Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green Energy

Yale Environment 360, 8 Sep 09

by

Michael Noble

The U.S can build all the wind turbines and solar arrays it wants, but until it does something about improving its outmoded electricity grid, renewable energy will never reach its potential. What we need is a new electricity transmission system, with the costs shared by all.

As America gets serious about the twin crises of oil dependency and climate change, many analysts believe that wind power — and eventually solar power — will make the largest carbon-free contributions to a new energy supply. But America’s aging electrical transmission system is renewable energy’s Achilles heel, and unless a broad policy consensus to upgrade our electrical grid is forged soon, the potential of wind and solar power will be vastly diminished.

Three things are needed to solve the challenge of renewable energy transmission: good technical planning, permitting and siting processes that can win public support, and broad agreement on how to pay the high cost of new power lines. Of these issues, the last one — gaining agreement on how transmission costs are spread among players — is currently the most contentious. To solve it, policymakers must come up with a plan to allocate these costs as broadly across the electricity system as possible — utilities, renewable energy generators, and consumers — since ultimately the whole system and all its users will benefit from a 21st century grid.

Today, achieving a national consensus on the importance of a better electrical transmission system is the single most important step toward vast expansion of clean, low-cost sources of energy. With every passing day, we can generate more and more energy from wind and solar power. The challenge now is getting it to the population centers where it is most needed.

Wind is the prime renewable energy source in my region of the United States, the Upper Midwest, and last year the U.S. wind market enjoyed massive growth, increasing the country’s total wind power generating capacity by nearly half. New wind energy projects accounted for more than 40 percent of all electric generating capacity added last year, as the U.S. surpassed Germany as the world’s wind power leader. A recent federal study demonstrated how wind energy could grow from 1 percent to 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2030. With automakers and policymakers increasingly agreeing that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are important to U.S. energy security, greening the electric grid is doubly urgent.

To reach this goal, wind turbines would have to be installed across the nation and offshore. However, in many cases the highest quality wind is distant from the most densely populated parts of the country, so a major investment in a more robust grid is essential.

Our current electricity transmission infrastructure — the power lines that stretch across the landscape, the substations, the power poles and distribution lines in America’s cities — is aging and severely strained. Though not on the brink of collapse, it is critical infrastructure that’s completely outdated for an economy that will increasingly run on clean electricity. Many lines and substations are old and operating at full capacity, unable to accept the energy from even a few dozen new wind turbines. Congestion bottlenecks limit the amount of energy that can flow across the landscape, like a multi-lane highway that narrows to a single lane.

Because wind and solar energy are variable in their output, having a strong interconnected grid system boosts the system’s ability to take on more and more renewables. For example, if it’s super-windy in Kansas, we could send the extra energy to Chicago where the wind is calm. Our current web of transmission lines is just not properly sized — or properly located — to allow vast amounts of energy to do that job.

Most Americans know little or nothing about how we manage electricity transmission, plan for it, and pay for it. Not only are these not popular topics for the public, they’re not an issue for most energy and environmental groups.

Here where I live in Minnesota, the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) manages and plans electric transmission in 13 states, from the Dakotas to Indiana. Its job, in part, is to run the electric system fairly and openly — like the interstate highway system — so anyone can get on and move from here to there, without discrimination against any power supplier. MISO is doing an increasingly aggressive and thorough analysis of the transmission upgrades — including beefier lines, new corridors, and new substations — for multiple wind deployment scenarios, including the vision that sees wind as providing at least 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

But MISO and similar agencies can only do so much with our outdated grid, which requires an overhaul involving government and the energy sectors at all levels — local, state, and federal.
The first hurdle is to streamline the permitting process. Wind energy farms can be built in a few months, but securing permission to construct high-voltage transmission lines can take five years or longer. This is not so much a technical problem as a social and political one. Face it: Nobody likes new transmission lines in their community or near their property.

Just last month, the Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC), including the iconic green Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the federal Western Area Power Administration, was forced to pull the plug on a 600-mile transmission project in northern California. I cannot speak to the merits of the line or its need, but there seems to be broad agreement that because the public process was poor, the affected communities essentially killed the project. Transmission proponents often act as if public support is an afterthought, presenting the lines as a fait accompli, and assume the public will simply go along with their assurances that the lines are well sited and critical to the electric system.

Too often the public does not get a real opportunity to clearly understand the purpose of the proposed transmission line, or a meaningful chance to help select the best route. If citizens along the proposed route feel that they are being taken for granted or treated unfairly, they will fight the project rather than shape it. Even a handful of dedicated opponents can delay a necessary transmission line upgrade for years.

The standard argument for opposing new transmission lines is the potential for conservation, rooftop solar, and other community energy solutions. Diversifying our energy sources in these ways is good. But remember that over the next two to three decades we must replace virtually all of America’s existing coal-fired power stations or retrofit them with carbon-sequestration technology (a dubious proposition) if we hope to avoid the most serious consequences of a changing climate. To make this switch without large-scale wind and solar power — and new power lines — will be impossible.

As difficult as siting is, we face an even more urgent problem — fair allocation of the costs of upgrading the grid. In my home state, Minnesota utility Otter Tail Power Company attests that MISO’s current rules for sharing the cost of new transmission to wind farms are unworkable.

Currently, if a wind developer wants to connect to the electric grid of a utility, the wind developer pays half the cost, and the utility pays half. That seems reasonable, but wind energy resources in Otter Tail’s western Minnesota and North and South Dakota service area are so vast that the utility currently has connection requests for wind farms equaling 10 times the utility’s total energy need. To burden Otter Tail Power with these excessive interconnection costs simply doesn’t make sense. Without a fix, Otter Tail threatens to leave the MISO system, opting out of a voluntary wholesale electricity market that is, by all accounts, essential for the economically efficient operation of the U.S. power grid.

Unfortunately, MISO has proposed a remedy that’s worse than the problem. The power generators and transmission owners who have the majority voice in MISO now say that Otter Tail should pay nothing, but the wind developer should pay the whole freight. That proposal is pending at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and a broad campaign is afoot to inform FERC that it’s a non-starter. In fact, it’s a solution guaranteed to stop wind energy development in its tracks.

What’s needed is what FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff has proposed to Congress: to give his agency the authority to broadly allocate the transmission costs throughout regional operating systems, like MISO. We should treat new transmission as a public infrastructure, like natural gas pipelines, bridges or transit, or high-speed rail. The solution is to spread the cost — which will reach many tens of billions of dollars — equitably across all electricity consumers. Not surprisingly, Wellinghoff’s proposal is generating opposition from some utilities and their political supporters. But the role of renewable energy transmission is too important to our energy future to let politics as usual stand in the way.

Over the past few months, parochial interests have hammered away at national grid reform in the House-approved energy legislation awaiting action in the U.S. Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has identified upgrading the grid for renewable electricity as a key priority.

Reid, his colleagues, and federal regulators must make it clear that transmission for clean energy is a pressing national priority — for our security, our economy, and our climate goals — that should be an important component of any climate and energy legislation.

Congress should mandate that the regional independent system operators plan the transmission systems we desperately need. We must have laws that require meaningful public participation in routing of new transmission lines; but environmental opposition must not stop transmission that’s crucial to protect the environment and slow global warming. Finally, our policies must spell out a method of sharing the costs of building a 21st century grid.

If the President, Congress, and FERC act together to create a new transmission system, America will inevitably realize its potential for renewable electricity. Otherwise we will stymie development of the clean energy that could be a cornerstone of America’s economic and environmental future.

This piece originally appeared on Yale Environment 360CC photo credit

The Rights of Future Generations

Some people seem to have a hard time even understanding the concept of the rights of future generations. The idea that people who do not yet exist have the right to assert their needs in our lives is one that seems to be hard to fully grasp.


Think of this example: If someone set a bomb to go off in a public square 100 years from now, is he committing a crime? Should he be stopped? Almost everyone would say yes. Should he be tried before a court of law and prevented from doing further harm? Most of us would agree that he should.


Now, here's the tricky part: climate change is the bomb, and our great-grandkids are the victims. By transgressing planetary boundaries, we are seriously and effectively permanently undermining the ability of the planet to provide the kind of climate stability, ecosystem services and renewable resources that future generations will need to maintain their own societies. In the worst case scenarios, we are in fact dooming many of them to extreme suffering and early death. Life on a planet 10 degrees hotter is not something we would wish to have inflicted on ourselves.


And we don't really have the ethical or legal right to inflict it on our descendants. There is no legitimate basis for thinking that we have the right to use the planet up, that the property rights of our generation trump the human rights of all generations to come.


