Energy Solutions

Last week, after an overview of lighting history, we examined incandescent lighting—the lamp technology invented by Thomas Edison. Until the mid-1900s incandescent lighting dominated both commercial and residential lighting applications, indoors and outdoors. That only changed when electric discharge lamps were introduced, offering longer life and producing more light per unit of electricity consumption.

Light is one of our most important energy needs. Historically—before the advent of electric lighting—the need for illumination governed architecture. Buildings were designed to facilitate natural daylighting. My office is in one of the old Estey Organ buildings on Birge Street, built in the late 1800s; it’s just 28 feet wide, allowing natural light from the windows to reach fully into the building.

The easiest energy savings come from little changes in our behavior that don’t cause any hardship—or even result in ancillary benefits. Such is the case with reducing the amount of time spent idling a car engine when stopped. Turning off the ignition at the drive-up window or when pulled over to take a cell phone call not only saves energy (burning less gasoline), but also pollutes less—a big benefit for the teller at the drive-up bank window. You might even improve your car’s operation.

Almost all of our methods for generating electricity are fundamentally the same. Coal-, nuclear-, and natural-gas-fired power plants boil water to produce high-pressure steam that spins a dynamo in a “steam turbine.” The wood-chip-fired combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant that we want to build in Brattleboro works the same way. The heat sources used in these systems, of course, are very different—each with its own environmental and health concerns—but the way they actually produce the electricity is, fundamentally, the same.

Brattleboro, Vermont is fortunate to have a long history with solar water heating. When I moved to the area in 1980, the company Solar Applications had been installing solar hot water systems for five years, and a spin-off company, Solar Alternatives, was manufacturing quality flat-plate solar collectors—many of which are still in use in the area. While Solar Alternatives closed down in the 1980s with falling energy prices and the end of solar tax credits, Solar Applications, has continued to install and service solar water heating systems for more than thirty years.

Following the first energy crisis in 1973 there was a rush to heat homes with the sun. It was a tinkerer’s paradise, with all manner of solar heating systems migrating from garage workshops to commercialization. Patent offices were working overtime.

I moved to Brattleboro, Vermont 28 years ago to work for an organization that was all about promoting solar energy—an industry that blossomed out of the energy crisis in the 1970s. When the problem is dependence on an energy source that’s non-renewable, that comes from far away and sucks money out of our local economy, that pollutes our air when we burn it, and that contributes to global warming, it makes a lot of sense to look for an alternative that’s renewable, available locally, and environmentally safe. Solar energy is just such a solution.

We faced some pretty tough choices this past summer. Heating oil prices were around $4.50 per gallon, and scary news reports were projecting $5.00 per gallon by January. Some rushed to lock in prices by pre-buying their winter oil. It was a gamble. Were prices going to go even higher (as the heating season approaches, heating oil prices have traditionally risen), or would the bubble burst and prices fall?

I get this question a lot from homeowners wanting to reign in their energy costs. Windows usually account for about a quarter of the heat loss in a typical house. State-of-the-art, triple-glazed windows (with two low-e coatings and kryptonA colorless, odorless inert gas, often used with argon in fluorescent lighting and sometimes used as gas fill in high-performance glazing. gas fill) will dramatically reduce that heat loss, so it would seem that replacing your windows would be one of the most sensible things we could do in buttoning up our homes—right?

Windows have a huge impact on the energy use of our homes. Fortunately, there have been dramatic advances in window technology over the past thirty years. This column will take a look at factors that affect the energy performance of windows.