If you worked a four-day work week, you’d be gearing up to knock off about now, as I write this on a Thursday.

Of course you wouldn’t know I was writing this, because you’d be so darn productive  during your four-day work week that you’d never crack a peek at anything on the Internet beyond your work-related reading.

Even if you weren’t loyally plowing away at your desk, you’d still be statistically more likely to read this at home, because you’d be home more. (And if you used your new-found at-home time away from home, well, that’s none of our business now is it?)

Let’s just say that a four-day workweek — whether it was composed of four 8-hour days or four 10-hour days –  would provide more leisure time, potentially a very good thing for stressed out Americans with their comparatively higher rates heart disease and health issues. This, in itself, would be enough justification to consider a shorter workweek.

But let’s move on to another reason: energy savings.

Big work centers tend to have big energy appetites. For every few cubicles, there are lobbies and meeting rooms and often, vacant rooms that are heated and cool. Sure LEED buildings are sprouting daily. But the majority of work centers, office buildings, warehouses and factories are burning through energy faster than they’re laying off employees.

Think what might happen if big office towers turned off the lights, computers. air conditioning and/or heating for an extra day every week?

Better yet, ask Utah officials, who’ve been doing just that, more or less, since August 2008 within their state government system.

The Utah experiment, set up to save energy costs, reduce carbon emissions, enhance the availability of state services and improve the quality of life for employees could be declared victorious on all fronts, says Mike Hansen, management director with the Governor’s Office, which instituted the plan.

“It looks like what we’re saving is 13 percent (less energy consumption) on aggregate,” Hansen said, explaining that the hard numbers won’t be figured or released until October.

While that savings isn’t what some higher level officials had hoped for, Hansen says it was achieved without any hard sacrifices or outlays to retrofit buildings.

“Just operating from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. — just that — is reducing our consumption,” he said.

The longer hours for employees (the vast majority work four 10-hour days)  also came with tighter operation guidelines. No longer are whole buildings cooled or heated for just a handful of workers who want to come in a few hours early or skew their shift later.

Employee behavior factored into higher energy costs in another way. About midway through the pilot plan, those assessing the program realized that  “human behavior” had created an energy creep in many buildings, with employees running portable refrigerators, space heaters and fans. All added up to excess energy costs.

And there were the legions of computers that were placed into “sleep” mode but not turned off completely at night.

With new rules put into place in the spring, the energy savings should rise even higher, exceeding that 13 percent when compared with pre-pilot energy use, he said.

Early estimates of the statistics collected suggest that the plan’s carbon-reduction aspect has worked well — removing carbon emissions equivalent to taking 2,300 cars off the road for a year.

As for what the 24,000 Utah state workers have to say about the new arrangements, (the majority of workers were affected, though some offices remained open on Fridays), most like the concept. Many love it and a smaller segment, mainly parents who’ve  complained that their longer hours don’t mesh well with childcare needs, are miffed, Hansen said.

He believes most employees would opt to go forward with the plan.

And it’s not so radical. Less than 100 years ago, the six-day workweek was the norm.

Today, in Europe many people already work weeks of 37 or 38 hours.  Many German workers are working a 35-hour week (at full pay) as part of a government program to help people retain their jobs during the global recession. And some companies are proposing a four-day week without longer hours as a way to keep more people on the payroll.

A recent article in the New Scientist lists the shorter work week (with or without the same total hours worked) as one of several  “Ways to Make a Better World”.

As the NS article points out, the last time there was a cataclysmic economic upheaval, after the 1929 crash Wall Street, the current 5-day work week emerged, replacing what had been a Monday through Saturday drill.

I hate to say it, but I remember the oil crisis of the mid 1970s (though I was a very tiny child), when some of our schools and workplaces temporarily shielded themselves against high fuel costs with a shorter week.

Today, we have more than just energy costs and security  issues at stake, as if those aren’t big enough. There’s a great big global reason to consider this change: It could instantly reduce emissions from vehicles and buildings, and we must do that soon and well to avoid overloading the Earth with greenhouse gases. This is the most urgent of all quality of life issues, and to think we could work a little less to help out.

TGIT!

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Wherever you turn, someone, somewhere is talking about climate change. And that’s a good thing. But it’s not a happy conversation. Often, the discussion pivots on how much time we have left to reel in our carbon emissions — and among those who consider climate change a real threat (let’s say the majority of us), the realistic answer to that is, less than a decade.

Give or take a month. (I’m kidding.)

So we’ve got to make some real progress, fast.

Here’s some good news, being highlighted by the WorldWatch Institute today. McKinsey & Company says the U.S. could reduce it’s “non-transportation” energy consumption by 23 percent by 2020.

