Energy Codes and Building Controls
By Gail Stranske, PE
Reversing the upward trend of the country's energy consumption...MORE
President Obama Signs Economic Recovery Bill With Billions for Green Building
President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which includes billions of dollars that may be used for green building, retrofitting, energy efficiency, and renewable-energy projects...MORE
DOE Announces Investment of up to $84 Million in Geothermal Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced two funding-opportunity announcements (FOAs) for up to $84 million to support the development of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which use energy from the earth to heat buildings and generate electricity. The first FOA seeks advanced technology to address important aspects of engineered geothermal-reservoir creation, management, and utilization. The second FOA seeks domestic projects in a variety of geologic formations that will quantitatively demonstrate and validate reservoir-creation techniques that sustain sufficient fluid flow and heat-extraction rates for five to seven years and that produce at least 5 MWe per year per project...MORE
Free Webcast: Clean, Lean, and Green: IAQ for Sustainable Buildings
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) will hold a free Webcast, "Clean, Lean, and Green: IAQ for Sustainable Buildings," April 22 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET. The Webcast will provide guidance from "IAQ Guide: Best Practices for Design, Construction, and Commissioning" and challenge the building community to use enhanced indoor-air-quality (IAQ) practices to create a more sustainable built environment....MORE
Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2007
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking public comment on a draft of its "Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2007" report. The inventory tracks annual greenhouse-gas emissions at the national level from 1990 to 2007. The gases covered by this inventory include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. The inventory also calculates carbon-dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by "sinks" through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation, and soils...MORE
Sustainable Building Challenge '08
The objective of Sustainable Building (SB) Challenge is to provide information on the performance of buildings, including performance-assessment results and key performance indicators. The case studies of the projects selected for SB Challenge '08 are included on the SB Challenge Website. SB Challenge is an international project that has included more than 20 countries over the last 10 years. Projects, including offices, multiunit apartment buildings, schools, and mixed-use buildings, were selected for their suitability to test assessment systems, such as SBTool and its regional derivatives, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and Green Globes...MORE