The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. (Photo courtesy of Ford)
New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:
Transcript
New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:
It’s hard to miss the ads for new models.
(montage of car advertisements)
But in September, fuel-efficient cars didn’t sell that well.
Mark Gillies is the Executive Editor for Car and Driver magazine. He says vehicles that get good gas mileage probably won’t start selling until gasoline prices go up – just like last year.
“That’s when you saw a big move to buying more fuel efficient vehicles. And I think the obvious thing about oil prices is that long term the trend is that they’re going to go up and they’re going to stay that way.”
Fuel-efficient models did sell in August because of Cash-for Clunkers, but Gillies says people bought low-end models this time because they were cheap – not necessarily because they were fuel-efficient.
One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:
One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. Some of these improvements can cost a bundle.
But, the White House says, there are ways to help. Christine Glunz is a spokesperson for The White House Council on Environmental Quality:
“We want to provide American homeowners with the opportunity to get this energy efficiency done, and get the retrofit done, without having to bear a major financial burden immediately.”
Glunz says the Obama Administration is pushing for new financing options. One they support is a local government loan program that is paid back through property taxes.
In addition to financing, the plan calls for an energy label for homes and apartments. It’s sort of like an Energy Star label, so renters and home buyers can figure out how efficient a building is.
The plan also calls for more trained workers to perform energy retrofits.
Shawn Allee gets a tour of a roof atop the Willis
Tower from co-owner John Huston. The skyscraper will undergo a
environmental rehab that will include replacing windows, adding
wind turbines and cutting overall energy use. (Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)
Willis Tower staff snap Shawn Allee in one of the building's
glass observation booth. It's a good vantage to see the building's
aluminum curtain wall and single-pane windows, both of which are
slated for replacement. (Photo courtesy of Willis Tower)
You might have heard the Sears Tower
in Chicago is now called the Willis
Tower. But there’s more changing for
America’s tallest skyscraper. Soon,
the Willis Tower will start an environmental
facelift that could cut eighty-percent
of its energy use. You might wonder:
what could a homeowner learn from what
the Willis Tower is doing? Shawn Allee thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask,
and went on a tour for the answer:
Transcript
You might have heard the Sears Tower
in Chicago is now called the Willis
Tower. But there’s more changing for
America’s tallest skyscraper. Soon,
the Willis Tower will start an environmental
facelift that could cut eighty-percent
of its energy use. You might wonder:
what could a homeowner learn from what
the Willis Tower is doing? Shawn Allee thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask,
and went on a tour for the answer:
One of the co-owners of the Willis Tower is John Huston. He says there’s plenty for
people to learn from the tower’s green rehab plans. To start – we’re at the base of the
tower, and we’re craning our necks up.
“We’re facing north. We’re looking at a hundred and ten floors, so that’s 16
thousand windows in total.”
Huston says those windows are the old single-paned kind common in 1974 – back
when the Willis Tower was finished. In the summer, the windows let heat in, and
during the winter, they let heat escape. And that black metal you see in photos? It
does the same thing.
Huston: “The building is clad in aluminum if you went outside in the winter, you
certainly wouldn’t want to wear an aluminum ski jacket.”
Allee: “You’d freeze.”
Huston: “Exactly.”
So, Huston says the first thing they’re gonna do at the Willis Tower is what he calls
“tighten the building’s envelope.” It means insulating the building from the outer
walls and replacing the windows – all sixteen thousand of ’em.
“It’s an incredible job. That’s what we have to change in order to conserve the 80%
of energy that we anticipate doing.”
Huston says energy consultants pretty much give homeowners the same energy
advice. He says, the nice thing is, once you do that it’s easier to figure out what’s
next.
“Watch your step.”
Huston takes me into the guts of the Willis Tower. This is where it’s heated and
cooled. He says since the building’s gonna waste less energy, he won’t need such
powerful equipment.
Huston: “A lot of what’s in here will disappear or shrink.”
Allee: “So what is this?”
Huston: “This is an electric boiler. It provides hot water to heat the building. Each
one of these consumes enough electricity to heat and light a town of 6,000 people.
We have eight of these throughout the building. It’s not just the boilers. in this
section behind us, you have all the pumps that move hot water throughout the
building. Each one of those pumps is hooked to an electric motor, and 50% of them
can be eliminated.”
Huston says the take-away here is that once a building requires less energy to heat
and cool it, the other savings can kind of cascade from that.
