By now, it has probably been impossible for any reasonably politically aware person to miss the latest right-wing attack on Al Gore: He's a hypocrite because he uses a lot of electricity.
When the obvious counterpoint is raised, that he pays more for green power and buys carbon offsets to make up for this power use, the attack then becomes that he's a snob, preaching a lifestyle that only the rich can afford.
Leaving aside the many holes in this argument, like the relatively low cost of these measures, and the fact that simple conservation reduces costs, what really seems to be motivating this attack is the preconception that sustainability = poverty. Al Gore's true hypocrisy is that he is preaching sustainability while remaining wealthy.
This preconception was not arrived at accidentally. It was drummed into the right-wing mindset by repetition. They have been taught to fear conservation and fear sustainability because it will supposedly lead to economic stagnation. (I leave it to you to figure out why it might seem important to some to instill this particular fear.)
Want proof? Here (warning: Coulter inside)
Unfortunately, I think too many Americans of all political stripes have accepted this equation at face value--That painful concessions are the natural result of trying to live greener.
I work in an industry where this just isn't true. I work in an industry where conservation and sustainable design is a very quick path to wealth.
What do I do? Do I build wind farms? Solar panels? Fuel cells?
No. I work in the air-conditioning industry.
Air Conditioning?
OK, now that at least half of you have either fallen asleep or clicked to a cool eco-diary about wind farms, solar panels or fuel cells, I've weeded out all but the real hard-core. Stick with me.
In today's America, air conditioning is ubiquitous. Many of our current metropolises--Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc. are only really viable as metropoli in their local climates because of air conditioning. More fundamentally, skyscrapers could not exist in their current form without air conditioning. Air conditioning is as critical a part of these buildings as their steel skeleton--without it they would be monumental ovens. Our food supply depends upon air conditioning and refrigeration technology. That crisp apple you eat in February spent months in an air conditioned warehouse. And, importantly to our netroots, our information economy requires air conditioning to cool server farms--the pixels you are reading right now once existed as bits in a server somewhere that was cooled by air conditioning.
Air conditioning pervades our society. And it consumes a huge chunk of our energy diet. According to the US Green Building Council:
The built environment has a profound impact on our natural environment, economy, health and productivity.
In the United States, buildings account for:
* 36% of total energy use/65% of electricity consumption
* 30% of greenhouse gas emissions
* 30% of raw materials use
* 30% of waste output/136 million tons annually
* 12% of potable water consumption
The energy use of these buildings is predominantly split between lighting and air conditioning. Making a bit of an arbitrary assumption, that means that Air conditioning uses around 30-35% of the electrical power consumed in the United States. That's huge.
And you know what's great about it? Essentially by definition, the vast majority of the installed base of systems are not up to date. A huge percentage of the existing systems out there are old and inefficient.
That's Good?
Of course it's good--If you want to make money.
Let's take a 300K square foot office facility using a 1970's era air conditiong system. The heart of this system is called a chiller. This is simply a machine that takes the heat out of a water system and rejects it to the environment. It's essentially a giant heat pump. This chilled water is then piped to spaces within the building where it is used to condition the air by picking up heat from the occupied space and then bringing that heat back to the chiller.
Well, back in the 1970's, we didn't have many of the advances we have today--like, say, economical variable speed electric motor drives and oilless compressor technology. On top of that, our knowledge of the details of refrigerant flow has improved so that even the same essential type of chiller built today without any technological frills is still more efficient than one built 30 years ago.
To avoid making things too technical, I'm going to define a unit of measure--Let's call it an algore and just arbitrarily say it is equal to 221,000 kilowatt hours. Now let's look at that 300K square foot facility and let's just say it's located in Nashville, Tennessee.
By replacing the old chiller in this facility with a new chiller of the same type, only of modern design, the owner can save just under 1 algore of energy per year. By adding variable speed capability to his chiller (matching the output of the chiller to the load, instead of just essentially wasting excess capacity when it is not needed) this owner can save neary two algores. Throw in oil-less compressors and we may be talking two and a half algores.
Economic Incentives
Every algore of energy costs the owner money. Real money. Probably somewhere around $1,300 per month or so (just guessing). So reducing algores reduces operational costs. There is a huge economic incentive to reduce costs, since obviously any money saved goes directly to the bottom line. And the premium to add high-end energy conservation features to your system is usually paid back in just a few years of operation.
