October 15, 2009

Greener ways to power up
Alternative energies explained — with cartoons!

Imagine that your home could run on solar.

And that it could heat itself with geothermal. And charge up your battery-operated car. Or maybe windmills will one day power your town. Or maybe a system will generate energy right at your home and be more than twice as efficient using the heat as well as the power. These technologies might still be in development or in limited use now, but who knows what the next few decades will bring when it comes to finding more efficient and environmentally healthy ways to power our lives?

With the help of cartoonist Marek Bennett, we look at some of the alternative power- and heat-generation methods available now and some that may (or may not) be available for your home soon. We also look at some of the hybrid cars on the road and what various models do differently. And we look at some of the policy matters surrounding alternative energy and global climate change — one of the issues spurring interest in different ways to power up.

What kind of energy is for you?
A look at greener ways to energize
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. We burn fossil fuels to convert stored (potential) energy into the energy we need to make a car move forward, produce electricity or heat or cool buildings.

There are other ways to produce the power people now rely on, and most of them depend on the sun. Fossil fuels did too, through photosynthesis.

Most experts will tell you the first kind of renewable or alternative energy to consider is conservation. Other options are passive solar design, solar thermal, solar electric or photovoltaic, wind, hydro, biomass, landfill gas, ocean, cogeneration or combined heat and power, and fuel cells. 

You can use passive solar design to maximize a building’s ability to stay warm or cool. An example of passive solar heating is sun coming through a window, the floor absorbing the heat and radiating upward, Eric Steltzer of New Hampshire’s Office of Energy and Planning said.

Orienting windows to the south, and sizing window overhangs to provide shade during the summer when the sun hits from a higher angle, are some passive solar design techniques.

Solar thermal
A solar thermal system uses a collector to take in energy from the sun. It collects it into water or a coolant that circulates to a reservoir in your home, said Jeffrey Brideau, president of Intelligent Heat and Power in Stratham (www.intelligentheatandpower.com). In New England, most of these systems are closed-loop with a food-grade antifreeze as a coolant that runs through a heat-exchanging coil. They are much more efficient than solar electric panels. 

Steven Lundahl of Canterbury had used an oil-fueled boiler to heat his home and domestic hot water (drinking/washing water). Now, his domestic hot water is separate and uses a solar thermal system. Glycol runs through a closed loop (the glycol doesn’t touch the water) through the solar collector and the tank. The tank includes auxiliary electric heat to bring the water to temperature when sun doesn’t cut it, but Lundahl said the unit can run on all or mostly solar for six to eight months of the year. “It’s sort of like prepaying for your hot water,” Lundahl told The Hippo in June.

He’s saving on oil. His electric bill would have gone up slightly, but his dropped because of other efficiencies he added to his home.

Flat plate collectors are popular, but vacuum tube collectors, which work better in colder climates, are gaining ground, Brideau said. “I’ve literally gotten burns [from vacuum tubes] at 8 o’clock in the morning in January,” Brideau said.

Solar thermal doesn’t usually work for baseboard home heating, but it can work with underfloor radiant heating, Lundahl said. He mentioned a nearby home that uses solar thermal for underfloor radiant heating in the winter and a swimming pool in the summer. Lundahl started Energy Action NH (www.energyactionnh.org) modeled mainly on the Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative, a kind of barn-raiser organization for home solar thermal (www.plymouthenergy.org).

Solar air flat-plate collectors are also available. These panels are installed on a south-facing wall or a roof. Cold interior air enters the bottom, is heated in the panel, and a fan pushes it out the top into a room (see more at www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sh_basics_space.html).

Concentrating solar
In this system, heat from the sun is concentrated to heat a liquid to turn a turbine to make electricity, Steltzer said. It’s very financially viable in the right conditions, Steltzer said. Large-scale power generation that use mirrors to concentrate sunlight toward a liquid-filled tube are found in the Southwest. A power tower in Spain uses hundreds of panels to reflect light to the top of a tower to turn water into steam to turn a turbine.

Photovoltaic (solar electric)
A photovoltaic solar cell works much like a battery, said Jay Keller of Solar Components in Manchester (www.solar-components.com). It has anode and cathode materials, like a battery, but the catalyst for the reaction in a solar panel is the sun. Sunlight hits it, producing a chemical reaction, which produces electrons, which are gathered by wires, Keller said.

The DC, direct current, goes through an inverter to be changed to AC, or alternating current, usable in a home, said Scott Albert,  principal and  region manager at GDS Associates in Manchester.

For off-grid applications, people store electricity in batteries. When PV (or another alternative electricity producer) is tied into the electric grid, excess electricity feeds the grid, Albert said. This means that if the homeowners are away and not using electricity during the day when the most energy is being produced, their meter spins backward and they are credited by their utility company for that electricity.

A drawback of solar electricity is that, obviously, it doesn’t work at night. 

Bright sunlight provides as much as 1,000 watts of pure energy per square meter. Different materials and construction methods have produced cells as efficient as 40 percent. Headquartered in Merrimack, GT Solar Incorporated builds the equipment other companies use to make those devices. Their offerings range from turnkey fabrication lines, sets of equipment to turn silicon into solar modules start to finish, to custom furnaces for growing the silicon crystals in the first place.

Wind
Wind turbines use the kinetic energy in wind to turn a turbine to generate electricity.

You’ll find mixed reviews on using small wind turbines for residential use. Intelligent Heat and Power in Stratham hasn’t “found a suitable location” for a customer yet, Brideau said. There just isn’t enough wind in the region.

Large wind turbines have zoning challenges. Towns want a certain radius of space surrounding them, fearing ice could be thrown some distance in an ice storm, Brideau said.

When you compare total possible output to output for local wind speeds, you see that you only get a couple hundred watts instead of the 1,500 watts a small wind turbine might be rated for. That makes a big difference in payback time, Brideau said. “It’s an interesting discussion to have with a lot of people because specifications can be deceiving,” Brideau said.

Steltzer said wind in New Hampshire is mainly on ridgelines and the immediate coastline.

Lempster’s wind farm has 12 turbines that can produce 24 megawatts at peak capacity, Steltzer said. A wind project has been approved for Coos that can produce 100 megawatts. A traditional power plant produces about 500 megawatts, while nuclear produces about 1000 megawatts, Stelzer said.

Brideau said for most of his customers these days it’s cheaper to go to solar. PV has no moving parts and less liability, and it’s likely the sun will come out each day. “One of the things that confuses people is that we’re pretty far north,” Brideau said. This area has as much average daily sunlight as southern Texas. And PV can actually perform better in the cold, he said. You can come up with a rather accurate projected energy output using calculators at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Web site, www.nrel.gov.

You can see how local PV performs in real time at PSNH’s Web site, www.psnh.com. They installed a 51.3-kw array a few months ago with the help of KW Management in Nashua.

Hydroelectricity
You can see remnants of industrial hydro power across the region, where mills originally took advantage of the energy of moving water. Now, hydroelectricity dams with turbines convert that energy to electricity. Hydro already produces about a sixth of the world’s electricity (Renewable Energy: Power for a Sustainable Future, by Godfrey Boyle, Oxford, 2004)

Whether hydro is considered renewable is debated, Stelzer said. New Hampshire’s Renewable Portfolio Standard offers RECs (renewable energy certificates — worth money) for small-scale hydro, Stelzer said.

“I think that was last century’s approach,” said Kevin Gardner, an associate professor and director of the Environmental Research Group at UNH, regarding hydropower. “We dammed up a lot of rivers, and that had its own set of circumstances,” Gardner said. 

Since there are already small, low-head dams in many towns, the thinking goes that “we may as well make some power,” but hydro is no longer a large-scale solution, Gardner said.

