I
have been told for years that solar photovoltaic panels will soon be cheap
enough and abundant enough for every building in the U.S. to have at least one
or two sitting on the roof or hanging on the wall.
In
late December, most of us are busy planning for the upcoming holidays, thinking
about eating lots of fattening foods, and looking forward to merry-making with
family and friends. On December 23, 2008, however, one person was not enjoying
such pleasant thoughts.
The
average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer
is approximately 900 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month. The national average
retail price for electricity is about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. We spend
about $100 a month, per household, on electricity.
Both LEED and Green Globes
address building material greenness with regard to where products are
fabricated and where the raw ingredients for these products originated.
Building design and construction is complex, time consuming, and expensive. Buildings require a huge amount of materials and resources to create, and gobs of energy to operate. Complexity, time, and expense have steadily increased over the decades.
In spite of being battered and nearly stamped out by the anemic economy, the green building movement has not only hung around, but spawned some exciting, promising developments.
Ask any building facility manager what the number one complaint is among building occupants and they will tell you that people are either too hot or too cold. Both LEED and Green Globes offer points for designing buildings that
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