But there’s another lesson homeowners can learn from the Willis Tower’s green
rehab.
The architecture firm that planned this project is called Smith and Gill. Gordan
Gill tells me, their work was made easier by the fact the Willis Tower owners keep
records of their power use.
“When you’re designing something new, you’re predicting the performance of
something. Here, you can actually test it, since you have records of how much
energy was spent, how much energy was used – you know where you stand, exactly.
And so now, you can do mock-ups and tests and things like that.”
Gill says that’s a good reason for homeowners to hold onto their power and heating
bills, too. He says if you’re confident in your actual costs and likely savings, you’re
more likely to follow through with your rehab project.
“And that’s important because you’re avoiding the obsolescence of these buildings,
and I think that’s true from everything like Willis to people’s houses.”
For simple weatherizing -
insulation, weather stripping, windows - the tax credits apply to 30% of
the cost of materials, not the labor.
(Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:
Transcript
Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:
My husband and I recently bought an older house that could no doubt use
some weatherizing. So, I called up Reuven Walder at EcoBeco.
(sound of door opening, people saying hello)
He’s a home energy auditor. He identifies ways to make a home more
efficient.
“I joke around, I consider myself an energy efficiency social worker.”
And he’s been getting a lot of calls lately from people like me – looking
to take advantage of the tax credits.
“Let’s look around the house and you can point out some things that are
of concern to you.”
Walder has all these cool tools, like an infrared camera that can see where
the insulation isn’t doing its job. He finds plenty of trouble spots,
including one in the attic.
“And if you put your hand in this little pocket here you can feel nice
cool air.”
That’s not supposed to happen.
“I’ll be honest with you. When I find these kinds of things, it makes my
day, because we get to fix them.”
Well, not all the time. Walder says only about a third of the homeowners he
works with actually follow through on his recommendations.
“I have talked to numerous homeowners and their primary reason for not
doing it is money.”
He says the tax credits are a great shot in the arm, but, for many people,
it’s just not enough. Part of the problem is, for simple weatherizing –
insulation, weather stripping, windows – the tax credits apply to 30% of
the cost of materials, not the labor. And labor is actually the most
expensive part.
“Our economy is just so slow right now that people are just hesitant to
spend any amount of money because, regardless of the incentive, they’re
still going to have to spend a lot of money to make the improvement. It’s
not going to cover a significant portion of the cost.”
At this point, federal officials don’t know how many people have been
inspired by the stimulus package to do work on their homes. They won’t know
until everyone files their taxes in April.
“It’s definitely driving additional business.”
Matt Golden is president of Efficiency First – the national association for
the home performance retrofitting industry. But he isn’t totally sold on
the way the stimulus package is distributing the tax credits.
“The biggest incentives are for the most expensive fanciest equipment and
as you move towards the most cost effective stuff, you get much smaller,
incremental incentives.”
So, there’s big money for solar panels and geothermal heating systems. And
if you want to put in a tank-less hot water heater or a super efficient
furnace, here labor costs can be counted towards tax credits. Golden says
the smallest credits go to insulation and other simple steps.
“It’s actually kind of an impediment to the type of retrofitting projects
that have the biggest return on investment, bang for the buck and create
the most jobs.”
In my house, Walder estimates we need almost $6,000 worth of work. But,
because not all of it qualifies, I’ll only get $600 of it back from the
government – but we won’t see the money until tax season.
I’ll admit – it’s a lot more money with a lot less of a tax benefit than I
was expecting, and that’s probably what’s giving some homeowners pause.
The government will soon decide whether to allow increasing the mix from the current 10% blend to as high as a 15% blend. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
Cheap oil makes switching to alternative
fuels such as ethanol less attractive.
Lester Graham reports that could affect
an upcoming decision about using more
ethanol:
Transcript
Cheap oil makes switching to alternative
fuels such as ethanol less attractive.
Lester Graham reports that could affect
an upcoming decision about using more
ethanol:
Crude oil prices spiked a little because of Iran’s long-range missile testing and revelations of a secret nuclear facility.
But analysts think for the next several months we’ll actually see oil prices go down – maybe to around $30 a barrel, less than half of what it is now.
And that could hurt demand for fuels such as ethanol.
But the government has mandated the nation produce more ethanol.
Dan Flynn is an analyst with the trading firm, Alaron.
