Ed Norton will go green -- literally -- next month when he hits the big screen as The Incredible Hulk. But on Wednesday he was on the Hill talking up the virtues of going green figuratively, in our building practices.
Norton appeared before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, along with experts in the green-building field, to talk about why building green is better for the planet and your wallet. Norton is a trustee for the Enterprise Foundation, which works to bring green building practices to low-income housing developments.
"The fastest way to make the most progress most quickly on climate change is by reducing energy waste in buildings," Norton told the committee. "The most cost-effective ways to do that are by retrofitting existing buildings, while the deepest energy and greenhouse-gas reductions can be made in new buildings as they come online. Major gains are achievable by applying what we know today."
(Norton isn't just a clueless actor, actually. In a 2005 interview with Grist, he spoke intelligently about environmental issues and his own work on green projects.)
Also at the hearing was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D), who has been leading a crusade to have his city adopt the greenest building codes in the country. If his plans are approved by the city's Board of Supervisors, all new projects and renovations in the city will be required to comply with the strictest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards by 2012. The city began fast-tracking permits for developers who voluntarily meet the LEED standards last year.
Buildings are responsible for 48 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, and it's estimated that 76 percent of all the electricity that U.S. power plants generate each year is used to keep buildings running. Yesterday's hearing was intended to examine the ways that efficient buildings and better building policies can both reduce energy costs and cut their contribution to global warming, and how government policies can support that transition.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:44 am
16 May 2008
76% of electricity? Incredible.
To me it's very good news, since the combination of solar cogeneration (heat+electricty from the same solar panels) and geo heat exchange heating/cooling could affordably eliminate that 48% and 76%. Plus yield extra power for the grid.
Go Ed. Maybe Brad and Ed could reprise their revolutionary duo in "Fight Club"? But non-violently this time. To sponsor a green building competition to come up with a cogeneration/geo heat exchange home as a building block for a distributed smart grid.
Buildings like this can feature energy storage as well as conservation (geo heat) and cogeneration. By storing heat/cold in building mass and extra heat storage solutions.
That storage is enough to smooth out the power flow from a completely solar, wind, water, and biogas powered grid.
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solarwind Posted 11:25 am
16 May 2008
Also, I want to comment that although less glamorous, retro-fitting old buildings is a much more important issue than new buildings. This is due to the sheer quanitity of existing buildings (something near 80% of the buildings in the world in 2050 will be the buildings currently built). So, as you can see, if we only concentrate on new construction, it'll only comprise 20% of the 2050 buildings sector and won't make near the carbon/energy reductions aggressive retrofitting would make...Both are great though! Now we just need policy to force us to do so (wish we as a society could do things w/o having to be forced into it, but unfortunately it's not so)!
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:37 pm
16 May 2008
Demolishing old buildings is not difficult.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:21 pm
16 May 2008
It showed the outdoor pipe loops being buried in trenches and the inside installation, it looked like a typical furnace.
Mass production will bring the price down. And of course a per kwh saved subsidy would help consumers pay for these systems. they directly replace fuel oil and natural gas heating and very energy expensive electric air conditioners.
by offering subsidies, taken away from fossil fuel industries, mass production would ramp up very quickly. Stimulating the economy with savings. And cutting down on oil and gas use.
Not sure about the percentages, but if lighting, cooking, computers, tvs, appliances, water heating, refrigeration, and so forth are all added onto heating/cooling, that extra percentage makes sense.
48% of GHG and 76% of electricity saved by solar cogeneration and geo heat exchange. That would be sweet.
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