Water is the source of life - treasure it! R3.

Water is the source of life - treasure it! R3.

Water is the source of all life on earth. It touches every area of our lives. Without it, we could not thrive — we could not even survive

Sustainability – “We strive to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

We should discourage wastefulness and misuse, and promote efficiency and conservation.

For the benefit of mankind, maintain the quality of life and preserve the peace and tranquility of world population.  Water resources must be preserved - to sustain humanity.  We must eliminate wasteful utilization of water, conserve our water sources and implement rigid conservation methods. We should utilize solar and or other source of renewable energy to operate desalinization projects from the oceans. Utilize renewable energy sources to purify and transport the water to its final destination.  As world population increases the scarcity of water will become a cause for conflict, unless we take steps now to develop other sources of water for drinking, rainwater harvesting – storm-water and gray-water utilization. Designing of landscaping that uses minimal amount of water. 
"With power shortages and a water scarcity a constant threat across the West, it's time to look at water and energy in a new way,"                                     
To preserve the future generations sustainability, we should look into urban farming – vertical farming. The term "urban farming" may conjure up a community garden where locals grow a few heads of lettuce. But some academics envision something quite different for the increasingly hungry world of the 21st century: a vertical farm that will do for agriculture what the skyscraper did for office space. Greenhouse giant: By stacking floors full of produce, a vertical farm could rake in $18 million a year.
YJ Draiman, Energy, Telecom and water conservation consultant


PS

Hydro dynamics: forget oil. Sharing freshwater equitably poses political conundrums as explosive and far-reaching as global climate change. 

Quoted from other sources

Anyone who has ever stood on a beach and looked out into the vast expanse of an ocean knows that there is a lot of water on this planet. In fact, 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water. It may seem like water is all around us, but safe, clean, reliable drinking water is not a cease­less resource. The problems facing drinking water range from failing infrastructure, to climate change, to insufficient supplies.

Personal Conservation

Preserving our water resources is not a job for water industry professionals alone. We all have a vested interest in ensuring that water remains safe, af­fordable and available. Therefore, each individual American has a responsibility to monitor and control their water use, There are many simple ways for people to reduce excess water use, lower water bills and protect the environment, espe­cially in die spring and summer months, Beyond the standard constraints of watering the lawn only when neces­sary and washing car wisely by using soap and a bucket of water, some steps include: draining water lines to outside faucets, disconnecting hoses, shutting off outdoor water sources during cold weather and running a small trickle of water on whiter nights to prevent pipe from freezing.

Conclusion

Water supply management is an issue that affects us all. It may not be apparent to every citizen today, but with climate change and population shifts transforming the United States, it soon will be. Effective solutions need to be put into place today before we are faced with a water crisis. A focus on careful planning, treatments, innova­tions and conservation measures will help to create stability for long-term water management. Commitment to keeping water at the top of the list for communities and citizens will better prepare us for whatever the future of water holds.

WATER!

The indispensable source of life-without water there would be no industry, no agriculture and, most importantly of all, no life. In dry parts of the world this essential commodity is even more precious. Almost all human actions involve water from taking a shower to reading a newspaper to driving a car or simply eating a sandwich - almost everything we do or touch is somehow related to this precious treasure.  We ask that you stop and think how you use water and what you can do to conserve this essential natural resource.

*Water, beliefs and customs,

*Water as a vehicle of the economy,

*Water, source of art and life, irrigation and cultivation.

The people have decided to act to try and develop a real awareness program on the theme of water preservation and distribution in an attempt to help maintain the original purity of rivers and streams.

In many parts of the world water sources and wells are not equally distributed. Water as a source of life can also be at the source of conflict.
Whether we live in India, Iceland or the Atlas… we have always tried to trap and tame water. Dams, pumps, canals, water treatment centers; there are so many different ways to exploit this resource that we often forget how fragile this unique and essential treasure actually is.

Unfortunately, many of the things we do every day can harm our water. That’s why all people and government should be working with municipalities, farmers, business leaders and developers just like you to take action to protect our water and clean it up.

