Thinking about Energy Conservation, American Security, America’s Greatest Generation and our Veterans.
May 31, 2010
“All that is required for Evil to prevail is for good men (and women) to do nothing”-Edmund Burke
How can you link energy conservation, America’s Security, Veterans and America’s Greatest Generation into a blog devoted to the implementation of Cost Effective, Common Sense, Energy Efficient-Green Building? Easy–this country’s reliance on non-domestic oil and its lackadaisical approach in embracing the invisible benefits of energy conservation and energy efficiency is undermining the United States security and putting this country’s very existence in jeopardy- maybe not today, but possibly sometime in the not to distant future.
I saw a statistic two days ago in a local newspaper that just disgusted me and forced me to ask myself, just what the heck is going on here. I felt stupid and unfilled about what my life has been about the past 35 years. The statistic showed that the United States produces 4.9 million barrels of oil a day, while it consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil a day. What’s wrong with this picture? We are buying 14.6 million barrels of oil a day from non-US sources; many of these sources oppose this country and our way of life. This reliance on non-domestic oil, while paying little more than lip service to energy conservation, efficiency and alternative energy choices is screwing around with our national security.
Some will say our plan is to use everybody else’s oil up, so we will be the only ones left with any. While we pursue that policy, other countries are screaming past us in the pursuit of energy conservation, energy efficiency and alternative energy options. That says to me when they run out of oil they will have already developed other alternatives and that places them in a more secure position then the U.S. Not to mention the creation of new industries contributing millions of jobs and advanced energy technologies.
The statistic further fueled my rage when it showed that the Oil produced from the Gulf of Mexico provides 8% of the United States daily consumption or 1.6 million barrels a day. So now we have to read and see daily the results of an environmental disaster, endangering some of the most beautiful and life giving ecosystems in this country in order to produce 1.6 million barrels of oil a day? I would rather spend my efforts on developing clean coal technology, but that is another story.
Something is just plain wrong here. I keep asking myself, has the US’s values and common sense changed that much in my lifetime? That this obsession with oil dictates how we view the world and the majority of our foreign policy is based on this oil fanaticism?
Having served in Southeast Asia (not Vietnam) in the early 70′s and having had 3 sons serve in the Middle East and the Balkans; I started to reflect on Memorial Day, Freedom, and just why this oil statistic infuriated me. It kept coming back to this country’s security and common sense. I put myself in the position of being a soldier. What would I feel if someone suddenly walked up to a individual about to do me harm and gave them a gun to shoot me with and they had used my money to buy it? I will tell you–I would be freaking irate. This reliance on oil, most of it now non-USA produced, does that. It allows our enemies to arm themselves and while we pay for it.
Winston Churchill stated: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm” For me it burns my posterior to know I am giving the men and women, who oppose my rough men and women, the money to buy arms to kill them. They kill our Fathers, Sons, Mothers, Daughters, Grandchildren, Aunts, Uncles, Friends, Nieces and Nephews, the very people who put their life on the line everyday for me. All the while I am arming the very enemy we send them out to fight. With everything I have learned in life–I can’t fit this into my moral compass.
I don’t live in a box. I am not an isolationist. I like the fact that during my lifetime the world has become smaller and more accessible. I enjoy the different countries, their geography and their varied cultures. For the most part I enjoy the people I have met from many different parts of the world. My natural personality, many times working to my detriment, is to like and trust everyone initially. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, until I get a whiff of a donkey doughnut hole side or a rectal, cranial inversion.
But more than any other country on this planet I love the good ole United States of America. I have been a lot of places, but there just isn’t anyplace like here and I don’t want to lose that feeling. I do love it so.
For over 30 years I have lingered over the inability of this country to get a handle on its obsessive consumption of oil. If anyone in 1979 told me we would be paying less than a $1/gallon of gasoline in the 90′s, I would have thought they were barking at the moon. I thought we were on the right course way back in the 70′s and early 80′s. I thought it was going to be like going to the moon, an exciting technological advance in energy technology. The best brains in the business were going to be given incentives to take the United States running into the future. It was an exciting, purposeful time, but alas our commitment stalled.
