CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue - (Page 12)

Fast Forward Fast Forward is a place to share your big, innovative, incredibly obvious or ‘on the edge’ ideas, proposals, and rants. The subject is how to accelerate progress toward sustainability. Do you see a roadblock that needs removing, another way of thinking, engaging people, planning, or financing? Or something else that would move us forward, fast? Let us know and you could be here in a future issue. You can comment on this column on our website, plus find relevant resources and suggest others. How Cities Can Eliminate Coal-Based Electricity in the US by Jon Rynn C oal has a lot to answer for. Acid rain, air pollution, mercury emissions, unsafe working conditions, mountain top removal, destruction of valleys, streams and communities, and perhaps worst of all, a driving role in global warming. But we can undermine coal-based power with one move: make buildings heat and cool themselves. How does that work? Let’s start with the numbers: 50% of all US electricity is from coal. Buildings use 30% of US electricity for heating and cooling. If buildings supplied their own heating and cooling we could therefore shut down coal-based electrical production by 60%. 32% of our natural gas is also used to heat and cool buildings, so self-reliant buildings would free up that resource to replace the rest of the coal-based generation. Building to a more efficient standard in the future, along with growing energy efficiency from other initiatives, would help prevent the need for more coal plants. How can buildings heat and cool themselves? There are many ways. Geothermal exchange is very efficient. This uses the constant temperature of the earth several feet below the surface to cool buildings in the summer and heat them in the winter—and supplies hot water as well. Electricity to power the geothermal systems could come from solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the buildings. Methods and technologies can be combined, of course. Efficient new construction and energy-oriented renovation lower the load. Solar heating and other available and developing technologies can supply energy. Various storage strategies would be complementary, such as large fuel cells, sodium sulfur batteries, or even salt storage, plus heat retained by the building mass. The best combination for each building will depend on many the homeowner’s credit or equity in the property do not matter. The payments are even deductible from income taxes. Furthermore, Berkeley’s local utility and even the Federal government support the plan. Blanketing the country with PV, geothermal heat pumps, and a mix of other appropriate technologies will generate those “green collar” jobs we’d all like to see. The manufacture of all this equipment would help build a new manufacturing sector. Technology would advance through the normal competitive process, becoming cheaper and more effective, Cambridge has a financing plan in operation even as the massive now, and expects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions production scale brings costs down. 10% in 5 years. Watch it on PBS online: Save Energy, Expertise would inSave Money, Save the Planet crease at all levels, and we could create a base for exporting Including commercial buildings might our advanced technology and consultdouble that cost to $6 trillion. Over the ing. That would help bring lower energy 20 or so years to 2030, this would take use to the world and help eliminate coal $300 billion per year. That price would plants globally. Self-sufficient buildings drop with volume and technical adwould increase community and national vances. Conventional HVAC equipment resilience in the face of blackouts, fuel costs would be reduced or eliminated, price increases, and shortages. Finally, and ongoing energy costs would be draCO2 emissions would be down dramatimatically lower. cally, helping us avert far more expensive Still, where would all that money come and difficult problems. It’s a win in all difrom? Berkeley, California has a plan rections. which has attracted a lot of attention, Please join the continuing discussion based on homeowners and commercial on CitiesGoGreen.com. I’m looking forowners assuming a voluntary tax. With ward to your comments. the taxing authority the city will obtain Jon Rynn has a Masters in computer science from Columbia funding at low cost, then finance the inUniversity and a Ph.D. in political science from the City Universtallation of PV or solar hot water panels sity of New York. He is currently a software developer as well on the homes or commercial buildings. as a board member of Ireland-based Sanders Research AssoPayments to the city are equal to or less ciates. Jon Rynn blogs regularly on Grist.org, and writes for than the savings generated. The investhis site, economicreconstruction.com and sandersrement is essentially cost-free for both the search.com. Jon lives with his wife and two sons in Illinois. homeowners and the city. The barrier of upfront investment is eliminated, and factors, but we can become skilled at making these assessments. How much would it cost to equip every building with geothermal systems and PV to power them? Let’s assume a 2,000-square-foot home would require $20,000 for a geothermal installation. Add $10,000 for the required PV system (see spreadsheet tab “geothermal calcs“). The US has about 100 million households, so at $30,000 per household, for about $3 trillion dollars we could heat and cool all residences without coal. 2 .com April 2008 http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzrff2j0rl2yXwUi2YAPWRg http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzrff2j0rl2yXwUi2YAPWRg http://pbs.org/now/shows/413/index.html http://pbs.org/now/shows/413/index.html http://www.citiesgogreen.com http://Grist.org http://economicreconstruction.com http://sandersresearch.com http://sandersresearch.com http://www.citiesgogreen.com

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CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue Contents In Motion Conversations with Mayors Feature Article: How Can Cities Respond to the 2030 Challenge? Fast Forward

CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue

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