Home Depot: Doing the Little Things

And I do mean little.  While they are quick to point to all the trees that they are planting, and they have quite a good CFL recycling policy, these things mean very little in the scope of how big Home Depot is and their influence.

Much more important would be to promote the EnergyStar program and take a big bite out of peak summer load, but on a recent trip to the Home Depot in Bed/Stuy showed a huge pile of non-EnergyStar air conditioners.  I didn’t even know they made them anymore, but there they were.  This is especially troubling in New York, where there is a cash rebate to trade in your old air conditioner for an EnergyStar model–because of how fragile the NYC power grid is.

Air-conditioners are the major contributor to summer peak-load brownouts and blackouts, and for Home Depot to promote these wasteful units is incredibly irresponsible.  Global warming be damned, I guess.

I couldn’t get the picture off of my phone, so settle for the stock photo.

Intel to Use Crazy Wireless Tech to Manage Electric Grid

Intel plans to use the upcoming mad-powerful WiMax standard as a way to smarten the electric grid.  These things are dubbed “smart-grids“, and they promise to bring the micro-managing ability of computers to all parts of the grid.  The grid currently has complicated monitoring nodes at the sources of power and main transmission centers.

The smart grid is a significant expansion and improvement that many liken to the internet for electricity.  It will lower the chance of blackouts and brownouts and help power plants operate at peak efficiency.