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.

I just returned from the Greenbuild conference in Phoenix. This annual event, now in its eighth year, has become the leading locus for exchange of information about the rapidly growing green building movement. This year's event drew some 22,000 attendees, including architects, builders, engineers, developers, and manufacturers, from the U.S., Canada, and dozens of other countries.

These shorts were filmed at West Coast Green; for more like them, see revision.tv.

As a follow-on to The Great Passivhaus Face-off, take a look at this commentary from a couple years ago in the wake of a visit to Passivhaus examples in Germany by a couple well-informed British authors and researchers — The Passive House: thoughts and reflections. It begins, "There were a couple of moments when the PassivHaus study tour seemed to lose all contact with normality and enter int

A little over a year ago I reported on the efforts of a local organization, Brattleboro Thermal Utility (BTU), to develop a wood-chip-fired "combined heat and power" (CHP) plant for the town. In that column I reported that BTU, on whose board I sit, was trying to identify a company to carry out a preliminary feasibility study for the project; we were also seeking funding for that study.

Two guys were walking down the hall. Professional-looking guys, architectorial. One of them said to the other, "It's called, um, energy... recovery ventilator." BAM! That's what it's about. Yeah, there's greenwash, there's cynicism, there's impatience. But there's also people finding their way forward. We're all spread out along the learning curve, and that's something I have a difficult time keeping in mind. It's easy to feel like everything's too-little-too-late, and hard for me to give credit for good intentions where it's due. And with that, I'm going to break with the blogging.

I normally post the Top-10 green building products list just as Alex is starting the presentation. And this year, I just totally spaced it out.

Last week, we took a look at how to save energy and water with clothes washing. This week we'll turn our attention to drying, which accounts for approximately 6% of all household electricity consumption in the U.S.