Tue 29 Apr 2008
Gray is the New Green
Posted by The Green Queen Bee under Energy, Sustainability
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Being Green More Efficient ain’t Easy
There is no doubt that Green is now in vogue–or Vanity Fair–but there is much work to be done that is not quite as fashionable. This month’s article “Waste Not” in The Atlantic highlights the fact that the American energy economy wastes about 55% of the energy it consumes. Japan in its entirety could be powered by our wasted energy.
Wasted Potential.
Essentially, our inability to harness the steam, furnace gases, heat and pressure that are all involved in our domestic energy production, allows $50 billion to float away in a cloud of smoke. And what is most surprising is that the technological fixes we need to combat this inefficiency are not new, or very expensive for that matter. There has been widespread reluctance to implement these advancements if the pay back period extends two years. Talk about short sighted…
Business as usual remains unchanged for a multitude of reasons. Ranging from technical to cultural, there are certainly some self imposed barriers to entry in this field. But there are some exemplary plants outlined in the article. ArcelorMittal steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana, has capitalized on technology from Primary Energy/EPCOR USA. The results: Purchase of coal-fired power has been halved, carbon emissions have been reduced by 1.3 million tons a year, and they saved more than $100 million. It seems that they are far more equipped to deal with the current energy crisis and the coming energy transition. Their green is a hint grayer.
Ya know those little lights that illuminate your house even when everything is off and you are not using an appliance? They are everywhere from your dvd player to your sleeping computer, from your cell phone charger to your microwave. Turns out those lights aren’t so little after all.
We Americans are not known for our vacation taking culture. In the summer of 2006, The Conference Board, an independent research group, conducted a study that found that, 60% of those polled had no plans to take a vacation over the next six months. And about 25% of Americans employed in the privates sector get NO paid vacation time.
Every once in a while, someone so eloquently reminds me of something that I already know: Our environmental problems–and how we tackle them–are simply symptoms of a larger societal and globalized “character flaw” that accompanies the way we have come to live today. But generally we think of character flaws as something we can’t fix and must simply accept. Somehow when Michael Pollan talked about this in
As April comes to an end…crazy I know, it seems like a good time to reflect on the new branding of this month as






