Monthly Archives: January 2020

Start of 2020’s Notes on Clean Energy

Chicago is the nation’s leader in energy-efficient office buildings, according to the 2019 National Green building Adoption Index. Also in the top 5 were San Francisco, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Los Angeles. The ranking was based on total space in office buildings having either the EPA ENERGY STAR label, USGBC LEED certification, or both. According to the report, in Chicago, 1,411 representing 71.1% of all office buildings, over 167 million sq. ft., are market-certified green.

Renewable electricity will surpass coal soon. The world’s consumption of coal is declining. Global investment in new coal-fired power plants has slowed sharply in recent years, as countries and investors finding that clean energy, such as solar panels and battery storage, are often a cheaper way to produce electricity and because of the major public health effects of the air pollution caused by coal combustion.

Renewable energy is expected to surpass coal as the world’s dominant source of electricity by 2030, growing to 42% of global generation. Natural gas, while emitting less greenhouse gases than coal, but still producing some, is also growing at the expense of coal. However, hundreds of existing coal plants will continue to do so to satisfy investors unless incentives can be implemented to retire these plants early. Carbon capture and sequestration technology remains unreliable. Watchdog agencies are not permitting CCS until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that CO2 is removed for a long time. Wind is also growing, with expectations of nine-fold growth by 2040. Companies in the US, China, South Korea and Japan are planning major off-shore wind farms, joining several European nations who have already built such farms.

Electric car sales are growing. But so are SUVs. In 2019, consumers worldwide bought about 2 million electric cars, spurred by a combination of declining costs and generous vehicle incentives. Sales of electric cars are expected to continue to grow. As a result, global gasoline and diesel use for cars might peak by the mid-2020’s.

But despite this good news, sales of larger SUVs, which consume more gasoline than conventional cars, is expected to grow, too. In 2000, just 18% of passenger cars sold worldwide were SUVs. Last year, it was 42%, negating the gains in greenhouse gas emission reductions from the transportation sector from hybrid and electric car sales. Can a carmaker successfully manufacture and market an electric (battery-powered) version of an SUV?

Energy efficiency efforts are slowing. Energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used to result in revenue), a measure of efficiency, made major gains in the first half of the last decade, but then slowed down. In 2018, the energy intensity improved by only 1.2%, a very slow rate. This may be due to many countries weakening their policies, such as US, which plans to roll back the standards that would have encouraged more efficient lights.

Another disappointment is the lack of inclusion of energy efficiency in building codes. According to one report, 2/3 of new buildings worldwide are being built without having to meet any type of energy efficiency codes and standards. Since a new building now will be functioning and, presumably, wasting some energy for the next 60 or more years, this is a concern.

Development in Africa is crucial. Africa is expected to grow economically and urbanize starting this decade. Will it do so powered by coal or another fossil fuel or will it do so primarily with renewable power, as sun and wind are plentiful in most of Africa? One report states that Africa has about 40% of the world’s potential for solar energy but is generating less than 1% of the world’s solar power.

CCES has the experts to help you plan your own energy plan to be more efficient, save costs, and have a demonstrably greener entity. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Start A Simple Energy Management Program–Part 1

Most companies have whole departments for sales, to control expenses, to manage employees, manage leases and other contracts. However, one area that many firms do not devote any time or resources to is energy. Many feel that energy is not controllable. We need lights and can’t function without them or need various motors and complex equipment, but we can’t do anything about their energy use. Some feel that energy is a small cost to them compared to salaries, rent, etc., so why spend resources on it.

Energy usage and costs are significant and are manageable. Perhaps business leaders feel otherwise because they never learned about it in business school. Nothing seen; therefore, not a factor. However, efforts to reduce energy usage, if done smartly, will usually lead to financial gains, paying back the cost and effort to implement the cost reduction strategy in a reasonable timeframe. Energy can be managed and minimized without impacting operations. While energy costs are lower than payroll and rent for most companies, that does not mean they should be ignored.

Perhaps you don’t have the labor, resources, or the will to develop a whole new group for energy, or even one person devoted to this. That is understandable. But there are simple things you can do to study and improve energy usage to gain these benefits.

The first thing to do is gather basic data. How much energy does your company use? What form (electricity, oil, gas, steam)? Is the use/need consistent or does it vary by time or season? Does it correspond to certain operations? Are their trends (energy use rising or falling)? Answers can lead to smart strategies to reduce energy use and costs.

How to gather such data? There is one item which your firm receives that is a treasure trove of information on your energy use – your energy bill. If your firm gets your monthly energy bill and just passes it on to Accounting to pay and that’s it, that is not good. You should begin to scan and save electronically your energy bills and invoices (such as oil deliveries) and set up spreadsheets with basic data from these bills. How many kilowatt-hours does each facility (meter) use monthly? Does it change over time and correlate to particular needs of your operations (i.e., greater production or sales? weather?)? By managing data, you can see trends and elicit control over your energy use.

One item that most overlook is your rate class. For example, I worked with a religious institution that for decades just paid its monthly energy bills without reviewing them. I saw right away that their rate class for electricity was of an industrial source, not the discounted rate of a religious institution. Nobody noticed this. Fortunately, the utility had a 6-year lookback program that paid the religious institute the overcharge with interest. Was this religious institution happy when it got a check for $84,000 from the utility! Sometimes buildings change functions, but nobody knows to change the rate class appropriately. Take a look at your utility bill and make sure you are charged properly.

Electricity, gas, etc. bills are typically divided into 2 parts, supply and delivery. By law, the utility can only deliver; it cannot supply the electricity or gas. Utilities, therefore, allow you, the user, to pick a supplier. If you do not pick one, then the utility will pick one for you; and – trust me – it will not necessarily be the cheapest! You can save significant energy costs at no cost to you by researching and selecting a lower-cost supplier.

