Content related to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
When I told friends we would be touring the Fukushima Exclusion Zone, some people were horrified and asked why we would expose ourselves to “that kind of radiation.” Years of misinformation in pop culture and news media have created a general public with such a skewed idea of what happened in Fukushima that many believe it was a second Chernobyl. It wasn’t.
In addition to little being known about nuclear energy in general, there is also little commonly known about the events that took place at Fukushima Daiichi in days following the March 2011 earthquake. A string of failures that seemingly never should have happened in conjunction with each other resulted in the evacuation of 160,000 people and radioactive contamination that is still being cleaned up today.
On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit 80 miles off the coast of Sendai, a city in northeast Japan. The earthquake and resulting tsunami caused major devastation along the coast and critically damaged a nuclear power plant, putting Fukushima on the map and changing the face of the global energy industry. This series details my experience in visiting the exclusion zone nine years later.
For years I have wrestled with the moral quandary of weighing my love of travel and seeing beautiful places in the world with the knowledge that continued air travel to those places will likely hasten their destruction. That knowledge has not stopped me from traveling (at least not yet), but it does result in more frequent pangs of guilt every time I board a plane.
Roughly forty percent of the energy used in the United States goes to power buildings (heating, cooling, lighting, etc.), and nearly half of that energy is used by commercial buildings. Businesses can play a huge role in combatting climate change, starting with improvements in their own facilities. However, before you start saving kilowatts, the first and most important step is examining your organization’s culture.
Individual action and political action are valuable components of fighting climate change, but they are not enough. Energy efficiency related to building operation offers a huge opportunity for savings, as well as a positive impact on the climate. This week I will shamelessly talk about what I’ve learned in my job and the economic, environmental, and health benefits of exploring energy efficiency in your home.
Last week got off to quite a start with Greta Thunberg shaming the world’s adults into taking action for the climate at the United Nations. I was amazed by her speech, her poise, and her bravery, but I was saddened by the fact that she had to be there in the first place. What can we do to answer her call to action?
Starting with the 121 company links listed on www.papowerswitch.com, I worked my way through each website, determining who had residential plans in Duquesne Light territory. As of February 1, that number turned out to be 55. I recorded whatever information I could from each site, asking for further information when it was possible.
Much to my surprise, a few weeks ago Christian got some promotional mail from a third-party supplier advertising a green electricity plan, and instead of putting it straight in the recycling, he quietly put it on top of my mail pile. With that subject effectively broached, I set to work doing the research that had been on my to-do list for a few years now.