Archive for December, 2008

Here at Greencon, we have watched the plummeting cost of oil with horror and dread. The truth of the matter is that the consumer is more easily persuaded to change there habits by price than by the threat of environmental degradation. Activists in the states are also seeing the all to familiar swing away from renew ables, now that the oil price has begun to drop:

“As oil and related energy prices soared to record highs over the past two years, interest in alternative fuels soared, too. Hybrid cars have appeared seemingly overnight, and proposals for solar, wind and other renewable technologies are being made everywhere.

We need to remember, however, that all this action has one cause—high oil prices—and progress could grind to a halt if those prices fall again. It might seem ridiculous to worry about such a thing; don’t we all want to spend less on oil? And isn’t hoping for that just whistling in the dark?

Not necessarily. At present, it is virtually axiomatic in the popular press that growth in demand from the U.S., China, India and elsewhere will keep oil prices high forevermore. But this common wisdom ignores the possibility of recession, or even depression, reducing demand growth to near zero, just as new drilling (mostly overseas) increases supply. Recession is already upon the U.S., and China’s economy is slowing rapidly. As Wall Street collapsed in October, oil prices dropped to around $70 a barrel. Saudi Arabia’s stated goal of maintaining a price floor of $80 a barrel or higher suddenly seemed optimistic.

So what is the problem? In the short run, nothing. But sustained development of new energy sources always rests on the condition of the old ones. Coal did not arise as Europe’s main energy source until Europeans had cut down virtually all their forests for fuel, and the later switch to oil did not occur until the scarcity of coal drove its price high.

In the 1970s Americans responded to high oil prices with alternative energy projects and more fuel-efficient cars. But when prices dropped in the 1980s, we threw caution to the wind—along with the energy projects. We purchased ever larger cars and SUVs and moved to ever more distant suburbs. Sure enough, now that oil prices have spiked again, we are looking at the same alternatives we had relegated to niche markets then.

Today renewable technologies such as wind and solar are close to being competitive with fossil fuels. But we can say good-bye to that prospect if oil prices decline to $60 to $70 a barrel, which could easily happen in a recession, as we witnessed in October. Two years of lower prices can turn hybrid cars into a bad financial proposition for consumers, and green technology start-up companies could go bankrupt as demand for their goods dries up. Even a temporary decrease in petroleum prices would undermine the long-term development of the alternatives we all know we need.

Happily, there is a solution. If investors could rely on a certain lower limit to oil prices, they would have a fixed goal to work toward for making alternatives cost-effective. Knowing the goal removes a large element of risk for entrepreneurs and their financiers, providing a huge incentive to continue development.

A lower limit is easy to accomplish: the federal government has to impose a variable levy on oil to guarantee a floor price. Revenues from that tax could help fund research into alternative energy and offset adverse consequences for lower-­income people, who would be hardest hit by the sustained high expense of oil.

Higher taxes? Unthinkable! That sentiment certainly rules in the current political climate. But one thing is certain: the federal government is already running a deficit on the order of $400 billion for this year, and many more billions are promised to save Wall Street; that money will have to come from somewhere. Why not a tax that benefits both the environment and the economy?

Note: This article was originally printed with the title, “Keep Oil Prices High, Please.”

Keep it green

Greencon

The use of hydrogen fuel cells is reaching a level now, where municipalities and cities are introducing them in there public transport infrastructure. Hopefully with the Gautrain development and the move towards better public transport systems we can also follow suit. Look what Burbank is doing in the US:

We are very aware of the Green fad that has taken all industry by storm at the moment. It’s great to see awards being given to pioneers of the Green revolution. People who have always understood the importance of minimal impact and reduced cost to the environment.

Australian architect Glenn Marcus Murcutt is the recipient of the 2009 AIA Gold Medal, the coveted honor annually bestowed by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Known for his focus on sustainability and socially responsibility, the 65th Gold Medalist designs Modernist suburban and rural homes with natural materials.

“Recently our architectural field experienced an ‘ecological boom,” writes 2005 AIA Gold Medalist Tadao Ando in a letter of support for Murcutt’s nomination. “However, without relation to such a trend of time, Glenn Murcutt has always been focusing on the geographical and regional conditions, from the very beginning of his career.”Murcutt was born in London in 1936, and spent his childhood in the remote Morobe district of New Guinea. In 1970, he launched his own firm in Sydney.

