Efficiency

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Getting results with minimum waste of time, effort, or skill.

Cold Cash for Refrigerators (Furnaces and Clothes Washers)

Submitted by TimJFowler on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 10:05pm
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Old Refrigerator

Act Now! Supplies Are Limited! Unheard of Savings! Operators are standing by (they really are)!
As much as I hate to say it, there is a true 'limited time offer' for New Mexicans starting on April 22 (which is Earth Day, by the way). You can save $200 (or more) off the price of an Energy-Star rated clothes washer, refrigerator or furnace. There is some fine print to read*, but it's not a bad deal - if you need a new washing machine, fridge or furnace.

Lessons from Phoenix Part 2 - Passivity

Submitted by Brett Frauenglass on Sun, 2010/03/07 - 6:08pm
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Applied Research and Development building at Northern Arizona University

At any trade show, it’s usually worth it to barge in to a random event, feel awkward for a moment in exchange for a free drink and a chance to encounter new perspectives. So after a long day of seminars at Greenbuild, I found myself making small talk among a group of well dressed facilities managers involved in the LEED for Existing Buildings side of things. This is actually a very important part of the sustainability equation, since the operational energy of a commercial building will surpass the embodied energy used to make that building a few years after the building opens.

Global Energy: from Potential to Kinetic

Submitted by TimJFowler on Wed, 2010/03/03 - 6:45pm
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Global New Energy Summit 2010

What: Global New Energy Summit 2010
When: Sunday, March 21 through Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Where: Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino (15 miles north of Santa Fe)

Home Improvement, but Smarter

Submitted by TimJFowler on Thu, 2010/02/11 - 6:04pm
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Home Improvement TV show

Somedays homeownership feels more like home repair triage to me. Managing and completing our home improvement / maintenance projects can seem never-ending. Adding energy efficiency to our goals makes the task even more daunting. I've been considering a comprehensive home energy audit so I can better understand our energy use. Thankfully, I found a FREE! online tool for evaluating our home efficiency projects. Behold the Home Energy Saver.

Tuesday Night Plumbing Club

Submitted by TimJFowler on Thu, 2010/01/14 - 1:57pm
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My scraped head

How do you have fun on a Tuesday night? I like to unwind with a little amateur plumbing repair. This Tuesday I dismantled the kitchen faucet assembly, rushed over to the hardware store minutes before closing time and pawed madly through the plumbing section for valves and bits. Then I ran back home to reassemble the whole mess and I only had to reverse one valve body! In the process I also banged my head under the sink. All of this so I can stop a maddening drip at the kitchen faucet. Yep, good times at our house.

Accords, Treaties and Resolutions

Submitted by TimJFowler on Mon, 2010/01/04 - 11:58am
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January 1 Sunset at the Hyde Park Road Overlook

Observing the news over the past year I've come to a (probably obvious) realization or two. Climate Change is rapidly growing in global awareness, importance and the discussion has become heated (pun intended). It appears that our planet is rapidly approaching a point of change (cultural, economic, environmental, etc.) driven by climate change. Change brings uncertainty, so governments, companies, and people have chosen to either fight change or promote their vision of change.

LEEDing by Example

Submitted by TimJFowler on Fri, 2009/12/18 - 10:50am
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Santa Fe Community Convention Center - architectural rendering

The Santa Fe Community Convention Center (quite a mouthful) has just earned the LEED Gold certification. This means that the new convention center 'was designed (by Santa Fe-based Spears Architects and Fentress Architects) and built using strategies aimed at improving ...

Blue Christmas Lights Special

Submitted by TimJFowler on Tue, 2009/12/08 - 6:42pm
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Blue and White LED Christmas Lights

On my street, 'keeping up with the Joneses' is something that comes up once a year around Christmas time. My neighbors have a unusually competitive streak when it comes to Christmas lights (instead of the traditional luminarias). I don't try to top anyone's holiday light show, but I do hang a few strings to participate. This year I finally upgraded to LED Christmas lights as the old lights were in pretty rough shape.

Smarter Than Your Average Building

Submitted by TimJFowler on Wed, 2009/10/07 - 5:39pm
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Professor Andrea Mammoli and solar collectors on the UNM Mechanical Engineering Building

The phrase 'Smart Grid' has been thrown around quite a lot recently. Unfortunately, it isn't clear to many of us what a 'Smart Grid' actually is. Some folks at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque have built and are testing one of the first pieces of the future smart grid - a smart building. The Mechanical Engineering Building at UNM has a newly refurbished solar-thermal energy array that provides 90% of the building's heating needs and 35% of its cooling.

Coal Ash Waste - In Our Backyard

Submitted by TimJFowler on Wed, 2009/09/02 - 10:12am
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TVA Kingston TN Coal Ash Pond Failure

0n December 22, 2008 a 'storage pond' dam broke in Harriman, TN flooding the Tennessee River Valley with over 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash sludge. What wasn't known at the time of this man-made disaster is how many more Coal Ash dump sites exist in the U.S.A. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club the EPA released a list of 584 coal ash dump sites across the country. 35 states, including New Mexico, have coal ash dumps containing arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins.

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