The final simple item to look for is that most utilities not only charge you for electricity usage for the entire period (usually in kilowatt-hours), but also for your peak demand (kilowatts). What is the most electricity drawn for a short period (often 15 minutes) during the billing period? The utility had to provide you that amount of power through their lines during that short period and if it is high, then you will pay a high rate for this, even if usage is otherwise low. So, study your usage and peak demand charges. Do you have periods of very high electricity demand where several high energy-usage equipment is used at the same time? If there is any way to spread out your operations to lower the short-term peak demand? Can certain operations be done at night or early in the morning instead of in the middle of the day? You can save significant cost. For example, using your air conditioning systems more at night (when the peak demand charge is lower) and less during business hours or performing mechanical operations at night and less during the day will save you significant energy costs.

While these are simple tips that do not require great expertise, they can result in significant energy cost savings. Perhaps you can try this, have some success, show your upper management, and they can see that energy savings can be significant and manageable and worthy of a more sophisticated program. Good luck on this in 2020.

CCES has the experts to help your firm manage your energy use and reduce costs and provide greater flexibility for you in operations. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Talking Points: Climate Change

Part of a series with basic information to inform your colleagues.

Don’t let climate change deniers have an equal say. It took several decades of intensive research but scientists now have a good understanding of Earth’s climate system and the impact people have on it. This is not just a few outlier researchers but scientists in diverse fields of study collaborating and showing the many impacts of GHGs and how impacts build on each other. Tens of thousands of scientists around the world have done work that strongly meet scientific criteria. Research that is rigorous, thorough, uses evidence, transparent, overseen by institutions that value accuracy, and withstand public scrutiny. The climate change deniers who have looked for any weakness from this list (although they lack evidence themselves) are now quietly backing away.

This research has led to 3 incontrovertible facts:

1. people are causing our climate to change, particularly due to GHG emissions,

2. human-caused climate change is dangerous with potential dire consequences,

3. there are still viable options for reducing the consequences of climate change.

Climate change will affect both our personal and professional lives. Some places or industries will get hit harder or sooner than others, but there will be a ripple effect. It is unlikely anybody – even the richest and most secure people – will go unscathed. Yet we have options to manage and potentially reduce climate change impacts:
1. mitigate: implement GHG emission reductions (renewable power, efficiency),
2. adaptation: improve a society’s capability to cope with changes in climate,
3. intervention: in planetary or regional system to counteract some GHG impacts,
4. study and research: to better understand our climate and our impacts on it.

What can we do? No one person can change everything. But people can use their voice and their vote. They should demand that political leaders make climate change a very high priority and pass legislation to encourage green energy and discourage or outlaw dirty sources. Leaders can also pass legislation that introduces incentives for making good energy choices and additional costs for sticking with dirty ones. One can also remain involved with one’s own company to understand and speak up on how climate change will hurt the bottom line and how it can do its part by being more green.

You can encourage your company or local community to seriously consider implementing adaptation, implementing strategies avoid, withstand, and/or recover from climate change impacts, such as passing or adhering to land-use planning and building codes, response planning and disaster recovery; impact assessment for critical systems (e.g., water, energy health, etc.

But whatever you do in your personal and professional lives, realize that climate change is real and it’s not something that will happen in the future. There is plenty of incontrovertible evidence that unwelcome impacts are happening to many people now.

CCES can help your firm develop a climate change action plan and put your firm forward as an effective advocate. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Something to Remember for a New Decade

We all know that a healthy diet, moderate level of physical activity, normal body weight range, not smoking, and low drug/alcohol intake are lifestyle choices that, according to the literature, should result in significant benefits of reducing occurrences of various illnesses and risk of premature death through stronger immune and cardiac systems.

However, a person adhering to such healthy lifestyles but with regular exposure to toxic air pollutants at high concentrations or low concentrations but for extended periods has a risk of losing these protections and exhibit higher incidents of premature death or illness. For example, the literature shows that certain compounds that enter our bodies can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the immune system, and we can be exposed to many of these compounds through the air we breathe. These adverse effects can occur even if one adheres to the other healthy lifestyles discussed.

An increase in mortality and hospital admission rates and sick building syndrome (SBS) correlates strongly with exposure to airborne particulate matter, ozone, certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other identified toxic air pollutants. Public exposure to these compounds can occur from indoor and from outdoor sources. Given that people spend the majority of their time indoors, indoor levels of toxic air pollutants must be a growing concern.

Yet, we can’t not breathe, right? In the U.S., we have a network of thousands of monitors that tell us the levels of certain pollutants throughout the nation, and we have decades-worth of data. Therefore, a person can choose to move to a “cleaner air” area. However, even if a person moves to such an area, he/she is still at risk for two reasons. First, in some cases even a single exposure of a key air toxic (carcinogen) could, theoretically, cause cancer in that person. Second, even if an area is in attainment of national ambient air quality standards, a micro area, such as a street on which many cars and trucks travel and emit gasoline byproducts or an indoor area both away from a monitor, can provide the source of air toxics to cause adverse health effects.

So while we all made New Years and new decades resolutions to undertake healthier life style choices (and hopefully keeping them, several weeks into the New Year), don’t forget to keep in mind air quality. Take the time to consider potential exposure of you and your family and friends to air toxics that can negate these good lifestyle choices. What can you do? Consider minimize walking or spending time in areas of high automobile or truck usage or endeavor to live and work in indoor areas that are well ventilated and use water-based coatings and cleaners with less toxic compounds.

Have a happy and healthy 2020 and beyond.

CCES has the experts to assess the potential sources of air pollution in your neighborhood or indoor air environment and help you develop a plan to make your spaces cleaner and better for you. Contact us today at karell@CCESworld.com or at 914-584-6720.