Monthly Archives: February 2011

Board of Supervisors in San Francisco approves Energy Audits

The Board of Supervisors in San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet to conduct energy-efficiency audits every five years and to require owners of all other non-residential buildings to make public how much energy the … Continue reading

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Whole Building LCA

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has released a preliminary report titled “Life Assessment of Buildings”.   The report sets a new LCA standard for buildings by establishing the lifetime for a building to be 75 years. MIT found that most … Continue reading

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Solar Shingles

Dow Chemical Co. plans to start commercial production of its Powerhouse solar roof shingles this year, even before it starts operating its new plant in Midland, Mich. Dow’s thin-film copper indium gallium diselenide solar cells currently are manufactured on a … Continue reading

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$3.2 Billion for Renewable Energy, Efficiency in FY 2012

The FY12 federal budget includes $3.2 billion for DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The budget request for EERE represents a 44% increase over the current FY 2010 appropriation of about $2.2 billion. The proposed budget aims … Continue reading

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Space-Based Solar Powered Generation Technology

A team of scientists from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI Corp. and Kyoto University have announced plans to begin testing of a space-based solar powered generation technology.  Sunlight in space would be converted … Continue reading

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UL Environment acquired Air Quality Sciences.

UL Environment, a subsidiary of the product safety certification organization Underwriters Laboratories (UL), has acquired Air Quality Sciences (AQS) and its certifying body, the Greenguard Environmental Institute. Under the acquisition, Greenguard will retain its name, and its certification program names … Continue reading

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Department of Energy’s “SunShot” initiative

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced additional details of the Department of Energy’s “SunShot” initiative to reduce the total costs of photovoltaic solar energy systems by about 75% so that they are cost competitive at large scale with other … Continue reading

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The White House has launched a package of proposals

The White House has launched a package of proposals–including a new tax credit and grant competition among states and cities–that aim to make commercial buildings 20% more energy efficient over 10 years. The “Better Buildings Initiative,” which President Obama announced … Continue reading

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Sins of Greenwashing.

In its 2010 “Sins of Greenwashing” report, environmental marketing company TerraChoice found some form of green washing in more than 95% of consumer products labeled as “green”.  The construction sector by itself fared only slightly better with green washing evident … Continue reading

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DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report.

A DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report released in December 2010 states that the price of installed solar photovoltaic power systems in the US declined sharply in 2010.  A spokesman for San Diego Gas and Electric states that “PV has … Continue reading

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