This fall, the ENERGY STAR® program will increase the minimum Energy Factor (EF) for gas storage water heaters from 0.62 to 0.67. The increase in criteria, which will go into effect on September 1, 2010, will bring additional 0.67 EF models to the marketplace, offering homeowners even greater water heating efficiency.

“ENERGY STAR seeks to keep its product criteria relevant by keeping pace with changing technologies in the marketplace,” said Steve Ryan, with the ENERGY STAR program at the Environmental Protection Agency. “In a recent poll, 77 percent of people are aware of the ENERGY STAR label and see the value in it. We work to keep the brand meaningful by making sure it continues to indicate cost effective savings with no loss of amenity. Storage water heaters are becoming more efficient, and this change recognizes that fact.”

Water heaters that meet the increased criteria offer homeowners significant savings in gas consumption even when compared to today’s 0.62 EF models, providing up to 14 percent greater savings than a conventional gas model. According to ENERGY STAR calculations, 0.67 EF models only consume 224 therms per year. Gas storage heaters with a 0.62 EF consume 242 therms annually, saving up to 7.3 percent more than a conventional model.

Several gas storage heaters with a 0.67 EF are currently available, including many new products recently developed in preparation for the upcoming change. There are also a number of other water heater models that carry the ENERGY STAR label, including electric heat pump, solar thermal and tankless units. Sponsors of the Coalition for ENERGY STAR Water Heaters (CEE)—A. O. Smith, Bradford White, Rheem and Rinnai—offer many of these models.

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Boulder is seeking a unique way of mending the debate between landlords and tenants on energy-efficiency — a single program for homeowners to meet proposed new standards.

The new energy-efficiency recommendations for rental housing have caused an uproar in Boulder, but there’s a second, private-sector arm to the city’s greenhouse gas reduction effort in residential spaces that has received less attention, and will ultimately help property owners meet whatever new standards come to pass.

Although the necessary upgrades will vary from property to property, in many cases they will place a costly and time-consuming burden on landlords. For example, a new furnace can cost several thousands dollars, while water heaters range from about $500 to $3,000.

The heart of the problem is not new: in rental housing, with tenants often paying the energy bills, landlords have no incentive to make efficiency upgrades. But most renters do not stay long enough to justify the expense of paying for the upgrades themselves.

So the city is reviewing proposals from private contractors to develop a business model described as a “one-stop shop” to provide residents with everything from the initial visit for inspection and installation of low-cost efficiency measures, to education for landlords and tenants on behavior changes, to more significant and costly retrofits — and the financing options to help get those done.

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The American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF), together with the UN Foundation and the Worldwatch Institute, today hosted a major side event in Copenhagen focusing on the ways natural gas — and, in particular, the discovery of vast reserves of unconventional, or shale gas — can accelerate the transition to a global low-carbon economy. Natural gas can generate electricity with 50-70 percent less CO(2) than coal per BTU. As is the case in the U.S., many other countries have also recently discovered very large new unconventional reserves of natural gas, primarily in deeply buried shale rock formations.

At the side event, ACSF released a comprehensive new working paper entitled “North America’s New Natural Gas Resources and their Potential Impact on Energy and Climate Security.” The paper shows why natural gas offers an immediate opportunity for climate action and describes the necessary U.S. legislative policies for pursuing this option. It is authored jointly by ACSF’s CEO, Gregory C. Staple, a respected climate policy expert, and Dr. Joel L. Swerdlow, author of the noted National Geographic Society Book titled Nature’s Medicine.

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By: Martin LaMonica

Dozens of home energy monitors are coming to market, but nobody knows whether only hybrid Prius owners will use them.

Whole home energy monitors, or displays, are designed to help consumers conserve energy by providing far more detailed information than a monthly bill. These types of devices are already available, but millions more are poised to enter U.S. homes in the next two years, largely through utility-run smart grid programs.

The gadgets themselves vary, but the common thread among them is the ability to capture a stream of energy information from a meter at a given moment. Simply by surfacing real-time data, either with a small device or Web software, it’s believed the system will prompt people to change their habits and ratchet down consumption by 5 percent to 15 percent, according to studies.

But even as more sophisticated and user-friendly products come to market, it’s unclear whether consumers will track energy use regularly, particularly once the novelty wears off.

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By: George Pataki

Every day it’s becoming clear to more and more Americans that our continued over reliance on foreign oil is not just an environmental disaster but an economic disaster for this country as well. People appreciate that while we will have great sources of renewable fuel down the road, we need something now. And what is available now and has been proven to be in great abundance in the United States is natural gas.

We are fortunate by virtue of geology, science, and technology to have the ability now to access natural gas from shale deposits that in the past were economically off limits. I think it’s a tremendous opportunity. But we have to be smart enough to take advantage of that opportunity, by allowing the shale to be developed in a way that enables us to access the natural gas. Then we have to put in place policies that encourage Americans to use natural gas not just in power plants but to replace foreign oil as a transportation fuel for fleets and big trucks.

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