The biannual Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the US Department of Energy and bringing together 20 university teams from the United States and other countries, is an amazing event that merits far more attention than the hundred or so thousand visitors and the spotty news (and blog) coverage of the event. Truth be told, the Solar Decathlon is far from just a few week event on the Mall but encompasses years of effort from the multi-disciplinary teams developing a vision and making it a reality. As someone who has been to all of the (US) Decathlons and had the chance to visit most (sigh, not all) of the homes, there is something quite important to note: with each Decathlon, the overall quality of the homes has improved — significantly. In the 2009 competition, every single home had something meaningful that made it stand out from the Spanish homes upside-down pyramid roof that tracked the sun to the University of Milwaukee’s beautiful sculpture bringing rainwater down from the roof that would ice up beautifully in winter to the University of Arizona’s solar popcorn popper to Cornell’s uniquely designed Silo House to … Every home had things that made it stand out.
Virginia Tech’s Lumenhous’ precision cut steel louvers made a statement on the Mall … and, well, in Europe as well. Lumenous came out on top in the Solar Decathlon Europe which occurred in Madrid last month. (This was, after all, quite a leap forward from the 13th place finish on the Mall — which is an indicator of the strength of the 2009 competition). In Madrid, Lumenhous’ gorgeous architecture combined with overall strength to top the 17 teams
During the competition 17 solar houses from seven countries on three continents were judged in 10 different categories. The Virginia Tech Lumenhaus placed in almost all the categories, including tying for first in Architecture, placing second in Communication and Social Awareness, and placing third in both Industrialization and Market Viability and in Lighting.
Sigh … to have been in Madrid to see the 17 houses … In honor of their victory, see the write-up of Lumenhous from fall 2009 after the fold.
Well, Washington, DC, is a bit closer to home and a far smaller carbon footprint for the trip.
Through 25 July, the National Building Museum has a special Solar Decathlon 2011 exhibit with the models submitted by the 20 teams who have won the right to compete on the Mall along with ‘poster’ displays from each team discussing their submissions philosophy and approaches. In visiting the exhibit, two regrets: no photography allowed and that the eight-year olds were interested … but really wanted to get back to the Lego exhibit. All joking aside, reading through the posters and examining the models certainly suggests that the 2011 Solar Decathlon will continue the established trend that every competition is stronger than the last … With just one week to go, this is a strongly recommended museum visit.
In terms of innovation, there is a major change for 2011: a real focus on “affordability”, with a target price of $250,000 or less. As per Richard King, the key DOE driver behind the Solar Decathlon,
For 2011, our focus has shifted toward education and affordability. That is, reaching out to a broader student audience with information about renewable energy and energy efficiency—and placing a stronger incentive on participating teams to design and build houses that are less expensive and use products that are available today. In this way, we’re raising public awareness about affordable clean-energy products that can help people save money and reduce energy use.
Hopefully there will be something else new in 2011. No President or member of the President’s family has yet visited the Solar Decathlon. Hopefully, President Obama will Put Solar On It (the White House) well before fall 2011, but what a statement if the White House arranges for several of the homes (the winner? the Hawaii house? the Illinois team) to end up on the South Lawn for a few weeks or, at least, arranges for a First Family visit to the Decathlon.
Now, the Hawaii and Illinois teams aren’t accidental comment as both of these homes stood out in the (far too) short visit to the NBM exhibit. The Hawaii house is strikingly different in design, reminiscent to me of a WWII Quonset hut but designed for functionality in face of a storm. The Illinois entry has an innovative approach to fostering sustainable housing in a post-disaster situation, with the use of containers to move goods, be used for supporting disaster relief operations, and then be transformed into solar-powered housing. As they describe the three stages:
The first stage begins with a single conex container, which is equipped with energy production and communication technologies and serves as a central hub for aid and military workers or as an aid station for disaster victims.
In the second stage, a second conex container—filled with food, supplies, and medical equipment—is arranged with the first unit to create a larger distribution point.
The third stage features the redevelopment of homes and communities with single-family houses such as the one shown here. It includes:
Roof-mounted photovoltaics to generate electricity
A green roof to provide an upper-level terrace
Vertical garden panels that can be planted to supply food.
To be clear, every home clearly merits attention and, well, a visit without two eight-year olds in tow might have led to a different focus. (Note: both of them had visited the Solar Decathlon on the Mall and wanted to see the exhibit — on breaks from Lego, of course …). Again, a strongly recommended visit — with or without those 8-year olds …
This guest post comes from down-under. I had been thinking of writing re JR Ewing’s conversion from stored solar power (e.g., fossil fuels) to renewable solar power. Unenergy‘s post does a great job. And, well, we must recognize that Sunenergy’s ads are great and merit going viral.
I’d put my money on solar energy. What a source of power!
I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had more years left.