Small changes can make a big difference. This guide outlines practical things we can all do to preserve and protect our water. We all need to be part of the solution.

“You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today” - Abraham Lincoln said it.

“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest” –       Henry David Thoreau.

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed” – Theodore Roosevelt.

“When the ‘study of the household’ (ecology) and the ‘management of the household’ (economics) can be merged, and when ethics can be extended to include ‘environmental’ as well as human values, then we can be optimistic about the future of mankind. Accordingly, bringing together these three E’s is the ultimate holism and the great challenge for our future” – Eugene Odum.

Telecommunications Audit

Telecommunications Audit

·      80% of all local, long distance, data and cellular bills contain errors – we will find them and get you the refunds you deserve.

·      Most telecom users are never offered the best rates they qualify for; we use the phone companies own tariffs to get you on the lowest cost plan.

·      We will give you a complete inventory of lines, circuits and features.

·      No recovery = No Fee. If we can't help you, we don’t get paid. We only share in a percentage of what we recover for you.

·      Let us show you how to reduce your Cellular expense by up to 50%.

·      At worst, you will receive a no cost, independent 3rd party verification that all contracts, processes, etc. are up to date.

·      Many satisfied clients; references available.

Call today for a Free, No obligation consultation 818–270–6319 or renewableenergy2@msn.com

Telecommunications consistently ranks among the top several expense line items, and telecommunications bills consistently are rated as being among the most difficult to understand. It comes as no surprise that over 80% of these bills would then contain billing errors. It is our mission to find and correct these billing errors and secure refunds for our clients.Energy Savers has been assisting our clients for years by bringing our understanding of their vendors, their bills and the services they use. We are vendor neutral, so it does not matter to us which carriers you choose to do business with. We never create savings for you simply by suggesting a change of Carrier… someone can always offer service for less. We will simply insure that the vendors you choose to use are offering you their best pricing for clients your size.

Consider that most Telecommunications Companies today are not the product of organic growth, but rather the end result of a seemingly endless stream of mergers and acquisitions. Each of these Companies has multiple billing systems and trying to make them “talk to each other” after a merger is not an easy or efficient task. Couple this with the number of layoffs and re-organizations that have taken place over the last few years and you have an underdeveloped brain-trust left behind to try and make sense of these disparate billing systems. The minimum wage workers who comprise the majority of the order entry staff, coupled with off-shoring for post-sale customer service adds and changes, further increase the chances that errors are inevitable, and that the identification and correction of these errors is at best, a time consuming and frustrating experience.

It is also a sad, but true, reality of today’s business climate, but vendor loyalty can be very costly. There are many factors that come into play when a vendor decides what price points to offer a client whose contract is renewing… one of the most important is what the competitive climate is. Simply, if there is little or no competition, the pricing offered is much higher than if a comprehensive RFP has been launched. We level the playing field for our clients by bringing the knowledge of what terms, conditions and pricing they are offering their other similar-sized clients

Our unique programs and processes are non-intrusive and have been streamlined so that the majority of the work can be completed at our offices. For bill error detection and recovery, there are no up-front fees or charges: our performance-based compensation is contingent upon results and calculated on a share of any overpayments recovered for you.

All of our recommendations come without obligation and you will never be charged for our services until you see, and agree to the savings we promise. We have MANY clients who will provide reference to the work we have done for them, and the resulting improvement in their bottom line as a result of our efforts.

Contact us at renewableenergy2@msn.com

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Fun Renewable Energy Terms:

Fun Renewable Energy Terms:

- Solar Cells: The electical building blocks for solar panels or modules. The blue or black squares are silicon cells producing about .5 Volts each. Smaller panels are usually 12V nominal, with 36 cells in series to produce around 17V at Standard Test Conditions, under load. The larger panels we sell are usually 24V nominal, with 72 cells in series, and produce around 35V at Standard Test Conditions, under load. Some panels are made with different numbers of cells and therefore have rated voltages which do not correspond to standard battery voltages. These panels are primarily designed for high voltage grid-connected systems, although they can be used for battery based systems as well. Generally we prefer the traditional voltages simply because it is a standard, which makes compatibility into the future more assured.

