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Enhancing the Testing and Verification of Energy Star Products

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) is making efforts to enhance the testing and verification program for all ENERGY STAR product categories, including appliances. This effort is focused on maintaining the value of the ENERGY STAR brand by ensuring labeled products deliver on their promises to the consumer.

To transition the ENERGY STAR labeling program away from self-certification, EPA will now require third-party certification of all qualifying product information. This will include qualification testing prior to product labeling conducted in an EPA-recognized lab, as well as post-market verification testing to ensure the product continues to meet program requirements. Test data will be reviewed and certified by third-party certification bodies (CBs).

Manufacturer-owned, unaccredited laboratories can conduct testing in the new program if they participate in a witnessed or supervised manufacturer testing program run by a CB. In that case, personnel from the CB witness the test and certify to EPA that the laboratory meets our requirements and the data is reliable.

In June, EPA finalized requirements for accreditation bodies and laboratories that seek recognition by the ENERGY STAR program. In late July, EPA released final draft requirements for certification bodies; those requirements will be final in mid-August. These documents require that organizations operate according to the relevant International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, with some additional requirements specific to the ENERGY STAR program.

Accreditation bodies, laboratories, and certification bodies will be required to apply for EPA recognition to participate in the program. EPA is currently reviewing and accepting applications from accreditation bodies, and will begin reviewing applications from laboratories soon. Certification bodies represent the final group of organizations EPA anticipates recognizing as participants in the testing and verification scheme.

EPA continues to coordinate with a range of organizations seeking to establish certification programs for different product categories. The Agency is also currently in the process of refining the eligibility criteria and partner commitments across all 60 product categories to reflect the new certification requirements.

For additional information, please visit: www.energystar.gov/testingandverification.

Keri Shoemaker
For EPA’s ENERGY STAR program
Office: 202.298.2174
Cell: 703.627.3634
kshoemaker@prrbiz.com

This Week's Episode of WxTV: Boiler Basics Parts 2 and 3

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Montana Weatherization Training Center would like to inform you of this week's episodes of WxTV, online and ready for viewing.
We'll be continuing with our 'Boiler Basics' series.

This week's episodes:

1. Boiler Basics: Part 2 - Clean, Test, & Tune
In Part 2 of this series, Mike will test the boiler's fuel gas delivery, efficiency and carbon monoxide level as well as giving cleaning recommendations.

2. Boiler Basics: Part 3 - External Components
In the final segment of our boiler series, Mike will break down the external components of this two zone baseboard system and the things you need to look out for.

Click here to see them at: http://weatherization.org/wxtv

Why Conservatives Are Bad on Energy: It's All About the Costs

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

By Tom Rooney
For the Home Energy Blog

Conservatives, let's talk about energy. And why so many conservatives are so
wrong -- so liberal, even -- on wind and solar energy.

Let's start with a recent editorial from the home of "free markets and free people,"
the Wall Street Journal. Photovoltaic solar energy, quoth the mavens, is a "speculative
and immature technology that costs far more than ordinary power."

So few words, so many misconceptions. It pains me to say that because, like many
business leaders, I grew up on the Wall Street Journal and still depend on it.

But I cannot figure out why people who call themselves "conservatives" would
say solar or wind power is "speculative." Conservatives know that word is usually
reserved to criticize free-market activity that is not approved by well, you
know who.

Today, around the world, more than a million people work in the wind and solar
business. Many more receive their power from solar.

Solar is not a cause, it is a business with real benefits for its customers.

Just ask anyone who installed their solar systems five years ago. Today, many
of their systems are paid off and they are getting free energy. Better still,
ask the owners of one of the oldest and most respected companies in America who
recently announced plans to build one of the largest solar facilities in the
country.

That would be Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal.

Now we come to "immature." Again, the meaning is fuzzy. But in Germany, a country
1/3 our size in area and population, they have more solar than the United States.
This year, Germans will build enough solar to equal the output of three nuclear
power plants.

What they call immaturity our clients call profit-making leadership.

But let's get to the real boogie man: The one that "costs far more than ordinary
power."

I've been working in energy infrastructure for 25 years and I have no idea what
the WSJ means by the words "ordinary power." But, after spending some time with
Milton Friedman whom I met on many occasions while studying for an MBA at the
University of Chicago, I did learn about costs.

And here is what every freshman at the University of Chicago knows: There is
a difference between cost and price.

Solar relies on price supports from the government. Fair enough -- though its
price is falling even faster than fossil fuels are rising.

