Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

Climate Action Plan in Portland OR

Thanks to Matt Slavin, president of Sustainability Consulting Group, you can read about the latest efforts in Portland to update its Climate Action Plan.  Portland, of course, has been perhaps the most effective city in the US at reducing its carbon emissions and shrinking its carbon footprint.  As part of the update process, the city and Multnomah County have proposed creating new incentives for developers to do green building. In short, if new construction simply meets the Oregon state energy code, there will be a fee imposed on the development.  If the new construction achieves silver certification using the LEED green building standards, the fee will be waived.  For buildings that achieve gold or platimum certification would receive a rebate or payment from the city.  Read Matt Salvin's article "Climate Plan Debate: LEEDing the Way" from the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce.

New York Academy of Sciences Annual Energy Symposium

If you are in the NYC area, the New York Academy of Sciences is holding its annual Energy Symposium on July 8 and 9.  The 2009 NES will include the Clean Energy Investment Presentations, where competitively selected entrepreneurs pitch their business plans to a panel of investors and financial industry experts. This is a particularly exciting time for this symposium simply because there has been an explosion in interest in green and alternative energy, and a substantial growth in capital available for the development of new technologies.

Wind Energy in Urban Areas

One of the challenges confronting efforts to expand green energy in major cities is that it is often not appropriate to site typical wind turbines on downtown high rise buildings, especially in the northern climes.  Propeller-type turbines often cannot handle the swirling winds that occur in cities, and they frequently shed ice that builds up during periods of relative calm.  Fortunately, there are a number of different parties working on the design of new types of wind turbines that don't have these problems.  One of my favorites is the work of Aerotecture in Chicago, which has two designs -- a vertical shaft version and a horizontal shaft version -- that seem to be very effective where propeller turbines are not.  Although these turbines are only now being field tested, they have installed one of their larger horizontal turbines on the roof of the Mercy Lakefront project. 

Zero Net Energy Buildings

Last week, the New York Academy of Sciences sponsored a forum on "zero net energy buildings."  The forum was moderated by Michael Levi from the Council on Foreign Relations, and included Ron Dembo, founder of Zerofootprint, Inc. (see my earlier post about Zerofootprint), and Scott Muldavin of the Muldavin Company.  Much of the focus was on issues of valuation of green buildings, and the importance of financial incentives to such development. Much of Muldavin's comments focused on the operation of the Green Building Finance Consortium's Sustainable Property Performance Framework.

1st International Conference on Sustainable Cities

If you are looking for an opportunity to learn about or participate in an upcoming sustainable cities conference, the 1st International Conference on Sustainable Cities is going to take place in Mexico October 25 through 29, 2009.  To get a sense of the Conference, check out its web site. 

The Cost of "Going Green"

I saw a recent USAToday story that reports on how expensive it is for municipalities to "go green" especially with respect to energy. The story highlights a recent decision in Durango, CO, to drop its effort to purchase green electricity in favor of fossil fuel-generated electricity because it saved $45,000 a year in the process.  I found the story to be somewhat frustrating on two fronts. First, it provides a fairly accurate picture of the financial challenges faced by many municipalities. Second, the story does not discuss the myriad ways that municipalities could save money through energy conservation and alternative energy.  But most of all, the story does not explain how it is that fossil-fuel generated electricity continues to be cheaper (or at least the immediate nominal cost seems to be lower) than alternatives.  Of course, in many states we have created a system that heavily privileges non-renewable energy sources over alternatives, and we pretend that the result is purely market driven.  Thankfully, this is an issue that is being addressed in cities and states around the country, and the Obama administration has decided to tackle as well.  I will have much more to say about the role of municipalities in a national energy strategy in the weeks to come.  In the meantime, if you have a chance to read the article and post your thoughts, that would be great.

Solar Decathlon House at Tufts

Here’s something for you to check out. This is the design of the Tufts University-Boston Architecural College entry in 2009 solar decathlon. The house is small – 800 sq ft is the footprint, which is the limit imposed by the Decathlon competition – but it is really amazingly flexible space. And it is so energy efficient that it could operate off the electric power grid. And best of all, it is designed to be affordable – it costs about $200,000 to build this as designed.  It is designed for construction in the Boston area, where Medford MA mayor Michael McGlynn broke ground last Wednesday, Earth Day 2009. The house will be constructed on the Tufts campus, and then disassembled after which it will be transported and on display in Washington DC for the competition itself.  After that, who knows.  Maybe it will find a permanent location in Medford or Boston.

