Although weatherization certainly requires a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty work, it's also a very data-intensive process.  Alongisde their expertise about such practical matters as the relative effectiveness of storm windows and rigid foam insulation, weatherizers must also be able to manage a lot of different kinds of data.  The way things are done today, a lot of that data is stored in someone's head, on a piece of paper, or possibly in an old legacy desktop application.  Using mobile applications on a smart phone, weatherizers could see dramatic improvements in their work processes, while making the weatherization process more accessible.

A weatherization project starts with an assessment, or energy audit, to identify problems that might cause a home or building to be inefficient.  For each problem the audit produces, there are usually at least a few different solutions which can be applied, with each solution having tradeoffs in terms of cost, efficiency improvements, and long-term effect on the "livability" of the house or building.  The weatherizer and building owner must come to an agreement about which problems will be fixed.  Prior to getting to work, the weatherizer must gather the tools, materials, and safety equipment needed for the work.  The weatherization project itsef often reveals further problems, or sometimes requires future maintenance and follow-up.  It's frequently important to keep track of heat and electric usage, both before and after the audit - both as a way of demonstrating the project's return on investment, and to validate that the work was completed correctly.  In many cases, the building owner or weatherizer must carefully track expenses in order to qualify for government or utility rebates.

At every step of this process, there's a lot of data to track.  That can be a stumbling block for many weatherization projects.  It can introduce errors, excess cost, and complexity that can make a weatherization project less effective at reducing energy use.

To solve these problems, we need good software that is closely integrated with the realities of weatherization work.  It needs to be lightweight, flexible, and mobile.  It needs to account for architectural techniques and possible sources of energy leaks in a wide variety of homes and buildings.  It needs to support rich record-keeping, integrating tightly with mobile cameras and utilizing voice annotations.  It needs to integrate with third-party data services, for retrieving and managing data like water and electricitiy usage.  And above all, it needs to be easy to use.

A mobile software platform like this could do much more than make life easier for weatherizers - although that would be an important goal in its own right.  Through distribution in venues like the Apple iPhone store, such a program could also inspire a wave of do-it-yourself weatherization, by dispersing weatherization know-how.  Moreover, such an application could also provide valuable feedback data to policymakers and utilities, helping them identify areas where more weatherization work, or more subsidies and other incentives, are needed.

There is already some energy audit software available, like the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistant.  That is a good start, but the last release of the assistant was in September 2006.  We are long overdue for modernization of weatherization software.

This weekend, the Home Energy Efficiency Team held an energy efficiency "barn-raising" at the Cambridge Community Center.  Dozens of volunteers gathered to take on a variety of energy efficiency tasks, ranging from replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, to installing storm windows and rigid foam insulation.

Over the past month I've attended a series of leadership trainings with HEET (which is part of the reason this blog is so heavily focused on energy efficiency ideas), funded by a generous grant from MassSAVE.  Yesterday was my first crack at leading an efficiency team.  I served as the "right-hand man" on the caulking team, led by award-winning painter Jason Taylor.  Jason is a talented, skilled, and knowledgable (to say nothing of entertaining) contractor, so I confess I didn't do much more than fetch rags and move ladders around.  I got in my fair share of caulking, though, and at one point I found a gaping hole in the wall that was obscured by a big play structure.  Jason showed me and a fellow leader how to seal up the hole with plaster-of-Paris, so we were able to take care of what would otherwise have been a giant leak in the center's energy bills this winter.

Yesterday's barn-raising was a lot of fun, and I think we were able to save a lot of energy.  The Center will be warmer and more cost-effective this winter, meaning that we've put a small dent in global warming while helping a worthwhile community organization.  And to top it all off, I got my photo taken with Cambridge City Councillor, and Lightbulb First client, Henrietta Davis!

