The McKinsey report out today has an extremely detailed analysis of the effects increased energy efficiency in buildings would have on the economy and our energy consumption. It’s an exhaustive study. An abbreviated article about it can be found here, including the link to download the entire report if you want.

DOE Webinar July 28: Measuring and Labeling Home Energy Performance with the EnergySmart Home Scale (E-Scale)

July 20, 2009

The U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Program (BTP) is offering a webinar on Tuesday, July 28 from 12:00-1:00 p.m. EDT titled “Measuring and Labeling Home Energy Performance with the EnergySmart Home Scale (E-Scale).” The E-Scale is an easy-to-understand tool that helps homebuyers and homeowners make smart energy decisions when purchasing, renting, or updating a home.

The presenters will be Edward Pollock, BTP residential team lead, and David Roberts, National Renewable Energy Laboratory senior engineer. They will discuss the benefits of the E-Scale in the process of building, buying, and selling homes.

The webcast is free of charge, but you must register in advance to obtain a URL for the presentation and call-in phone number. Learn more about the webinar.

The E-scale is a much more home-owner friendly HERS visual - it makes the HERS rating look much easier to understand and it is more colorful and friendly.

Santa Fe will start to see many rooftops with solar panels once the City and County determine how to implement the wonderful legislation that New Mexico passed this spring. http://senatorpeterwirth.com/?p=51

But will any be quite as glorious as this one in Milan, due to be completed next year:

This 2.9 million square foot, 18 megawatt array will be the largest (and most beautiful, I think) in the world.

The USGBC has just announced performance requirements for LEED V3 certified buildings. As they say in the press release:

Projects can comply with the performance requirement in one of three ways:
1. The building is recertified on a two-year cycle using LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations &
Maintenance.
2. The building provides energy and water usage data on an on-going basis annually.
3. The building owner signs a release that authorizes USGBC to access the building’s energy and
water usage data directly from the building’s utility provider.

This is a great step in ensuring the value of the LEED program as energy standards become more stringent across the country.

Here is a link to the USGBC website with the press release:    http://www.usgbc.org/

David MacKay has written a fascinating, immensly readable book about the opportunities and realities of sustainable energy. Although it is written with reference to England, it is still extremely relevant to us here in the US. This book is being touted as seminal by just about everyone who studies energy issues and has excellent reviews from most every major news organization in the US and England.

In the true spirit of free information dissemination, MacKay has made his book available for free to read or download from the internet. If you go here:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

you can read it too. I highly recommend it!

Here’s a great blog by Paul Krugman called “Betraying the Planet” :

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?em

At least all of New Mexico’s congresspeople voted in favor of the Climate Act last Friday.