Global Energy

It seems retirement stock portfolios aren’t the only things rapidly declining in the United States over the past few months. In a more uplifting turn of events, energy use in the U.S. declined almost 5 last year, good for the most significant energy reduction the country has ever seen. To put that in further perspective, though the mainstream push for “going green” is still relatively new, the government began tracking such statistics in 1949.Of course, a view held by many analysts is that this isn’t entirely good news. While the reduced levels of energy are no doubt a welcome sight for the environment, they could be interpreted as an equally disheartening look in the mirror for the national economy. After all, energy use tends to decrease alongside GDP per capita. In other words, when people have less money, they buy less, do less and use less, all across the board. It would be a nice to believe the full 5 was constituted by American’s making responsible energy decisions; however, it’s far more likely the statistic is merely a manifestation of equally reduced individual means. (more…)

Energy on college campuses is usually harvested through a steady diet of energy drinks, coffee runs, really anything with high caffeine content generally believed to take less than 5 years off one’s lifespan. However, late night/early morning study habits aside, Penn State University will soon find itself knee deep in a different type of search for energy. A Nittany Lion led team will receive up to 122 million over the next five years, courtesy of the United States Department of Energy in order to set up an Energy Innovation Hub. Much like its name suggests, the purpose of the Energy Innovation Hub will be to develop new technologies that make buildings more energy efficient.The concept of building green buildings is not entirely new, though the specific project will focus on new ways to make them, well, greener. Though the green building movement traces its roots as far back as the 1970s, when the increase in global oil prices sparked a widespread interest in improving energy efficiency and discovering alternative, renewable energy sources. (more…)