Murcutt will receive the award at the American Architectural Foundation’s Accent on Architecture Gala in February.

In 2002, Murcutt took home the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered by many to be architect’s highest honor.

Previous AIA Gold Medalists include Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, LeCorbusier, Louis Kahn, I.M. Pei, Cesar Pelli, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and last year’s recipient, Renzo Piano.

The AIA also named Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects the recipient of the 2009 AIA Firm Award, the highest honor bestowed on an architecture firm, and Adèle Santos of Santos Prescott and Associates recipient of the 2009 Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education Award.

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Greencon

We hope that the latest research from Autodesk point towards a more serious desire from customers to look at better renewable alternatives.

Most major architectural firms are committed to sustainable design, but the 2008 edition of the Autodesk/AIA Green Index indicates that these sensibilities are also rubbing off on their customers.

Clients are, in fact, the chief driver of green building. Sixty-six percent of architects surveyed by the software developer and the American Institute of Architects cited client demand as the primary motivation for green building. Forty-two percent of architects polled affirmed that their clients specifically request green elements for the majority of projects. Additionally, 47 percent say clients are implementing these practices in their own work, an increase of 15 percent over last year.

Meanwhile, architects believe the primary reasons that clients are requesting green buildings are reduced operating costs (60 percent), marketing (52 percent), and market demand (21 percent, up 10 points from the 2007 study).

Similar surveys conducted by Autodesk in Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom found that the primary factors driving green building differed by region. The United Kingdom and Japan cited regulatory requirements (75 percent and 64 percent, respectively), while architects in Italy pointed to rising energy costs (70 percent).

Released in Boston last month during GreenBuild, the annual survey aims to measure the amount of sustainable design practiced by AIA members. Christine McEntee, chief executive officer of the AIA, says this year’s survey results are encouraging because they show that clients, and the market at large, realize the “bottom-line benefits of sustainable design.”

Keep it Green

Greencon

Although the time it will take to get this technology up and running is cause for some concern, also whether Eskom can raise the capital necessary to do the work, it is encouraging that the countries power supply monopoly is looking at better alternatives. This combined with the realisation that power saved is the greenest power of all, it does look like Eskom is moving however slowly in the right direction.

From Fin24 Magazine: Johannesburg – Three projects that Eskom is currently busy with could save the country up to 6 740MW in the next five years, and generate 2 300MW of new electricity.

Two of these are renewable energy projects – one a concentrated solar power project, and the other a project in terms of which underground coal is converted into gas that is used to drive turbines and generate electricity.

Barry MacColl, Eskom’s manager for technology, strategy and planning, says the utility is particularly positive about the underground coal-to-gas project.

“The trial project is already operational near Eskom’s Majuba power station, and the results are very promising.

“In the process two shafts are drilled in underground veins of coal. The underground coal is then set alight. The burning coal releases flammable gas through the one shaft, which is contained and redirected to gas turbines. These turbines then provide electricity.”

MacColl says the reaction is controlled by the quantity of oxygen pumped into the one shaft – and the process can be stopped at any time by cutting off the oxygen supply.

“The advantages are great. First, it becomes unnecessary to mine the coal. Second, atmospheric pollution is largely reduced and the problem of the ash with which coal-fired power stations usually have to contend does not exist. Third, coal previously regarded as impossible to mine can now be exploited.”

The project should add 2 100MW on the national power grid by December 2013.

Eskom’s second renewable power project under way is the conversion of a form of solar power into electrical energy.

Cost a problem

The utility has a trial project in the vicinity of Upington in the Northern Cape, says Dr Steve Lennon, executive director (resources and strategy) at Eskom.

The initial project will involve approximately 9 000 heliostats, which can deliver 100MW of power. “This is the amount of electricity used by a small town,” adds MacColl.

“The project’s major disadvantage is cost, but the source of energy is totally renewable and inexhaustible.”

The third project that Eskom is looking at is a form of electricity control – a so-called Utility Load Controller, or ULC.

“The ULC is a device that every household will use to apply load-shedding to itself, rather than have Eskom do it on a broad scale.

“The device will tell consumers what their energy consumption is and how much electricity they have to save at a given time. After that the device will give the consumer an opportunity to switch off electrical appliances before his or her power is completely disconnected,” says MacColl.