With energy efficiency, as with many other problems, it's often helpful to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty (very dirty, if you're caulking).  That helps get the creative juices flowing, and helps expose some of the practical, in-the-trenches problems that are often the inspiration for great ideas.  I've got another blog post on the way, for example, that was inspired by an effiency audit training I attended a couple of weeks ago.  So get out there and weatherize some buildings!

Tweet-A-Watt is an elegant solution to the problem of tracking electricity.  While the smart grid gathers steam, it's still a long-term project, and many electricity consumers won't see results for several years.  Tweet-A-Watt addresses that problem in the short term.  By combining the Kill-a-Watt power meter, the XBee wireless board, and the Twitter API, Tweet-A-Watt gives consumers a device into which they can plug their appliances, and tweets their energy usage to Twitter.

The basic Tweet-A-Watt system could be improved by making the data available in a semantically meaningful way, i.e. via some sort of structured database for electricity usage which is API-accessible.  With that kind of data infrastructure in place, it would be possible to develop interesting tools that allow consumers to see historical trends in their electric usage; break down usage by outlet and/or appliances; and get alerts whenever their usage exceeds a certain limit.

Fortunately, the Tweet-A-Watt system is very accessible.  Start-up Tweet-A-Watt hardware packs cost $90, and Wattcher, the Tweet-A-Watt software, is open source.  An interested hobbyist could be up and running with Tweet-A-Watt in a weekend, without much trouble.

For wider distribution, it will probably be necessary to make Tweet-A-Watt a bit easier to build, and a bit cheaper - perhaps through a partnership with Kill-a-Watt, or by using a cheaper meter.  There's also a need for software that's a bit easier to use, perhaps using a software-as-a-service (SAAS) business model.  Such a service would allow users to register their Tweet-A-Watt systems, describe the kinds of appliances plugged in to each Tweet-A-Watt, view charts and graphs of their usage, and then receive alerts whenever usage jumps beyond some absolute or relative limit.  The software could even integrate with users' Facebook accounts, to let their friends know when they saved electricity thanks to Tweet-A-Watt.

While I think a SAAS model would be the easiest way to create a sustainable, accessible data store of electricity usage, the software could also be distributed as an open source web application, which motivated users could install on their own private web servers.  Neither the code nor the database structure for this kind of software is likely to be very complex, and probably won't require very sophisticated maintenance.

I'm always eager to see low-cost, accessible solutions like Tweet-A-Watt emerge, and I'm even more excited about the prospect of derivative services that make those solutions easy-to-use.  Making energy efficiency tools readily available is an important step in reducing our overall energy usage.

A couple of months ago, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Boston, MA-based EnerNOC, a demand-response company which arranges deals between utility companies and commercial buildings to reduce energy usage within commercial buildings in order to prevent avoid peak power usage.  EnerNOC negotiates contracts in which commercial buildings reduce their energy usage whenever power usage within a utility's jurisdiction threatens to overwhelm the grid; building owners are paid for their compliance with the program.

One of the secrets to EnerNOC's success is their ability to interface with building management systems (BMS) at commercial buildings via remote communication.  A buildling managment system is an automated system for managing a variety of systems within a commerical building, including, among others, lighting and HVAC.  If technically possible, EnerNOC attempts to add a demand-response control sequence to its partners' BMS, so that when utilities request a reduction in power usage, EnerNOC can push a switch and automatically reduce demand in a number of different buildings, without requiring human intervention.  The company takes steps to ensure that the demand-response control sequences does not interfere with the business needs of its partners.

The success that EnerNOC has enjoyed - they have quickly managed to generate the equivalent of a gigawatt of clean power in just a couple of years - demonstrates the untapped potential of BMS to reduce energy usage in a variety of settings, and thereby to help address the global warming crisis.  Unfortunately, these systems are usually proprietary systems which are tightly coupled with the hardware devices they control.  The proprietary nature of BMS stifles innovation within this sector of the software market, because it prevents third-party software developers from inspecting and improving the software.