Put it another way: ethically, our riches are not our own. We hold the planet in trust, and as long as we don't use more of the planet's bounty than can be sustainably provided in perpetuity, we have the ethical right to enjoy the best lives we can create. But the minute we stray into unsustainable levels of consumption, we're not in fact spending our own riches, but those of future people, by setting in motion slow-fuse disasters that will greatly diminish their possibilities.

Unfortunately, nearly everyone in the developed world now enriches their lives at the cost of future generations. As Paul Hawken says, “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it G.D.P."

Now, obviously, most of us did not intend to find ourselves in this situation, and so we have a legitimate argument that we need a reasonable amount of time to change and eliminate our ecological impact. What a reasonable amount of time is, though, is becoming the subject of fierce debate, especially since it's clear that many people's definition of a reasonable time for change is sometime after they're dead.

The really interesting question: if future generations have legal rights -- and it's pretty clear they do -- in what courts might those rights be defended, and how?

Planetary Boundaries and the New Generation Gap

This is a great article I figured I would share with everyone.

by

Alex Steffen,

www.worldchanging.com

June 30th 2009

A sort of generation gap on global issues is emerging around the pace of change. The older generation, especially the older generation of well-heeled white men, today respond to our calls for rapid change by urging "realism" -- meaning an expectation of delayed action and minimal commitment. We saw this most recently in the U.S. debate about the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which both takes effect too slowly and demands too little, in comparison to what we know we need to do based on climate science.

Those of us with a little clearer grasp on reality know that every moment lost now has real consequences. Ecological crises and development challenges are combining in ways that make solving both issues much more difficult with every passing day. Clear thinking people -- and at this moment, polls show, most of us tend to be on the younger side -- get that we do not have decades to act. We hear the clock ticking.

We're about to hear a lot about "planetary boundaries." Planetary boundaries reflect the idea that the limits of the Earth to support human civilization can be measured across several natural systems. They're a scientific attempt to describe the base conditions for global sustainability. If we've going to thrive, we need to figure out how to do it within these limits.

Last year, a group of scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre took a shot at defining those boundaries. They found three hard targets:

Climate Change: Stabilized concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 350 ppm

Stratospheric ozone layer: A decrease of five percent in column ozone levels at a given latitude with respect to 1964-1980 values

Ocean acidity: Concentration of carbonate ions in surface sea water of the Southern Ocean should not fall below 80 µmol per kg-1


In addition, they defined seven other boundaries for which specific hard targets were more difficult to pin down but which nonetheless demanded attention: freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; deforestation; interference with the global nitrogen cycle; terrestrial biodiversity; chemicals dispersion; marine ecosystems.

We're in the process of straying beyond every single one of these boundaries. Of course, each of these boundaries is a massive issue in its own right, the subject of a global debate involving hosts of experts and advocates; but put them together -- as we must, since they are all tied together and affect one another -- and we begin to see just how massive the ecological crisis at hand is.
But, as useful as the concept of planetary boundaries is, it also leaves out another critical interplay, the one between human aspirations and abilities and the very real generational thresholds we face.

We are headed towards a peak population of at least nine billion people shortly after mid-century. Almost all of those people will aspire to greater prosperity, quite reasonably in most cases (I think that trying to talk the world's poor out of their aspirations is a fool's game). That means we need to expect to see billions more people reaching for what they see as the good life.

At the same time, we can't repeat the path to wealth that made the developed world rich. We've already exceeded the planet's biocapacity; we're already beyond the planetary boundaries, meaning that business as usual has prohibitive environmental costs. We're running out of places to dump and spew waste without dire human cost. We've also used up a tremendous share of the planet's easy bounty -- from old trees to cheap oil to big fish to virgin metals -- meaning that conventional resource and energy use will largely come from more and more difficult (and often more and more ecologically costly) stocks. Peak everything will not only make getting rich the old fashioned way more expensive, it will also make it more destructive. The combination of what are technically known as declining stocks (less good stuff to use) and shrinking sinks (fewer places to safely put the bad stuff) will make development far more difficult for the world's poor this century than last.

Adding to that difficulty is the on-going waste of human potential, and the growing costs of lost opportunities to engage the world's poor in transforming their own situations.

Think in terms of medicine for a moment. We're starting to get our heads around the fact that compared to treating disease, preventing them is far cheaper, more effective and happier for the patient. Prevention, though, to a certain degree demands early commitment. Start a lifelong exercise, nutrition and stress-reduction program in your teens, and your results will be profoundly better than someone who starts one at 60 after a lifetime of smoking, eating junk food and working too hard. For that 60 year-old, it's still worth getting healthier, but there are hard limits on how healthy he will ever get.

What applies to medicine also applies to human development, especially now in countries with very young populations: the degree of sustainable prosperity we are capable of achieving depends to some large extent on how good a start we get, how quickly.

Even another two decades of the status quo will make many of our goals nearly impossible.

Needless deaths, injuries, sicknesses and malnutrition today will impose an astronomical cost on us over the coming decades. Missed opportunities to educate children (especially girls) leave lifetimes of limited opportunities. The trauma of conflict and collapse, of natural disasters or of family tragedies, could combine with the strains of living in extreme poverty to leave hundreds of millions with a lifelong difficulties coping. The disillusionment of a generation of young people, who find themselves trapped in corrupt or failing states, or simply shut out of opportunities for dignity and work in the global economy, can turn them away from productive engagement with the problems around them and turn some of them towards extremism and terror. As much as we want to believe in an endless potential for human transformation, the reality is that people's energies, spirits and opportunities for growth are themselves limited resources.

Right now, we're squandering them in mind-boggling volumes, and that waste has costs. With every passing year, the task of raising billions of people out of poverty to become parts of stable, democratic states with functioning economic, legal and health systems becomes more difficult.

And all this while climate vulnerabilities, food shortages and rising energy costs begin to undermine even the progress much of the developing world has managed so far. There are generational thresholds for change, and it is possible to fail to act boldly enough to move through them.

The brutal reality is that failure is possible in human societies as well as in ecological systems. There are points beyond which societal problems start to become effectively impossible to solves. And when you combine the two -- an on-going societal meltdown with massive ecological degradation -- the result can be real, catastrophic failure that lasts for generations, perhaps effectively forever.

Both the planetary boundaries we're exceeding and the generational thresholds we're failing to step through ought to be matters of concern for every person on the planet. We know now that in a thousand extremely practical ways we're all tied together through webs of ecological interdependence, global economics, culture, disease and public health, conflict and terror. It may be possible for large failures to happen while much of the rest of the world improves; some large failures may even be inevitable. But widespread failure to spread stability, human welfare and a reasonable degree of prosperity will ultimately doom any level of progress we make in keeping within our planetary ecological boundaries. And ultimately, a planetary collapse will leave no one -- not even the richest and best situated -- unaffected. Our children's hopes are dependent on the futures other children inherit.

This is why bright green solutions are so important. We here in the developed world need to not only redesign our lives to reduce our own impact; we need to reinvent prosperity itself, so that billions of people around the world can take the innovations we create and make their own versions of sustainable prosperity. And the reality is that it must be us; to think otherwise is to willfully ignore the massive disparity in research funding, institutional capacity and education levels that exists between the wealthy and the poor on this planet. (Besides which, we're responsible for causing many of these problems.)

We must also do it quickly. We need to do it yesterday. We can't simply plan to cut our own impacts down to a level that could be shared by everyone over the next four or five decades.

Even if we had that long a time to reduce our impacts -- and we don't -- there is no way the rest of the word can get stable and sustainably prosperous in that time frame unless we lead the way right now. Anything less than an all-out effort now is morally inexcusable. Small steps, incremental reductions, slow plans -- unless these are tied to big, systemic and quick solutions, they will not be enough. We need a bright green future, right now.

All that is the bad news.

Here's the good news: We can build that bright green future. We have the technological prowess, the design insight and even many of the working examples we need to transform our systems and reinvent our cities. We have the money. We may even be gaining the most needed components, vision and political will.

Here's the better news: Not only can we build it, but we'll be better off when we live in it. We will be better off in a stable world than a collapsing one, rather obviously. (It is a monumental failure of our public debate that our choices are still understood as an option between "going green" and the status quo; when in fact they are transformation or imminent ruin.) But most of the evidence indicates that we will be better off in a bright green future than we are now in our dark gray present: better off in crass material terms, with more disposable income, more comfortable homes, nicer communities and better food, but also better off in terms of quality of life, health, time demands and stress. What we gain outweighs what we lose, by far. Put simply, I believe that in almost every way a bright green future would be a better choice than the status quo, even if there were no planetary crisis at all.

