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Europe targets homes to slash energy consumption
The family home is about to become Europe’s new target for combating climate change. In the coming months the European Union will negotiate with architects, developers and other housing stakeholders to come up with designs for a new generation of ultra-low energy homes aimed at slashing domestic power consumption.
The EU wants member States to build “zero-energy” houses that use no traditional heating or cooling systems and instead rely on “very good insulation levels” and “mechanical ventilation”.
It is hoping members will agree on design standards by the end of 2008 and promote widespread construction by 2012. What is prompting the action is research that shows Europe wastes at least 20% of its energy output through inefficiency—and that inefficiency bill could soar to more than 100 billion euros ($172 billion) annually by 2020.
If the EU were able to eliminate power wastage entirely, it would not only reduce its foreign energy dependency but also stop 780 million tonnes of CO2 being pumped each year into the atmosphere. That is twice the level of CO2 reductions Europe needs to make to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
The energy action plan covers all sections of the EU economy including industry and transport. But priority is being given to residential and commercial buildings because they have been identified as an area where cost-effective savings will be the greatest.
In the short term there are proposals is to start retrofitting existing houses with better wall and roof insulation. But in the medium term, the EU wants to redesign the standard house so that it is far less dependent on the electricity and gas grids.
Australian states, including Western Australia, are now in the process of introducing their own redrafted housing design regulations with the aim of making new homes more efficient in both their energy and water use. But they do not go quite as far as those planned by the Europeans—although natural ventilation does have local advocates.
It is also clear that making cities environmentally greener is going to take on far greater political importance in the years to come.
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Dangerous footprints
Whether or not zero-energy houses help combat global warming, they will help reduce humanity’s ecological footprint. WWF’s “Living Planet Report 2006” shows people’s ecological impact has tripled since 1961 and now exceeds by 25% the world’s ability to regenerate. The result has been a “rapid and continuing loss of biodiversity”. But we do have an opportunity now to reduce that impact without a drop in living standards, says WWF director general, James Leape. “The cities, power plants and homes we build today will either lock society into damaging over consumption beyond our lifetimes, or begin to propel this and future generations towards sustainable living,” he said.
Cooling off
Macquarie University’s Associate Professor Richard de Dear, is one of Australia’s chief advocates for naturally ventilated buildings and he says its time to give up adherence to the country’s “23 degree” target temperature for workplace, air conditioned comfort. After 25 years researching the thermal comfort of office buildings, he is convinced that a switch to natural ventilation would do much to reduce greenhouse emissions and make cities sustainable. “The Australian verandah is an example of how architecture was once responsive to local conditions,” he says. “But saturation of the commercial office space market with mechanical heating and cooling over the last century has severed the ties between architecture and climate.” Prof de Dear says in reality people who live in warm climates accept warmer working environments and people in cool climates accept cooler room temperatures. He believes if Australian buildings were to use natural ventilation, it might only be necessary to use mechanical air conditioning for two months of the year.
Government liabilities
Two Adelaide University academics, Dr Joseph Smith and Emeritus Professor David Shearman, say governments are now risking legal action if by ignoring global warming they fail to fulfil statutory obligations to protect the environment. The two have been researching the scientific and legal aspects of climate change and say the scientific evidence has reached the point where in many cases it would meet legal requirements for civil standards of proof. “That is the balance of probability being greater than 50%,” Dr Smith said. The National Health and Medical Research Council funded the research.
Green booms
By 2010, between 5% and 10% of the US market for new non-residential construction will be met using “green building principles” according to UK Government trade and investment figures. With the US representing 25% of the world construction market that suggests within three years building America’s green buildings will be worth between $US 10.2 billion and $20.5 billion a year.
Pollution and WA’s rain
Efforts by Asian cities to ease their air pollution problems may adversely affect Western Australia’s weather patterns. According to CSIRO climatologists Asia’s development-induced “haze” has a cooling effect on nearby oceans and this in turn alters the delicate temperature balance between Asia and Australia.(6) For the last 50 years that cooling has given the northwest and parts of central Australia extra rain. “We are really at the beginning of understanding the trends but sooner or later these emissions will be cleaned up and then a trend of increasing rainfall in the northwest and centre could be reversed,” says Dr Leon Rotstayn of CSIRO’s Marine and Atmospheric Research. “This is potentially serious, because the northwest and centre are the only parts of Australia where rainfall has been increasing in recent decades.” Meanwhile there is every sign that Asia is planning to get serious about clearing up the haze. About the same time CSIRO was releasing its research, Asian leaders were meeting in Yogyakarta to discuss the best ways to combat the problem. Delegates were told by the Asia Development Bank that cities like Beijing and New Delhi are now suffering air pollution at levels five times higher than Paris, London and New York. That is six times more than what the World Health Organisation considers safe and it is already causing 530,000 Asians to die prematurely every year.
More knowledge is less power
Would householders use less electric power if they knew more about how much they were consuming and what it was doing to the environment? After trying out in-home display devices and more informative energy bills, the UK Government believes the extra knowledge could do much to reduce energy demand. According to the government’s Trade Secretary, Alistair Darling, keeping people informed about their home energy use can reduce consumption by 12%. The government is now consulting with industry about the scheme’s nationwide rollout. Meanwhile the government is reporting an unexpectedly large demand for its assistance program to householders wanting to install “microgeneration technologies” in their homes. Six months after launching the scheme, the government has just doubled the size of the assistance budget for installing micro-wind turbines and solar panels to $32 million.
Prepare for floods?
Researchers at Monash University believe drought and bushfires are making the affected regions more vulnerable to flooding. After building a database on Victoria’s bushfires and flood events they have found the two have links: the more extreme the fire and the greater the severity of any subsequent flood. “It does seem strange, but it’s been found in other parts of the world that while rainfall can be going down, they are still experiencing extreme floods,” says Ms Lee Tryhorn, a Monash PhD student. “There are more extreme dries but also more extreme wets.” Ms Tryhorn focused the study on Victoria’s Alpine areas where drought has left the soil very dry and unable to absorb water. “The soil is also black, so that heats the surface and the surface heats the atmosphere above it and that makes the thunderstorms more intense,” she says. Monash has been telling the locals that when the bushfires are over and the drought breaks, there could be problems.
