Manhattan - the greenest place on our planet

Event 1: Accellerating electricity prices  

The price of electricity (highest in Europe) has been the top story in our biggest newspaper (Aftenposten) two days in a row. It is caused by a combination of cold weather and lower than normal production in Swedish nuclear plants (40% lower due to maintenance).

With a price per KWh of 2USD - some of the bigger "power-hungry" companies have cut production during peak hours - and only run at night when the prices come down.

There is also some concern about the lower than normal amount of water in the dams up in the mountains (water that will run through the turbines this winter/spring to generate electricity) and also less snow in the mountains (not as much melting water this spring). The prices may stay high even when Sweden is back to normal production in their nuclear plants.      

Comment 1: Higher energy prices are welcome 

I have in previous blog posts argued that we should increase the prices of electricity - to raise awareness and accellerate the implementation of energy saving projects (in private homes and businesses).

With a higher price on electricity the danger of overheated economy is reduced - and the rate of interest hikes from the Central Bank should therefore slow down.   

Event 2: Manhattan - the greenest place on our planetI got a Kindle e-book reader for Christmas and the first book I downloaded and have started reading is "Whole Earth Discipline: an Ecopragmatist Manifesto" by the American social entrepreneur and technology guru Stewart Brand.

I really enjoy reading this book and want to recommend it to others who are interested in these global challenges - and would appreciate a new perspective on some of these questions. The book examines four "tools that environmentalists have distrusted and now need to embrace":

• Urbanization: the footprint per person is less in cities 
• Nuclear power: energy without greenhouse gases 
• Geo-engineering: manipulate the climate
• Biotechnology: grow more on less space and with less resources (even within cities) 

Progress:

Yesterday they stopped by our house, but they triggered the alarm system when they entered the house. We initialized the alarmsystem before we left for the mountains (school is out and many people head for the mountains in what we call "winter vacation") - and didn't expect them to show up during this vacation week. 

We talked on the phone and they said that they would return today. I don't think they did because the ventilation pipes in the attic are still not completely covered in new isolation material.    

We are still waiting for a suggestion on how to fix the problem with the outdoor part of our heatpump (to conform with the installation manual it should be moved away from the corner closest to our neighbor - because of the noice problem).