“Conservation — that’s the best one,” Gardner said. It’s the most cost-effective and healthiest with the least environmental impacts, Gardner said. There are always trade-offs with environmental decisions. If there don’t seem to be any, they probably haven’t been discovered yet, or thought of in current analysis, he said. PV can produce 20 or 30 years’ worth of clean electricity, but its manufacturing process takes a lot of water, chemicals, and materials from mines, which creates a big impact. “We need to look at the entire life cycle of those technologies also,” Gardner said.

Geothermal
Geothermal energy can refer to using hot water or steam, naturally occurring underground, to generate electricity from a turbine (think Iceland), according to RenewableEnergyWorld.com, a Peterborough-based company.

Geothermal heating and cooling pumps are the more frequent choices in this region. You’re taking the heat from ground and pumping it into the house, Jack Leary of KW Management said. In the summer, you reverse the process and take heat from the house and sink it into the ground, he said.

In conventional heating systems you’re burning fuels to release heat — converting something, Brideau said. “With a heat pump, you’re simply moving [heat] from one place to another,” Brideau said.

To explain it in “terms of appliances everyone has,” a refrigerator pumps heat from inside the box out into the kitchen — if you could reverse that with a switch and pull heat from the room into the box, that’s what the heat pump is doing, Brideau said.

In this region, the ground is usually a steady 50 degrees. How do you use that to warm your living room to 70 degrees? “It all has to do with compressing heat,” Brideau said. “We take 50-degree water out of the ground, steal heat from it, make it colder, and put it back in the ground,” Brideau said. The heat from the water is transfered to air, which becomes the vehicle to transfer heat around the house.

Geothermal can cost more up front compared to fossil fuel systems, but the operating cost (for the electric pump) is dramatically lower, Leary said.

The two types of geothermal most houses end up with are open loop, which is like a drinking water well but deeper, and closed loop. “We as a company steer people toward open loop first,” Brideau said. But hard water tends to foul open-loop piping, so the second choice is the less efficient closed loop.

Intelligent Heat and Power also works with air source heat pumps. It’s an alternative where people swap out an outdoor air conditioning unit for an air source heat pump. As long as the outside temperature is above 40 degrees, the system will heat the home, although conventional heat is needed beyond that.

Biomass
Biomass uses the stored energy in things that were more recently alive than what made up fossil fuel, usually burned or turned into a fuel (Boyle). Your woodstove is fueled by biomass. The reason biomass can be considered renewable is that burning it releases carbon that is then absorbed by the next growing crop.

Biomass includes wood pellet stoves and biomass plants — for which wood chips fuel an electrical power plant — biodiesel, ethanol, and others. PSNH has experimented with cocoa bean shells as biomass.

Biomass electricity plants are said to use chipped low-grade wood, such as branches. The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has found 60 percent of its 43,000 acres is low-grade. Forest covers 84 percent of New Hampshire.

In 2006, Public Service Company of New Hampshire replaced one of its three 50-megawatt coal-fired boilers at Schiller Station in Portsmouth with a biomass system. The fluidized-bed boiler can burn whole-tree wood chips and other low-grade wood product. Sale of RECs from the plant, known as Northern Wood Power, was meant to help PSNH recover the $75 million in capital costs for conversion. But that model assumed PSNH was selling RECs to other states, before New Hampshire adopted RPS. The 50-megawatt plant won’t produce enough renewable energy to satisfy the new state requirements, said Martin Murray, PSNH senior corporate news representative.

Landfill gas
Landfill gas is “biologically derived methane gas from anaerobic digestion of organic materials from such sources as yard waste, food waste, animal waste, sewage sludge, septage, and landfill waste,” according to New Hampshire’s RPS law.

Methane from a landfill can be captured to use as a fuel to make steam to turn a turbine and make electricity.

Landfill gas is certainly usable, Gardner said. UNH in Durham is using landfill methane now. “But that’s just stuff that we threw away,” Gardner said. He doesn’t want this to be an incentive to make trash. It makes sense to take advantage of it now, while it’s here, but “I don’t think that’s a long-term strategic direction,” Gardner said.

“We could be getting more energy from combustibles directly,” he said. However, trash-to-energy plants are controversial.

The Wheelabrator Waste-to-Energy facility in Penacook ends up sending ash instead of trash to a landfill.

“I think that we should recognize the environmental impacts from anything that we do,” Gardner said. Burning trees from the North Country is a “pretty devastating practice,” he said. It’s a trade-off for degradation of soil, probably worsened water quality, lessened recreational opportunities from those places and other issues. “I think if we ever did go down the road of combusting waste for fuel we need to adopt much more stringent air quality regulations,” Gardner said.

The technology exists to use combustibles in a much cleaner way, Gardner said. He’s working with a project in Germany and said colleagues there are amazed at how much paper product — combustibles — we put in landfills. It’s forbidden there, Gardner said.

Ocean
The ocean can be an alternative energy source.  One option is to generate electricity using the flow from tides through a restricted area to turn a propeller, Steltzer said. Another is to use a constant stream of water, such as the Gulf Stream, to turn a propeller of some sort. Wave generation usually involves a floating device that produces generation as it bobs. There’s also research into storing air in the ocean to be compressed by currents, so the air could be released when needed to turn a turbine and produce electricity, Steltzer said.

Ken Baldwin is the co-chair of the Center for Ocean Renewable Energy at UNH.

Tidal power works like a wind turbine — “It’s the same equation,” Baldwin said. “It’s just that water’s a whole lot more dense than air,” about 860 times more dense, Baldwin said.

For wind, solar or wave power, predictability might be a day. “But tides are predictable over centuries,” Baldwin said. But there aren’t many places where you can harness tidal power.

The New Hampshire state legislature formed a commission two years ago to look at the feasibility of tidal energy on the Piscataqua River, Steltzer said. The report found the area isn’t fit for large-scale utility power with current technology. The area does make sense for research and UNH knows the estuary well, Baldwin said. UNH is trying to establish itself as a place for companies to have their tidal power products tested and analyzed, Baldwin said. The problem with the area in question was that people were making “grandiose estimates” assuming five knots of flow in one spot was consistent across the entire cross-section, Baldwin said. “They didn’t understand the resource well enough to be making those predictions,” Baldwin said. There are two spans under Little Bay-General Sullivan bridges where tidal generation is feasible. One is out because it’s the navigational channel for boats. However, there’s a span toward Newington with enough depth of water and high currents, Baldwin said.

You can’t use the entire power available to estimate electricity generation, because if you extract all the energy, the river would stop flowing, Baldwin said. (The final report is at des.nh.gov)

Seltzer thinks it’s important to look at offshore wind if the country is going to meet any progressive goals. Current technology requires wind turbines to be sited in water that’s no deeper than 60 feet. The University of Maine is currently doing research off Maine’s coast, Seltzer said. UNH is involved.

Cogeneration or CHP
Clay Mitchell loves combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration: “There’s a lot of potential for it. Basically if you have a place with a heat load, an electric load, and some type of fuel, you have an opportunity for [CHP].” A lot of CHP systems still use fossil fuel, but if you have no other fuel option and want to move toward sustainable energy, CHP makes sense, Mitchell said. CHP takes advantage of the waste heat from generating electricity.

Among other roles, Mitchell is the president of the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association.

Combined heat and power makes a lot of sense for places like college campuses (UNH uses landfill gas to fuel its new cogeneration plant) and industry — places with a large facility or collection of buildings that need to use both heat and power while keeping operating costs down.

Mitchell recently visited the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., which is basically off the grid and uses landfill gas to power its entire facility with Caterpillar CHP plants.

“It would be interesting to see [it] in a subdivison.” Mitchell said. Some in California do use CHP.

The White Mountain National Forest recently opened its new green headquarters. “With the heating, cooling, and power requirements reduced by 60 percent [through energy-efficiency measures], the design further reduces the energy needs by heating the entire complex with wood pellets at one third the annual cost for fuel compared to heating with oil or propane. In addition, a combined heat and power generating system uses innovative technology of biomass gasification for power and heat. This system will significantly reduce carbon emissions through the gasification process,” according to a Forest press release.