A trial programme in which about 27 000 of these ULC devices have been installed in households is currently under way.

The ULC device could in time be distributed to eight million consumers in the country and, if correctly used, manage up to 6 740MW of electricity. This means that within three years Eskom could be saving the electricity generated by one-and-a-half power stations, says Lennon.”

Keep it Green

Greencon

The following article is from a  July 1959 issue of Scientific American. It serves to offer an historical perspective on some of the issues being discussed at the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, which began December 1 and runs through December 12:

“The theories that explain worldwide climate change are almost as varied as the weather. The more familiar ones attribute changes of climate to Olympian forces that range from geological upheavals and dust-belching volcanoes to long-term variations in the radiation of the sun and eccentricities in the orbit of the earth. Only the so-called carbon dioxide theory takes account of the possibility that human activities may have some effect on climate. This theory suggests that in the present century man is unwittingly raising the temperature of the earth by his industrial and agricultural activities.

Even the carbon dioxide theory is not new; the basic idea was first precisely stated in 1861 by the noted British physicist John Tyndall. He attributed climatic temperature-changes to variations in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to the theory, carbon dioxide controls temperature because the carbon dioxide molecules in the air absorb infrared radiation. The carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere are virtually transparent to the visible radiation that delivers the sun’s energy to the earth. But the earth in turn reradiates much of the energy in the invisible infrared region of the spectrum. This radiation is most intense at wavelengths very close to the principal absorption band (13 to 17 microns) of the carbon dioxide spectrum. When the carbon dioxide concentration is sufficiently high, even its weaker absorption bands become effective, and a greater amount of infrared radiation is absorbed . Because the carbon dioxide blanket prevents its escape into space, the trapped radiation warms up the atmosphere.

A familiar instance of this “greenhouse” effect is the heating-up of a closed automobile when it stands for a while in the summer sun. Like the atmosphere, the car’s windows are transparent to the sun’s visible radiation, which warms the upholstery and metal inside the car; these materials in turn re-emit some of their heat as infrared radiation. Glass, like carbon dioxide, absorbs some of this radiation and thus traps the heat, and the temperature inside the car rises.

Water vapor and ozone, as well as carbon dioxide, have this effect because they too absorb energy in the infrared region. But the climatic effects due to carbon dioxide are almost entirely independent of the amount of these other two gases. For the most part their absorption bands occur in different regions of the spectrum. In addition, nearly all water vapor remains close to the ground, while carbon dioxide diffuses more evenly through the atmosphere. Thus throughout most of the atmosphere carbon dioxide is the main factor determining changes in the radiation flux.

The 2.3 X 10¹² (2,300 billion) tons of carbon dioxide in the earth’s present atmosphere constitute some .03 per cent of its total mass. The quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is determined by the amounts supplied and withdrawn from three other great reservoirs: oceans, rocks and living organisms. The oceans contain some 1.3 X 10¹⁴ tons of carbon dioxide—about 50 times as much as the air. Some of the gas is dissolved in the water, but most of it is present in carbonate compounds. The oceans exchange about 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere each year. When the equilibrium is disturbed, the oceans may engulf or disgorge billions of additional tons of carbon dioxide. This puts a damper on the fluctuations in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere: when the atmospheric concentration rises, the oceans tend to absorb much of the excess; when it fails, the oceanic reservoir replenishes it.

Both the atmosphere and the oceans continuously exchange carbon dioxide with rocks and with living organisms. They gain carbon dioxide from the volcanic activity that releases gases from the earth’s interior and from the respiration and decay of organisms; they lose carbon dioxide to the weathering of rock and the photosynthesis of plants. As these processes change pace, the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also changes, shifting the radiation balance and raising or lowering the earth’s temperature.

Of course during any particular geologic era other factors may influence climate. Nonetheless let us examine some of the known facts of geological history and see how many can be explained in terms of variation in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

Studies of rock strata reveal that for the past billion years most of the world has had a tropical climate. Every 250 million years or so this tropical spell is broken by relatively short glacial periods which bury a substantial portion of the earth under ice sheets. These cool periods last several million years, during which the glaciers retreat and advance many times as the temperature rises and falls. During the last 620,000 years of the current glacial epoch, for example, deep ocean sediments show 10 distinct temperature cycles. The carbon dioxide theory may well account for these temperature fluctuations.

