You know how that famous old saying goes - there's nothing quite like some green building and energy links on a Friday afternoon.

How Malmo was transformed from a deteriorating city into a model of sustainability: Treehugger

Ecotricity launches a "green gas" derived from landfill waste - I'd be curious to hear readers' opinions and comments on this: Energy Savings Trust

Storing heat with phase change materials: Green Building Advisor

The Guardian's guide to buying a wood burning stove: Guardian

Norwegian firm tests ground-breaking osmosis power plan: Guardian

Replacing ugly construction site barries with living walls: Inhabitat

Global body needed to direct green technology, says G77: Guardian

Meant to post this yesterday but other things got the better of me - the Irish Times yesterday reported on the government's plans for a Pay As You Save type scheme. Pay As You Save is an idea proposed by Construct Ireland that would enable householders to fund energy upgrades by paying for the work on their utility bills over time. The government's proposed scheme is instead termed Save As You Pay - putting the emphasis on the saving rather than the paying.

Harry McGee writes in the Irish Times.

However, the new scheme would vastly accelerate the retro-fitting of the national housing stock, with upwards of 90,000 dwellings a year being retro-fitted over a period of 10 to 12 years.

The funding model would also radically alter in order for change of that magnitude to be achieved. Officials believe that extending the grant scheme would not be feasible or realistic.

Instead, electricity and energy utility companies would be given new obligations to reduce progressively the amount of energy they generate each year.

Their roles would change to allow them to offer retro-fitting services and financing. Homeowners would get an assessment carried out by the utility. After completion, the cost would then form part of the utility bill, to be paid off over a long period of time.

The retail and telecoms sectors were the big winners at Sustainable Energy Ireland's sixth annual awards in Dublin last Friday, with Dunnes Stores, Heatons, O2 and Eircom each taking awards at the all-island event.

The awards aim to highlight "excellence in business energy management", and this year included entries from over 100 organisations.

 

During Plan Expo earlier this month I had a chat with Amanda Gallagher and Eanna Nolan from BRE Ireland. Both raised what I thought was a valid point - that so far the drive towards green building in Ireland has focused a lot on energy use and very little on the embodied energy of building materials. After all, if we're to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, both must be tackled.

Green building standards in other countries aim to do just that: In the UK there's the voluntary Code for Sustainable Homes, which rates homes based on criteria including water efficiency and use of materials as well as energy efficiency. The BRE's own Breeam rating system (which is just taking off in Ireland) for non-domestic buildings examines a similarly wide range of criteria, as does the US Leed system.

Why have we been comparatively slow to focus on materials and other sustainability criteria here? Is it a result of the dominance of a carbon-intensive building industry - traditional concrete - here, or is it down to something else? 

 

 

It seems the White House is considering a national weatherization ('energy upgrade' in our language) programme for 2009 that, according to GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, will aim to "demystify weatherization for homeowners, help contractors market a new set of government incentives to weatherize, and create a rush to retrofit".

Two strategies have been proposed for the programme - more details here - but I'm just going to mention the one proposed by Bill Clinton, because it's quite simililar to the Pay As You Save scheme proposed by us at Construct Ireland.

Richard Defendorf writes:

The Clinton plan... would apply to both residential and commercial improvement projects, would reallocate clean-energy money from the stimulus bill that has not yet been spent and would offer building owners a fixed set of climate-appropriate improvements designed specifically for buildings in their region. This plan also includes a financing program that would attach the loan payments to the upgraded property’s tax bill, working in much the same way as the bond-funded Property Assessed Clean Energy program has been working for dozens of municipalities and many states (PACE was adopted this week by the state of New York).

The logic of letting homeowners pay for upgrades over time on their energy bills continues to catch on. 

Ireland risks social and economic disaster from climate change unless the government takes urgent action, according to the Irish Academy of Engineers.

In a new report the group says delivering critical infrastructure must be prioritised, otherwise the country risks polluted drinking water, extensive flood damage and power blackouts.

Martin Holladay has posted a very good guide to the basics of low energy building & retrofit on GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. He wisely avoids mentioning too much green "bling" and instead focuses on smart design and a well-insulated, air tight envelope. The basic principles? Don't build too big, orient the house correctly, choose the right windows, design an air-tight layer and insulate well.

An alarming new study jointly released by two prominent California-based environmental/economic think tanks concludes that unrelenting energy limits, even among alternative energy systems, will make it impossible for the industrial system to continue operating at its present scale, beyond the next few decades. The report finds that the current race by industries and governments to develop new sustainable energy technologies that can replace ecologically harmful and rapidly depleting fossil fuel and nuclear technologies, will not prove sufficient, and that this will require substantial adjustments in many operating assumptions of modern society.

The International Living Building Institute - no I hadn't heard of it either - has just released the latest version of its green building standard, which appears to go beyond any other building rating system out there. Any "certified living building" must be net-zero energy, net-zero water, provide for restoration habitats, and include space for food growing, among other requirements.

Rather than just being rated based on plans or an initial inspection, buildings aspiring to the standard must be surveyed a year after construction is finished.

Full details on the standard can be downloaded here.

Ireland’s largest employers knocked E60 million off their energy costs in 2008 through efficiency measures, energy minister Eamon Ryan announced yesterday at the Sustainable Energy Ireland global conference on energy management in Farmleigh, Dublin.