That second part, the bolded comment got me thinking that Edison, recognizing the potential of the sun to meet our energy needs and knowing that fossil fuels were a finite resource, towards the end of his life wanted very much to be around to see this remarkable resource harnessed and developed into something sustainable.
The world’s economic growth in the past 150 years has been built on our knowledge of how to extract and harness yesterday’s stored sunshine in the form of fossil fuels. The oil barons of the second half of the 1800s, making their fortunes by extracting these resources, initially for lighting people’s homes. Extending daylight for many people both allowing them to live better lives, and for industry and commercial enterprises to operate longer.
The largest fortune the world has ever seen was created by selling refined lamp oil under the manufactured name “kerosene” and John D Rockefeller became the world’s richest man by lighting the oil lamps of the world.
but he was also the biggest philanthropist America has ever seen.
Rockefeller – “Let the poor man have his cheap light”
He didn’t want to kill people. He had standards.
Standard Oil = SO (Esso) now known as…. Exxon.
Chasing the Sun, Solar Adventures Around the World, Neville Williams
Rockefeller’s stated goal to bring about an affordable improvement in people’s every day lives, ought to be recognized as commendable, irrespective of business practices which accompanied this.
His generosity which helped bring about progress through science and education using the fortune he had made, additionally so.
Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. – Source
Senator Claire McCaskill, who has been anything but a shining star on thoughtful thinking for creating a prosperous and climate-friendly America, has let loose with another doozy.
“I think it’s still a work in progress,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who worries that a cap would be a loser for Democrats in November. “You know, it took 50 years on health care.”
As with so many of Claire’s comments when it comes to energy policy and climate issues, this is a sad-mix of truthiness and disinformation:
Yes. Any climate action taken today or this year in legislation or otherwise will be, without question, “a work in progress”. We have created the problem over the long-term, even as we worsen it at a faster and faster pace. We can’t solve this with one action, with one piece of legislation, with one swoosh of a magic wand. Any action taken will be a “work in progress” but, quite simply, Claire, we don’t have “50 years” to begin serious action on climate change issues.
“You know, it took 50 years on health care” certainly implies that Claire things that, somehow, things are solved when it comes to health care legislation.
Study after study from reputable organizations show that Americans (and Missourians) would be net winners from sensible clean-energy/climate-mitigation legislation … without even accounting for improved health, improved productivity (in part due to fewer sick days), and reduced damage from climate change (and reduced risks of catastrophic climate change).
July 15th, 2010 · Comments Off on A growing season to change America’s energy culture?
George Mokray is a long-term solar power advocate, with a focus on figuring out how to help people — in quite practical terms — realize (in both intellectual and practical terms) the opportunities that ‘going solar’ provides for them. He has also been, more recent, quite active with weatherization barnstorming — including via Home Energy Efficiency Team-MA. Here, George lays out a quite sensible activism path for awakening across American an activism with small-scale solar.
In short, here is George’s 5-step program:
Demonstrate energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE) at the nation’s 4000 farmers’ markets.
Mount a nation-wide weatherization barnstorming movement.
Link energy education to disaster preparedness.
Promote 350.org’s 10/10 and other movement events.
Enhance information networks to enable faster exploitation of successful approaches.
Electrification of transportation — whether elevators, electric bikes, electric rail, or electric vehicles (HEVs, PHEVs, EVs) for the road (cars, trucks, busses) — represent a key transformational tool toward a clean-energy economy. And, they offer serious economic benefits from reduced oil consumption to potential export opportunities.
The Obama Administration’s use of stimulus funds in the electric vehicle space, to create an infrastructure for the manufacturing of critical components and vehicles and the infrastructure for using them, is an excellent example of how investing in infrastructure can pay off in economic, energy, and environmental terms.
Pre-Recovery Act, the U.S. produced just 2 percent of the world’s batteries for advanced vehicles, but due to Recovery Act investments, the U.S. will have the capacity to produce 20 percent of these batteries by 2012 and up to 40 percent by 2015.
E.g., due to Stimulus Act funding, the US will move from a (far) trailing position to a (near) dominant market position in one of the critical manufacturing arenas in the fastest growing transportation segment: electric vehicles.
Before the Recovery Act, high battery costs meant a car with a 100 mile range would need batteries that would cost about $33,000. With higher-volume domestic manufacturing, the cost of such a battery could be less than half that by the end of 2013 (in the range of $16k) and less than 1/3rd that by 2015 (in the range of $10k). This will dramatically drive down electric vehicle costs.
Considering that electric vehicles operate at the equivalent of less than $1 per gallon in terms of electricity costs and that electric cars have (far) lower maintenance costs, that $10k becomes an affordable type price. Relative to this, a critical level for PHEVs is seen to be about 40 miles of battery range. A $4000 battery that enables (some) Americans to drive 80-90% of their miles on electricity from the grid, with the ancillary benefits of V2G storage (with a cash payment value to the car owner), the payback period on the battery cost becomes acceptable to a far greater percentage of Americans.
