As we begin a new century, the
“peak oil” (1) phenomena could be reached at any time. Predictions
of the aftermath are too dire to mention here, but one thing is
for certain. After the peak, each successive barrel of oil will
cost more to produce. Global market forces paint a bleak picture
on the demand side, with a booming China and India competing for
oil using their new wealth. Since China has made a bid for Unocal,
Americans are starting to realize economic security and national
security are the same thing.
While demand increases, supply decreases and the inexorable
rise in energy prices takes place, the need to offset energy
demand becomes a matter of national security. The movie “Oil
Storm” may be a work of fiction, but it illustrates how vulnerable
our supply chain could be. Funny thing is, even before Katrina, we
were already almost at the fictional $70 dollar a barrel market
price set at the beginning of the movie’s first major supply
disruption, when a main oil pipeline is severed by a hurricane.
Maybe a hurricane doesn’t sever a pipeline, but any Category 4 or
5 will cause enough collateral damage that it becomes a
disruption. This is especially true for New Orleans. (2) The
predictions for Rita’s aftermath are pretty grim with 5 dollar a
gallon gas.
There are so many variables in the global supply chain that can
affect prices, the odds of something bad happening are very high.
Today it could be a Nigerian oil workers strike, tomorrow it could
be a hurricane, next day a rumor of a threat of a terrorist strike
in Saudi Arabia and the next day something else. It could even be
something totally out of left field like Pat Robertson advocating
the assassination of the head of state of one of our largest oil
suppliers. What if it really happens, what then? Even in a best
case scenario, the price will still go up at an accelerating pace.
The market will likely respond with a menu of alternative
energy vehicles as higher oil and gas price points are reached.
The likely common denominator for many of them will be that they
are recharged or refueled using an electrical power source. This
will place unique new demands on an already over taxed electrical
supply infrastructure. When this happens, we will have a direct
challenge to offset electrical demand and which then will be an
even greater matter of national security. I used to have high
hopes for a hydrogen economy (3), maybe the MDI air cars (4) will
work.
Due to the fragile nature of our electrical supply
infrastructure, the “major event” (5) black out that occurred
several summers ago was expected. It was not a question of if it
would happen, but when. This summer’s heat wave has probably put
the utility operators on the razor’s edge again. Sometimes, it
seems like everything you depend on works as long as one extra
person doesn’t turn on that air-conditioner. That’s pretty thin.
Frank Clemente is a Senior Professor of Sociology and Energy
Policy, Penn State University. His sobering assessment (6) of what
our future holds for natural gas (NG) seems pretty serious. I
would like to ignore him, but he is too much of an expert. Is the
NG problem a harbinger of peak oil? If you won’t believe Frank,
how about one of the top oil and gas experts on the planet? This
administration certainly thinks so.
Matthew Simmons (7) has been a key advisor to the Bush
Administration, Vice President Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force and
the Council on Foreign Relations. He says, “I think basically that
now, that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until
after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is
leaning me more by the month, the worry that peaking is at hand;
not years away. If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But if
I'm right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating. But
unfortunately the world has no Plan B if I'm right. The facts are
too serious to ignore.” Now that Frank and Mr. Simmons have
delineated our big oil and NG problems, let’s talk about big
solutions.
The following recommendations represent the largest single way
to flatten the demand curve. Without them, there is no way to keep
pace with a diminishing supply of NG and a housing/population boom
not to mention no Plan B if something happens to our oil supply.
The potential minimum annual economic impact can be derived by
adding up every square foot of public building space operated by
your city or school system and multiply by $.50. This figure is
based on current energy prices and an average of building energy
use surveys performed on a large municipal school system. The same
would apply to any corporation or school system with a large real
estate portfolio.
The Good News
With 4% of the world’s population using 44% of the world’s
energy supply, Americans use and waste more Btu’s than any society
at any time on the planet. Lowering building energy demand may be
the biggest single way to offset electric demand. It has been
estimated that energy lost just from leaky windows alone is the
Btu equivalent of our annual domestic oil supply from the North
Shore.
The irony is this: During the time of the Apollo missions,
Americans paid for the development of a performance based
technology that has been in their midst for decades. If it had
been fully transferred by the building industry or legislated into
use when it first became available, we might be living in a
different world. Americans could have reduced HVAC energy
consumption to between 75 % and 85% of what we currently use for
all new construction built over the last three decades. I know it
sounds outrageous and too good to be true but allow me to explain
a few things. Right now, Amory Lovins may be the only one of you
ready to believe me.
