Redwood City: Input on green building 

From Bay City News Wire:

Redwood City officials are asking for public input in developing a green building ordinance for the city.

The ordinance would outline construction guidelines for energy efficiency, saving water, proper materials, indoor environmental quality and sustainable site development, according to the city.

While the city has not officially decided yet to pursue such an ordinance, it is seeking the counsel of interested members of the public, especially local builders, architects and developers.

A public workshop with city staff is scheduled to take place Aug. 7 at 6:30 p.m., in the council chamber at City Hall, 1017 Middlefield Road.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mark Church has recently called for the county to encourage sustainable building in unincorporated areas by establishing a priority permitting process for residential and commercial builders who follow green building guidelines.

Solar on San Jose schools 

Just like Morgan Stanley, the Green Wombat reports that Bank of America is getting into the business of selling solar power.

A new project will put five megawatts of solar arrays at schools in San Jose. Updated: More on the solar on schools story from the San Jose Mercury News here and here.

This new model for financing solar could really change the game as the up front financing is what is constraining much of solar (and while currently production capacity is a problem that is set to change).

Now what we really need is for the same thing to happen with efficiency retrofits. Efficiency is still where the bulk of the low hanging fruit is. Luckily this too is expected to get a boost from the Clinton Foundation. Rumor is big bucks are coming down the pike with this effort. Nevertheless, getting the big financial players engaged here is a huge opportunity and need.

San Mateo springs out of the gate 

On Monday San Mateo kicked off its Sustainability Advisory Committee which will make recommendations to the city council on how to reduce its climate impacts as well as other areas of sustainability.

The San Mateo Daily Journal reports:

The committee consists of nine people representing the city, business, the public and the San Mateo Climate Action group, which urged to city to form the a “green ribbon” panel. The committee met Monday to define its goals, set ground rules and consider who else needs representation on the committee, Grotte said.

The committee will remain small, but meetings are open to the public and there will be open comment periods, Grotte said.

In addition to setting ground rules and expectations, the committee also reviewed stakeholders to engage. Stakeholders suggested included business, developers, youth, trades, neighborhood groups, and churches. There was also good public input.

The committee's report is due in December. We've got a lot to do!

Hold the green orb in your mind... 

One very cool idea...

Mark Martinez couldn't get Southern California Edison customers to conserve energy. As the utility's manager of program development, he had tried alerting them when it was time to dial back electricity use on a hot day -- he'd fire off automated phone calls, zap text messages, send emails. No dice.

Then he saw an Ambient Orb. It's a groovy little ball that changes color in sync with incoming data -- growing more purple, for example, as your email inbox fills up or as the chance of rain increases. Martinez realized he could use Orbs to signal changes in electrical rates, programming them to glow green when the grid was underused -- and, thus, electricity cheaper -- and red during peak hours when customers were paying more for power. He bought 120 of them, handed them out to customers, and sat back to see what would happen.

Within weeks, Orb users reduced their peak-period energy use by 40 percent. Why? Because, Martinez explains, the glowing sphere was less annoying and more persistent than a text alert. "It's nonintrusive," he says. "It has a relatively benign effect. But when you suddenly see your ball flashing red, you notice."

Hat tip Gristmill...

Incentivizing Green Building 

The San Mateo County Times reports on a move by San Mateo County to incentivize greener development by accelerating permitting.

A new program proposed by a San Mateo County supervisor could speed up permitting processes in unincorporated areas for builders who go "green."
Under the proposal, a builder that chooses to employ environmentally-friendly construction in San Mateo County's unincorporated areas would have his or her application for a new building or major addition processed by the county's Planning Department twice as fast.

It takes about six to seven weeks to complete an application for a residential or commercial building permit; a builder that goes "green" would have their permit processed in three weeks.

In this particular case it is unclear how good the standards are or will be - that's the brass tacks. However, the incentive mechanism is good.

Accelerated permits are one of the best incentives for improved practices from builders.

"The No. 1 incentive is expedited permits," said Brian Gitt, executive director of Build It Green, a non-profit organization formed when the Green Resource Center and Bay Area Build It Green merged in 2005.

Builders are willing to do a lot - build green structures that use recycled products; install waterless urinals; plant drought-resistant landscaping with drip irrigation; and even place photovoltaic panels on the roofs - if they know they can get their building permits quickly. Time spent building instead of waiting for permits is money in the bank, Gitt said.

