I'd be willing to bet that providing the information gets you onto their "sucker list" to be solicited for donations to help promote their agenda. Also sold/shared with other so-called "green" groups (probably so designated because their main function is to raise more "green" this way).
Very interesting points Island_Al. Thanks for your research. Certainly a number of those commenting are calling into question whether the study is measuring spending on energy efficiency or progress on energy efficiency. And they really are different things.
I may be wrong, but I always assume that when web sites ask for personal info, they want to sell it to someone. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I feel the same way you do, Jon. I never provide that information.
It's hard to trust this when I'm paying almost $5/gallon for gas because of higher environmental standards leading to a California specific gas shortage.
The pattern I see is the coastal states (with the exception on MN) do better. The bottom tier (with the exception of WV) is in the center of the country. That's an unfortunately common pattern when it comes to innovation.
Twas a Reagan quote during debates many years ago. At any rate Rob, DN has the knack at times to make me see RED (excuse the pun). Who are these guys, how are they funded, and what is their criteria?
I googled ["american council for an energy-efficient economy" board of directors "council of foreign relations" members]. Seems like everyone on the ACEEE board is a CFR member, yet it is a non-profit. The CFR, by the way is a rather clandestine group of world shapers. I googled this not because I'm a conspiracy theorist, but because I could find few details on the ACEEE.
How are they funded? Foundations, power companies, and you and I as "contributions" are added to our power bill, seemingly without choice.
Their criteria is each states spending on green tech. Maine dropped significantly (see:http://www.nrcm.org/news_detail.asp?news=5001). Its all about speding tax money.
I bring all this up as my air conditioning guy was telling me quite an interesting story. In the big markets, big AC guys are spending to the tune of $100k to buy "testing equipment". It hooks to a house and does both positive and negative pressurization. To "pass" requires an average of $40k of improvements per existing home. In the future, he claims zoning laws will be changed to make this a requirement, thus if you need a new roof, etc, you will need to bring your home "up to code". True we will save energy - but at what cost?
Seems to me the Watermelons are at large again. Green on the outside, Red on the inside. I really fear for my nation. When government is watching out for me I keep one hand on my wallet.
I agree. Fiscal responsibility should be far more important than political energy points. But the country has far too few engineers in positions of authority.
I wonder how this list of most "Efficient" states correlates to fiscal health ? I notice that California is ranked towards the top in energy efficiency (legislation X spending), but is also effectively in a state of bankruptcy.
My friends who live in California like to hold up their state as a shining example of progressive policy, and I tend to agree with them! This point will finally be driven home, unfortunately, only when it is too late; when the multitude of public sector workers (as well as nanny-state entitlement junkies) notice their pay (and pension) checks are absent from their mailboxes. Enter bedlam. Energy effeciency spending will count for naught then....
I agree that improvement to energy efficiency is a desireable goal, but this is only rational if the underlying society/economy is viable/sustainable to begin with.
Very good points, Dox. A good example -- outside the scope of this survery -- is electric vehicles. The additional cost of these vehicles will never be recovered by the energy savings.
A new battery design, which replaces lithium with abundant and low-cost elemental sulfur, is still in its nascent stages but shows real promise for giving batteries more energy potential.
PTC will offer a virtual desktop environment for its Creo product design applications, potentially freeing engineers to run them from remote desktops on a variety of operating systems and mobile devices.
The push to achieving more intelligent, integrated manufacturing is putting a strong focus on networking and connectivity as key enabling technologies.
Now that solar and wind harvesting technologies are a thriving market, researchers are seeking other environmentally related energy sources for which they can create harvesting devices.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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