Right now we are funding research and development for a new
hybrid lighting technology at Oak Ridge National Labs. (8) This is
another government transfer technology that is just becoming
available. Fiber optic cables for light distribution should have
the advantages of a day lighting system without the typical
problems of unwanted thermal transfer. Lighting costs may also be
greatly reduced. Hopefully it will be adopted by the market more
quickly.
Michael H. Nicklas FAIA, owner of Innovative Design (9), is one
of the top designers of school buildings in the country and a
national expert in the field of sustainable architecture. He
publicly admits architectural day lighting techniques can be
subject to years of trial and error by any given architect when
lecturing on his experience with High Performance School
Buildings.
Supply siders will always lobby for more power plants, but
standardizing a performance based methodology for dramatically
lowering energy demand in new buildings can have a profound effect
on the property owner and the economy. While the President speaks
of new refineries and nuclear plants, the following
recommendations represent one of the best risk aversion strategies
available to a property owner in a world with rising energy
prices.
Performance Based Building Acquisition (PBBA): A Better
Mousetrap
“Performance Based Building Acquisition” (PBBA) can produce
superior buildings for the property owner. This term covers all
the professional services, building products, codes and standards
typically involved with new construction with the addition of
guaranteed energy performance. Highly efficient buildings can be
achieved when PBBA is applied to the design, construction and
commissioning of new buildings. With PBBA, risk aversion is built
in since savings increase as energy prices get higher.
PBBA is a design/build process for new buildings starting at
the conceptual phase and continuing through the design,
construction and commissioning phases. It should not be confused
with “performance contracting” which typically involves energy
saving retrofits to existing buildings. It can be cost prohibitive
to fix all the possible mistakes in an existing building. PBBA
requires that the right technology must be implemented with the
right execution. This requires an architect or engineer to provide
quality control on the job site during the construction phase to
insure and certify that the thermal envelope and mechanical
systems are installed according to specification. There are few
good options for reducing energy use after a building is
completed.
Legal Environment
Laws have been passed in my state of Tennessee and others to
encourage performance based professional design and build
services. Unfortunately, they have been used almost exclusively
for “performance contracting” and they remain rarely utilized for
new construction. This may be due to a general lack of
understanding as to how a building’s energy use component should
relate to the bid process in acquiring new buildings. The Attorney
General for the State of Tennessee has produced opinion # 05-015,
dated February 5, 2005, in an effort to clarify Tenn. Code Ann.
12-4-115. It is entitled “Contracts by Local Governments and
Similar Entities for Energy Related Services”. The official
opinion is that it applies to both new construction and
performance retrofits to existing buildings.
Inconsistent Results and Industry Short Comings
Energy use in new buildings is subject to many variables of the
“Building Delivery System” (BDS) used in America. This can easily
result in one building using twice as much or more energy than a
building of the same size, function, design and located in the
same climate. Associated with this is the inability of the
building industry to predict the energy use of a building prior to
construction to within limits that permit meaningful economic
decisions by the property owner or lender. This may represent
millions of dollars to large institutions, corporations, Real
Estate Investment Trusts or state governments or billions to a
government entity such as the US Department of Defense and our
nations collective school systems.
Building Rating Systems
There are two major ratings systems for buildings: Energy Star
and LEED. There have been some fundamental differences between
them. The EPA/DOE government sponsored Energy Star (10) rating is
performance based. The US Green Building Council’s (USGBC)
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification
program (11) is industry led, based on prescriptive standards and
is the realm of the architects. The largest portion in LEED
certification is building energy use, which can be as high as 35
points out of 100. This score has been based on a prescriptive
standard not a performance standard. Other LEED qualifications are
concerned with reducing a building’s environmental footprint and
can often be in conflict with budget constraints, unless the
property owner is committed to this. I hope more property owners
adopt them both. I especially hope ASHRAE will work with the USGBC
until an energy performance standard emerges within the LEED
certification program. That’s the best of both worlds.
American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and
Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
Another important acquisition problem is how the building
industry is segmented with architects designing thermal envelopes
and engineers designing HVAC systems. This segmented industry
approach virtually insures no one will be accountable for the
resulting energy performance.
Some members of ASHRAE (12) have become aware of this industry
shortcoming as evidenced by an article in the December 2001 ASHRAE
Journal entitled “The Impact of Air-tightness On System Design, by
Wagdy A.Y. Anis, AIA. It concludes with, “ Where does the
architect start and the engineer stop in building envelope design?