That earlier movement was fueled and constantly reinforced by oil shortages, long waits in gas lines, odd-even days of being able to fill your vehicle up with fuel, cold winters, the exorbitant cost of oil to heat your home, the astronomical, overnight jump in oil prices at the start of the Arab-Israeli war in October 1973, the formation of OPEC-with its resulting control of pricing and production, the taking of American Hostages by Iran, and having paid over $3.50 cents per gallon of gas in Europe way back in 1973. These events solidified my daily realizations of how reliance on foreign oil, and our oil dominated economy, endangered this great free country. Then in a bit of short-sightedness, one of the men I admire most in my lifetime, made one mistake–he got rid of the incentives geared towards taking the United States on the path to conservation, efficiency and alternative energy options.
I guess I don’t think rationally at times. I think passionately about the United States, those great men and women in uniform, this great life where you can travel 1000 of miles in either direction without a passport or change in language. In the same thought process I think of all the beauty I see and the wonderful automobile that takes me to see it and I cherish it, all the while my twisted brain is simultaneously spending hours thinking about how to glamorize common sense, energy efficiency (it’s invisible) and energy conservation, that is so necessary to maintaining our way of life.
Unfortunately no one, including me, has figured out how to do that. We got Gecko’s, Cave Men, long leggy women and rugged he-men marketing all kinds of things that capture the American Psyche, but we got nothing that glamorizes the most critical aspect of our daily lives, learning how to conserve what we have and still maintain progress and a way of life.
You can’t sit a beautiful woman on the back of energy efficiency and sell it. I can’t pin a murder on it, or relate it to some movie star cheating on their wife or husband. The name, Energy Efficiency, doesn’t get anyone’s adrenalin pumping. It doesn’t sell papers or TV advertisements. It doesn’t affect our life much on a daily basis, only monthly when we all get a bill. Even the thought provoking statements of saving the planet for our children and their children doesn’t motivate us. We get motivated over disasters, big events, and tragedy. We are usually so wrapped up in the daily grind of living that it takes the spectacular to divert our attention. We get enraged quickly, but have very short attention spans, because life takes us back to daily reality. We have stopped being dreamers.
This is touchy, but I remember growing up in post WWII America where Veterans of that conflict refused to purchase anything from Japan, Germany and other Axis members during the conflict. As late as the early 80′s I can remember Vets of the Pacific Campaign refusing to buy Japanese automobile’s because of their remembrance of buddy’s killed and maimed during that campaign. I can remember their statements that , “they were not going to purchase something from anyone who had tried to kill them, let alone send money to help them gain a position in the United States Marketplace.” They weren’t paying for something that took a job away from someone in the States.
They had been to war to defend this country and its way of life. They knew what it was to risk all and persevere. They were action people, who had faced a depression, lack of hope, fear and death, survived and went on to try and create a United States that was safe and secure, for my generation and those that have followed. Of course they were the people that birthed my generation’s feeling of not trusting anyone over 30. My generation, who wanted to change the world, despised capitalist pigs and yet went on to become the greatest capitalist pigs of all. Somewhere we lost our moral compass and are leaving this country in a worse state then what we inherited. We were verbally committed to do right, but we lacked stick-to-itiveness in our pursuit of money, fueled by our reliance on oil and our belief we were smarter than anyone.
I can’t help but think that the Greatest Generation, in their heyday, when confronted with the realistic facts that they were importing 14,000 barrels of oil a day, fully 75% of their daily needs, would have suddenly made other arrangements. They might have chosen Kennedy’s words, “We choose to go to the Moon because we can.” Or they might have remembered Eisenhower’s warning of a military, industrial complex taking over the world.
One thing for sure, they would have never stood for sending billions of dollars to countries that put soldiers in the field to fight against their kids in defense of the United States. I mean, come on, do you think George Patton, George Marshal, Harry Truman or Franklin Roosevelt would have authorized us to buy oil for our tanks by giving Nazi Germany millions of dollars a day for their oil or sued for peace to gain access to it. Do you think Douglas Macarthur would have given Emperor Hirohito millions of dollars a day for oil so they could fly Kamikaze missions and attack the United States or given up the Philippines for it? In other words where have we gone wrong in believing it’s OK to give money to our enemies, so they can kill us? That defies any logic learned in my life.
The greatest generation would have taken that fact and done something about it. They would have begun energy conservation methods. They would have pursued energy efficiency. They would have pursued alternative energy solutions. One can argue that they had the opportunity. Did they? America’s obsessive love of oil developed after WWII. It helped fuel the expansion of an economy run by a generation that had suffered through a depression and a World War. They were ready for some good stuff and they were sitting on top of the world.