- Solar Array: A group of solar panels. A solar array produces about 10 Watts per square foot.

- Junction Box or "j-box": Some solar panels come with them, some have preattached leads instead. Some have both. They are handy for off-grid systems where panels are often in parallel. Preattached leads are best for quickly hooking many panels in series for high-voltage grid-tie systems.

- Combiner Box: An electrical junction box where small output wires from solar panels are combined into pairs of feeder wires leading to the batteries or power inverter. May include circuit breakers or fuses.

- Charge Controller: Electronic device which regulates the voltage from the solar cells to the correct voltage for a system's batteries. Also lowers the voltage and current as the batteries become full. Systems without batteries do not require a charge controller.

- Amp-Hour Meter: Measures cumulative energy going into or out of the batteries, to provide an estimate of state-of-charge.

- Flooded Batteries: Traditional Lead-Acid "Wet Cells". Capacity is measured in amp-hours. Requires periodic addition of distilled water to replace what is lost during heavy charging. Perform better if protected from extreme cold.

- Sealed Batteries: Also use Lead-Acid chemistry but do not lose water so do not need maintenance. May be Absorbed Glass Mat or Gel Cell. More expensive and require more careful charging than wet cells.

- Battery Box: May be required by code for wet cells for safety and to contain hydrogen gas which is then vented to the outdoors. Gassing and watering are minimal with a high quality charge controller.

- Overcurrent Protection: Fuses or circuit breakers. Should be on all circuits connected to batteries especially.

- USE-2: A type of single conductor wire rated for sun exposure and outdoor use, commonly used for wire on solar panels with preattached leads.

- Tray Cable: A type of multiple conductor wire rated for sun exposure and commonly used for interconnecting solar panels when conduit is not used. Also commonly used for RV and Marine solar kits.

- THHN: Standard single conductor wire used for building wire. Usually also rated THWN and useable inside conduit outdoors. Stranded is preferred.

Cool Your House Naturally

 

Cool Your House Naturally

Reduce Your Home's Heat Gain to Reduce Energy Usage

The sun's rays beating through a window and on a rooftop can drastically raise the internal temperature of a home. This process is called external heat gain. Aside from planting trees and changing the color of your house and roof, not much can be done to ward off external heat gain. Steps can be taken to reduce internal heat gain however. Internal heat gain comes from the collection of heat given off by sources inside the home. The most common sources of internal heat gain are; appliances, electronic devices, and lighting.

Highest Sources of Internal Heat Gain

It should be no surprise that the largest sources of internal heat gain come from major appliances. Eliminating these can not only directly reduce energy usage (if the appliances aren't running, they are not using energy), but indirectly they keep the temperature of the house lower thus reducing the energy used by the air conditioner.

• Stove/Oven - Backyard cookouts aren't only fun, but practical as well. Cooking outdoors is a great way to reduce heat from using the stove or oven. If you must cook inside, try to do this in the evening and make enough to microwave leftovers. The microwave contributes far less to the heat gain than a stove or oven.
• Incandescent Lights - Using them drains energy, using them contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, using them creates extra heat in the home. Switch over to compact fluorescent lights.  Not only do CFLs use less energy, but they produce very little heat.
• Dishwasher - To save time, many people turn the heater on to dry dishes after the wash cycle. This is simply not necessary. Let the dishes air dry or dry them off with a hand towel. Again, you are directly saving energy and contributing less to the internal heat gain.
• Clothes Dryer - Obviously, drying clothes on high heat makes the house hot. If your laundry room in located in the house instead of the garage, you are producing a tremendous amount of internal heat gain whenever you use the dryer. If you can, hang clothes on a line outside. If this is not possible, use the lowest possible heat setting. In addition to saving energy, it is better for your clothes.
• Shower - There's nothing like a hot shower... to raise the temperature of your house. Take shorter showers and open the window to allow heat to escape. You can also shop around for a more efficient shower head.[/ul
  
  

  Other Sources of Internal Heat Gain

  
  
  Where some of the mammoth appliances in the home can create a great amount of internal heat gain, the little things can add up as well. Keep some of the smaller contributors in check as well.
  