A decline in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere–ocean system—and a period of decline in worldwide temperature—may be induced by a number of developments. The rate of volcanic activity could slow down as the rate of rock weathering increased, or an especially flourishing mantle of vegetation could take up huge quantities of carbon dioxide and form new coal beds and other organic deposits in marshy areas. After a geologically short time, the adjustment of the atmosphere–ocean equilibrium to the leaner supply of carbon dioxide could bring the atmospheric concentration down to .015 per cent, half its present value. Calculations show that a 50-per cent decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the air will lower the average temperature of the earth 6.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

We can be reasonably sure that such a sharp drop in temperature would cause glaciers to spread across the earth. As the ice sheets grow, the oceans shrink; at the height of glacial periods ice sheets contain 5 to 10 per cent of the oceans’ waters. The glaciers contain little carbon dioxide, however, because ice can hold very small amounts of carbonates compared to the same volume of sea water. The shrunken oceans thus accumulate an excess of carbon dioxide which they must release to the atmosphere in order to return to equilibrium. And so the cycle draws to a close: As carbon dioxide returns to the atmosphere, the earth’s temperature rises and the ice melts away. The oceans fill to their former levels, reabsorb the carbon dioxide they had released, and a new glacial epoch begins.

So long as the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere-ocean system does not change, such a cycle of temperature oscillation will tend to repeat itself. The period of the complete cycle would be determined primarily by the time required for an ice sheet to form, grow to maximum size and melt away. Estimates indicate that this should take about 50,000 years, in agreement with the observed time for the cycle. Other time factors in the cycle, such as the period required for the ocean–atmosphere system to come to equilibrium after a change in its carbon dioxide concentration, are probably much shorter. The system never quite reaches equilibrium, however, because the freezing and melting of glaciers is out of phase with the fluctuation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Glaciers are slow to form and slow to melt, so for thousands of years during the earth’s recovery from an ice age the cold winds from melting glaciers continue to chill the earth.

The mechanism here proposed to explain the cycle of glaciation does not depend in any way upon the particular numbers assumed for illustrative purposes. Such oscillations will occur whenever the temperature during one phase of the cycle falls low enough to cause ice sheets to grow and during another phase rises high enough to cause them to melt. A change in the comparatively small volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provides ample leeway to swing the temperature past either extreme. The oscillation is reinforced by the accompanying change in the earth’s humidity. A colder atmosphere holds less water vapor, and so further reduces the atmospheric absorption of infrared radiation emitted by the earth’s surface. At the same time, however, the earth’s cloud cover thickens and precipitation increases despite the reduction in the water-vapor burden of the atmosphere. The top of a cloud is cooled by the radiation of heat into space; when there is less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, cloud tops lose more heat energy and thus become colder. With a steeper temperature gradient there is increased convection within the cloud. The result is larger clouds and more precipitation. Moreover, since the cloud cover reflects the sun’s visible radiation back into space, less solar energy reaches the earth, and the temperature falls still lower.

The geological record indicates that the huge capacity of the biosphere to store and turn over carbon dioxide has also had its effect upon climatic change. We know that plants borrow 60 billion tons of carbon dioxide yearly for photosynthesis. Under present conditions the organic world repays nearly all of this debt each year via respiration and decay. The formation of new fossil fuel deposits withholds at most only 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, or less than .2 per cent of the annual amount used for photosynthesis. At one time, however, the withdrawals were much larger. During the Carboniferous period, when most of the coal and oil deposits were formed, about 10¹⁴ tons of carbon dioxide were withdrawn from the atmosphere–ocean system. This staggering loss must have dropped the earth’s temperature to chilly levels indeed; it is not surprising that the gigantic glaciers that moved across the earth after this period were perhaps the most extensive in history.

The present capacity of plants to consume carbon dioxide in photosynthesis gives us an interesting clue to the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in bygone ages. Plants are almost perfectly adapted to the spectral range and intensity of the light they receive, yet they grow far more rapidly and luxuriantly in an atmosphere that contains five to 10 times the present carbon dioxide concentration; in fact, florists sometimes release tankfuls of carbon dioxide in greenhouses to promote plant growth. The present carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere must therefore be unusually low. Apparently plant evolution was keyed to some much higher concentration in the atmosphere of the geologic past. This hypothesis is also supported by the known fact that the earth’s climate was warmer during most of geologic time; presumably the atmosphere then contained a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide.