Albert has seen CHP systems that are almost the size of dishwashers and run on natural gas suitable for homes, popular in Japan. It’s like having an appliance that generates electricity and hot water, Albert said.

Fuel cells
In a fuel cell, fuel comes in, and heat and electricity go out, using a chemical process, Mitchell said. However, many said interest has stagnated somewhat.

Best for the big stuff
“I think the key message to get across is that we need to be diversifying our fuel source” when it comes to electricity generation, Steltzer said.

There’s been a switch from nuclear and oil to natural gas, which is cleaner-burning but still a fossil fuel, he said.

With renewables, there’s not just one silver bullet, Steltzer said. For example, large-scale wind farms have a disadvantage in that when there’s no wind, they’re not producing, and the electric grid needs reliability, Stelzer said. Diversifying the fuel mix is key, Steltzer said.

For large-scale power generation, hydro has been a huge contributor but there isn’t much of a resource left, Albert said. He thinks biomass plants of the 20-MW wood-burning type are an excellent resource.

Solar collectors are viable in New Hampshire, but one issue is fragmentation of land because of dense development. Transmission can be another issue for renewable power, in that demand often isn’t located where renewable resources are, so people need to think more creatively, Seltzer said.

There are a lot of up-front construction costs and labor for photovoltaic and wind, with little staff needed for operations. Biomass is labor-intensive all throughout, Stelzter said. You need to do a cost-benefit analysis of variables for energy projects, and there will always be negatives to mitigate, he said.

Bruce Spencer is the retired as head forester at the Quabbin Reservoir, Boston’s water supply. Not every forester would agree with his take, he said, but Spencer believes tree tops should stay in the forest as organic matter, for nutrients and wildlife habitat.

Stand-alone electric plants are inefficient, so generators say they can’t afford to pay much for supply and depict everything they want from the forest as waste product, he said. New Hampshire doesn’t have regulation concerning harvesting practices, he said. A 50-MW plant, he points out, requires about 20,000 truckloads of biomass annually, about 600,000 to 650,000 tons of wood chips, he said.

If you do nothing in the forest, it sequesters the most carbon, Spencer said. If you want to sequester carbon, you should harvest lightly and leave a canopy, he said. He’s in favor of harvesting, but thinks it should be done in a way that sequesters as much carbon as possible and keeps forests healthy and productive.

Medium size
GDS Associates is currently doing energy audits and renewable energy assessments for New Hampshire’s Department of Resources and Economic Development. GDS has worked with some of the largest commercial and industrial energy users in the state to identify potential energy-saving measures, and where renewable energy options make sense, Albert said.

Mitchell said Jack Ruderman at the Public Utilities Commission has “hit the ground running,” but New Hampshire has catching up to do.

“I think what’s standing in the way is a lack of creativity [in] dealing with the up-front the costs of some of these systems,” Mitchell said. New Jersey currently has the highest growth in renewables in the country because it has incentives in place, Mitchell said.

Net metering regulations allow consumers to receive dollar-for-dollar credit for electricity they produce, but New Hampshire limits that to 100 KW, Steltzer said. Some states limit that to 2,000 KW, Steltzer said.

One solution to up-front costs is a power purchase agreement, Mitchell said. A third-party business takes away the headaches from the host site of financing, installing and maintaining the renewable energy system, and the host site pays for the energy over time.

A lot of work is happening at the municipal level, and a lot more will go on during the next six to 12 months, Mitchell said. His company (SDES Group, www.sdesgroup.com) is providing audits to towns, and the New Hampshire Municipal Association is starting to reach out. There’s a significant amount in grants and revolving loans available through the OEP, he said. Money “needs to be distributed in a way that makes meaningful change,” Mitchell said.

Smaller stuff
“There’s the weatherization-type stuff that everybody should be aware of no matter whether they stay with conventional fossil-type stuff or renewables,” Leary said. Everyone should be focused on getting energy consumption down, he said. 

Leary says for homes it usually makes sense to look at heat and cooling, as in geothermal or solar thermal for domestic hot water, before generating your own electricity — normally through photovoltaics or a wind turbine.

Solar thermal can be more than 80-percent efficient, while you are lucky to get 18 percent from solar electric, Brideau said. Solar thermal is relatively inexpensive and the payback is relatively quick. Plus, once you are done paying for the system, the fuel (sunlight) is free.

Most sites in New Hampshire are not good sites for wind, Leary said. People may tell you they have a windy site, but “they really don’t understand” that in order to get the rated output of a turbine, you need about 24 to 25 mph of wind all the time. If you are on top of a mountain, maybe you’re a candidate, “so we probably talk more people out of wind than into” it, Leary said. When you buy solar electric, you are hedging against future energy costs, in that panels can last 35 to 50 years.

Tom Minnon of YKK-AP said that back in the mid 1970s he helped start Solar Componants with Scott Keller on Valley Street in Manchester. It’s still there, but at one point, about 1978 or 1979, business was brisk and they had about 30 employees. There was a 40 percent federal renewable energy tax credit in place, “which significantly helped the industry,” Minnon said. But Congress killed that in 1980, and “quite frankly the industry died overnight,” Minnon said.

“This time around, I see [a] big difference in the mentality,” Minnon said.

Minnon finally put his own 2-KW photovoltaic system on his Derry home in January, which cost $17,000 — minus a $6,000 state rebate, minus a $5,100 federal tax credit, minus a New Hampshire Electric Co-op (www.nhec.coop) rebate meant Minnon’s net cost is $2,400.

Minnon also installed solar hot water in June, and geothermal just before that.

“I’m not generating as much electricity as I use,” Minnon said. But on sunny days when he is making more electricity than he needs at that moment, his electric meter “literally goes backward. The electricity company is paying me for my electricity,” Minnon said.

Minnon helped found the New Hampshire Solar Energy Association, which became the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association. He was the executive director for the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association in the late 1970s.

John “jaQ” Andrews contributed to this article. Thanks to Scott Albert, Jeffrey Brideau, Wes Golomb, Roger Skillings, Jon Strimling and Mark Weissflog for background information and advice on illustrations.

Go green by thinking about green
How the promise for economic stimulus is now part of global climate change discussions
By Jeff Mucciarone jmucciarone@hippopress.com 

Want to sell government policy aimed at reducing global warming? Talk about how it will create jobs.

“With the right national clean-energy climate plan we can unlock immense economic benefits for the American and New Hampshire economies,” said Jim Rubens, representing the Union of Concerned Scientists.

For a long time, it seemed the push to “go green” in terms of energy use and production was something people just had to do for the good of the planet or out of concerns about the geopolitical issues surrounding oil. Today, it’s not just about emitting less carbon to reduce global warming — something plenty of folks simply don’t believe in or care about — going green is being touted as an economic stimulus, a job creator.

Those “immense economic benefits” could include big dollar savings for businesses and households — to the tune of thousands of dollars per year. That will create business opportunities. It will foster national strength and spur innovation and entrepreneurship in New Hampshire, Rubens said.

Proponents of the Clean Jobs and American Power Act currently before the U.S. Senate promise the bill would not only reduce energy use and refocus energy needs on renewable energy sources, but they also claim it to be an engine for creating millions of jobs, 7,700 of which would be in New Hampshire. Shifting to a “clean-energy economy” saves the planet, creates jobs, saves money for corporations and individuals alike, and even protects the country on a national security front, given that it would reduce dependence on foreign oil, proponent groups such as the Sierra Club or 1Sky say. Aside from all that, the right clean-energy plan can help preserve the natural resources of the state and the country, Rubens said.

Rubens has seen that shift from the actual preservation of the environment to a more economic, jobs-centered focus. He said there are two reasons for that: the tough economy people are dealing with right now and that there is much more hard evidence that investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy actually does have substantial economic benefits. It was just a couple months ago that a report was released detailing the economic benefit in California of an environment-minded energy plan, Rubens said.