  
  • Computer - The hazards of turning your computer off is a myth.  Turn it off when you are not using it. This can be a perfect opportunity to upgrade older models for more energy efficient newer technologies.
  • Television - Touch the back of the TV after watching the, marathon of the Hill, marathon. It's hot. Enjoy the weather and get outside, read a book, do something else to keep the TV off for extended periods of time.
  • Furnace Pilot Light - It's pretty obvious that you don't need to crank up the furnace. Turn off the pilot light until the cold fronts start rolling in.
  
  
  These are not the only culprits, but they are by far the most common. Take some time to go on a little scavenger hunt to find other items in your home that contribute to internal heat gain and eliminate as much of the heat as you can.

Green Energy Saving

The idea of going green is more about the social responsibility of saving energy rather than just promoting energy efficiency for cost savings. Here you will learn about the different aspects of the green philosophy towards saving energy.

ERV - Energy Recovery Ventilation

ERV - Energy Recovery Ventilation

Preconditioning air before it enters
a DX rooft op system is not necessarily
a new idea. In fact, energy
recovery ventilation (ERV) has
been on the scene for many years. In recent
years, however, all the major HVAC
OEMs and nearly all of the smaller HVAC
manufacturers have engineered ERVs to
be a standard option on DX systems. Not
only do the OEMs off er it, but it also has a
growing popularity among engineers, mechanical
contractors, and building owners.
ERV AND HOW IT WORKS
According to the Air-Conditioning and
Refrigeration Institute (ARI), there are three
diff erent methods to precondition outdoor
air: heat pipe heat exchangers, plate heat exchangers,
and rotary heat exchangers.
Rotary heat exchangers, oft en the common
choice of manufacturers, are enthalpy
wheels consisting of sections of an energy
transfer matrix coated with a desiccant,
usually silica gel. Th e wheel rotates between
the incoming outdoor supply air and
the building’s exhaust air. It is positioned so
the outdoor supply air and exhaust air from
the building travel through it in opposite
directions through separate isolated ducts.
In the summer, the hot humid outdoor
air passes through the wheel before reaching
the DX system. As the air passes
through, the matrix absorbs heat and the
desiccant removes moisture, thereby preconditioning
the air for the DX system. As
the wheel turns into the exhaust duct, the
dry, cooler exhaust air passes through the
matrix, cooling the material and removing
moisture from the desiccant. (See Fig. 1)
In the winter, the process reverses with
the matrix warming and humidifying the
supply air. (See Fig. 2) Th e result is preconditioned
air that is cooled and dehumidifi ed
in the summer, and warmed and humidifi
ed in the winter. Th e wheel generally recovers
70 percent of the diff erence between
the incoming and outgoing airstreams.
Th is highly effi cient preconditioning essentially
eliminates the burden of conditioning
outdoor air from the DX system.
Accordingly, the ERV system is performing
work that is no longer required by
the mechanical system and performs that
work more effi ciently. According to ARI,
DX/ERV systems are up to 40 percent more
energy effi cient. Additionally, a DX/ERV
system requires less mechanical capacity,
lowering DX system cost that off sets most,
if not all, of the ERV system cost.
ERV’S NEW POPULARITY
So given these benefi ts, why hasn’t ERV
technology been a bigger success in the past
and why has it become so popular lately?
“When ERVs were originally released
on the market, they were not reliable,” said
Joe Finkham, general manager of ERV, Micrometl,
the company that assembles ERV
units for major DX manufacturers.
“Installations were generally done as retrofi
ts and the science of matching an ERV
with a DX system was far from precise. One
could easily miscalculate and lose control
over building space temperature, and many
installations did.”
Ted Cherubin is Carrier’s marketing
manager for package rooft ops and he agrees
with Finkham.
“Reception for ERV was poor for many
years,” he said. “Engineers did not understand
the technology and perceived it to
be ‘black art,’ even when it was successful.
Originally, all we had were paper simulations
that weren’t very credible, whereas now
we have sophisticated soft ware-modeling
tools. ERV was also sold as a separate unit
and engineers don’t usually like to take one
unit, combine it with another, and hope it
gets assembled correctly on the job. We’ve
now pre-engineered much of the DX/
ERV system, which greatly simplifi es the
engineer’s job and increases the reliability.”
Technology on the component itself
has also improved increasing the reliability
of the system. According to Randy Steele,
general manager, Airxchange, energy
recovery wheel manufacturer, “Th e original
‘heat wheels’ were almost impossible
to maintain leading to a large number
of failures in the fi eld. If there was ever a

