+ Pleasant Ridge Montessori - Education Goes Green

We started off our look at education calling out some visually and functionally exciting spaces at the U of Iowa, Yale, and Los Angeles in Education and Architecture. The newly completed Pleasant Ridge Montessori School where my commuter bus turns appears more conventional externally; it's modern yet restrained aesthetic was designed to blend with the established surroundings. Yet it's full of leading edge techonology and a landmark in green school design in Ohio, where it's expected to be the first LEED certified public elementary school.

A School Designed to Perform

Pleasant Ridge Montessori (Illustration-SHP Leading Design)

Designed by SHP Leading Design, Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) showed it off at an open house for my community on August 10th. SHP and CPS were excited about all of the green features and educational advances built into the inviting space, as was I. It gave me the opportunity to learn about leading edge school design, the Montessori system, and meet a number of my neighbors whose kids will be attending this school starting in a few weeks.

The "periodic table" graphic provided by SHP starts to sum up many of the key green design features built into the school. The techno side of me was intrigued by the efficient raised floor/dropped ceiling ventilation system, the natural lighting system that starts at the adjustable venetian blinds inside the high placement windows, the interior windows that pass the natural to the interior hallways, and the automatic motion and light sensor control of the artificial lighting when needed.

PRM Advanced Ventilation enhancing Montessori on the floor activities

We also found the extended learning areas, or "ELA's" being built into many of the new school designs food for thought, especially in light of some interviews we've had with special needs teachers.

According to promotional materials "CPS is the model for green schools in the United States and is regarded as the greenest school district in the US." You can read more about the wide range of features, projects, and design firms at Soapbox Cincinnati, and at CPS' Facilities' website .

ELA joining mutliple classrooms for team or individual projects & tutoring

Anyone would find Pleasant Ridge Montessori appealing and comfortable, but it's really what's beneath the surface here that makes it a high tech performer!

+ Park + Vine... Where Being Green Is Easy

The Greener Grass recently sat down with Dan Korman, the owner of Park + Vine. Named for it's location on the corner of Central Parkway and Vine Streets in Cincinnati, OH, it is "a green general store where being green is easy" as the website declares - and where it also boasts a Walk Score of 97 out of 100.


The Greener Grass: Let's get some background first... where did you get the inspiration for the store?

Dan Korman: I got the inspiration from going to a farmer's market in Chicago called Green City Market, a sustainable market, so I became friends with a lot of the vendors there who are a combination of farmers, bakers and soap makers, and I just got a lot of inspiration from what they were doing as entrepreneurs and on a mission to make a product that was not only good for people, but also good for the environment. And then I saw three of them go from being vendors at the market to having their own storefront which gave me great inspiration.

"I'm a big proponent of shopping local - three times more money goes back into the community if you shop at a locally owned store versus a chain."

TGG: And it's so unique for Cincy - that's why I got excited about it. So, you've been open for seven months... How's business?

DK: Business is great actually - December was our best month in terms of retail... we started off strong in June, fell off a little in July and every month thereafter it's gone up, and we're essentially breaking even. There seemed to be a lot of pre-opening press exposure, and then the area started opening up, but because of the make up of the store we were able to ride it on our own, and not just the things happening around us.

TGG: That's great, and it seems like 'green living' has permeated the public consciousness now. Have you ever had anyone come into the store that hasn't understood its premise?

DK: No, most people who come here know about the store before they come in - well, word of mouth is the number one way people hear about it, and then whenever we're in the Enquirer or City Beat we typically get a nice little rush. Sometimes we'll get somebody who is like "What is this place?" - which is exciting! But what is also exciting is when we get people who are not from here who come specifically to this store from another area.

TGG: On your website and your blog you talk about local things that are happening in your neighborhood of Over the Rhine. How is 'being local' connected to 'being green' and saving energy?

DK: I was just asked something along those lines - what's most important to the business? Is it that you have products that are made out of recycled materials, is it that it's locally made, etc.? - it's really a combination of all of those things. We look for as much stuff as we can that is made locally and then bringing in stuff that fits the store's mission, and maybe that will provide inspiration for somebody to make it locally, like the furniture that we are sitting in right now. (Chairs and side table made from bike parts). Which captures a lot of people's imaginations. I'm a big proponent of shopping local - three times more money goes back into the community if you shop at a locally owned store versus a chain.

