ALBANY, NY – National Grid is helping customers reduce their environmental impact and their energy bills with the renewal of its residential natural gas energy efficiency program that provides rebates for energy saving equipment in the home.

Due to the overwhelming response to this program last year, National Grid exhausted its funding for the initiative last spring, but has received additional funding to renew the program.

“As a result of last year’s response to this program, we have established a rebate reservation list this year,” said Lisa Tallet, manager of residential energy efficiency programs for New York State. “Our web site will update so customers can see how much funding is available in the program when they apply.”

All customers must reserve incentive funding by completing the online rebate reservation.

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Geauga County Common Pleas Judge David L. Fuhry dismissed a class-action lawsuit from owners of all-electric homes against electric companies.

Fuhry said that only the Public Utility Commission of Ohio, not him, had the authority to oversee the matter.

The lawsuit stems from FirstEnergy’s rate increases earlier this year.

Previously, the company had offered reduced rates to those with all-electric homes, electric hot water heating systems or electric load management systems. First, the electric company said it would abandon the reduced rates. Then, after homeowners protested, the company decided to gradually phase out its reduced rates during the next eight years.

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DANBURY, CT — A contractor who investigators said hired unskilled labor for his chimney repair business, gave workers minimal training and turned them loose to prey on elderly homeowners made an appearance in state Superior Court here Wednesday.

Marc Anthony, 44, didn’t enter a plea on an array of felony and misdemeanor counts, including larceny and attempted larceny, which were filed against him last month after an investigation by Danbury police and inspectors from the state Department of Consumer Protection.

Anthony is a co-owner of CT Builders LLC, a company based in Long Island. He was represented in court by attorney Kevin Black, of Wilton, a former assistant prosecutor in the Danbury State’s Attorney’s Office.

The investigation began in March after two of his employees were allegedly found to be installing chimney liners without obtaining building permits from the city and without having the state licenses required to perform the work.

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By: Florence Hudson

I speak to groups all around the world on green issues and sustainability. In my travels I get to meet all types of people, from hotshot politicians to corporate bigwigs to average citizens.

Regardless of what part of the social ladder they occupy, I’ve noticed that many people are gamblers at heart; they have an abiding faith that somehow a big-bet, cure-all is just around the corner to deliver us into a greener and more sustainable world. It must be true – the logic usually goes – because there is too much money to be made; or there are huge benefits to reap. When such advancements do not arrive on schedule, it’s a conspiracy, of course.

Now, I am a huge believer in technology and its ability to help mankind leapfrog to a better future, but it seems to me we’re fooling ourselves if we put too much faith in deus ex machina solutions for our complex environmental problems.

We’re not going to become all-solar, all-the-time; and the replacement for the internal combustion engine – which has been “just around the corner” since I was a kid – will take more time, apparently. In the meantime we can make incredible progress towards a more sustainable future using the tools we have and the inventions that already exist – because some of them are quite powerful.

Take a gaze out of your window and you’ll likely see one of the most glaring environmental problems that can be rectified now, with the tools we have – the commercial buildings and structures that populate our planet. There are about 5 million of them in the U.S. alone.

The HVAC system, the lights, the water, the elevators, the power and cooling for technology, the heating and cooling for people: all contribute to making buildings a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions–and a leading energy user. Lights blaze and air conditioners hum in empty offices at night, and lawn sprinklers turn on even during a rainstorm. Commercial buildings can lose as much as 50 percent of the water that flows into them.

Consider:

The building sector is responsible for more electricity consumption than any other sector, 42 percent, and 15 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) Emissions.

In the U.S., buildings represent 72 percent of all energy usage and 39 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (pdf). Yet, up to 50% of that electricity is wasted.

In New York City, buildings account for 80 percent of carbon emissions.

By 2025, buildings will be the single largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gas on our planet.

Technology already exists that will allow us to utterly transform our buildings’ impact on the environment. It’s called the Internet. Along with cheap sensors (less than a penny each in some cases), the Internet becomes a network that can allow these buildings to be controlled for maximum energy efficiency; monitored for compliance; and customized to work better for inhabitants – floor by floor, room by room.

This is already happening today. Check out this example with the Calgary city school system in Canada.

We don’t need any new inventions or legislation to solve one of our biggest environmental problems. What are we waiting for?

A recovery in home improvement spending will soon be underway according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released today by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Remodeling spending is expected to increase on an annual basis by the end of the year, and the LIRA points to growth accelerating to the double-digit range in the first quarter of 2011.

“Absent a reversal of recent economic progress, there should be a healthy upturn in home improvement activity by year-end and into next year,” says Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Homeowner optimism is bolstering a trend toward investing in the home again. “The recovery in home improvement activity appears to be moving beyond simple replacement projects and energy retrofits to broader remodels and upgrades,” says Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “A wider activity base would help generate the expected growth in the quarters ahead.”

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