Highlights of speech by Jay Stuart on repositioning Ireland as a green construction hub. Stuart is an architect and  sustainable design consultant with DW Ecoco & Durkan Ecofix.

11.45am: Green building doesn't cost that much more with good design. Return on investment is generally over 10% for the extra costs involved. 

11.47am: Stewart says he has implemented the principles of The Natural Step in his own business

11.50am: It's crucial we use existing sustainable building experience to market ourselves outside Ireland

11.53am: Plants can be used in innovative ways to cool, clean and oxygenise air inside building

11.54am: We don't need many new houses so the focus will be on retrofitting. US experience indicates that we should have efficiency portfolio managers working towards specific reductions in energy consumption

11.56am: Spirt of Ireland can provide jobs, greatly improve our energy independence and boost balance of trade

 11.59am: We need a set of principles for greening the building industry that we all agree to work to. Stewart proposes The Natural Step

12.00am: Spirit of Ireland should be supported and built, transition towns should be applied to communities across the country

12:01am: Building industry needs to upskill for green building. Stewart proposes a centre of excellence for sustainable building.

12.03am: Stewart's finished now, Donegal-born Elizabeth Francis of renowned architects Mario Cucinella is about to speak. Go here for the live blog: http://constructireland.ie/index.php?option=com_myblog&Itemid=107〈=en

Highlights of speech by Elizabeth Francis of renowned architects Mario Cucinella (MCA) at Rebuilding Ireland conference:

 12.07pm: In Italy, peak demand for electricity is starting to exceed supply at times

 12.09pm: We can't put off sustainability any longer, our precarious energy situation demands we consider it now

12.16pm: Now telling the story of how the firm set about designing an evaporative cooling system

12.18pm: Unlike in conventionally air conditioned buildings which use mechanical systems, we decided to design a building form that uses cooling towers with evaporative cooling to cool air and distribute it through natural buoyancy

12.21pm: Such a system can allow for natural cooling in deep plan areas of office buildings

12.22pm: Computer-based visualisation was crucial to tweaking the system before it was finalised. The system can save up to 80% energy consumption compared to a conventional air conditioned building

12.24pm: MCA wanted to build an experimental home for €100,000 that had a low environmental impact and was appealing to the Italian lifestyle

12.26pm: The cost is €1,000 per square metre

12.27pm: Basic model is a concrete framed building with different cladding and glazing options. It's a "zero carbon" home.  Wind energy and PV are optional

12.28pm: It may be a modular home but it's also context and climate specific, the typology can be applied to many different contexts and locations

 12.29pm: With a feed in tariff for home renewable electricity production the house starts to become cheaper over time, as it produces more energy than it consumes 

12.30pm: MCA examined whether the 100k building would work in Ireland. They found that choosing the right components can create an "energy plus" building - one that produces more energy than it consumes  - even in the Irish climate

12.35pm: Now talking about a retrofit project in the historical centre of Cremona in Italy

 12.36pm: Aim was to be sensitive to context of historic centre of the town. Contemporary interpretation of historic shutters common to the area was central to the design

12.38pm: For the retrofit of a building complex in Milan, MCA reduced solar heat gain using a double-glass skin, and designed a glass canopy roof in the courtyard between four buildings to create a unifying space between them

12.44pm: Now showing an MCA-designed passive house with a much higher budget than the 100k house, in this case €2,500 per square meter. It's an apartment building in Paris. 

12.48pm: Interesting architectural forms are still possible when working to the passive house standard

12.51pm: Now showing MCA-designed Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies, previously featured in Construct Ireland. 

Elizabeth is finished now. Later on today I'll post highlights of this morning's speeches which weren't live-blogged due to wi-fi problems.

I blogged the pre-lunch session at Rebuilding Ireland live this morning, but was interrupted for a while by some wi-fi problems. So here's a not-so-live blog of the bits I didn't cover at the time.

Speech by energy minister Eamon Ryan:

9.26am:  Government aims to introduce pay-as-you-save type scheme next year, allowing householders to pay for energy upgrades over time on their energy bills

9.25am: Ryan says bureaucracy associated with government energy grant programmes has been drastically reduced through web-based applications so far

9.23am: About 30,000 applications so far for Home Energy Saving Scheme

9.20am:  Ryan says he's energy-upgraded his own house recently and that he now realises the value of undertaking insulation measures. 