For similar reasons, third-party service providers are inhibited from introducing novel uses of BMS to reduce energy usage.  To begin with a third-party provider must have familiarity with the BMS.  On top of that, third party providers may wish to enhance a BMS to suit their energy efficiency services; in many cases, such enhancements are simply not possible.  While EnerNOC has managed to overcome these limitations, there is plenty of room for improvement in the market.  EnerNOC's partners tend to be very large commercial energy consumers, and, to my knowledge, there are no similar demand-response companies serving medium and small commercial energy consumers, or residential consumers.

An open specification for building management hardware, coupled with an open source building management system, could pave the way to improved energy use management in these sectors.  Such a platform would allow a wide array of providers to gain expertise in building management systems, and to develop improvements and value-added services for these systems, in much the same way that EnerNOC has done for large-scale commercial energy consumers.  Naturally, strong security measures would be absolutely crucial to such a platform; the opportunities for mischief in a BMS are significant.  While some commerical building managers might be suspicious of an open source system controlling such sensitive systems as lighting and HVAC, I would argue that open source systems generally can offer much more rigorous security assurances than proprietary systems - wide exposure to the source code that many people have the opportunity to audit the software and fix security bugs quickly, as opposed to the typically much smaller groups in proprietary development settings.

There has been some progress in development of an open source BMS.  The OpenLynx project promises to offer such a system.  In fact, a new release of OpenLynx was due yesterday.  While the SourceForge project page for OpenLynx doesn't yet include any source code, the project made an impressive show at the Connectivity Week conference in Santa Clara earlier this month.  Hopefully, open source building management projects will continue to gather momentum, enabling third-party providers to organize additional sectors of the building energy management market.

Earlier this week, Riversimple announced unveiled an "open source" hydrogen-powered car, according to the BBC (with a tip of the hat to Earth2Tech for the lead). A partnership with fuel company BOC will allow the drivers of its ten prototype vehicles to buy hydrogen in their home towns; the goal is to build a national hydrogren infrastructure one city at a time.

What's most interesting about the car, from my perspective, is the open source approach to design. Riversimple will give the designs to the 40 Fires Foundation, which will make them available under an open source model. The goal is to make it possible for the cars to be manufactured on a small scale in many different localities; as manufacturers tweak and improve the design, the improvements will be contributed back to the 40 Fires community.

To put it mildly, this is a new approach to building cars, and a fascinating one. There has been some talk about small-scale manufacturing as the foundation for local sustainable economies - for example, see Decentralization and Small-Scale Manufacturing: The Basis of Sustainable Regions? in the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning (2004; subscription required). Riversimple's approach is a significant step forward along these lines. It remains to be seen whether small-scale manufacturing of cars is even remotely economically feasible; auto manufacturing tends to have high overhead costs, meaning that large-scale production is key to keeping prices affordable. On the other hand, the new Riversimple car will be considerably lighter than most cars, weighing in at 350kg, and might benefit from an overhauled under-the-hood design. I'm no expert in assembly lines, but perhaps these innovations will make small-scale manufacturing feasible.

I am also interested to see how the open source community organized around the designs will emerge. As a dedicated Drupal developer, I have a great deal of first-hand experience with an open source community which is organized exceptionally well. I think 40 Fires - and indeed, any open source community - could take a few pages from Drupal's book. The key to Drupal's success as an open source community, from my perspective, is the clear organization and extensibility of the core product, i.e. the Drupal source code. That clarity of design means that there are many avenues for a developer to step up and contribute to the community. At the same time, Drupal's loose licensing requirements, in which all contributions are released under the General Public License, make it possible for anyone to profit from an in-depth knowledge of Drupal (which is, indeed, the better part of our business model here at Lightbulb First.)

