local efforts

where I live

First, a hydrogen bus

It [the plant] produces hydrogen by reforming natural gas and converting solar and wind energy through electrolysis.

Then, an agreement between a California desert city and California utilities doing their part by sending their esteemed officials to the Baltic in August, when back home the temperatures got to 120 DegF.

August 2005: Palm Desert Mayor Buford Crites and City Councilman Jim Ferguson meet with representatives from Southern California Edison and the Southern California Gas Co. in Tallinin, Estonia. Along with John Phillips of the Energy Coalition and Mike Peavy, chairman of the California Public Utilities Commission, they write and sign an agreement - called the Estonia Protocol - to cut the city's energy use by 30 percent.

Of course, it takes time to come up with measures such as this, perhaps a decade, and the authors went to places like Sweden, Aspen, San Francisco, Italy and Estonia. The city plan refers to the 30% thusly:

While considered by many to be "stretch goals', we are firm in our commitment to demonstrate something really meaningful.

The big boys have their Uppsala , Rimini and other Oil Depletion Protocols. We have our own.

As a followup on this plan, here's one development that's supposed to come under its rubrick. The building industry balks at any extra expense:

But Ed Kibbey, executive director of the Building Industry Association's Desert Chapter, said the city has no proof that the extra costs of its new standards will be balanced by long-term savings.

Developers comply, he said, because "their concern is with time, 'cause time costs money. They've got a market that is good, and they want to get their sticks in the air to sell them."

Conlon [director of the city's new Office of Energy Management] replied that the new standards are only interim proposals and will not be written into an ordinance until the city completes a cost-effectiveness study, which will have to pass muster with the California Public Utilities Commission.

A followup piece describes a retrofitted energy-efficient house with an air conditioning system that is supposed to cut

energy use from the 7,000 watts most air conditioners run on to about 300 watts, about the same as three light bulbs, said Virginia Nicols, communications manager for the Energy Coalition.

The quote is mostly likely incomplete, since the calculation leaves out the energy used to create ice (energy storage) at night. For California homes, energy rates are not cheaper at night. Such an incentive could help, but energy demand would still be great.

8/25/06 Update: per Desert Sun followup , Buford Crites states it's:

stuck in the deep sand of the California regulatory labyrinth.

and regarding the 'thermal-storage air conditioning system, which makes ice at night to cool their house by day':

The couple's electric bills zoomed. May's bill was $205, compared to $66.73 last year, said Dennis Hanks. And the couple's June and July bills showed similar increases. The problem, Hanks said, is that the system, made by Ice Energy of Colorado, runs all night, outweighing any daytime savings. "We don't know what to expect; it's a prototype," Hanks said of the system.'

Update (06-12-01): Palm Desert set to approve plan.

And a bit farther afield, here's a piece about electricity demand in the American West. Note the reference to the Tragedy of the Commons.

An update: California Connected on PBS tv presents one energy researcher, Peter Lehman.