| DOE unveiled a comprehensive national campaign on Monday to highlight ways to save energy in response to rising winter energy costs. Called "Easy Ways to Save Energy," the campaign consists of a three-pronged strategy aimed at energy efficiency and conservation measures for consumers, for business and industry, and for government facilities. For consumers, DOE will distribute nationwide a newly updated guide, "Energy Savers: Tips on Saving Energy & Money at Home." This guide contains dozens of easy, and often inexpensive, ways to help consumers save energy in their homes and to lower utility bills. DOE is also making this guide available to manufacturers, retailers, and local utilities to reprint and distribute widely. See the online version of the guide.  |  The Energy Hog, an energy-wasting villain, will be coming soon to billboards across the country.
Credit: Tracy Locke | DOE and the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) are also unveiling a series of radio public service announcements (PSAs) to provide consumers with easy tips to save energy and gasoline. These PSAs have been recorded in both English and Spanish and will be distributed to nearly 4,500 radio stations across the country. The radio spots will complement DOE's ongoing Energy Hog campaign, carried out in partnership with ASE, the Ad Council, the Home Depot, and the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association. DOE will soon begin the next phase of the Energy Hog campaign with ads in newspapers and magazines, as well as on billboards all over the country. Top DOE leaders will also travel the country over the next several months to discuss how U.S. families can save money and energy this winter. See the Web sites for Energy Hog and the Partnerships for Home Energy Efficiency. To help industry and the federal government save energy, DOE is sending teams of qualified energy efficiency experts to 200 of the nation's most energy-intensive factories and to federal government facilities around the country to identify quick and easy ways to save energy this winter. The teams at federal facilities will help them to fulfill a presidential directive to conserve energy (see related article below). See the DOE press release. President Bush issued a memorandum to federal departments and agencies last week, directing them to conserve natural gas, electricity, gasoline, and diesel fuel to the maximum extent possible, consistent with the effective discharge of the federal government's duties. In particular, federal agencies are being asked to temporarily curtail non-essential travel and other activities that use gasoline or diesel fuel and to encourage their employees to carpool, telecommute, and use public transportation. The memo also directs federal agencies to conserve natural gas and electricity during periods of peak consumption by shifting energy-intensive activities to non-peak periods and by procuring and using efficient Energy Star-rated appliances and products. The memo calls for federal agencies to report on their fuel conservation efforts within 30 days. See the President's memorandum. The White House aims to lead the energy conservation effort by example. In a press conference accompanying the release of the memo, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan noted that President Bush has directed the White House staff to take steps to keep their offices warmer during the air conditioning season, scale back non-essential travel, and find other ways that to conserve energy. The White House will be sending notices to staff reminding them to turn off lights, printers, copiers, and computers when they leave the office and encouraging them to share rides and use mass transit. McClellan even suggested that the presidential motorcade may be scaled back somewhat. And one immediate change is apparent: the White House has its first shared car, a Honda Civic Hybrid from Flexcar. The car-sharing service dubbed the vehicle "Flexcar One" and made it available to White House workers that take mass transit to work. See the White House "press gaggle" and the Flexcar press release. Federal energy-saving efforts are led by the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), part of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. See the FEMP Web site. Eighteen teams of students are currently building a "solar village" on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in preparation for the 2005 Solar Decathlon. Just after midnight on September 29th, solar powered and highly efficient houses began arriving from across the country and as far away as Spain, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Since then, the National Mall has seen a flurry of construction in preparation for tomorrow's opening ceremonies. The competition starts Friday and runs through October 17th, and the homes will be open to the public every day except for October 12th. The 18 university teams will compete to determine who has built the house that best blends aesthetics and modern conveniences with maximum energy production and optimal energy efficiency. Over eight days, the teams will be judged in 10 areas encompassing architecture, livability, and comfort, as well as energy production for space heating and cooling, water heating, and powering lights and appliances. Each solar house must also produce enough extra power to charge up an electric car. |  The University of Michigan team assembles their futuristic solar home.
Credit: Richard King, DOE | Among the innovations at work this year are a structural insulated panel system made of cellulose waste and soy foam insulation, employed by the University of Colorado; movable interior walls in the University of Madrid's house; and hurricane-proof features in the home from the Florida International University. Perhaps most unique is the New York Institute of Technology's home, which generates hydrogen from solar power, stores it for later use, then uses a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen into heat and electricity. See the DOE press release. DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is the primary sponsor of the Solar Decathlon, along with its National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Institute of Architects, the National Association of Home Builders, BP, the DIY Network, and Sprint Nextel. During the competition, scores and standings will be posted daily. Until then, you can keep track of the Solar Village's progress through the daily journal of DOE's Richard King, posted on the Solar Decathlon Web site. The Nuon Solar Team won the World Solar Challenge last week, smashing its own record by covering the 1877-mile course in only 29 hours and 11 minutes, beating its previous time by more than an hour and a half. That works out to an average speed of 64.3 miles per hour, or 102.75 kilometers per hour, marking the first time that a solar car has gone faster than 100 kilometers per hour along the grueling course. The Nuon team earned their third consecutive win, followed in second place by the Aurora Vehicle Association of Australia. The University of Michigan took third place with a time of 33 hours and 18 minutes, for an average speed of about 56 miles per hour. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology earned sixth place, a respectable finish among the field of 19 cars that completed the race. See the Media and "On the Road" sections of the World Solar Challenge Web site. DOE announced last week its selection of three new combustion technology research and development projects to receive nearly $2.6 million in total cost-shared funding over the next two years, including $1.7 million in DOE funds. The projects will develop advanced, industrial-sized boilers using technologies such as low-emissions burners, multi-stage combustion, and heat recovery from the boiler exhaust. The three collaborative teams include seven private companies and research organizations, two national laboratories, and three universities, and are led by Babcock and Wilcox in Barberton, Ohio; the Gas Technology Institute in Des Plaines, Illinois; and Reaction Engineering International in Salt Lake City, Utah. See the DOE press release. By 2020, DOE expects efficient boiler technologies to reduce energy use in industrial boilers by seven percent, saving industry $2 billion per year in energy costs. The projects are coordinated by the Industrial Technologies Program, one of 11 technology programs with the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). See the Industrial Technologies Program Web site. DOE awarded $92 million for genomics research on Monday, and also issued a comprehensive plan for a new generation of biology research to help solve national energy and environmental challenges. Microbial and biotechnology research promises solutions to major energy challenges, including the production of ethanol and hydrogen. Microbial enzymes could, for example, be used to improve the manufacture of ethanol from cellulose by replacing the inefficient and expensive processes used today. These enzymes could enable smaller-scale and more cost-effective and energy-efficient distributed processing plants that could make cellulose-based ethanol cost competitive with oil-based gasoline. According to DOE, thousands of microbial species have biochemical processes that are of potential use for this and other energy applications. The DOE plan begins by focusing on key proof-of-principle experiments on complex energy and environmental systems. See the DOE press releases on the award and the comprehensive plan. |
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