ENERGY EFFICIENCY ECONOMICS:

ENERGY EFFICIENCY ECONOMICS:

What You Need to Know

Using sophisticated financial modeling to make the most-informed decisions when upgrading multi-tenant office buildings

In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a review of all of the office buildings that had used its online Energy Star benchmarking system (www.energystar.gov).

A startling statistic came to light: The lowest-scoring buildings used four times as much energy as the highest-scoring ones. Granted, the buildings with the highest scores were extremely energy-efficient. Still, the gulf between them and the lowest-scoring buildings makes one wonder about the magnitude of energy wasted in this country.

The benchmarked buildings included both income-producing and owner-occupied properties.

One might expect income-producing properties to take energy efficiency more seriously than their owner-occupied counterparts because lower energy costs imply higher net operating income (NOI), the mother’s milk of real-estate investors.

However, too many income properties continue to have very inefficient building systems for a variety of reasons: “lowest-first-cost” decision-making, dysfunctional owner/tenant dynamics, and popular myths that lead owners and managers to ignore or reject worthwhile energy upgrades.

If you were to ask a roomful of income-property owners and managers if improved energy efficiency could make their buildings more profitable, competitive, and valuable, most, if not all, probably would say yes. Pose the same question to a roomful of engineers, vendors, and consultants, and most probably also would say yes. However, only those who understood leasing and real estate finance would be able to support their yes with compelling mathematics.

To make the most-informed decisions when selecting energy projects to approve, it is vital to know how a property’s leases might allocate energy savings between the owner and the tenants (see the sidebar “Understanding the Basic Types of Leases”), how much the tenants would be obligated to contribute toward the cost of an expense-reducing capital project, how the owner’s share of savings could boost NOI, and how a higher NOI could support an increase in appraised value. Clearly, replacing myth with math goes a long way toward better decision-making regarding energy throughout the life cycle of a typical income property.

This article offers new time- and cost-effective best practices for analyzing the merits of proposed energy-efficiency upgrades to multi-tenant; income-producing office properties (see the sidebar “Huge Potential in Office Sector”). Keep in mind that, as with most analytical approaches, the “devil is in the details.” The ultimate value of this analysis depends on many factors, such as the reliability of projected costs and savings and the volatility of utility prices. Moreover, unless energy-saving equipment is properly installed, intelligently operated, periodically re-commissioned, and otherwise well maintained, any predicted savings may prove elusive. In multi-tenant buildings, other devilish details, such as disturbances associated with installations, can be important as well. Fortunately, knowing about each of these issues is the first step in addressing them. Each year, countless energy-saving projects are successfully implemented in income properties because the right questions were asked and answered at the right time.



WHO PAYS? WHO BENEFITS?



Before you can quantify the value of improved energy efficiency in a leased property, you need to evaluate carefully who will pay for the improvement and who will benefit from it (see the sidebar “Calculating the Owner’s Share of Savings”). Only then can you take the next step: determining how those savings might drive improved profitability, competitiveness, and value.

Take the example of an income producing office building. If the operating expenses are lowered, the owner, the tenant(s), or both will realize the savings, depending on the expense sharing provisions of the leases and certain other factors. The portion of the savings that goes to the owner will increase NOI, which, in turn, could improve the appraised value of the building when it is refinanced or sold.

Meanwhile, the improved comfort and convenience that often accompany energy-efficiency upgrades may help with tenant retention and attraction. The portion of the savings captured by the tenant will lower occupancy cost, which will improve the tenant’s ability to pay rent. The combination of energy savings and the improved look/feel of the space may make the tenant more interested in renewing the lease.

