Efficient Water Heaters are Coming!

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/6f22a4cb3f14e17362607d9e102febb5.htm

Collaboration between government agencies and private business to design, manufacture and market efficient water heaters is one of the next major break-throughs in energy efficiency. Right now the water heater is the last major appliance in the American home where there is not an efficient option. The work cited above - combined with the an upcoming ENERGY STAR specification - will help transform this market.

From a climate change point of view, having a global company like GE involved helps assure that this technology will move off-shore also. While I want to see the American market for these products transformed, it is more important that the suburbs and subdivisions that will begin to populate China, Brazil and India have and use efficient products as a first-option.

US EPA Hurting LED's, Energy Efficiency

On Tuesday the US EPA released a specification for ENERGY STAR qualified LED's. This specification undercuts years of work by the US Department of Energy and allows basically ANY LED product to be ENERGY STAR qualified.

LEDs Magazine has a good round-up here: http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/6/8

If the EPA is successful with this specification, it severely undercuts the overall value and utility of the ENERGY STAR label and will certainly hamper consumer acceptance of LED's by specifying poor quality products.