TGG: I think there's a lot of people that don't know that...

DK: It's statistally proven... I'm sure you've seen the Buycincy.com blog - and with the whole Cincinnati Unchained event we've aligned ourselves with and hopefully next year there will be even more momentum and businesses participating in it, raising awareness. It's funny because I've found that it's more of a struggle with my own family forgetting that one of their own family members owns a business and supporting that before going somewhere else...

TGG: Awareness and education seems still to be a really big issue when it comes to how to 'live green'...

DK: And without being too heavy-handed message as well, because we don't want that to be the case with this store, we want to keep things upbeat and offer a positive message. In addition to being a retail store, we have an education outreach arm as well - we're planning a workshop on composting and lead paints and somebody has pitched the idea of eco-feminism.

TGG: How are someways that the store itself is energy efficient?

DK: First off, we're in an existing building, so we're using something that was already here; I think it was built in the 1880's, and when we painted it we used non-toxic paint, Low-VOC paint. We use compact fluorescent lighting, and we had our HVAC system upgraded to where it complies with L.E.E.D. requirements. We're pretty sure we have the prerequisites in place for L.E.E.D., we just haven't pursued it. The refrigerator up front and the coffee maker that we have are Energy Star rated and a lot of the displays that we use in the store are re-used from other stores that no longer exist or things we found at antique stores. And we encourage people to ride their bikes or walk to the store... Starting February 1st officially, anyone who bikes or walks to the store gets 10% off.


TGG: That's awesome. So of the items in Park + Vine, what are some of the biggest energy savers for people?

DK: Well, water bottles are big. Instead of buying water bottles over and over again, you just use one and the same thing with reusable bags, we sell tons of reusable bags. We don't sell a ton of compact fluorescent bulbs, but we do have them in the store, and then we have the Smart Strip as well.

TGG: That's interesting, because I think the first two things that you mentioned would surprise most people as energy savers, but recently China just banned giving away free plastic bags at retail citing that they are "a huge waste of energy..."

DK: That's amazing... I'm going to put that on our blog.

"I just got a lot of inspiration from what they were doing as entrepreneurs and on a mission to make a product that was not only good for people, but also good for the environment."

TGG: You mentioned having more solar powered items - and it seems like solar products is kind of a maze when looking. I know you sell bags from Voltaic Systems for charging up small electronics. Are there many companies doing that for personal items?

DK: We're looking at a company called Silicon Solar which has a whole array of consumer friendly products that they make, and we were looking at solar powered holiday lights for the season, which makes sense for the outdoor, but didn't get to it in time, but we just went with the LED holiday lights. We are still going ahead with the batteries and battery chargers because of several requests. And that's what the store is - a direct response to what customers want. Doesn't it seem like the store has changed since you've first come in?

TGG: Yeah, it definitely has, and that's an interesting point. There's so many new 'green' items coming out that it seems there has to be a back and forth between who knows what's best and why...

DK: It goes both ways here. Our biggest competition is online, and what we've learned is that we need to let people know as much as possible about what we have, because we'll have people come into the store and say something like "Oh I didn't realize you had these Klean Kanteen bottles?!" because there is a certain amount of brand loyalty to certain products and people are used to buying them online. So they'll say, "Had I known I would have got them from you because the price is the same, and you don't have to pay for shipping."

TGG: So what's the greener grass for Park + Vine; what's in store for the future?

DK: Do more education outreach, and get even more involved in the neighborhood and the city in terms of Green initiatives because there is a lot going on in Cincinnati - it's amazing.

TGG: What are you most excited about?

DK: There's an initiative to make Over the Rhine a L.E.E.D. certified neighborhood as a whole... that's big. We're obviously excited about any bike initiatives along the river, glad that the city didn't cut the bike program and of course the street car... it would definitely affect us and be good for the overall city. And then we're bringing in compost bins and recycling containers, and more solar powered stuff, batteries and battery chargers. In the future, I'd love to get more into home improvement, building materials as well. We obviously only have so much space here... maybe build a L.E.E.D. certified building next door... who knows?

