Nonresidential Construction Still Growing November 16, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, public utilities, real estate, retail, finance, architecture , add a commentDespite lackluster sales in the residential arena, nonresidential construction spending has risen for 15th consecutive month, leading to an overall construction spending increase of 6.6 percent in the first 9 months of 2006 over the same period last year.
From Architectural Record via BusinessWeek:
Hotels and resort-related construction spending saw a 48 percent gain over the first nine months of last year; retail stores, shopping centers and malls were up 37 percent; hospital spending grew 25 percent; and manufacturing increased by 23 percent. Multifamily construction, meanwhile, was up 18 percent year-to-date, as a surge in rental facilities is offsetting a dip in condominium building.
Highway and street construction, meanwhile, rose 16 percent year-to-date over 2005, while educational construction increased by 7 percent. Other positive growth areas include sewage and waste disposal and transportation facilities. Nearly all of these categories are expected to grow in 2007, due to a fundamentally strong economy.
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Micro-CHP Makes Inroads November 15, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, government, public utilities, real estate , add a commentResidential micro-combined-heat-and-power (micro-CHP) units are making their way into the U.S. according to this article.
Used for years in industrial applications with much larger units, the technology has finally gotten small and quiet enough for serious consideration in residential settings and is already available in Europe and Japan. Combining an internal-combustion engine generator with high-efficiency home furnaces, the unit heats a home while outputting one to four kilowatts of electricity—that’s $600 to $3,200 worth each year.
Slowly gaining ground, the trend is “not at all pie in the sky,” says Cheryl Harrington of the Regulatory Assistance Project, a nonprofit that helps states and nations develop energy policy. “The question is how to get electric utilities to actively support this kind of generation when it is on the customer’s side of the meter.”
Micro-CHP doesn’t come cheap - just with a long-term discount. Basic systems cost from $13,000 to $20,000, installed. Even at the lower range, that’s at least $6,000 more than a new high-efficiency hot-air furnace, even after a gas company rebate. Result: The payback period on the initial investment is three to seven years, depending on the cost of electricity, say officials at Climate Energy. The company expects to install about 200 systems next year, mostly in New England.
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LEDs to Begin Replacing Lightbulbs November 6, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, government, manufacturing, public utilities, real estate, retail , add a commentAccording to CNET News.com, the LED lightbulb will become an economical competitor to the traditional lightbulb in about two years. If true, this prediction could lead to drastic reductions in energy bills and energy consumption worldwide.
Right now, LED bulbs that produce about the same level of illumination as a conventional 60-watt bulb are available for about $60. The big selling point for an LED this expensive is it’s long life: about 100,000 hours. Based on historical pricing info, the same LED should cost around $20 in two years.
“At $20 the payback in energy occurs in about a year,” [Steven DenBaars, a professor of material science at the University of California Santa Barbara] said. The rapid return on investment will occur in places such as stores and warehouses, where the light is on through much of the day. A year after that, LEDs will be even more economical for more places as costs continue to decline.
Approximately 22 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States goes toward lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
To make matters worse, traditional lightbulbs are incredibly inefficient. Only about 5 percent of the energy that goes into them turns into light. The majority gets dissipated as heat.
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Google Plans Green Offices October 17, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, public utilities, real estate, architecture , add a commentAccording to Reuters, Google plans to construct the largest U.S. solar-powered corporate office complex. The rooftop solar-powered system will be installed at its Mountain View, California, headquarters and will be able to generate 1.6 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 1,000 homes.
A Google executive said the company will rely on solar power to supply nearly a third of the electricity consumed by office workers at its roughly one-million-square-foot headquarters. This excludes power consumed by data centers that power many of Google’s Web services worldwide, he said.
“We are going to be producing roughly 30 percent of the power that we use,” David Radcliffe, vice president of real estate at Google, told Reuters in an interview. “This is for our corporate-office people center,” he said.
Radcliffe declined to comment on the cost of the project or whether the solar generation equipment might pay for itself over time. “We wanted to dispel the myth that you can’t be both Green and profitable,” he said.