There are plenty of reasons for despair and cynicism these days. But it's really important not to underestimate the power of the politics of optimism, the power of actually having better ideas and answers. They are especially powerful when the people opposing us have nothing whatever to offer besides a white-knuckled grasp on a broken status quo. Their only weapons are fear, uncertainty and doubt. It's time we counter with optimism, vision and examples. We need to counter with a future that works.

In the months leading up to Copenhagen we need to insist on the fierce urgency of now: on why we cannot wait, why we have no more time, why half measures and stalling tactics are no longer acceptable; why, in short, the day for real change has come. We need to make that point ring in the media, in political debates, in our corporate boardrooms, in our community meetings, in our classrooms, in our churches and at our cultural events. Everywhere people talk about who we are and where we are going, we need to loudly demand actual reality-based realism... and a bright green economy.

This summer is the calm before the clamor. This fall, we need to let the world know what time it is.

Why to Go Green: By the Numbers

1 pound per hour: the amount of carbon dioxide that is saved from entering the atmosphere for every kilowatt-hour of renewable energy produced.

60 percent: the reduction in developmental problems in children in China who were born after a coal-burning power plant closed in 2006.

35 percent: the amount of coal's energy that is actually converted to electricity in a coal-burning power plant. The other two-thirds is lost to heat.

2.5 percent: the percentage of humans' carbon dioxide emission produced by air travel now, still making it the largest transportation-related greenhouse gas emitter.

5 percent: the percentage of the world's carbon dioxide emissions expected to be produced by air travel by the year 2050.

1.5 acres: the amount of rainforest lost every second to land development and deforestation, with tremendous losses to habitat and biodiversity.

137: the number of plant, animal and insect species lost every day to rainforest deforestation, equating to roughly 50,000 species per year.

4 pounds, 6 ounces: the amount of cosmetics that can be absorbed through the skin of a woman who wears makeup every day, over the period of one year.

61 percent: the percentage of women's lipstick, out of the 33 tested, found to contain lead in a test by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

36: the number of U.S. states that are anticipating local, regional or statewide water shortages by 2013.

1 out of 100: the number of U.S. households that would need to be retrofitted with water-efficient appliances to realize annual savings of 100 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

3 trillion: the number of gallons of water, along with $18 billion, the U.S. would save each year if every household invested in water-saving appliances.

64 million tons: the amount of material prevented from going to landfill or incineration thanks to recycling and composting in 1999.

95 percent: the amount of energy saved by recycling an aluminum can versus creating the can from virgin aluminum. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can out of new material. Energy savings in one year alone are enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years.

113,204: the number, on average, of aluminum cans recycled each minute of each day.

3: the number of hours a television set can run on the energy saved from recycling just one aluminum can.

40 percent: the percentage of energy saved by recycling newsprint over producing it from virgin materials.

Sources: Consumer Reports, Environmental Health Perspectives, Raintree Nutrition, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and EPA Water and EPA Recycling, Worldwatch Institute, Energy Information Administration, Ready, Set, Green, Earth911.org, The Telegraph, Yahoo! News

This Day In Tech: August 18th, 1868

Helium Discovered During Total Solar Eclipse

By

Hadley Leggett

Wired.com Aug. 18th, 2009

1868: A French astronomer spots an unknown element, now known as helium, in the spectrum of the sun during a much-anticipated total eclipse. The event marks the first discovery of an “extraterrestrial” element, as helium had not yet been found on Earth.

Astronomers had been eagerly awaiting a total solar eclipse since 1859, when German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff figured out how to use the analysis of light to deduce the chemical composition of the sun and the stars. Scientists wanted to study the bright red flames that appeared to shoot out from the sun, now known to be dense clouds of gas called solar prominences. But until 1868, they thought the sun’s spectrum could only be observed during an eclipse.

French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen camped out in Guntoor, India, to watch as the moon passed in front of the sun and revealed the solar prominences. Like other sun-gazers that morning, Janssen discovered that the prominences were mostly made of super-hot hydrogen gas. But he also noticed something extra: Using a special prism instrument called a spectroscope, he determined that the line of yellow light everyone had assumed to be sodium didn’t match up to the wavelength of any known element.

Janssen wanted to keep studying the mysterious line, and he was so impressed by the brightness of the sun’s emission lines that he felt sure they could be seen without an eclipse, if he could just figure out how to block other wavelengths of visible light. Working feverishly over the next few weeks, Janssen built the first “spectrohelioscope,” a device specifically designed to examine the spectrum of the sun.

Unbeknownst to Janssen, a second scientist was also working on the same problem 5,000 miles away. English astronomer Joseph Norman Lockyer succeeded in viewing the solar prominences in regular daylight in October 1868. In stunning scientific synchronicity, the two scientists’ papers arrived at the French Academy of Sciences on the same day, and today both men are credited with the first sighting of helium.

At the time, however, Lockyer and Janssen got ridicule rather than accolades for their discovery. Other scientists didn’t believe the astronomers’ account of a new element … until 30 years later, when Scottish chemist William Ramsay discovered a perplexing earthly gas hidden inside a chunk of uranium ore.

Ramsay sent the sample to Lockyer for confirmation. The scientist was thrilled by the element’s “glorious yellow effulgence,” which he described in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1895. Finally vindicated, Janssen and Lockyer were honored by the French government with a gold medal bearing both their faces.

Really Cool New TV Channel: Planet Green TV

Ever since Advanced Restoration Corp. sent me to the Green Risk Professional Course a few weeks ago, I have been fascinated by the Green Building Movement. It is going to be the future and I have been trying to learn and educate myself as much as I can. Because now that I am a certified Green Risk Professional, that qualifies me to apply to get my LEED Green Associate certification by the United States Green Building Council. Which I am in the process of right now. That is the only LEED certification I am qualified for because to be a LEED AP or even a LEED Builder I have to have some experience working on a LEED green project. As of now I have none. Eventually I will get another certification but I hope to use the LEED Green Associate designation to open the door for me in this new industry. An industry I think all insurance agents, insurance adjusters, and insurance companies should learn more about.

What I wanted to share with everyone was that I found a new channel dedicated to the green movement, Planet Green TV. Now when I say new, I mean new to me. It might have been up for awhile, I have never noticed it before or noticed it but didn't pay it much attention. There are some very interesting shows on there that highlight all the different aspects of the green movement. Here are the links to the shows I have programmed into my DVR:

• Greenovate: Saving over 40% on energy bills while also increasing property value by 25% sounds impossible, but Greenovate shows viewers just how to make this lofty dream a reality in their own households.
• G Word: Being green is no longer just for granola-loving hippies. It's a lifestyle, an attitude, a state-of-mind, and it's shaking up the pop-culture landscape. Forget what you think you know about what being green means and get ready for G Word...
• Renovation Nation: T he green home building movement is unfolding in real time on each hour-long, information-packed episode of Renovation Nation, which answers the burning questions that every homeowner in America has about going green.
• Total Wrecklamation: Wrecklamation follows one determined demolition auctioneer, Jodi Murphy, as she tracks down a treasure trove of Chicago homes doomed for the wrecking ball that are full of recyclable materials she auctions off for deeply discounted prices. Viewers are exposed to the entire demolition auction experience, starting with the house scouting process, where Jodi culls through hundreds of homes to find the rare few that are full of premium content.
• Wa$ted!: This eye-opening half-hour reality series makes shrinking your ecological footprint appealing and virtually effortless. What's an ecological footprint? It's a way of describing the scope of the damage that each household does to the planet. (I have applied to have the Wa$ted show come out and shoot at Advanced Restoration Corp.)
• World's Greenest Homes: Be prepared to be taken deep inside the most stunning eco-friendly dwellings on the planet while watching World's Greenest Homes. Design expert Emmanuel Belliveau guides this whirlwind global tour of breathtaking green and glam residences.

Cablevision offers Planet Green on channel 172, as well as Planet Green HD on 846 as part of its HD service.
Verizon Fios offers Planet Green on channel 168, as well as Planet Green HD on 668 as part of its HD service.
DIRECTV offers Planet Green on channel 286, as well as Planet Green HD (coming soon) as part of its HD service.
DISH Network offers Planet Green on channel 194, as well as Planet Green HD (coming soon) as part of its HD service.
Hope you guys enjoy them and get as much out of them as I have.

