By Emily Lavin

As an environmentally conscious consumer, you might go out of your way to find products made from recycled materials or be sensitive to excessive product packaging. But what about going a step further and seeking out products made from remanufactured parts?

Remanufacturing is often considered the ultimate form of recycling, cutting down on energy use and waste during the production process. Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute determined that the raw materials saved by remanufacturing worldwide in one year would fill 155,00 railroad cars, forming a train over 1,000 miles long. Companies in the U.S. are currently remanufacturing a variety of products, from car parts to MP3 players to office furniture, selling an estimated 100 billion dollars in remanufactured goods each year.

And they’d like to see that number grow. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that several manufacturing companies met recently in Washington D.C. to gain more government support for research and development in the global trade of remanufacturing.

But it’s not just government support they need. Despite the environmental and financial benefits–remanufactured products can cost up to 50% less than newly manufactured products–many consumers still aren’t convinced that remanufactured goods really are as good-as-new.

Evaluate the benefits of remanufacturing for yourself by checking out the Remanufacturing Institute –or take a trip back to the 1980’s with this video from the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association and catch a behind-the-scenes look at the process of remanufacturing car parts.

by Jered Decker

Whether it’s rummaging around in the garage, digging through a closet, or climbing up into the attic, countless people dig out the holiday lights season after season. Fortunately, changing your lighting is one of the easiest ways to find yourself enjoying greener holidays.

Amongst other benefits, switching to LED (light emitting diode) holiday lights will both lower your energy consumption and increase the safety of your holiday light decorations.

Less Coal in Your Stocking:

• With LED lighting there is almost no energy wasted producing heat. What this means is instead of using 12 to 105 kilowatt hours of energy like incandescent bulbs LED bulbs only use 1 to 3 kilowatt hours.

• If you left 50 feet of lighting on for the 12 days of Christmas (roughly 300 hours) using the $0.11 average price for kilowatt hour, incandescents would cost you $8 to operate versus $0.14 for LEDs.

The Gift of Peace of Mind:

• LED bulbs don’t just keep your energy costs under control this holiday season, they also reduce the risk of fire hazard. LED’s operate at much lower operating temperature than incandescents (they are cool to the touch). Christmas trees, drapes, or other holiday decorations are less likely to catch aflame.

Light for Christmas Futures:

• What’s worse than having to take all that time untangling your holiday lights? Finding out that in the chaos you broke some bulbs or filaments. With LED bulbs you don’t have this problem because there is no delicate filament and their bulbs are made of plastic and are more durable.

• Also, unlike incandescent strings that suffered burned out bulbs in less than 2,000 hours of usage, LED bulbs lasted over 4,000 hours with no failures. That’s easily over a decade of holiday seasons to reap the benefits of lower energy bills.

The Price of Bright :

• LED string lights are still priced anywhere between two to three times the cost of incandescent strings, but prices for LED strings are rapidly falling. With some research, LED strings can be found for only a few dollars more than incandescents.

Ultimately, when factoring in the longevity, safety, and much lower cost to operate, it only makes sense to replace incandescent strings with LEDs.

Welcome to the future of filling up. The image above is the power dock for the 2011 Chevy Volt. Producer Sarah Bacon took a spin and sent us a view from the cockpit.

Power display, to limit your range anxiety.

Listen to our past story we did on the Volt and Nissan Leaf here.

by Genevieve Joy

11.13.10: Carbon cutting is now a competitive sport. And the referee is WattzOn, a free online tool that helps you understand your energy usage, compare it to other people, and watch how your consumption changes as you begin to pay more attention. You can even learn about Embodied Energy, the number of watts used in the production of the things we own like laptops (7,725 watts) and armchairs (.772 watts).

When you sign up, the site prompts you with questions about your flying, commuting, housing, food and “stuff”.  It then spits out your total consumption. For the “housing” section, have your electricity bill ready because you’ll want to answer to the watt.

As a user, I can see how life-changing WattzOn could be.  I have access to informative blog posts, forums for discussion, groups to join (although at the moment most have under ten members, one notable exception being 15 San Francisco Users).  I am able to compare myself to the average WattzOn user and see that I fly way too much (1,333 watts) but am below average on commuting (129 watts).

Even more fun, you can do a “face off” against another user.  I was fairly content with my 3,367 watts until I saw that the average WattzOn user consumes 2,785 watts.*  My blood began to boil, my competitive juices flowed.  Then again, the average American consumes 11,400 watts—this emphasizes the necessity of a tool like Wattzon, but also the fact that those who use it aren’t the ones who really need to.*

The problem with the site is that, helpful though it may be, it requires time and input from its users.  You give a lot to get a lot.  The “About” page on the site reads: “Through Wikipedia-like data editing, WattzOn is looking to people to enter data from their own experiences to help us all understand how we use energy in our lives.”

Let’s face it, this is not a tool for the lazy consumer, but maybe it’s time to recognize that we can’t afford to be lazy much longer.  I recommend taking ten minutes out of your day to find out about your energy use.  And maybe engage in some healthy carbon competition.

*These numbers can be found on WattzOn after registration.

California.

November 3: On a day when much of the country voted for a new course of leadership and philosophy, California voted no yesterday on Proposition 23 and retained AB 32, legislation that enforces air emission regulations and energy efficiency standards under the 2006 California Global Warming Solutions Act. Prop. 23 would have repealed regulations until unemployment dropped below 5.5 percent for one year. The repeal effort was in the name of job preservation, but that argument did not convince voters who were against Prop. 23 by over 60 percent in a state with 12 percent unemployment.

White House the Day After.

When asked about compromises with Republican congressional leadership at today’s press conference, President Obama mentioned elements of the Energy Bill, still in consideration in the house. He acknowledged the GOP’s past and future antipathy to its current form and stated in regards to cap and trade, that he “would be looking for other means to address this problem (green house gas emissions)”. Although he reinforced his commitment to clean tech, the president emphasized energy independence by citing the expansion domestic natural gas development as well as nuclear power. Those interested in fracking stay tuned.

Coal Country Democrat Survival Guide.

Election cycle attitudes on Cap and Trade benefited one Democrat who weathered the anti-incumbent backlash, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin. His survival at the polls might have been in part because of the type of messaging found in this TV Ad, featuring the governor literally shooting a mock-up of the Cap and Trade Bill, “because it’s bad for West Virginia.”

What’s Next…

The Waxman-Markey Energy Bill is still in consideration in Congress and it most certainly will not remain in its current form since yesterday’s GOP house takeover. Read here to get a sense of the Republican’s perspective on energy reform and check back in us as we cover what’s next in policy change and how it will affect you.