Chips ahoy

I wish I could do this at home -- the Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner (which is ... north of Boston? I know it's not east, at least) switched to a biomass heating system and cut their heating costs by about $475,000 a year. Most of the biomass heating information I found was out of the UK but from what I can tell it works like your typical heat system: light a fire in a boiler, heat up water, pump that hot water to cold parts of the building. It just uses a cheap, readily available, renewable, and clean fuel supply. I've heard of people using these residentially, too. Maybe it'll catch on.

Also mentioned in the article is that the Mass. Department of Corrections cut their utilities costs by $1.3 million a year (from $15 million) by turning off the lights and computers at night. So to me, this says A.) turn off your lights and computers and night, and B.) the Mass. DOC spends a million dollars a month on utilities. Wow. The state wants all of its agencies to become more energy efficient; I think they should talk to one of the compact fluorescent lightbulb companies to see about some sort of contract there. The Whole Foods near my place sells them for not much more than a regular bulb, so presumably it's possible to make them somewhat cheaply, and they use about a quarter the energy of an incandescent bulb of the same brightness.