“As we run down the list of benefits of dealing with energy problems, we’ve taken jobs and savings and moved them up in the pecking order,” Rubens said. “There’s pretty compelling stuff.”
While national environmental legislation is working through Congress, regional and statewide environmental initiatives and programs are in their initial stages. Last year New Hampshire participated in four carbon auctions in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). It was just last year that the state enacted Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), highlighted by Gov. John Lynch’s goal of ensuring 25 percent of the state’s energy comes from renewable sources by 2025. New Hampshire has also received millions of dollars from the federal government’s stimulus package for energy efficiencies and conservation projects. Just last month the Granite State was awarded $9.5 million for that purpose — an effort reported to save or create 100 green jobs.

RPS allow electricity companies to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy sources by 2025 in New Hampshire. Other states have their own standards. Lynch said at the time RPS were enacted that steady demand for wood chips would help the local logging industry and would create greater fuel diversity while strengthening energy independence. Utility companies that can’t meet specified percentages laid out by the state’s RPS can purchase renewable energy certificates from renewable companies. Companies can also pay a penalty to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which would turn the money into efficiency initiatives. Certificates are measured in terms of one megawatt per hour of renewable energy.

RGGI (www.rggi.org) appears to be working well, though it’s still in the early stages, said Joe Fontaine, trading programs manager with the state Department of Environmental Services. With five quarterly auctions so far, New Hampshire has participated in four. There are now 10 states participating in RGGI. The proceeds from the auctions have been used to fund a variety of energy-efficiency programs. The PUC determines which programs get funded. Fontaine said auctions have gone smoothly so far.

“Through the auctions they’ve been able to raise quite a bit of money for the PUC to fund programs,” Fontaine said. New Hampshire has received about $15.25 million so far through auctions, he said.

Clay Mitchell, president of the board of directors for the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association, said RGGI has the ability to provide the quickest results in terms of energy efficiencies and reducing emissions directly to New Hampshire residents.

“[RGGI has] got the biggest bang for the buck right here in New Hampshire,” Mitchell said. In RGGI, companies purchase allowances much as companies would buy renewable energy certificates through New Hampshire’s RPS. Allowances, measured by one ton of carbon dioxide emissions, are gradually reduced so that by 2018 companies wouldn’t be paying as much at auctions, but they’d also be practicing greater energy efficiency. Companies purchase sufficient allowances at auctions to cover their emissions, Fontaine said.
“Down the road, the hope is this will lead to less emissions and be less costly, since companies would have to buy fewer allowances than they would otherwise,” Fontaine said.

While New Hampshire is doing a lot at the state and regional levels, arguably more than other states, officials say if the goal is to substantially reduce dependency on foreign oil and reduce emissions, it needs to be a national policy.

“We can only unlock all these benefits with a national policy,” Rubens said. “If we don’t do it nationally, we’ll end up with a patchwork of states with different policies.”

Fontaine said other states are considering joining RGGI but many are waiting to see how the pending federal legislation plays out — it may include its own version of RGGI. There’s also talk of linking regional programs, but so far RGGI is the only one that’s up and running.

“Certainly one of the intentions of RGGI was to at some point drive a federal program,” Fontaine said. “It would definitely be advantageous for the expansion of RGGI to all of the states or some similar type program.”

RGGI focuses on the electricity sector, power plants, while a federal program would likely be broader, including other sectors, such as transportation, Fontaine said, adding there are provisions in the current federal legislation that would allow for a smooth transition from RGGI into a federal program.

“It would certainly be an opportunity for additional emissions reductions at a federal level,” Fontaine said. “RGGI was intended to be a modest first step.”

With some still questioning the need for major national environmental policy and whether climate change is actually happening, proponents are putting a full court press on lawmakers in hopes they’ll support an energy plan.

Miranda Carter, with the advocacy group 1Sky, is working to persuade Sen. Judd Gregg to support and work on energy legislation. Gregg supported a Sen. John McCain-sponsored energy plan several years ago. The bill was not approved, but Carter’s hoping Gregg’s support hasn’t been lost too.

“We need both of our U.S. senators who have different perspectives to play a role in shaping a national clean energy policy that reflects solutions and addresses their individual concerns,” Rubens said.

Carter said while it’s certainly good that New Hampshire has taken the initiative to create some environment-friendly policies, the need is much bigger than one state. The House version of the bill proposed to reduce emissions by 17 percent between now and 2020. The Senate version has upped the emissions reduction to 20 percent but has sacrificed efficiencies in other areas, Carter said.

1Sky is working on senators nationwide who could play a key role in getting to the filibuster-proof 60 votes. Carter said Gregg hasn’t tipped his hand yet. 1Sky has made more than 150 calls to Gregg’s office in recent weeks hoping to sway the senator.

“He really needs to step up and polish off his environmental legacy,” Carter said. Gregg will not seek reelection in 2010.

On a federal level, Mitchell said it’s tax incentives that will help get energy-efficiency projects off the ground more quickly. Plans were implemented under the Bush administration to provide major tax credits for renewable energy projects. The current administration isn’t changing those policies, but it is speeding up the process, Mitchell said.
On a large scale, financial institutions need to get on board with financing renewable energy projects, which Mitchell called the “final part of the picture.” He said Lynch’s 20 by 25 goal is realistic, but it will take a cohesive strategy — one plan can’t do it alone. He’d like to see a broad range of small-, medium- and large-scale initiatives that address energy efficiencies and emissions.

“We need a revolutionary change in how we think about energy,” Mitchell said.

Cut those utility bills
Stay warm in winter, cool in summer — for less
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com

Everyone should be focused on getting energy consumption down, and definitely figure out ways to lower their energy demand before adding renewable power, Jack Leary of KW Management said.

There are lots of easy, cheap or free things you can do to lower your home energy costs. If you live in an old, drafty house or have shoddy insulation, do your homework before you invest in major retrofits.

Stuff you might not think of
• Clean under your fridge: As bizarre as it may sound, cleaning the lint out from under your refrigerator saves energy. It’s one of the first things Clay Mitchell, president of New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association, and Gil Richardson, an NHSEA founder, mentioned. The lint clogs the compressor coils so that less air can get to them. The fridge becomes less efficient and has to run more often, Richardson said. 

Once you do that, you start realizing there’s a lot of equipment in a house that needs to be maintained a little bit, Mitchell said.

Along those lines, a refrigerator and freezer work more efficiently if they are filled, so place water jugs in as you empty out food. And if you have a party fridge in the basement chilling a few bottles of soda, shut it off or find an Energy Star replacement.

• Phantom loads: Take chargers out of sockets when you don’t need them. Use a Kill A Watt meter to find out what your appliances are using. Put things on power strips, like your home entertainment system, so you can shut the whole lot down. Set computers to hibernate, not standby, Mitchell said. Power your computer down. Richardson said computers are made to turn off thousands of times. 

A TV may give no indication it’s pulling power when it is. LCD screens are the most efficient, and plasma are the worst, but CRTs are pretty bad. “In the old days when I was a kid,” you had to get off the couch and turn on the TV and wait for the tube to warm up, Richardson said. Now, tubes have heaters running constantly so they can be “instantly” turned on by remote control. A CRT TV that’s off can use between 30 to 50 percent of power it uses when you are watching it.

Shutting down Wi-Fi and cable boxes at night is a good thing, assuming they won’t need to be reprogrammed if you do.

A Bits Smart Strip power strip has a special plug for your computer. Plug the other computer accessories into it, and when it senses your CPU going to sleep mode, the strip powers down the other items.

Other things you can do now
• Lights: Shut them off when you leave a room.

• Fans: Shut off kitchen and bath exhaust fans when you are done.

• Windows: Pull the shades down. Air is a good insulator. Leave shades up on south-facing windows on sunny winter days to take advantage of solar heat gain.

• Fireplaces: Make sure the chimney damper is closed when there’s no fire; use a fireplace cover. Chimney balloons are available which seal the flue better than metal dampers, Richardson said.

