SEI announces funding for Irish ocean energy companies
Ten Irish companies developing ocean energy technologies will share
e4.3millon in funding from Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), the
national energy authority announced yesterday.
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Ireland ranked fourth in the world for wind power
Ireland now ranks fourth in the world for the contribution of wind
energy to electricity use, according to the International Energy
Agency's 2008 Wind Energy Annual Report.
Comhar report proposes massive "green new deal"
SPENDING ON the smart economy should be increased eightfold to
almost e4 billion a year to make Ireland a world leader in creating
green collar jobs, according to the national advisory body on
sustainable development.
In a report on a “Green New Deal” for Ireland published yesterday, Comhar argued that a multi- billion euro commitment would be needed if Ireland was to become a sustainable, low-carbon economy.
Construct Ireland campaigns to energy upgrade Ireland
Construct Ireland has launched a campaign calling for the introduction of pay as you save (PAYS), a system with the potential of substantially energy upgrading the Irish building stock. PAYS overcomes obstacles to the en masse uptake of energy investments such as the requirement for upfront capital, unease at signing up to debt in the case of loans, and lack of confidence in the suitability of particular measures and technologies in a given building. The US Cash for Appliances for scheme
I blogged a few days ago about Mick Williams's campaign for a boiler scrappage scheme in the UK that would offer money to householders to replace their old boilers with new, high efficiency units.
A somewhat similar scheme is about to kick off in the US. The US Department of Energy's Cash for Appliances programme will fund rebates to consumers purchasing energy efficient appliances, and is backed by $300m of funding. The new appliances must be certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program - an award mark for energy efficient appliances. Individual states will decide which appliances are eligible, and the level of rebate. The Department of Energy has recommended they focus on heating and cooling equipment such as heat pumps, boilers, washing machines, dishwashers, fridges and freezers.
Unlike the proposed boiler scrappage programme and "cash for clunkers" car scrappage schemes, there is no requirement to trade in old appliances. Rebates are expected to be between $50 and $200.
Green building & energy links, Sept 24
Turning straw waste into building beams: Inhabitat
Global oil reserves and fossil fuel consumption: Guardian data blog
Twenty 'solar-powered' homes compete at solar decathlon: Jetson Green
New Hampshire home lands coveted LEED Platinum certification: Green Building Advisor
Two Dublin buildings win major architectural awards: Irish Times
Using waste plastic as a cement aggregate: Inhabitat
Nicholas Stern optimistic about climate change talks: Guardian
EPA chief calls for urgent action on green economy
IRELAND CANNOT afford to wait before investing in the green economy,
the director general of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
said.
Speaking at the organisation’s annual conference, Mary Kelly said there were significant economic opportunities for Ireland in becoming a low-carbon and greener economy.
80% of homeowners want energy upgrade through utility bills
80 per cent of Irish homeowners would be interested in paying for comprehensive energy upgrade work through a repayment tariff on their utility bills, a survey has found.
The results, from the monthly online omnibus for August by leading market research consultancy Amárach Research, coincide with the launch of a Construct Ireland campaign calling for energy upgrades across Ireland’s building stock through energy suppliers.
Witold Rybczynski's "green case for cities"
Writing in US monthly The Atlantic, architect Witold Rybczynski outlines his "green case for cities", arguing that there is too much focus on flashy green gadgets and not enough on practical building methods:
Putting solar panels on the roofs doesn’t change the essential fact that by any sensible measure, spread-out, low-rise buildings, with more foundations, walls, and roofs, have a larger carbon footprint than a high-rise office tower—even when the high-rise has no green features at all.
He also has a pop at the media for encouraging the "green gadget" trend:
Architectural journals and the Sunday supplements tout newfangled houses tricked out with rainwater-collection systems, solar arrays, and bamboo flooring. Yet any detached single-family house has more external walls and roof—and hence more heating loads in winter and cooling loads in summer—than a comparable attached townhouse, and each consumes more energy than an apartment in a multifamily building. Again, it doesn’t really matter how many green features are present. A reasonably well-built and well-insulated multifamily building is inherently more sustainable than a detached house. Similarly, an old building on an urban site, adapted and reused, is greener than any new building on a newly developed site.
Rybczynski leaves his most important point to the end, suggesting the future could be developments that are "dense without being vertical". He cites Montreal as an example of city where the dominant form of housing is a three or four-storey apartment block that doesn't require elevators.
Rybczynski makes a good point - while high rise is often touted as the solution to unsustainable urban sprawl, tall buildings typically require elevators, artificial ventilation (due to increases wind speeds and noise associated with openable windows at height) and heavy, high embodied energy structural components - perhaps three or four storey "walk ups" represent an ideal compromise.