According to McKinsey’s report Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy, if the country made an all-out effort it could eliminate $1.2 trillion in energy waste — which would more than cover start-up investment costs. And it would save 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Yes, more than a gigaton. Put that in your calculator and check out the zeros.

This savings, McKinsey says, would be the same as removing the entire US fleet of passenger vehicles and light trucks from the road.

The report goes on to note that this energy savings will only be possible if the US overcomes “significant sets of barriers” which are basically everything from inertia to a lack of education to a lack of financing and incentives to inadequate building codes and standards, etc.

Business types, civic leaders and other interested parties may want to read the report, and/or the WorldWatch summary, which notes that some of these transformative new energy actions that could save our planet include simple things — like turning off one’s computer at night and applying duct tape where needed to leaks.

Of course, we all know that solving climate change will be even more challenging, because, in the end, getting all the cars and light trucks off the road might not be enough. But we’d better start listening to radical groups like McKinsey (you get that I’m kidding right?) if we want to get started.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

While people scurry to devise new green components for homes, Don Blalock is in the enviable position of launching one that he’s been nursing along for the last six years.

His Aeonian brick will build houses that are significantly more energy efficient than conventional homes; help them qualify for LEED platinum certification and withstand hurricane force winds up to 240 mph. They’ll also resist heat, mold, mildew and termites, says Blalock, whose goal is to build “the most structurally sound house that’s livable (and) that will last for a very long time.”

Blalock, a onetime music teacher and 35-year veteran of the construction business, knows he sounds like someone peddling a secret sauce on an infomerical – “But wait! There’s more! We’ll throw in termite and fire protection with your durable new home!”

But he explains that he simply set out to build a better brick, one that would repel the water damage he repeatedly saw while overseeing reconstruction of houses for State Farm Insurance. Seven out of 10 homeowner claims involved water damage, from an array of sources including leaky pipes. Water damage led to mold “explosions” inside walls on receptive drywall and wood supports, compounding the damage and the indoor air quality.

Experimenting with brick, he says he developed a chemical process that tinkered with the molecular properties of clay to make it intrinsically more water resistant — creating a product able to leap over concrete block as a useful building base (and compete with sealed brick as a viable exterior).

The idea attracted enough private investment that the company broke ground on its first model home outside Charleston, S.C., on Monday. It’s expected to be done by November and will serve as a demonstration building and offices for Aeonian Brick Homes, which will sell whole-house plans that can be built with the brick.

A Charleston builder, Jessco Homes, also plans to build a house from Aeonian brick as a prototype of a net zero energy home.

“We ran across the technology a couple months back and decided we’ll build a home out of this material and couple it with some other features to try to build a zero energy home,” said Jessco CEO Jeff Stahl. The Jessco model, a one-story, will use high-efficiency heating and cooling systems and new lighting installations to cut energy use. The Aeonian brick will play a major role in reducing energy needs, acting as a heat barrier.

“In a normal stick home, you don’t get the thermal energy mass you do with this,” said Stahl, whose company is launching a green building incubator program called Eco Sustainable Systems.com. Aeonian Brick, he says, has “huge potential” to protect homeowners from escalating electrical bills — as well as hurricanes and termites.

Can Brick Be Green?

Brick has been known to last for the ages. In desert climates, ancient ruins made of bricks have largely survived. But in wet areas, fired clay bricks erode and can absorb water that can nurture mold and mildew issues in a home.

Aeonian brick homes will keep mold out, Blalock says, and be revolutionary in other ways, too, starting with how they’re built. The smooth, 8×8x4-inch bricks are made from compressed clay that’s been precision-molded and fit seamlessly together, like Legos. The bricks form the house’s exterior surface and serve as frame, insulation and drywall. Electrical wiring and plumbing are embedded during construction. The result is a nearly airtight, water-resistant structure that Blalock hopes to see embraced by builders in hot, humid and hurricane-prone areas.

The key is the material and their tight fit. “This material is so precise I can make a brick today and I can make a brick next year, both will be within 1/100 of an inch,” Blalock says.

Even though the bricks use regular clay, which takes resources from the earth, the process is greener than traditional brick production. Regular bricks must be fired at high temperatures over an extended period of time (many days) whereas Aeonian brick is molded and steam cured, replicating ancient processes and using far less electricity.

It also claims green points for removing the need for stick framing, saving trees. More green savings accrue by subtracting the drywall. The price for all this? About the same as for conventional building, Blalock estimates, because the savings in multiple materials make up for the costs of the unique new brick.

The bricks are formed like compressed earth products, but perform better because the clay is altered with a chemical that makes the clay water resistant. The catalyst is derived from oil slag, but Blalock swears it’s non-toxic (and claims competitive privilege in concealing the formula). The petroleum byproduct involved has been tested in other uses and proven to be safe, he says, noting that the Aeonian process makes use of waste material.

