Super-Efficiency with Renewables to Forge a Stabilized Climate: Inspiration from the US Passive House Conference

I won't attempt to do justice to the whole 5th Annual US Passive House conference recently held here in Portland, but I do want to highlight a few points from the event which I found inspirational and insightful.

The welcome by Portland Mayor, Sam Adams, set the tone for the conference when he noted, "being recognized as the most sustainable city in the US is high praise on a low standard.” He spoke of the intention in Portland to orient neighborhoods around a 20-minute walk given that two thirds of transportation use is not commuting to work, but for shopping and other trips. And he spoke of the need for increased building efficiency by underscoring that, “the most valuable thing is the watt not used from the grid.”

Jens Lausten, senior energy efficiency policy analyst at the International Energy Agency, highlighted energy efficiency as the critical part of a sustainable energy future saying, “If we can't do buildings right, we might as well forget about climate change.” Lausten was responsible for the IEA recommendations on energy efficiency in buildings and other G-8 related policy work on buildings. He said that energy efficiency alone needs to deliver more than half of the needed abatement, energy efficiency and renewables need to make up more than 75%, while nuclear—in the best case—could only make up 10%. In other words, we have to focus on efficiency. Further he pointed out that when we increase building efficiency we become richer since we get the reduction for free versus carbon sequestration, which we'd have to pay for.

Lausten claims that most studies on energy efficiency are wrong because they're based on particular techniques like better roof insulation, better windows etc. He says instead, we need to focus on concepts and a holistic approach to efficiency which he summarized as:
1.    Passive House which is feasible in many cases,
2.    Zero energy buildings, zero carbon, and plus energy buildings (which generate a surplus of energy)
3.    Intelligent design
4.    Factor 10 efficiency renovations to Passive House standard or nearly Passive House. First, we need to get new buildings to Passive House standard, and then work to retrofit existing buildings.

He says that if we want large-scale reductions in energy and carbon, we need to address policies, and pointed out that if we don't put these requirements for efficiency in building codes, we don't get a lot of results.

Affordable townhomes being built to Passive House standard
by Habitat for Humanity in Washington, DC

Robert Hastings, professor emeritus of the Donau University Krems-Austria and an energy consultant and architect, compared the American and European paths to super-efficient buildings and Passive House from the solar air heated parlor developed in 1881 by Edward Morse, to the early solar air systems developed in 1900 that soon led to commercialized solar collectors, to the MIT solar house of 1939, and on through the present. Having been involved in so much of the recent history himself, in both the USA and Europe, he brought a rich personal experience to this exploration. Some points he made that hit home with me include the need to look at the whole energy picture covering three sectors–industry, transportation, and buildings, and the difficulty of industry and transportation to take on a large percentage of renewables. As he says it’s “difficult to run a steel plant” or “fly large aircraft on solar power”. Therefore buildings must be the “trendsetters” and take the “brunt” of the shift to efficiency and renewables. He points to an approach of combining passive solar with day-lighting, solar thermal and solar PV generation, coupled with an extremely efficient envelope, which gives the combined result of very high renewables coverage within a dramatically reduced demand. He stated that zero energy buildings, is the path in North America.

Dr. Wolfgang Feist—the physicist founder and director of the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt, Germany—discussed the implementation of the Passive House standard worldwide. Dr. Feist pointed out that almost all countries in Europe have Passive House buildings—mostly with no incentive or government financing—and the long-term studies of Passive House buildings in action show an incredibly consistent picture of low energy use. For example, Passive House buildings in Vienna demonstrate three times less energy use than the local low-energy code buildings, while they are nearly the same cost to build. On top of that, those low energy buildings often have humidity problems that require costly remediation. There are now two Passive House buildings completed in Japan and there is even a demonstration Passive House building in Antarctica.

North Carolina's first Passive House has recently been completed

In the keynote address, physicist Amory Lovins—chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute—pointed out that saving fuel now cost less than new energy sources, although Copenhagen somehow forgot this. He said that if we drop 3-4% we could stabilize the climate and given that we've already seen cuts in some areas by 6 to 16%, it shows that such reductions are feasible. He made the point that wind power could replace 40% of coal energy generation, and that photovoltaic now cost more than a new coal plant, but soon it won't. And the total of nonnuclear alternatives can replace coal power more than 23 times, but we only need to do it once. He too focused on efficiency as critical to the whole shift that needs to happen and cited examples of the super-efficient Rocky Mountain Institute building (which BTW was a key inspiration for Dr. Feist in developing the Passive House standard) which has no furnace and uses no fossil fuels and the renovation of the Empire State building that will cut energy use by 35% and will have a payback time of just three years.