• Temperature: If you have an electronic thermostat, program it so the temperature is lower while you are at work or asleep in the winter unless you have radiant floor heating (higher in the summer if you have air conditioning). With manual thermostats, make a habit of lowering the heat when you leave the house or go to bed. Make sure the thermostat is calibrated correctly. It shouldn’t be on an exterior wall or near another temperature source, like a computer. Wait as long as you can to get the furnace fired up in the fall. Try to shut it down early in the spring. Use air conditioning sparingly.

• Hang-dry your clothes. Don’t leave the dryer on longer than necessary when you use it. Wash laundry in cold water when you can.

• Air-dry your dishes — some dishwashers have a setting for that. Otherwise, open the dishwasher after the rinse and shut it off. Scrape plates rather than pre-rinsing. Wash full loads.

• Cover your pans: Things boil faster that way. Don’t waste fuel boiling more liquid than you need for tea, pasta, etc. Match pan and burner size. Microwaves or toaster ovens can be more efficient for small batches.

• Use the key: Don’t use the automatic garage door opener, lazy.

• Turn the heat down: Your hot water tank should be set no lower than 120 degrees, but over 140 degrees is just wasting energy, Richardson said.

• Use the pressure gauge: Keeping the tires on your car inflated correctly helps it run more efficiently, as does keeping the car tuned, Richardson said. Don’t idle the vehicle.

Cheap or free fixes
• Lights: CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) are all the rage. Buy them for cheap through your utility company. Retail prices have gone down, too. They can last from 6,000 hours to 15,000 hours as opposed to incandescents’ 700 to 1,000 hours. They can use about 75 percent less energy than incandescents. See nhsaves.com for your utility’s lighting catalog.

CFLs contain mercury. Don’t throw them in the trash. Find out if your town will take them on hazardous waste collection days, or see www.des.state.nh.us or nhsaves.com. If a CFL breaks, vacate the room and open a window for 15 minutes to clear mercury vapors. Don’t vacuum. Use thick gloves and duct tape to pick up small pieces and double bag.

• Not CFLs: CFLs aren’t the best for cold weather. You might need another option for outdoor lighting (which is on motion sensors, of course). Solar-powered patio lights are popular — no electricity and no installation. Predictions are that LEDs will eventually be used as main lighting sources. For now, use electricity-saving LED light strings for holidays or summer deck parties.

If you use CFLs in a bathroom or someplace where you use a mirror, look for a high color rendering index (CRI). Incandescents and daylight are at the top of the scale at 100. CFLs are more like 80. Not everyone loves CFLs because of issues such as CRI or flicker.  

• Windows: A fast, cheap fix for the winter is that attractive window plastic wrap to trap insulating air. Thermal curtains are another option. If you have single-pane windows in good shape, adding storms can be a cheaper alternative to installing fancy new gas-filled, triple-paned windows. You can also look into air-sealing around the windows with nonexpandable insulating foam. Weatherstrip doors.

• Heating: Change your furnace air filter monthly, or service your oil system annually. Look for high-efficiency models when you replace heating equipment.

• Hot water: Install a shower water saver. For about $5, screw this on before the shower head. Turn the knob to pause flow while shampooing, etc. Use low-flow aerators.

Wrap a water heater insulating blanket around the tank. (Pay close attention to the instructions for gas-fired tank insulation blankets so you don’t cover controls, the pilot light, or the flue.) Natural gas customers can install tankless on-demand water heaters. You can insulate pipes.

• Outlets: Put foam gaskets around exterior wall light switches and electrical outlets. Save the pop outs, which offer almost half the insulating value, Button said.

• Landscape: Plant deciduous trees or bushes to the south. They shade the house in the summer. Bare of leaves in the winter, they allow sunlight to reach your home. For large properties, consider planting evergreens to the northwest to block winter winds.

• Participate: In a carbon or energy challenge to find more tips. See carbonchallenge.sr.unh.edu or find out if your town has an energy committee.

• Cover holes: Find products to cover whole-house fans open to attics or attic hatches, or air conditioners in the winter to prevent heat loss. Take a walk around your house to find other air leaks, like unsealed ducts or electrical sockets. Look at your roof. If snow is gone in some places, you have an air leak or a gap in insulation. (Often this is around chimneys or over recessed lighting.) If there’s no snow on your roof, you are probably paying to heat the outdoors.

Your building envelope
Insulating and air- and vapor-sealing homes is an evolving building science. Residents with electric heat can often take advantage of home energy analysis through their utility and get cash rebates toward recommended efficiency upgrades. Low-income families can often find weatherization assistance from county community action agencies. Those, along with qualified energy raters and contractors, are listed at www.repa-nh.org/consumerguide.php.

Think of an energy audit as a home inspection, but an inspection for where buildings are wasting energy, said Paul Button of Energy Audits Unlimited (www.energy-audits-unltd.com).

“Air sealing is kind of one of these things people don’t know that much about but can save people money, if done right,” said Andy Duncan of Building Technologies, Llc., in Concord (www.buildingenergytechnologies.com).

It can make sense to have a professional energy auditor bring a blower door ($2,500-$3,000) to figure out where the leaks are, Duncan said. It’s a large fan which is sealed into an exterior doorway and used to create negative pressure in the house. A blower door test measures air leakage in cubic feet per minute. Also, the homeowner and auditor go through the house while the fan is on to find places where air is flowing in, Duncan said.

After air-sealing, another blower door test can be done to make sure the house is not too tight.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard is .35 air changes per hour before mechanical ventilation should be introduced. However, you might want something higher for homes with several occupants, according to Chris Johnson of NH Electric Co-op, in 2008.

Another reason to be careful about how you seal and insulate is to prevent moisture issues that could damage your property and cause health problems.

An infrared camera can be used to find where heat is being lost and insulation may be missing or failing. It’s one of the services provided by Lakes Region Thermal Scan (www.lrthermalscan.com).

Fiberglass doesn’t stop air from moving, Button said. It’s a great insulator in any bay that’s not disturbed. Switches and outlets are places for air to get in, and once air starts moving in the bay, it’s compromised, Button said.

Blown-in cellulose is made from recycled newspapers and magazines treated with boric acid, the first ingredient in eye wash, Button said. Boric acid flame-proofs and insects don’t like it. Cellulose is better for air sealing than fiberglass. Spray foam is expensive but a good insulator.

Use common sense to find ways to make your house resistant to heat flow. Find out what upgrades will get you the biggest savings for the least cost, and start there. Figure out how long it will take for those savings to cancel out your investment. “You can pay for the insulation now or pay for the energy forever,” Johnson said.

“I think a lot of people don’t know where to start,” Button said. An energy audit can offer a starting point. Your audit report should give you a computer model of the building, a list of measures, and hopefully an estimated cost for each measure.

Button can tailor reports for do-it-yourselfers or for professional weatherization companies. Keep in mind weatherization companies are insulation companies, but not all insulation companies weatherize, Button said.

Unfortunately, few banks are offering low-APR loans for residential energy-efficiency measures right now, he said. Button believes that’s due to people investing $20,000 in new windows, when the return on the investment for the bank and homeowner can be “pitiful,” Button said. Button’s reports usually project efficiency costs between $5,000 and $7,000. He doesn’t make guarantees, but said people can usually expect between 20 and 30 percent in energy savings.

“What’s going on with windows is physics,” Button said.

If you are 98 degrees and stand next to a 20-degree window, heat moves to cold, so your body is radiating to the window, and you think the windows are bad. In convection, heat moves to the exterior wall and hits the window, where it cools and falls, so you feel a draft. You think the window is drafty because you are standing in the middle of convective loop.

Single-pane windows with functioning storm windows are about equal to R-2 in insulating value, Button said. The minimum for an Energy Star-rated window is equal to about R-3. (Windows are actually measured in the converse, U, the transmission of heat through a solid object.) However, typical insulated walls offer between R-11 and R-19. And if windows make up only 15 percent or so of your exterior, the payback on new windows will most likely take a very long time.

