Sustainability 2030

Fine-tuning Buildings' Energy Systems Urged, Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer, Sunday, September 6, 2009

"What if there were a way to save the nation $30 billion a year in energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 300 million tons a year and create thousands of new jobs - using existing technologies and at a price so cheap that it would pay for itself in the first year? Evan Mills, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, says there already is one: building commissioning, the art and science of maximizing the energy efficiency of commercial buildings. "Roughly 40 percent of all humanity's greenhouse gas emissions from energy come from the building sector," Mills said. "I would rank it one of the very first, if not the first thing to do." Commissioning is gaining new attention as Congress considers cap-and-trade laws and earmarks billions of dollars for green jobs. California is the focus of that attention because the state embraced commissioning early on and supports researchers like Mills."