“This is the essence of recycling. This is recycling something you want to get rid of that the companies
are having a hard time getting rid of.”

The houses can be scored, molded and painted to blend in completely with an existing neighborhood. The paint bonds to the material, inside and out, and will not require repainting, he promises. These houses won’t look weird, Blalock says, and can be made to look “exactly” like other homes in the area. (Which may or may not be a good thing.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Even though we generally subscribe to the Marxist theory of groups — that is, Groucho Marx’s maxim that “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member,” we started a Facebook page.

You can see it at Green Right Now on Facebook. Or if you prefer, GreenRightNow.

While over there constructing the new site, we noticed Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in the neighborhood. We’re sure this is a comfortable fit for the former Stanford professor, a virtual lectern from which to tutor the masses on energy efficiency and whip up support for alternative power sources.

Today Chu mentioned white roofs, giving legitimacy to an idea that many have no doubt scoffed at. White roofs are gaining acceptance for commercial buildings and are now making inroads with homeowners — in select places. As the New York Times story Chu points to reports, it’s not easy being white. A white roof so radically changes the look of a home that homeowner’s associations are likely to go bonkers. The world just isn’t there yet. (Though many commercial applications are popping up, as we reported in Cool Your Roof With White to Save Money and the Environment.)

Think we’re being cynical? See our story on what happened when an Austin woman tried to put up a nice looking bamboo fence, which was nearly conventional by comparison to changing the roof color from dark to light. Her neighbors were cool with it, but her neighborhood association took a hard line and…well, you can read the story.

We need to get past that sort of thinking. White roofs, clothes lines, bamboo fences, backyard chickens, recycled school binders. These are all legitimate energy savers and we need to get on with it. Let’s be friendly about it. And oh yeah, let’s be friends…on Facebook!

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Everything old is new again. Even roofs.

Anyone who is well traveled knows that white roofs have topped homes and buildings in the Middle East and countries around the Mediterranean for centuries. Virtually every city in tropical climates have white, or light-colored roofs. Even the pharaohs, 5,000 years ago, made the tops of their temples white.

Residents of global hot spots know that white reflects heat and makes a building cooler. It’s so simple and obvious, but it’s been almost overlooked by new energy-saving technologies.

Now, however, research asserts that there is another reason to have a white roof: it dramatically reduces global warming.

Hashen Akbari and other scientists presented their research last fall at the annual climate change conference in California. The scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found a number of significant impacts of light, or white, roofs (as well as pavement).

• Cool roofs, pavements and shade trees would save energy to the tune of more than $50 billion a year.
• White roofs and light pavement directly cool the globe by reflecting the sun’s rays rather than absorbing them.
• White, reflective roofs in the world’s urban areas (which generate more heat than less concentrated areas) could offset approximately one and a half years of carbon emissions.
• Lighter colored roofs could allow urban areas to reflect 10 percent of the sun’s heat.
• If roofs and pavement in urban areas were white, the effect could slow climate change by more than 10 years.
• White roofs can lower the roof temperature by as much as 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Roofs make up about 25 percent of the surface of cities, and pavement covers another 35 percent, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.  Arthur Rosenfeld, California’s energy commissioner and well-known advocate for energy-saving measures, said that a national push for white roofs could reduce cooling costs by about $1 billion.  Houses with white roofs, he asserted, can stay 30 percent cooler in the summer. Others say the savings would be closer to 20 percent.

Several states have already started to push white or light-colored roofs. Four years ago, California made it law that all new flat roofs be white. In July, the state will demand that any new roofs that slope (including homes) be light or white.  Georgia and Florida, among others, offer incentives for white roofs.

Roofing manufacturers and providers have responded to the call for lighter-colored roofs, although the general public has been less enthusiastic . Darker colored shingles and tiles are still more popular, and more the norm across the country, so going white isn’t always an easy sell.

A council made up of 18 roofing companies is working to make more people – in and out of the roofing industry — aware of the benefits of solar reflective coatings. The group operates under the auspices of a national roof coatings association.  They focus exclusively on acrylic or “elastomeric” roof coatings, as opposed to shingles or tile. The coatings are applied to an existing roof, protecting the roof and reducing electricity bills. The acrylic product is the consistency of a heavy paint, the council says. They have rated numerous roofing products for potential shoppers.

Wouldn’t you just love to pick your house up, turn it this way and that way on the lot, and figure out where it really makes the most sense? The spot where it catches the prevailing breeze, has shade in the summer, sun in the winter, and energy savings year-round?