The decorative-looking cornice block is actually an energy-saving device. It redirects warm air over top of the box down the front of drapes instead of behind drapes, cutting off the convective loop, Button said.

Note: Part of this list was gathered from sources like EnergyStar, New Hampshire utility companies, U.S. Dept. of Energy (www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/), energy workshops and classes I attended at Lakes Region Community College’s new Energy Services and Technology Program.

The car’s green evolution
A look at hybrids
By Doran Dal Pra news@hippopress.com

What makes a hybrid a hybrid is the pairing of fossil-fuel-burning engines and electric ones.

While this combination can be found in nearly every form, from trucks to motorcycles and trains, it is the car that has brought hybrid technology into the mainstream. I looked at 12 hybrid vehicles on the market. For more detailed information on each one, visit the manufacturers’ Web sites.

Honda Insight
Year: 2010
Base price: $19,800
Get up and go: The original Honda Insight introduced in 1999 was the first gas-electric hybrid sold in the U.S and made Honda the first automaker to bring a hybrid into the States. The 2010 Insight goes head to head with the Toyota Prius and features Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system, an improved Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-Mh) battery pack, a 1.3-liter, i-VTEC four-cylinder engine, and a permanent magnet AC synchronous motor, all driven through a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Honda’s Eco Assist is an onboard computer system that tells the driver how efficiently he is driving in real-time, and what the long-term average efficiency is. Drivers have the ECON button at their fingertips to regulate specific functions of the car to improve its efficiency. Creature comforts include Bluetooth compatibility, satellite navigation with voice recognition, an MP3 audio jack, USB audio interface, and a host of other items. The Insight is rated at 40 mpg city/43 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Toyota Prius
Year: 2010
Base price: $22,000
Get up and go: The Prius has become synonymous with the hybrid car movement. It, together with the Lexus RX Hybrid, also manufactured by Toyota, reached 1.7 million sales worldwide in February 2009. The Prius is powered by a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine and a permanent magnet AC synchronous motor that in conjunction produce 134 horsepower. Toyota’s hybrid flagship uses an integrated regenerative braking system to help recharge the Ni-Mh battery pack and an electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT). Select the “EV” mode in the drive mode selector and your Prius will run on just electricity for up to a half mile, or settle for “Eco Mode” where the gas pedal sensitivity is actually decreased so your lead foot (are those eco-friendly?) has less of an impact and your efficiency is improved. Not feeling so green? Toggle the “Power Mode” to give the engine more freedom to rev and increased pedal sensitivity. The Prius features Intelligent Parking Assist for that particularly tight parking space at the organic food market. The Prius is rated 51 mpg city/48 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Honda Civic Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $23,800
Get up and go: The Honda Civic, in its many variations, is the second-longest-running vehicle from a Japanese manufacturer, behind the Toyota Corolla. The first-generation Civic Hybrid was introduced in February 2002 and this newest model carries on the hybrid moniker with a 1.3-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine and a permanent magnet electric motor and Ni-Mh batteries. A CVT puts the power to the ground, all 110 horsepower and 123 lb-ft of torque. Like the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Civic’s electric engine can power the car up to 35 mph if the driver is light on the throttle and the batteries are fully charged. Charging is achieved through regenerative braking, where the batteries are recharged as you use the brakes, a system found on most hybrids. “With smart electronics connecting the throttle pedal to the throttle butterfly valve in the intake manifold, the engine response can be optimized to suit the driving conditions and to better match the driver’s expectations,” according to Honda’s Web site on the Civic’s Drive-by-Wire system. In plain English, the car’s computer monitors the throttle and makes the driving experience smooth and accurate. The Civic Hybrid is rated 40 mpg city/45 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Ford Fusion Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $27,675
Get up and go: Ford’s entry to the hybrid sedan market is “most fuel-efficient hybrid sedan in America,” Ford’s Web site claims. Propulsion comes from the 2.5-liter Atkinson-Cycle four-cylinder engine. The Fusion’s electric motor can whisk the car up to 47 mph on its power alone in the right conditions. When the electric motor needs some extra strength, the gasoline engine chimes in. Combined output between the gasoline and electric engines is 191 horsepower. Power is put to the ground through an ECVT, and the battery pack is Ni-Mh. Ford has given the Fusion Hybrid a digital readout of real-time and long-term fuel mileage with its SmartGauge Cluster with EcoGuide. The Fusion Hybrid is rated 41 mpg city/36 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Nissan Altima Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $26,780
Get up and go: The Nissan Altima Hybrid sedan gets a slight refresh for the 2010 model year. The Altima Hybrid makes a total of 198 horsepower from its 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine and electric motor. The Altima’s hybrid engine qualifies it for an Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (AT-PZEV) rating, and gives it an estimated range of 600 miles between trips to the pump. One of the major benefits of electric motors is torque (the force you feel when a car accelerates), and the Altima’s electric power plant makes a healthy 199 lb-ft of the stuff. The Altima Hybrid has an available Technology Package that features XM Satellite Radio, XM NavTraffic, DVD navigation and touch screen and a RearView monitor. This hybrid is fresh onto the lot with a just-released date of Oct. 5, but you’ll have to do a bit of traveling to pick one up. The Altima Hybrid is only available in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont. The Altima Hybrid is rated 35 mpg city/33 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Toyota Camry Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $26,870
Get up and go: The Toyota Camry Hybrid differs from its sibling, the Prius, in that it is a mid-size sedan that has been given a hybrid heart, rather than being a hybrid-specific vehicle from the beginning. The Camry develops a total of 187 horsepower from its permanent magnet AC synchronous motor and 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine. Like the Prius, Camry features an ECVT to deliver its hybrid power. Urban driving is where the hybrid Camry makes a more compelling case over its gasoline-only duplicate with a 12-mpg improvement. The Camry Hybrid is rated 33 mpg city/34 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Lexus HS 250h
Year: 2010
Base price: $34,200
Get up and go: The HS 250h joins three other Lexus-branded hybrids: the RX 450h, the GS 450h mid-size sedan, and the full-on luxury sedan, the LS 600h. What Lexus has done with this car is create the world’s first dedicated entry-level luxury hybrid. Following the Lexus recipe of high quality and plenty of technology, the HS 250h gives those looking to purchase an upscale car a hybrid option. It also brings to the table the company’s first four-cylinder engine. The Atkinson-cycle engine features Variable Valve Timing with Intelligence (VVT-i) and with the electric drive motor makes 187 horsepower. Like several of the other hybrids here, the HS has four drive-modes: Normal, Power, Eco and EV, all of which alter the behavior of the hybrid system. The HS can come equipped with XM satellite radio, a Wide-view Front Monitor to help the driver see in certain areas through the navigation system display, a Heads-Up Display, Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning, and a Pre-Collision System with radar cruise control, among other options. The HS 250h is rated 35 mpg city/34 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Year: 2009
Base price: $34,700
Get up and go: This full-size SUV has been given a transplant in the form of an electric motor with systems that can send power to all four wheels, giving the vehicle the safety and stability of All-Wheel Drive. Its gasoline engine is a 3.3-liter V-6 with a combined output of 270 horsepower. And you have your choice of options. Satellite radio? Check. Dual zone climate control? Check. Hybrid Towing Prep Package with a 3,500-lb. towing capacity, a heavy-duty radiator, 240-watt fan coupling, and transmission oil cooler? You know it. The Highlander Hybrid is rated 27 mpg city/25 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Lexus RX 450h
Year: 2010
Base price: $42,110 to $43,700
Get up and go: Available in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, the 450h combines a new 3.5-liter V-6 gasoline engine and a permanent magnet electric motor to create 295 total horsepower and qualifies for a Super Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle rating. The RX has appeared in hybrid form as the RX 400h for several years and this 2010 model is an update, featuring a new engine, improved Ni-Mh battery pack, cooling systems, and computer/driver interface, what Lexus calls its Remote Touch system. Like the systems found on BMWs and Mercedes, Remote Touch allows the driver to set up the navigation system, change the radio station, turn on the A/C and perform a number of other functions via an in-car computer screen. The 450h also lets the driver select an Eco or EV mode; EV allows the car to run on only batteries up to 10 mph while Eco reduces throttle sensitivity for more, well, Eco-logically conscious driving. The RX 450h front-wheel-drive version is rated 31 mpg city/28 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Ford Escape Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $31,500
Get up and go: Ford’s Escape Hybrid has the distinction of being the first hybrid SUV and the first hybrid whose gasoline engine capable of running on E85 ethanol. Since its release in 2005, the Escape Hybrid has gone through several refreshings; the latest update took place on this, the 2010 car, and includes a reworked battery pack that allows for 20 percent more power per cell, allowing the weight and size of the pack to be brought down, and the top speed under electric-only power was increased to an impressive 44 mph. A 2.5-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine provides the fuel burning power, while a permanent magnet AC synchronous motor adds an extra 94 horsepower to the mix. Both the base and hybrid Escape employ Ford’s “AdvanceTrac with Roll Stability Control,” whose gyroscopic sensors measure vehicle yaw and roll and can apply brake pressure and adjust the engine’s output to help keep control of the vehicle in panic maneuver situations. The Escape is also offered in a four-wheel-drive configuration. The Ford Escape Hybrid front-wheel-drive is rated 34 mpg city/31 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Chevy Tahoe Hybrid
Year: 2010
Base price: $50,455
Get up and go: The Chevy Tahoe Hybrid shares its basic architecture with the Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon. Like the Highlander Hybrid, the Tahoe is a large SUV with a hybrid system implant. It mates a massive 6-liter, V8 engine to an electric engine and gets a claimed average fuel economy that bests a six-cylinder Toyota Camry. One of the benefits of the Tahoe hybrid, like the Highlander hybrid, is that it gives people the opportunity to keep their large vehicle with its high towing capacity, space for kids and things and road presence, with the benefits of improved fuel economy. The full gamut of fuel-saving technology is included in the Tahoe: Regenerative braking, a two-mode hybrid system, and cylinder deactivation. The latter system allows four of the Tahoe’s eight cylinders to shut down during certain conditions such as steady state cruising where the engine isn’t working hard. The Tahoe’s two-mode hybrid system is a clever fuel-saving maneuver and what makes it a particularly special vehicle. One “mode” is shutting down the gas engine whenever possible, just like other hybrids; the other involves the electric motors assisting the engine during cruising to reduce the work being done by the gasoline engine, thereby saving fuel. This system keeps the engine running at optimal rpms where the engine is most efficient. The Tahoe Hybrid is rated 21 mpg city/22 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Chevy Silverado Hybrid
Year: 2009
Base price: $38,020
Get up and go: Chevrolet’s Silverado pickup trucks have been some of the best selling trucks for years. With all models, sizes, specialties and tasks, the Silverado line of vehicles was a prime target for a hybrid model. Enter the Chevy Silverado 1500 Hybrid. Like the Tahoe Hybrid, the Silverado shares the 6-liter, V8 engine, two-mode hybrid system and significantly improved fuel economy with the SUV, and also with the GMC Sierra truck. Both the Silverado and the Sierra can tow a maximum of 6,100 pounds for the rear-wheel drive models and 5,900 for four-wheel drive versions. These hybrid trucks are a large step in the right direction. The Silverado/Sierra Hybrid is rated 21 mpg city/22 mpg highway, according to EPA estimates.