"Don't take any s*** from anybody," Billy Joel

Short-Term Green Tips For Home

Here is some short-term quick and easy steps to help you get started on the road to green in your home


Tip 1:"Green" your laundry.
Detergents, fabric softeners and bleaches can be toxic to your family and to the environment. Some surfactants and fragrances in laundry detergents contain hormone-disrupting chemicals that can't always be removed by wastewater treatment plants and end up harming local wildlife. Chlorine bleach is not only poisonous for humans, but can create dangerous byproducts, such as dioxin, when flushed down the drain. Get your clothes clean without all of the pollution by switching to eco-friendlier cleaners. The companies Ecover, Sun & Earth, Seventh Generation and OxyPrime make less-toxic alternatives to traditional laundry detergents. Try nonchlorine bleach such as OxyBoost or Ecover's hydrogen peroxide-based option.

$ Factor: The eco-friendlier detergents and bleaches cost no more than standard products.



Tip 2:A little warmer, a little cooler.
About 47 percent of the average household's annual energy bills stem from heating and cooling. Every degree you raise your thermostat in the summer will reduce air conditioning bills by about 2 percent. Lowering the temperature by one degree in winter will save you 3 percent on heating bills. Regular maintenance and a tune up every two or three years will keep your heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, system operating efficiently, saving energy and money. A programmable thermostat -- excellent for a family that spends a good part of the day at work or school -- will shave 10 percent off your bill.

$ Factor: Adjusting your thermostat is free, easy and can yield big savings. A programmable thermostat starts about $30 and produces an annual savings of about $100.



Tip 3:Switch to cold water.
Almost 90 percent of the energy used to wash clothes is used to heat the water, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Save money and energy. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water, instead of hot, using a detergent formulated for cold-water use.

$ Factor: Turning the dial from hot to warm will cut your energy use by 50 percent per load, and save you up to $63 a year, according to the Alliance to Save Energy.



Tip 4:Line dry -- like grandma used to do.
Dry your clothes on a laundry line rather than throwing them in the dryer. Clothes dyers are the third-largest energy users in the home, behind the refrigerator and washing machine, costing more than $100 a year to operate, according to Project Laundry List.

$ Factor: Drying your clothes on the line can save you as much as $10 a month, said Brad Stroh, co-founder of Bills.com. Laundry lines vary in cost, from about $5 for a simple rope line to $500 or more for deluxe models.



Tip 5:Stop the junk mail.
Each year, 100 million trees are cut down and turned into junk mail, with Americans receiving a total of 400 million tons of it every year. Earthworks Group, an environmental consulting firm, said cutting out junk mail is one of the most effective things people can do to reduce pollution. There are several ways to stop the flow of junk to your house.

$ Factor: For a $15 one-time fee, Green Dimes will send you a junk-mail opt-out kit that will remove your name from mailing lists for junk mail and catalogs. They then monitor the lists to make sure your names stay off of them, potentially reducing your junk mail by 90 percent. Green Dimes also plants 10 trees for each kit sold. Or, you can contact the Direct Marketing Association, and pay a $1 fee to be removed from some mailing lists.



Tip 6: Switch to Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL).
Compact fluorescent bulbs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. They're more expensive than traditional light bulbs, but it only takes about 3 months to make up for the higher sticker price in energy savings.

$ Factor: You will save $85 over the life of the bulb for each 60-watt light bulb you replace with a 15-watt CFL. You'll also save 543 kWh of electricity and reduce your CO2 emissions by 833 pounds.


Tip 7: Kill 'vampire' electricity.
Many appliances use electricity even when they're turned off. It's called a phantom load, or vampire electricity, and as much as 75 percent of the electricity used by home electronics and small appliances is used while they're turned off. The Ohio Consumers Council estimates that it costs consumers $40 to $100 a year.

$ Factor: The simple solution is to unplug small appliances and electronics when you aren't using them. Or, plug them into a power strip and turn the power strip off when you aren't using those items. Power strips cost $10 to $20 each, and can save you up to $100 a year, depending on how many electronics you have. Simply unplugging one television, computer monitor and fax machine when you aren't using it will save you about $6 a month, Stroh said.



Tip 8: Set up a compost bin.
Composting is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to reduce the amount of garbage your household produces. Through composting, yard waste such as leaves, grass clippings and food wastes such as vegetable scraps can be turned into a nutrient-rich soil amendment that reduces the need for commercial chemical fertilizers in home gardens.

$ Factor: Compost bins vary in cost, from a few dollars for a simple, homemade bin up to several hundred dollars for a ready-made system. Composting at home can make a significant dent in household waste. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, estimates that about 25 percent of the 245 million tons of garbage going into U.S. landfills come from yard clippings and food.



Tip 9: Run full dishwasher loads.
You'll save up to 20 gallons of water per load, or 7,300 gallons a year. That's as much water as the average person drinks in a lifetime.


$ Factor: You can save even more money by running your dishwasher during off-peak hours, usually from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Many utility companies offer off-peak energy rates. And don't pre-rinse if your dishwasher can handle it.



Tip 10: Don't preheat.
Don't bother if you are broiling, roasting or baking a dish that will cook for an hour or more. Don't preheat for more than 10 minutes for breads and cakes. And when roasting meats or baking casseroles, turn off the oven 10 minutes to 15 minutes before cooking time runs out; food will continue to cook without using the extra electricity.

$ Factor: By reducing the time your oven is on by one hour per year, you'll save an average of 2 kWh of energy. If 30 percent of U.S. households did this, 60 million kWh of energy could be saved.



Tip 11:Watch that pot.
Use the right-size pot on your burners.

$ Factor: You could save about $36 annually for an electric range or $18 for gas.



Tip 12:Filter your water.
Buy a water filter for your kitchen faucet and put to good use yet another way to do away with those plastic water bottles that are clogging landfills and burning up energy in recycling plants. About 1.5 million tons of plastic are used on the bottling of 89 billion liters of drinking water each year.

$ Factor: You can buy a water filter for as little as $29, or about a month's worth of bottled water.



Tip 13: Don't run while you brush.
Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth. You'll conserve up to five gallons of water per day -- which could add up to 1.5 billion gallons that could be saved across the country each day -- more than enough for all of New York City.

$ Factor: You could save time and money on water, up to 1,825 gallons of water per person each year. This much water would fill your bathtub more than 35 times. A family of four could save almost 7,500 gallons a year.



Tip 14: No hint of lint.
Clean your dryer lint screen with every use and don't overload the dryer.

$ Factor: You'll save up to 5 percent on your electricity bill -- which could mean an energy-equivalent savings of 350 million gallons of gasoline per year if everyone did this. Also, run your dryer during off-peak hours. Check with your utility company to see if they offer discounted rates during off-peak hours and verify when those hours are. Better yet, use a clothesline.



Tip 15: From warm to cold.
Set warm wash and cold rinse cycles and save 90 percent of the energy used when using hot water only. And run your washer during off-peak hours.

$ Factor: Together, all U.S. households could save the energy equivalent of 100 thousand barrels of oil a day by switching from hot-hot to warm-cold cycles. Check with your utility company to see if they offer any discounted rates during off-peak hours.




Tip 16:Use low-flow water devices.
Wherever you use water, there's a low-flow device to fit it -- from hose nozzles, to showerheads, to faucet aerators. Handy products, such as the WaterMiser Waterbroom, use water and air pressure to remove dirt from outdoor surfaces, reducing water use by up to 60 percent. Low-flow nozzles save about 5 gallons a minute for a standard garden hose, and a low-flow showerhead uses as little as 2.5 gallons of water or less each minute and would save 25 gallons of water per 10-minute shower. Toilets made after 1996 use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush, while earlier versions can use from 3.5 to 7 gallons.

$ Factor: Low-flow hose nozzles cost less than $20; showerheads cost about $12 at home-improvement stores. Low-flow items can save you about 750 gallons of water each month per person in showers alone. They also cut your hot-water heating bills by up to 50 percent. New toilets -- from as little as $100 -- can reduce water use by up to 73 percent per flush. An even cheaper tactic: Put a water displacement bag -- about $2 -- or even a 2-liter plastic bottle filled with water in the tank away from the mechanism and you'll save almost a gallon of water per flush. Faucet aerators cost about $2 each and can cut water use from as much as 2.75 gallons per minute to as little as half a gallon a minute. Households using low-flow aerators save an average of 1,700 gallons of water each year.



Tip 17: Watch the Watts.
Gadgets such as the Kill-A-Watt and the Watt Minder help you find the biggest energy users in your home. Plug an appliance into one of these devices and it will tell you how much energy it uses per hour, month, or year, and how much it's costing you.

$ Factor: Wattage meters cost about $20 to $30. If you are interested in the bigger picture, rather than monitoring one device at a time, the Power Cost Monitor tracks, in real-time, the electricity use in your entire house and shows how much it is costing you. The monitor costs about $130 and attaches to your electric meter.