“Obviously the government definitely wants to push this through. However, the price of crude oil and gasoline, if that goes down, generally people look not to look for alternative sources of energy.”
One way to use more ethanol is to mix higher amounts with gasoline.
The government will soon decide whether to allow increasing the mix from the current 10% blend to as high as a 15% blend.
Todd Krone researches corn for Targeted Growth,
a bio-energy company. Targeted Growth is tweaking corn
genetics to produce 'Sugarcorn,' a variety with high
amounts of sugar and biomass. The hope is the plants
can be converted into ethanol cheaply. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Traditional corn varieties pollinate and send
energy into the kernels, which form sugar and starch. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
This corn ear shows one of Sugarcorn's key traits.
Bio-energy company Targeted Growth is perfecting corn varieties
that stop pollination and preserve sugar in the stalk instead of
creating starch in kernels. Researchers in public universities
such as the University of Illinois are conducting similar work. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The federal government wants more
and more ethanol in our fuel supplies,
but it worries about how its made.
Most American ethanol is made from
corn kernels. That’s inefficient
and it makes the ethanol and food
industries compete for corn. The
government’s mandating we start making
ethanol out of things other than corn
kernels. Shawn Allee looks
at one effort to meet that mandate:
Transcript
The federal government wants more
and more ethanol in our fuel supplies,
but it worries about how its made.
Most American ethanol is made from
corn kernels. That’s inefficient
and it makes the ethanol and food
industries compete for corn. The
government’s mandating we start making
ethanol out of things other than corn
kernels. Shawn Allee looks
at one effort to meet that mandate:
I’m just outside an ethanol plant in central Indiana and its pretty much like most ethanol
plants. There’re a lot of semi-trucks going by and they’re loaded with yellow corn kernels.
Most ethanol plants grind corn kernels for starch, they let that starch turn into sugar, then
they brew the sugary juice into ethanol. Now, this whole process would be easier and
cheaper if we could make ethanol directly from sugary plants instead of starchy grain
kernels like corn.
Pretty quick here, I’m gonna meet a guy who’s trying to make corn a plant that’s easy to
grow in the Midwest but produces sweet juice – not starchy corn kernels.
“If you walk over here, these are our sugar corn hybrids.”
I’m with Todd Krone. He’s a researcher with a company called Targeted Growth. He walks me
through a test plot of a plant nicknamed ‘Sugarcorn.’ He pulls off a ear of corn and pulls back the
leaves.
(sound of leaves being pulled back)
The ear is almost bare.
Allee: “There’re just a few stray kernels developing, very few.”
Krone: “Yep. A few got through.”
Krone says this plant avoids making corn kernels. Instead, it puts energy and sugar into the
stalk. He can prove it with a taste test – right here in field.
He snips a piece of stalk.
(sound of snipping)
And pulls out a little press.
Krone: “You squeeze some of the juice to see how much sugar’s there. It’s up to you, if
you like, you could put on on your finger and taste. Is there sweetness?”
Allee: “Yeah, it’s definitely sweet. It’s definitely got a sweet tinge to it.”
Krone: “It might be a bit sweeter than pop might be.”
Krone says tests show Sugarcorn juice is as sweet as juice from sugar cane. He says this means
America could have a new plant that boosts ethanol production – but doesn’t compete with food,
and uses equipment farmers already have.
Krone: “For the farmer, not much changes until harvest when some logistics still need to
be worked out.”
Allee: “Obviously if you’re selling a lot of this corn, you’d be making a good deal of profit,
hopefully, what’s in it for the rest of us in terms of the success or failure of this, for drivers
and everybody else?”
Krone: “I would say, hopefully, it results in cheaper ethanol that can compete with cheap
oil. And then meeting that mandate to get more and more ethanol produced.”
Well, that’s the idea, but Targeted Growth would have to change more than just corn plants to
succeed. They’de have to change how at least some ethanol companies do business. And some
ethanol companies have some tough questions about it.
“How could you handle sugarcorn? How would you store it?”
This is Jeff Harts. He works at Central Indiana Ethanol. Harts says he likes the idea of using
sweet corn juice to make ethanol – it could be efficient. But he worries about getting enough to
run an expensive operation like his. He has no problem finding corn kernels.
“It’s a consistent flow of corn and we need that consistent flow to keep going. That’s why
we have storage, the farmers have storage. That’s why we have a local grain elevator
network to ship corn to us to keep that flow steady 12 months out of the year.”