 9.28am Energy upgrades mean keeping money in the country by paying for work done here and preventing money going to oil and gas producers outside of Ireland

9.30am: Ryan says US energy secretary Steven Chu told him retrofitting of buildings is the most important thing US can do to reduce its carbon emissions

9.32am: Ireland will be one of the leading countries in the world in the roll out of electric vehicles, Ryan says. Cars can become energy storage systems.

9.33am: Ryan - our first goal is to insulate our homes and public buildings

9.34am: Minister says that once consumer fear abates people will start spending, and that he wants people to spend on energy-saving measures and green technology

Speech by Martin Colreavy, chief architect at the Dept of the Environment

9.47am: 15 key objectives in new national architecture policy backed up by 45 specific actions

9.53am: Colreavy mentions the need for sustainability indicators for whole communities and urban areas, not just for buildings 

9.54am: It's not just about the buildings, it's about the space between too: we need to consider amenities and social infrastructure in creating sustainable communities

9.56am: Colreavy praises the Open House programme, which enables people to explore architecturally interesting private and buildings around Dublin (and for the first time this year, Galway) for one weekend each year

9.58am: Department needs to work more with other institutions - local authorities and academia are given examples - in implementing the national architecture policy

10:01am: New government policy on architecture fits within framework for sustainable economic recovery. The sort of decisions we make now about energy efficiency and retrofitting are an investment in the future

Speech by Declan Hughes, head of competitiveness at Forfas, Ireland's competitiveness and building a green economy:

10.06am: We need to reduce costs right across the economy, enhance education and training for the unemployed, and restore our international reputation

10.08am: Ireland is ideally positioned to be a leading green economy: we have excellent natural wind and ocean resources, expanding R&D in green sectors, and great opportunities for energy efficiency and resource efficiency as businesses seek to reduce costs

10.09: EU has mandated that 50% of government procurement be green by 2010

10.10: Our strong reputation as a "green island" is another advantage in positioning Ireland as a pioneering green economy

10.12 Hughes shows a graph comparing government expenditure versus income as a % of GNP - the rapid divergence in the last few years is just a bit frightening

10.13: Ireland's exports have held up relatively well despite the economic decline

10.14: A carbon tax will incentivise "eco efficiency" and broaden the tax base, while a value-based property tax will help to get the property sector moving

10.15am: Forfas have been looking at the potential of changes to stamp duty for energy efficient homes

10.16am: High electricity and energy costs have provided incentives to Irish companies to reduce consumption and introduce efficiencies

10.18am: Global green good & services market to be worth €800 billion by 2015. 90% of this is in OECD countries

10:20am: The green goods and services market in Ireland, excluding eco-construction, is worth €2.8 billion

10.21am: Discussion of various green stimulus plants now - China's seems the largest at €221 billion

10.22am: Key green sectors for export and jobs in Ireland: eco-construction, renewable energy, energy efficiency for new build and retrofit, waste resource recovery, water and wastewater

10.24am: 40 per cent of treated drinking water still leaks from the system in Ireland

10.25am: From an enterprise development perspective, government capital investment should focus on energy infrastructure and grid re-enforcement, advanced broadband access and bringing fibre-optic cables to homes, water and waste, completing specific road upgrades and public transport

10.28am: Public sector should lead by example in terms of the energy efficiency of its buildings













 

Some random links worth browsing:

Bord Pleánala warns on relaxing planning rules: Irish Times

Profile of a British passivhaus: Green Building Advisor

Comparing the passivhaus standard to other low energy homes: Green Building Advistor

Solar Refract house leads solar decathlon: Jetson Green

New smart meter developed at Oxford: Guardian

High costs and brightness still a challenge for LEDs: Green Energy News

Some random links for you to peruse: 

An interesting-looking series of podcasts on the theme of building science: Green Building Advisor

Should buildings be designed like letters? Article on finding the right balance between minimising surface area for heat loss and maximising it for natural light and ventilation. Treehugger

Six clever 'green' products in the pipeline: Jetson Green

Dow unveils solar PV roof shingles: Jetson Green

An article on careers in sustainable design and engineering: Guardian

US survey shows builders don't tell buyers about green features in their homes: EcoHome magazine

The Guardian yesterday reported that the UK Conservative Party's plans for a "green deal" include a Pay As You Save proposal that would allow householders to receive energy upgrades at no up front cost and pay for the work over time through their bills.