+ Interview with Lloyd Alter

Living in Toronto, Lloyd Alter has been an architect, developer and inventor. He now spends his time as a writer. In the course of his work developing small residential units and prefabs, Lloyd became convinced that we just use too much of everything- too much space, too much land, too much food, too much fuel, too much money, and that "the key to sustainability is to simply use less. And, the key to happily using less is to design things better." (treehugger.com)

After reading a few of his articles on Treehugger and got a sense of his efficient philosophy, I wanted to ask him a few questions about his life as an architect and his experience with LEED requirements and what he thinks about this program. From my previous article-- and brief research about LEED I came to think the program was in need of help. An Architect, with concerns of efficiency and sustainability should have a better sense than myself about how LEED's is moving us along. So, lets begin...

As an Architect, how or why do you feel the LEEDs checklist may be failing?

I don’t. I have said before in my posts that I thought there were problems with LEED, I think the organization has gone through many efforts to solve the problems and is adapting to them, [and] that it recognizes them.

Two years ago I did write after hearing Bill McDonough saying that LEED is just a dumb check list that lets PVC get through. Then LEEDs set up a big committee to look at the use of PVC in buildings and came out with what I thought was a wishy washy conclusion saying that well PVC (windows) is really no worse than all the others in that aluminum has costs and every other window technique does so why are we picking on PVC. So, there slow moving, and they’re very careful. The check list system sometimes leads to point mongering where there’s the famous example of a $325 bicycle rack getting the same number of points as a green water-collection system.

I think that they’re doing very well and the other thing that has happened that has made me more supportive of them is A) they’re doing well but B) is their under attack by a whole pile of green-washing organizations being set up by people with vested interests who don’t like what LEED is doing; like the lumber industry doesn’t like the fact that LEED prefers people to use FSC certified lumber, so is set up an organization called Green Globes in the states which would be an ok standard but its whole function of being set up was to get around the LEED’s requirements for lumber. So Certain municipalities are saying “Green Globes is also acceptable to us” and basically that is a real problem when people start to work around other types of systems. There’s another one, house builders; ‘[LEED recognizes that big houses consume more resources than small ‘so let’s create a new system that doesn’t criticize you for being too big.’]

So LEED may not be perfect, but it is the best of the systems that are out there. It is completely independent of the industries that provide building materials, or the trades that build, and therefore, I think it’s almost above criticizing or those things that used to concern me too much with point mongering, were out growing this. People are seeing thru it, and the customer out there who wants to go into a LEED building, their consultants and real estate agents and architects are smart enough to see through this.

You have been an architect for many years, and seem to have maintained a green philosophy with your building. You have a Quote on Treehugger that says we just need to use less in general. Can you elaborate on this a little bit?

Well I’ve always been much more concerned about the efficiency of how we live than I was doing ‘green design’ and when I was in practice this was new and I really did not do a lot of it but when it comes to living with less… the fact of matter is if you look at our cars they’re all much bigger than they used to be, if you look at our houses they gone from an average of 900 sq ft to an average of 27-2700 sq ft in 30 years. That’s all because oil was so cheap, if you build a bigger house you didn’t have a problem heating it, also the builders didn’t have to build it very well because the gas was cheap and electricity was cheap.. So what has happened is we let everything we own balloon beyond what will soon be our ability to pay for the resources to heat and cool them. Or our ability to pay for the gas to drive to them because when gas was cheap we could all live in the distant suburbs, and if the government kept building 407’s and 400’s and adding lanes all the time then we could get to them.

But what we’ve got has essentially become unsustainable. So, what I say all the time is you don’t really have to change the way we do things… Toronto’s been around for a while and the old building have a lot of embedded body energy and we don’t need to knock them down to make green buildings – we just have to build at a density where people consume less space, less resources, less materials, less of everything to live the way they do.

When you go to Europe, you go to Amsterdam, Germany when they build new houses they’re very tight they’re very efficient and their buildings are all very close together because they realize that A) they build for a hundred years they don’t build for 20 like we do and B) they’ve got to pay to maintain it.