Harts’ company might be a bit reluctant to change right away, but ethanol producers will have
find alternatives to the corn kernel. The government is capping how much ethanol can come
from corn starch.
As those requirements phase in, alternatives like Sugarcorn might look sweeter than they do
now.
This is a mock-up of what the proposed label would look like (Photo courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
Back in 2007, Congress told the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration to come up with
new fuel efficiency labels on tires.
Mark Brush reports on when we might
see those labels in tire shops:
Transcript
Back in 2007, Congress told the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration to come up with
new fuel efficiency labels on tires.
Mark Brush reports on when we might
see those labels in tire shops:
It’s been 2 years, and the government is still working out how to get this labeling program going.
Right now, if you walk into a tire shop, it’s hard to compare tires on how fuel efficient they are. There’s no official standard yet.
But that should change soon. The new tire labeling program is expected to roll it out in the next few months.
Dan Zielinski is a spokesman for the Rubber Manufacturers Association. He says they support a labeling law because it’ll help competition.
It could give tire makers something to brag about.
“’It will be an incentive to say ‘my tire is better because,’ or, ‘my range of tires here are better because.’ It offers the consumers better performance on certain criteria. And I think that will drive the market even before the consumer demand does.”
A more fuel efficient tire will only get you a couple of miles per gallon more. But, put those tires on the 200 million cars and trucks driving the roads these days, and that could add up.
A fan is sized to the front door so they can de-pressurize the house. This helps them see where air is escaping - and where insulation may be needed. (Photo by Julie Grant)
The water heater shows evidence of carbon monoxide. (Photo by Julie Grant)
An inspector checks the efficiency of the furnace. (Photo by Julie Grant)
The government stimulus package
included billions of new dollars
for home weatherization programs.
The money is used to help low income
folks make their homes more energy
efficient. But some critics say
it’s not a good use of federal tax
dollars. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
The government stimulus package included billions of new dollars for home weatherization programs. The money is used to help low income folks make their homes more energy efficient. But some critics say it’s not a good use of federal tax dollars. Julie Grant reports:
Chris Graham spends his days checking the energy efficiency of people’s homes.
Today he’s at Sandra Richards’ in Mogodore, Ohio.
Graham: “Hi Sandra.”
Sandra: “How are ya?”
Graham: “Wonderful. And you?”
Sandra: “Better.”
Graham: “Better?”
Sandra is 55. Her house is clean and neat. She was a nurse for many years, but today she’s sitting on the couch, watching TV. A broken foot spiraled into problems with her knee and hip – and other health problems.
“I mean I’ve just had so many things go on in such a little time. I was working 12 hour days, and one month later, I couldn’t work at all.”
Sandra qualified for the home weatherization program because she doesn’t have much in the way of income anymore.
Chris Graham says he’s been to a lot of homes where people are far worse off. They can’t get around, they don’t have money coming in, and their houses get cold in the winter.
Graham heads to the basement.
“The first thing we have to make sure is that the heating unit is not in terrible, dilapidated shape. And that it does not have more than a specified amount of carbon monoxide in the flu gasses.”
He turns on the furnace and sticks a probe into the flu pipe.
(sound of a tester)
Grant: “Looks like a receipt came out.”
Graham: “It kind of is. It tells you exactly what was going on there.”
Looks like Sandra’s furnace is running pretty well. 81% efficiency.
But Graham sees evidence of carbon monoxide on her old water heater.
“It’s 17 years old and it just plain needs changed. It’s got burnt, scorch all over it. So we’re gonna do that.”
That could cost more than $1,000.
But the home weatherization program can afford it these days. The stimulus packaged included $5-billion for this kind of work – compared with less than a quarter of a billion dollars last year. The new money has to be spent within two years.
And some people think that’s just too much money – too fast. Leslie Paige is with a taxpayer watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste.
“There’s always a lot of waste in government spending anyway, but when you spend it quickly and there’s very little oversight, that’s almost a prescription for seeing a lot of that money go for waste and fraud and losing to abuse.”
That kind of criticism is shocking to David Shea. He’s director the Community Action Council of Portage County, Ohio – the organization that hires inspector Chris Graham.
The weatherization program has been around since 1976 and Shea says they have to report their spending in about a hundred different ways.
“It’s not like money is being thrown out at agencies and just say, ‘oh go out and do it.’ There are volumes and volumes of written regulations that have been around for a long time. We do so much sophisticated reporting; they know how every dollar is being spent. Always. Always.”
