Certain aspects of integrating sustainability into large scale building projects can be challenging, but building an affordable housing project can be a constant fight against the budget even without exploring ways to make it a healthier, more efficient space. Recently completed in the Bronx, Via Verde has risen to stand as a model for affordable housing construction, effectively breaking the barrier of plausibility for including green building components in a low-cost project. Continue Reading…
In 1973 the initiation of the Arab Oil Embargo had rippling affects on energy use in the United States. As oil prices climbed while supply fell, in months America became suddenly conscious about their energy use and how much their dependence on inexpensive energy could cost its economy. The government action in response came at impressive speed by today’s standards, initiating a series of efforts to encourage people to save both oil and money spent on energy. The 55mph speed limit was born. Daylight savings was extended (temporarily) to the entirety of the year in an effort to conserve electricity. New subsidies were given to the spur the development of renewable energy sources. Oil consumption dropped 20% in the U.S., yet the country survived.
Though the embargo was lifted in 1974, it would mark the first time when the steady increase in residential energy use across the country ceased its upward movement. While energy would be an issue viewed with greater scrutiny from this point forward, the Energy Information Administration revealed that the per capita residential energy consumption has remained nominally flat over the past 40 years, lingering at the 1973 levels of around 70 million Btu’s per person. Continue Reading…
To date, the success of renewable energy production in the U.S. has been intrinsically tied to the availability of subsidies that help to make the younger and cleaner forms of power more financially competitive. As we near the end of 2011 the industry players are becoming antsy as the future of subsidized aid for renewables comes into question once again. An increasing public focus of trimming an ever-growing federal deficit, a stagnant job market and the financial woes of European economies on the other side of the Atlantic make for a challenging backdrop for the next phase of clean power. Will renewable energy fall into another trough of its historical boom-and-bust cycle or has its recent, successful years helped to cement itself into necessity in the greater American economy?
Few would dispute the need for due attention given to our antiquated energy infrastructure. Whether it be generation, transmission or coordinating both with end use, our current efforts are decidedly piecemeal and moving at a pace far slower than what is necessary for not only a more efficient, but a much cleaner grid. While government subsidy programs have helped renewable energy markets achieve impressive year over year growth rates, our combined renewable portfolio still only accounts for around 12.7% of all of the electricity our country uses. We need a new national model that helps wane us off of (and eventually close) fossil fuel power sources while simultaneously spurring a more substantial construction and research of renewable energy options. Continue Reading…
Each year the U.S. Department of Energy sponsors a competition for the design of a home that can maximize the energy of the sun for affordable, sustainable living. This year, the team from the University of Maryland took home the competition’s top honor for their project entitled: Watershed. Rather than a visual manifesto on the rebranding of the single family home, the success of the design revolves around the integration and interconnection of a series of technologies and systems to create a compact, efficient and welcoming residence. The result can serve as a model to progressive home building in many ways–an area where our country needs no shortage of help in understanding how sustainability can be integrated into everyday living.
Merely building a small home that gathers the most solar energy would not snag you the blue ribbon in this competition. The Solar Decathlon is judged on a series of criteria including affordability, engineering, communications, comfort zone and market appeal. This is integral to the success of the challenge because despite the fact that sustainability’s public image may revolve around solar panels and wind turbines, the true meaning of the word is a holistic notion of balance that affects all aspects of living. Continue Reading…
As Republican presidential candidates have amassed to begin the gauntlet of debate leading up to the bid for the next conservative challenger to the White House, the environment, or specifically global warming, has gotten its fair share of frontage. Almost unanimously, the GOP candidates’ attacks at the authenticity of climate change have been as adamant as they are consistent. However, new polling suggests that the air time they have afforded environmental topics could be working against them, actually increasing the percentage of Americans that believe the earth is warming. How carefully do the candidates have to tread in order to navigate through a populace that feels more comfortable supporting the idea of climate change? Continue Reading…
The drive to stem the use of coal for power production in the U.S. has gained considerable traction over the past decade. According to some sources, coal power holds the title of the single largest source of air pollution in the country while its supply chain contaminates every resource that it touches. Removing coal from our energy portfolio is one of the greatest sustainability milestones that Americans could hope to achieve, but the goal might benefit from a simple tactic that brings the core issues closer, or rather into, the homes of consumers. To deter the use of coal power we may need to reach for a blunter instrument.
For most Americans, the concept of “power” is little more than a number that comes in the mail. The distance between the act of power production and the resulting charge on an electrical bill is a key ingredient to how energy companies keep the disturbing realities of our grid outside the focus of their own consumers. Closing that gap could be as easy as bringing that information front and center with warning labels that remind the consumer exactly what their dollars are buying. Slapped on the front of envelopes or next to the amount due, the reoccurring reminder could help educate people of the repercussions of their energy use and either promote increased efficiency or the choice to make the easy switch to paying for greener power. Continue Reading…
Most of the opportunities that garden variety Americans have to make a sustainable change in their life are small in the grand scheme of the country as a whole, let alone the world and its biosphere. As an architect, designing a LEED Platinum building, or fifty of them for that matter, is still a drop in the bucket for level of change that we need to the built environment of this country. Each individual person or building is a long way from getting everyone on board, but the goal doesn’t have to be 100% participation. The few that extend themselves to push the envelope now build the image of interest that allows for larger standards to change with sweeping effects over broader areas. Continue Reading…
In our short-term, quick-fix, credit-swiping culture we have no shortage of proposed non-solutions that search for short cuts to stem the possibility of irrevocable damage caused by climate change. Noteworthy participants are the well-known faces of clean coal, carbon sequestration or launching waste into space. But when it comes to handing out the gold star for the top of the class, geoengineering stands head and shoulders above the rest as a scientific Hail Mary Pass with an endless sea of unknown consequences. After a dubious amount of review from a number of different sources, geoengineering and all funding towards its research should be pulled off the table with focus returned to things that can actually work without multitudes of latent risk. Continue Reading…
Urban farming continues to ride the wave of sustainability with efforts sprouting up across the country that find very real and fruitful results. The rush of interest has maintained conversations of massive towers buried in the center of urban cores to produce local, sustainable crops for city dwellers. However, the conceptual mecca of farming in the city, vertical farms, still remains mired in the theoretical world due largely to the unwillingness of any funding sources to make the first cut on a bleeding edge development pattern. On their own, large vertical farms in the cityscape bring costs that may be insurmountable for a largely unproven model, but if the system was paired with high-end residential and positioned as an amenity then new crops could get the prime exposure they need to test their strength where it its needed most. Continue Reading…