Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Zane Selvans on Think Again: Drugs
- Bryan Keith on Think Again: Drugs
- Coal Finance for Climate Activists | Amateur Earthling on Boulder’s Energy Future Is Bright
- Hanna on Straight Talk on Climate Progress in California
- Coal Exports a Bigger Threat Than Tar Sands | Amateur Earthling on Obama Delays Keystone XL Pipeline
Linkstream
- PACE Lives!
The Federal Housing Finance Administration is taking public comments on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, at the insistence of California's 9th Circuit court of appeals. Here's what I told them: Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, as have been initiated by many states and local governments, are a potentially transformative financing mechanism, enabling property owners to make good long term investments in energy efficiency and behind-the-meter renewable energy production. They address a market failure, in that buyers often do not appropriately integrate a property's energy costs into their price assessment. So long as the state and local PACE programs are - Climate Denial Instruction In Schools
Corporate interests are pushing a model bill in many states that would require schools to teach climate change denial. It sounds creepily reminiscent of the creationism/evolution mess from a few years ago. Except with the fossil fuel industry instead of the religious right behind it. Gah. - Vision Prize
Vision Prize is an expert poll on the nature of the climate risks we face, meant to demonstrate the degree of consensus (or the lack thereof) amongst those able to judge the evidence. It's put together by Carnegie Mellon University. Will be interesting to see what the results look like... - Open Climate Science Course
The University of Chicago has created an Open Courseware style Climate Science 101, with videos of the lectures and self-assessment materials online. It's aimed at non-science undergraduates. If you, or someone you know, want to get a little more in depth knowledge about climate science on their own time, it's a great resource. - Think Again: Drugs
A great roundup of the myths surrounding the Drug War, and the cogent arguments against continuing our ridiculous, harmful, and expensive policy of ideological prohibition.
- PACE Lives!
Twitterfeed
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 2 weeks ago
- What I learned about coal industry finances this week: http://t.co/UN1lXxRm 3 weeks ago
- In a room full of suits at NYU law. Everyone here wants to end the Reign of Old King Coal. Strangulation by purse strings. 3 weeks ago
- More thoughts on the dangers of giving in to a defeatist climate apocalypse narrative: http://t.co/Bwq276vQ from @AlexSteffen 1 month ago
- Authorizing US military to indefinitely detain citizens w/o trial would be unconstitutional, right? http://t.co/cRKXkpfb #tellmeimdreaming 2 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: efficiency
Help put Boulder’s Climate Smart Loan Program back on track
In the summer of 2010, Boulder’s innovative Climate Smart Loan Program screeched to a halt, because the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) decided that the property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing mechanism amounted to a lien on any property enrolled … Continue reading
PACE Lives!
The Federal Housing Finance Administration is taking public comments on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, at the insistence of California’s 9th Circuit court of appeals. Here’s what I told them: Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, as have been … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged efficiency, energy, fannie mae, fhfa, finance, freddie mac, law, PACE, policy
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Location Efficiency and Housing Type
According to this EPA study, regardless of the type of housing, living in an area with good transit access saves more energy than building a “green home”. Of course, living in a mixed use, transit accessible apartment that’s also energy … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, building, cities, density, design, efficiency, energy, planning, sprawl, transportation, urban
2 Comments
Construction of a Canadian PassivHaus
A great slideshow with captions showing the construction of a PassivHaus in Ottawa. Relatively high density, and relatively high end. I’d love to build something along these lines… and live in it.
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Tagged architecture, building, canada, construction, design, efficiency, energy, passive, passivhaus, solar
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Energy Efficiency and Economics at Walnut Mews
Our condo HOA had a meeting last fall, and somebody brought up selling the flat plate collectors on the roof that are part of our defunct solar thermal hot water system. The 750 gallon cylindrical storage tank rusted out in … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged architecture, boiler, boulder, building, colorado, efficiency, energy, finance, heater, insulation, PACE, public, solar
8 Comments
The (HVAC) Elephant in the Room
A look at the difficulties of getting good HVAC design in high performance homes. Most HVAC professionals are not familiar with the design requirements of very energy efficient homes with tight envelopes. Most rules of thumb and the very basic … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, building, design, efficiency, energy, hvac
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Retrofits pick up the pace
A look at the current state of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing across the US. Legislation enabling this financing mechanism has been passed in half the country, and implemented at the city or county level in Berkeley and Boulder … Continue reading
German Passive House building robots
A short video from German home fabricator Hanse House. They do both stock and custom homes, but both are fabricated off-site. The video shows their production facility, and some of the techniques for putting together a building in pieces. It’s … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged architecture, design, efficiency, energy, germany, hansehouse, manufacturing, off-site, passivhaus, prefab, public, robots, sustainability
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A life cycle analysis of incandescent, CFL and LED light bulbs
Life cycle analysis of incandescent, CFL, and LED light bulbs – It’s important to make sure when you’re using a new technology that supposedly saves energy, that you haven’t just shifted the energy consumption from the operational to the manufacturing … Continue reading
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Tagged bulb, CFL, economics, efficiency, energy, lca, LED, light, RoHS, sustainability, waste
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Boulder’s Passive Aggressive Building Standards
Usually when people say that “better is the enemy of good enough”, they’re pointing out that striving for perfection can be a distraction from just getting the job at hand done. There are other dynamics that involve these concepts too. … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged architecture, boulder, climate, colorado, design, economics, efficiency, energy, passivhaus, policy, public
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