A colleague, Fred Wacjs, Member ASHRAE, tells me (partly because
it’s true and partly because I am an architect) that the building
envelope is part of the mechanical system. The building envelope
is designed by architects, who most of the time, do not realize
the interaction between the envelope and the mechanical system. It
is then built by many contracting trades to what they think is
required by the design, without particular concern for
air-tightness. For this reason, more education and knowledge in
this area is needed, and an informed collaboration is essential
between all, particularly when the desired result is
air-tightening of the building envelope.”
What the author didn’t realize is that PBBA methodology
includes the thermal envelope and has been refined for application
in buildings for over three decades. This same line of thought
applies to the thermal performance of a building as well.
ASHRAE President
In his inaugural address and paper “Building Services and
Refrigeration Vital To Buildings in International Communities”,
presented to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, 16th
October 2003, Richard H. Rooley (13) , president of ASHRAE,
recognizes that, in Europe, performance standards are commonly
used and he questions whether prescriptive standards can
effectively continue in multi-disciplinary standards (of the
building trade).
Current State of the Art
An analysis of Clearview Elementary School (14) in Hanover,
Pennsylvania, shows where we are at best in the scenario for a
prospective building owner. This school building incorporates the
best of what the industry has to offer in terms of design,
computer modeling, construction oversight and building start-up.
By the LEED certification standard, it ranks as one of the top
three elementary schools in the nation. It was regarded highly
enough by the Department of Energy (DOE) to be submitted in
international competition.
However, when its actual performance was analyzed, the energy
use was almost 50% higher than predicted by the energy modeling
software. Energy use was so high that Energy Star minimum
certification requirements could not be met. So, here is a
building that by design is one of the highest rated in the nation,
whose performance could not be predicted within 50% and cannot
meet performance certification minimums. It should be obvious
therefore, that more emphasis should be on performance. When
applied to PBBA, energy modeling software can be off by as much a
40%.
Establish Energy Use Objectives at Building’s Conception
Where does this leave the building owner who is the only one
that has a long-term interest in the energy use of a prospective
building? At the mercy of a building delivery system over which
they have little understanding and no control. Does a building
owner have any solution to this dilemma? Yes! Before the property
owner contracts for any architectural, engineering or construction
services, they must establish energy performance objectives in
terms of Btu’s per square foot per year for their building and
make sure someone in the BDS is accountable for meeting these
performance objectives.
Rocket Science for Buildings
The PBBA methodology was transferred from performance
contracting used by the aerospace industry during the Apollo
years. When transferred to the building industry, it represents a
significant return on the taxpayers historic investment in the
NASA space program. In the late 1970’s, it found its first
expression as applied to design/build commercial construction and
was trademarked the “Synergy System”. (15)
This synergy relates to a whole building design and
construction approach where the performance of the whole system is
greater than what is expected from the sum of its parts. This is
what energy modeling software doesn’t factor in. PBBA has become
highly refined over several decades. It has enjoyed a history of
repeatable and successful results.
Using only conventional building materials, efficiencies have
improved from an HVAC energy use cost of 20 cents per square foot
per year for the first office building in 1980 to 6.9 cents per
square foot per year for Boles Hall, a school administration
building at Centre College in 1997. How much does your building’s
HVAC cost to operate per square foot per year?
Better Doesn’t Have To Cost More
A commercial building with a Synergy System costs nearly the
same or less to build, operates at the same comfort level, meets
all indoor (CFM) clean air requirements, yet it will cost less
than half to operate.
Global Warming and Environmental Impact
Global warming finally alarms the Pentagon. Maybe we all have
something to worry about. Considering how PBBA impacts global
warming, pressure could build from this issue as well.
Environmental impact can be defined in terms of tons of air
pollution per year per square footage. Coal burning steam plants
represent the main energy source of electrical production in
America.
Using the Synergy System results in an average annual avoidance
in air pollution of about 100 tons per 10,000 square feet of
building space. If applied to just one year of new construction in
the US, the volume of pollution avoidance is staggering to
contemplate. If one looks back 30 years at what might have been
accomplished when the technology was first available, the tons of
air pollution that could have been avoided becomes astronomical.
Global warming cannot be solved without a group effort at the user
end and cooperation from energy suppliers, legislators and the
building industry.
