GreenClips.107 11.04.98 AMERICANS FALLING OFF ENERGY DIET After conservation gains in the early 1980s, energy use in the US is rising again. Next year, the US Energy Department predicts, energy consumption per person will come to within 2 percent of the 1973 peak, despite the energy efficiency advances since. On the road, fuel consumption is rising fast. Industry is also using more energy, but thanks to big efficiency gains in the 80s, it's still consuming less than two decades ago after adjusting for growth in output. Residential energy consumption per person fell by a tenth from 1973 to 1983 but has since risen about as much. Homes are larger, requiring more energy for heating and cooling and to run more appliances. Since the early 70s, the average size of a new home has grown from 1,600 square feet to 2,100 while the average household has shrunk from 3.6 to 3 people. Computers, videocassette recorders, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers have been using about 5 percent more energy a year since 1990. Though Americans regard low energy prices as part of the Bill of Rights, the growing demand conflicts with the nation's declared goals of reducing dependence on imported oil and lowering carbon dioxide emissions, thought to cause global warming. At his conference on global warming last October, President Clinton confessed his doubts about how much the nation could alter its ways. Or even how much he could change his own. "I'm plagued by the example of the light bulb I have in my living room of the White House that I read under at night," he said, "and I ask myself, 'Why isn't every light bulb in the White House like this?'" The President was talking about a readily available, compact fluorescent bulb whose longer life and energy efficiency pay for its initial high cost several times over. "Why," he asked, "are we not all doing this?" - The New York Times, 22 Oct 98, p 1, by Allen R. Myerson, and The New York Times, 1 Nov 98, sec 4, p 5, by Allen R. Myerson. ATLANTA REDEVELOPMENT TO TEST SMART GROWTH An ambitious redevelopment plan for a 138-acre industrial site near downtown Atlanta has the US Environmental Protection Agency on its side. After a clean- up of the Atlantic Steel property, master developers Jim Jacoby and Charles Brown will contract with others to develop 2,000 to 5,000 residential units mixed in with a mall's worth of retail and restaurants, a hotel or two, and scads of office space. Such live-work-play redevelopment of in-town areas, the theory goes, can not only help curb suburban sprawl but can cut automobile emissions by reducing the need to drive. For the EPA, Jacoby and Brown's proposal seems to be an ideal test case. The Atlantic Steel redevelopment is a candidate for the EPA's Project XL, a program that uses short-term regulatory flexibility to reduce pollution in the long run. It would be the first time EPA has used the program to help shape urban development rather than to curb industrial effluent. Nationally recognized experts are using computer modeling to predict whether this development will truly produce fewer emissions than a typical suburban one. But EPA studies comparing in-town redevelopment to farther-out suburban development in San Diego, Montgomery County, Maryland, and West Palm Beach, Florida found reductions of 28 to 42 percent in nitrogen oxides, a key component of smog. Meanwhile, the new-urbanist firm Duany Plater-Zyberk of Miami is evaluating the Jacoby design to ensure that it isn't just another suburban mega-mall in downtown clothing. A comparable suburban Atlanta development would occupy about 10 times as much land with 80 percent of it paved, says Larry Frank, a Georgia Tech planning professor and Jacoby consultant. Jacoby made his name developing Wal-Marts. "It's sort of dawning on people that land use has something to do with the way we live," says Brown, who has also done his share of large suburban developments. "I don't know why it took us so long to figure it out." - The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 25 Oct 98, p A01, by David Goldberg. VERMONT LAW SCHOOL BUILDS GREEN To go with its strong environmental law program, the Vermont Law School has dedicated a new cutting-edge green classroom building. Truex Cullins and Partners Architects designed the $3.25 million, 24,000 square-foot Oakes Hall with environmental consultant Marc Rosenbaum. The building's innovative HVAC strategy separates ventilation from heating and cooling. The system conditions air throughout the building but introduces outdoor air only to occupied rooms. The ventilation air passes through two heat recovery devices - a cross-flow heat exchanger and an enthalpy wheel that helps keep humidity out in the summer and in during the winter. Rosenbaum estimates that the enthalpy wheel alone reduces the peak cooling load by 2 tons (24,000 kWh). Clivus Multrum composting toilets ease the burden on the Town of South Royalton's small, overextended municipal water system. Material choices include certified wood for interior trim and cedar roof shingles, fiber-cement siding, up to 20 percent fly ash in the concrete, and linoleum flooring. [For more information, email Truex Cullins <kathy@truexcullins.com>.] - Environmental Building News, Oct 98, p 3. RECYCLING C&D DEBRIS SAVES LANDFILL SPACE Facing dwindling capacity, Landfill of Des Moines has extended the life of its construction and demolition (C&D) debris landfill by recycling an extensive list of materials. A grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources helped the company - now Central Construction & Demolition Recycling, Inc. - shift its business toward recycling. With five of its 23 acres dedicated