So I think that the future of sustainability is to basically use fewer resources and use them more efficiently.

Considering the prefabricated homes and their efficiency, do you feel that they will help solve some of our issues with global warming and become a trend on the rise in the upcoming years?

Absolutely yes. First of all they use about 30% less energy to build than the conventional home. Particularly out in the country when you see all the F150 pickup truck carrying the trades every day for 6 months up there and if someone forgets a box of nails its an hour to the nearest hardware store. Whereas if you build in the factory, you’ve got all of the tools there, most of the workers live nearby – in this case you don’t take the workers to the site where the house is gunna be you take the house to the site where the house is gunna be so that you get great efficiency. The other thing is the quality control of building inside, having inspectors, having whole processes of checking the work just lead to a better, tighter more efficient building you can have an architect design a wall to say R27, but when you measure it there’s actually gunna be leaks, there gunna be air infiltration, theres gunna be gaps where the insulation didn’t go straight to the edge and there’s gunna be significantly less—when you do it in a factory you get what you design.

When you start a new project, are there any personal standards or values you impose upon them?

Well I do not practice architecture anymore I find that I prefer writing than designing buildings so I am spending all of my time on things like Treehugger now.

But when I did practice I absolutely.. I lost work at times because of what I thought. I remember being asked a couple of times to renovate big houses, and I would go and I would and I would say them ‘why this is good, this is history... you need a new furnis and a new kitchen, but I don’t want to knock down that wall this rooms got great proportions. And I lost work because I liked what was there more than what I thought I could add to it.

We have to think about old buildings that way. If everybody just says ‘oh this is just old – lets knock it down and change it… or this house is slightly not energy efficient so spend a million bucks to build a new one that is marginally more energy efficient’ and not considering all the energy and resources that will be going into building the new house.

I think very much we have to think about what we have so carefully before you go and do a new project.

It seems hard to find designers if not consumers or buyers who are willing to think about things in this way. Do you have anything you’d recommend for a designer sticking up for their beliefs or in dealing with clients who may have desires for something that may be out of reach – or simply not responsible.

Well one thing that we have to do, and the problem in Ontario and Canada goes right back to the schools and our education and where we place our values. In Scandinavia and in Europe they are very concerned with design right from day 1. They don’t build a school in France unless it’s the result of a design competition to get the most interesting school that they can because they think its so important to educate a child in an environment that is challenging and interesting and well designed. Here they put in to the absolute lowest builder and they build it to the lowest possible standards that they think they can get away with and there’s no culture that’s strongly based on design.

In this country unfortunately the thing everybody values everything on is the price and in architecture they value the price per sq.ft. above all. So builders got rich by just pumping air into houses because drywall and plastic carpet was cheap. So people would come in and say ‘oh well that house is only $190 a sq.ft., or $180..’

When you start looking at the small units, like if you look at the sustained mini home, one of the nicest designers around for a really small living space it costs over $400 a square foot because it has the same kitchen the same bathroom the same furnises, all the hard stuff that is made from great sustainable materials and what it doesn't have is is a lot of free air.

So we somehow have to break through this idea that the price per sq.ft. or the cheapest cost is the most important thing. I mean rich people don’t buy cheap cars they know that a BMW is built to s different quality than a Ford and their willing to pay for that quality...and yet design, their not. In their houses and with their furniture very few of them are. And I think this goes right back to education.

When you were practicing with Royal Homes and considering LEED’s and the Canadian Green Building Council, have you ever been confronted with conflicts.. For example something you thought was right but there was a missing check on the list – or wanting to receive a similar award have you ever missed the requirements for that award but ended up with something that may have been even better?

Well I believe Vinyl windows are evil, I don’t think anyone should be putting Vinyl windows in their house or that anybody should be building with vinyl. And again, the CGBC and with the LEED, they are following more slowly than I like and they still let you do it. And of course I think the problem is that the plastic industry is huge, and vinyl windows are very cheap.