The True Cost of Building Ownership
There is another important aspect of PBBA for a building owner
or lender. The true cost of ownership projected over time can now
be established prior to construction. It can be an invaluable tool
for a bank’s loan origination committee and would enable the
property owner qualify for and obtain larger buildings. This
methodology has been used to accurately predict and further
guarantee the maximum energy use of a proposed building prior to
construction for decades. I guess it’s the best kept secret in
real estate.
Energy Accountability
Historically, no one has been accountable for the resulting
energy use in new construction, thus an energy use guarantee is
unheard of in the building industry. Three common answers from the
industry have been “it can’t be done”, “it isn’t done” or “we
don’t do that.” The fact is that it can be done, it is done, and
has been a trademark of the Synergy System for 25 years. In case
your wondering if your government knows about this, the DOE gave
it an award for energy innovation back in 1985.
The current BDS is a collection of architects, engineers,
contractors, subcontractors, materials suppliers, and codes
administrators, none of whom really have a vested interest in a
building’s energy performance. Shouldn’t someone be accountable?
What do you think Mr. Property Owner?
Industry Standards and Change
Claiming energy use can be accurately predicted and guaranteed
early in the building acquisition process may sound radical to
most architects and engineers. It is revolutionary. Energy
performance standards meet with much resistance in an industry
that is ruled by prescriptive standards. The building industry can
be very conservative and may not accept change well, especially
when energy accountability is perceived as increased liability.
Also, the performance of a Synergy System and claims attendant
to it do not resemble anything they were taught in the classroom.
Rather than embracing an important technological innovation, it
has often been resisted. It’s the difference between an industry
based on a box and one that creates its own box in order to solve
a certain problem. For example, keeping an astronaut alive in a
thin walled spacecraft, that sees outside environmental extremes
from 300 degrees F to negative 450 degrees F.
Skeptics say, “It sounds too good to be true.” But it truly is
that good. Fortunately, there are decades of documented data and
case studies to support my “outrageous” claims. The data and case
studies basically confirm what Amory Lovins says about buildings
in a recent article in the September issue of Scientific American.
(16) Personally, I would like to arrive at his vision of the
future before an Apocalypse.
Impact for Universities and School Systems
Nowhere could a greater impact be felt than in our school
systems. Even greater energy efficiencies can be demonstrated in a
large school building (200,000+ sq. ft.). How many high school
principles would like to have an extra $100,000 to $200,000 each
year for their educational programs? Depending on the performance
of other buildings in their portfolio, the typical savings to a
school system or college campus should exceed 50 cents per square
foot per year as well. Some public colleges are given an energy
budget by a State Board of Regents. Depending on how poorly their
buildings perform it can be over $ 2.50 per square foot per year.
In these exceptional cases comparative savings could be in excess
of $ 2.00 per square foot per year.
School systems are under pressure all across the nation with a
record enrollment of 49.5 million. Student population is expected
to increase until 2014. Furthermore, the growth is taking place in
areas least equipped to handle it. New school construction is a
major issue. How they are built is just as important. Can we
afford not to adopt PBBA?
Sustainable Campus Programs
Sustainable architecture is fundamental to a sustainable
society. While Americans wait for the next crisis, certain cities,
universities and school systems can become national leaders in
sustainable campus design. (17) Not just the well endowed ones.
PBBA’s competitive capital cost levels the playing field so
everybody can join in.
Here’s the Deal
The HVAC energy use cost is guaranteed to be less than 25 cents
per square foot per year at current energy prices. PBBA can be
accomplished with conventional building materials. PBBA capital
cost will be very close to that of conventional construction, once
a school building reaches 15,000 to 20,000 square feet. When an
economy of scale is reached, comparative capital cost can be
virtually the same. In the case of the Synergy System, this is a
real guarantee backed by a warranty bond, which pays 75% of the
cost of energy if it exceeds the guaranteed amount. Thus, the risk
for trying something different is eliminated. There is nothing to
be scared of. But like the ASHRAE article says… “an informed
collaboration is essential between all, particularly when the
desired result is air-tightening of the building envelope.”
Macro-Economic Impact
On a macro-economic level, the impact becomes quite profound.
If we wish to examine the effect of entire communities built
exclusively with PBBA, we could compare two identical communities
with identical power plants on separate local grids. One would be
built entirely with the above mentioned performance standards and
the other not.
If the conventional community saturates the electrical supply
when 1,000,000 homes and 100,000 commercial buildings are on-line,
the PBBA community could continue to build 1,000,000 additional
homes and 200,000 more commercial buildings before an equal
electrical demand would exhaust the same supply.
