Passive Houses, Active Brains

Already popular in Europe, the Passive House standard for energy-efficient buildings is "gaining ground with U.S. designers and architects seeking dramatic and measurable efficiency improvements."

"While the U.S. Green Building's Council's LEED certification touches on energy, water, materials, and location, Passive House, which started in Germany as Passivhaus, brings rigorous requirements focused entirely on building energy efficiency. Because of that focus on lowering building energy demand, some say it yields better performance than LEED on efficiency." (CNET)

A Passive House achieves "overall energy savings of 60-70%" and lowers space heating needs by 90% via the design of the building, without having to install "expensive 'active' technologies like photovoltaics or solar thermal hot water systems." (Passive House Institute US)
 

Intrigued? Take "Energy Efficient Buildings"
winter quarter. (CEE176A)

taught by the irrepressibly brilliant Gil Masters. (Plus a band of intrepid TA's, including Nick, Emily, and yours truly. =P) Be sure to sign up for the 1-unit lab component, too. There'll be some neat, hands-on experiments that will clearly illustrate and bring home concepts taught in the classroom. And you'll get to design your own Passive House, build a scale model of, and analyze its energy performance! It's plenty fun.

 

(Passipedia via CNET)

Good insulation (including low-e windows and sturdy walls). Appropriate ventilation (with wasteful leaks in your walls eliminated). Plus, if the building is properly oriented, you can get your heating from the sun!

LEED gives points just for having certain features, but "attaining Passive House certification requires meeting certain energy-efficiency performance thresholds -- 15 kilowatt-hours per meter square space of living space per year, or 4,755 BTUs per square foot per year ... it appeals to many designers because it's an actual, quantifiable standard.

In a talk at the Boston symposium, Wolfgang Feist, who heads the Passivhaus Institut in Germany, said that Passive House follows a few principles, rather than require high-tech materials or fancy energy-monitoring systems. To meet the voluntary standard, buildings should have a very air-tight building envelope, high levels of insulation, and a heat recovery ventilator that circulates in outdoor air preheated by outgoing indoor air."

Read the whole article at CNET here. And take the class; you'll learn all about these awesome concepts and how to apply them.

 
URLs: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20025904-54.html
http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PHIUSHome.html
http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/CourseSearch/search?q=CEE+176A

Let's keep our lead!

Protect AB32, California's landmark climate legislation! Now that action has been waylaid at the federal level, it's more important than ever that our states move ahead. As this editorial in The New York Times recounts:

"Four years ago, bipartisan majorities in the California Legislature approved a landmark clean energy bill that many hoped would serve as a template for a national effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil and mitigate the threat of climate change." However, a "well-financed coalition of right-wing ideologues, out-of-state oil and gas companies and climate-change skeptics is seeking to effectively kill that law with an initiative on the November state ballot."

The harmful measure these polluters are pushing is Proposition 23, which will delay implementation of AB32 until California's unemployment drops to what are nearly historical lows. (According to Kristin Grenfell-Eberhard of NRDC, when these politicos first submitted the bill, they proposed quashing AB32 until the state had a level of unemployment that had never even been attained in California's history! They realized this would just look really obvious (i.e. they just don't want to stop polluting), so they adjusted the number upward by a little bit). As written, Prop 23 effectively guts AB32; climate change legislation might simply never be implemented in our state if these greedy energy companies have their way!

These polluters are trying to scare people by warning of higher energy prices and the loss of jobs, but completely ignore the new jobs that are being created and the clean technology industries whose growth has accelerated. Many of these jobs cannot be exported -- for instance, solar installation on rooftops has to take place in state. And if California becomes a leader in developing clean technologies and innovating low-carbon lifestyles -- in other words, if it it leads the way it does in IT, computers and semiconductors -- then countless employers would stream into our state, attracting talent from around the world.

These oil companies and greedy, out-of-state rich people (from Texas for instance) should not be allowed to drag California down and prevent us from capturing the jobs, economic opportunity and sense of renewal that accompany our state's pioneering effort. It is heartening to see that in response, "AB 32’s many friends — led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California — have therefore mounted a spirited counterattack in defense of the law. Another respected Republican, George Shultz — a cabinet member in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations — has signed on as a co-chairman of this effort. Mr. Shultz credits AB 32 for an unprecedented “outburst” of technological creativity and investment."

Let's keep our lead! Protect AB32 and promote innovation and green jobs in California! Don't let these oil companies win. Vote NO on PROP 23!