So, sometimes… there are architects that to them doing the right thing means going beyond LEED. But that’s what the issue is, it’s not an issue with objecting to something within LEED. LEED lets you do whatever you want, it doesn’t have a catalog of materials you pick through and you have to prove that the choices you have made are the more sustainable choices. If you’re an architect that’s really concerned about this then its your responsibility to go beyond LEED. That’s why for instance a lot of people love Cradle to Cradle. That’s because the whole system goes beyond and actually looks at every single material that they approve: where does it come from, what happens during its useful life and what happens when its life is over. And they unlike LEED is actually certified products, but now LEED and they are talking to each other so you can put C2C products in a LEED building and get LEED points for it.

And that’s great.

+ Interview: Managing Energy in a Historic Office Building

Some Energy stories are close to home. Just before Christmas a posted notice from the Michael Rosenbaum, the building manager of the Textile Building, where our office is located, announced they were replacing all the standard T12 fluorescents with more energy efficient T8 bulbs. It got me thinking about how much energy the typical office building uses, where it goes, and how the amount could be reduced.

First I checked online and found from several sources that lighting consumes 25-35% of the energy in a typical commercial building, and T8 bulbs are 30-40% more energy efficient than T12’s. That sounded good but I didn’t know what it would add up to. Luckily, Michael was easy to find, extremely knowledgeable, and open to answering my questions:

Better Light with Less Energy
You've started a project to replace all the light bulbs with energy saving ones. Can you say anything about how big this energy saving might be?

“Based on our replacement analysis, factoring the entire building we should save approximately 400,000 KWH a year. This also will provide a fuller lighting spectrum which will improve personal skin complexion and less glare in your office.”

Where Does the Energy Go?
Can you give me an idea of what the major energy needs are in a commercial building like the Textile building is?

“HVAC has many energy associated needs from circulating pumps, fan motors, and individual heat pump units. Textile Building has over 200 individual units in its circulating loop system; elevator machines, water supply pumps, data rooms, lighting, and most commonly the thousands of electrical receptacles that are continually utilized.”

Where can Energy Be Saved?
I've heard a lot about residential energy savings (insulation, sealing, etc.); can you tell what the similar issues are in a typical downtown office business?

“VFD (variable speed drives) are a large source for savings in a commercial building on large machines/pumps. The VFD provides electric on demand, (example) you have a 100 amp motor: if the motor needs 40 amps for 5 minutes then needs 100 amps for 5 minutes then 25 amps.... the drive will supply the demand accordingly, rather then a standard setup, where the motor uses up to 100 amps so the motor is always running and is provided 100 amps.

HVAC automated control system is a large source of savings in a commercial building for the HVAC system. Similar to a residential digital thermostat where there are timed programs and set points to control demand and comfort levels during different periods of the day/night, this system controls the entire building from one centralized station. Insulation of pipes saves a lot electric."

Making an Efficient Historical Building
I previously worked in a historic building that was really cold in the winter because of no insulation on the original block walls, and high ceilings; not very efficient! Can you tell me more about how well the Textile Building was upgraded for energy efficiency when it was updated?

“In 1987 when the Textile Building went through a vigorous rehabilitation and remodel, double pane windows were installed to all windows with the exception to the first floor. Since the Textile Building is a National Historical Landmark Building, there are lots of restrictions to construction. Most important is none of the visual aesthetics can be changed, therefore the first floor windows had to say the single pane metal frame prewar style.

The building is a brick building, and there had been upgrades to the interior for insulation as you will notice that visually the walls are not brick from the inside (Although there are tenants that have spent lots of money to remove the energy efficiency layers to re-expose the bricks in their offices for an aesthetics appeal).”

Higher Ceilings = Higher Heat Bills
Are there any other unique energy issues you know about in commercial buildings that you could tell me about?

“A lot of times companies would also remove the drop ceiling grid to enhance the height and aesthetics of their space, which also reduces the energy efficiency of the space by exposing concrete ceilings. Concrete is a conductor, and removing the ceiling increases the amount of area by 20% that needs to be comforted; in particular increasing height and the highest point being concrete, so when heat rises (higher than typical) and then cools quickly (concrete ceiling) making the lower space where people occupy even colder.

Electrical surges are a big issue which tends to fry computers, motors, pumps... they also cause blackouts.”