The moral of the story: It does little good for engineers to focus on kilowatts, kilowatt-hours, simple payback period (SPP), and other commonly used metrics to describe and evaluate projects if they forget to consider other vital issues, such as who would pay for the upgrade, who would benefit, and the downstream effects of the projected energy savings.



WINNING STRATEGIES NEED - WINNING MECHANISMS



According to Jim Collins, internationally known management expert, even the best strategies will fail without well conceived mechanisms for executing them. If you are serious about saving as much energy as possible:

• Have you adopted best practices for finding, evaluating, and approving expense-reducing capital projects for your properties?

• Do you apply these best practices on a systematic, portfolio-wide basis so that you know you are focusing your limited time and capital on the most promising upgrade opportunities at all times?

• Are you on the lookout for rebates and other incentives (tax credits) so you can be sure you are not missing “free money” (see the sidebar “The Money Is Out There”) that could help you improve your properties?

• In the case of income-producing properties, does every proposed expense reducing capital project include a financial analysis of who would pay for the improvement, which would get the savings, and how that allocation of costs/savings might influence the owner’s total return?

• If you are an engineer, a vendor, a contractor, or a consultant advising a client on opportunities to improve energy efficiency, do your analyses go beyond SPP and consider the impact of the estimated energy savings on your client’s business?

These are just some of the questions that need to be answered with a yes if you want your winning strategies to have a positive impact on the bottom line. Applying energy-saving strategies to properties and projects becomes more practical if you keep a few key lessons in mind:

Expense-reducing capital projects must be positioned properly to compete for two precious commodities: time and money.

There is only so much “management bandwidth” to select and pursue initiatives. Similarly, there is only so much capital to fund even the best projects. Staff cutbacks and the current economy have only tightened these two constraints.

Whether you work with owner-occupied or income-producing property, can you honestly say that energy-saving projects compete effectively for the owner’s time and money? Might there be ways to raise the perceived importance of energy projects so that they receive the attention they deserve?

Does your organization need to grow its income properties’ NOI and asset value? Could low-risk, high-return expense-reducing capital improvements to your existing portfolio provide “internal growth” that would offset the present lack of opportunities for “external growth” (i.e., building or buying additional properties)?

If you are a vendor or service provider, do you understand your prospect’s business well enough to position your offerings as being more compelling than whatever else may be distracting the decision-makers?

Finding the opportunities that most deserve a share of that finite time and capital requires a systematic, portfolio-wide approach.

This implies that (1) all decision-making criteria are clearly listed and prioritized; (2) the building portfolio is systematically screened for these criteria in the order of least to most expensive to study; (3) the decision-making chain is well-defined, and each stakeholder in that chain understands not only his own goals, objectives, and responsibilities, but those of the stakeholders directly above and below him; (4) all of the costs and benefits are analyzed; and (5) the cost/benefit analysis is communicated in a language that all stakeholders can understand.

When it comes to devising a strategy for pursuing energy savings, have all of the decision-makers agreed on which criteria make projects the most compelling?

If you are working with a large, geographically dispersed building portfolio, has a top-level screening of all buildings been performed so that the top projects worth pursuing can be ranked?

Is there a well-defined decision chain from the person with the authority to approve the project down to the frontline person charged with finding/evaluating the opportunities?

Are the downstream benefits of improved energy efficiency fully understood by the individuals preparing the proposals? Do these individuals know how to quantify the positive impact reduced operating expenses have on NOI and appraised value? What about the positive effect lower operating expenses can have on tenant retention and attraction?

Do they realize that lower operating expenses may allow the owner to set lower expense stops for leases signed after the upgrade is completed?

Do you find your engineers trying to convince senior management to fund energy upgrades with elaborate analyses calibrated in kilowatt-hours, therms, or other decidedly non-financial language?

If you are an income-property owner, wouldn’t it be great if your energy-service company took the time to translate projected energy savings into benefits that you consider when making other capital decisions?

If you get the right answers by asking the wrong questions, you are just lucky.