Much of the carbon dioxide in the atmospheres of past geologic epochs now lies buried in the carbon dioxide reservoir of the earth itself. The earth’s hot springs and volcanoes pour about 100 million tons of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere per year. The earth in turn recaptures approximately the same amount each year by the weathering of rocks. But this equilibrium is upset during periods of mountain-building. In fact, the carbon dioxide theory provides an essential link to explain the timing of the last two glacial epochs with respect to the mountain-building periods that preceded them.

At least several million years intervened between the climax of these mountain-building episodes and the formation of the great ice sheets. If glaciation was brought on only by the elevation of the land or by the slight darkening of the sky with the dust of volcanoes, there should have been no great time lag before the onset of the glaciers, But these upheavals exposed large quantities of igneous rock to the chemical action of the minute amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolved in the rain water that washed over them, Over millions of years the weathering of the rock trapped vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the air. With the atmospheric concentration reduced sufficiently, the temperature fell, permitting the young mountains to provide natural birthplaces for the glaciers that then crept across the earth.

Some periods of mountain-building have not produced glaciers, In these periods the output of carbon dioxide from volcanoes, which are especially active during the early stages of mountain-building, might have balanced the carbonate consumption of the newly exposed rocks, In fact, a landscape teeming with active volcanoes could easily release more carbon dioxide than the rocks could possibly absorb, so the temperature of the earth would rise sufficiently to prevent the expansion of glaciers.

The geological effects of volcanic action, coal formation or any other local disturbance of the carbon dioxide concentration are not restricted to the area in which they occur. If the amount of carbon dioxide in one hemisphere of the earth rises or falls sharply, the concentration in the other hemisphere changes rather quickly. In less than a few decades the concentration in both hemispheres becomes identical. According to the carbon dioxide theory, this rapid diffusion helps to explain the fact that glaciers advance and retreat simultaneously in both hemispheres.

During the past century a new geological force has begun to exert its effect upon the carbon dioxide equilibrium of the earth. By burning fossil fuels man dumps approximately six billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. His agricultural activities release two billion tons more. Grain fields and pastures store much smaller quantities of carbon dioxide than the forests they replace, and the cultivation of the soil permits the vast quantities of carbon dioxide produced by bacteria to escape into the air.

Not all of this eight billion tons of surplus carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, Plants remove some of it. When the atmospheric concentration rises, plants use more carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. In a few years, however, the increase in the rate of photosynthesis is balanced by advances in the rate of respiration and decay processes. The net result is only a slight increase in the carbon dioxide content of the biosphere.

Most of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activities will ultimately be absorbed by the oceans. To predict the effect of human activities upon climate we must calculate just how rapidly this happens. Recent studies make it appear that volume of carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans comes to equilibrium with the carbon dioxide pressure of the atmosphere in about 1,000 years, and that the oceans take up about half of any carbon dioxide added to the air. Over a longer period of time, perhaps several thousand years, the oceans take up much larger additional quantities of carbon dioxide in carbonate compounds before the system again reaches equilibrium. These equilibrium rates are quite significant, because they will govern the temperature of the earth as long as man burns large amounts of fossil fuels.

We have only to extrapolate existing records of temperature and fossil-fuel consumption to predict the climate of the future. Quite accurate records of the amount of fossil fuel consumed in the world each year show that in the past 100 years man has added about 360 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. As a result the atmospheric concentration has increased by about 13 per cent. The carbon dioxide theory predicts that such an increase should raise the average temperature of the earth one degree F. This is almost exactly the average increase recorded all over the world during the past century! If fuel consumption continues to increase at the present rate, we will have sent more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the air by the year 2000. This should raise the earth’s average temperature 3.6 degrees.

In less than 1,000 years, if consumption continues to increase at the current rate, we will have exhausted the currently known reserves of coal and oil. By that time we will have multiplied the carbon dioxide tonnage of the air 18 times. When the ocean–atmosphere system comes back to equilibrium, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air will be 10 times greater than it is today, and the earth will be 22 degrees warmer. In another few thousand years, when the carbonate content of the oceans has reached equilibrium, the concentration will still be four times greater than it is today. The earth’s temperature will then fall to about 12.5 degrees above its present average.