Well, there’s a quick look at the typical energy issues facing a commercial building owner, quite a lot to consider!

+ How will the U.S. Green Building Council L.E.E.D us to a better tomorrow?

The U.S.G.B.C is a group of non-profit organizations "from across the building industry that are working to advance structures that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work".

Their Mission is:

"To transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life."

Possibly their biggest program is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED is a rating system used for developing high-performance and sustainable buildings of all types. The program promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in six key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality and soon design innovation. (USGBC)

The LEED rating system is a checklist based system offering points regarding to performance in the six key areas just mentioned. When a new building is completed a Green Building Council representative reviews its documentation and awards points out of a possible 69: certified (at least 26 points for new construction), silver, gold, or platinum (at least 52 points). When all is said and done the actual certificate has a hefty price tag. "The USGBC's fees for registration range from $750 to $3,750, and certification runs from $1,500 to $7,500, depending on the size of the building. But the big costs come in the form of energy modeling, commissioning, and other requirements of certification; these can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, according to architects and developers." (Leed, we have a problem: Grist)

Rob Watson, one of the Green Building Coincil founders said in a great article with Fast Company, the point system was specifically constructed to entice builders and drive the market in a green direction. "One definable action equals one point," he says. Bike racks, one point; recycling room, one point. "We threw a few gimmes in there so people could get into the low 20s ... and say, 'We can do this.'"

What started as a voluntary or moral rating system, LEED certifications are now required in many cities for new building projects. Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, New York and Seattle are some cities who are adopting LEED certification standards for new building projects. The pressure for a 'green building' is growing, if not from the city officials, then from the customers / businesses themselves. These pressures are also leading many companies to 'greenwashing' campaigns, using the LEED certification to simply boost their moral to its customers.

By making it a requirement to become LEED's certified, there is a large amount of money which could be used towards improving the design, purchasing better quality energy efficient appliances, or offsetting the energy used by the building by purchasing renewable energy. For some (more responsible) builders, there is a choice between getting certified, or spending more money on a better building.

"[The] mayor of Park City, Utah, told a building-industry publication, "On the Park City Ice Arena [$4.8 million project cost], we built it according to LEED criteria, but then we realized that [certification] was going to cost $27,500. So we ordered three small wind turbines instead that will power the arena's Zamboni."" (Fast Company)

The program started with goals to bring society closer to a sustainable way of life-- and it turned into an expensive game for big money players. Unwanting decision makers are forced into a strategic game of qualification. It really doesn't take much more than a good budget and a few loopholes to become certified. A new bike rack will offer the same reward as buying 50% of your power from renewable sources. Buying renewable power for a non-green building will boost its score to become certified. The 'gimmes' Watson is referring to easily allows a building to be certified- maybe not with a platinum plaque- but who really knows the difference?

I think this started out as an exemplary program, to start a path towards a more sustainable way of life, especially when environmental issues were new and 'unknown' topics. That path has been beaten by this point; environmental awareness, global warming, and our social responsibility are common topics. We need a new program, which can adapt and grow with us. Point systems may not be the best, but they do work when we must get people involved.

Think about it this way-- the LEED's certificate is essentially a report card for the industry. Getting certified is (or should be) the absolute bare minimum, and it should not be too hard with the 'gimmes' in the program. This is a D! Below average and unacceptable in terms of the grading system we learned from in our school days. People should be rewarded for making the biggest advancements, these are the A students. These are the ones who will make the world a better place.

+ John Robbins, Energy Consultant and Solar Home Designer

John Robbins is as an energy consultant and solar home designer in the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana (OKI) area, and is a frequent presenter to groups and organizations, as well as individuals and students. Having been to one of his presentations a couple of years ago, I knew John more or less lives the Energy topic we’ve been looking into, so I was pleased that he agreed to let me interview him for The Greener Grass. First a little background to what John does:

“I help homeowners and small companies lower their energy use or cost, pollution demands too, using custom-fit combinations of conventional and alternative energies plus very efficient "passive high-performance" building envelopes and efficient energy use within. I audit and analyze heating, cooling and electrical loads in homes and offices, whether they use conventional or alternative energies, whether they are my designs or designed by others. I examine and fine-tune electrical loads in prep for converting to solar power, as I also did with my own office which has run on solar electricity and batteries since November 2001."

