that govern them. Detailed information on key current and upcoming wind farms, photovoltaic (PV) solar parks and biopower production facilities give a roadmap to this market’s development. This coupled with elaborate company profiles of key market participants give a comprehensive understanding of the market’s competitive scenario.

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This week’s drop in natural gas prices below the $5 US per thousand cubic foot mark has spurred a lot of chatter of whether this price level is the new normal for North America.

The answer, according to EnCana chief executive Randy Eresman, is that prices are likely to sit in the $6 range and that expecting any big price jumps is unrealistic.

Eresman was participating in a panel discussion at the annual natural gas conference hosted by the Canadian Energy Research Institute on Tuesday.

The recent sell-off in natural gas is being explained as a reaction to recent weather forecasts showing a warming trend south of the border, which means the amount in storage will exit the winter heating season ahead of the same time last year. As of last week, the storage numbers of 2.02 trillion cubic feet were 1.3 per cent greater than at this time last year and 2.7 per cent higher than the five-year average.

The natural gas business in North America is facing an embarrassment of riches as a result of technology that has unlocked shale gas deposits. And while it presents some short-term challenges — especially for Canadian producers that are at an immediate disadvantage because of their distance to major markets, Eresman also believes there are opportunities to be had.

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By: Ashley Braun

The internet loves mysterious product unveilings, especially those promising to revolutionize the world and how we live in it. (Think Apple’s iPhone.) But few (except for maybe the iPhone) actually live up to the hype. (Or so I hear. Anyone wanna get me an iPhone?)

CEO K.R. Sridhar is starting to peel back the layers of secrecy from his magic boxes like a Bloomin’ onion.

Now, after nearly a decade of secrecy, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar is coming out of the shadows to tell the world how his “Bloom Box” will do all of this and more as a “zero-emissions” mini-power plant. Bloom Energy debuted its heady energy dreams in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, with the company’s official launch to come on Wednesday at early customer eBay’s California headquarters. Google, Wal-Mart, and FedEx have also been quietly testing these heavily-subsidized magic boxes on their premises, with encouraging energy and cost savings thus far.

But, zero emissions? A backyard power plant-in-a-box? Sounds fancy, but what is a Bloom Box and is it really the next “energy breakthrough”?

The Bloom Box is a fuel cell, not an energy source.

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