So many building owners, property managers, and vendors/contractors are guilty of placing too much emphasis on SPP. This mistake is particularly egregious in the case of income properties.

If you own/manage a multi-tenant office building, which do you think is more important to know: the SPP of a project or who would get the savings—the owner or the tenant(s)? Would it surprise you to learn that, depending on the leases in place, a four-year SPP project may be a more profitable investment than a two-year SPP project when viewed from the owner’s perspective (Figure 3)?

How do you feel about your project being judged solely on the merits of its SPP, with financial benefits realized after the SPP ignored?

In the absence of math, decisions often are governed by myths.                                                            Do not let fiction fill the vacuum left by a lack of facts. Blindly accepted myths and inappropriately applied “rules of thumb” play a major role in the continued waste of energy in this country. When selecting projects to fund, you need to know the facts. Who pays? Who benefits? You need access to tools that deliver actionable information automatically. If your financial analysis requires an impractical level of time and effort, it will not get done, especially if you need to see multiple scenarios before approving a project. If your people lack the time or skills to perform and present these calculations, you should consider outsourcing the financial analysis to someone who has Automated the number-crunching.

In the case of a multi-tenant building, are the people who approve/reject capital expenses the same people who signed the existing leases? If not, have they at least read the leases lately? How much of the energy cost is paid by the owner? How much of the projected upgrade’s savings would inure to the landlord on a tenant-by-tenant, month-by-month basis? Can the owner assess tenants for capital?

Improvements that reduce operating expenses for tenants?

If you are an engineer recommending an energy-saving capital project for a multi-tenant building, have you detailed the costs/savings of the project on a tenant-by-tenant and common-area basis? Do you know how much of the projected savings will inure to the owner and how much capital cost could be assigned to the tenants according to the terms of the existing leases? Do you have a best practice of including a leasing analysis in every proposal you present to multi-tenant building owners/managers?

See the sidebar “Winning Strategies, Winning Mechanisms” for three sets of strategies and mechanisms you might want to consider adopting.

Compiled by: YJ Draiman

Simple ways to save energy and utility costs

Simple ways to save energy and utility costs

1. Use power strips. With today’s technology we have got more than lights to worry about. At least when you turn a light off, it is off. Not so with your TV, your computer, you’re VCR, fax, copier, stereo and dozens of other appliances. (You can use a gadget called Kill-a-watt to check out you usage – it costs about $25)

Check it out. Wait until your laptop is shut down and check it out. Lights still on, right? And check out the power adapter. Maybe it's warm? That's because it's still using electricity. It's called phantom power, but on your electric bill, it's definitely real -- a few bucks a year per plug. If you have as many electronic gadgets as I do, that adds up fast. To save that money -- and the environment -- use power strips, and turn them off when you're not using what's plugged into them. Utilize energy saving power supplies. Fax/Copy machines, computer and monitors that power down automatically.

2. Buy fluorescent bulbs. (The incandescent is going to be outlawed in the near future) If you have tried fluorescent bulbs before and hated them, it's time to try again. They are also available for flood/spot lights. They are not the huge, clunky, and slow-to-turn-on, like they used to be. The newest ones -- twisted like a soft-serve ice cream cone -- turn on instantly and cast a warm light. Yes, they're more expensive (around $2-$5 each), but they use about a quarter of the electricity of a traditional incandescent bulb and last 10 times as long, so they end up saving you a ton of money.

Replacing just six incandescent bulbs will cut your annual carbon dioxide emissions by 600 pounds and trim your electric bill by as much as $35 each year. Install occupancy sensors indoor and or photocell for outside lighting; utilize solar/photovoltaic light fixtures and or LED for exterior lighting.

3. Buy 'green' energy. Almost every utility company now offers alternative sources of energy -- and some of it is green. (Your local utility will continue to bill you for the power. It will also charge you a per-kilowatt-hour fee for delivering the power. So be sure that when you compare prices, you are comparing the cost of the green power with what your utility is charging for supplying conventional power, not for delivering it.) Many power companies are mandated, to offer clean, emission-free electricity from several different providers. Signing up is a breeze. Our electricity now comes from wind and hydroelectric, and it costs us just a penny or two more per kilowatt hour than traditional power. (Check various economic tariffs available to you by the utility company).