John has the been residential chairperson for the S.W. Ohio Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE), is an AEE "Certified Energy Manager", has been awarded the 1998 Ohio Governors Award for Excellence and Energy Efficiency in the Education Category, to name a few of his credentials. You can learn more (a lot more!) about John and energy efficient power and building at his website, http://home.insightbb.com/~johnfrobbins.

Priorities and Values
I started out by asking John to elaborate on a topic we discussed briefly when I first contacted him: Your comments about what people look for when buying a home, and energy efficiency not being high on the list compared to square footage, location, number of bedrooms, etc., seemed very significant. Do you have any thoughts about how people's priorities might be changed?

“Right now there's no recognized "personal energy using ethic" which might assist people in understanding how much energy they SHOULD use. This is a cultural problem, not unlike weight. I can recall when it was seen as appropriate for wives and mothers to feed their husbands and kids until they were overweight, since that showed they were well-fed (back when wives and mothers were more typically given that responsibility). Maybe this was fallout from the Depression or other less fortunate days when people didn't have enough to eat, so were overly thin. But it seldom makes sense in today's well-to-do economics in this nation that most overweight or obese people should need to eat more to recover from underfeeding.

Indeed, there's a general recognition nowadays about what's overweight and obese, how much of this/that nutrition one should eat, what one should weigh. So much of all this is part of the "American Way", to want and strive for "more", whether that's more money, more stuff, bigger and/or more luxurious housing, hot tubs or cars, or just more energy use. In many upscale neighborhoods, there are actually regulations on minimum house size, instead of maximum size or energy efficiency.

It's my perspective that this fundamental was central to Donella Meadows' THE LIMITS TO GROWTH and BEYOND THE LIMITS, which introduced sustainability in terms mostly related to physical flows, not just spiritual or political intents.

People especially in our cities and suburbs are surrounded by a mostly mechanized environment, their house, their vehicles, the buildings the work in, so they don’t have an understanding of resource flows like people in rural areas. There was a girl on my street when I lived in White Oak that told me that there were horses at the end of the street, but they were cows! She didn’t know the difference between a horse and a cow!

I heard once that the people in northwest Hamilton County did the most recycling. Why? Because they can see or smell the Rumpke Landfill [where the county garbage goes to]. So they have a higher interest and motivation regarding that issue. If they had a power plant in their backyard, they might be more cognizant of their energy usage and committed to lowering it.

I am not saying that a wealthier person, for one, cannot strive for more stuff or more power use. I just think many of us will never be wealthy enough to avoid trimming our usage and demands when nonrenewable supplies begin to get too tight to sustain normal rising demands at reasonably low prices. A wealthier person or anyone else who uses more energy than average might begin to understand and learn to want to trim their usage too. I think the more conventional energy one uses, the more responsibility one has to lower it, regardless of how. There are many ways.”

Energy Literacy
I've heard and read that most people are energy illiterate, and maybe there aren't enough energy education programs. What do you think about making this topic part of the core curriculum in high school?

"Energy and environment math and science problems could and should be introduced far earlier, like in 3rd grade. I'd love to write energy "story problems" for elementary school math books. We need problems that get kids thinking very early about energy issues, like so many light bulbs being on x-number of hours using y-amount of kilowatts and z-amount of kilowatt-hours, resulting in so many pounds of C02. I’ve often made this suggestion to teachers. The longer we wait to introduce especially numbers-related understandings like this, the more abstract these matters can be later, especially when people are adults when first learning about it.”

Power Plant-Sized Energy Reductions
You mentioned that just saving energy wasn't enough until it could take entire power plants off-line, or prevent powerplants from being built. With that in mind, is it possible that the alternative energy community should focus on very large projects? (office buildings, factories, etc.)?

