QUINCY,MA—

A disagreement between the housing authority and the city’s building and fire departments is holding up a $2.5 million federally funded heating upgrade for Quincy public housing.

The housing authority plans to replace hundreds of old steam radiators with gas-powered direct vent wall furnaces, similar to ones found in hotel rooms.

The wall heating systems are made by Rinnai America Corp. in Georgia. The housing authority wants to install them in 400 apartments at the Snug Harbor development in Germantown and 36 apartments at the West Acres development in West Quincy.

Jay Duca, Quincy’s inspectional services director, said he questions whether the heating units will provide enough heat for apartments.

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By: Leo Hindery Jr.

This Thursday, March 4, I am addressing the Apollo Alliance on Clean Energy and Good Jobs on the subject of “How to Make the U.S. a Leader in the Clean Energy Economy,” a topic made urgent in the midst of the ongoing Great Recession by the promising reality that ‘the deployment of just wind and solar power has the potential to support globally 20 million new jobs by 2030 and trillions of dollars in revenue.’

I believe that the answers — four in number — are actually pretty simple:

First — and foremost — we need to be much more capable and efficient in getting stimulus and private monies out the door into ‘things green’ and into improved infrastructure.

Second, we need to immediately level the global trade playing field, especially with China, which is already our biggest competitor in the green economy.

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By: Bob Barr

Right now in Washington, our elected officials are ignoring an important solution to many of this country’s most pressing problems, and it’s one that has been staring Congress straight in the eye for almost a year. I’m talking about the NAT GAS Act.

Pull up the House and the Senate versions of the bill, and what do you see? A long list of cosponsors, particularly on the House side where 130 members have signed on. You’ve got everybody from Libertarians like Ron Paul to more progressive members as well as conservatives. Democrats and Republicans look at H.R. 1835 and say, “This makes perfect sense.” Its broad-based support spans geographic lines, commercial interests, and the political spectrum.

Look over at the Senate side. There are some pretty influential people on there including some very powerful people. Harry Reid’s on board. So are Orrin Hatch and Mark Udall. A New Jersey Democrat, Bob Menendez, sponsored the Senate version, yet there are more Republican cosponsors than there are Democrats. Think about that. Right now everyone is talking about how partisan Washington has become, yet here’s a bill that is the exception to the rule. The only problem is on the Senate side, just as in the House, there has hardly been any movement on NAT GAS. Why isn’t it going somewhere? Why hasn’t something happened on it? What can be done?

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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: Todd Woody

On the heels of San Francisco’s announcement last week that it plans to spend $150 million greening up homes, comes a new report that studies a slew of other innovative ways to finance energy efficiency improvements for all types of buildings.

It’s no big surprise that the key to ramping up the energy efficiency industry and fostering technological advances is no-money-down financing so building owners can avoid the capital costs of retrofits. And that’s exactly what the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) is working toward.

Energy efficiency “immediately saves money for end-users, improves the bottom line for companies, reduces local exposure to electricity grid outages and offsets the need for new power plants,” wrote the authors of the report from the CalCEF, a non-profit venture capital outfit based in San Francisco. “Yet, efficiency upgrades and their respective financing options are often out of reach for most end-users, as the initial capital cost exceeds near-term savings.”

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