In that vein, I hope 40 Fires loosens its restrictions a bit. The foundation has already, and wisely, decided to add a moderate licensing fee of £ 5 - 10 per car onto the designs, so its economic survival is safe, as long as the cars themselves are commercially viable. But the designs are licensed under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, meaning that "the designs can be used, modified, distributed under the same license terms but not for commercial purposes", according to the foundation. It seems to me that modification and distribution for commercial purposes will be important to the success of the community - that will help provide the proper incentives to get manufacturers to contribute back to the community. Of course, designing an open source community for car design is not exactly well-trod ground. 40 Fires is well aware that of the potential for mistakes, and is actively seeking input on its open source policies. I may try and send them some ideas, and if you have some experience with open source communities, I highly encourage you to do the same!

Whether the small-scale manufacturing revolution takes off is still a big question, and the design of the 40 Fires open source community forms one small part of that question. But I think this experiment in sustainable transportation is extremely exciting, and I am eager to see what comes next.

Weatherization is an ongoing process. You can install a storm window in the early winter, but chances are that you'll want to remove it in the summer. If you don't remember to re-install the storm window when winter rolls around again, your previous weatherization project was in vain.

This simple example is just one of many. There are plenty of weatherization tasks that require ongoing attention on the part of homeowners: checking thermostat temperatures, checking for water leaks, and everyone's favorite: turning off the lights. For the most part these are simple tasks that only require a few minutes every week or month. But they're also fairly boring, and difficult to integrate into a busy life.

To keep track with weatherization goals, homeowners need a convenient "green task" reminder system - a tool which can keep them up-to-date on the various green maintenance tasks they need to take care of on a regular basis. This tool could take a lot of different forms - it could have a web-based control panel; it could integrate with Outlook or the iPhone; it could send emails and text message alerts; it could produce an RSS feed or add status messages to a Facebook account one tasks are ticked off. It could do all of these things.

Most importantly, a green task reminder system needs to be relevant to each homeowner's particular circumstances - there's no need to remind someone who doesn't have storm windows to re-install them in early November. For that reason, such a system would need to gather some up-front data about what kind of weatherization measures the homeowner has taken, and perhaps provide an interface for a green contractor or weatherization consultant to add additional information. Once the basic information is provided, the system will be able to limit the set of reminders to thos which apply.

There's no need for such a system to limit itself to weatherization tasks, although those are among the most important tasks. It would be easy to adapt such a system to provide car and bicycle owners with reminders for keeping their vehicle in good and efficient condition, or to help urban farmers keep tabs on their plots.

It would be easy enough to monetize a system like this using subscriptions. A more exotic monetization model would sell not just the reminders, but the services as well. For example, the system could automatically schedule a visit from a local green contractor to assist with routine maintenance tasks, and reap a commission from each successfully scheduled appointment. That approach is probably more lucrative, but also a good deal riskier.

There are a lot of different ways to remind people of important green tasks. Hopefully, a variety of approaches will emerge, giving people the tools that best suit their needs and help them save energy most effectively.

Over the past several election cycles, progressive political candidates and organizations have developed and refined the concept of the online political house party. A house party is an event held in support of a political campaign at someone's house. The host invites friends, and possibly strangers, to meet and discuss the issues in the campaign, learn more about what's going on, and perhaps donate to the campaign. The concept of the house party is nothing new; what's new is the development of online tools to help a lot of people organize many house parties all at once, and to build community by helping campaign supporters find one another online.

This same idea, with a few tweaks, can be applied to help weatherize homes across the country. Imagine that some organization with national reach - for example, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or even the White House - were to announce a national Weatherization Day, and to call on its supporters to volunteer to either host or attend a weatherization house party. Hosts would be responsible for assessing weatherization work needed at their home, purchasing supplies, and providing refreshments for their volunteers. Volunteers would be responsible to show up and pitch in a few hours of weatherizing work. And, perhaps, there would be an understanding that hosts should reciprocate the favor by volunteering for future house parties.