Tip 18:Make your own cleaners.
Household chemicals, including some cleaners, contain volatile organic chemicals, which contribute to indoor air pollution and may cause disease. A cost-effective way to make your home greener is to make your own household cleaners. Many homemade cleaners use non-toxic ingredients and clean just as well as commercial cleaners.

$ Factor: Making your own cleaner costs about 10 percent of the price a bottle of commercial cleaner, according to Karen Logan, author of "Clean House, Clean Planet." She says a bottle of her all-purpose cleaner costs 23 cents to make, versus a price tag of $2.69 for the off-the-shelf equivalent. If making your own cleaners isn't an option, look for cleaners carrying the Green Seal. Green Seal is a nonprofit organization that certifies products based on their environmental impact, biodegradability and other factors.



Tip 19:Reuse your water.
Water is a precious commodity, and too much of it goes down the drain. Install a rain barrel that attaches to your downspouts and collect rainwater off your roof. Rainwater is relatively free of contaminants and can be used instead of tap water for all kinds of outdoor uses: watering gardens and lawns, cleaning sidewalks and washing the car. Add to the benefit by reusing your gray water -- the waste water from doing dishes, laundry and showering. It's fine for watering plants.

$ Factor: Rain barrels cost $100 to $300 and collect from 50 to 100 gallons of water each. Savings on your water bill will likely be nominal. Recycling gray water can be as simple as reusing the water last night's pasta dinner boiled in to water your plants. More sophisticated systems, such as the Aqus from WaterSaver Technologies, disinfects, stores then and reuses the water from your bathroom sink to flush the toilet. It costs about $200 and reduces wastewater by up to 5,000 gallons per year in a typical household.



Tip 20:Zap your meals.
Microwaves are between 3.5 and 4.8 times more energy efficient than traditional electric ovens. Cooking and reheating with a microwave is faster and more efficient than the stovetop or oven.

$ Factor: Cooking with microwaves can reduce up to 70 percent of energy use for cooking. What's more, using microwaves extends the life of your oven significantly. And one more thing: Cleaning a microwave oven is a snap and saves even more of the cash you would spend on energy with a self-cleaning oven or on toxic-chemical oven cleaners.



Tip 21:Get picky on phosphates.
Pick laundry detergents without phosphates, which deplete the oxygen in water and as a result kill aquatic life. And while you're at it, buy only powdered detergent in cardboard packaging as opposed to a liquid in plastic packaging. The liquid contains water, which you already have, so it takes more fuel to ship that heavier container of detergent and water, not to mention the energy and petroleum used to manufacture the plastic container. The cardboard container also requires energy and resources to produce, but many are now made from post-consumer recycled paper and the trees they originate from are a renewable resource.

$ Factor: The cost-per-load comes out pretty much the same for powder and liquid, so going with the non-phosphate powders give you the chance to help the planet without any real cost to you.



Tip 22:Use commercial car washes.
Getting your car washed at a commercial car wash is better for the environment than doing it yourself. C ommercial car washes not only use significantly less water per wash -- up to 100 gallons less -- but they often recycle and reuse the rinse water.

$ Factor: If every American who currently washes a vehicle at home chose instead to go to a professional care wash -- just once -- up to 8.7 billion gallons of water could be saved, and some 12 billion gallons of soapy polluted water could be diverted from the country's rivers, lakes and streams.



Tip 23:Clean air filters.
Check air conditioning filters monthly to either clean or replace them. This will help the unit run more efficiently. Better yet: buy a permanent filter that can be washed and re-used. This will save you money over the long run and keep all those disposable filters out of landfills. If your unit is outdoors, check to make sure the coils are not obstructed by debris, plants or shrubs.

$ Factor: Clogged filters can make electric bills skyrocket and eventually cause extensive, expensive damage to your air handler.

LEED for Homes Point Categories

The LEED for Homes voluntary rating system awards certification based on point totals in eight categories. (Download the checklist for point requirements.) The categories and requirements are developed through a rigorous consensus-based process, including a period of USGBC member balloting.

Innovation & Design Process
Location & Linkages
Sustainable Sites
Water Efficiency
Energy & Atmosphere
Materials and Resources
Indoor Environmental Quality
Awareness & Education

Innovation & Design Process
Sustainable design strategies and measures are constantly evolving and improving. New technologies are continually introduced to the marketplace, and up-to-date scientific research influences building design strategies. Occasionally, a strategy results in building performance that greatly exceeds that required in an existing LEED credit. Other strategies may not be addressed by any LEED prerequisite or credit but warrant consideration for their sustainability benefits.

Green home-building strategies and techniques are most effectively implemented as part of an integrated design process, with input from individuals involved in each phase of the project. Good design can keep costs down and ensure proper integration of green techniques and achievement of project goals.

One aspect of home design that is often overlooked is the assessment and mitigation of long-term durability risks to the home. Durability failures are a significant cost and cause of stress for both builders and homeowners, but many easy and low-cost strategies are often overlooked because builders do not consider durability in the up-front design.

The Innovation & Design Process (ID) credit category encourages project planning and design to improve the coordination and integration of the various elements in a green home.

Credits can be earned for innovative designs, exemplary performance or regional best-practices that can be shown to produce quantifiable environmental and human health benefits.

The three Innovation & Design Process credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System are:

Integrated Project Planning
Durability Management Process
Innovative or Regional Design.


Location & Linkages
Home-building projects have substantial site-related environmental effects, in terms of both the impact to the site itself and the impacts that stem from the location of the site. The Sustainable Sites credit category focuses on the former; Location & Linkages addresses how builders can choose site locations that promote environmentally responsible land-use patterns and neighborhoods.

Location & Linkages (LL) credits reward builders for selecting home sites that have more sustainable land-use patterns and offer advantages over conventional developments. Land is used more efficiently, reducing the acreage needed for new housing. Fragmentation of farmland and forest and other natural areas is minimized. Well-sited developments need less infrastructure, especially roads and water and sewer lines. And such developments promote a range of sustainable transportation options, including walking, cycling and mass transit, thereby reducing dependence on personal automobiles.

LL credits can be earned in either of two ways:

Pathway 1: LL 1, LEED for Neighborhood Development.
The LEED for Neighborhood Development program certifies “smart-growth” housing development. The pilot phase of this program is expected to conclude in late 2008, after which new projects can register and receive credit for selecting a home site in a certified development.

Pathway 2: LL 2–6.
Projects that either cannot or choose not to participate in the LEED for Neighborhood Development program can earn points in this category by pursuing the following strategies:

LL 2: Site Selection
LL 3: Preferred Locations
LL 4: Infrastructure
LL 5: Community Resources
LL 6: Access to Open Space


Sustainable Sites
Green building goes beyond the built structures because the use of the site and its natural elements can have a significant environmental impact. The Location & Linkages category awards projects for choosing a preferable site; the Sustainable Sites category awards projects for minimizing site impacts.

Early decisions about how to incorporate the home into the site can have significant long-term effects on local and regional ecosystems, as well as demand for water, chemicals and pesticides for site management. Good design decisions can result in attractive, easy-to-maintain landscaping that protects native plant and animal species and contributes to the health of local and regional habitats.

Depending on how a home is integrated into the site, normal rainfall can be a problem, causing soil erosion and run-off of chemicals and pesticides or an opportunity to offset potable water demand and recharge underground aquifers. Surrounding plants can be a burden, requiring regular upkeep, watering and chemicals, or an enhancement that provides shade, aesthetic value, habitat for native species and a mechanism for absorbing carbon and enriching the soil.

Site design should take into consideration the aesthetic and functional preferences of the occupants, but also long-term management needs, preservation principles and potential impacts on local and regional ecosystems.

The six Sustainable Sites (SS) credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System:

Site Stewardship
Landscaping
Local Heat Island Effects
Surface Water Management
Non-toxic Pest Control
Compact Development


Water Efficiency
In the United States, approximately 340 billion gallons of fresh water is withdrawn per day from rivers and reservoirs to support residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and recreational activities. This accounts for about one-fourth of the nation’s total supply of renewable fresh water. Almost 65 percent of this water is discharged to rivers, streams and other water bodies after use and, in some cases, treatment.

Additionally, water is withdrawn from underground aquifers. In some parts of the United States, water levels in these aquifers have dropped more than 100 feet since the 1940s.

On an annual basis, the water deficit in the United States is currently estimated at about 3,700 billion gallons. In other words, Americans extract 3,700 billion gallons per year more than they return to the natural water system to recharge aquifers and other water sources.

