Energy and Global Warming News for August 7th: Amory Lovins “pushing the envelope of what’s possible” with home efficiency innovations at his Banana Farm

[JR:  A nice story on a green building I had the pleasure of working in for two years in the early 1990s.  Click on figure for interactive floorplan.]

The Homely Costs of Energy Conservation

A quarter-century ago, in the wake of America’s first energy crisis, a young scientist named Amory Lovins came to the Rocky Mountains and built himself a radical house based on a radical idea. The country could save both energy and money, he believed, by combining common sense and unconventional technology.

Mr. Lovins did achieve substantial energy savings, and many of his innovations, from better insulation to multiple-pane windows to more-efficient refrigerators, eventually became familiar fixtures in American homes….

…Now, Mr. Lovins has completed a renovation that he hopes will demonstrate how much more energy-efficient houses can become. But the project also serves as a reminder of the still-enormous gulf between what is technologically possible and what society is able or willing to pay for….

Some of his proudest advances stem from mundane changes. He installed an electric stove made by a Swiss company that is 60% more efficient than other models he found. The savings stem partly from pots designed specifically for the stove. The pots eliminate warping that typically occurs with copper cookware, wasting heat.

He also has shaved energy use by insisting on an unconventional plumbing design. Typically, residential pipes that carry water would be ½-inch wide and turn at right angles. But that builds up friction, requiring electric pumps to work harder to propel the water. So Mr. Lovins had ¾-inch-wide pipes installed that run diagonally across ceilings and walls to minimize friction.

“If it looks pretty,” he says, “it probably doesn’t save energy.”

Pacific populations being prepared for relocation

Some Pacific Island states are preparing their populations for relocation if climate change claims their homes, and New Zealand appears to be more willing than Australia to accept them.

The impact of climate change on the Pacific was a hot topic at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit in Cairns today.

‘Swiss want to reverse prayers, ask God to stop glacier’s shrinking

Villagers from deeply Roman Catholic south Switzerland have for centuries offered a sacred vow to God to protect them from the advancing ice mass of the Great Aletsch glacier.

Global warming is making them want to reverse their prayers, and the Alpine faithful are seeking the permission of the pope.

Since the vow was established in 1678, the deal was simple: the citizens of the isolated mountain hamlets of Fiesch and Fieschertal would pledge to lead virtuous lives. In exchange, God would spare their homes and livelihoods from being swallowed by Europe’s largest glacier as it expanded toward the valley with heavy winter snows.

Burning issues

This month Jennifer Balch will head into the Amazon rainforest of Mato Grosso state, in Brazil. She intends to set fire to it and find out what happens. When Dr Balch, who is based at Woods Hole Research Centre, in Massachusetts, and her 30 helpers have finished their weeklong task, 50 hectares will have been torched. “It’s pretty darn exciting, and a bit crazy”, she says, “to see a bunch of researchers running around burning down a forest.”

The questions that prompt all this destruction are important. The first is: will tropical forests survive the increasing occurrence of wildfires as the climate changes and people move in, or will the landscape shift from one ruled by trees to one dominated by grassland? The second is: how much carbon do such wildfires release into the atmosphere?

EPA denies GOP request to redo Waxman-Markey analysis

U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday denied GOP requests to perform a new economic analysis of the House-passed climate and energy bill, saying the Energy Department has essentially answered any outstanding questions.

Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) asked EPA last month to revise its study of the House bill, because it “offers an incomplete account of the bill’s major provisions, how they overlap, and how they impact consumers, households, and the economy.”

In a letter to EPA, the top two Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee asked the agency to use a reference case including the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration’s April 2009 Annual Energy Outlook; insert the economic projections from President Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal; and include analysis of a variety of situations in which low-carbon energy sources are constrained.

Clean energy loan picks up steam

A proposed revolving loan fund of $30 million for clean energy technology is gaining support from 150 clean energy manufacturers, marking a growing fault line in the struggling industry.

The companies represent a hodgepodge of small- and medium-sized businesses, largely specializing in clean energy sectors like solar and wind technology. They also stand to benefit the most from the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

The Apollo Alliance, a left-leaning clean energy advocacy group, is rallying support for the act, which it says will help balance provisions in a climate change bill that is likely to create demand for new, clean manufacturing jobs.

U.S. sees progress with Brazil on climate talks

Brazil has the clout and credibility to assert itself as a leading voice in world climate talks to help ensure the success of any new treaty aimed at reducing global warming, the top U.S. environmental diplomat said on Thursday.

Already a pioneer in clean energy and the use of biofuels such as cane-based ethanol, Brazil could cement its pro-environment credentials if it succeeds in slowing the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, U.S. climate change envoy Todd Stern said after a three-day visit to the South American nation.

In Quest for Efficiency and Conservation, NASA Turns Technology Earthward

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has sent spacecraft to the farthest reaches of the solar system. Its latest mission is a bit closer to home: helping Los Angeles save water and energy while cutting the sprawling metropolis’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of a partnership with the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the propulsion lab will repurpose technology developed to explore the cosmos and monitor Earth’s environment.

“We have people trying to understand what challenges the Los Angeles basin is facing and how some of these technologies and missions being developed by NASA can be relevant,” said Charles Elachi, the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview Tuesday.