Hazel Henderson, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, former US government technology advisor and president of Ethical Markets Media said, “this new total is remarkable in spite of economic uncertainty. It indicates that the global transition away from the 300-year fossil-fueled Industrial Era is accelerating toward the cleaner, greener, information-rich economies of the 21st century.”

The task ahead is to renovate tens of millions of existing buildings. Not replacing them as we did in the last century. Replacing outdated lighting and HVAC systems, training workers, and reaping the savings. Importing less oil. Using the money saved to spend on things more enjoyable.

By the way, most of those politicians oughta forget it and get a job!

I am driven to help building owners. Designing and analyzing HVAC, lighting and plug-in energy for over 30 years! If you need building energy auditing, expert energy consulting, and commissioning of existing or new commercial and industrial facilities, please do not hesitate to call on my associates and I. Visit CPM Scheduling for more information.

The truth : According to Wikipedia’s Cap and trade definition, it is where

…an aggregate cap on all sources is established and these sources are then allowed to trade amongst themselves to determine which sources actually emit the total pollution load.

What about this constitutes a tax? Why do so many neighbors of mine think it’s a tax? Answer: TMFN — Too much Fox News. Lying Fox News.

This is a free market “mechanism”. You can make money trading these credits, creating new ones and selling them on the market to an Emitter/seller, i.e. A party who operates/ owns a hydroelectric generating installation could sell credits to a party which operates/owns a fossil fuel generator. This does not make me think of a “tax”. The profits go to the swiftest and most useful, and not government bureaucracy.

Further misinformation from opponents: Cap and trade will drag the economy down and eliminate millions of jobs.

Yes, it _may_ actually hurt the job market, in a small way, for a few years. But it will stimulate investment in new technology. It will cause some pain in the business-as-usual, fossil-fuel dependent sectors. Yes, that also means some oil and gas companies will die. Too bad. But for the greater good.

Here is what the Annenberg Public Policy Center said:

According to projections by the Energy Information Administration and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the net effect of the House cap-and-trade bill will likely be to slow future job growth. Using 11 different possible future scenarios, EIA projects that future job growth might be constrained by something between 388,000 (under the most optimistic assumptions) and 2.3 million (assuming everything goes badly) 20 years from now. CBO also says employment would likely be lower than it would without the legislation – but only “a little.”

(The worse case scenario (unemployment 0.8% higher in 2030 than the “left-alone” scenario) assumes that we are completely unable to execute any carbon trades with the larger international partners, like China and India). But the American economy will be more competitive (and larger) if we do something rather than nothing. Doing nothing risks that might cost us a lot more than the risk of 0.8% higher unemployment.

Wall Street Journal reports on pros and cons of Carbon trading

FYI
Here is a map of Current Cap and trade jurisdictions

Whats interesting to me is that the three states with the
highest carbon emissions, Texas, Indiana and Pennsylvania, are not joiners. Tsk, tsk!

An excellent commentary in this months Engineered Systems magazine, entitled Tomorrow’s Environment: A Failure to Plan Is A Plan To Fail by Howard McKew, exposes the weak link in the chain between energy efficient design and the long term operation and maintenance of said design. How do we know they are getting what they paid for?

Too often, we don’t know. McKew explains that measurement and verification is often left out of the design due to budget constraints. I think operations often falls under the radar for lack of understanding the need for verifying. And CMMS software, intended to help rectify this problem by making it easier to manage and maintain the many moving parts of a building, apparently doesn’t get used!

I have mentioned ACCOUNTABILITY in previous posts, and here is another sample of what I am talking about. My worrying is well-founded. Filters need to be changed, pump bearings need lubricating, dampers need to be observed in operation, temperature sensors need to be calibrated and so on. HVAC, even when it is designed to be as simple as possible, is still complicated in practice.

I like Chris’ understanding of the issue. Seems that he comes from an IT background, rather than architecture, but he mapped the design process some time ago, and came to a fine grasp of the issues involved. Thank you Chris. By the way, if you need mechanical ideas, get in touch.

Recently I have been in close contact with many engineering, architecture, and construction hiring managers. The communication has revealed much and disappointed me on a number of occasions as I seek a new employer.

It’s the BSME. Employers are fixated on this credential. Filtering talent based on the degree-type parameter is not always justifiable. The filter does not do justice to the tremendous personal capacity and energy I bring to help make things happen. I have not been lucky in my search, anyway.

There is a serious shortage of good engineer talent. I bring a capacity to handle and coordinate many varying and complex issues of building design and making them benefit all.

MEP design is complex, no doubt, and a great degree of trust and reliance is placed on the project engineer. I am intimately familiar with the design process. I know how to make a design constructable. I promote and enforce high efficiency (LEED certification and Energy Star rating), and otherwise, I always strive to deliver “high performance” solutions.

