The Race Is On For Greener Buildings

October 21, 2007 – Vol.12 No. 31

THE RACE IS ON FOR GREENER BUILDINGS.

After a 10-year study of the North Atlantic, with more than 90,000 measurements taken, researchers at the University of East Anglia in the UK have concluded that the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide has halved since the mid-1990’s.

The scientists do not know whether this is a natural variation in the oceans or a result of climate change, but they are concerned that the oceans might eventually become saturated with our CO2 emissions and no longer be able to soak up them up.

The oceans should be absorbing about half of our emissions, but apparently that’s no longer happening. If the oceans don’t do their job the world could get warmer faster than previously predicted.

Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, half stays there, a quarter goes into biosphere sinks such as trees, and a quarter is absorbed into the oceans. It’s that fraction that’s apparently shrinking.

The research was published in a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research.

On Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, climate change legislation has been introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman (Independent - Connecticut.) and John Warner (Republican -Virginia). At the heart of America’s Climate Security Act is a cap-and-trade strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sectors - electric power, transportation, and manufacturing - 15 percent by 2020 and 70 percent by 2050. In addition, the bill has components of several other emission reduction bills including the agricultural sequestration of carbon, improved building codes for energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage from power plants. Additional policies such as fuel efficiency for automobiles and renewable energy standards, currently passed in the House and Senate, may also complement the cap-and-trade program.

Given the possibility that climate change might be accelerating (witness the unprecedented meltdown of Arctic ice this summer and the first-ever in recorded history of opening of the Northwest Passage) the Lieberman/Warner bill offered in the Senate might be late, if not too little, particularly for reducing emissions from buildings.

Buildings - homes, office buildings, shopping malls, whatever - have an expected life span of well over 50 years. What’s built today - without dramatic improvements along the way - will have an impact on the environment 50 years from now. Unlike cars and trucks that are in junk yards a decade or so after they’re manufactured, buildings are responsible for emissions for many decades. Buildings should be designed and built for emissions reductions now, immediately, not in the coming decades.

Just steps from the Capitol, the US Department of Energy has held its Solar Decathlon competition on the National Mall. The Solar Decathlon is a competition in which teams, this year 20, of college and university students, compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The houses are judged in 10 different contests, awarded points in each.

The Decathlon really serves two purposes. One is to bring out the creativity of students in architectural design and engineering with a goal of building a livable home that needs little more than its immediate surroundings - the Sun specifically - plus the wind, the soil, the water from the sky, to keep its residents warm, cool, productive and comfortable. The use of solar energy for power, heat and domestic water is key to the competition, of course

The other goal of the Decathlon is to encourage home owners, as well as home builders, architects and building developers, to seek, build and include some of the innovations found in the Decathlon homes or perhaps replicate the homes themselves. The homes, and elements of them, are considered prototypes that could be duplicated, altered, and expanded to meet the needs of home buyers, builders, home manufacturers or developers.

Though the homes on the Mall were designed to be free from a utility connection - and are expensive because of that - many of the energy and resource-saving features would still be enjoyed if electric, gas, water and sewer connections were made in an effort to keep building costs down.

Some of the homes in the Decathlon bettered three-quarters of a million dollars, including shipment to the site.

The overall winner in the Decathlon was the house and team from Germany's Technische Universitat Darmstadt. University of Maryland was second; Santa Clara University third. The Technische Universitat Darmstadt is typically slick and expectedly Teutonic, kind of a Porsche or BMW of green houses.

At the closing awards ceremony, Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman announced more than $44 million to support the commercialization and promotion of advanced solar and other clean energy technologies as well as the creation(dependent on funding) of two regional building technology application centers at the University of Central Florida and Washington State University that will serve 17 states.

The ten contests that make up the Solar Decathlon are Communications, Lighting, Comfort Zone, Appliances, Hot Water, Energy Balance, and Getting Around (by electric car), each worth up to 100 points. The Architecture contest is worth up to 200 points, Engineering and Market Viability, are each worth up to 150 points.

The next Solar Decathlon is already being planned for the fall of 2009. Let’s hope that before then zero-net energy houses like these are available in the marketplace. The time is now, not decades from now, to begin cutting emissions from buildings.

Links:

University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences
http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/schools/sci/env

Solar Decathlon
http://www.solardecathlon.org

Applications for the 2009 Solar Decathlon
http://www.solardecathlon.org/2009.html