With a larger customer base, if the utility must raise the unit
price of electricity, it will have a minimal economic impact on
the end user. If both communities are building at the same rate,
the PBBA community will have a much flatter growth curve on the
demand side, which makes long range planning much easier. The
utility in the conventional community must instead spend millions
to upgrade capacity at a much faster rate. It is for these
reasons, PBBA is an essential component to future economic growth.
Return On Investment
Unique to the world of energy savings and off setting with
renewables, the return from investment in PBBA occurs the day the
building is commissioned and will be greater than any renewable
energy system for the near future. Hopefully, renewable
technologies will continue to improve in price and efficiency
until they are more economically viable. Until then, energy
efficiency through PBBA is a guaranteed given. Returns from some
renewable technologies such as geo-thermal are much less certain
and at best will take much longer. Data from performance based
office buildings, health spas, group housing facilities, classroom
buildings and convenience markets suggest a potential 80% per
square foot reduction in building demand for gas heat or for
heating oil in the northeast.
Geothermal and Renewable Energy Choices
There is an interesting scenario developing in the use of
geothermal HVAC systems (18) in schools in our region of Kentucky
and Tennessee. The geothermal approach is being actively promoted
by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), East Kentucky Power
Cooperative and the Kentucky Department of Education. There are
likely 30 or more geothermal schools that TVA has analyzed and a
report was rough drafted in the fall of 2004. The final report is
still unavailable.
Data acquired on 13 geothermal elementary schools in Kentucky
shows little difference in energy use when compared to schools
often many years older and operating with conventional HVAC
systems. A high percentage of new schools in Kentucky (less than 5
yrs old) have Energy Star ratings of less than 10. A minimum of 75
is required for Energy Star certification. The Kentucky Department
of Energy has just initiated a study of this issue. To date, only
one school in Kentucky has been found to be Energy Star
certifiable. Geothermal HVAC systems cost about $ 4.00 more per
square foot in capital costs than conventional HVAC systems. The
database suggests, that if the thermal envelope of a school
building is done correctly a geothermal HVAC system will use more
energy annually than a much simpler, less costly HVAC system. Will
it take the school systems another 15 or 20 years and millions
more to figure this out?
Specialized Expertise or The Lack Thereof
In lieu of specialized engineering expertise, there are new
building products, which by design may approach the performance of
the thermal envelope in a Synergy System. Very rarely does
anything revolutionary happen to something as common as a concrete
building block. The emergence of “insulated concrete forms”
(ICF’s) would be that revolution.
One of the best may be the one developed by Insulated Masonry
Systems International, formerly a Phoenix, AZ based Company, now a
shareholder Company with the management located in Cincinnati, OH.
Dr. Rudolf Strobel, a former employee of the Procter & Gamble
Company, is the acting president of IMSI. Dr. Strobel, during his
long time scientific career as a biochemist and inventor of
numerous patents, also has gained expertise in molds and
myco-toxins. (19)
According to Dr. Strobel, most organic matter that acquires a
moisture content of 12% (or more) and maintains this percentage
for at least 12 days (or more), is prone to produce unsightly mold
mycelia derived from the growth of ubiquitous mold spores. Paper
coated dry wall is especially prone to provide an ideal growth
medium for molds. This phenomenon has become known as the "Sick
Building Syndrome" (SBS), which has led in the past and still is
leading to numerous lawsuits against the Building Enterprise. This
is due to the negative health effects of allergy-prone inhabitants
and depending on the severity and type of mold contamination, to
also perfectly healthy inhabitants of such mold contaminated
buildings. Because wood framing and plywood can be exposed to rain
early in the building phase, mold spores are often built into the
walls during the conventional construction process. That way when
a pipe leaks in a wall, the mold spores are already there.
The IMSI block offers so many different advantages and cost
savings associated with a building, it’s kind of an economic and
ergonomic no-brainer. First there are labor savings because the
IMSI block is dry stack and can be laid much faster. Typically 5
IMSI blocks can be laid in the time it takes to mortar a
conventional concrete building block.
It comes with its own insulation, which is one of its best
features. It is very easy to install and is located on the inside
of the building blocks and thus protected from the elements, mold,
termites and rodents. The structure coat provides improved vapor
tightening. In total, there is a significant labor and material
savings for homebuilders, with reduced liability from the finished
product.