Experience is the great leveler. I want to make this perfectly clear. My 30 years of practical HVAC and electrical design and build experience is at least EQUAL to the knowledge gained from a 5-year BSME. I bring a lot more than a general engineering knowledge to the table.

So how did this happen? A: In my life, engineering curriculum’s were not available to me when I was ready, willing and able.

I went to college after high school expecting to be an architect. When I attended Miami U, the world was changing and so was I. I was not as great an architectural designer as I thought I was. By the time I graduated, many opportunities and assumptions that seemed inevitable at the beginning had vanished. After I graduated and took my first job as a controls design /draftsman, the path was clearly leading toward consulting engineers, HVAC and electrical design.

When I decided to go back to college for a second degree, in 1996, the electrical engineering (only) curriculum at University of North Florida was small, and seemed stifling. After much deliberation, I concluded that a wider study of information science was more relevant to my future. So the die was cast.

Certain states will not approve my application for licensure, citing my education not being adequate. I do not have a BSME (BS Mechanical Engineering), and my degrees are not both accredited by the correct (EAC) commission of ABET(Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). My first degree, a 1977 B.S. Environmental Design is not ABET. Ok, understood. On the other hand, my second degree, a 2000 B.S. Computer and Information Science, is ABET accredited, but by the OTHER [read: WRONG] commission (ABET/CAC), which someone decided, in a place far far away, a long time ago, was not an acceptable education for licensing a professional engineer.

NOT FAIR!

Being NCEES registered is not enough, to the surprise of many people.

Many companies need a professional engineer. I am available and ready sometime the question of location comes into play. 30 years of devotion to HVAC engineering counts for nothing in some states. Shame on them.

Here we see a big disconnect between the real world and the rules. The regulations and these firms that blindly follow, would rather have an individual with a BSME and 6 years of experience (to mess it up) than having one with (2) related science degrees and 30 years of directly relevant and professional engineering experience. Even with a superb resume.

Here I stand again, rejected one more time for this sorry excuse.

• active and passive solar heating,
• air conditioning,
• historic building preservation
• human factors like indoor air quality

I first learned how to do an energy model with pencil and paper. It was very exciting to learn how to design and justify energy conservation measures. Then the Energy Crisis went away about 1982. The energy recovery methods that I thought were so cool were no longer needed or cost effective. But the career path open to me was still basically HVAC controls and design. So, this is what I did, and this is what I do.

To be sure, most, if not all, of my professional peers are schooled in mechanical engineering. ( and they possess a B.S. Mechanical Engineering). I do not have that specialization. However, I am uniquely qualified and experienced.

Like many professional engineers today, my desire is to serve the design and construction industry. Many people do not remember the 1970s. I prepared for an energy shortage then, and I remain ready to help attack the problems of this new energy crisis.

Another trend is that BIM is being used on larger projects by the larger contractors first. Now we see it propagating to smaller projects.

Contractors gain all kinds of benefits from using BIM instead of scattered data silos (the old way.) Having information accessible and organized in one location is a distinct step up from drawings, specs and piles of 8-1/2″ x 11″ submissions from vendors. Oh yeah, and BIM makes for a better recordkeeping and more accountability. (HIGHER QUALITY)

The introduction of IT to the construction field was stunted by CAD. BIM IS THE REAL DEAL.
Its very telling that building information modeling as conceived is based on the actual physical schema, a 3D building. We had to wait for computer processing speed to catch up to make it viable as a design, build and operating tool. Now we have the ability to truly document the building. Thank you.

To put some solid numbers on benefits of commissioning, Evan Mills, PhD, and colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Portland Energy Conservation, and Texas A&M University (Energy Systems Laboratory) reviewed published and unpublished data on 224 buildings in 21 states, representing 30.4 million sf of commissioned space—73% in existing buildings, 27% in new ones. Total commissioning costs for these buildings were $17 million (2003 dollars), an average $0.55/sf.

Among their findings:
■ An average 11 deficiencies were found in existing buildings, 28 in new buildings. HVAC systems represented the bulk of the problems.
■ For existing buildings, median commissioning costs were $0.27/sf; energy savings came to a median 15% (18% average); payback times were less than nine months (0.7 years).
■ For new buildings, commissioning costs were $1.00/sf (0.6% of total construction costs), yielding a median payback of 4.8 years.
■ Reduced change orders and other non-energy benefits accounted for $0.18/sf savings in existing buildings and $1.24/sf for new construction— “comparable to the entire cost of commissioning,” the researchers note.

The authors conclude that “commissioning is one of the most cost-effective means of improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings.” While not a panacea, they admit, it is “one of the most cost-effective and far-reaching means of improving the energy efficiency of buildings.”

Post-occupancy evaluations can help property owners, developers, and AEC firms determine how buildings are functioning for tenants or occupants.

What can I add to this? Implementation and testing YOUR PROJECT. CALL ME TODAY for a no-cost evaluation