Drury Crawley, Ph.D., FASHRAE, AIA, longtime head of the commercial buildings research programs at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is now in a newly created position at Bentley Systems as director of building energy performance products. While at DOE, Crawley championed the creation of EnergyPlus, a simulation program to replace the venerable DOE-2 engine that underlies the popular eQuest and other energy modeling programs. Crawley is now in charge of developing and promoting the use of energy modeling software that Bentley previously acquired, some of which is tied to EnergyPlus. In commenting about his decision to join Bentley, Crawley cited his passion for “user-focused building performance tools” that are compatible with building information modeling (BIM) software from any vendor: “Working at Bentley Systems is a great opportunity at the right time in the building performance field,” he said. Details on the software are available at www.bentley.com/green.

Worldwide, the square footage of certified green building space will increase 780%, from approximately 6 billion square feet in 2010 to 53 billion square feet in 2020, predicts a new report from Pike Research.

Most of this space—80%—will be commercial, and will be certified under LEED in the U.S. or BREEAM in Europe; programs in China and India, however, will be responsible for 30% of new certifications. The report notes that “in many markets, such as Class A office space, green building certification is the standard rather than the exception.” The demand for certified commercial buildings will only grow, says the report, as “many corporations and government agencies are beginning to establish policies that they will only own and occupy spaces that have received green building certification.”

Approximately 60% of currently certified commercial space worldwide is in existing buildings, but both that sector and certified new construction will continue to grow. In the residential sector, the vast majority of certified buildings are new construction; this will remain the case over the next ten years. An executive summary of the report, “Green Building Certification Programs,” is available from Pike Research at no charge.

– Allyson Wendt

 

Supported by industry and environmental groups alike, the U.S. Congress has passed a bill limiting the amount of formaldehyde in hardwood plywood, particleboard, and medium-density fiberboard.

Introduced in late 2009, the bill bases its formaldehyde thresholds on those developed and enacted by the California Air Resources Board (see “Diverse Interest Groups Support National Formaldehyde Standard,” EBN Dec. 2009). Limits become effective as soon as 2011 and become more stringent over time. These dates are dependent on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, however, which must develop regulations for enforcing the standards.

The bill only covers some composite wood products, with exemptions for structural plywood, hardboard, OSB, I-joists, finger-jointed lumber, among others, and does not apply to many other products that contain formaldehyde, such as fabrics or insulation. Having passed through Congress, the bill awaits the signature of the president. You can view the bill, S.1660, at www.govtrack.us.

– Allyson Wendt

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a draft assessment of the dangers of formaldehyde that finds that pregnant women, children, and asthmatics are particularly susceptible to the health effects of inhaling the chemical.

Formaldehyde was already a known carcinogen; the draft assessment just released by EPA adds information about its non-cancer effects, which include eye, nose, and throat irritation, decreased lung function, decreased immune system function, neurological damage, and reproductive damage.

The assessment will inform the information on formaldehyde in EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which provides information on the known health risks of over 540 chemicals. EPA surveys the available scientific and medical literature on a given chemical, issuing draft reports for public comment before they become part of IRIS.

Formaldehyde is commonly found in building materials, including in binders used in composite wood products and in some insulation materials (see “All About Formaldehyde”). IRIS is online at www.epa.gov/iris/

– Allyson Wendt

A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would require that insurance coverage be available for properties in locations prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes. Introduced by Democrat Ron Klein of Florida, the bill would primarily benefit that state, which has a fund subsidizing insurance for certain high-risk areas along the coast.

The bill, H.R. 2555, would create a consortium that would allow states to pool their risk, provide federal reinsurance for states’ natural catastrophe funds, and guarantee state bonds with federal money. The bill has been derided as a “beach house bailout” by some groups, which point to a Congressional analysis showing it would cost federal taxpayers $1.7 billion over five years.

In addition, “H.R. 2555 encourages development in unsafe and environmentally fragile areas,” claims SmarterSafer.org, a group of environmental, taxpayer, and insurance organizations, in a letter to Congress. More information on the bill is available at www.govtrack.us.

– Allyson Wendt

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that stand-alone data centers and those incorporated in buildings are eligible for an Energy Star rating.

Eligible centers must be in the top 25% of data centers in terms of energy efficiency as measured by power usage effectiveness (PUE). A common metric in data centers, PUE comes from dividing the power entering the building by the power used to run the computer servers within it.