Water for domestic use may be delivered from a public supplier or be self-supplied isby a well. Self-supplied domestic withdrawals are an estimated 3,590 million gallons per day.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 mandated the use of water-conserving plumbing fixtures and fittings to reduce water use in residential, commercial and institutional buildings. Water efficiency measures in new homes can easily reduce water usage by 30% or more. In a typical home, savings of 30,000 gallons of water a year can be achieved very cost-effectively. This results in average annual water utility savings of about $100 per year.

As communities grow, increased demand for water leads to additional maintenance and higher costs for municipal supply and treatment facilities. New homes that use water efficiently have lower water use fees and reduced sewage volumes. Many water conservation strategies involve either no additional cost or rapid paybacks; biological wastewater treatment, rainwater harvesting and gray water plumbing systems, on the other hand, often involve more substantial investment.

The Water Efficiency (WE) category in the LEED for Homes Rating System has three kinds of credits:

Water Reuse
Irrigation Systems
Indoor Water Use

Energy & Atmosphere
Data from the home-building industry indicate that close to 1.5 million new homes are built each year, and that the average size of new homes has doubled in the past 50 years. As a result, total U.S. fossil energy use in homes has been steadily increasing. The average American consumes five times more energy than the average global citizen, 10 times more than the average Chinese person, and nearly 20 times more than the average Indian.

Conventional fossil-based generation of electricity releases carbon dioxide, which contributes to global climate change. Coal-fired electric utilities emit almost one-third of the country’s anthropogenic nitrogen oxides, the precursor of smog, and two-thirds the sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain. They also emit more fine particulate material than any other activity in the United States. Because the human body is incapable of clearing fine particles from the lungs, these emissions are contributing factors in tens of thousands of cancer and respiratory illness-related deaths annually. Natural gas, nuclear fission and hydroelectric generators all have adverse environmental impacts as well. Natural gas is a major source of nitrogen oxides and greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power increases the potential for catastrophic accidents and raises significant waste transportation and disposal issues. Hydroelectric generating plants disrupt natural water flows, resulting in disturbance of habitat and depletion of fish populations.
Buildings consume approximately 37% of the energy and 68% of the electricity produced in the United States annually, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2006, total emissions from residential buildings were responsible for 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or 20% of the U.S. total.

Scientists predict that left unchecked, emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from human activities will raise global temperatures by 2.5ºF to 10ºF over the 21st century. The effects will be profound and may include rising sea levels, more frequent floods and droughts and increased spread of infectious diseases. To address the threat of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions must be slowed, stopped and reversed. Meeting the challenge will require dramatic advances in technologies and a shift in how the world economy generates and uses energy.

Absent significant improvements in environmental performance, the residential building sector will be a major contributor of global CO2 emissions. Homes have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years, during which they continually consume energy and produce CO2 emissions. Further, the U.S. population and economy are projected to grow significantly over the coming decades, increasing the need for new homes. To meet this demand, approximately 12 million new homes are projected to be constructed by 2015.

Building green homes is one of the best strategies for meeting the challenge of climate change because the technology to make substantial reductions in energy and CO2 emissions already exists. The average certified LEED home uses 30% to 40% less electricity and saves more than 100 metric tons of CO2 emissions over its lifetime. Modest investments in energy-saving and other climate-friendly technologies can yield homes and communities that are healthier, more comfortable, more durable, energy efficient and environmentally responsible places to live.


Materials & Resources
The choice of building materials is important for sustainable homebuilding because of the extensive network of extraction, processing and transportation they require. Activities to produce building materials may pollute the air and water, destroy natural habitats and deplete natural resources. Construction and demolition wastes constitute about 40% of the total solid waste stream in the United States. Good design decisions, particularly in the framing of homes, can significantly reduce demand for framing materials, as well as the associated waste and embedded energy. Without even changing the home design, a project can save framing materials and reduce site waste by planning appropriately and communicating the design to the framing team through detailed framing documents and/or scopes of work.

Sources should be evaluated when materials are selected for a project. Reclaimed (i.e., salvaged post-consumer) materials can be substituted for new materials, saving costs and reducing resource use. Recycled-content materials reuse waste products that would otherwise be deposited in landfills. Use of local materials supports the local economy and reduces the harmful impacts of long-distance transport. Use of third-party-certified wood promotes good stewardship of forests and related ecosystems. Use of low-emitting materials will improve the indoor air quality in the home and reduce demand for materials with added volatile, toxic compounds.An increasing number of public and private waste management operations have reduced construction debris volumes by recycling these materials. Recovery activities typically begin at the job site, with separation into multiple bins or disposal areas. In some areas, regional recycling facilities accept commingled waste and separate the recyclable materials from those that must go to the landfill. These facilities can achieve waste diversion rates of 80% or greater.

The Materials & Resources (MR) category in the LEED for Homes Rating System has three components:

Material-Efficient Framing
Environmentally Preferable Products
Waste Management



Indoor Environmental Quality
Americans spend on average 90% of their time indoors, where levels of pollutants may run two to five times — and occasionally more than 100 times — higher than outdoors, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Similarly, the World Health Organization reported in its Air Quality Guidelines for Europe that most of an individual's exposure to many air pollutants comes through inhalation of indoor air. Many of the pollutants found indoors can cause health reactions in the estimated 17 million Americans who suffer from asthma and 40 million who have allergies, contributing to millions of days absent from school and work.

Homeowners are just beginning to realize the link between their health and their homes. Hazardous household pollutants may include carbon monoxide, radon, formaldehyde, mold, dirt and dust, pet dander, and residue from tobacco smoke and candles. Many homeowners also store various chemicals inside their homes as well, including pesticides, fertilizers, solvents, grease, oils, degreasers, gasoline, antifreeze, strong detergents, thinners and oil-based paints.
Over the past 20 years, research and experience have improved our understanding of what is involved in attaining high indoor environmental quality and revealed manufacturing and construction practices that can prevent problems from arising. Preventing indoor air quality problems is generally much less expensive than identifying and solving them after they occur. Generally, there are three types of strategies: source removal, source control and dilution.

Source removal is the most practical way to ensure that harmful chemical compounds are not brought into the home. Evaluating the properties of adhesives, paints, carpets, composite wood products and furniture and selecting materials with low levels of potentially irritating off-gassing can reduce occupant exposure. Scheduling deliveries and sequencing construction activities can reduce exposure of materials to moisture and absorption of off-gassed contaminants. (Low-emissions materials are addressed under Materials & Resources.)

Source control strategies focus on capturing pollutants that are known to exist in a home. For example, filtering the supply air stream removes particulates that would otherwise be continuously recirculated through the home. Protection of air-handling systems during construction and a building flushout prior to occupancy further reduce the potential for problems.

Dilution involves the use of fresh outside air to ventilate a home and exhaust pollutants to the outdoors. This may also help control moisture within the home. Most new homes in the United States do not have mechanical fresh-air ventilation systems. The typical air-handling systems in new homes merely recirculate the air within the home, continuously pumping indoor pollutants through the home rather than exhausting them.

Another aspect of indoor air quality is occupant comfort. The proper installation of automatic sensors and controls to maintain proper temperature, humidity and ventilation in occupied spaces helps maintain optimal air quality. Surprisingly, sensors to alert a home’s occupants to deadly carbon monoxide concentrations are frequently not required by current codes but should be included in all new homes. Letting occupants fully and effectively control their thermal environment can reduce hot-cold complaint calls and generally raise satisfaction levels.

The Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) credit category encourages builders to prevent air pollution and improve air quality and comfort in the homes they build.

Alternative Compliance PathwaysThe two parallel pathways through the 10 EQ credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System are illustrated in Table 1 and summarized below.

Pathway 1: ENERGY STAR with Indoor Air Package

Projects that participate in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR with Indoor Air Package initiative automatically qualify for 13 points. Up to 7 additional points are available if the following credits are also completed:

EQ 4.2: Enhanced Outdoor Air Ventilation
EQ 5.2: Enhanced Local Exhaust
EQ 5.3: Third-Party Testing
EQ 7.2 or 7.3: Better or Best Air Filters
EQ 8.2: Indoor Contaminant Control

Pathway 2: Prescriptive Approach

The following strategies can earn points in this credit category:

EQ 2: Combustion Venting
EQ 3: Moisture Control
EQ 4: Outdoor Air Ventilation
EQ 5: Local Exhaust
EQ 6: Distribution Systems
EQ 7: Air Filtering
EQ 8: Contaminant Control
EQ 9: Radon Protection
EQ 10: Garage Pollutant Protection


Awareness & Education
The LEED for Homes Rating System addresses the design and construction of new green homes — roles that are the responsibility of the home designer and the builder, respectively. But the environmental impact of a home continues throughout its life-cycle, well beyond the initial design and construction decisions. Most new homes are expected to last 50 to 100 years, during which the occupants will consume energy, water and other resources. They therefore play a substantial role in the resource use of a home over its lifetime.