Shea’s office used to have one crew out weatherizing homes around the county. Since the stimulus money’s come in, he’s hired a second crew. But there are so many people wanting their services, the waiting list is still years long.
(sound of a fan)
Back at Sandra Richards’ house, inspector Chris Graham has sized a big fan into the front door. He’s depressurizing the house – so he can see where air is escaping. Graham says she’s going to need some doors sealed and new insulation in the attic.
He says Sandra will feel more comfortable, so she won’t need to turn up the heat in the winter. That means she’ll save on energy costs, and will use less fossil fuels.
That’s the whole idea of this project – to use less energy in the future, and to help millions of families that couldn’t afford to improve things on their own.
The bill would require new homes to immediately be 30% more energy efficient. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:
Transcript
This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:
The bill would require a re-write of building codes. New homes would immediately have to be 30% more energy efficient. And the requirements would keep getting tougher from there.
The idea is controversial. But for Alex Dean, building efficiently is just the way he does business.
“It’s building to a higher standard. And we really enjoy building fine projects for people who want it done right.”
Dean is the CEO of the Alexander Group, a home design, build and renovation firm in Maryland. He’s showing me around a green remodel.
(sound of key in door)
“This is the entry from the garage into the new addition.”
Dean and his team are putting an addition on a home in an upscale Washington, DC suburb.
He’s designed every detail with an eye to energy efficiency, starting with the insulation. He used a spray foam. It costs about twice as much as the insulation required by current building codes.
“You know, it’s worth it, and in the overall scheme of building the house, it’s not that much money.”
On this hot humid day, you can feel the difference the fancy insulation makes.
Keith: “It’s cooler than it is outside.
Dean: “Yeah, yeah.”
Keith: “And there’s no AC running in here right now.”
Dean: “No, not at all. And this building is directly in the sun. But that’s how effective this is. This is keeping some of the coolness from last night when it was in the 60s.”
That means he can install smaller heating and air conditioning units that use less energy.
The windows are double paned. The lights, all compact fluorescents or super efficient LEDs.
It’s projects like this one that make Bill Fay confident home builders will be able to handle greener building codes. Fay is the executive director of the Building Energy Efficient Codes Network.
“We know it’s achievable. And we know it’s achievable using affordable technologies. It’s just now a matter to have the resolve to do it.”
Past efforts at greening the building codes met with stiff opposition from home builders and failed to make it through congress.
Koteri Callahan is president of the Alliance to Save Energy and she says the stakes are high. Buildings are huge energy wasters.
“Every house and every office building that goes in the ground today is going to be around for decades and decades and in some cases centuries.”
But these days, the ground isn’t being broken on very many homes. The industry is in a serious slump.
Bill Kilmer is the head of advocacy for the National Association of Home Builders and he doesn’t want members of congress to forget about the industry’s struggles.
“Consumers certainly in the last year are stepping back and said, ‘what can we afford.’ And so we’re trying to take a mainstream, if you will, that says, ‘people want this.’ How can we get to that point, and how can we get there reasonably, and take afford-ability into account.”
Kilmer says the building industry is taking environmental issues seriously, and recently created a voluntary green building certification program.
But, he says the House bill moves too far too fast. He says builders would like until 2012 to meet the 30% efficiency goal.
“You really don’t have the equipment or the materials that are ready and ramped up to make the adjustments in the marketplace to bring those things to bear, without a tremendous cost burden that’ll be added on to the production of the housing and that obviously is going to be passed on to someone, and that’ll be the consumer.”
This question of affordability is a big one. And it seems like everyone has a statistic to make their point.
The McKinsey consulting group crunches all kinds of numbers for corporations.
It’s latest report suggests its cheaper to improve efficiency in heaters, homes, and electronics than it is to build new power plants.
It’s a welcome message to Lisa Jackson.
Jackson heads the US Environmental Protection Agency.
“I’m optimistic about Americans, who have so much common sense, saying, listen, the best energy is the energy we never have to use. It’s cheaper, it certainly means that we can invest in ourselves.”
The McKinsey report finds energy efficiency is economical in the long run, but it’ll take millions of consumers and businesses to boost power efficiency all at once to make a difference.
The authors recommend government and banks find new ways to finance home improvements.
They also recommend stronger efficiency labels on household electronics.
The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. (Photo courtesy of Ford)
