[ca-gw] State adopts greenest building codes in U.S.

[Jim Bell]

Hi James,
This is good but here's an even larger look at solving our human caused
life-support problems. Please let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Jim
++++++++++++++++++
The least we must do
A Jim Bell & Common Sense Commentary – www.jimbell.com

It’s as simple as this, all of us, just doing what we do, are destroying our
planet’s life- support system.

To be more correct, it’s not so much about what we are doing, but about how
we now do it.

Just to survive, we need water and food. We also need energy to live
contemporary lives.

The problem is that the way we now get energy, water and food and most
everything else, is eroding the possibility of having a secure supply of
energy, water and food and the things of modern life, in the future.

What should we do?

The answer is to develop ways to live and make livings that are life-support
sustaining, ways that heal and nourish each other and our planet’s
life-support system.

This is the least we must do if we want to leave our descendents the
birthright of a happy, healthy, prosperous, and completely life-support
sustaining world.
 
The first step toward achieving this goal is to become renewable energy
self-sufficient.

When a home, community, city, county, region, state or country controls its
energy supply and price, it controls its economy, its ways of life, and most
everything else -- no matter what happens to the price and supply of energy
on global and national markets.

Because solar energy in its various forms is free and even delivered free,
there is no cost for fuel to benefit from it. The technologies to save
energy and produce what we can’t save do have a cost. But given that our
inventors/developers are still getting better at saving energy and
converting various forms of solar energy into electricity, the price of
efficiency improvements and renewably generated electricity will continue to
fall.

Every level of becoming renewable energy self-sufficient creates
opportunities. In San Diego County, where I live, there is an abundance of
direct sunlight. Additionally, the county has substantial wind, biomass,
ocean current, wave and tidal energy from which electricity can be produced.

But, even if direct sunlight was its only resource, and assuming 40 kWh of
electricity, natural gas and transportation fuels are consumed directly or
indirectly per capita per day, San Diego County could become renewable
energy self-sufficient by increasing energy use efficiency by 40% and
covering 43% of its roofs and parking lots with 15% efficient PV panels.

Economically, becoming renewable energy self-sufficient will increase
countywide economic activity by over $175 billion over a forty year
implementation period and create over 1 million job-years of employment in
the process.

What about cost?

Actually, becoming renewable energy self-sufficient will cost less than
continuing our dependences on imported energy -- especially if we make the
transformation with a little intelligence and grace.

Assuming an average cost of 10 cents per kWh over 40 years, making San Diego
County renewable electricity self-sufficient alone would save the county $24
billion.* Since electricity makes up around 40% of the energy the average
person uses per day, it follows that a renewably energy self-sufficient San
Diego County would save around $60 billion over a 40 year transition period
to renewable energy self-sufficiency. Additionally, the higher the cost that
electricity rises above10 cent per kWh on the open market, the greater the
County’s positive the cash-flow and resulting economic multiplier benefit
will be.
. 
* For details on this investment strategy, go to www.jimbell.com, click on
“Green Papers”. Although this paper focuses on renewable electricity
self-sufficiency in San Diego County, the investment strategies it develops
can be used to become renewable energy self-sufficient for gaseous and
liquid fuels as well. Additionally, this strategy can work almost anywhere
on our planet, modified for climate, renewable energy sources available and
other local conditions. With modifications, it will also work for becoming
water and food self-sufficient as well.   

Step two - become renewable water self-sufficient.

Water is essential to life. It is essential to the water rich lifestyle most
people in the developed world already have and that people in the developing
world would like to have.

Using San Diego County as an example, increasing the coverage of its roofs
and parking lots with 15% efficient PV panels by another 5%, or from 43% to
48%, will allow it to become renewable energy and water self-sufficient. The
addition electricity will power reverse osmosis (RO) pumps to force
saltwater against membranes that let freshwater through, but block salt,
other minerals and most pollutants. 

Assuming the worst case scenario of zero rainfall and zero imported water,
five percent coverage of San Diego County’s roofs and parking lots with 15%
efficient PV panels would make enough electricity to produce 776,000 acre
ft. of water each year. San Diego County now uses around 600,000 acre ft. of
water each year. By installing PV panels over 8% of its roofs and parking
lots, San Diego County could become a substantial water exporter.

Sea life will be protected from RO processing by extracting saltwater to be
used through sand filtration as in extracting saltwater from coastal wells
and through sea bottom sand filtration. Wastewater or brine left over from
the RO process will be evaporated in shallow open ponds so salt and other
minerals left behind can be mined. If any RO wastewater is returned to the
sea, it would have to be diluted by sand filtered salt water to be less than
20% saltier than is natural seawater. As a further precaution, it would be
released into the ocean diffusely.

Step three – become renewable food self-sufficient.

With renewable energy and water self-sufficiency, comes the ability to
become renewable food self-sufficient. It also allows for the growth of a
great deal of the fiber and lumber.

To make this real, it is essential that we protect our agricultural soils
from development and other misuses. My research indicates that we still have
enough agricultural soil in the world to feed everyone a nutritious diet of
tasty food with lots of variety. With renewable energy powered RO, this is
still true for San Diego County. Unfortunately, neither of these statements
will be true for long, if we do not protect and preserve our best
agricultural soils for life-support sustaining agriculture.

Step four – make a personal decision to be the parent of no more than two
children unless your child dies before reproducing themselves. If the
world’s population dropped 1% per year, in 100 years it would be down to
around 2.5 billion, the world’s population in the early 1950s. With a
population drop of ½% per year, this would take 200 years.