But without solid figures, it's impossible to be sure. Does anyone know of any studies out there examining the energy footprint of different building forms?
Does a boiler scrappage scheme make sense?
I saw this in the Guardian yesterday - leading UK environmentalist Tony Juniper encouraging the British government to introduce a boiler scrappage scheme. Such a scheme would offer householders grants to replace their old boilers with new, high efficiency ones. It would work similarly to the UK car scrappage that offers money to those trading old cars for new ones.
Juniper writes:
The simple idea is that by replacing the country's old, inefficient gas boilers it would be possible to achieve a major environmental benefit and conserve a valuable resource while at the same time creating employment and economic activity...
...Reheat Britain suggests that a limited and temporary fund is created, mostly from public sources but perhaps also including contributions from boiler manufacturers. It would work along similar lines to the car scrappage scheme, and it is estimated that an incentive of about £200 per boiler would be needed.
Juniper says that replacing a G-rated boiler with an A-rated condensing boiler with better controls could cut household energy bills by a quarter. He says that the carbon cost of making and fitting new boilers would be quickly compensated for by the high efficiency of new, A-rated units.
He also speculates that the idea could be slow getting approval in political circles because of the absence of lobbying power in the heating sector compared to the motor industry.
A boiler scrappage scheme is a sensible idea, but might not be necessary if governments adopted a pay-as-you-save scheme that would enable householders to energy upgrade their homes (with measures including new boilers) at no up front cost, and repay the work over time on their utility bills.More...
Storing carbon in cities
Cities have the potential to store vast amounts of carbon, according to a new study. National Geographic reports on the work of Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany:
Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon—carbon that comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.Of all the urban carbon, about three billion tons are locked up in man-made materials - two thirds in rubbish dumps and the rest in building materials like wood. The story continued:
Cities—including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs—store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.
In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Global Change Biology.
Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles' Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.
Building timber instead of concrete houses could also help to sequester carbon, said Leif Gustavsson, an expert on green technology at Mid Sweden University. But he said the main carbon benefit is from the embodied energy of the construction itself, rather than carbon stored in the material.
Meanwhile, earth scientist David Pataki of the University of California stressed that getting urban soils to store more carbon would be a careful balancing act. "Managing urban soils to store more carbon can use energy, and those fossil fuel emissions have to be taken into account," he told National Geographic.
Building with hemp
Check out these two videos on hemp building with leading green architect Tom Woolley. Woolley built the house in question for his father, and the building will be profiled in depth in the next issue of Construct Ireland (out early November). Click on 'Read More' below to see them.
Videos courtesy of SustainAndBuild.com
Green building & energy links, Sept 16
Green Building isn't a fad. The Top 100 (green contractors) generated $38.69 billion in revenue in 2008 from projects registered with or certified by third-party rating groups under objective environmental or sustainable development standards. This marks a startling 70% [increase from] $22.76 billion [in revenue generated] for the group in 2007. Green Building Law Update
The Jevons paradox: How energy efficiency improvements could be undermining sustainability: Green Building Advisor
How do internal and external finishes effect energy performance? Green Building Advisor
Talking Head David Byne's vision of a perfect city: Wall Street Journal
New York state senate introduces Pay-As-You-Save type scheme
The Pay As You Save (PAYS) concept that we at Construct Ireland have been promoting - the idea of providing up front financing for low energy refurbs and charging householders over time on their utility bills - has been gaining popularity, as I blogged about recently (here and here). Now the New York state senate has passed a law that will enable homeowners to avail of energy upgrade loans they can repay over time on their energy bills. It's a bit different to the PAYS concept we're promoting, which would involve a repayment tariff attached to a household bill rather than a loan attached to an individual bill-payer. But the general idea is the same.
Richard Defendorf writes on GreenBuildingAdvisor.com:
The Green Jobs initiative, which is designed to provide upfront financing for energy-efficiency retrofits to both homeowners and businesses, is similar to programs already offered by other jurisdictions, including municipalities in California, Colorado, and Virginia, and the city of Babylon, New York, on Long Island. Even in the U.K., the city of London is trying to address the energy inefficiencies in its aging housing stock by offering homeowners subsidies for weatherization improvements.
The initiative will be financed through the sale of carbon emission credits under a local cap-and-trade initiative for power plants
Defendorf explained how the programme will work:
The loans will be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which focuses primarily on the reduction of petroleum consumption but also on research into the environmental effects of energy consumption, the development of renewable resources, and other technology innovations. The loan limit for each residential customer is $13,000, and $26,000 for each business. Loan costs will be added to participants’ monthly energy bills, although the energy savings from each retrofit – which should reduce usage by 30% to 40% – is expected to be larger than the loan payment