Green upgrades for Empire State Building

A $20 million project to upgrade the Empire State Building was announced today. An article in Forbes reports that the upgrades will result in $4.4 million of annual savings due to increased efficiencies.

The upgrades will also reduce carbon emissions by 105,000 tons over the next 15 years (roughly equivalent to taking 17,500 cars off the road). New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes that this will help move the city towards their goal to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.

The cost of the project is being supported by the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton said that the project would serve as an example to the world that established buildings can be made greener to great affect.

Specific plans include replacing each of the building's 6,500 windows with insulated glass that will prevent heat transfer in both hot and cold weather. There are also plans to install more insulation around radiators and upgrade water cooling systems, ventilation, heating and lights.

Renewable energy on the rise

According to Finnish scientist Professor Peter Lund, 40% of the world's energy will come from renewable sources by 2050. He made this projection at the Copenhagen Climate Congress.

He estimates that 25% of our power will be from wind and the other 15% from solar, based on current market projections. According to Lund, renewable energy technology will have to gain dominance in the energy markets by 2030 to meet this goal.

LED streetlights in LA and NYC

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former President Bill Clinton recently announced a program to replace 140,000 street lights in Los Angeles with LED bulbs. The plan is funded in part by the Clinton Climate Initiative. They are also receiving funding for the $57 million project through a $14 million rebate from Department of Water and Power.

The project is estimated to save $48 million and 197,000 tons of carbon emissions over a seven year period. This is the equivalent to pulling 6,000 cars off the road, according to Clinton.

Clinton also claimed that if every major city undertook a similar project, enough power would be saved to shut down 2 1/2 coal-fired power plants.

New York City has announced a similar plan. They are testing new LED light poles in a small area of the city. If testing proves successful by fall 2009, they may replace all of the city's streetlights (300,000 in total) with LEDs.

Senate to look at global warming

Harry Reid announced last night that the Senate will be looking at energy and climate change this year. He expects that they will begin talks on the energy bill in the next several weeks and hopes that they will take on climate change this summer.

The energy bill is headed by Jeff Bingaman (D. New Mexico), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. If passed, utilities will be required to source 4% of their energy from renewable sources by 2011. That number will increase to 20% over the next decade.

There are not currently many details about how the Senate plans to take on climate change, but we hope they will take a comprehensive look at the situation and discuss ways to reduce not only carbon emissions, but methane and other chemical emissions as well. Specifically, we would like to see attention paid to user emissions (automobiles, aerosols, etc.), power plant emissions, methane emissions from dairy and meat production, and the energy cost of new building.