While most of the solar panels will sit on rooftops in the Googleplex (Google’s name for their corporate campus), some of them will be solar canopies, providing shade for parking lots.
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London Games to be Greenest Ever October 16, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, government, public utilities, finance , add a commentThe Olympic Games slated for 2012 in London could be the greenest ever, thanks in part to 120-meter-tall wind turbine slated to be installed by 2010.
According to a recent article:
The turbine will remain in place after the Games, powering local amenities and houses over its 20 year life.
London 2012 Organising Committee Chairman Seb Coe said the turbine would be a “dramatic and iconic” feature of the Olympic Park.
“It will provide a visible statement of our intent to make the Games as sustainable as possible,” he said.
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USDA Invests in Alternative Energy September 11, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, agriculture, government, public utilities, forestry , add a commentThe U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding $17.5 million in grants to develop renewable energy and increase energy efficiency. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced 375 recipients in 36 states, according to this article.
“These grants will directly promote energy savings and increased energy production in rural America,” Johanns said. “The Bush administration is committed to providing more energy from within our nation’s borders, especially here in America’s agricultural heartland and these grants will help accomplish this goal.”
Rural Development grant funds can be used to pay up to 25 percent of the eligible project costs. In addition, the program provides loan guarantees up to $10 million to fund up to 50 percent of eligible projects.
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Large Oil Pool in Gulf of Mexico Tapped September 7, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: wholesale, business, public utilities, transportation, mining , add a commentA group of companies led by Chevron has tapped a vast pool of oil beneath the Gulf of Mexico which could boost the country’s reserves considerably. Some experts believe the boost could be up to 50 percent.
According to this AP article:
A test well indicates it could be the biggest new domestic oil discovery since Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay a generation ago. But the vast oil deposit roughly four miles beneath the ocean floor won’t significantly reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and it won’t help lower prices at the pump anytime soon, analysts said.
Chevron estimated the 300-square-mile pool contains between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of oil and natural gas liquids. The United States consume nearly 6 billion barrels of crude oil each year.
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Russia Now World’s Leading Oil Producer August 24, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, government, public utilities, finance, mining , add a comment
Overtaking the previously undisputed leader, Saudi Arabia, the Russians pumped 9.236 million barrels of oil in June, 2006, about 46,000 more barrels than the Saudis.
According to MosNews.com,
OPEC statistics show that in the period since 2002 Russian companies have surpassed the Saudis as the world’s biggest oil producers on an on-and-off basis. The latest figures, however, have been hailed in Russia as evidence that such periodic production spikes are no one-offs and that Moscow really does have a right to lay claim to the number one spot.
But many are worried that Russia is becoming addicted to the “oil needle”, with oil and gas revenues now accounting for over 52 percent of all revenues to the state treasury.
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Strategic Petroleum Reserve Could Be Tapped August 7, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, government, manufacturing, public utilities, transportation, finance , add a comment
Due to the BP shutdown of one of their oil fields, the U.S. Department of Energy is considering providing oil if a refinery requests it. This article quotes Craig Stevens as saying, “”If there is a request for oil we’ll certainly take a serious look at that.”
Most of Alaska’s oil goes to refineries on the West Coast. It was unclear how those refineries would be supplied with oil on the Gulf Coast. However any oil put into the market to replace lost Alaska oil would tend to ease prices, market experts say.
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Energy Prices Not As Bad As Thought August 1, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: wholesale, business, government, manufacturing, public utilities, transportation, finance , add a commentAccording to this article,
When adjusted for inflation, fuel costs are far from the monthly average of about $3.20 a gallon reached in March 1981. However, because the current U.S. car and light truck fleet gets better fuel economy than 25 years ago, the average real cost of gasoline per mile traveled today is much less than 1981 levels, the [Energy Infomation Administration] said.
The simple fact of the matter is that Americans have grown accustomed to cheap oil. And our economy is going to have to adjust to the reality of oil prices. Afterall, in 1981, we were paying the equivalent of $3.20 per gallon of gasoline. Granted, the economy was in the midst of a recession and gas prices were “high”, but since then, our economy has gotten used to very inexpensive fuel costs.
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