That’s how houses were placed before air-conditioning, when a family’s comfort inside depended on how well the house functioned. But today, we live in tidy rows on uniform blocks that line up in a way that makes more sense for real estate than anything else. The decision as to which way our doors and windows face was most likely made by a developer putting down dozens of homes at once; the placement of our driveways and patios followed suit.

More from GRN

Slideshow: Trees that can help cut your energy costs

And if the sun bakes us in the summer, or if our living room is freezing in the winter, we tend to focus on things we can do inside the house to mitigate the problem. We turn the thermostat up or down; we dig out the blankets in winter or the fans in summer.

And we pay for all of it, in comfort and utility bills.

What to do?

Tackle the problem from the outside as well. Plant trees.

Deciduous trees – those that lose their leaves in the fall – will shade a home in the summer and let the sun through in the winter, reducing both cooling and heating costs. Evergreen trees will block a cold wind or shade an air-conditioner year-round.

“Planting trees to save energy costs makes sense,” said Misha Sarkovich, Program Manager of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Shade Tree Program. In addition, “you improve the air quality, improve the property values and beautify the community,” he said.

Sacramento’s utility district, called SMUD for short, has planted more than 450,000 trees since 1990 in a program where homeowners get the trees for free. The Sacramento Tree Foundation has community foresters who visit the homes, work with property owners on tree location and selection (they offer 38 varieties), and then deliver the trees. The homeowner plants the trees and pledges to care for them. And everyone benefits: The homeowner improves the property and saves money; the utility reduces its electric load (which California has required), and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is reduced.

And the trees do more than provide shade. In essence, each tree creates its own micro climate – in photosynthesis, water vapor escapes through the leaves, creating a minuscule mist – and can reduce the temperature surrounding it by several degrees.

Sacramento is one of the largest and oldest tree programs in the country, and is a member of the American Public Power Association (APPA), a national organization that represents community- and state-owned utilities.

The APPA’s Tree Power Initiative encourages utilities nationwide to organize tree-planting activities in their own communities. Since it began its program in 1991, 267 shade-tree programs have been started in 38 states. A list on the web site identifies the companies and cities that participate.

“The right tree in the right place, that’s our mantra,” said Tobias Sellier, a communications specialist who helps administer the program. “We try to encourage the utilities to be as big a partner as they can in the process,” Sellier said.

You can save money and the earth in the current economy. KVUE’s Jill Cordes explains in our project green report.

>> Watch now

Swimming pools are a big draw in summer, but when it comes to energy consumption, they can be a big drain. Award-winning green architect Peter Pfeiffer shared his own experience on how to reduce “pain at the pump”:

Here’s a great story about building my own home. We installed solar panels on the roof through a city program that pays 70% of the system’s cost. It was a $25,000 system and we ended up paying about $6,500; the city paid the rest. The system saves us about $35-$50 a month; that’s it. If you run the numbers, and let’s be generous, it saves us around $500 a year.

Even with the city paying 70% of the cost, it’s still going to be a 13- to15-year payback; maybe less if energy rates go sky high. If it wasn’t for the city’s participation, it would be a 25- to 30-year payback and it’s questionable if solar panels will last that long.

A swimming pool pump runs a lot. I looked at our pool motor, saw the amperage draw, did some quick math and found it ran 12 hours a day. That’s $100 bucks a month. So, I put a meter on it and, sure enough, it was using between $95-$110 worth of energy a month. I replaced the pool pump with a quiet, very energy-efficient one. Then I went into the pool and drilled out the jets to make larger holes, so they don’t have to work so hard to push water out.

With the meter on the pump, I can keep track of exactly how much electricity goes into running our pool. We’re saving between $65-$70 a month. By spending $800 on a more efficient pump and enlarging the jet orifices, I’m saving twice as much energy as our $25,000 solar system is producing. All for under $1,000.

Here’s another example. A man in Dallas hired me as a $225-an-hour consultant after he’d already decided to replace his water heater with a tankless model and go with a geothermal heat pump. I went to his house, saw his high utility bill and also saw he had a pretty big pool. Well, he had three pool pumps running 24 hours a day; they were using more energy than all his air conditioning units combined. So it was just a matter of switching to one really energy-efficient pump. That saved him $150 a month, but he’d never thought about that.

For less than a $500 consultation, I saved him about $15,000 on a geothermal heat pump. What they do is tap into the heat of the earth to heat your home in the winter; in the summertime, they dump the heat into the ground to create a more efficient air conditioner. The problem is they sometimes stop working well after about seven years, because the ground gets too hot to be a good air conditioning heat sink. And a system costs a lot of money. Whereas replacing this guy’s pool pump was under $1,000 and it saved much more energy.

The lesson is that energy conservation is much more cost effective than trying to be your own energy producer or going with an exotic system. You can take that concept and apply it across the board in green retrofitting.
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media