Some homebuyers may know very little about green home construction. They may be unaware of the green features in the home, or they may be unfamiliar with how to use and maintain them. Without adequate training, the full benefits of the LEED measures likely will not be achieved.

This credit category promotes broad awareness among homebuyers and tenants that LEED homes are built differently and need to be operated and maintained accordingly. Because the operations and maintenance tasks in multifamily buildings may be performed by a building manager, this credit also addresses the need for appropriate education of building managers.

The two Awareness & Education (AE) categories in the LEED for Homes Rating System are Education of the Homeowner or Tenant and Education of the Building Manager.

How Politics, Backstabbing Can Ruin the Office

by

Ambrose Clancy

Long Island Business News

Published: August 7, 2009

A veteran devil gives an apprentice in the trade a description of hell on earth, telling him to picture a place “where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance and resentment.”

The devil, in C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters,” is talking about a bureaucratic office, and if any of the above dysfunction describes where you work, take cold comfort, you’re not alone.
Ellen Cooperperson, president of Hauppauge’s Corporate Performance Consultants, said in her 25-year career she’s calculated that 80 percent of offices are dysfunctional, with that figure backed up by management research.

We asked her and other experts why good places go bad.

Nobody’s Talkin’
Cooperperson consulted on the Bank of New York-Mellon Financial merger in the summer of 2007. A chief concern was how the newly combined company would function once the bell rang on Wall Street. But people at both firms panicked they’d be pink slipped or, if they survived, what roles they’d have, who they would report to, etc. The panic was expressed by deafening silence.

So Cooperperson invited employees into a room where six elephant piñatas hung.

“Literally making them recognize the elephants in the room,” Cooperperson said. “After smashing them, everyone’s concerns were addressed.”

She described offices as a “network of conversations,” and healthy offices embrace debate as part of those conversations. Fear of debate means a lack of trust; with no debate, gossiping and backbiting are the only conversations remaining. Therefore managers have to upgrade the quality of those conversations.

Trust has to be established by management, but the employee can take the bull by the horns, said Vicky Oliver, author of “Bad Bosses, Crazy Co-Workers & Other Office Idiots.”

“Nothing’s served by being passive. Don’t ignore situations,” Oliver said.
'
Matthew Cordaro, Dean of Dowling College’s Townsend School of Business believes in regularly scheduled meetings.

“And nothing should be sugarcoated,” he said, meaning the present and the future of the organization must be discussed regularly. Another toxic form of communication is private huddling and criticizing people not present.

Fish Rot From the Head Down
Leaders are responsible for an office’s atmosphere, and a poisonous office usually means no accountability at the top, Cooperperson said.

“The ultimate consequence of avoiding accountability is inattention to results until it becomes systemic,” she said. “Goals are not achieved but there are a lot of excuses why.”

Robert Riggio, author of “The Practice of Leadership,” has written about clueless leaders such as the one played by Steve Carell on TV’s “The Office,” who are blind to an awful situation. Then there are managers who simply don’t care. They’re worse, since they delegate poorly and reward incompetency.

Cordaro believes leaders must fight for their people. He recalled 1987 when the Long Island Lighting Co. was melting down, and how employees suffered from the company’s terrible image. Leaders ignored staff morale and that made the situation even more catastrophic.

Another leader working the dark side is one who believes in the concept of divide and rule, said Robert Bornstein, a professor at Adelphi’s Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies.

“Pitting staff members against each other to motivate them creates sibling rivalry and is a great distraction,” Bornstein said. “There’s confusion about roles and responsibilities.”

It’s the System, Stupid
Cooperperson once had an assignment to work with an aloof and arrogant manager running sales at the Long Island headquarters of an international corporation. She found a division with such resistance to this manager that people were making fun of him to the point where an unofficial part of orientation for new hires included hearing negative stories about him.

“It was a mutiny, with the office dead in the water,” she said.

The solution was to work with the manager, who made amends and then took on the larger challenge of “fixing” the organization.

“When someone says, ‘Fix him,’ I know it’s a much larger problem,’” Cooperperson said.

No Plan, Stan
“A good office takes a lot of work, but it also takes a theory,” Bornstein said. “It’s not just being clear, communicative and consistent in your behavior, but having an underlying framework for what you do.”

There are two successful approaches, he added, one Japanese and one American.

“A successful Japanese office is where everyone is nurtured,” Bornstein said, referring to studies published in “Psychology Applied to Work,” by Paul Muchinsky.

A successful American model is one where goals are crystal clear and incentives are completely spelled out and delivered.

In an MBA program run by Professor James Freeley at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, students study Continuous Process Improvement, a technique that constantly identifies the causes of problems, avoiding the need to merely put out fires all week long. One of CPI’s principles is a Japanese principle known as “kaizen,” which means every person in the office is involved in problem solving. Most importantly, no blame is assessed for problems. The focus is entirely about finding a solution. CPI is also forward looking, and thus helps avoid dead ends or over-the-cliff disasters in offices. It also strives to remove all work that has no positive impact on the organization’s goals.

But office systems are like exercise; no matter if you practice yoga or jumping jacks, it’s not going to work unless it’s done every day and reviewed regularly.

Principally It’s About Principals
Leaders have to set an example by acting ethically, not only with all of their employees but with everyone who interacts with the office, Cordaro said.

“Being successful is of course essential, and having a good reputation as a principled company creates a good working environment to achieve that success,” he said.

Silk Purse From A Sow’s Ear
How do you remediate a toxic office? Author Oliver believes offices should start with the concept that youth must be served. Serious mentoring programs should be installed to keep the office from devouring its young.

“It’s enormously important for a young person to find an older person who takes an interest in their career development,” she said. And it focuses on both the veteran employee and the newbie.

“Mentoring should be part of the organizational system, but unfortunately, in most offices, it’s not.”

Cooperperson believes “courageous conversations” should commence immediately.

“People are scared in the beginning,” she said. “It’s, ‘Oh, my God, we’re going to have to tell the truth?’ But you must get the old conversations, the old stories out of the way and put them to rest to make way for the future.”

Paul Brennan, Prudential Douglas Elliman Hampton’s regional manager, said a real estate office differs in some ways from other offices, but there are enough similarities to learn something.

“Changing an office full of wounded egomaniacs is difficult,” Brennan said. “You have to be an example and practice humility to keep people’s egos in check.”

If the theory of squeaky wheels getting the grease is in place, it will be a chaotic mess. “That’s a nightmare when everyone catches on to it,” Brennan said. “You have to be fair to everyone and turn it around by again acting with some humility.”

And if that doesn’t work?

“Get yourself into therapy,” Brennan said.

What Does 'Green' Really Mean?

If trying to figure out what "green" means is causing you to see red, you're hardly alone.

For two decades, words like "natural," "organic" and "recycled" have been used to attract the interest of eco-conscious consumers. "Green" is the new tag to promote everything from paper to building materials that are good for — or from — the environment.

But for consumers, it can be almost impossible to tell exactly what "green" means.

"There's no 'green' stamp of approval that we all agree on at this time," says Nicole Goldman, owner of 'g' Green Design Center in Mashpee Commons. Her store sells green products of all kinds for the home, from building and furnishing materials to biodegradable trash-can liners and light bulbs, towels, cleansers and fabric. But, in general, for a product to be considered green, she says, it has to be ecologically sound, healthy, energy-efficient, renewable, reusable, have recyclable content or be highly durable.

Part of energy-efficiency, too, involves not only the amount of fossil fuels it might take to use a product but also to produce or transport it.

Consumers are starting to get interested, and the bigger picture encompasses climate change, overburdened landfills, increasing energy costs, water scarcity, and diminishing air quality.

Connect all those dots, and you can see a huge potential, not just in the U.S. but globally.

You hear a lot of talk about saving the environment in the news, on talk shows and just about everywhere you turn these days. Terms like "green friendly", "green energy" and "green technology" are often used among others. What do these "green" terms really mean?

The sole purpose of "going green" is to use products and methods that won't negatively impact the environment with pollution or deplete natural resources. While there is still some skepticism about the dangers of global warming no one can't doubt the fact that pollution and diminished resources can (and has) affect on the delicate balance of the planet our very lives depend on.

While the debate over the future consequences continues more people are siding in favor of preservation over risk. Choosing alternative methods or other options that eliminate or reduce the need for natural resources can only result in a positive outcome, regardless of belief, so it's the responsible choice.

