Tag Archives: energy efficiency
Snippets
Weather extremes are damaging parts of the U.S. infrastructure [NY Times]
The United States ranks 9th out of 12 of the world’s largest economies on energy efficiency but feels the least guilty [BuildingGreen.com]
Demolition began at the West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library – when completed, it will be a zero net energy building [Berkeleyside]
The Feds say the PACE retrofit program is still too risky [BuildingGreen.com]
Photo: A blooming artichoke in Berkeley, CA, by Anna LaRue
Zero Resource at ACEEE Summer Study 2012
I’m spending the week at the 2012 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficient Buildings.
I’ll be sharing interesting information, ideas, and resources with you as the week progresses. Right now, I’m listening to Jeff Harris of The Alliance to Save Energy discuss some of the advantages of thinking about achieving net zero energy goals by looking at the goal at the scale of net-zero energy communities.
A Year Ago on Zero Resource – July 2011
July 2011
- Pecha Kucha Rundown: Denser, Part 2
- Pecha Kucha Rundown: Denser, Part 3
- PG&E Smart Grid Plan
- Scott Shell on Designing ZNE Buildings
- Video – Liter of Light
July 2010
- Problems for PACE Programs?
- Stimulus Money for Energy Efficiency
- Global Warming’s Six Americas
- Advanced Framing
- AC Transit Cuts, Part 3
- Finding California Incentives and Rebates
- PACE Programs Here, and Gone
- Finding Local Stimulus Projects
- Bioplastics, Part 2
- San Jose Might Sell Its Water System
- Greenwashing
- Visualizing the US Power Grid
- They Don’t Have Water Meters?!
- Resilience vs. Sustainability
- NRDC Report on Climate Change, Water and Risk
- As Climate Bill Falters, California is Crucial
- Reactions to the Stalled US Climate Bill
CEC Approves New California Building Energy Efficiency Standards!
“California officials on Thursday approved energy efficiency standards for new homes and commercial buildings that officials are describing as the toughest in the nation. …
“The new requirements, set to go into effect in 2014, will reduce energy use in California homes and businesses by 25 percent or more, commission officials said.”
Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle. I’ll post more details about the new building efficiency standards tomorrow.
For those that want the details now, the full 2013 Building Energy Efficiency Standards Rulemaking is online here.
A Year Ago on Zero Resource – May 2011
Two Years of Zero Resource
Over the last two years, we have covered a number of topics, from tiny houses, to DOE rules on showerheads, to definitions of terms.
Since the end of February, when WordPress starting showing the statistics, Zero Resource has attracted readers from all over the world.
Over the last two years, the top twenty most popular posts of all time are:
- Death Rays
- More Tiny Houses
- The Difference Between the CEC and CPUC
- Tour a Tiny Apartment in Spain
- Putrescible Waste
- Finding Data – GDP and Electricity Consumption
- Alex Wilson, Founder of EBN – Part 1
- Plastic Bag / Retail Bag Laws in the U.S.
- Bad News About CBECS 2007
- Nina Maritz
- Are People Clueless about Energy Savings?
- MRF (Rhymes with Smurf)
- Resilience vs. Sustainability
- The Key System
- Visualizing the U.S. Power Grid
- Do Green Roofs Improve Solar PV Performance?
- Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
- Local Target Stores & Hazardous Waste
- Tiny “Spite” Houses
- Houses – Small, Reused, and Prefab
Many thanks to all the Zero Resource readers around the world! We look forward to another year.
FEMA & USGBC on Resilient Communities
1Last Wednesday, the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave a speech describing the role green building can play to ensure resilient communities as the climate shifts. Fugate was the keynote speaker of the National Leadership Speaker Series on Resiliency and Security in the 21st Century at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
The presentation also featured the launch of a report by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The report, Green Building and Climate Resilience: Understanding Impacts and Preparing for Changing Conditions, describes potential adaptive strategies familiar to green building practitioners. These strategies add an important new dimension to green building’s long-standing focus on reducing greenhouse gases through energy efficiency and renewable and low-carbon energy supplies.
You can find the full report on the USGBC site here.
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR FRIDAY VIDEO SERIES.
A Year of Sky
1This is a lovely video of the San Francisco sky for a year. According to the YouTube description,
A camera installed on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco captured an image of the sky every 10 seconds. From these images, I created a mosaic of time-lapse movies, each showing a single day. The days are arranged in chronological order. My intent was to reveal the patterns of light and weather over the course of a year.
More information on the project site: http://www.murphlab.com/ahots
It is also a very clear illustration of how day length changes symmetrically over the year. All of the days are synchronized, starting and ending at the same time. So you can see that some days are much shorter and longer than others, and that sunrise and sunset happen a little earlier or later than the previous one. The exact times of sunrise and sunset depend on our latitude here in the Bay Area.
So… how does this connect back to resource efficient infrastructure?
Knowledge of the sun’s movement and its position in the sky at any given date and time are fundamental to energy efficient building design and the thermal and visual comfort of the building’s occupants.
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR FRIDAY VIDEO SERIES.
Energy-Related Recovery Act Money
1
I’ve been having quite a bit of fun investigating where some of the energy-related recovery act money has gone via the interactive map here. If you zoom in to look at the Bay Area, you can hover your mouse over each circle to see who received the money and how much. For example, the City of Berkeley received $118,155 for a renewable energy project, and Fremont received $1,891,200 for energy efficiency.