Alok Jha reports from a speech by Tory enegy and climate spokesperson Greg Clark:

Every UK homeowners will benefit from an allowance of up to £6,500 to make their properties more energy efficient, under a "green deal" proposed by the Conservatives today. The idea is part of a wider energy and climate change package aimed at kick-starting a green economy in the UK...

...Heating and powering homes accounts for 27% of the UK's overall carbon emissions and, speaking this afternoon, Clark set out how the green deal would aim to reduce this total. The money, to be sourced from the private sector, would not be given to householders directly; instead, energy companies or charities would insulate homes at no cost to residents and then recoup the money through energy bills. As the new insulation would reduce energy use, this should not result in extra costs for the homeowner. 

This does beg the question though - just how much of an energy improvement can you make to the average home with £6,500? 

I blogged a few days ago about Mick Williams's campaign for a boiler scrappage scheme in the UK that would offer money to householders to replace their old boilers with new, high efficiency units.

A somewhat similar scheme is about to kick off in the US. The US Department of Energy's Cash for Appliances programme will fund rebates to consumers purchasing energy efficient appliances, and is backed by $300m of funding. The new appliances must be certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program - an award mark for energy efficient appliances. Individual states will decide which appliances are eligible, and the level of rebate. The Department of Energy has recommended they focus on heating and cooling equipment such as heat pumps, boilers, washing machines, dishwashers, fridges and freezers.

Unlike the proposed boiler scrappage programme and "cash for clunkers" car scrappage schemes, there is no requirement to trade in old appliances. Rebates are expected to be between $50 and $200.

Turning straw waste into building beams: Inhabitat 
Global oil reserves and fossil fuel consumption: Guardian data blog
Twenty 'solar-powered' homes compete at solar decathlon: Jetson Green
New Hampshire home lands coveted LEED Platinum certification: Green Building Advisor
Two Dublin buildings win major architectural awards: Irish Times
Using waste plastic as a cement aggregate: Inhabitat
Nicholas Stern optimistic about climate change talks: Guardian

Writing in US monthly The Atlantic, architect Witold Rybczynski outlines his "green case for cities", arguing that there is too much focus on flashy green gadgets and not enough on practical building methods:

Putting solar panels on the roofs doesn’t change the essential fact that by any sensible measure, spread-out, low-rise buildings, with more foundations, walls, and roofs, have a larger carbon footprint than a high-rise office tower—even when the high-rise has no green features at all.

He also has a pop at the media for encouraging the "green gadget" trend:

Architectural journals and the Sunday supplements tout newfangled houses tricked out with rainwater-collection systems, solar arrays, and bamboo flooring. Yet any detached single-family house has more external walls and roof—and hence more heating loads in winter and cooling loads in summer—than a comparable attached townhouse, and each consumes more energy than an apartment in a multifamily building. Again, it doesn’t really matter how many green features are present. A reasonably well-built and well-insulated multifamily building is inherently more sustainable than a detached house. Similarly, an old building on an urban site, adapted and reused, is greener than any new building on a newly developed site.

Rybczynski leaves his most important point to the end, suggesting the future could be developments that are "dense without being vertical". He cites Montreal as an example of city where the dominant form of housing is a three or four-storey apartment block that doesn't require elevators.

Rybczynski makes a good point - while high rise is often touted as the solution to unsustainable urban sprawl, tall buildings typically require elevators, artificial ventilation (due to increases wind speeds and noise associated with openable windows at height) and heavy, high embodied energy structural components - perhaps three or four storey "walk ups" represent an ideal compromise.

But without solid figures, it's impossible to be sure. Does anyone know of any studies out there examining the energy footprint of different building forms?

I saw this in the Guardian yesterday - leading UK environmentalist Tony Juniper encouraging the British government to introduce a boiler scrappage scheme. Such a scheme would offer householders grants to replace their old boilers with new, high efficiency ones. It would work similarly to the UK car scrappage that offers money to those trading old cars for new ones.