Some simple "green friendly" changes are easy to do and can be done with little or no sacrifice. Certain changes can actually enhance the quality of life and not diminish it as some fear.

One good example of taking advantage of the green living lifestyle is paperless billing. When a bill has to be mailed trees are destroyed to create the paper. In addition fuel and natural resources are used to manufacture the paper. Electronic billing online completely eliminates the need to destroy any trees and use natural resources for production. Online billing is easy, convenient and sensible option.

Other examples is the use of eco-friendly supplies such as bamboo flooring or supplies made of recycled goods. More cost effective measures are using thermostat and light timers and energy efficient CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs.

Green and clean products for household use such as lemon juice, baking soda and vinegar are excellent natural cleaning substitutes for harsh chemicals. Many times simple and environmentally eco friendly supplies are less expensive too so there is a two-fold advantage.

If we all do a little something toward the goal of achieving a "green" and healthy environment it will go a long way to stop the detrimental effects of the past and produce a better future for all of us.

Years ago no one seemed overly concerned about the environment. I've always been a little frugal so I always thought it made sense not to waste but I didn't impose my beliefs on anyone. In recent years since these issues have come to the forefront I'm glad to see more people who want to do their part to help. I've dedicated three web sites to the green living causes, eco friendly supplies and green and clean ideas for the home.

I am an avid reader and researcher. I like to learn about new things. I don't claim to know it all but I know about a lot of topics and I'm learning more all the time.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Insuring Green Risks

Industry Questions

The "Green Revolution" has brought about many changes to not only the building industry but to others including the insurance sector. The insurance industry is certainly not without questions when it comes to insuring green risks. Which companies are going to underwrite these risks? What coverage will be available? What are the unknowns with insuring green risks? What outcomes can we predict? Will new types of claims result from these exposures? Will insurance professionals need formal training for green risks? I can go on and on with these questions but the state of the current building iindustry requires answers from insurers. Green risks are here NOW and building owners, property managers, risk managers and the restoration industry among others are looking at the insurance industry NOW to offer market solutions to the very special characteristics of these green risks.

The level of "green" involvement by the insurance industry ranges from two extremes: those doing absolutely nothing to companies selling policies created to specifically insure the materials, methods, and processes featured in green risks. In the middle there are insurers who have begun to encourage some green measures in only their business operations (recycling, carpools, van pools, etc...) while others are in the early stages of researching and developing green insurance products to offer their clients. Those companies who are ahead of the others in this market are already offering some kind of coverage, i.e. Travelers, CHUBB, and Farmers insurance companies.

Even for those writing green policies, there may be questions lurking. Frankly, insuring green risks is new territory for the industry and insurers will need time and experience protecting these risks to truly understand all their implications and be able to accurately rate these policies. It is reasonable to say that no one has the clear answers yet on what outcome the insurance industry will see. Will total claim expenses be lower on these risks than non-green ones? Will premiums be lower on green risks compared to non-green risks? Will green buildings/homes harm non-green buildings/home values by making them obsolete? What issues will be tested in court over green coverage?

For the claims professional assigned a loss on a green risk, there will be questions? Is there a green policy in effect? What special provisions does it offer? are limits adequate to rebuild a green risk in the event of a large catastrophic loss? What special expenses will the insurance policy in force cover? will commissioning or recommissioning expenses be covered? Will the policy cover re-certification costs on green risks? will the policy cover added delays to in rebuilding due to the re-certification process? Will qualified restoration contractors in green buildings and green programs be available? Again, the list of questions could go on and unfortunately some of the answers to these questions must come later after the industry is more committed and claim experience develops. It may be too unrealistic to suggest that claim issues we face today won't be the same exact issues we will address in a few years as this section of the market evolves, adapts, and matures. As long as the industry can offer consistent reasonable coverage for green risks at a reasonable premium, then green insurance should expand and be around as long as green risks remain. What must happen in the meantime to get us there is yet another question.

Insurance Industry Response

The following is just a snapshot of products being offered by property insurers in the United States. The following review of policies/endorsements should help illustrate the current types of coverages in the market. Some insurers offer green policies or endorsements at additional premium and may require other underlying coverage. It is important to mention the products offered by various insurers are not standard policies or endorsements; not every company offers identical coverages.

The information below is only a summary review of the current green market and are not the titles or actual endorsement/policy. Limits, special provisions, and special deductibles could still apply.

Homeowner

- Coverage for loss of income or extra expenses resulting from physical damage to alternative energy systems:

These endorsements may provide limited coverage when net metering is lost because of a covered peril and the insured has to purchase electricity that otherwise would not be needed because the structure is generating its own electricity. There could be coverage to inspect, reconnect (and permit fees) assessed by a utility company or other when the alternative energy system is back on.

- Enhanced coverage to landscape - trees, shrubs, plants:

Some endorsements increase the limit of liability for covered trees, shrubs, and plants (in the aggregate and per item) and offer greater limits to "eco-landscaping" which includes plants that provide shade to the home, hardscape, HVAC or other to reduce energy costs.

-Upgrade to green coverage:

Covers costs to upgrade green components in the event of a partial or total loss. Areas which may focus on include energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor air quality, and sustainability. These upgrades include Energy Star lighting, appliances, HVAC, windows, low or dual flow toilets, low flow faucets, no VOC interior paint, and recycled content building materials. Sustainability coverage may upgrade the home to a green program standard such as the Energy Star Home (builders Option Package), pay for testing, and more. some of these endorsement may provide the homeowner to keep any rebates or other government/utility incentives for upgrading. Other companies may offer endorsements to upgrade to LEED for Home standards, hire Leed AP, and certification fees if total loss occurs.

Some companies may offer a premium discount when insuring an existing LEED certified or other home.


Commercial

- Green upgrade coverage:

Covers cost to upgrade standard materials with green components such as no VOC paints, Green Label carpet, Energy Star products, Energy Star roofs, and Water Sense fixtures to name a few. If a total loss, some policies may cover the cost to rebuild the property under the criteria of a green rating program.

- Green certified building coverage:

Covers buildings already certified under a green program. Coverage may include provisions for vegetative roofs, alternative power systems and water systems. In addition, coverage may be available to hire a LEED AP, recoup loss of income from net metering losses, and recycling debris. Finally, there may be coverage to hire an engineer for commissioning and perform other tests. Some companies may offer coverage fr certification with other rating systems like Green Globe.

- Green manufacturers property endorsement:

May cover the cost for non-green manufacturing facilities to upgrade to green equipment, materials, and business personal property after partial or total loss.

- Green certified manufacturing property insurance:

May cover the cost of green manufacturing facilities to be restored to their original LEED rating and may cover the upgrade to a higher LEED rating too.

- Green coverage for business personal property:

Covers the cost to replace non-green business personal property with green products or materials.

- Debris removal expense endorsements:

Pays additional debris removal expenses incurred to salvage and recycle debris from a covered property loss. These endorsement may have limited amounts of coverage.

- Delay in completion of a project:

May provide some coverage for loss when a project completion is delayed due to the certification process from using a program like LEED.

- Energy efficient tax credit endorsement:

May provide coverage for tax credits lost on certain qualified energy efficient components following covered causes of loss to covered property. These endorsements may have limited amounts of coverage.

Claims Checklist

Some strategies in green building programs have little effect on the claims professional. There isn't much we can do to alter the orientation of a building for passive solar design, but that decision might have counted towards the buildings certification. Decisions made to manage soil erosion and preserve natural habitats during construction are again areas which may have no real implication s for insurers. However, decisions such as to lay Green Label carpeting, install recycled content materials, use only low or no VOC building materials, or install an Energy Star roof system will concern the claims person eventually. Furthermore, the implementation of high efficiency appliances, plumbing, lighting, ad electrical systems will affect us too. Finally, we cannot rule out that claims adjusters will be exposed to solar, wind, and other types of renewable energy systems and water saving systems.

The green measures that are anticipated to affect our industry are the ones insurance professionals should be familiar with and be prepared to assess loss to. Green building programs are "climate-specific" and tailored for conditions in particular regions. What may be a common green practice in the northeast U.S may not be a good practice in the southwest U.S. Following this logic, claims professionals should be familiar with the green measures and programs in their market/region. The knowledge a claims adjuster in New York obtains over time may vary from the knowledge a claims adjuster in San Diego receives. While the fundamentals of many green building programs are similar, the methods to achieve common goals in these are not.

Another borrowed idea from green building programs that the claims professional can use is checklists. Most green building programs utilize a checklist when designing and constructing projects. Checklists help ensure the project meets its goals and certification. This process should also be followed by the claims professional when assessing a loss on a green risk. The claims person should have a prepared list of specific questions to address on claims involving green risks.