As it says on the tin - if you know of any other interesting stories please do share.
Gormley to set targets for carbon emissions reductions today: Irish Times
UK boiler scrappage scheme to help 125,000 householders upgrade their gas boilers to new, high efficiency models - sounds like a much better idea than a car scrappage scheme to me: Guardian
Cloud computing recommended for energy efficiency: Energy Saving Trust
Green architect Malcolm Wells dies at 83: New York Times
Self destructing bacteria could be key to better biofuels: Inhabitat
UK houses spending more on going green: Guardian (some figures on this here)
Copenhagen climate talks should put big focus on retrofitting existing buildings: ereleases
UK cannot meet carbon reduction targets unless commercial sector embarks on massive retrofit drive: Telegraph
Can windows perform better than walls in energy terms?: Green Building Advisor
Reuse construction waste first, then recycle
Written by Lenny Antonelli We all know the three Rs of waste, but reducing and recycling often get a lot more attention than reusing. But now a report from the UK's Bioregional Development Group and construction waste reclamation body Salvo has re-iterated that reusing materials offers greater environmental benefits than recycling.
Via Treehugger.com, BioRegional's Jonathan Essex says: "Pushing reuse clearly shows the benefits that reuse brings over recycling. For example, if we reclaimed 50% of reusable iron and steel the carbon savings would be equivalent to taking 29,000 cars off the road - and that's for just two materials. Yes, reclamation is currently more labour intensive than recycling which makes it more expensive, but it creates green jobs and products that often have a higher value than recycled - for instance reclaimed bricks are worth much more than bricks recycled into aggregate."
The report - available here - makes some key recommendations to British policy makers: create a "reuse champion" to direct investment in new capacity and R&D, provide information to the public and work with government to promote reuse; invest in storage and re-processing capacity for reuse of construction products; set targets for the reuse of construction waste and support reuse through planning policy; incentivise reuse and reclamation by adding materials to the EU emissions trading scheme; and direct landfill revenues to reuse before recycling.
Anyone interested in this topic should check out our article Deconstruct Ireland - it's all about designing buildings for disassembly and reuse.
How to convince householders to energy upgrade?
Written by Lenny AntonelliThe idea of Serve is to get householders to undertake the basic insulation and heating upgrades under HES - and then go further with additional measures under Serve. Between HES and Serve homeowners can get up to 70% of the cost of an energy upgrade - but it's still a hard sell.
When I interviewed Paul Kenny from the Tipperary Energy Agency, he said most homeowners were reluctant to upgrade, and that those in houses built post-1990 were particularly disinterested. Many believed their houses to be energy efficient. Of course this generally isn't the case - according to SEI's latest stats, most building energy ratings (BERs) for existing dwellings fall between a C and a G rating.
So how should energy upgrades be sold to householders? If the experience of Serve is anything to go by, even the introduction of Pay As You Save - a scheme that would enable homeowners to energy upgrade their homes and pay for it over time on their bills, spending nothing up front - might not be enough to convince a lot of people.
A first step is to make homeowners aware of the energy performance of their homes. An idea proposed by Construct Ireland, whereby BERs must be displayed on all property advertising, is included in the current programme for government. This would ensure that BERs are prominent in newspapers, on property websites, on street signs and hoardings. It should make us all much more aware of the energy performance of typical Irish homes. After all, if my neighbor is selling her house and I see she has a D, E or F rating, I'm more likely to realise that my own home's performance must be similar and think about upgrading.
But clearly this is just one step towards making people aware of the energy performance of their home and convincing them to renovate. What else can be done to entice homeowners?
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
Government aims to upgrade a million homes
Written by Lenny AntonelliHarry 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.
SEI announces 2009 sustainable energy award winners
Written by Lenny Antonelli
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.
Are we focusing too much on building energy efficiency in Ireland?
Written by Lenny Antonelli 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?
Clinton proposes Pay As You Save type stimulus
Written by Lenny Antonelli 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.
Engineers urge government to act on climate change
Written by News Desk
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.
More...
Think tank: alternative energy can't replace dwindling fossil fuels
Written by News Desk
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.
Onerous new green building standard launches
Written by Lenny AntonelliThe 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 big employers reduce energy costs by E60m
Written by Jeff Colley
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.
New free tool for calculating the carbon footprint of buildings
Written by Lenny Antonelli The Rocky Mountain Institute has just launched Green Footstep, a free online carbon calculator that it claims can assess emissions over a building's life-cycle.
One of the program's developers, Michael Bendewald, explains how it works: "Since we all have bank accounts, allow me to use an accounting metaphor to explain Green Footstep's way of showing a project's carbon emissions. The native-state carbon storage of a site, including such things as standing timber and other vegetation that existed before development, is the amount of carbon the owner of the facility ‘owns.’ Any carbon emissions send the owner into a ‘carbon debt.’ In order for a project to be ‘carbon neutral,’ this debt must be paid off and the original amount of carbon – equal in magnitude to the native-state carbon storage – must be restored. Green Footstep allows designers to adjust design targets, such as building energy use intensity and incorporating more renewables, that will get the building out of the carbon debt, edging the building closer to carbon neutrality."
I wonder if the software will provide the depth of detail that many green architects and designers look for in tools like this. If anyone tries it, let us know. The tool is available here.