The Directive 2010/31/EU on buildings’ energy performance approved this year opened new doors for manufacturers of urban wind turbines. The Directive urges European governments to elaborate laws that enforce the use of renewables in buildings and technologies that improve (more…)

Market drivers in the home energy management (HEM) space are indicative of any residential energy efficiency market –they pivot on energy efficiency measures and applications affecting the bottom line. Additionally, in the residential energy efficiency space –and more specifically (more…)

Why do so many companies fail to capitalize on the abundant opportunities to save money through improved energy purchasing and efficiency?

One reason may be the lack of high-level positions for energy management at many companies. This is a practically a “no brainer” because the position can (more…)

Last fall, the Middle Class Task Force and the Council on Environmental Quality released a report called Recovery Through Retrofit, which identified the key barriers standing in the way of strong and sustainable home energy-efficiency industry.  For the past year, we have been (more…)

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a pilot program to finance $25 million in home efficiency upgrade loans: Backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), these new FHA PowerSaver loans will offer homeowners up to $25,000 to make (more…)

A new field, known as “ethical synthetic biology,” aims to combine chemistry, architecture, and climate science to construct buildings out of materials that extract CO2 from the atmosphere and convert the carbon into structural material. (more…)

My two and a half year old daughter likes conversations about pee.  She is not the only one in my life, apparently.  To my infinite surprise, one of the top rated posts on GBLB over the past year was the one I did in February on waterless urinal problems. (more…)

In a move that could significantly decrease US energy use and associated emissions, building officials voted on the first of November to increase the efficiency of typical buildings 30% by the year 2012. By making this improvement to the International Energy Conservation Code, (more…)

A lot of good economic reasons exist to pursue energy efficiency. Still the average person tends not to. This is no surprise. If I cannot see, touch, buy, sell, trade or save efficiency, if it’s invisible, how can I pay it any real attention? (more…)

“Solar can look good” is the message that United Solar wants to bring home to potential solar power adopters.

The company was present at Solar Power International in Los Angeles (October 12-14) showing the PowerShingle, which it says “removes the barriers which have (more…)