“Many small reductions add up into larger volumes. We often hear about trying to cut power plant pollution via energy efficiency (EE), renewable energy (RE) and Demand Side Management (DSM). But since EPA pollution regs typically prevent ramping down power plant output (since pollution per output goes up dramatically as units are ramped down or idled), it's important to think about these implementations in volumes more similar to that of the power plants which we'd most like to shut-down or prevent from getting built. If we don’t implement enough EE, RE and DSM to shut down, turn off or avoid building new conventional powerplants, we’re not usually implementing enough to reduce any large amount of pollution.”

More Incentives Needed For Energy Efficiency
I read that one of the most affordable ways to implement solar would be to roll it into a new home mortgage. Do you think there's enough education or incentives for this? How about a new home carbon tax?

"Most EE and RE are not assigned appraised value in mortgage appraisals, at least around this area of our nation. EnergyStar allows a slightly lower interest rate, like 1/4% lower, but this is quite different from increasing value itself. If somebody has triple pane lowE windows with sunscreens, for instance, they should be appraised as worth more than double pane windows. After all, they do cost more. But a typical appraisal assigns no extra value. Similarly, there is no valuation for solar panels, whether they work or not. No extra valuation for a wall which has double or triple the R-value either. This is all clearly wrong and must be changed.

Ohio has fairly generous subsidies for grid-tied solar-electric power; I think it’s 35%. But the paybacks are still usually 30-40 years for most homeowners, even with the subsidies. Should anyone start their home or small business energy reductions program by installing solar-electric? No! Usually it’s better to start with lots of insulation, air-tightening and efficiency, then looking at solar heating and daylighting, orienting houses and structures better for “passive solar”, instead of just to the street, and so forth. In any logical approach, solar electric is the last energy-reducing strategy to implement.

In Ohio, there are no subsidies for RE expenditures less than $10,000. Yet there’s a heck of a lot of stuff anyone can and should do to reduce conventional energy consumption before spending $10,000 on the most expensive energy supply solutions. Programs maybe incentivize the highest-cost solutions because sellers of low-cost insulation and caulk didn’t have as much money to lobby the statehouse as sellers of expensive solar hardware. And there’s been a rather huge buyout of the solar industry by the oil industry, which has plenty of money!

Going back to my opinion that ‘the more conventional energy one uses, the more responsibility one has to lower it,’ imagine if our culture began to understand and accept limits on energy demand and use. A wealthier person might just prefer to get or have more, but do it with heavier applications of more expensive renewable, recycled and high-tech solutions that can’t be easily afforded by the rest of us. This is somewhat reverse of normal trends today, where the wealthiest consumers often pay the lowest average prices for their nonrenewable resources.

In Ohio, people who use the most power get extremely beneficial electricity rates. People who get charged the highest amount per kilowatt-hour are most often the people who use the least. I don’t think the average person knows this. But it certainly isn’t like that in some other geographic regions like California and Seattle, where electric rates go up the more you use. These changes will likely eventually come to Cincinnati.

I also support carbon taxes. When those come to be, electricity users in the Midwest will get hit with the highest taxes because of our burning so much coal to produce electricity and because of our being so inefficient. This is why I support incentives to reduce power usage, not just incentives to install certain kinds of RE hardware."

The Most Fascinating Development ?
As a final question, I asked John about what's a new development or RE method that has you excited right now?

“New developments are happening everyday. Just read yesterday about a new lower-cost solar panel, (which you can't buy right now of course, just like many other developments we read about). However, since solar panels and other similarly high-cost high-tech stuff (i.e. hybrid vehicles) are less affordable to most consumers, I am most fascinated by stuff EVERYBODY can do. I'm a "small-d" democrat and egalitarian.

Most of the ways we can reduce our energy consumption and demand for pollution are far less expensive than solar. Lots of ways are free, like turning off stuff when we’re done with it, like carpooling, like moving one’s desk closer to a day-lit window. Some are lower-cost, like choosing a smaller higher-mpg car for commuting instead of a more expensive larger vehicle. Like choosing a smaller house or office instead of a larger one. There are many energy-reducing solutions which are even lower-cost than what we’re doing or buying now! Getting our usage down in less costly ways lowers our eventual costs to convert to RE power too. Less power needs result in less expense for power supply, whether it’s conventional or renewable!”