Juniper writes:

The simple idea is that by replacing the country's old, inefficient gas boilers it would be possible to achieve a major environmental benefit and conserve a valuable resource while at the same time creating employment and economic activity...
 
...Reheat Britain suggests that a limited and temporary fund is created, mostly from public sources but perhaps also including contributions from boiler manufacturers. It would work along similar lines to the car scrappage scheme, and it is estimated that an incentive of about £200 per boiler would be needed.

  Juniper says that replacing a G-rated boiler with an A-rated condensing boiler with better controls could cut household energy bills by a quarter. He says that the carbon cost of making and fitting new boilers would be quickly compensated for by the high efficiency of new, A-rated units.

He also speculates that the idea could be slow getting approval in political circles because of the absence of lobbying power in the heating sector compared to the motor industry.

Cities have the potential to store vast amounts of carbon, according to a new study. National Geographic reports on the work of Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany:

Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon—carbon that comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.
Cities—including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs—store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.
In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles' Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.

Building timber instead of concrete houses could also help to sequester carbon, said Leif Gustavsson, an expert on green technology at Mid Sweden University. But he said the main carbon benefit is from the embodied energy of the construction itself, rather than carbon stored in the material.                                     

Meanwhile, earth scientist David Pataki of the University of California stressed that getting urban soils to store more carbon would be a careful balancing act. "Managing urban soils to store more carbon can use energy, and those fossil fuel emissions have to be taken into account," he told National Geographic.

The Green Jobs initiative, which is designed to provide upfront financing for energy-efficiency retrofits to both homeowners and businesses, is similar to programs already offered by other jurisdictions, including municipalities in California, Colorado, and Virginia, and the city of Babylon, New York, on Long Island. Even in the U.K., the city of London is trying to address the energy inefficiencies in its aging housing stock by offering homeowners subsidies for weatherization improvements.

The loans will be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which focuses primarily on the reduction of petroleum consumption but also on research into the environmental effects of energy consumption, the development of renewable resources, and other technology innovations. The loan limit for each residential customer is $13,000, and $26,000 for each business. Loan costs will be added to participants’ monthly energy bills, although the energy savings from each retrofit – which should reduce usage by 30% to 40% – is expected to be larger than the loan payment

Green Building isn't a fad. The Top 100 (green contractors) generated $38.69 billion in revenue in 2008 from projects registered with or certified by third-party rating groups under objective environmental or sustainable development standards. This marks a startling 70% [increase from] $22.76 billion [in revenue generated] for the group in 2007.  Green Building Law Update

The Jevons paradox: How energy efficiency improvements could be undermining sustainability: Green Building Advisor

How do internal and external finishes effect energy performance? Green Building Advisor

Talking Head David Byne's vision of a perfect city: Wall Street Journal

We're busy at work on the next issue of Construct Ireland, which is due out in early September, so blogging might be a bit thin over the next week or two.

But for now, here's a few interesting stories worth checking out: 

Australian scientists develop world's solar cell (apparently): Inhabitat

The world's tallest timber building planned - but will it sequester carbon? Treehugger 

Guide to eco-friendly furniture:  Green Building Advisor

Demystifying green roofs: Green Building Law Update 

Isle of Islay to be powered by the tide? Guardian 

Hemcrete hits North America: Inhabitat 

The Pay As You Save (PAYS) concept that we at Construct Ireland have been promoting - the idea of providing up front financing for low energy refurbs and charging householders over time on their utility bills - has been gaining popularity, as I blogged about recently (here and here). 

Now the New York State Senate has passed a law that will enable homeowners to avail of energy upgrade loans that they can repay over time on their energy bills. It's a bit different to the PAYS concept we're promoting, which would involve a repayment tariff attached to a household bill rather than a loan attached to a individual bill-payer. But the general idea is the same. 

Richard Defendorf writes on GreenBuildingAdvisor.com: 

The Green Jobs initiative, which is designed to provide upfront financing for energy-efficiency retrofits to both homeowners and businesses, is similar to programs already offered by other jurisdictions, including municipalities in California, Colorado, and Virginia, and the city of Babylon, New York, on Long Island. Even in the U.K., the city of London is trying to address the energy inefficiencies in its aging housing stock by offering homeowners subsidies for weatherization improvements.