Meanwhile the carbon dioxide content of the oceans will have doubled. This raises an incidental question about the welfare of sea organisms. We know that an increase in carbon dioxide concentration increases the acidity of water, and that many marine animals are extremely sensitive to changes in acidity. However, if the carbon dioxide content of the air were to increase sevenfold, the acidity (pH) of sea water would not rise more than .5 above its present value. Thus changes in carbon dioxide concentration, which have such a profound effect on climate, will probably not disturb future marine life. Perhaps only man will be uncomfortable.

We shall be able to test the carbon dioxide theory against other theories of climatic change quite conclusively during the next half-century. Since we now can measure the sun’s energy output independent of the distorting influence of the atmosphere, we shall see whether the earth’s temperature trend correlates with measured fluctuations in solar radiation. If volcanic dust is the more important factor, then we may observe the earth’s temperature following fluctuations in the number of large volcanic eruptions. But if carbon dioxide is the most important factor, long-term temperature records will rise continuously as long as man consumes the earth’s reserves of fossil fuels.”

Keep it Green

Greencon

It is part of the daily toil for the consultants at Greencon. Convincing customers of all sorts that investing in renewables is not only environmentally a positive but also an investment in economic growth and sustainability. An amazing study has just been released with some interesting facts, read below:

“Landmark International Green Building Study Finds Benefits of Building Green Outweigh Cost Premium

A landmark international study on the costs and benefits of green buildings finds that energy and water savings alone outweigh the initial cost premium in most green buildings and that green buildings cost, on average, less than 2% more to build than conventional non-green buildings. This stands in contrast to public perception, such as a 2007 survey by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which found that business leaders believe green buildings to be on average 17% more expensive than conventionally designed buildings.

The study, Greening Buildings and Communities: Costs and Benefits, also finds that an average size green office creates at least one-third of a permanent job per year, equal to $1/square foot (sf) of value in increased employment, compared to a comparable non-green building, and that the continued rapid growth in green building is creating tens of thousands of new jobs. Additionally, the study found that productivity and health benefits are a major motivating factor for building green.

“This report provides the first large-scale data resource on the cost and benefits of green buildings and sustainable community designs,” said Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists. “The careful research and documentation provides powerful evidence that major reductions of energy and water use in buildings can be achieved at costs far lower than new supplies of energy. It will be an invaluable resource for years to come.”

“The deep downturn in real estate has not reduced the rapid growth in demand for and construction of green buildings,” said Greg Kats, the study’s lead author and a Managing Director of Good Energies. “This suggests a flight to quality as buyers express a market preference for buildings that are more energy efficient, more comfortable and healthier.”

With buildings currently consuming 40% of the world’s energy, including two-thirds of its electricity, the marginal cost increase associated with green buildings is typically partially offset by savings elsewhere. For example, a more efficient building envelope can reduce the size of heating or cooling systems needed to provide a comfortable indoor temperature; hi-tech waterless urinals reduce plumbing requirements; and technologically advanced daylighting and window systems can decrease lighting cost while improving light quality.

Additional highlights from the study include important findings regarding the potential for significant cost reductions in the shift from conventional sprawl to a sustainable design approach. The report also evaluates both the financial and spiritual benefits for religious institutions that decide to build green.

This report was supported by Good Energies, a leading global investor in renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. Select findings from the study can be found at: www.goodenergies.com. The complete findings of the study will be published as a book in the summer of 2009

This article was prepared by Law & Health Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2008, Law & Health Weekly via NewsRx.com.”

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Greencon

We should not forget that more than 80% of their baseline power is generated from Nuclear Stations. They are already streaks ahead of other European countries with regards to total emissions. Read this excerpt from a bio-fuels on-line journal about the future French ideas.

“France outlines new renewable energy programme
3 December 2008

France is preparing a national plan for renewable energy, which has set aside any assessment of the EU’s biofuels draft directive to generate a 10% share of biofuels in transport by 2020.

France’s Environment and Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo offered the national plan for renewable energies on 17 November.

The plan aims to bring the share of renewables in the energy mix by 2020 to 23%. This corresponds to 20 million tonnes of oil equivalent and involves 50 different measures to develop biomass, wind, geothermal and solar energy.

