This time, from Chevron. In July we wrote about My Abodo, a consumer-focused exercise that enabled one to make choices about how they live then to see the impact of those changes on the environment around them. In retrospect, it was a very cool exercise and you can still see our little MeV home we created – optimized for lowest level of impact.

Today, Chevron has gotten into the act with WillYouJoinUs.com, more a Sim City approach to the same problem where you, the Mayor and CFO make decisions about energy supply then watch the impacts on economics, environment, and security through a few simulation phases over time. A screen shot of MeV City is located below the jump.

It’s great to see Chevron get engaged in this area, their bread is obviously still buttered by fossil fuels, but in the last few months they seem to be getting on the green bandwagon. Would it surprise you to learn that Chevron is the world’s largest geothermal electricity provider? Interesting, I’d think that geothermal power would be an option on their game. Oh well…

Tip of the hat: Didn’t You Hear?

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A leading technology company, Sun Microsystems, has released a community-based carbon footprint tracker today called OpenEco.org. It’s clearly just a start, but it’s interesting in that the point is to have folks measure their activity, set goals for improvement, and track them on the website. The theory is, if you can see it, then you can do something about it. Since there is a community involved, best practices can be formed and shared across the community.

Sun has proved masterful at building communities throughout its 25 year history, but this is a slightly different animal. It’s encouraging to see a large company step up and sponsor this, but I have to wonder, who will participate? The price of participation is high – that being the entry of vast quantities of data into the system. Yes, the community participant can choose how much is private vs. public, but just the act of entry is a high price. And it’s not a one-time gig. If Sun and the community can find a way to ease this price, then there may be some community growth.

But, this much is true, if you can’t see it, you won’t do anything about it. We applaud the company for making the effort.

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Yes, we all know the things we can do individually to help conserve energy. But there is an emerging class of company that makes conservation their business, like EnerNOC.

The service EnerNOC and others offer is called demand response and energy management. Effectively, this is a network of computer monitoring and control points scattered across the largest consumers of energy in a region. Based on pre-negotiated actions with participants in the network, the power levels can be reduced on demand to help take the peak loads down during periods of high-demand.

What may not be apparent to casual readers is that peak demand in the grid happens only a few days per year. Special power plants called “peakers” are built and connected to the grid to activate when demand is projected to rise above supply in a given time period. Demand response is an alternative to this approach where the demand is intelligently monitored and managed below the supply threshold in a given time period.

While at the REFF conference last month, Tim Healy, the CEO of EnerNOC spoke and mentioned that with their small customer base, they have eliminated the need to build over 100MW of new power plants simply by managing demand in this way. This is a smart approach and one that is sure to catch on.

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Should you ever believe the small choices people make about the way they live their lives don’t matter, visit My Abodo, an interactive model for conservation in the home. It’s a little cheesy for people who understand the underlying issues and already are clued in, but for those who are unaware, it’s a great tool to bring home the impact of their choices.

We encourage you to build your Abodo and see what your choices do to your footprint…

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There is a new not-for-profit web site aimed at mobilizing the community to drive change in ZeroFootprint.net. Check it out, it’s now in beta, but has a promising look and mission to it. You can find products, buy offsets, and interact with others in the community. We’ll see more of this sort of thing in the future.

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