The initiative will be financed  through the sale of carbon emission credits under a local cap-and-trade initiative for power plants. 

Defendorf explained how the programme will work: 

The loans will be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which focuses primarily on the reduction of petroleum consumption but also on research into the environmental effects of energy consumption, the development of renewable resources, and other technology innovations. The loan limit for each residential customer is $13,000, and $26,000 for each business. Loan costs will be added to participants’ monthly energy bills, although the energy savings from each retrofit – which should reduce usage by 30% to 40% – is expected to be larger than the loan payment.

In the latest installment of his excellent Greenwash column, the Guardian's Fred Pearce asks whether a wind farm could result in more carbon emissions than a coal-fired power station. Referring to a proposed 187 square kilometre wind farm on the Shetland Islands - potentially the largest in Europe - Pearce writes:

More than half of the wind turbines in Scotland are on highland peat. This is not sensible. Scottish peat bogs hold three-quarters of all the carbon in British ecosystems – equivalent to around a century of emissions from fossil fuel burning.

Apart from water, peat bogs are largely composed of huge volumes of saturated, undecayed plants. A single hectare typically contains more than 5000 tonnes of carbon, ten times more than a typical hectare of forest. But any disturbance leads to lower water levels and to the peat drying, oxidising and releasing its carbon, says biochemist Mike Hall of the Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
The bog can decompose for hundreds of metres round every turbine, potentially releasing millions of tonnes of carbon. The process is slow, but frequently unstoppable, Hall says. So many wind farms may eventually emit more carbon than an equivalent coal-fired power station.

This poses the questions - considering so much talk of expanding wind power in Ireland has centred on our boggy west coast, and considering Bord Na Mona's plans to become a major player in the wind sector, has any analysis been carried out of the potential for wind farm development to release large quantities of carbon from Irish bogs? Will this be considered on a case-by-case basis for wind farms proposed in boggy areas?

Over on Treehugger, Warren McLaren wonders about the potential for timber housing to act as a carbon sink, referencing an Australian report (scroll down) on the topic. He writes:

And I remembered a report I saw last month in The Age newspaper that suggested that timber frame houses were excellent carbon sinks. Not a trick that steel can replicate. According to research:

Almost 100 million tonnes of carbon is stored in timber in Australian houses, with about 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent added each year as new houses are built ...

That annual addition would absorb about 0.4% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions (as measured in 2006), but has been on the decline as Australian houses have utilised more bricks, concrete, metal and plastics in the past 20 years. The study noted that were more wood used, “annual carbon storage in houses could rise from 1.6 million tonnes in 2008 to 4 million tonnes in 2050.”

He also notes:

The report, entitled “Dynamics of Carbon Stocks in Timber in Australian Residential Housing” does need to be considered with a degree of circumspect, because it was commissioned by industry body, Forest & Wood Products Australia, who obviously have a vested interested in higher timber use.

However, industry influence aside, the researchers at Melbourne University's Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, and the NSW Department of Primary Industries did collate some intriguing figures. For instance, they calculated that whilst most wood used in houses was historically sourced from Australian native forest or imported timber, these days 80% is derived from domestic softwood plantations.

It may be over two weeks since it was published, but I still thought it would be worth attempting to summarise the main points from the ESRI's 'Policy Options to Reduce Ireland's Greenhouse Gas Emissions' report. Ultimately it recommends the inevitable, a carbon tax, which it says will discourage carbon emissions while allowing 'actors' in the economy to respond flexibly based on the most appropriate methods of reducing carbon in their particular sector. It would also provide revenue for the government to offset the negative effects of a rise in fuel prices, enabling it to encourage competitiveness through reductions in labour and income taxes, and to support the vulnerable. What I find most interesting is the acceptance that we need to put a price on the limited capacity of the atmosphere to absorb man-made carbon emissions - if that's the case, don't we also need to put a price on other finite elements of the biosphere that we exploit, such as biodiversity? 

Among its most interesting observations and conclusions are the following:

Rob Moody has posted an interesting article on Greenbuildingadvisor.com about home energy efficiency measures that don't actually save much energy.

 Among his suggested culprits?

 Boiler tune-ups, floor insulation, window replacement and cooling your attic.