Step five – develop a Space Debris Detection and Defense System. We are the
first generations of people who have the technology to locate any earth
orbit crossing space objects we might be threatened by. We also have the
technology to nudge objects large enough to cause serious life-support harm
if they collide with us, into earth safe orbits. We can even capture such
objects in moon and earth orbits for scientific study and to mine for
valuable minerals.

As I said before, if we want to leave the birthright of a happy, healthy,
prosperous life-supporting sustaining future to our young and future
generations, these 5 steps are the minimum we must do, and the sooner the
better.  

We’ve come so far, so why blow it now. We know what to do, some of us know
how to do it. The rest of us can learn. If the living generations, over the
next 60 years or so, develop life-support sustaining economies and ways of
life planet wide, there is little to stop us from colonizing space in our
own galaxy and beyond.

If we don’t develop a supporting (symbiotic) relationship with our planet’s
life-support system soon, we will follow the footsteps of the great
civilizations of the past that utterly failed at the height of their
greatest achievements because their civilizations had feet of clay. This is
because they were based on the exploitation of others and the unsustainable
use of the life-support system upon which their civilization rested.

-----Original Message-----
From: ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org
[mailto:ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org] On Behalf Of James Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:43 AM
To: ca-standard at graywater.org
Subject: [ca-gw] State adopts greenest building codes in U.S.

Here's the SF Chronicle article on the new green building code.
James

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/01/13/MNDR1BH9SA.DT
L

State adopts greenest building codes in U.S.
Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

(01-13) 04:00 PST Sacramento --

Newly constructed hospitals, schools, shopping malls and homes in California
will be some of the greenest in the world, after a state commission voted
unanimously Tuesday to approve the most stringent, environmentally friendly
building code standards of any state in the nation.

The new code, dubbed Calgreen, will take effect next January and requires
builders to install plumbing that cuts indoor water use, divert 50 percent
of construction waste from landfills to recycling, use low-pollutant paints,
carpets and floorings and, in nonresidential buildings, install separate
water meters for different uses. It mandates the inspection of energy
systems by local officials to ensure that heaters, air conditioners and
other mechanical equipment in nonresidential buildings are working
efficiently. And it will allow local jurisdictions, such as San Francisco,
to retain their stricter existing green building standards, or adopt more
stringent versions of the state code if they choose.

"This is (something) no other state in the country has done - integrating
green construction practices into the very fabric of the construction code,"
said Tom Sheehy, acting secretary of the state Consumer Services Agency and
chair of the California Building Standards Commission, which approved the
standards. "These are simple, cost-effective green practices. ... California
should be proud."

The code was supported by a wide range of building industry and realty
associations, as well as the state Chamber of Commerce. Industry officials
said that it would increase construction costs only slightly.

The regulations were opposed by several private organizations that offer
construction rating systems, including the nonprofit U.S. Green Building
Council, whose LEED certification system for sustainable green building and
development practices is one of the best known in the world.

Elizabeth Echols of the U.S. Green Building Council's Northern California
chapter said her group is most concerned with the provision of the code that
would allow cities and counties to adopt more stringent standards, which she
said could result in confusion for builders, local governments and the
public. She rejected the notion, suggested by several speakers at the
meeting, that her group was simply trying to protect its market share by
discouraging a competing verification system.

State officials said the regulations create a single comprehensive code,
clearing up confusion over varying regulations, and it allows builders to
receive green certification without paying a third party.

In July 2008, the same commission approved similar, voluntary building
standards, and it has worked with the construction industry since to develop
the mandatory code. As buildings account for about one-quarter of the
state's total greenhouse gas emissions, the new requirements will be an
important step in helping California meet its goal to fight global warming
by reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.

The commission took action after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed
legislation in 2007 that would have instituted a green building code for the
state. The governor, who praised the standards approved Tuesday, said at the
time that the commission, not the Legislature, should draw up the
regulation.

Matthew Hargrove, a vice president with the California Business Properties
Association, said the regulations will be especially useful for smaller
jurisdictions that have been unable to develop their own green construction
guidelines

"There will still be jurisdictions that want to go with LEED - San Francisco
will not ditch it," said Hargrove. "But outside the coastal areas it will be
helpful - like in West Sacramento, where they looked into creating a green
building code but balked because it's cumbersome to develop and they didn't
have the resources."

His members, he said, have been clamoring for a state certification program.

"At the end of the day you will have a whole bunch of cities that never
would have included this in their building doing it, and doing it in a way
that won't kill the economy," he said.

E-mail Marisa Lagos at mlagos at sfchronicle.com.


-----Original Message-----
From: ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org
[mailto:ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org] On Behalf Of
oasis at oasisdesign.net
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:24 AM
To: Laura Allen; ca-standard at graywater.org
Subject: [ca-gw] CA graywater standard now permanent!

> how did it go today?

The emergency California graywater standard, as proposed by HCD, is now
permanent!

The emergency standard (single fixture OK if it meets standards) will be
replaced with the standard approved yesterday (single fixture requires
permit, laundry OK if it meets standards).

I believe the change goes into effect 180 days after the new rule is
published July 1, which means... Jan of 2011?

One person testified strongly in favor (Ca association of builders?), the
vote was unanimous, the whole thing was over in five minutes.

I felt like clapping, I hear Kim felt like standing up and cheering, but in
deference to the decorum of the venue we just went quietly on to the next
thing.

....which was--

The unanimous approval of the first statewide, mandatory green building code
in the US!

Change is truly in the air, folks!



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