According to the Uptime Institute, a research organization focused on computer efficiency, the average data center has a PUE of 2.5—for every 2.5 watts that enter the data center, only 1 watt is used to run servers. The rest is used to run cooling systems, battery backup systems, and other equipment. EPA says that data centers account for 1.5% of total U.S. electricity consumption; increasing energy efficiency by 10% would result in a savings of 6 billion kilowatt-hours each year, enough to power 350,000 homes.

The Energy Star eligibility also means that data centers, or office building with more than 10% of their floor area in data centers, are now eligible for a simplified compliance path for the energy efficiency prerequisite and credit in the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) rating system. More information is available at www.energystar.gov/datacenters.

– Allyson Wendt

 

Energy Star has raised its standard for gas storage water heaters, increasing the minimum energy factor for the tank-style heaters from 0.62 to 0.67. The change will go into effect in September 2010 and will, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), result in water heaters that use 14% less energy than conventional models.

EPA first implemented standards for water heaters in January 2009; those standards represented a 6.9% efficiency improvement over standard models (see EBN May 2008). Most water heater manufacturers now offer Energy Star models, and several—including American, Reliance, Rheem, and others—have already introduced models that will meet the new standard. That’s no surprise; the higher standard was announced in 2008 as a scheduled increase over the 2009 standard. More information is available at www.energystar.gov.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson recently announced plans to mitigate environmental damage from sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs). These overflows, which pose a variety of risks to public and environmental health, are caused when blockages, broken pipes, or excessive water hinder sanitary sewer flow, spewing untreated wastewater into waterways (see “Combined Sewer Overflow”).

EPA estimates that at least 40,000 SSOs occur each year, and is considering two potential changes to current regulations. These involve creating National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit conditions for publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) seeking permits. EPA is also considering addressing peak wet weather flows at municipal wastewater treatment plant and POTWs.

The agency will coordinate public listening sessions and accept written comments on the potential rule until 60 days after publication on the Federal Register. For more information, visit EPA’s website.

– Emily Bragonier

On June 2, 2010, the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) announced the winner of its Buckminster Fuller Challenge, which asked entrants to provide workable solutions to significant challenges such as water scarcity, food supply, and energy consumption. The $100,000 prize was awarded to Operation Hope, which reversed desertification on 6,500 acres of grassland in Zimbabwe, restoring aquatic and land species to the area and increasing the inhabitants’ ability to graze livestock.

The Living Building Challenge (see The Living Building Challenge: Can It Really Change the World? for more), a holistic and rigorous system for rating buildings that have minimal environmental impact, was one of the six finalists.

Entries to the annual competition must present fully integrated solutions to problems, using a whole systems approach to “simultaneously address multiple goals, requirements, conditions and issues,” according to BFI. They must also anticipate future problems and conditions, be ecologically responsible, and be feasible, verifiable, and replicable.

Finalists in this year’s competition included concepts for making the built environment mimic ecological systems. From “eco-boulevards” designed for Chicago that capture and infiltrate stormwater and wastewater to a greenhouse that mimics the natural water cycle, the entries address a variety of problems.

Speaking for the jury at the National Press Club, Hillary Brown, founder of New York City’s Office of Sustainable Design, said that the jury asked three questions with each entrant: “Does it minimize man's ecological footprint? Does it add value? Is it fair?” She added that through its deliberations, the jury “came to recognize that the forces of ecological degradation, climate instability, and the loss of heritage are not disaggregated threats to humankind, but that they have converged on one and the same peril.”

More on the competition is available at BFI’s website. The Challenge was inspired by Buckminster Fuller, an inventor, author, and teacher who held an intention “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

– Allyson Wendt and Tristan Roberts

 

At the U.S. Green Building Council’s Federal Summit in Washington, D.C., on May 18, 2010, U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) administrator Martha Johnson announced a bold new goal for the agency responsible for all the facilities of the federal government: net-zero environmental footprint. Johnson stressed that the key word was “eliminate”—not “limit”—the impact of the federal government on the environment.

GSA has long been a leader in the push for more sustainable building practices. Johnson proposed that GSA could achieve a zero footprint by using federal buildings to test new technologies, focus on occupants as well as building design, encourage smart-grid-capable design, purchase only green products, run the federal fleet on alternative fuels, and develop metrics and methods for tracking progress towards green goals.