Introduction

As the title of this Blog implies it will be about energy efficiency and things happening in the "green" and "energy" worlds in general. I live and work in Austin, Texas so some of the information here will be more pertinent to those who live in the area, but there will also be general information for those of you who don't get to share our lovely city. The main reason I am creating this blog is because energy efficiency is the here and now of the movement to slow C02 build up in the atmosphere. Replacing dirty production methods with cleaner renewable energy sources is great and is the long term solution, but in the short run can not offset enough demand to make a lot of difference. So in the short run the way we supply our energy is pretty fixed and pretty dirty, so the only way to change it is to reduce the demand. This will do two things, first it will reduce emissions in the short run by decreasing the amount of energy we have to create with our current dirty plants, and two it will make it easier to begin shifting the load onto renewables moving forward. To this end of reducing our demand, we must become more efficient in how we use our energy. If we all simply limited wasted energy then the actual impact on our lifestyles would be very minimal.

About the Author: Barret Hudson works for Green Collar Operations, an Austin company that does home weatherization to increase energy efficiency by reducing the amount of energy used to heat and cool homes. For more information go to www.greencollaroperations.com