The investment in electric vehicle infrastructure using stimulus package funds, investing in batteries and in car plants and in charging stations, is hastening making electric vehicles a meaningful part of the American car market — and it is creating a path for increasing America’s share of the auto industry — and, therefore, increasing America’s economic prospects in the near, mid, and long terms while setting a path for lowering our oil imports and reducing our carbon emissions.
When we consider the situation in the Gulf of Mexico, with the disastrous gushing of oil due to the (seemingly) criminal negligence of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling, moving forward to ending the flow of oil into the Gulf would be a significant move forward and something that we want to happen.
The “integrity test” that could potentially shut down the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher has been delayed until at least Wednesday, a setback in the effort to put an end to what has been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
We could parse this paragraph in many ways (such as how does one define “worst environmental disaster” — immediate one incident impact (clearly this is the worst, without question) or is it the longer term impacts (as bad as this is, the long-term impacts of the nation’s burning of fossil fuels (especially, but not solely, coal) creates a far worst disaster). However, Achenbach’s words have a serious problem: “put an end”.
Very simply, capping the well will not “put an end” to the “environmental disaster”.
Shutting down the gushing oil will “put an end” to the worsening of the situation in terms of additional oil being added into the environment. It will not “put an end” to the disaster, with impacts that will extend for decades to come, and won’t even bring an end to the worsening of the disaster in terms of the continued spread and increasing impact of the oil on nature and humanity. [Read more →]
Where will you be on the 10th minute of the 10th hour of the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year?
On 10 October 2010 (10/10/10), mobilized due to the energy of the 350.org team, people around the world will gather to show their support for climate action by leaders, nation, and people around the world.
In making a statement about public support and engagement, globally, for serious action, the focus is on gaining people to take action to tangibly demonstrate elements for change. Ideas for work party action include:
#1 Organize a Tree Planting Planting trees is fun, friendly, and a great way to engage the community. And each one you plant will be a little carbon-sequestering machine for years to come. Try to shoot for planting 350 trees or more in one day!
#3 Work on a Community Garden or an Organic Farm To get to 350, we’ll need to rethink the way we produce food on the planet–moving away from industrial agriculture powered by fossil fuels, and towards small-scale, local, organic farming. Think about using your work party as a day to model this new system–maybe you can break ground on a new community garden
#6 Get Efficient: Energy Efficiency is often considered “low hanging fruit” when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. It’s often easier and cheaper than installing renewable energy, so why not start here? Whether it’s installing more efficient LED or CFL lightbulbs in your MPs office, insulating your basement, weatherizing your church or temple, or doing an energy audit on your school, efficiency can help get us on the path to 350 as soon as humanly possible
This last might be my action … perhaps gathering some friends and acquaintances for a weatherization barnraising, working together to ‘audit’ some homes and upgrade their insulation, seal leaks, and change lightbulbs. And, well, of course, to then blog about it. And, when it comes to efficiency, 350.org links to another great campaign: 10:10, an effort to begin carbon reductions of 10 percent per year, every year, starting in 2010.
350.org provides ten ideas #2 is “Go Solar” … with solar cookers being part of life for several years, solar thermal on the roof for a year, and now my fourth day of the solar pv on the rooftop contributing to the household power, not sure that there is much to do there.
In any event, with several months to go, I already have ideas swirling in the head about what to do at the 10th minute of the 10th hour of the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year. Do you?
July 13th, 2010 · Comments Off on America’s energy sacrifices
We must have cheap energy!
This is a mantra from the right, from blinder-wearing economists, from fossil-foolish interests.
In their calculation of price, however, those chanting the ‘CHEAP’ mantra don’t care to account for ‘externalities’ like worsening Americans’ health, destroying our environment, sabotaging our economy, and threatening our future.
And, well, they simply aren’t ready to account for the cost in blood …
A good political cartoonist combines words and images to lay out clearly issues that can be lost in a flood of words, to bring clarity from amid confusion and complexity. Matt Bors is a good political cartoonist …
July 12th, 2010 · Comments Off on Bringing the PACE to a screeching halt …
Amid our financial (economic) travails and a seemingly snail’s pace movement toward a clean-energy future, there have been reassuring bright lights. One of these has been the emergence and spreading of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. (White House PACE policy framework (pdf) Building on experiences such as in Berkeley, California, PACE provides a path for communities to enable faster and greater renewable energy penetration and to encourage energy efficiency efforts. In short,
Community issues a bond, borrowing money.
Citizens and local businesses can use that money for energy efficiency and renewable energy investments in their properties.
The bonds are structured so that savings are greater than the costs to pay back the loans (over a 20 year period).