The real trick however would be to do something like this for RETROFITS too. After all, most of our buildings are already built!

Youth efficiency corp? 

At the beginning of the month I posted on the need to build a climate movement. Giving constituencies a stake is key.

A step in that direction is happening in the east bay with "California Youth Energy Services" which offers free energy audits and free hardware.

Even greener

Riding a bus is already a pretty green choice. San Francisco is now putting in place hybrid busses - making that option even better.

How about SamTrans?

Further improving that would be to put in place "Bus Rapid Transit" Alameda is already testing it.

What is Bus Rapid Transit? Imagine a bus that acts like a train - dedicated lanes, priority for stop lights, etc. All the benefits of a train at a fraction of the cost!

For more on SF's hybrid busses:

Coal in California? 

Phyllis in Mountain View recently asked if coal plants like the Prairie State Energy Campus are a good thing. After all, it's setup for sequestration and cleaner than current coal.

Here's my answer and why it should matter to us.

It is true that new coal plants are much "less bad" than old 1970s coal plants (most current plants are very old and were grandfathered into current laws - that's why they their electricity is so cheap).

This plant is so-called "carbon capture ready". That means they will *not* sequester carbon now but are theoretically ready to do so at some point in the undefined future. This is a terrible claim for two reasons: 1) sequestration is not proven (although Al Gore has made positive references to it), 2) it is very dependent on local geology and most likely they haven't even studied if their location is any good.

Sequestration is an interesting idea in theory but in practice it is extremely difficult. If even a small amount leaks - it's bad. Here's a brief article in Scientific American on the complexities.

To add to this they want the plant to produce "coal to liquids" which is TERRIBLE. This produces diesel. The net carbon released through this process is many times worse than petroleum.

For these reasons the Sierra Club opposes "capture ready" coal plants (if sequestration is proven to work it will support it). And an excellent report - intensively researched - on alternative energy "roadmap" (without coal or nuclear) is available from the American Solar Energy Society (incidentally, the opportunity with the best potential, aside from efficiency, turns out to be wind).

Why California's actions matter on this - although these plants do not exist within California, the topic is relevant on several levels. Aside from national policy, the power usage in California creates enormous pressure to buy power from outside the state. If we maximize efficiency it will not be necessary to buy "dirty power" from coal plants outside the state and we spur the technology which allows the rest of the world to become cleaner. But AB32 (Global Warming Energy Solutions Act) disallows that you say? Well that's true, but assuming that law is followed, even then there are many locations in the state looking to buy gas fired power from Arizona and Arizona is then getting the balance of their needs from coal.

We sink or swim together.

Belmont waives solar fees 

Just in from Kurt. More at the Mercury News.

Have you tried the strawberrys? 

The local strawberries have been great this year and so have the raspberries. We get them at the San Mateo farmers market. Last week's post covered farmers markets and eating local and the implications of "food miles" on global warming. The reality is that farm direct is fresher and often more flavorful and less expensive. Organic is also frequently available.

Turns out there's a web site for finding local foods: Buy Fresh, Buy Local

More on the Buy Fresh, Buy Local:

John Edwards Wins MoveOn Global Warming poll 

A brief detour to national issues in today's post.

John Edwards trounced other presidential candidates in MoveOn's poll of its members on global warming. His plan is far and away the most complete and solid of all the contenders.

Here's his first response:

How does your plan on climate crisis differ from other candidates'?


More on DailyKos

What's in store 

Drought predictions from the National Weather Service



Not a pretty sight. This drought in the western states was already described as "epic" and "rivaling the dust bowl" two years ago.

Water is going to be one of the most critical resources to protect in California (with Sierra snowpack already down 10%+ from historic levels). Water conservation is an urgent priority.

Hat tip BlueClimate

Live Al 

Miss LiveEarth? Here's Live Al (sort of) - his holographic speech to kick-off LiveEarth in Tokyo:



Hat tip Gristmill.

Gastronomy & energy

Among personal choices the biggest impacts are transportation and food. The Nation has an animation clip on food-miles.



Hat tip Gristmill. Find your local farmers market.

The Climate Movement 

There are many issues/problems/challenges that need attention in the world but climate change is different. It's different because it is profoundly intertwined with a huge range of economic, political, technological, socialogical dynamics. Part of the implication is that if we want to succeed we must really think about what it will take to engage all the stakeholders we need to succeed.

Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center is working on one important piece of this puzzle: Green Jobs.



More on movement building