IntelEfficient

The bicycle is a wonderful marriage between (hu)man and machine.  Of course, it helps to have pavement roads to minimize friction, but it still amazes me that you can, using your own energy, travel 75 miles in a day.  This sounds like a grueling feat, but it’s really just a series of ~10-mile rides. 

Three of the our four members of “Team CSL” from last year returned, including Harold Anderson, Debbie Boyer and me, and Tim McIntyre rejoined us this year.  You may recall that Tim broke his wrist last year and was unable to ride.  Read the rest of this entry »

With the holiday season upon us, you might be thinking about more eco-friendly gifts to give this year.  You can head to the mall or Walmart and certainly find any number of possibilities, or you could make the shopping trip a unique experience that rewards you, the giver, as much as the recipient.

It’s always a good idea to support local businesses, because that helps our local economy, keeping the profits here too.  The Third Degree Glass Factory (ThirdDegreeGlassFactory.com) offers one-of-a-kind glass pieces that are made by local artisans, including beautiful ornaments, jewelry, and other home accessories.  You can observe glass blowers as they create the glassworks, and sign up for classes to learn how to work with glass.  That might make a great gift for the artist in your life! Read the rest of this entry »

There is growing receptivity in the workplace to the benefits of “going green.”  Businesses find that this can improve their bottom line.  Managers have discovered that it leads to higher employee morale.  More and more organizations are creating “green teams” to implement cost-cutting, planet-saving solutions in big and small ways.

One of the first steps you can take is to reduce your energy consumption.  While you may not be able to make building improvements, you can implement a number of policies to save energy.  It may sound like a no-brainer to turn off the lights when leaving the office, but this is far from the norm.  Peer pressure may be an effective motivator to gain compliance, but you can also install occupancy sensors to automatically turn lights on and off.  Here are some other key considerations:

• Turn off printers and faxes in off-hours
• Deploy a company-wide strategy to manage computer power use
• Use power strips to minimize loss from energy vampires
• Rely more on task lighting than overhead lighting
• Use compact florescent lights instead of incandescent bulbs
• Purchase ENERGY STAR office equipment
• Lower the thermostat in the winter. Read the rest of this entry »

I suspect the vast majority of folks are eager to close the book on 2009 as the year of the Great Recession.  While it may have been difficult or uncomfortable, we focus on the blessings that the year brought, whether they be simple joys or valuable lessons learned.  As we celebrate the new year, think of all the positive ways you can initiate change in your life.

As we watched the New Year’s Eve Ball drop in New York last night, I shared the story with my friends that the 2010 light display in New York’s Time Square was ultimately powered by pedal power.  Since the week of Thanksgiving, visitors to the Duracell Smart Power Lab in Times Square pedaled six “power rovers” to store energy in batteries to power the lights on New Year’s Eve.  It took almost six weeks to generate the 32 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity the lights consumed in 30 minutes last night.  To put things in perspective – that’s what the average home uses in a day, and it required about 1,000 hours of pedaling!

Clearly we need more than human energy to power our world.  It will take a combination of conservation (putting reasonable limits on our use), efficiency (making smarter use of what we consume) and clean, renewable energy to create a sustainable lifestyle.