We Need a Revolution in How We Build

"Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants."—Thomas Jefferson

Those who know me know the irony of including a quote that suggests violence as I am a steadfast advocate of nonviolence. Of course, I’m not talking about a political revolution and certainly not anything remotely violent—on the contrary, I’m speaking of more of a green velvet revolution.

However, we need something of historic proportions and we need it soon. The unfortunate condition of our planet and the swiftness of the dramatic climatic shift taking place leads us to the necessity of a radical change in how we integrate with the natural environment.

The built environment is responsible for about 40 percent of worldwide energy consumption, and accounts for 38.9% (2006 figure) in the US. As a result, the built environment currently contributes more to carbon emissions than even the transportation sector—in fact, according to Architecture 2030, buildings account for 46.9% of CO2 emissions in the US. Our built environment, is therefore a critical area in dire need of radical change. In short, we need a revolution in how we build and we need it now.

We need to rethink our relationship to buildings and transportation and how where we live relates to the places with which we connect—where we work, shop, recreate, and socialize. We need to re-think cities, and suburbs and transportation systems, and our homes and offices shopping centers. At the very least, we need to be employing the best available approaches for new construction and renovations that use dramatically less energy and therefore contribute dramatically less to the overall pollution and climate change cycle we are in.

According to the International Energy Agency, energy waste from buildings
can be curbed by 75% across the globe. A recent McKinsey Report (Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy, 2009) identifies energy efficiency—especially within the building sector—as having the ability to cost-effectively bring dramatic reductions in energy use (and CO2 emissions), but only if it is made a priority: “Energy efficiency offers a vast, low-cost energy resource for the U.S. economy—but only if the nation can craft a comprehensive and innovative approach to unlock it.”

“We already have the technology today to cut the horrendous waste of CO2 and expensive energy in buildings. Many of the investments to save energy in buildings are not only cost-effective; they are even more profitable than many pension schemes that you and I so willingly invest in,” according to IEA policy analyst, Jens Laustsen.

…And it needs to happen with good design, and in a financial context that supports it and with a consumer interest that demands it.

There are approaches currently being used in Europe and recently launched in the U.S. that create buildings that use 70-90% less energy than typical new buildings. There are over fifteen thousand such buildings in Europe and there have been discussions within European countries and the European Union as a whole to make that standard the minimum code standard for all new construction there.

While I am a big fan of LEED, Energy Star, and other efforts to green the current building industry and I see their evolution and widening acceptance as critical to the overall transformation of our building industry in the US, we also need to be dramatically increasing the efficiency of new and existing buildings—far beyond what those standards currently require. Although our U.S. building industry has been moving toward more green approaches, the casual stroll must change to a sprint and the bar must be raised dramatically higher, as the higher bar is within our reach if we just put our intention there rather than at our knees as is currently the case.

Look for more on this topic as I believe it is one that warrants significant focus.

The Urgency of Now

“We’ve got maybe ten years, some say less, in which to turn things around. That’s damn little time… I think we can change very, very, quickly. We’ve shown historically that we’re capable of it… if people really understand the imperative for change.” --Dennis Wilde, Principal, Gerding Edlen Development, from the film, Deep Green

With the growing focus on environmental issues in the news, we may find ourselves overwhelmed with the range of problems facing us and our planet: climate is changing at an alarming rate, the quality and quantity of water resources is decreasing, forests are being destroyed, problems with air pollution and toxic emissions march on, and the number of animal species facing extinction continues to mushroom.  

With all these massive problems, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless. The key is to recognize the problems without becoming overwhelmed—maybe easier said than done, but I’ve found the key is to do something—none of us can fix the whole thing in a day (or two or three), but we all have an opportunity to do something. It could be as little as changing a habit to use less water, or weather seal your home, or change to a less impactful way of eating or get your workplace to incentivize employees to not drive, or starting an organization or company that will help make systematic positive changes in your community.  

The point is, we all need to do something—ideally many things and encourage others to do what they can too.  

Then the question is, “when?”. We can’t do anything yesterday or last year, or last decade that we didn’t already do. And if we wait until next decade, next year or even next month, it may be too late.

The only choice (do you like my logic here?) is to seize the urgency of the moment and act NOW. Our children will be glad we did what we could.