But now let's look at it from the electrical utility provider's point of view. Most utilities are facing the problem of growing demand. So in order to satisfy this demand, the utility has to provide more and more capacity to their customers. And that is getting harder and harder. We just don't have the rivers to dam or the compliant communities to stick a fossil-fuel generation plant in that we used to. Each algore of capacity (ok, techies, I know I am mixing up units here, let it slide) is costing more and more to build. So where can this new capacity come from?
Well, if the utility is forward-thinking and fiscally wise, they realize that the cheapest way to get new capacity is to in fact buy it back from their customers in the form of conservation projects. This has been an extremely successful strategy in the Pacific Northwest. The Bonneville Power Administration calculates that fully 10% of their current capacity was actually obtained by conservation efforts instead of building new capacity:
Enlightened utilities are rightly seeing conservation as a virtual power plant that is available at a bargain price. They can access this cheap power by offering economic incentives (usually in the form of direct rebates) to help finance conservation projects or to offset the costs of efficiency premiums. This now makes the owner's decision to upgrade even easier--If there is no premium for added efficiency, there is no reason not to take advantage of it.
Where's the Downside?
So let's recap: The owner benefits because they lower their operational costs. The utility benefits because they offset the high cost of new capacity. Are there any other winners? Well, sure--The utility rate payers are the ultimate source of funding for new power capacity, so they benefit from an overall lower cost of energy. Then there is the guy who sold the owner the high-efficiency equipment in the first place. And the factory that built the high-efficiency equipment. And the engineer who was hired to design the retrofit project and the contractor who installed it.
If you're having a hard time finding the downside, that's because there isn't one.
Something else that's missing? The part where any of the economic actors above did what they are doing because Al Gore told them to. And no one is paying anyone any carbon offsets, either. This is conservation fueled by pure profit motive.
Just Scratching the Surface
This little chiller replacement exercise was designed to be as simple as possible. I intentionally chose one of the most basic sorts of upgrades for illustrative purposes. Undoubtedly in a 1970's era facility there would be many, many opportunities for even more conservation. Fan systems, pumping systems, lighting systems and controls are all places that optimization or equipment replacement can reap great benefits. In some cases, it even makes financial sense to completely gut the existing system and install a completely diffent type of system that more efficiently meets the needs of the occupants.
And there is nothing magical about my choice of decade. Financially viable retrofit projects can be found in systems still under construction.
Starting Out on the Right Foot
Retrofits are fine, of course, but the real algore savings potential comes when you can design efficiency in from the very beginning. And with so much attention today on the subject of sustainable design, facility owners are learning that this can very well be an economically wise decision.
In fact, the first privately financed LEED® Platinum project The Banner Bank Building in Boise, Idaho, was designed sustainable precisely because it made good financial sense. But look at the result:
The Banner Bank Building in Boise has been recognized with a LEED® Platinum rating, ranking it among an elite group of office buildings in the world to receive the highest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating available from the U.S. Green Building Council. HDR designed the Banner Bank Building for the Christensen Corporation with sustainability as a driving force behind the planning, design and construction of the building.
The 190,000 square-foot Art Deco style office building opened for occupancy in May. The 11-story building, located in the heart of downtown Boise, uses 60 percent less energy than a typical office building of the same size. The building’s unique water reuse system collects lavatory graywater and urban storm water from seven acres of off-site downtown hardscape to flush the building’s toilets and urinals. The indoor environment provides superior natural light, ventilation and air purity.
Those energy numbers don't even take into account other offsets in energy use from creating less wastewater (that needs energy to be processed) and making it easier for tenants to commute with mass transit or by bicycle.
In order to meet the demand coming from the owners for smart, efficient designs, Engineers and Architects are flocking to become certified in sustainable design. Without this knowledge base and experience, they find it hard to compete against their rivals. And as the demand for high-efficiency products and systems increases, the market responds with more innovative and cost-effective products.
So where's the doom? Where's the gloom? Where is the economic stagnation?
I don't see it. Conservation is a boom market--and one that does not inflict indirect costs (pollution, global warming) on the larger community.
And an enlightened policy is to embrace this boom, and foster it's development. An example of this is the step taken by the public/private partnership enterpriseSeattle which has identified "clean technology" as a key economic cluster they need to develop in their region to stay competitive. They are actively recruiting clean technology providers to set up shop in their region in order to capitalize on the coming boom.
Conservation is our future. And our prosperity.
Don't believe the fossilzed logic of the right. That's caveman talk.
[If air conditioning excites you, you might want to read my previous diary on the topic--A Climate Hero]