Which States Added the Most LEED-Certified Buildings in 2011?

Which States Added the Most LEED-Certified Buildings in 2011?: The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released its 2011 list of top 10 states for LEED-certified commercial and institutional green buildings per capita.

Seaweed Biofuel Breakthrough Found

Seaweed Biofuel Breakthrough Found: An engineered microbe has a sweet-tooth for seaweed, removing a great stumbling block for seaweed as a biofuel.

A Big Break for Efficient Buildings

A Big Break for Efficient Buildings:
by Eric Bloom

In late 2011 President Obama announced the Better Buildings Challenge, a $4 billion program sponsored by the DOE with the support of a number of public and private sector partners. The program aims to make American buildings 20 percent more energy efficient by 2020 by directing federal agencies to engage in performance contracts (driving efficiency with zero taxpayer funds) as well as mobilizing major companies to invest in efficiency upgrades to their own buildings and plants.

The list of partners in the Better Buildings Challenge is impressive, including major building service providers such as Schneider Electric and Transwestern, as well as industrials with large building portfolios such as Saint-Gobain and General Electric. To date, 1.6 billion square feet of space have been committed to the program, and that figure will grow as more companies, government agencies, and other organizations get involved.

But is it enough to reach the 20 percent goal by 2020? Four billion dollars may sound like a lot, but some studies have indicated that reducing energy consumption in U.S. buildings will take much more than that. A 2009 study from McKinsey found that a potential $1.2 trillion in gross energy savings sit latent in the U.S building stock - but it would take $520 billion in upfront investment to unlock those savings and reduce projected energy demand by 23 percent. The amount of capital directly engaged for the Better Buildings Challenge is less than 1 percent of the $520 billion McKinsey believes is needed. So the 20 percent reduction by 2020 may be a stretch with these funds alone.

However, the announcement could have a ripple effect on the energy service company (ESCO) market and in energy efficiency investment more broadly. In the federal sector alone, President Obama has ordered federal agencies to invest $2 billion in energy efficiency. That money will likely be spread out over the next few years and will go to energy performance contracts with the 53 ESCOs qualified to do federal work. That, in turn, will put ESCOs in a better cash position to build new capacity and reach more customers.

Other emerging trends in building efficiency policy might help the U.S. chip away at the funding gap. Regulations such as PACE financing are starting to lower the bar for commercial building owners to engage in efficiency upgrades in cities from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. And commercial benchmarking laws in cities like New York and San Francisco will soon make energy efficiency even more of a differentiator in commercial real estate markets.

The Better Buildings Challenge follows shortly after the announcement of a major zero energy building initiative by the General Services Administration, the federal government's real estate manager. GSA will launch zero energy retrofits of 30 federal buildings around the United States over the next few years. The federal government has long adopted a "lead by example" approach to efficiency in commercial buildings, and these two major federal energy efficiency initiatives will help accelerate investment in efficiency not only in the public sector, but also in the private sector.

Eric Bloom is a green building and renewable energy analyst for Pike Research.

Mandatory Roof Gardens Urged as Solution to Singapore Flooding

Mandatory Roof Gardens Urged as Solution to Singapore Flooding:

A panel formed to study solutions to increased flooding in Singapore has urged the government to require green roofs on new and retrofitted buildings. The 12-member panel, which was created after torrential rains caused flash flooding across eastern and central Singapore last year, said improved weather modeling and infrastructure improvements are needed to handle a surge in stormwater runoff caused by urbanization in Singapore. In the meantime, however, the panel urged simpler steps to reduce and delay flooding, including better storage tanks, porous pavements, and rain gardens. Such rooftop gardens, which are often added to reduce heat or for aesthetic reasons, can also absorb six to 34 liters of water per square meter and limit the spread of water flow, local contractors said. After flash floods doused large sections of Singapore last June for the second consecutive year, a government official warned that the country's existing drainage system is not equipped to handle the region's "changing" weather patterns.

Photo by Pete Hill/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

Could we power the world with just clean energy?

Could we power the world with just clean energy?:

As if the year 2012 doesn’t already portend challenges enough, what with all the Mayan prophecy baggage … now the United Nations wants to saddle it with the responsibility of being the “International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.”

An admirable goal, sure. But is it possible?

A report last year from the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that it’s possible to provide universal access to modern energy by 2030. The price-tag for such an ambitious achievement isn’t even that high, relatively speaking: $48 billion a year, or just 3 percent what’s currently spent on global energy.

The IEA’s vision of energy for all, though, includes a significant amount of electricity from coal and other fossil fuels. Providing universal access to energy, it says, would take around 220 gigawatts of new electricity generating capacity, with some 45 percent of that being delivered via extensions to existing national grids. Of that additional grid-delivered energy, more than 60 percent would come from fossil fuels, the IEA figures.

Clearly, sustainable energy for all is an even taller order. But can it be done?

The UN believes it can, if the goal of universal energy access is coupled with two other targets: doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy globally.

If we can go from almost no mobile communications to more than 5.3 billion cellphones in use in just two decades, there’s reason to believe energy could undergo a similar transformative change, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

“Twenty years ago, the idea of universal access to mobile communication would have seemed preposterous,” he said last fall upon announcing the Sustainable Energy for All initiative. “A similar paradigm may next emerge in distributed energy generation.”

Making that happen is more than possible, Ki-Moon believes … it’s imperative.

“At a time when so many economies are struggling, some may claim that sustainability is a luxury we cannot afford,” he said. “But the opposite is true: Depleting our natural resources will deplete our chances of true prosperity. We need to reduce global emissions, conserve the wealth of nature, empower the world’s most vulnerable populations, and catalyze low-carbon prosperity for all. None of this will be possible without a clean energy revolution.”

Most Read Sustainable Business Stories of 2011

Most Read Sustainable Business Stories of 2011: (Source: Environmental Leader - References: Gil Friend) Every day this week we’ve been looking at a different aspect of environmental and sustainability management and counting down the top stories that grabbed your attention this year. Today we look at the most popular sustainable business stories

Plug n’ Play Solar PV Systems Aim to Juice the Home-DIY Market

Plug n’ Play Solar PV Systems Aim to Juice the Home-DIY Market: (Source: Alternative Energy) Filed under: Energy News

12 Energy-related Predictions for 2012 in Canada

12 Energy-related Predictions for 2012 in Canada:

Does Canada need more energy supply or more insulation? Clearly, this is a gross simplification but it is estimated that almost a third of Canada's current energy consumption is used for heating and cooling buildings and homes. This number could be cut in half with proper conservation initiatives.

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