To help achieve these targets, a €1 billion fund will be set up during 2009-11, and the tax credits will be extended to 2012.

Jean-Louis Borloo explained that the change of model and the change of scale is aimed to progress from an essentially carbon-based model to a fully decarbonised model where each home, each company, and each community will become its own energy producer.”

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Greencon.

The comments of Cosatu leadership namely Mr. Vavi, that electrical power costs should be subsidised are not only economically irresponsible but environmentally catastrophic. The populist rhetoric that flows from many of our leaders mouths sometimes leaves the mind boggling. We already have the cheapest power per watt on the planet, and price increases are not just to help Eskom maintain its current power production but to also expand into hopefully more environmentally sustainable power production methods (probably not). The only way we can change behavior is through real true pricing of our power, not through governments subsidization.Read what the British are ambitiously attempting to put in place to change there effect on the planet:

“That was the key message from the Committee on Climate Change, the government’s new advisory body, as it delivered its recommendations on how the UK should meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

There is a wealth of detail tucked away in its 500-plus page report.

It proposes five-yearly “carbon budgets” that the government should adopt, and suggests a range of policy options for achieving them – among which weaning the nation’s power providers off fossil fuels is clearly the priority.

“One particularly important development is the de-carbonising of electricity,” the committee’s chairman Lord Turner told reporters.

“Once we de-carbonise generation, we can apply electricity to new areas such as road transport and the heating of buildings.”

By 2020, renewables – principally wind – could generate about 30% of the UK total. Efficiency improvements, nuclear – a “cost-competitive” technology – and carbon capture and storage (CCS) could all play a role.

Or could they?

“The targets are incredibly ambitious,” said Jayesh Parmar, a partner in the energy and utilities practice of Oliver Wyman, the global management consultancy firm.

“We’re nowhere near on track to meet a 30% by 2020 target. The pipeline of development would have to be extended significantly and accelerated massively if we’re to meet it.”

Currently, renewables provide about 5% of UK electricity.

Frustrated academics, activists and businessmen have long complained that the government does not have the right raft of economic incentives in place, lauding Germany’s use of preferential, set payments for solar electricity and lamenting the UK’s deployment of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

“The government would have to look again at economic incentives, for example for offshore wind, where some of the major investors are beginning to question the economics of the business,” said Dr Parmar.

“Reform of the planning process has constantly been talked about; but despite recent moves we are still not seeing planning consent coming through as quickly as we need it to.”

New horizons

Financial realities mean that by 2020, coal is still likely to be an economically attractive option.

And despite applauding much of the committee’s report, environmental groups think it has not been firm enough in proposing that new coal-fired power stations would have to capture and store their carbon emissions by 2020-25.

“The problem is that CCS is still untried,” said Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth UK.

“Even if it does work, that could still leave several years where new stations are belching out CO2, and the science says the timescale of climate change doesn’t allow that.”

And the committee is not talking about just replacing the UK’s existing fossil fuel plants with low-carbon alternatives – it foresees expanding the use of electricity into areas such as transport and heating.

By 2020, said Lord Turner, “we project that a significant proportion – about 40% – of vehicles sold would be plug-in hybrids or fully electric cars”.

Countries such as Iceland have long held the ambition of replacing all of their fossil fuel consumption with electricity – using some of it to make hydrogen, which can fuel vehicles – and it clearly makes sense when you have more geothermal and hydro-electric capacity than you can shake a stick at.

But a deliberate expansion of electricity generation in order to power cars is a novel choice for a crowded nation that has not embraced wind power like the Danes, solar panels like the Germans or nuclear reactors like the French.

“It does sound ambitious, and it would need considerable support from infrastructure providers and from government,” said Calum MacRae, leader of operations with the PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Automotive Institute.

“If you look at other markets where they have opted to really do something about it, such as Israel or Denmark, something of a coalition has emerged between the government and the automobile manufacturers and infrastructure providers, and that would have to happen here too.

“Battery costs need to be subsidised at some point in the purchasing chain, and there needs to be some coherent policy around recharging, so you can do it in car parks, for example, and at parking meters.”

The economics still appear heavily weighted against electric cars, even though operating costs may be cheaper.

