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Middle Class Task Force Meeting in Philly Focuses on Green Jobs

March 4, 2009 in economy, green building, jobs, policy by nils | 5 comments

One of the Middle Class Task Force panels at the Philly meeting

One of the Middle Class Task Force panels at the Philly meeting

If you're not reading the new whitehouse.gov blog, you're missing out.

This liveblog about the "Middle Class Task Force" meeting in Philly last week from whitehouse.gov was great. Speakers included John Podesta, former Clinton staffer and now with the Center for American Progress; Van Jones from Green for All (based in the Bay Area), Fred Krupp from the Environmental Defense Fund, a bunch of cabinet and administration appointees, and representatives from labor like Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers of America.

Some highlights:

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Menlo Park Climate Action Plan Research

March 2, 2009 in carbon mitigation, energy efficiency, green building, policy by nils | Add your comment

Menlo Park Train Station

Menlo Park Train Station

Just about two weeks ago, my friend Matt Harris, an architect with a green building practice, sent me an email:

The City of Menlo Park has this Climate Action plan and they are looking for community input. Would you be interested in formulating some kind of response that would of course include our plug for passive house initiatives. Maybe we can get them to include some passive home or even passive building information or plans or guidelines in the Climate action plan. They have already cited "commercial buildings" as a target energy hog in the city for action in the action plan.

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How Big Is The Project, Really?

February 18, 2009 in accelerating change, analysis, policy by nils | 1 comment

Encina

Toledo tree (image by J. Lozano, CC 2.0 licensed)

According to John Lushetsky, program manager of the U.S., it's a very big project:

To go from the 1 gigawatt of generation capacity that we have now [in the United States] to the 170 to 200 gigawatts called for by 2030 amounts to a 26 percent compounded annual growth rate over the next 20 years. That's a higher sustained growth rate than any industry has ever been asked to do before

This was at a presentation Lushetsky gave in Toledo Ohio two weeks ago, as part of a day-long conference on "Empowering Solar Energy in Ohio."

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DoE Secretary Steven Chu: We Need Nobel-Level Breakthroughs

February 13, 2009 in accelerating change, energy generation, energy storage, growth, policy, solar electricity by nils | Add your comment

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

Yesterday the New York Times published an interview (including some of the original audio) with our new Energy Secretary, Steven Chu. Among other comments, he said that to address the climate emergency, we need "Nobel-level breakthroughs" in several key areas - batteries, biofuels, and solar photovoltaics." As an illustration, he pointed out:

The photovoltaics we have today, ... without subsidy, and without even the additional cost of storage, it's about a factor of five higher than electricity generation by gas or coal. Suppose someone comes along and invents a way of getting ... solar photovoltaics at one fifth the cost, so you don't even think about subsidies anymore. You just slap it everywhere... That, in my opinion, would take something, which I would say, is a bit of a breakthrough."

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Green Building Salon – A Few Conclusions

February 3, 2009 in green building, opinion, policy by nils | 3 comments

|||| striaticon

Perception is reality when it comes to green energy (image by striatic, CC 2.0 license)

I was thinking about what we accomplished/learned at our initial green building/green energy salon a few days ago, and came up with a few top candidates:

  • Liability - this is one of the biggest issues at the front of mind for builders and architects - they have to guarantee their buildings, and that makes them very wary of new technologies. One big challenge for green building will be coming up with ways to break through that barrier (the other alternative, of course, is to wait long enough that the new technologies prove themselves - but even this needs to be optimized). For example, perhaps the government could help take on some of the liability to reduce the risk for architects and builders trying to do the right thing.
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Avoiding The Cliff Ahead

January 29, 2009 in accelerating change, analysis, consumption, economy, energy efficiency, energy generation, energy storage, green building, opinion, policy, profits by nils | 1 comment

Uluwatu Temple, Bali (HDR)

A cliff in Bali (image by seanmcgrath, CC 2.0 licensed)

My green building and blogging colleague Barry Katz just had a post about James Howard Kunstler on his The Future Is Green Blog. Kunstler is one of the "dystopians" featured in a  New Yorker article last week. Kunstler is not sanguine about what the future is going to look like for us and our descendants. He thinks that not only is global warming likely to cause a disaster, but so is the current, or an upcoming, financial meltdown. Barry writes:

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Want Obama To Take Action On Energy? Vote At Change.Org

January 12, 2009 in economy, policy by nils | Add your comment

Idea

Idea! (photo by brunkfordbraun, CC 2.0 license)

Keeping The Lights On (this blog) just endorsed, and I voted for, an "Idea For Change In America" at change.org, Obama's community website. The idea is "Develop & Implement a National Strategy for Sustainability."

Ideas for Change in America is a nationwide competition to identify the best ideas for change in America. The top 10 ideas will be presented to the Obama administration just before inauguration day and form the basis of a nationwide advocacy campaign to turn each idea into actual policy.

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Zero Net Energy Homes Part 3 – The Federal R&D Agenda

January 9, 2009 in energy efficiency, energy generation, green building, integrative design, policy by nils | 1 comment

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Zero Net Energy Homes
A House

House, ready to become zero net energy (Image by Panoramas, CC 2.0 licensed)

In October 2008, a number of federal government departments and research organizations collaborated to produce the Federal R&D Agenda for Net Zero Energy High Performance Green Buildings (PDF). It's a fascinating document, its origins driven primarily in response to two energy policy laws passed in 2005 and 2007 (during the Bush administration). In particular, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) created an Office of Commercial High Performance Green Buildings and a consortium on a Zero Net Energy Commercial Buildings Initiative. This consortium produced the R&D agenda.

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Deutsche Bank Confirms Green Energy Creates Jobs and Economic Growth

December 2, 2008 in analysis, business benefits, energy efficiency, green building, jobs, policy, transportation by nils | Add your comment

home with free electricity

Available: Home with free electric (photo by Kainet, CC 2.0 Sharealike license)

From MIT's Technology Review comes this column from Kevin Bullis, about a recent report from Deutsche Bank on the economic benefits of investing in new energy projects:

It argues that it's possible to address challenges related to climate change, energy security, and the financial crisis at the same time by investing in four specific areas: energy-efficient buildings, electric power grids, renewable power, and public transportation. The report cites figures that suggest investing in these areas creates more jobs than investing in conventional energy sources because much of the old energy infrastructure is already in place. It says that "a $100 billion investment in energy and efficiency would result in 2 million new jobs, whereas a similar investment in old energy [such as coal or natural gas] would only create around 540,000 jobs."

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Amory Lovins Named A World’s Best Leader By U.S. News

November 25, 2008 in business benefits, energy efficiency, integrative design, policy by nils | Add your comment

Amory Lovins
Amory Lovins

Amory Lovins is one of my true heros, and I'm thrilled to hear that U.S New has named him one of World's Best Leaders in their report this week. Lovins has inspired multitudes (and this blog) with his vision of "getting off oil at a profit" and "drilling for negabarrels under Detroit." The Rocky Mountain Institute, a "think and do" tank that he founded 26 years ago, takes this vision and makes it happen for Fortune 1000 companies, the military, and governments around the world (including Portola Valley, just up the street from me, where he spoke a few weeks ago).

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