Incentives
This year and next are good times to take advantage, because incentives are maximized, Leary said. Here are some rebates available for homes:

• A federal 30-percent tax credit for residential solar water heat, photovoltaics, wind, fuel cells, geothermal heat pumps and some other solar electric technologies. There’s no limit for many of these, if they were installed in 2009.
• A federal 30-percent tax credit for energy-efficiency improvements, including approved biomass (pellet) stoves up to $1,500, installed in 2009 or 2010.
• A state maximum rebate of $6,000 or up to half of a system cost is available for wind or photovoltaic under 5 kw, funded by RPS. (See www.puc.nh.gov)
• Low-income NHEC customers can apply for up to $3,600 in grant money for weatherization costs or Energy Star appliances (www.nhec.com)
• NHEC also loans money for energy-efficiency measures which customers pay back through their energy savings.
• NHEC offers up to $4,500 in rebates for geothermal heat pumps, and up to $4,000 for energy-efficient technologies.
• NHEC offers up to $3,500 for photovoltaics or wind systems or up to $1,500 for solar hot water through Dec. 31.
• PSNH offers up to $7,500 for their “geothermal track,” along with other incentives (www.psnh.com).
• National Grid offers a 15-percent rebate for solar thermal systems, up to $1,500. They also offer energy-efficiency and weatherization rebates. 
• Unitil and Northern Utilities also have incentives in place.

Visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy & Efficiency at www.dsireusa.org for a complete list of residential and other incentives available.

Sylvia Schwartz, at NEXUS in Boston (www.greenroundtable.org) also recommends the EPA’s catalog of Local, State, and Federal Green Building Funding Opportunities at www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/tools/funding.htm; and NEXUS maintains incentive information at www.nexusboston.com/learn/green_building_faqs.html.

Geothermal explained
Roger Skillings of Skillings and Sons in Amherst teaches classes on geothermal. His company used to work on about 80 percent residential geothermal installations, although now about half are commercial.

To explain geothermal heating and cooling, Skillings points to energy transfer, the first law of thermodynamics.

“If you put your hand on this table right now it’s cold. There’s energy transferring from your hand into the table. Energy is heat,” Skillings said. “It’s directional. When we extract heat out of the ground it’s the energy we’re extracting,” Skillings said.

The ground temperature in New England is approximately 50 degrees. Water used to move that heat is called the vehicle. The vehicle transfers 50-degree heat to a heat pump that uses a compressor to compress freon gas. Because the gas is much colder than the water, it absorbs the heat from the water in a pipe within a pipe. “That water temperature wants to get transferred into the gas,” Skillings said. That hot gas then goes through a radiator called a fan coil. Air that is colder than the coil comes across it, absorbs the heat and distributes it throughout the house through an air duct system, as a furnace does.

The freon is a hot gas under pressure when it goes through the fan coil. Then it goes through an expansion valve, and when it depressurizes, it becomes a liquid, and is cold. It heads back through the coil with water pumped from the ground, extracts heat, and turns back from a liquid to a low-pressure gas. It heads back to the compressor. “I can’t compress a liquid. I can only compress a gas,” Skillings said.

In the summer, the direction is changed, so that the water is instead used to make the hot gas colder, and air blowing across the fan coil instead releases its heat into the liquid.

Some systems rob some of the freon’s heat to preheat a domestic hot water tank. It’s more efficient to heat your drinking and washing water from 100 to 130 degrees than from 50 to 130 degrees, Skillings said.

To install goethermal, you usually need a yard of some sort, Skillings said. However, they installed two geothermal wells this summer for New Hampshire Institute of Art’s Lowell St. building in downtown Manchester.

There are horizontal, vertical and standing column designs. There’s an open-loop system called “pump and dump” in which ground water is pumped out for heating and cooling, then dumped into a pond, which is not environmentally responsible. A doublet pumps water from one well to another.

However, water goes back to the same well in a standing column design. The water is in contact with the rock, providing the best energy transfer. In a closed-loop design, the liquid is in a pipe that is grouted in with sand and clay, so energy must transfer through all of that from the ground. It’s considered safer environmentally, but because it will be about 25 percent less efficient, this design usually requires a larger pump which must run more often.

Skillings said it can cost between 50 and 70 cents per square foot to heat and cool a house with this geothermal. You also need to make the building envelope efficient so you aren’t wasting BTUs, he said.