But if Friedman were going to compare the costs of competing forms of energy,
he also would have wanted to know the cost of "ordinary" energy. Figured on the
same basis. This is something the self-proclaimed conservative opponents of solar
refuse to do.

But huge companies including Walmart, IBM, Target and Los Gatos Tomatoes figured
it out. And last year so did the National Academy of Sciences. It produced a
report on the Hidden Costs of Energy that documented how coal was making people
sick to the tune of $63 billion a year.

And that oil and natural gas had so many tax breaks and subsidies that were so
interwoven for so long, it was hard to say exactly how many tens of billions
these energy producers received courtesy of the United States. Taxpayer.

Just a few weeks ago, the International Energy Agency said worldwide, fossil
fuels receive $550 billion in subsidies a year -- 12 times what alternatives
such as wind and solar get.

Neither report factored in Global Warming or the cost of sending our best and
bravest into harm's way to protect our energy supply lines.

Whatever that costs, you know it starts with a T.

All this without hockey stick graphs, purloined emails or junk science.

When you compare the real costs of solar with the fully loaded real costs of
coal and oil and natural gas and nuclear power, apples to apples, solar is cheaper.

That's not conservative. Or liberal. That comes from an ideology older and more
reliable than both of those put together: Arithmetic.

Tune Into Wx TV�This week's focus is Boiler Basics

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

WxTV is focusing once again on heating system servicing with our new 'Boiler Basics' series. This 3 part series will cover the information and techniques an HVAC technician should know for a routine home visit.

This week's episode is:

Boiler Basics: Part 1 - Combustion Air & Drafting

WxTV's master plumber Mike Campbell is back at it again, this time giving us the low-down on boiler systems. In Part 1 of this series, we'll see how he tests for, and proposes to resolve, a backdrafting problem.

Click here to see it: http://weatherization.org/wxtv

If you would like to be removed from this list, please reply to this email with “REMOVE ME” typed in the subject line.

Lisa Daly
Montana Weatherization Training Center
Extension Housing and Environmental Health Program
Montana State University
406-586-0070 (office)
dalylisa@montana.edu

Will China Overwhelm Us With Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Notes from Asilomar: Biannual Summer Study, Energy In Buildings, American Council for anEnergy Efficient Economy (August 15—20, 2010)

Tuesday Plenary: Is the Climate Right for Efficiency in China?

Summer Study participants were treated to two insiders’ take on energy efficiency in China.

Mark Levine was recently the director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and is now working full time with the China Energy Group at LBNL, a group Levine founded in 1988.

William Chandler is an expert in energy and climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as the president of Transition Energy and the co-founder of DEED China—private companies with energy efficiency investments in China. Chandler was a 1992 ACEEE Champion of Energy Efficiency.

Both Levine and Chandler provided lots of information about energy efficiency policy and reality in China—past, present, and future. But more important, they each shared a wealth of insight that only comes with a long history of lived experience interacting with people developing energy efficiency in China. Imagine the amount of time they’ve spent in airplanes during the past 25 years!

One insight from Tuesday night’s plenary is the extraordinary progress China has made since 1980 to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, and lower energy intensity in an economy that has grown by leaps and bounds. Between 1980 and 2002, China’s GDP increased by a factor of 8, while its energy use increased by a factor of only 3. Between 1980 and 2002 energy intensity, or energy per unit of GDP decreased about 5% per year. From 2002 to 2005, energy intensity increased about 5% per year, mainly due to a huge increase in the production of steel and cement. But energy intensity then began to decrease again, dropping 16% between 2005 and 2009.

Looking to the future, Levine outlined a likely scenario where China’s total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow, but then level off in 20 years or so, and then begin a slow steady decrease. But at its peak Chinese energy use per capita will stay well below that of the United States and below that of Europe. China’s emissions will not overwhelm us, according to Levine, because of several reasons, but mainly due to saturation in the appliance and transportation markets in China.

Chandler urged cooperation with China in regards to energy efficiency policy, and warned that a lack of cooperation, “I won’t do anything if you don’t”, will be a suicide pact. We need to better explain to the west China’s successes and commitment to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, encourage China to be more accurate and transparent with its energy and emissions data, remove barriers to business between the United States and China, and resolve diplomatically the rift in relations between China and other nations that are part of the Copenhagen climate agreements.

Can China do its part to mitigate climate change and obtain energy security for itself and other nations? Levine and Chandler both say, “Yes.” But only if the United States and other developed and developing nations do their part as well.