Recently in Energy Efficiency Category

Houston Neal explores how electricity offers job opportunities at The Software Advice Construction Blog.  The electrical grid is where it's at.

Neal says "electrical contractors" will transition to "energy contractors" to support the green construction market, and that the profession will grow tremendously.  Neal cites a study by the American Solar Energy Society of Boulder, Colo. that says renewable energy jobs for electricians will grow about 900 percent by 2030, just in Colorado.

In the next ten to twenty years, "electrical contractor" will no longer be a suitable job title for electricians. They will transition into "energy contractors" to support the fast-growing green construction market.

According to Auden Schendler

U.S. Department of Energy's Building America program helped builders design and erect more than 20,000 new homes, with a minimum 30% reduction in energy use for heating, cooling, and hot water at no net cost.

Auden Schendler is Executive Director of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company. He is the author of Getting Green Done: Hard Truths From the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution (PublicAffairs, 2009).

Bill Swietlik has worked in EPA's Office of Water in Washington DC since 1988. In 2009, he  created the EPA Green Homes website.  This website provides pages of useful, practical information and advice for the homeowner or apartment dweller to live a greener, more energy efficient life at home.

While he was developing the website, he and his wife  decided to implement as many of the recommendations as possible to see if they could live greener, and after six months the results came in!

• They are using 35% less electricity,
• They are using a bit less water,
• They are recycling 75% of all our household waste,
• Most storm water runoff stays on our property during each rainfall,
• They are gradually eliminating our ½ acre of lawn (and all the work that goes with it) and turning it into a garden of native plants by re-naturalizing our yard.
• They purchased 100% Green Power (renewable electricity) from the local utility through their renewable energy program.
• And, they've done all this with minimal expense and are saving almost $550 a year on energy bills!

EPA's new Green Homes website is at  www.epa.gov/greenhomes