Skillings pointed out that that current 30-percent tax credit on these systems is a credit, meaning that 30 percent of the cost of this can be taken off your taxes. You aren’t just deducting it from taxable income. 

Skillings said the ground exchanger, heat pump and duct work (you can use existing ducts, though) costs between $7,000 and $8,000 per ton — the volume of energy needed to heat the house.

The pellet stove
Jon Strimling, president of WoodPellets.com (formerly pelletsales.com), said the Goffstown company started in 2006 because he saw “real inefficiencies” of distribution of these fuels. It is focused on making it easy for everyone who wants to heat with renewable fuels to do so, and making delivery efficient, Strimling said. WoodPellets.com drops the pellets in bulk in your driveway, whereas people used to pick them up a bag at a time from stores. The Goffstown company works with pellet manufacturers and consumers throughout the U.S.

The company doesn’t sell pellet stoves, but works with about 200 affiliates that do. Pellet stove solutions for each homeowner can differ, so it’s important to have a professional work with you, Strimling said.

WoodPellets.com says most of its pellets come from recycled sawdust and other lumber byproducts, or dead timber — it doesn’t use tops. It’s clean, dry, wood with no chemicals, typically debarked and compacted. Pellets can offer six times the energy of cord wood because they are dried and compacted. Pellet wood has fewer particulates and is burned in a more controlled way. You can’t see or smell the exhaust, Strimling said. External air is used, so the system is sealed off from the house, and piped out of the house. A chimney isn’t needed. It uses a heat exchanger to be 90-percent efficient. A convection fan throws the heat around the house.

Pellet stoves often are used in place of fireplaces or wood stoves, and the homeowner turns off or back their fossil-fueled heating system. Pellet stoves can often replace 80 percent of the home’s heat, Strimling said.

There are also whole-house pellet boilers available to work with hydronic systems, or pellet furnaces, for air systems, which can use existing ductwork.

What you save depends on the price of your conventional heating fuel. Currently, a 30-percent tax credit is available on pellet stoves, he said.

An MIT study showed that pellet stoves can provide about 75 percent fewer carbon emissions than burning oil.

As long as the wood is harvested sustainably and pellets are using parts that would have been decomposing in landfills and releasing carbon anyway, pellets can be seen as renewable. Transportation is a major energy sink, Strimling said. Still, analysis shows wood pellets to be more efficient, he said.

Pellet stoves aren’t for everyone, Strimling concedes. Normally you have to feed about a bag of pellets into the stove each day, and periodically remove ash. Elderly people may not want to lift heavy bags.

On the other hand, some people like the daily ritual of feeding the stove or cozying up by the fire.

The company is working on ways to deliver pellets in bulk into a larger feeder, the same way oil is, to make pellet stoves more automatic.

Pellet stoves came into use in the 1970s and were invented in the U.S., but the technology behind using wood pellets for heating has come a long way, said Jennifer Nickulas of WoodPellets.com. Most of Europe has run with it, and a majority of new homes in Austria and Germany have pellet stoves, Nickulas said.

Calculate your carbon
Use the carbon calculator at necarbonchallenge.org/calculator.jsp to estimate your home’s carbon dioxide emissions. The program estimates how much carbon and money you are saving as you make changes. The New England Carbon Challenge, formerly the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge, shows a map with updates from other participants. 

Also, the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association offers a “Walk the Talk Scorecard” downloadable at www.nhsea.org.

Sources all noted that you can find plenty of information about making your home more energy-efficient at Energystar.gov.

Find deals on CFLs and other efficient devices at nhsaves.com.

A greener lot
Drive down Route 101A in Nashua and a new automotive dealership might catch your eye. Open since Sept. 1,  The Hybrid Center of New England is the first of its kind in the nation: A stand-alone pre-owned hybrid vehicle dealership. As the name implies, its focus is on selling and servicing hybrid cars, SUVs and trucks.

“The dust hasn’t even settled yet on the new property…. The lawn went in yesterday and the trees went up today,” said Mike Fortier, the Hybrid Center’s sales manager. Although it’s new, the Hybrid Center has the advantage of drawing on lessons and experiences from Toyota of Nashua, its parent company. “We’ve had 10 years of selling and service experience and we know where they market is going,” Fortier said. “We’re trying to build a new brand and show people how simple a hybrid is.”

While those who currently “think green” and own a hybrid already see the benefits and believe in the idea, Fortier wants to convince the average car buyer that a hybrid is a simple, effective alternative to a traditionally fueled car.

“The hybrid car market is currently less than about 5 percent, but we see it getting up to around 25 to 30 percent,” Fortier said. “Fuel prices are not going to come down and with new regulations from other states on fuel consumption, demand is only going to go up.”

Currently, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Lexus are represented at The Hybrid Center. There are also several non-hybrids on the lot, something that will be changing as demand increases and as more pre-owned hybrids become available. Fortier estimates that at capacity, the Center will hold between 60 and 100 cars.

“People are curious, asking what’s going on and what’s happening. Demand is creating its own story,” Fortier said.

See Hybrid Center’s Web site at www.hybridcenterofne.com.

Hack your car
Randolph Bryan is thinking big with ConVerdant Vehicles. ConVerdant is derived from Latin and means “with green,” and Bryan, a technology and computer guy by trade, is making his vehicles with some added eco-friendliness in the form of aftermarket electric motors that assist the car’s engine.

Bryan started his company roughly a year ago. The inspiration for ConVerdant came from seeing Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and Bryan’s desire to provide affordable products that would improve on current automotive technology.

“I saw an opportunity in the vehicle area for creating new green products,” Bryan said.

ConVerdant offers plug-in conversions for cars and trucks. Bryan’s first vehicle, the Chevrolet Avalanche pictured here, has an electric motor attached to the drivetrain, a computer brain in the truck that monitors throttle position and speed, and a battery pack under the bed. The system detects how the gas pedal is being used and adds power from the electric motor to lessen the work, strain and gas being burned by the truck’s engine at lower speeds and while accelerating.

Fossil-fuel-powered vehicles are naturally at their least efficient when accelerating from a standstill. When you add in power from an electric motor during the acceleration process, you can improve a vehicle’s fuel economy. ConVerdant’s plug-in hybrid system can increase fuel economy by 25 percent, he claims.

“The electric motor and the gasoline motor talk to each other,” Bryan said. “This vehicle is the test bed for this design and for future products.”

The driving experience is almost identical to a standard car with no extra noises or sensations. The only indication that you’re driving something special is that when accelerating you can feel the extra torque from the electric motor, and at 30 mph when the electric motor cuts out and the truck seems to have been released from some extra friction. In all, it drives like a traditional car.

“The perception has been that we have to cut, save and scrimp to conserve fuel,” Bryan said. “What’s left out is the concept that the advocacy for energy change isn’t to lower your expectations, it’s to green ’em up!” With ConVerdant Vehicles, Bryan hopes to provide people who own existing cars and trucks with the option of converting them into a plug-in hybrid. ConVerdant fills the niche of helping current owners be green and save green. “If you’re going to do what you want to do, do them green.”

The next project in the pipeline is an anti-idling system, or what Bryan calls an APC (Accessory Power Controller). The system will turn the gasoline engine on and off when idling, while allowing the driver to still use the car’s accessories like the A/C, radio and other electronics. The APC will be similar to the technology found on current hybrid vehicles and will help owners conserve gasoline.

Bryan is the self-proclaimed “clean fingernails” side of ConVerdant Vehicles. He also works with Dan Weed, the “dirty fingernails” guy, who helps develop and install the conversion kits, and Concord Motorsports, which has offered to be an install location.

Bryan hopes to have an impact on both the environment and the local economy through ConVerdant Vehicles, and based on the still fledgling results, it seems he will. “I’m excited about bringing this concept into the automotive industry and being part of its growth,” Bryan said.

ConVerdant Vehicles is online at www.converdantvehicles.com.