More information on the passive house project from the 100K House blog:
Do these higher insulation values cost more? Of course, but they reduce the heating and cooling loads by almost 90% and they are a tiny fraction of the cost of something like a geothermal or PV system that would get us to the same efficiency levels. That’s the beauty of the Passiv Haus standard.
If a factory farm is hell for an animal, then Bill Niman’s seaside ranch in Bolinas, Calif., an hour north of San Francisco, must be heaven. The property’s cliffside view over the Pacific Ocean is worth millions, but the black Angus cattle that Niman and his wife Nicolette Hahn Niman raise keep their eyes on the ground, chewing contentedly on the pasture.
(Via Grist.)
Mark Jacobson ranks the top ten major sources for energy on the basis of their potential for deliving adequate power, impact on global warming, pollution, etc.:
“There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession,” Jacobson says. “Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles, and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage, and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power.”
Retrofitting dams to generate electricity seems like a no-brainer to me:
Only 3 percent of the 80,000 dams in the United States are used to generate power, according to Norm Bishop, a vice president at MWH, a water engineering firm. They were built for other purposes, like flood control, recreation, irrigation or water storage.
To expand the nation’s hydropower capacity, “We should be looking at the dams in the 97 percent range that have no existing power facilities,” Mr. Bishop said.
Is Ford’s work on electric cars that can ‘talk’ to power grids a harbinger of Amory Lovin’s ‘smart garage’ concept (discussed earlier) coming to life?
Owners can choose to recharge at off-peak times when electricity is cheaper, or when wind, solar or renewable energy is driving the grid, said Nancy Gioia, director of Ford’s sustainable mobility technologies division. “What we’re doing is developing our capability.”
commissioning identifies the almost inevitable “drift” from where things should be and puts the building back on course, often making it perform even better than the original designers intended. (Why do we tune up our cars but not our far more complex buildings?)
The New York Times profiles Solix, a company with an intriguing process for collecting solar energy and storing it in fuel:
With the twin goals of making fuel from algae and reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, a start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant. The water is already green-tinged with life.
The Bixi bike-sharing system is expanding south of the border:
From the beginning, Montreal officials had ambitions for the new Bixi bicycle-sharing system that went beyond the borders of that Canadian city. On Wednesday, Gérald Tremblay, Montréal’s mayor, announced that the Bixi system will be implemented in Boston and London.
Obama admin teams with grassroots groups to ‘Green the Block’:
In the economic stimulus package, $14 billion is designated for housing upgrades, including $5 billion to make low-income housing more energy efficient. Noting that the government currently spends $5 billion a year providing monetary assistance for energy bills to low-income households, Donovan said investments like those in the stimulus plan will help offset costs for families and the government in the long run.
eSolar launches first solar tower in US:
On August 5, eSolar launched the Sierra SunTower on a sunny stretch of desert in Lancaster, California; the first CSP solar tower of its kind in the US.
The 100K House project has launched Postgreen Homes:
At Postgreen we are trying to build homes for those people who are no longer interested in the race for more stuff and a bigger place to store it. We are trying to build homes for the many, many lifestyles that don’t mesh with the majority of homes being built. We believe that every home should be energy efficient, healthy and well designed. We believe that size isn’t everything. We believe that quality can be affordable.
David Roberts provides an excellent overview of recent studies touting both the incredible impact efficiency can have on greenhouse gas emisisons:
“Energy efficiency investments can provide up to one-half of the needed greenhouse-gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050.”
and its inherent profitability for the economy:
“Hence, shifting away from the production and consumption of conventional energy resources, in favor of more productive investments in energy-efficient technologies, can lead to a more robust economy and to a greater level of overall employment opportunities with the U.S.”
Roberts also highlights this choice quote from Joseph Romm summarizing the results of the McKinsey study on energy efficiency:
“the entire 2020 target in the Waxman-Markey climate bill could be met with energy efficiency at a net savings to U.S. consumers and businesses of $700 billion.”
Habitat for Humanity has announced plans to build over 5000 green homes across America:
“This is unquestionably the largest scale accelerated initiative we’ve taken on to drive green building,” said Jonathan Reckford, the chief executive of Habitat for Humanity International. The $30 million initiative, he added, would bring rapid payback for families in terms of lower energy bills.
I can’t imagine a better plan for lower-income housing than to reduce energy costs for the people living there.
(Via Green Inc.)
Via Grist:
Nissan unveiled Sunday its first all-electric car, the Leaf, vowing to open a new chapter for the troubled auto industry and take a lead over its bigger rivals in zero-emission vehicles.
Nissan plans to sell the car at a similar price to a comparable model with a petrol-powered engine. The battery, which will be stored under the seat and floor, will be leased separately.
“We need to invest a lot of money to build the car plants and the battery plants at a moment where all the auto companies are saving investments,” said Ghosn. “But there is such a high potential that we [will] go ahead with it.”
Ars Technica covers the aforementioned McKinsey report, along with another report released by the National Academies of Science which concludes that conservation efforts could largely obviate the need for new power plants, and discusses possible reasons for the lack of uptake of more efficient technologies:
One aspect of the problem was described well by the International Energy Agency. For many efficient systems, the consumer-level payoff is relatively small, and comes gradually over many years—even for those systems that require a large, up-front investment. On the national level, however, the cumulative impact is enormous. The trick is crafting policies that make the national incentive for efficiency apparent to individual consumers.
From Grist:
Several regions in the United States, Iceland, and New Zealand have made significant progress in rebuilding stocks devastated by decades of overfishing through careful management strategies.
But the study, published in the journal Science, found that 63 percent of assessed fish stocks worldwide require rebuilding to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.
This story on energy efficiency opportunities in the US has been bouncing all over the internet:
A McKinsey report on energy efficiency in the United States, released today (see related post), cites $1.2 trillion in potential savings by 2020 if the country first invests $520 billion in efficiency improvements like better insulation for buildings.
The big question is, what policies can help us to get there? The report cites several “success stories.” Potentially, some could serve as models for other programs or policies.
(Via Green Inc.)
Sustainable Architecture and Building Magazine has a nice overview of different types of insulation in their recent issue:
Most housing experts will say that the least expensive and essential first step to build green is by increasing thermal resistance [R value] of the walls and roof - the building envelope - of the house.