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From modeling tools to case studies to a virtual library, CAKE has a lot to offer.
CAKE, the Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange, “is a joint project of Island Press and EcoAdapt. It is aimed at building a shared knowledge base for managing natural systems in the face of rapid climate change.”
Visit CAKE today to take advantage of their resources. You’ll also have the opportunity to attend events, receive emails and join others interested in the effects of climate change.
It’s a goal of every sustainability-minded building or manager: find the best energy saving technology, product or technique that produces the best return on investment. It’s a simple goal that’s tough to implement.
To help out Federal employees identify the best products for their green projects, the Federal Energy Management Program has developed the Technology Deployment Matrix. The matrix was developed “to identify and rank new and underused technologies which hold the most promise to impact the federal market in order to prioritize resources in the next several years. Therefore these technologies have been selected on the basis that they can be deployable immediately and have high potential to be incorporated into agency energy-use reduction programs.”
But, as always, don’t take our word for it. Visit the Technology Deployment Matrix site today to download the matrix itself.
If you haven’t read Google.org’s Clean Energy Innovation Report, you probably should.
Google is well-known for investing heavily in clean energy technology, so when they put together a comprehensive report on the economic potential of clean energy innovation, we take notice. In this report, Google has sought to balance the interests of economic growth, environmental sustainability, and national security. Not too surprisingly, the report finds that clean energy can support all three of these interests. Of course, there is a catch – three actually.
Nobody, not even Google (with its vast computing brain power) suggests that the transition to a clean energy technology based future will be easy. In fact, it will take movement in three areas to see a clean future. In no particular order, the U.S. needs energy innovation, speed of action, and policy supports. Sure, those three needs come as no surprise to anyone who is interested in a green economy, but the report’s strength lies in its data.
The report states that, based on their modeling, Google.org believes “agressive energy innovation” can:
So, take a few moments to read through the report. It is available at the Google.org site, which also includes a link to a Low Carbon Economics Tool that “estimates potential economic implications of various policies.”
Image via Google.org
Today we’re taking a look at energy efficiency in buildings.
We’re starting with a global perspective, because to get a sense of what building owners and managers in various countries are thinking about when it comes to energy efficiency. When we went looking for a global perspective we found it from the Institute for Building Efficiency. The institute was put together by Johnson Controls, and for the last five years it has conducted the Energy Efficiency Indicator Survey. Each year the survey seems to expand its geographic reach, and this year included respondents from 13 countries on six continents. There is too much information in the survey to share here, but the three main takeaways have been summed up as:
The last takeaway brought us back the U.S. building stock. It didn’t take us long to find a lot of information about building efficiency programs and incentives. What we really enjoyed finding, though, were reports of major savings from energy efficiency upgrades. One in particular, about IBM, caught our attention. That’s because, as reported in GreenBiz.com, IBM found $50 million in savings – mainly from HVAC and lighting upgrades.
Of course IBM’s upgrades are very close to those identified by the Institute for Building Efficiency’s report as being likely to play a role in the future efficiency upgrades of North American building owners. We know that lighting and HVAC upgrades won’t work for every building or business, but they will work for many. And based on IBM’s success it seems like the intentions of building owners and managers will mesh nicely with the energy saving opportunities that are likely available in their facilities.
Image via the Institute for Building Efficiency
Top 10 Twitter Feeds is a new, regular series on the CEIL Blog dedicated to helping you discover the best — and most informative — Twitter feeds available.
This week we’re focusing on the Top 10 Federal Government feeds. There are plenty of fantastic feeds out there, but not all of them put a high focus on green and sustainability news and resources. The ten Twitter feeds below do just that and are consistently sharing great news, information and resources.
You can follow this list in its entirety by visiting: http://twitter.com/#!/CEILeadership/green-federal-government
Transportation experts often site train travel’s efficiency as one of the main reasons it is a “green” transportation option. Now it seems that Priestmangoode, a design company from the UK, has a plan to make train travel even more efficient, both in terms of energy and travel time. Their idea is the moving platform, a tram-style system that would take passengers from town to a high-speed train outside the city, all without stopping at a station. Watch the video below for a look at how they envision their idea working.
Moving Platforms introduced from Priestmangoode on Vimeo.
We like the idea of a moving platform, and wonder how fast we could travel from D.C. to Boston without stopping.
Photo and video via Priestmangoode.
Here is a brief list of some of the interesting sustainability news articles from this week:
And you’ll find more headlines at CEILeadership.org!
A new study sponsored by the USGBC, the Real Estate Roundtable and the National Resources Defense Council asserts that 114,000 new jobs would be created by the White House’s Better Buildings Initiative.
According to the press release, most of these would be created due to the Initiative’s tax deduction for energy efficiency upgrades. Of course energy efficiency upgrades spur economic activity in two ways. They create jobs during the renovation phase, and keep more money in the hands of homeowners and businesses. So we can understand why the report sees so much promise in the energy efficiency upgrades.
Environmental Leader recently published a number of graphs based on Gallup polling of environmental issues. The polling data show that concern about global warming has declined significantly from its 2007 peak, and that in March 2011 water contamination seemed to be the main concern of the poll’s respondents. Visit Gallup and Environmental Leader for more polls and graphs on environmental topics.
According to a new report released by Fuel Cells 2000, America’s fuel cell market continues to expand. The new data is available in State of the States: Fuel Cells in America 2011.
The new data provided in the report shows that California, Connecticut, New York, Ohio and South Carolina led the way last year in fuel cell development. In addition to this, fuel cell companies like Bloom Energy have garnered major headlines for advances in technology and expanded operations that created “green-collar” jobs. In all, the report predicts continued expansion of fuel cell use in the US and looks to Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, and Texas as the next states to see marked fuel cell expansion.
Read the full report to find out more about stationary fuel cell deployments, such as those for buildings, and transportation-related deployments, such as hydrogen fuel infrastructure and even fuel-cell-powered forklift models.
