ABCCM Green Jobs is a program that provides Asheville residents living in high poverty areas with green collar skills and then helps them find green jobs. One of the training courses, taught by Green Opportunities (GO), is for Weatherization Technicians. Many of the program participants have grown up in poverty, but when given some training, support and a job opportunity, they thrive in ways they never have before.  However, in this economy green jobs are scarce. 

To stimulate the local green economy and to give these folks a shot at decent paying jobs, ABCCM Green Jobs is partnering with Blue Ridge Sustainability Institute to launch a home energy efficiency campaign. If we can get 1,100 homeowners (including you) to weatherize their homes in 2011, we can create about 40 new jobs. By getting a living wage of at least $11.35 per hour, Weatherization Technicians would be able to provide for their families.

Professional Home Energy Auditors find that home upgrades including air sealing, duct sealing, and adding insulation, save homeowners a national average of $413 per year in energy costs. It's tough to pick a typical cost for these upgrades, since every home is different, but let's say you spent $3000.  In seven years you would break even if energy costs remain constant, and we know costs are going up. At ten years, you've accrued three years of savings for a total of $1239. To be fair, this does not include any lost opportunity costs for investing that $3000 differently. However, it also doesn't count the increased value of your home, and the increased comfort that comes with eliminating drafts and poor distribution of conditioned air. 

Once people understand the benefits of efficiency upgrades, they want to do it. However some folks lack the up-front cash. That's why we have also partnered with AdvantageGreen to recruit a local bank to offer low-interest FHA PowerSaver loans.

BRSI, ABCCM and AdvantageWest will be making the case to the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and to the City of Asheville that this is an effort worth supporting because of the economic benefits to the community. If we weatherize 1,100 homes in 2011, ramp that up to 4,400 in 2012, and then to 5,500 each year from 2013 - 2016, we would:

• Create about 40 new green jobs in 2011 and over 150 by the end of 2013
• Upgrade 27,500 homes by 2016 with associated carbon reductions
• Generate approximately $62,000,000 of income for local contractors from 2011 - 2016
• Benefit the local economy via the $97,000,000 worth of aggregated home owner savings, contractor income, and wages generated by new job creation

Watch BRSI's website for more details coming soon!   

In October 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13514: Federal Leadership in Energy, Environment and Economic Performance, which mandates dramatic and sweeping sustainability-focused actions across the federal government. Among the fifteen-page Order's requirements are:

• naming a Senior Sustainability Official at the highest levels of leadership within each agency
• creation of a Federal Sustainability Council under the direction of the White House's Office of Management and Budget and Council on Environmental Quality
• agency-specific goals and objectives related to energy, building, water, transportation, and land management 
• a 28% government-wide reduction in energy consumption

All agencies are required to advance regional and local integrated planning by:

(f)  advance regional and local integrated planning by:

(i)  participating in regional transportation planning and recognizing existing community transportation infrastructure;

(ii)  aligning Federal policies to increase the effectiveness of local planning for energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy;

(iii)  ensuring that planning for new Federal facilities or new leases includes consideration of sites that are pedestrian friendly, near existing employment centers, and accessible to public transit, and emphasizes existing central cities and, in rural communities, existing or planned town centers;

(iv)  identifying and analyzing impacts from energy usage and alternative energy sources in all Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental Assessments for proposals for new or expanded Federal facilities under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); and  

(v) coordinating with regional programs for Federal, State, tribal, and local ecosystem, watershed, and environmental management.

In support of these important regional and local goals, BRSI is convening a national conference in Asheville entitled Regional Implementation of Executive Order 13514. Initial partners in the design of the conference include the Southern Research Station of the US Forest Service, and Climate Services Division of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  Other federal agencies in the region as well as major regional institutions - both public and private - will participate. The spring 2011 conference will showcase examples of successful regional cross-sector sustainability efforts and also help to foster collaboration and action in support of the requirements of the Executive Order.

Further, among other key provisions of the Order, and within the 'Definitions' section the President has declared that:

"Sustainability" and "sustainable" mean to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations;

This important provision, which has the effect of law, aligns the United States with other countries that have embraced the United Nations' Bruntland Commission's (1987) definition of sustainability as:

 "....meeting the needs of the present without impacting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

BRSI has adopted the following definition of sustainability adapted from the Executive Order:

The Blue Ridge Sustainability Institute is an advocate and catalyst for actions that make the earth more sustainable.  Sustainability means creating and maintaining conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling social, economic and environmental requirements of present and future generations. 

The upcoming Regional Implementation of Executive Order 13514 Conference will provide an important federal platform for BRSI's mission of knowledge into action.