4. Put plastic on your windows and caulk and putty. It can cost a fortune to replace old, leaky windows. But you can save significant amounts of heating oil much less expensively each winter with a simple clear-plastic-and-sticky-tape window insulation kit. If your windows, like mine, are too big for the standard sizes, get a patio door kit.

Once up, the insulation is almost invisible. For a small fraction of the cost of new windows, it will save you about half the energy that new windows would. For even greater savings, buy a programmable thermostat -- and program it. Surprisingly, about two thirds of the people who buy programmable thermostats never actually use the feature. Install ceiling fans. Outside the windows you can install awning or plant trees.

5. Buy polyester. Yes, really. A recent study by some Cambridge University scientists found that -- over their respective lives -- a polyester blouse uses about 45% of the energy of a cotton T-shirt.

True, the study makes some assumptions that may not apply to you: that you drip-dry the blouse and tumble-dry and iron the T-shirt, for instance. But the point is that the obvious environmental choice may not be the best one. Polyester takes a lot more energy than cotton to manufacture, but much less to maintain. When thinking about a product's environmental footprint, you need to look at its entire life cycle, from manufacture to disposal.

6. Put up a clothesline. To drip-dry all that polyester -- and your cotton, too -- try taking a page out of your grandmother's book and hang it on the line. Air-dried fabrics smell wonderful -- and those fresh breezes help to discourage wrinkles.

If you don't have a lot of outdoor space, get an umbrella dryer, which folds up when not in use. You'll save yourself about $85 a year -- and keep more than 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

7. Start a compost heap. Disposing of garbage -- whether by dumping it in landfills or by recycling it --

Takes energy. You can save that energy, and feed your garden, by using it for compost instead. No room in your garden? Or no garden at all? Get a worm composter; it will turn your kitchen scraps and shredded newspapers into rich, dark soil that your houseplants will love. (And no, they don't smell.)

8. Wrap your water heater. Americans spend $18 billion a year to heat water, and some simple measures could save about two-thirds of that cost.

You can cut the amount of fuel you use to heat the water (and save about $30 a year) by insulating your water heater with a simple jacket (available at most hardware stores for around $20). To save further, think about ways of using less hot water: fixing leaks, installing efficient showerheads, washing your clothes in cold water. When replacing water heater, use tankless system – you save energy and calcification of the pipes.

9. Dam your toilet. If you're concerned about the environment, you need to worry about cold water, too, since water itself is becoming an increasingly scarce resource.

Americans are water hogs; we use about 100 gallons a day each. And roughly one-third of that goes straight down the toilet. A toilet dam, which stops some of the water from leaving the tank when you flush, can cut that by as much as 20%, but it's a specialty product.

A more readily available product is called a "tank bank" -- a glorified plastic bottle with a valve that keeps some of the water in your tank from going out when you flush. The goal is to save water by preventing the tank from emptying completely each time you flush. You can even use an old plastic bottle from your recycling bin. Cost: $0. Utilize rainwater and shower waste water to water your lawn.

10. Buy antiques. Any time you buy a used product instead of a new one (especially from a local seller), you're making sure one less product has to be manufactured, packaged and shipped, with all the emissions those processes cause. In most cases, you'll save money as well.

Most manufacturers sell refurbished appliances that work as well as the new ones and cost a lot less. Some even come with the same warranty as a new one. For furniture, try Craigslist. For clothes, check out your local vintage shops. Chances are you'll not just save money, and the earth -- you'll get something with more style, too.

11. Insulate your attic and your HVAC ducts, Install attic fans, humidifiers, dehumidifiers and ERV – Energy Recovery Ventilation (it brings in fresh air and takes out stale polluted air from indoors)

12.  Many utilities and governmental agencies offer incentives, rebates, tax credits and financing for implementing energy efficiency and conservation (some offer free CFL light-bulbs and energy audits). Take advantage of those programs. .