Anyone could participate in a weatherization house party, but that would probably require that the work carried out during these house parties would have to be very simple - caulking windows, installing storm windows, etc. Also, hosts would need to receive some support from trained professionals, who could help the host assess high priority weatherization tasks, select materials, help the host provide his or her volunteers with the training they need for a successful project, and so on.

Over time, these events could become more sophisticated, because they would slowly build up a corps of people who have the experience needed to assist with future weatherization projects. Moreover, these events are likely to whet the appetite of homeowners for future weatherization projects, which are perhaps out of range of the "low-hanging fruit" that volunteers can handle - for example, insulating a wall, fixing a leaky roof, or perhaps replacing an oil heater with a natural gas heater. The possibility of return business should help provide green contractors with proper incentives to offer their assessment and training services at a low cost.

This idea was inspired in large measure by the Cambridge, MA-based Home Energy Efficiency Team, which organizes exactly these kinds of events. HEET's model is to organize energy efficiency "barn raisings", at which groups of volunteers meet to weatherize a home, school, church, or another type of building. The volunteers divide into task forces; each task force has a leader who provides on-the-spot training and safety instruction. I've attended a HEET barnraising, and am training to help lead future barnraising task forces, and they are a lot of fun! Spreading this approach to weatherization will not only help us save energy, and help homeowners save money, it will also help build community.

Today I'm excited to announce the launch of Green Lights! Green Lights is our new blog about green ideas, which will focus on ideas for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other solutions to environmental problems.

Global warming, threats to the food supply, water shortages and other environmental problems are daunting and fundamental problems. They will require the cooperation and concerted efforts from all corners of the globe, and I hope that our blog will be Lightbulb First's own unique contribution to the solution.

I have been a dedicated environmentalist for many years. On a personal level I've sought to reduce my own environmental footprint by bicycling and taking public transportation; not eating meat; participating in my local CSA; purchasing recycled products; and, whenever possible, making environmentally responsible decisions. I've also sought to be active in community organizations focused on structural environmental change, ranging from Students for Environmental Concerns at University of Illinois, while in graduate school, to Green Decade Cambridge, more recently.

There's more than I can do, though, and that's what this blog is about. I deeply believe in the power of ideas to spark action and change - indeed, that's why I founded Lightbulb First. With this blog, I hope to spark discussion and action around ideas that will help create renewable energy, reduce demand for energy and electricity, and solve other environmental problems.

I've spent the last several months thumbing through books, following key blogs, attending local meetings, and otherwise trying to learn as much as I can about solutions to global warming and other environmental problems. It turns out that many of the most important solutions are already near at hand. We've known how to weatherize a home, install renewable energy, provide low-impact transportation, and farm sustainably for a long time. What's needed is a new approach to delivering these goods and services, so that they can replace their old, environmentally damaging counterparts.

Those are the kinds of ideas I'll explore on this blog, and the kind of actions I hope to incite. Stay tuned for more!

We are very excited to announce today's release of Welcoming Websites Wizard, version 1.0. Welcoming Websites Wizard is a distribution of the Drupal content management system which is tailored to meet the needs of Unitarian Universalist congregations.

The Wizard builds on our commitment to helping congregations:

1. Welcome newcomers and engage members and friends.
2. Minister to people through the web by providing pastoral resources and building relationships.
   

Here at Lightbulb First, we've been busily working away on the forthcoming release of Welcoming Websites Wizard, as well as a few other exciting projects.

There are plenty of important requirements to account for, and in some cases, we're learning that the things we need to do aren't yet available in Drupal 6. So we're pushing ahead and contributing our work back to the community.

As a result, we've released a few new Drupal modules recently:

• Auto Promote, a module which allows some users to write content which is automatically promoted to a site's home page.
• Date Repeat Node Generator, a module which allows site administrators to use the excellent Date module's repeating events API to create many events at one time.
• EZ Menu, which makes it a snap to add new pages and content listings to a site menu.

We're excited about these contributions, and we hope they're helpful to others in the Drupal community!