One of the better articles on energy-efficient mortgages I’ve seen.
Want to make your home more energy efficient but can’t afford the cost? There may be ways to save on a loan to get the work done.
A number of lenders and government agencies are offering mortgage deals to people who borrow money to make their homes more efficient, or who buy homes that already meet high efficiency standards. The programs work in a number of ways. Some offer a discount””often $500 or more””on the closing costs for a refinancing or new mortgage. Other plans offer a lower interest rate on the loan, sometimes a half-point or more below the current market rate.
Meanwhile, some programs give another kind of benefit: They factor potential energy-bill savings into qualifying income, which may allow people to borrow more money. Even minor efficiency upgrades can bring hundreds of dollars a year in savings and potentially help people qualify for a bigger loan.
The savings also provide an incentive for homeowners to get the work done now””since energy prices may become more of a burden in the near future. Energy prices “have already started to go back up,” says Paul Ellis, a certified financial planner and senior financial adviser with Ameriprise. “Nothing is guaranteed, but as the economy recovers, energy costs will most likely start to rise again. Right now, while energy costs are still reasonable, there’s more of an opportunity for people to plan without feeling under the gun.”
Europe’s Saharan Power Plan: Miracle Or Mirage?
A 400 billion euro plan to power Europe with Sahara sunlight is gaining momentum, even as critics see high risks in a large corporate project using young technology in north African countries with weak rule of law.
Desertec, as the initiative is called, would be the world’s most ambitious solar power project. Fields of mirrors in the desert would gather solar rays to boil water, turning turbines to electrify a new carbon-free network linking Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Its supporters, a dozen finance and industrial firms mostly from Germany, say it will keep Europe at the forefront of the fight against climate change and help North African and European economies to grow within greenhouse gas emission limits.
This is a pretty good article on the massive CSP project being considered, which is certainly no slamdunk. For more on the technology, see “Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload “” a core climate solution.”
Climate change opens Arctic route for German ships
Two German ships set off on Friday on the first journey across Russia’s Arctic-facing northern shore without the help of icebreakers after climate change helped opened the passage, the company said.
Beetles, wildfire: Double threat in warming world
A veil of smoke settled over the forest in the shadow of the St. Elias Mountains, in a wilderness whose spruce trees stood tall and gray, a deathly gray even in the greenest heart of a Yukon summer. “As far as the eye can see, it’s all infested,” forester Rob Legare said, looking out over the thick woods of the Alsek River valley.
Reuters, Pass U.S. climate law, then strengthen – Waxman
The United States can follow California’s lead of raising climate change goals over time, a congressional leader on global warming initiatives said on Friday.
Representative Henry Waxman, the Democrat who navigated a climate change bill through the U.S. House of Representatives this year, urged his counterparts in the Senate to move quickly on its bill.
IF climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming.
GOP looks to put the Hurt on Rep. Perriello
Former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) opened up a sweepstakes in his old district when he said last month that he wouldn’t run in 2010, and state Sen. Robert Hurt has emerged from the clutter as the odds-on frontrunner.
Hurt has yet to make his intentions known, but those close to him say he is seriously looking at the race and is leaning toward entering it.
Southern governors hear warning on climate change
Global climate change over the next 20 years will cause intense droughts in the Southwest, floods in the Northeast threatening the coastline and urban areas, and significant storm damage along the Gulf Coast, a panel of Southern governors was told yesterday.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
There are also location-efficient mortages. If houses are in walkable neighborhoods where families need only one car instead of two or more, that savings in transporation costs is factored into the qualifying income, so people can afford a larger mortgage. Needless to say, reducing automobile use in this way also reduces ghg emissions.
Re “The United States can follow California’s lead …”: California’s AB-32 implementation could set a precedent for more ambitious federal policies, provided that Waxman-Markey does not nullify the environmental benefit of California’s GHG regulations by allowing any resulting emission reductions to be traded for equivalent emission increases elsewhere.
One thing that bothers me about the vertical farms is that the lack of sunlight available would have to be made up for by artificial lighting. The articles I’ve seen gloss over this.
Berbalang (3) I suspect that lighting is less of a problem than you think. Many plants grow better in diffuse light in any case, so properly designed windows with diffusers might work well. It is the case that obtaining winter crops probably requires some artificial light.
In any case, the proposal has many potential energy efficiencies as well as better control of runoff polutants and so on.
“The Vertical Farm”:
http://www.iees.ch/EcoEng041/EcoEng041_verticalFarm.html
David (4) I don’t doubt that the idea has a lot of control of water usage and runoff pollutants. But there is only so much area to collect light to be distributed over what amounts to a very large growing area inside. And there is the problem of shading from other tall buildings if we put these in cities. Lighting has got to be an issue with them, so they will have to incorporate artificial lighting.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/36823/title/Let%E2%80%99s_Get_Vertical
Thinking about it, I could see where an insect pest would reproduce quickly in such and environment, so there would have to be some sort of controls in place.
Berbalang (6) — Within walking distance of here are greenhouses which use some inside whitewash as light diffusers and grow-lamps as season extenders. So yes, I’m sure some artificial light will be required. Of course if any such compact environment deseases and pests have to be carefully controlled. That is standardly done in greenhouses now and the vertical farm is going to be greenhouses stacked upon one another.
Despite difficulties to be resolved, the idea certainly has appeal for big cities.
David (4,5)
Vertical farms may produce luxury foods in boutique amounts but they won’t be any kind of replacement or supplement to world food production.
Smil 2006 (Energy in Nature and Society) gives in table A.13 the following figures for the world for the year 2000:
Annual Harvest: 40 exajoules
Yield: 26.1 gigajoules per hectare.
If we allow that vertical farms will produce at 20 times the world average yield, and make some reasonable assumptions about building and plant costs, and urban land costs, to provide an increment of one percent in world food supply would require of the order of 100 trillion dollars capital.
This amount would, I imagine, enable an increment of more than one percent if applied judiciously to conventional agriculture.
(One percent of the total is commonly regarded as the point where a technology becomes “credible” as a source of energy. In this case, it’s food for 70 million people.)
Of course, if vertical farm yields are in fact 1000 times better than the current world average yield, the investment may be worthwhile. The numbers given in your reference don’t indicate that, though.
In addition to other methods, insulation is a very effective mean of controlling global warming at our end. -