Sustainability Conference at the University of Michigan

I will be participating as an invited guest in a conference at the University of Michigan on May 12 and 13.  The conference, "Urban-Rural Connections: Sustainability in a Volatile World," is sponsored by the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.  I will be on a panel with some really distinguished people -- Gerrit Knapp, Director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, John Logie, former Mayor of Grand Rapids, June Manning Thomas for Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan, Jay Williams, Mayor of Youngstown Ohio, and Matt Naud, the Environmental Coordinator for the City of Ann Arbor.  I'm also looking forward to hearing a talk by Michael Shuman, VP for Enterprise Development for the Training and Development Corporation of Bucksport ME.  He is the author of a recent book called "The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition."

If you happen to be in the area of Ann Arbor, please look into registering for this conference.  You can do that at http://www.graham.umich.edu . 

Energy Efficiency Initiative in Boston

Boston Mayor Tom Menino recently announced a new initiative to use $6.5 million in federal stimulus funding for the "Renew Boston" project designed to help fund energy efficiency across the city.  Al Gore was on hand with the Mayor when the project was announced.

Along with the project, the Mayor announced the formation of his Climate Action Leadership Committee, which will give direction and perform oversight for this and related climate protection efforts in the city.

This Committee will be co-chaired by Mindy Lubber, President of CERES, and Jim Hunt, the City's Chief of Energy and Environment, and includes a very impressive array of other people from the private, government, and nonprofit sectors  --

James McCarthy, Harvard University and Board Member, Union of Concerned Scientists
Theodore Landsmark, President, Boston Architectural College
Timothy Healy, Chief Executive Officer, EnerNOC
Bud Ris, President and Chief Executive Officer, New England Aquarium
Kalila Barnett, Executive Director, Alternatives for Community & Environment
Bryan Koop, Senior Vice President, Boston Properties
Honorable John Connolly, At-Large Boston City Councilor
Tedd Saunders, Executive Vice President Hotel Lenox, and President, Eco-Logical Solutions
James Coyle, General Agent, Boston Building Trades
Richard Dimino, President, A Better City
Judith Nitsch, President, Nitsch Engineering
Mark Buckley, Vice President, Staples
Charles McDermott, General Partner, Rockport Properties
Margaret Williams, Executive Director, The Food Project
Stephanie Pollack, Associate Director, Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University
David Queely, Program Director, Trust for Public Land
Viki Bok, Jamaica Plain resident
Reverend Raymond Hammond, Pastor, Bethel AME Church and Chair, Ten Point Coalition
Rebecca Park, Boston Latin School, Youth Climate Action Network

This project resembles one that was established over a year ago in Cambridge, MA, the Cambridge Energy Alliance, that was funded by the Kendall Foundation (go to my Our Green Cities web site for a description of this effort).  Of course, the Cambridge initiative was established with $100 million. So it will be interesting to see how Boston can leverage the $6.5 million to develop a project that will really impact the city and its residents.

Empire State Building is Going Green

I see that the Clinton Foundation has spearheaded an effort to work with the City of New York to engage in highrise building retro-fit in order to achieve greater energy efficiency.  Older US cities face the fact that they have lots of highrise buildings, and these buildings are getting pretty old. Many were built when the materials and technologies needed to be very energy efficient really did not exist.  So the challenge now is the retro-fit these buildings to achieve these efficiencies. 

Although the Clinton Foundation description does not expressly allude to a city-based and citywide initiative, it does emphasize the need to target the largest and most egregious offenders, including the retrofit of the Empire State Building.  The Foundation engages in leveraging the funding to make the retro-fits happen.

This reminds me, to some degree, of Mayor Miller's Tower Renewal initiative in Toronto.  This is a citywide effort to retro-fit that city's highrises, although my recollection is that most of the targeted buildings are highrise residential facilities.