We're really struggling with phantom power load at our house.

The phantom power load, which is estimated at 15 percent of the household electrical bill, is what goes to devices when they're not doing anything directly for us. TVs, phone chargers, computers, etc. As a pretty electronic family, we have lots of these.

Georgie and I live in mutt of a house, partly thanks to our extensive renovation when we moved in. But it was built in bungalow style in 1938, and given a second story in the '70s.

The TR story I mentioned previously does address sugarcane as a source of biofuel, but only in passing because the crop grows in only a few portions of the US and therefore isn't capable of contributing much to the market.

I don't think these will continue in parallel, mostly because we (try to) do more on the positive side. But still, both with the foreshadowing from yesterday's post, and the fact that we have a very visible sign of unreconstructed vehicle thinking, it seems only fair to come right back with it.

I've long been a fan of Technology Review, MIT's magazine, but it is really hitting another stride recently. I just caught up on a couple of past issues I picked up at the Clean Tech conference and found a gem of a story you should read if you want to be able to converse about biofuels with authority.

This is the link.

Among its points:

Although Mitt Romney was my dad's choice for the presidency until he exited the race, the governor's politics and lack of conviction meant I'd never support him. So I never really thought about what it might be like to have a neighbor as the president.

But this morning, for the second time in a couple of months, I ran into him in the market. The other time, I was with Georgie but he was alone, cruising the produce section of the Shaw's Market in Belmont. This time, I was alone but he was with his wife, Ann, when we met up at adjacent cash registers at Wilson Farms.

It made me wonder about the non-political ramifications of someone from my area becoming the leader of the free world: being held up in traffic by presidential motorcades, street closures for security reasons, etc. I can't imagine they'd have raised quality our lives, and there wouldn't even have been the compensation of being proud of our (semi)native son.

I chose not to engage with him either time; what do I have to say to him? Anything — political references, "how 'bout them Sox?" whatever — would have been just stand-ins for "Hey, I know you. You're that guy, on the tee-vee!"

Obligatory green content: He drives an SUV. Brown Caddie, I think. (I didn't want to stare, y;know?)

I've been thinking for a while about making a "sticky" post that would talk about all the things we do in our household with a green purpose, and all the things we need to change.

But today, I decided to start a series of shorter posts to cover the same ground, instead, and am beginning with the obvious, our "status symbol": 

1. We have a Prius.

I have just been loving the format and guests on the Commonwealth Club podcasts, and strongly recommend them to you. They apparently are a West Coast fixture from decades back, but I only became aware of them when I came across their recordings in the iTunes Music Store.

My first book review in several years appears in this morning's Living/Arts section. The book is "World Made By Hand," by James Howard Kunstler, whom I'm heard on a panel before the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association show in March.

What he brings most to the page, in my opinion, is a deeply explored vision of how the world will or may change as the result of the changing energy landscape. In the novel, a scenario of this new world, there are very few spices, for example, not even pepper, because it is grown overseas.

Scientist James Hansen has been raised almost to sainthood for his early sounding of the climate-change alarm and for his adamance since. He testified before Congress Monday on the 20-year anniversary of his global climate change testimony, saying roughly what he has been saying all along.