At that point in history the United States had its own capacity to produce oil sufficient to fuel our needs. We had it and we had the technology. At the same time our scientists and oil experts where exporting this technology to the Middle East and other countries. In those days, America and its technology was welcomed. We weren’t the enemy. Those feelings started to disappear in the 60′s and 70′s, brought to a head by the formation of OPEC, an organization that suddenly controlled the majority of the World’s production of oil and could dictate the amounts pumped and pricing. The United States was still the 1000 lb Gorilla in the market because of its fantastic way of life and its consumption standards-of course these standards did help progress the world. The U.S. would continue to be a substantial force in driving pricing and production in the 70′s and 80′s, again because of our way of life and our consumption patterns. Now that has all changed–the United States isn’t the 1000 lb. Gorilla in the room–the world is–but we continue to act as if we are and are endangering our way of life with our refusal to conserve or embrace efficiency.
This country has given the oil and gas industries financial incentives for years. Our whole economy is based on it–cars, trucks, construction equipment, housing, suburbs, farming, offices, manufacturing, etc. Most Americans, when looking at today’s budgets, wonder why we would even consider going further to subsidize some Star Wars energy fantasies. The fact is in the world of reality, the greatest Star Wars concept of alternative energy is that energy you don’t use. Conservation and Efficiency are alternative energy and should be classified as such. They aren’t as glamorous as solar or geo-thermal, but they are more efficient. How about this for a new Alternative Energy Heading–energy efficiency and energy conservation?
How do we get there? We have to give tax breaks and provide the capital to move this alternative forward. We have to mandate energy conservation and efficiency measures that are simple, common sense approaches. This isn’t rocket science. Hell even the caveman knew you had to block off drafts in the cave to stay warm, or the same cave was a cool retreat in the heat of summer. While we are attacking these basics of efficiency and conservation, we can continue to pursue other alternatives. After all American’s can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. All these things create real jobs and new American industries. So why not just pursue the glamour alternative energy solutions of solar, wind, geo-thermal, nuclear or wave action? Could it be because these alternatives only perform effectively when efficiency practices are in place? Are we just going to produce it and waste it, like now? That is not a solution.
Too many Americans think that all this energy conservation is about them changing their life. They want to know what is in it for them. How is it going to benefit me in dollars? Too many think it is a tree hugger concept. The real gist of this is reality and our way of life that so many have died to protect. We do them an injustice when we make the easy decisions to go on as we have, not making any changes, fat and happy, all the while jeopardizing our security and the security of those men and women on the front lines who are trying to defend that way of life. We should keep in mind what that great common sense American Ben Franklin said: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
I would love to return to the glory days of the United States, when it used its brilliance to help lead the world in progressive directions. Today that critical progressive direction is one involving energy conservation, energy efficiency and alternative energy solutions. It isn’t rocket science or an Einstein theory; it is just plain common sense. This is the path we and the world must go down. It may not affect many of us alive today, but it certainly will affect our children, their children and those that come after. You have to ask yourself how many people have given their life and energy’s for that very promise, the future, to keep this wonderful planet and this wonderful country called the United States of America, heading in the right direction.
We have to emphatically retool and force our economy in new directions by whatever practical, committed means necessary. We are at a fork in road and as the linguistic Yogi Berra says, “When you come to a fork in the road, you take it.” We have to pursue a new direction in the hopes of preserving Freedom. Abraham Lincoln said it best: “Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.”
This Memorial Day blog sprayed in many different directions from my original premise of energy and security, but I am going to put it out there anyway. These are my thoughts. I pray everyday for the protection of those tough people who defend me and this country. My prayers today are with those great Americans who came before us and gave their all in the pursuit of this concept of freedom called the United States of America. I thank God they did.
Is retrofitting sustainability measures into existing buildings a cost effective solution?
May 15, 2010
I have been following a discussion of this title initiated by Liz Stanley the Digital Community Manager at UBM Built Environment on Linked-In for the past couple of weeks. Finally after a comment today I just couldn’t keep my opinion to myself any longer. The comment started with:
“Payback is a term that makes me mad. The driver for the fitting of energy saving measures to existing building stock is to payback to the earth some of the resources that we have wasted and stolen from our children. Surely we need to consider what is the most cost effective ways of reducing our energy addiction. ”
This discussion is particularly close to my heart having restored numerous historic structures and renovated many others, both residential and commercial, always paying attention to energy efficiency and maintenance issues besides a slew of other important things—like cost.
