Savings up to $3000

Boulder County residents who are installing solar hot water systems for their existing homes or incorporating the systems as they construct new homes can now participate in a pilot program that offers rebates of up to $3,000 for the renewable energy-powered systems.  Boulder County, the Center for ReSource Conservation and the City of Boulder are piloting a new rebate program from the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) Residential Solar Program for Solar Domestic Hot Water systems.

The Center for ReSource Conservation is administering the program. Existing homes will be required to receive an energy audit from the Residential Energy Audit Program (REAP) to be eligible for the rebate. New construction in the jurisdiction of Boulder’s Green Points or the County’s BuildSmart program will meet efficiency performance requirements through those regulations.

Rebates will be offered in a lottery format. The first 15 applications drawn will receive a confirmation letter that guarantees them a rebate payment so long as their system is installed by the end of 2008. A signed contract with an installer must be submitted to the Center for ReSource Conservation within 60 days of winning the lottery, and installation must be completed by December 1.

To be included in the lottery, send your name, address, phone number and email address to reap@conservationcenter.org starting on Monday, July 14th.  The title of the email must state Solar Thermal Rebate Lottery.  The lottery will be Monday, July 28, at noon. 

Click here to check out our website for a list of approved installers and additional rebate requirements.

Too busy to catch up on the latest Environmental Building News issue? Overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of internet sites that result from a Google search on "green building"? Well, I've got good news for you! Now you can stream the latest in green building developments directly into your laptop, cell phone or other internet-enabled device!

Over the last few years there has been an amazing growth in the number of green building organizations who have recognized the power of web-streamed videos as an educational tool. Many of these organizations have also recognized that their audience has increasingly shorter attention span by creating 3- to 5-minute clips that explore a wide variety of issues.

Some of the best green building video websites I've found so far are: Building Green TV Energy Policy TV Best of Building Science Green Building TV Your Environmental Roadtrip (not as technical, but definitely fun!)

Time and time again clients come to green builders seeking to build a healthy home - a home free of chemicals, cancer-causing agents, and other harmful materials that are rampant in new homes across the US - yet they fail to realize that some of the most dangerous materials are introduced to the home long after construction is finished. 

Building materials most commonly targeted during construction are: formaldehyde, commonly found in cabinets and plywood;  cancer-causing Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) found in plastics and flooring; VOCs that are abundant in toxic paints and finishes; and adhesives like those used in most carpeting, that continue to offgas into the home for 30+ years.  But while we as builders can choose materials devoid of these harms during construction, many consumers do not know that these materials are abundant in many of the common household items that fill their homes.

Products to watch out for are:

• Shower curtains, window treatments, and other plastics that contain cancer-causing PVCs
• Paints, solvents, and adhesives that contain harmful VOCs: learn more from Air Quality Sciences
  
• Mattresses, furniture, and other goods containing PBDEs - a chemical cousin to carcinogenic PCBs that acts as a flame retardant
• IKEA finished phasing out PBDEs in their build-it-yourself furniture in 2002!
  
• Ready-to-build furniture kits that use particle board laced with formaldehyde, a carcinogenic preservative
  
• Cosmetics that contain dangerous chemicals, learn more about the products you use at SkinDeep.com
  
• Indoor air fresheners and fragrances that can contain a lethal cocktail of chemicals including: formaldehyde, phthalates, naphthalene, camphor, and dichlorobenzene (banned in California!)
• Because the fragrance industry does not require manufacturers to disclose the ingredients of these products, consumers cannot even read a label to discern the harm contained within!  Download this printable handout learn more about dangers of and alternatives to indoor air fresheners
  

To learn more about these issues, or find chemical-free products for your home, visit some of these trusted sites:

Nirvana Safe Haven Chemical-Free Products Shop

Skin Deep Cosmetics Database

Indoor Air Quality Association
 

Your Environmental Road Trip - fondly dubbed "YERT" is a year-long expedition currently being undertaken by three eco-enthusiasts seeking out the best, brightest, and most bizarre accomplishments of the eco movement in the US. This summer, Ben, Julie, and Mark, the "YERTians" made a pit-stop in our town to speak with the best of Boulder's green and high performance home builders and designers. In December, the video product of their visit went public! Click the video screen below to watch!

Many of Ecofutures' friends and business partners were interviewed to film this video. Follow the links below to learn more about each person and their green company:

• Norbert Klebl and Ben Apple, Founder and Designers of GEOS Village
  
• Pete Chandler, President, Living Space
  
• Stu Galvis, Chief Visionary and Realtor for Boulder Green Properties speaks about Solar Village
  
• Eric Peltier, Owner, Dovetail Lending
  
• Rob Jenkins and Rick Felton of SIP/Con
  

Visit our links page to see other websites of fellow green builders, entrepreneurs, and designers in Colorado, along with some of our favorite educational resources!

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"In 1989, at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London, Edwin Datschefski was sitting with several of his green design colleagues when he noticed an enviro-minded acquaintance at a nearby table. As it turned out, the friend was sitting with a few of his eco-conscious mates, so they pulled some tables together. And so a movement was born."  -Joel Gershon, greendrinks.org

Fifteen years later, the concept now called "Green Drinks," has planted roots in cities worldwide.  In each city an individual or group acts as coordinator, orchestrating the time and place for the monthly gathering.  The meetings are generally held in a popular bar, coffee shop, or restaurant, and are open to anyone to join.  Discussion may be focused on a particular regional issue, or whatever comes to mind that day: from global warming to building insulation to plug-in hybrids.  "But while different cities spawn different types of meetings, the common thread is fun."

To get involved in Boulder's Green Drinks chapter visit the GreenDrinks Headquarters website, check out the newest Squidoo Page for Green Drinks Boulder, or contact: bryan@ecogreenoffice.com to receive monthly mailings.

