I have often heard that there are 15o new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today. Its a staggering number and all the more shocking when you consider that such projects are proceeding despite more and more ominous news about global climate change.
Recently this number was rekindled in my head upon my receiving a number of Architecture 2030 emails. Architecture 2030 is a program put forward by The 2030 Research Center and NM based Green Architecture Ed Mazria. The 2030 Challenge is a way to reduce building energy use by a minimum of 50% negating the need for new coal plants. I wondered why 2030 so I went through their site and as I suspected in The 2030 Challenge page:
Credible scientists give us 10 years to be well on our way toward global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Yet there are hundreds of coal-fired power plants currently on the drawing boards in the US. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the energy produced by these plants will go to operate buildings.
Their campaign is focused on the idea that an important step in the effort to reverse global climate change is to stop the current massive effort to build coal power plants in the USA. This includes this nicely done ad Stop Coal Stop Global Warming that they are putting in the NYT.
They point out that over an 11-year period (1973–1983), the US built:
- 30 billion square feet of new buildings;
- added approx 35 million new vehicles;
- and yet increased real GDP by one trillion dollars while decreasing its energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
The point is that we don’t need coal but efficient design and proven technologies. Its a good point but where is the money going to come to push these initiatives forward?
Do we need more taxpayer funded seed money to prime to the pump or will the market get up to speed just by enough socially and ecologically conscious citizens getting energized about the need to take actions? Possibility it is a combination of mandates, subsidies and mobilized civil society and social venture communities. Then it is assumed that once these ecologically designed technologies get up to speed, the costs of building green will come down enough so that they will be able to be fully competitive with existing ones, especially when long term life cycle maintenance and operational costs are considered, because green buildings typically use less resources.
Buildings use 76% of all the energy produced at coal plants. So the premise is that if we make more efficient buildings using currently available technologies that we reduce the need for those power plants. Yet the challenge is that is that the costs of rebuilding the modern built environment in the USA would be a massive effort that would involve massive infusion of money. Money that is currently going to sustain the war on terror or money that would require major tax increases. Currently it seems unrealistic that either the military budget would be reduced or that taxpayers would be willing to pay more to subsidize green technologies, despite the scientific evidence that there is a compelling need for action to reverse current trends in the amount of GHG released into the atmosphere.
Coal is the worst energy source because it has the lowest energy density in terms of the amount of carbon emitted per power produced. Also green buildings reducing coal power plant usage are only part of the equation. When we consider the evils of “King Coal,” the realization is that to reverse the trend of continued investment in coal power plants, we need to offer viable renewable energy alternatives to coal as well as offer conservation as a solution.
To address global climate change, we need to connect coal to the big picture of Global Climate Change at the national as well as international levels to meet the ambitious goals of The 2030 Challenge . The global climate change “pie” in the USA includes many factors besides GHG emissions from coal. There is petroleum and natural gas gives you a broader picture. When you figure in concrete and livestock farming both major GHG emitters with gasoline and diesel for transportation and power generation through coal and natural gas you get a sense that there is no one complete solution. In addition increasing rates of biomass burning (in regards to the fires we keep hearing about in the western US as well as in other parts of the world) on the planet possibly due to climate change is now creating another major source of CO2.
Because the GHG culprits are complex and interrelated in terms of how they have deeply embedded themselves into how we live our modern lives a comprehensive approach is needed that provides a complete inventory of the build environment and enables a new system of design. What’s needed is a design science revolution that introduces wholly new approaches that run the gamut from electric powered cars to integrated farming practices to daylighting and promising renewable energy technologies like Solar Thermal and Algae. An alternative strategy to mandating national change through national orgs, is developing a series of approaches that communities could embrace and tailor to their needs.