In Nirvana or the Kingdom of Heaven compensating for the waste of resources and the polluting of the world might be the soul justification for incorporating sustainability measures into an existing building, but in the real world it is about that “dirty ole money.”
It is about “What’s in it for me, the building owner?” If an existing building is to justify sustainable or energy efficient measures being incorporated into a retrofit–it has to make economic sense. To me, as well as others, it has to have practical, common sense, economic justification. It may not be in terms of payback within 6 years, but it is certainly about the expenditure and what it is going to provide.
If one decides to replace the exterior shell or cladding, the decision is going to be made on initial cost plus what it is going to save the owner in maintenance and replacement costs over a time period.
If one decides to upgrade the thermal envelope, it is going to be based on what it is going to save on the utility bill or by reducing operational costs including maintenance. It does not matter whether the building is a 200,000 SF industrial building or a 2000 SF home.
Example: Say a building owner is going to upgrade their roof/ceiling insulation and its initial cost is $100,000.00 for an environmentally friendly material. This is going to save them $1000/month in utility costs for a payback in 8.5 years, based on today’s energy costs
They find a substitute product that is detrimental to the environment, but it isn’t against code or regulations. This product is going to cost them $75,000. It too is going to save them $1000/month in utility costs for a payback in 6.25 years. Which one do you think the building owner is going to take?
Now if the government is going to give them a tax break or a grant to install the good stuff, then they will install the environmentally proper material. Unfortunately unless you have astronomical dollars at your disposal, allowing you to do right without economic justification, the decision is going to be based on the initial cost in dollars, pounds, lyre, baht, etc. and what the savings are going to be over a time period.
The proper fiscal argument regarding government incentives would be “Why do we have to spend more government money or rely on them? The fact is without incentives it won’t get done. The governments of the world have been subsidizing oil and gas interests since almost the beginning of time, or at least since I was born. If we are ever going to get this world on the right path, the government and its money and its laws have to force it to be done.
I didn’t write the rules. No one believes in upgrading energy efficiency and sustainable building measures into an existing structure more than I do, but I live in the real world of building, both as a builder and a technical consultant. Without financial justification or incentives, be they government grants, tax write off’s, or substantial savings in operational costs, it isn’t going to get done for the sake of the planet. It is about money and its cost effective, common sense application to the project at hand.
Home Star-An Energy Efficiency Program that needs to put dollars in America’s pockets if it is to work.
May 4, 2010
Home Star-an Energy Efficiency Bill working its way through Congress is marketed as the next great thing to get people to work with the side benefit of making America’s built environment more energy efficient. If the thinking isn’t changed as to financing, it will never make the impact it is counting on. It is a jobs bill that still requires Americans to reach into their pockets, pockets that aren’t filled with much cash at the moment or easy access to credit.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the National Capital Contractor Forum in Manassas, Virginia. I attended to get some insight into the Home Performance by Energy Star pilot program being introduced to Northern Virginia. It had some great sponsors and some people who really care about what is happening in the Energy Efficiency business around Washington, D.C.
The Forum, as with many national home energy symposiums, conventions or conferences lately, pushed and discussed the Home Star initiative making its way through Congress. It is being hailed as the Nirvana for jump starting home energy efficiency upgrades. In February I was inundated with Home Star at the RESNET conference in Raleigh. Why? For those in the Energy Rating business it is a job creation bonanza.
Until the Contractors Forum I was assuming that Home Star was an energy efficiency program. I was wrong. I happen to ask about monitoring utility bills after the improvements and was brought up short by the speaker. I was told outright, “This isn’t about results, this is about creating jobs.” Well, results are my primary reason for being involved in the Sustainable, Energy Efficiency movement (I prefer this description to “Green” Building–a totally overused word describing everything from diapers to windows).
Nobody wants to see the building economy recover more than I do. But I don’t want the United States to create an entire contractor base focused on a government program requirement, all the while knowing nothing about what the program is meant to accomplish(measurable reductions in energy use–energy efficiency). Creating jobs in one thing, creating a skilled workforce that can improve American lives is another. I want contractors who know not only what they are doing, but why they are doing it, which is to get energy efficiency results that save consumers, builders and businesses money. When contractors know this and can take some pride in what they accomplish, they might actually stick with it as a career and the U.S. becomes better for it.
