Energy & Environmental News

Climate activist Bill McKibben spoke to David Letterman about his new book, Eaarth, and what it will take to get us on a road to a low carbon economy.

North Dakota officials are working to plug a leaking well that began oozing hundreds of barrels of oil Wednesday when its steel and concrete linings failed, officials said.

The freshwater eel, which spawns in the middle of the ocean, was once abundant in much of the world. But the proliferation of dams, coastal development, and overfishing have drastically reduced eel populations, with few defenders coming to the aid of these fascinating — though still not fully understood — creatures. BY JAMES PROSEK

Bill Gates adds detail to his call for a research push to expand energy choices without overheating the planet.

The Illinois Commerce Commission concluded that the Taylorville "clean coal" plant's uncertain benefits don't justify its high costs, which would be borne by utility ratepayers and businesses statewide.

Today, I am publishing a guest post from engineer Ian T. Hadden.  I asked Ian to write a guest post after he made the comment "there is something built into the high performance, sustainable design building method that works against litigation" on August 9.  Below, Ian elaborates on his point so please take a look and let us know what you think. 

If you are interested in guest posting for Green Building Law Update, please contact me at chris@cheathamconsulting.com with your story idea.  Your story should focus on risk management, legal or regulatory issues in the green building industry.   

By Ian T. Hadden

I apparently peaked Chris' interest with my recent comments about integrated, collaborative design reducing the rate of LEEDigation as he's afforded me the opportunity to expand my thoughts. As a little background, I've been actively involved in the LEED certification of 4 projects and am working as the Project Administrator for 14 additional projects. All of these projects are from the K-12 education sector and have used design build, traditional hard bid and construction management procurement methods.

Maybe my experiences have been out of the norm or they were less litigious because they were school districts. But after hearing tales of other LEED projects and continued exposure to LEED projects, I believe the process avoids more pitfalls that lead to litigation than it opens doors for new litigation paths. The process drives detailed conversations that start early and continue through the process and they highlight the interdependency of the owner, the designers and the contractors. And that's why I think LEEDigation will be more common from outside parties, such as the school in MN, than between members of the integrated design team.

As part of role as a LEED Project Administrator, I often find myself helping facilitate the integrated design process. Often, many of the team members do not have any experience with an integrated design process. To avoid confusion, let's define integrated design as the use of deliberate steps to ensure all parties affected by the life cycle of project are engaged in the development of the project. It has a focus on data collection (like energy modeling), discussion, visioning and goal setting. This is often done in charrettes which provide a face to face, personal meeting of this cross discipline group of people. In traditional design, the owner often doesn't have much contact with any of the design team beyond the architect. This face to face meeting with the opportunity to have input starts building a level of trust and mutual accountability across all parties. When trust is present in any relationship, it becomes easier for all parties to admit and take responsibility for errors and omissions and focus on corrective action rather than blame. Let's take look at a couple of hypothetical situations and since I'm an engineer we'll focus around energy issues.

In traditional design, without an energy model there are likely few conversations the owner and the mechanical engineer have other than "what kind of HVAC equipment do you like." With the owner's preference in mind, the engineer proceeds to design a system assuming maximum occupant capacity and maximum allowable lighting power density and the engineer adds a 10 or 15% safety factor onto his or her load calculations to make sure no one every complains about being to hot or cold. But when the electrical engineer is very aggressive and reduces the lighting power density and the average occupancy is only 85% of capacity the system is now oversized so it doesn't control humidity well and does not operate efficiently. Who is at fault? Why are they at fault? Was the mechanical engineer responsible for asking the electrical engineer about lighting or was it the electrical engineer's responsibility to tell the mechanical? Is the owner at fault for failing to discuss occupancy patterns?

By comparison, a project team pursuing LEED typically does an energy model, which drives discussions about these topics and more. With an energy model, systems are sized more closely to the design load and with fewer compounded safety factors. There is risk in this method that weather or occupancy patterns outside the design parameters may lead to comfort issues. But those risks have been discussed and been jointly accepted by the owner and the design team.

The company responsible for a pipeline rupture and oil spill earlier this summer plans up to a month of drilling beneath the Straits of Mackinac to reinforce twin crude oil pipelines that cross there.

"If we don't fight this, we have lost all possibility of ever producing power here again," said Holland city councilman Mike Trethewey.

Amanda Reed: The time to act on climate change is now. In that light, a new campaign called FOUR YEARS.GO. has been started to inspire action towards...

Alex Aylett: For those who – like me – missed the news on Monday: the world's most well known climate change skeptic has done a dramatic about...

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Steve Brown

Steve Brown Development Director for Envirotec Ltd explains the theory behind how heat pumps work:

 

Heat pumps use the same technology as is used in a refrigerator, exploiting the temperature difference between the refrigerant gas and its surroundings. Both rely on three key facts.

 

1. Heat will move down a ‘temperature gradient’ from a higher temperature to a lower temperature. 

2. When a liquid changes to a gas, heat is extracted from the surrounding to provide the energy for this change (e.g. boiling water to steam).

3. Refrigerant gases have a boiling point well below 0°C. For example the R410A refrigerant ...

WorldChanging Team: Looking back one, two and five years ago today on Worldchanging: 2009 The Rights of Future Generations Alex examines the rights of future generations and...

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research reported that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon declined 48 percent in the past year, falling from 1,689 square miles to 886 square miles for the 12-month period ending July 31. A Brazilian conservation group, Imazon, issued a more conservative estimate, saying deforestation declined by 16 percent, falling from 682 square miles to 575 square miles for the same period. The large discrepancy is because the space agency uses visual interpretation by analysts of satellite pictures, while Imazon uses an automatic deforestation detection method based on satellite photos. Both track the “deforestation year” ending on July 31, when cloud cover is minimal. The government said stricter enforcement of environmental laws contributed to the drop in deforestation, while environmental groups said it was a temporary decline related to the global recession. The continuing threat of deforestation in the Amazon and surrounding regions was highlighted by the release of a NASA satellite photo showing a 1,500-mile pall of smoke hovering over central South America, particularly in Bolivia. Most of the estimated 150,000 fires were set by people clearing forest for grazing and agriculture.

The city of Winona applied for $25 million to build a test lab for Personal Rapid Transit, which uses small, pod-like vehicles on guideways to shuttle passengers to their destinations.

When federal regulators learned last year that a Houston company built pipelines using defective steel, they ordered hundreds of sections of the newly laid pipe replaced. Since then, the government has relaxed that approach.
Photo by fictures via Creative Commons

Senate majority leader Harry Reid says that at least two Republican senators will support a renewable energy standard as part of a pared-down energy bill.

Many homeowners who participated in a program that let them repay the cost of energy improvements through their property taxes must pay off the loans before they can refinance their mortgages, two government-chartered mortgage companies said Tuesday.

Although it is estimated that tightened emissions regulation will push about a sixth of the aging coal fleet into retirement, those plants that survive the gauntlet will be harder than ever to close after receiving expensive retrofits.

The nation's top law enforcement official is being asked to look into whether Enbridge Energy Partners pressured Michigan residents to give up legal rights to sue in exchange for hotel rooms, air purifiers and other expenses in the wake of July's oil spill.

Not a light bulb's worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.