CES Blog
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
The SJR has news about the Illinois Fan Club, a partnership among state agencies to provide fans to the elderly and people with disabilities. Deaths from excess heat are a bigger problem than most people think; in typical years, heat waves are the big kil...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
I've collected quite a little treasure trove of bicycling oddities lately, which are all pretty exciting. First, take a look at this compendium of 82 photographs of cyclists in Amsterdam, taken during a 73-minute period along one street. Some of the theme...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
One of the points that we try to make over and over is that there's nothing we'd recommend to fight global warming that doesn't have other benefits. Here's a nice, and near-ish, example: the Wetlands Initiative, along with other environmental groups, is d...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Great article in today's SJR, about CWLP's PURPA standards. Chris Wetterich did a pretty good job of grappling with all of the standards. There was one point in particular that I wanted to respond to, from Bill Murray, who is shepherding all of this stuff...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Two big items today: First, CWLP will be having its third community energy meeting tonight at 6pm in city council chambers. This is an excellent opportunity to find out what they're doing for energy efficiency; beyond that, though, it's also your chance t...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Thanks to Carey Moorman, who submitted the recipe below for a local food meal (she submitted this awhile ago, but I'm still digging out from underneath PURPA stuff). If you have any recipes that you like and want to share, using what's at the farmer's mar...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Well, maybe. At any rate, we issued a press release this morning (included below the fold). I think the Illinois Times and WCIA, at the least, are picking it up. I'll use this post to collect and point to media appearances. We should be on WCIA tonight at...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
I've written more words on CWLP's five PURPA standards than any sane person could possibly want to read without being paid for it (sorry, CWLP staff, but you're going to get it all. :) ). So, here's the condensed form, if you want to skip the details and ...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
One of the weirdest things about most debates that pit environmentalism against well-being (usually presented as economic growth) is the way that opponents of stewardship act like regulating this or that will suddenly cause the economy to collapse. It's p...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
At last night's city council, the second wind power contract was approved unanimously, with no discussion. Which leaves me with ... not a lot say. Except: Woo-hoo!Also last night, Tracy, from Freecycle, was given an award from the city and county for Recy...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
After spewing so many words the past few days, it was nice to be able to relax a little today. We started by biking out the Wabash Trail to Barnes and Noble (for, admittedly, today's earlier post). Sadly, Barnes and Noble needs a bike rack: T & I chained ...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
The fuel diversity, or fuel source reliance, standard deals with dependence on a single source of fuel for electricity. Currently, CWLP generates the vast majority of our electricity from a single source, Illinois coal. If CWLP adopts this standard, it co...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
At the public hearing the other night, something came up on the interconnection standard that I hadn't given proper notice to on my reading of the recommendation CWLP published: that CWLP's rate structure is skewed. CWLP has fixed costs (like the transmis...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Net metering refers to the ability for small-scale power generators--like the guy down the street who put solar panels on his roof--to sell whatever excess energy they produce back to the utility. This is a well-established tool for making better use of r...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Before I get to the substance of net metering (which is going into the next post), I should say that there's a small meta-issue here: CWLP put up its webpage on these standards sometime in early May. Clean Energy Springfield first noticed them May 11, whi...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Smart metering is more strictly known as "time-based metering," and refers to charging different rates depending on overall demand for electricity, which is strongly based on time and season. The amount of electricity used in a typical day is lowest overn...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Okay, I'm going to wimp out here and deal with the Interconnection (PDF recommendation) and Fossil Fuel Efficiency (PDF recommendation) standards together, since I have the least to say about them. That said, the Interconnection standard in particular sho...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
I said last night that I was going to take the next few days to outline what CWLP is proposing with their five standards. I wanted to start, however, by providing a little bit of context, in the form of an alternate vision for how Springfield can meet its...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
The utilities committee passed on the second wind power contract to the full city council, without too much discussion. It's on the debate agenda; chairman Edwards said he was putting it on the debate agenda so that all of the new aldermen could have a cr...
Posted by CES Blog 1 year ago.
Two big events this week: Tuesday night, Sustainable Springfield and CES are hosting a meeting with the Mayor Chris Koos of Normal. Mayor Koos shepherded in Normal's green building ordinance, which requires LEED certification for buildings over a certain ...
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