The Home Star program has incentives built in and two different tiers. One tier, Silver, would give a homeowner up to $3000.00 back on a $6,000.00 investment. There was a speaker, Ray Walsh, who related the situation to disposable income. Good analogy. His comment was if one had a choice to spend $6000.00 on their home, and they would get $3000.00 of it back or rent a home at the beach for their family for a couple weeks and take a vacation, what would they choose? Energy Efficiency expenditures compete directly with disposable income, which in this down economy is substantially reduced for the average working family.
Say I was going to spend $3000.00 out of my own pocket to improve my homes energy efficiency and save $50/month in my utility costs by doing so. This equates to $600/year, or a 5 year payback, a 20% return on my investment. That’s a nice return. But unfortunately I am probably not going to reach into my pocket and spend $3000.00. I will probably spend some of that money on a vacation, a car, something I want and need, and continue to pay the utility bill of $50 more, or $600.00 for the year. Why? I want some higher prioritized things for my family or me, then energy efficiency, which I can’t see, feel or touch.
That is the problem with any program at this point that requires a homeowner to reach into their pocket. Many of them don’t have it and if they do, they might think of many better things to do with the money. No overhaul of the existing buildings infrastructure is going to get anywhere unless it puts money in the consumer’s pocket. A business owner or high income individual may be attracted to tax credits offered and can afford to look at the expenditure as an investment, but the common worker, struggling to make ends meet, is not spending money on energy efficiency unless there is something in it for them and that something is not usually a savings of $50 a month after spending $3000.00 out of pocket.
I am not talking about new construction here. Anyone who doesn’t pay diligent attention to cost effective energy conservation, energy efficiency or sustainable building practices when building a new structure barks at the moon. They are loony. But an existing home owner(they are different then an existing building owner), no matter how much common sense it makes, is not reaching in their pocket to do it, unless they are forced to or can see some substantial jingle in their pocket.
If Home Star was set up with a financing package, meaning the $6,000.00 that is spent is entirely financed, and the homeowner still got their $3000.00 back from Federal Government, you might see some of this actually working. For example I spend $6,000 on energy efficiency upgrading and that entire $6,000.00 is financed. Now I get $3000.00 back from the government. I got three grand in my pocket that I can use–I like that. Going a step further I have say a low interest loan(3%)for the $6,000 that has to be paid back in 6 years. My payments would be approximately $92/month for 6 years. I am now saving $50/month on my energy bill or net out of pocket of $42/month for 6 years. This totals approximately $3000.00 out of pocket, or nothing, because I got that $3000.00 up front to use. And if the appraisers and the banks of the United States counted in my energy efficiency upgrades by increasing the value of my house, I know have something more when I sell or refinance.
This is just a hypothetical example and some out of the box thinking. It may seem fiscally irresponsible getting the government involved, but new thinking is what it is going to take to get Americans to upgrade the energy efficiencies of their homes, when they don’t have to. Frankly I believe the government should hold lending institutions feet to the fire to provide this type of loan. It is the very least they could do and it would go a long way towards removing this foul taste I have in my mouth from the government’s bank bail outs and creeps pocketing huge bonus’s when they still haven’t done squat to help Americans pull us out of this recession.
Energy efficiency is invisible, it only shows up on a utility bill in savings. Americans usually invest for an income or appreciation, they just don’t look at utility savings as income, try as we might to convince them otherwise. Until we figure out how to put money in building owners or homeowners pockets, they aren’t inclined to fork out the cash and in this economic climate, they are less inclined to do so.
We have subsidized bankers, car manufacturers, big oil, every one and almost anyone lately, but if America is going to change in totality the existing homes in this country, we are going to have to finance it, not just subsidize it. The Federal Government can mandate it for their existing buildings, they have the money and the control, but to force homeowners or building owners to do the same they gotta get some money in their pocket, not ask them to spend some. A financing program like this would go a long way towards getting the existing built environment more energy efficient and create jobs at the same time.
The above is strictly my opinion. The numbers were based on the Silver Star prescriptive path of the Home Star initiative. To achieve Gold Star performance path incentives, the homeowner has to spend more to get more and the same principles would apply.