Building Energy Resilience

I love simple concepts formulated using basic math.  And even though I love all mathematics, I’ll be the first to admit that my math skills could always be stronger, so I am always trying to learn. I guess that’s why the basic formulas for really complicated concepts really resonate with my inner nerd.  The Drake equation as a model for explaining the Fermi paradox is a wonderful example of these.  Recently Bill Gates released a short speculation on YouTube regarding energy and CO₂.  This too really resonated with me as it’s an area where I see our industry really affecting change.

Vermont is a small, hilly state in the northeast corner of the US, and is often claimed to be the “second cloudiest” state in the nation (a subjective statistic). Although our state has been adopting solar in leaps and bounds, there is a debate over whether solar is an applicable technology in our state and, nationally, if solar should be subsidized now that the production costs have decreased dramatically. I decided to research the history of subsidies and production costs of various fuels to determine if solar deserves to be an incentivized fuel source for electric generation.

Image via Wikipedia.

We were recently approached by a client inquiring about whether we were able to perform a water consumption analysis for their large campus. The client is looking for ways to reduce the campus’ water consumption. This type of work varies for different buildings depending on how the water is used. With this in mind, we needed to construct a unique scope of work in order to develop a plan that could be implemented and be successful.

It is well known that energy efficiency investments provide opportunities to reduce energy costs and opportunities to leverage incentive dollars. As we have discussed recently in this blog, the relative attractiveness of energy efficiency investments may be evaluated in terms of first cost, simple payback, and life cycle cost. But for a given investment alternative, is it advantageous to finance?

I wish I had more time to work on my BIG IDEAS. I believe in supporting a strong local economy wherever possible and one place where I dream of a better model is a green energy investment fund (GEIF).

As an engineer myself, I was struck recently by fresh evidence of the pervasive challenge of communicating technical information effectively. I attended a building conference where the focus is designing better buildings and one common thread emerged. “Death by PowerPoint” is alive and well in the building and design industry.

One of the first things I became aware of when I joined Cx Associates is that sustainability is a way of thinking. I learned efficiency and judicious use of resources can be approached on many different levels, from choosing a more efficient clothes dryer, to finding alternatives for drying clothes, such as line or rack drying. All efforts toward sustainability are important, and a large impact can often be had for little effort and inconvenience. Multiplied by dozens or even hundreds and thousands of people, a seemingly small change can go a long way.

Over the weekend I connected a tank of the refrigerant R-290 to my gas grill, fired it up, and had some delicious fresh grilled Vermont sweet corn on the cob. Very tasty.

Desalination is an expensive and energy-intensive way to produce fresh water, but for some areas of the world, it is the only available option to support growing populations or to mitigate effects of degrading water resources. Are there opportunities to meet this demand for fresh water in a more energy efficient and cost-effective way?

It’s hard to miss statistics about carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions these days. News stories about CO₂ emissions have grown in frequency as scientists increasingly sound the alarm that anthropogenic global warming is indeed happening at an accelerated rate, largely due to increased CO₂ emissions. For example, a New York Times article in March 2012, “For New Generation of Power Plants, a New Emission Rule From the E.P.A.,” describes new draft standards from the E.P.A. for coal power plant emissions. “The draft rule would limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour,” writes the author. One thousand pounds of carbon dioxide. But what does that look like? Even for engineers, it’s difficult to visualize.