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The City and Community of Arvada featured the GEOS net-zero energy residential development underway on their television broadcast, "The A-File".  The 8-minute clip takes a look at some of the design objectives and tools planners are using to build the first zero-energy, low-impact community.

As of 12/2007, the link is no longer available for the GEOS feature. 

To learn more about the GEOS concept, visit the website: http://www.discovergeos.com/geo_solar.php

 

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The 2008 College Sustainability Report Card is out - how does your school rank?  Colleges and schools around the country are stepping up sustainability and conservation initiatives both from an academic standpoint and overall administrative and structural standpoint.  The College Sustainability Report card rates how well schools are doing to achieve their goals.

The focus of the yearly assessment is on policies and practices in eight main categories:

• Administration
• Climate Change & Energy
• Food & Recycling
• Green Building
• Transportation
• Endowment Transparency
• Investment Priorities
• Shareholder Engagement

The top 6 Overall College Sustainability Leaders were: Carleton College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Middlebury College, University of Vermont and University of Washington.

 Click here to download the complete report card and school standings.

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Alpen Energy Group, LLC of Boulder, Colorado, has been leading the way in high performance window manufacturing for the past 20 years, are again raising the bar for all their competitors.  In this month's Environmental Building News, Alpen announced they have been able to make an R-20 window - that's the same as 5" of Icynene!

These windows, designed for extreme cold weather on northern building facades, are made of two layers of low-iron glass, 3 layers of heat mirror films, and filled with Xenon gas.  Not a simple or cheap window by any means, but an incredible achievement for the high-performance home world. 

When homes are correctly designed for passive gain, with limited windows on the north side, the relatively small additional investment in these high-tech windows can account for significant energy savings.

Wow!!

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The Architecture 2030 Campaign is making coal it's number one target in fighting global warming:

Coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful enough and supposedly ‘cheap’ enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere - an event which will trigger potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise. 53% of Americans live in and around coastal cities and towns and, beginning with just one meter of sea level rise, many of these cities and towns will be inundated.

According to a full-page ad in the New York Times, we can avert the worst consequences of climate change if we:

1.  Stop building coal-fired power plants and phase out existing coal plants; and,

2.  since buildings use 76% percent of coal energy produced at power plants, we can make a significant difference by increasing building efficiency, and employing on-site renewable energy sources

See posting in : Inhabitat.com

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Published in this month's Environmental Design Update:

According to a recent Canadian pilot study, a simple, easy-to-install $135 device that reduces residential consumption by 6.5% already exists: it's a humble whole-house electricity monitor with an indoor display.

The PowerCost monitor by Blue Line Innovations was used in this Canadian study to prove that homeowners able to see how many kilowatts their home is using are more inclined to turn off lights and electronics when not in use.  (TreeHugger review)

The PowerCost monitor is just one of many new energy monitoring tools coming to the market.  Other devices include:

	Energy Orb  (Treehugger review)  Provides energy cost information in the form of a glowing colored orb to inform homeowners when electric rates are high, and usage should be turned down
	The Energy Detective  A real-time energy monitor with LCD display that can scroll 12 different information outputs including electric cost, carbon emissions, and monthly savings
	EM-2500 Whole House Monitor  (TreeHugger review) A simple monitoring device that can predict your next utility bill, giving you control over how much you will spend
	Home Joule (Treehugger Review) kicks up energy monitoring a notch by displaying real-time information about current electric rates, weather, and local utility information integrated with your home energy consumption.  Color-coded displays show when electric rates are low and high.

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As quickly as ethanol has risen in popularity as an alternative to fossil fuels in transportation, so have reasons against using it.  Critics site many potential problems inherent on relying on the "new" fuel source including:

• food- and water-scarcity issues that may result from converting farmlands to croplands;
  
• the vast amount of embodied energy in the product from farming, to harvesting, to processing 
• producing ethanol from switch grass requires 45 per cent more fossil energy than that created from the product! (according to this blogger's estimate)
  
• and, ethanol processing plants contribute bast amounts of air pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounts, according to Corpwatch.com
  

But even more compelling information was published in the August, 2007 issue of Environmental Design Update.

Using farmland to grow crops for ethanol or biomass fuel yields significantly less energy per acre than covering the land with ground-mounted PV arrays.  For example, one acre of land can grow enough biodiesel in one year to propel a car 5,400 miles; when covered with PV modules, the same land can produce enough electricity in one year to propel a car 817,280 miles - 150 times as far!

Now, what this blogger wants to know, is how much energy can we gather if we covered our cityscape rooftops with PVs, rather than our farmlands? 

Other resources:

Turning Crops to Ethanol Fuel: on the road to energy independance

Crunching the Numbers on Alternative Fuels

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In a survey initiated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, respondents inaccurately estimated green building to cost 17% above conventional construction, more than triple the true cost difference of about five percent.  At the same time, survey respondents put greenhouse gas emissions by buildings at 19 percent of world total, while the actual number of 40 percent is double this.

The implication of these results is that people generally over-estimate construction cost, and vastly under-estimate environmental benefit of building green.

"Life cycle analysis shows that 80% to 85 percent of the total energy consumption and CO2 emissions of a building comes from occupancy through heating, cooling, ventilation, and hot water use.  If we want to make an impact on climate change, we therefore need to tackle this challenge. Combining the right materials when designing a building envelope can greatly reduce a building’s energy requirements, increase its life span and ensure consistent performance over time," said Bruno Lafont, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge, a co-sponsor of the research project.

Further findings are disclosed in a new report titled “Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Business Realities and Opportunities,” from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The project is co-chaired by Lafarge and United Technologies Corporation.