energy efficiency

“Green” school buildings in North Carolina fall far short of their promises to protect the environment through lower energy costs and increased efficiency.

Click here to view and here to listen to Dr. Michael Sanera discussing this Policy Report. RALEIGH — Wake County commissioners should be wary of their environmental sustainability…

This Regional Brief critiques the process used by the Wake County Sustainability Task Force and its final report. The author was a member of the task force.

Energy efficiency programs focus on the relationship between one input into the production process, energy, relative to the output generated by that process. This simplistic view makes no consideration for the strong possibility that other inputs -- labor, plastic, steal, copper, glass, etc. -- might actually increase. Economic efficiency, on the other hand, relates total costs to the value of the output that those costs generate.

Click here to view and here to listen to Dr. Roy Cordato discussing this Spotlight report. RALEIGH — Government programs targeting energy efficiency do little more than put…

Energy-efficiency programs generally have many of the same problems as Duke Energy’s heavily criticized Save-A-Watt program. Energy-efficiency programs force consumers to pay an extra hidden tax on their utility bills to subsidize financial incentives for the purchase of energy-efficient goods and services.

RALEIGH – The current controversy over Duke Energy’s Save-A-Watt program highlights problems linked to all government-mandated energy-efficiency plans. That’s the assessment of a John Locke Foundation analyst whose new…

The legislature passed a law, SB 3, which would require North Carolinians to pay for electricity used by out-of-state residents. SB 3, which is the new, hastily drafted energy bill, was touted as requiring utilities to provide at least 7.5% of their electricity from renewable resources. However, North Carolinians likely will not be the recipient of a significant amount of this electricity.

RALEIGH – North Carolina electricity customers could soon be forced to pay as much as $125 million a year for electricity they’ll never use. A new John Locke Foundation…

The Senate has passed a major electricity bill that includes something called a renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standard (REPS). The REPS consists of two separate requirements: A renewable portfolio standard that requires utilities to provide customers 7.5 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and energy efficiency measures that require a 5 percent reduction in energy use.