The payback is done via the local mortgage taxes.
The payback is the responsibility of the property owner — and transfers with any property sale (just as the benefits of reduced utility costs move from one owner to the next).
All told, a rather rational and efficient path to leverage community resources (borrowing on a larger scale) to provide low-cost loans efficiently and solving one of the key challenges when it comes to Energy Smart practices: bridging the chasm between upfront costs and (seemingly uncertain) longer-term benefits. (In this case, the uncertainty is magnified by Americans’ propensity to move (frequently): if you only are going to be in your home a few years, why invest in something that might take a decade to pay off?) Again, a rational approach to using communities to provide value to local citizens (both to the direct homeowner due to reduced utility bills but also to other citizens through reduced energy demands and the economic activity created due to these home retrofits).
Doing EE/RE work on the local, community level has a myriad of benefits. One of these, that is rarely acknowledged, is that there is a correlation between energy efficiency and home default rates: the more energy efficient the home, the lower the default rate. There could be any number of reasons for this, including that homeowners who focus on energy efficiency (and renewables) might be ‘more responsible citizens’ or could be seen as having more resources to begin with, but there is something far more basic at play: greater energy efficiency means paying less out of pocket for the same energy services (heating, cooling, lighting, etc …). E.g., while the EE/RE might cost more to buy, they cost a lot less to run, and cost less to own. Benefit of the PACE program is that it leaps past that ‘cost more to buy’ (eliminating this from the equation) and translates the ‘cost a lot less to run’ into cost less to run/cost less to own.
Sadly, the extremely low default rates on energy-efficiency related programs (such as defaults on 10 energy loans of 2200 in Pennsylvania) seems to little relevancy to the nation’s lenders as exemplified in Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac.
After careful review and over a year of working with federal and state government agencies, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has determined that certain energy retrofit lending programs present significant safety and soundness concerns that must be addressed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
Key to FHFA’s discomfort is that PACE is placed ahead of the mortgage holder, is a special assessment of extended duration, and “do not have the traditional community benefits associated with taxing initiatives”. (Note “traditional community benefits” as reducing pollution, reducing stress on the energy system, and creating economic activity are all examples of benefits that could be argued to be ‘non-traditional’.)
In its memo, FHFA highlights arenas of legitimate concern such as “the lack of energy retrofit standards to assist homeowners, appraisers, inspectors and lenders determine the value of retrofit products”. This is, legitimately, a real problem. Having just gone through two home appraisals for a refinancing, neither appraiser gave $0.01 of value for the high-efficiency heating / cooling systems, high-efficiency fireplace insert, solar hot water system, and solar PV system. Paying a fraction of the utility bills of my neighbors, in part because of home EE/RE investments, evidently has zero value for the home value according to appraisers. In the 6 July note, FHFA set conditions that will hinder efforts to pick on the pace with PACE programs, including stricter requirements in terms of loan covenants and PACE programs.
FHFA ends its statement this way:
FHFA recognizes that PACE and PACE-like programs pose additional lending challenges, but also represent serious efforts to reduce energy consumption. FHFA remains committed to working with federal, state, and local government agencies to develop and implement energy retrofit lending programs with appropriate underwriting guidelines and consumer protection standards. FHFA will also continue to encourage the establishment of energy efficiency standards to support such programs.
These words, however, ring false to this reader (and to others … Ethan Elkind at Legal Planet entitled his post: FHFA strangles PACE clean-energy financing program). There were (and are) legitimate reasons for FHFA concern, including capping PACE investments relative to home value and developing meaningful standards for understanding returns on investment. What FHFA has done, it seems, is spike the program rather than demonstrate serious interest in being on the leading edge of an EE/RE renaissance in the American housing market.
Comments Off on Bringing the PACE to a screeching halt …Tags:Energy · politics
In reacting to the Federal judge’s ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional, Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, stated:
We can’t allow the lowest common denominator states, like Massachusetts, to set standards for the country.
While least/lowest common denominator is a mathematical term, in a social context it refers to “the most basic, least sophisticated level of taste, sensibility, or opinion among a group of people.” Thus, Lafferty seems to be asserting that Massachusetts represents the “least sophisticated level of taste” among American states.
Reading Lafferty’s words can strike a different tone, a more broad assertion that Massachusetts is somehow backward, trailing the other states in the nation, the ‘back-of-the-pack’ state holding the rest of the nation down. …
Oil consumption per capita: 28th (not ‘great’, but certainly not lowest common denominator). If the nation matched Massachusetts (with its home heating oil), we’d be using 10% less oil.
Some simple statistical examples of the energy situation across the country that certainly suggest that Massachusetts and Massachusetts residents are far from the nation’s “lowest common denominator”.
If the nation matched Massachusetts, we’d be polluting less and sending fewer dollars overseas for imported oil.
s that made it stand out.