to recycling, Central recycled 43 percent of the 87,038 tons of material it received last year. Its in-town location is the key attraction to the company's 300 general contractor and hauler customers, who pay a $30-per-ton tipping fee. Clean loads of wood and metal go directly to their own separate areas where a worker removes any odd materials and buying customers can select what they need. Source-separated asphalt shingles are shredded for reuse as road base or driveway blacktop and source-separated drywall - mostly new material rejects - is reground for use in new product. Mixed loads of asphalt and concrete, cardboard, metals, and wood go to a 50-foot conveyor for manual sorting. Asphalt and concrete sell as gravel or material for new concrete. A tub grinder reduces the wood, removing nails with a magnet. Central does landfill some materials for lack of markets or, like some roofing systems, because it can't clean and recycle them economically. - BioCycle, Oct 98, p 35, by Dave Block. REUSABLE BUILDING MATERIALS EXCHANGE The Reusable Building Materials Exchange operates as a Web-based bulletin board where users can post available or sought materials. The Energy Outreach Center, a nonprofit organization in Washington State, devised the system that enables local governments anywhere to set up exchanges. Local government offices or solid waste management jurisdictions can subscribe to the service on a sliding scale fee from $1,500 to $2,100 a year, depending on population. Subscribers receive their own waste exchange bulletin board and marketing materials to help notify potential users of the service. Any user can respond to a posting by contacting the poster directly. The listings offer a good balance of available and sought materials across a wide range of categories. An "available" posting for used pressure-treated wood shows the value of such exchanges since reuse may be the only environmentally viable way to handle this material. For more information, visit <http://www.rbme.com>. - Environmental Building News, Oct 98, p 4. RECYCLED PLASTIC LUMBER NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE Remember that dingy brown or gray stuff with internal voids? No more. Most recycled plastic lumber manufacturers are now much more discriminating in their raw material selection so the latest products come in an array of colors with virtually no voids. High-quality plastic lumber products are cropping up in a variety of demanding applications. A few makers produce plastic lumber for structural applications, some adding reinforcing agents like fiberglass to improve stiffness and strength. Polywood, Inc. of South Plainfield, New Jersey supplied structural plastic lumber made from a blend of recycled HDPE and polystyrene for a bridge at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. US Plastic Lumber Corp. of Boca Raton, Florida has its eye on the railroad industry that's now testing plastic lumber railroad ties as replacements for chemically treated wood ones. Beyond lumber, the Plastic Lumber Company of Akron, Ohio sells a product line called Simple Signs produced from layered sheets of differently colored recycled plastic that doesn't need painting, is graffiti resistant, and doesn't rot. - Resource Recycling, Oct 98, p 22, by Tim Buwalda and Barbara Halpin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GreenClips is free of charge thanks to these sponsors - EPA'S ENVIRONMENTALLY-PREFERABLE PURCHASING PROGRAM Working to make the environment a consideration in federal purchasing. http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp INTERFACE, INC. More than a carpet company. Much more. http://www.ifsia.com THE SMART GROWTH NETWORK Metropolitan development that serves economy, community, and the environment. http://www.smartgrowth.org ENERGY RESOURCE CENTER http://www.socalgas.com/erc The Energy Resource Center, a unit of the Southern California Gas Company in Downey, California, is a one-stop energy resource and conference center for business and industry. WSU ENERGY PROGRAM http://www.energy.wsu.edu Providing objective research, information and solutions. Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program in Olympia, Washington. To subscribe to GreenClips and/or other mailing lists related to energy and the environment, go to <http://listserv.energy.wsu.edu/guest/RemoteAvailableLists>. US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY http://www.eren.doe.gov/buildings Buildings live, breathe and use energy. Their heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems are arteries and veins, a circulatory system pumping heated, cooled, or outside air to their occupants. But buildings live at a price. It costs $220 billion annually to heat, cool, light and operate equipment in US homes and commercial buildings. And building energy use accounts for 35% of US carbon emissions and 47% of sulfur dioxide emissions. The Department of Energy's Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs (BTS) aims to create a new generation of energy efficient, environmentally sustainable and comfortable buildings for the 21st century through government and private sector partnerships. BTS activities include the continuing DOE/National Building Museum lecture series. At 12:30 pm on November 18, at the Building Museum in Washington DC, the topic is Affordable Solar Housing. More information on BTS' efficient building programs is available on the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clearinghouse web site <http://www.eren.doe.gov/buildings> or by calling 800 DOE 3732. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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