For the full text of the Executive Order:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/sustainability 

 

  Retrofitting Buildings for Sustainability  

In 2009, buildings and the appliances in them accounted for 42% of U.S. energy use. Appliances have short lifetimes, thirty years or less in most cases. Replacing old appliances with more efficient technology saves energy. However, buildings last a long time, a century or more in many cases. Improving their energy efficiency requires retrofitting. Numerous studies show that retrofitting buildings with the latest technology can significantly reduce their energy consumption, and indicate that much of this technology pays for itself by reducing energy bills.

The four panelists will address two questions:

• What technology is available to improve building sustainability by reducing energy use?
• How much does it cost?

Marcus Renner, who holds a Master's Degree in Sustainable Building and is a Certified Energy Auditor, will describe the home energy audit process to identify retrofitting opportunities. Carl Donovan, founder and owner of Conservation Pros, an Asheville-based energy efficiency retrofitting company, will discuss the cost effectiveness of retrofitting options. Frank Marshall, Director of Sales and Marketing for FLS Energy, an Asheville-based solar energy company, will talk about retrofitting buildings with solar. Kathleen Stahl, a Senior Energy Engineer at Progress Energy, will present their programs for improving energy efficiency in commercial and industrial buildings. 

After their presentations, the panelists and audience will be asked to discuss what can be done to increase the use of these technologies.

Join us on February 28th from 3:00 - 5:00pm for what promises to be a lively and informative discussion.  Monthly Green Monday events take place at the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Biofuels    

Biofuels have the potential to provide a sustainable alternative to petroleum based gasoline and diesel fuel that power almost all of the world's road vehicles. January 24^th's Green Monday explored how this potential might be achieved in Western North Carolina. A video of the session and copies of the visuals used by the speakers are available on the BRSI website (www.blueridgesustainability.org).

According to Shane Reese, the Communications Manager of Biofuels Center of North Carolina, their goal by 2017 is to have, "Ten percent of liquid fuels sold in North Carolina come from biofuels grown and produced within the state." To reach this goal they are striving to develop a liquid biofuels industry that issubstantial in output, agriculturally and economically important, sustainable, and significant across the state. Shane described some of the projects the Center has underway. For more details, see www.biofuelscenter.org.

Biofuels can be produced from crops, waste, algae and bacteria. Jeremy Ferrell, Biodiesel Outreach & Operations Manager at Appalachian State University, described the production of biodiesel from canola and sunflower seed oils at the integrated biorefinery that ASU operates within a landfill "gas to energy" project in Catawba County. The oil seeds are grown and processed locally, and the protein meal byproduct is returned to the local farming community for animal feed. This process is designed to be a community-scale economic loop that provides an alternative source for fuel and feed. An issue for biofuels from crops is that many of the processes use plants or land that could be used for food. Jeremy said that their operation is on buffer land and there are many non-food crops that can be used for biodiesel.

Blue Ridge Biofuels is the most visible and successful local biofuels producer. Woody Eaton, their Production Manager, reported that in 2010 they produced 100,000 gallons of biodiesel from used cooking oil from restaurants as far away as Johnson City, TN. Their process is highly sustainable, since it uses waste that would otherwise go to landfills. They have capacity to produce 7,000,000 gallons of biodiesel per year, but are limited by feedstock supply. To increase their production they are recruiting more restaurants to be suppliers and have applied for a grant to set up a collection system for used cooking oils from households. They have also made changes to their process to increase the fraction of used oil that is converted to biodiesel.

Biofuels from algae processes are still under development. Dr. DeAnna Hatch, Chief Science Officer for OrganoFuels, a start-up company operating in the incubator at AB Tech, enumerated the advantages of algae as a source of biofuels. Since they are not grown on land, they do not compete with food crops. They produce many times the biomass per unit of area than even the most productive biofuels crops. Studies indicate that if less than 4% of the land currently used to grow soybeans in the U.S. were used to grow algae, our country could produce all the transportation fuel it needs. Algae can be grown on contaminated water and actually cleans that water. However, biofuels from algae are not cost competitive, even with other biofuels. DeAnna described some of the approaches her company is taking to reduce costs, including improving the efficiency of harvesting and drying algae and using a systems approach to maximize by-product values.

Biofuels from bacteria are an even newer concept based on using modified bacteria that secrete chemicals that can be used for fuel. The advantage of this approach is that the fuel component is produced directly, not in the conversion process that is part of other biofuels routes. The fuel component must be separated from the medium in which the bacteria are growing, but this is less energy intensive than other biofuels processes. Bruce Dannenberg, Founder and CEO of Planktonix Corp., presented an overview of his work with cyanobacteria that secrete butanol, a substance that can be used directly in conventional engines as a replacement for gasoline. He described the mechanisms that Planktonix is using to separate butanol for use as a fuel and the process' built-in biosafety features.