Building owners can often find they own a building that was
constructed with code violations. This occurrence is made worse
through lack of enforcement. Water damage and mold problems often
occur and are believed to be a costly maintenance and repair
factor for some HUD housing developments and federal & state
government entities.
Have you ever bought a million dollar home only to find the
foundation springing leaks and growing mold a few years later?
These common problems can be addressed with building material
selection as well as design and building operation. By eliminating
the need for organic substances such as wood framing and drywall,
that’s why the IMSI wall system is termite proof, rodent proof and
mold proof. If you like white, it never needs painting. This is
about as maintenance free as it gets. It also has a sound
deadening effect that is ideal for classrooms.
Many buildings in this country have a very short service life
and often have to be replaced within 50 years. There is a very
large energy cost associated with new construction. The service
life of this wall system could be well over 100 years. The IMSI
block is currently being evaluated for use in a Synergy System.
Safety: But is it tornado and hurricane proof?
Destructive weather events seem to be increasing in frequency
and severity all around the country. It is the opinion of many
experts that this is the beginning of a twenty-year trend.
Commercial buildings and private dwellings built with the IMSI
Block System feature flood and fireproof walls. They are also
highly resistant to seismic activity and resist wind loads up to
250 mph. Since dwellings have doors and windows, even buildings
constructed from concrete walls offer no protection from flying
debris. For this, special tornado/hurricane proof rooms are
prescribed by the Federal Emergency Administration (FEMA). The
IMSI Wall System lends itself ideally for the construction of such
rooms. This is achieved by filling one of the insulation cavities
(usually the outside cavity) with a 4000 lb. mortar.
One thing is for certain: if you are behind these walls when a
tornado or hurricane hits, it may be the safest place to be above
ground. IMSI wall sections were tested for resistance to debris
impacts at Texas Tech. University. This consisted of firing 2x4’s
end to end at over 100 mph into the wall section. Result: lots of
splinters, but no damage to the wall. This might be a good idea
for those who must live in harm’s way, but still want to live and
still want something to go back to.
If the Gulf Coast communities had been built this way, there
would have been less than a 5% property loss to existing
structures. I saw 100-year-old pictures of Galvaston, Texas after
a hurricane on CNN the other day, and then they flashed back to
the current devastation along the Gulf Coast. It looked exactly
the same. Both had piles of lumber strewn across the landscape as
far as the eye could see. It was as if we have learned nothing in
all that time. If we are going to build a new New Orleans, and we
absolutely must, it can and should be built to a hurricane
resistant standard. I wonder what General Honore thinks. I am not
trying to eliminate his job, just lighten his workload.
Conclusion
If someone had the cure for cancer, would it bother you if they
were a sole source contractor? This can also be a barrier to
competitively bid public building projects, such as schools. Very
few architects and engineers fully understand the PBBA process at
this time. The road to performance standards may be bumpy at
first, but this is an idea whose time has come. It is time for
community and industry leaders to lead. It is time for consumers
to demand it. Maybe it’s too late to save the planet, but I think
we should try.
Finally, how do you sell something that sounds too good to be
true? Maybe it has to be given away. If you are an individual or
corporation involved in philanthropy and would like sponsor a PBBA
school building or build some hurricane proof housing or have
further questions about the products and services mentioned in
this article, you can contact me. If you are a mega bucks
corporation operating a substantial real estate portfolio,
investing in the due diligence to determine if what I’m saying is
even possible is certainly worthy of pursuit. But knowing what it
will do for your bottom line is priceless! Walmart, are you
listening? Any patriots out there want to save America? What about
your piece of it?
References:
(1) http://www.peakoil.net/
(2)
http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopolitics_katrina.php
(3)
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=284
(4)
http://www.theaircar.com/
(5)
http://www.usgbc.org/News/usgbcinthenews_details.asp?ID=270&CMSPageID=159
(6)
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1050
(7)
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/matt_simmons
(8)
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/hybridlighting/
(9)
http://www.innovativedesign.net/
(10)
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfoliomanager
(11) http://www.usgbc.org/
(12) http://www.ashrae.org/
(13)
http://www.thedwyers.co.uk/ashrae/rooley1003.htm
(14)
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/documents/pdfs/32680.pdf
(15)
http://www.energysystems.com/
(16)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00009794-FCDB-1304-B72683414B7F0000
(17)
http://www.eeexchange.org/sustainability/content/e5.html
(18)
http://www.geoexchange.org/publications/tenn.htm
(19)
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/65/7/3175
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