China too Green Even for a Green Hummer
GM announced today that its deal to sell the Hummer brand to a Chinese heavy machinery company has failed and it will begin the process of closing the Hummer operation. In this tough economic climate you can understand why large acquisitions fail... but...
Bloom Energy Servers Could Change the World
Today, Bloom Energy launched their Energy Server product and went public with a new website containing much greater detail about the company and their products. You can read previous posts on the Bloom Box aka Energy Server here. In this post, I...
* Update - 4/16/12 - FTC orders Green Millionaire founder has to pay 2 million in damages!
I recently had a friend and reader suggest I check out this great new free book he found called The Green Millionaire. He said I could get a free copy at the website (I'm not even going to link to their...
Horalby's LEED Gold home
Last week I had a reader reach out and say they really liked a blog post. She also shared with me her experience with building a green home and the fact they were working to achieve LEED Gold status for their home. Lorraine and Judd Horbaly are building their...
The inner workings of our energy future?
We first mentioned Bloom Energy in our post on residential fuel cells, but when we published that post earlier this month not too much was known about the stealthy company who thinks they can revolutionize how we get our energy. That could all change...
Bloom Energy Could Change the World
Tonight, I need to bring a somewhat untraditional Mapawatt post to the site. It's not a "how-to" on residential energy efficiency but I think you will see that what is about to be announced next week could change the way you think about and use energy in the...
Electrical Space Heating - For the Dogs?
Electrical resistance space heating is one of the most expensive and least efficient ways to heat your whole home; however there are a few applications where they might have their place. When I was in high school I would turn my parent's space heater on...
My Natural Gas Bill
If you must rely on fossil fuels to heat your home - whether directly by burning a gas or liquid (heating oil) in a furnace or indirectly through the mostly fossil-fueled electricity grid – then burning natural gas in your home furnace is the cleanest and most efficient way...
Don't you love it when the government gives you money to help buy something that is going to save you even more money! Luckily Steven Chu, the director of the Department of Energy, believes that you can never have too much of a good thing. In July of 2009 he announced that $300 million dollars...
Snow Covered Solar Hot Water Collectors
At Mapawatt HQ, we often find ourselves reminding each other that we have to avoid "region-itis." Since we are located in the southeast, it's easy to focus on cooling, natural gas heated water and such without remembering that in other regions of the...
Wheego Electric Car
As many of our readers know, Mapawatt's headquarters is located Atlanta, Georgia. When most people think of renewable energy, they think of clean-tech centers like California, Oregon, Washington, etc. This is why I was thrilled to find another great clean energy startup...
The following information was written for Mapawatt by the folks over at HowToSaveElectricity.net and is an interesting look at the Climate Change debate. I've expressed my feelings on the topic in my post, "I've solved Climate Change!". Read the article below for a take on the topic you may not...
State pays up front, you pay back in taxes
The problem with many renewable energy (solar pv/thermal and wind turbines) and energy efficiency retrofits (new windows, efficient hvac system, insulation, etc.) is that they cost a fair amount of money up front. In times like these, many people don't...
Heat Pump Diagram
When you think about it, "pump" is a funny word isn't it? Heat Pump is also funny, because the name is a little misleading. When you see Heat Pump, you only think about "heating", but it can also be used to cool. So really, it should be called a Heat/Cool Pump. The most...
Henry Ford with his Model T
As my electric Porsche Boxster reaches the final stages of construction, I've been working on preparing my home for the car. Bringing home an electric car is a different experience than trading in an old Volkswagen for a Toyota Prius. The Prius takes the Volkswagen'...
There is a lot of buzz about the "Smart Grid", and I've written several article on the topic in the "monitoring" section, but nobody really knows what the electricity grid in the U.S. will look like 10-20 years from now. Government hails the smart grid as the savior for renewable energy and...
ClearEdge Fuel Cell
We've covered the common types of alternative energy for your home - Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Small Wind, even Biomass - but until now we haven't even had a category for the residential fuel cell, much less a natural gas fuel cell. The main reason for this is that up until...
Nissan Leaf Electric Car
The first production electric car from a major auto manufacturer is on tour across the United States! I caught the Nissan Leaf while it was in Atlanta, GA in January. This isn't your typical econo-box 1-2 seater electric vehicle. It's a 4 seater wagon with a 100 mile...
On Friday, January 29, 2010 President Obama spoke at the Republican's two day retreat in Maryland and afterward took questions from them. One question, from Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, revolved around taking care of the Coal interests in her state. If you want to...
I love motivational videos; especially when they are about sustainability. Back in August I posted on the top ten sustainable videos on the internet. The list was completely subjective and in n particular order. Let's face it, I had a hard time finding a total of ten sustainable videos! But...