Recently, as an indicative exercise for the US market, PwC showed that with a purchase subsidy of $15,000 and at a petrol price of $4 per gallon, you have to drive more than 60,000 miles per year to break even over four years compared to a petrol engine.

Twin track

So there are significant technical and financial hurdles that the government must overcome if it accepts the committee’s advice in full.

But there are political obstacles, too. The committee accepts that fuel will become more expensive – perhaps pushing as many as 1.7 million more households into fuel poverty by 2020.

Internationally, the government will want to burnish its image as a green leader without committing to much more than its neighbours and competitors.

The committee has prepared two sets of carbon budgets, each covering the three periods 2008-12, 2013-17 and 2018-22.

The first set is designed to fit with the EU’s target of reducing emissions by 20% by 2020 if there is no “global deal” on climate change.

The second set assumes there is a global deal at some point in the next few years, in which case the EU is likely to adopt a higher target of 30%.

The committee says that if the EU does 20%, the UK should do 34% by 2020; if the EU goes for 30%, the UK should go for 42%.

International aviation and shipping will not be included in these budgets – which environmental groups see as a cop-out – although the committee suggests they should be included at some point in the future.

The really important point, though, is not what happens in 2020 or in 2050, but what happens now.

As the report puts it: “The UK has a mixed track record in terms of the ability of its climate change policies to deliver”.

De-coded, that roughly translates as “we’re meeting our Kyoto target, largely thanks to Mrs Thatcher’s ‘dash for gas’; but we dithered for years on nuclear, we may have got the wrong policy options for renewables, we’ve let the building industry off the hook for years and we haven’t had a clue what to do on transport”.

On the surface, the economics of turning this around seem acceptable; implementing the flurry of suggested measures by 2020 would reduce the growth of the UK economy by less than 1%, the committee calculates, and would increase revenue into the public purse.

The government will announce by the middle of next year whether it accepts the carbon budgets, and the signs are that it will.

If it wants to turn them into reality, one suspects it is going to have to start putting some stronger policies in place on buildings, vehicles, and electricity generation, and with similar speed.

Source: BBC”

Keep it Green

Greencon.

AS a pretty famous engineering firm states in one of its advertising campaigns “Energy Saved is the Greenest Kind”, or some thing to that effect. All we at Greencon can say is that the politicians have been yapping for what seems like ages about different methods that can be used to save our power usage. Now a new idea of energy audits is being proposed. I suppose the auditing firms and engineers must be rubbing there hands, lets see if it will work…

“Johannesburg – The South African government on Tuesday said it was looking at rolling out energy efficiency audits to encourage greater energy saving in the agricultural, manufacturing and mining sectors.

Launching its latest energy savings campaign, the presidency said energy efficiency audits would be used to identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency in these sectors.

This would have “the long-term benefit of reducing the energy intensity of our economy without loss of production, while at the same time achieving savings in the amount of electricity used,” the presidency said.

While the government did not detail whether individual companies within each sector would have to pick up the bill for such audits, it did say that it has been working with Business Unity South Africa (Busa) to develop “a generic audit protocol” with specific check-lists for agriculture, manufacturing, mining and commercial facilities.

According to the document released by the presidency, the audits would evaluate the many ways in which electricity is used in these sectors and identify opportunities for improvement in energy efficiency.

“Improvements can include both operational (behavioural) and equipment recommendations. In all cases monitoring and verification of the improvements will be recommended,” the presidency said.

The energy audits can be undertaken by certified energy efficiency specialists or electrical engineers, but the cost of such audits will vary depending on the size and complexity of the facility being audited.

“It is important to consider the long-term savings impact that an energy audit will enable for business, industry and government,” the presidency said.

The government recently carried out energy efficiency assessments in the chemical sector as a pilot run for a more extensive roll-out.

With the pilot being deemed successful and “significant energy efficiency opportunities” having been identified, the programme is likely to be expanded.

“Additional funding has been secured by government to support the roll-out of this approach by using the generic energy efficiency audit protocol to identify opportunities in mining and manufacturing and agriculture,” the presidency said.

It said Business Unity SA and its affiliates had already circulated invitations to their member companies to participate.

At this stage it is unclear whether these invitations are for the roll-out and management of the audits, but the presidency did say preference would be given to SMMEs.”

Keep it Green

Greencon