The US government has a new plan for slashing greenhouse emissions from buildings

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Alfonso Maruccia

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Forward-looking: The US Department of Energy has published its first comprehensive plan to fight climate change by cutting building emissions of greenhouse gases. Federal agencies must cooperate to reach four strategic objectives and achieve "near-zero" emissions in the not-so-distant future.

The Department of Energy released a new National Blueprint for the Building Sector, aiming to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from buildings by 65 percent by 2035 and 90 percent by 2050. Developed in collaboration with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies, the plan is presented as the first sector-wide initiative designed to provide a significant, even unprecedented, impact on GHG emissions.

"America's building sector accounts for more than a third of the harmful emissions jeopardizing our air and health, but the Biden-Harris Administration has developed a forward-looking strategy to slash these pollutants from buildings across the nation," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.

The DOE and the Biden-Harris Administration have devised a "comprehensive" plan to transform energy consumption in homes, schools, and workplaces. They believe the Blueprint will reduce utility bills and improve the community's health.

The Blueprint has four main goals:

  • Increase building energy efficiency,
  • Accelerate onsite GHG reductions,
  • Transform the "grid edge" (interactions between buildings and the electricity grid),
  • Minimize emissions coming from building materials.

The plan claims that reducing 90 percent of GHG emissions will save consumers more than $100 billion in yearly energy costs while avoiding $17 billion in air pollution-related health care costs.

The DOE's national plan aims to meet specific performance and technology milestones by 2035 and 2050. Meeting all these targets requires an accelerated deployment of energy efficiency and decarbonization technologies. The US government will take federal-level actions to increase such a deployment, while technology developments will be essential for the plan to succeed.

Washington plans to provide direct investment funds and financial support to develop low-cost, low-carbon technologies, working with state, local, and tribal authorities to meet its lofty decarbonization goals. The plan requires innovations in three pivotal areas: building upgrades, efficient electrification, and "smart controls."

The new decarbonization plan includes specific measures for disadvantaged communities, which are more likely to face "energy insecurity" because of high energy costs. One in five American households is "at least" one month behind with energy bills, the US Census Bureau confirms. These are the Americans most likely to suffer from the effects of pollution and poor energy efficiency. The National Blueprint will address this issue by emphasizing affordability and by slashing energy costs, making communities more resilient to power outages and extreme weather conditions caused by climate change.

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The US government has a new plan for slashing greenhouse emissions from buildings

 
I hear nothing about concrete. I’m assuming concrete is under ‘reducing emissions from materials’, but as it is the single biggest factor in construction, it’d be nice to tackle it head on, instead of obfuscating it by mixing it with other materials.

Also to all the eejits talking about increased costs in chat. Costs in construction have very little to do with quality. It has everything to do with forcing architects and builders who suck to use standardised solutions that don’t. To be perfectly frank, many people charge large sums of money for heavily thermally bridged, poorly designed pieces of crap, and that is the crux of it all. Good construction isn’t prohibitively expensive in any way shape or form, but it requires an apparatus that efficiently hinders crap in being built.
 
Thanthan said:
I hear nothing about concrete. I’m assuming concrete is under ‘reducing emissions from materials’, but as it is the single biggest factor in construction, it’d be nice to tackle it head on, instead of obfuscating it by mixing it with other materials.

Also to all the eejits talking about increased costs in chat. Costs in construction have very little to do with quality. It has everything to do with forcing architects and builders who suck to use standardised solutions that don’t. To be perfectly frank, many people charge large sums of money for heavily thermally bridged, poorly designed pieces of crap, and that is the crux of it all. Good construction isn’t prohibitively expensive in any way shape or form, but it requires an apparatus that efficiently hinders crap in being built.
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As someone who works in commercial construction I can tell you that the number 1 biggest cost in construction is labor. We have a large or shortage and during the work season, I usually work 30-40 hours of overtime a week to meet deadlines. The trade off is I get 3 paid months off
 
Maybe they should focus on the wars going on.

What's funny is that they admitted flying migrants from other countries to America 332K total that's a lot of pollution shipping them here. Waiting for a hero comment.
 
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Thanthan said:
Also to all the eejits talking about increased costs in chat. Costs in construction have very little to do with quality. It has everything to do with forcing architects and builders who suck to use standardised solutions that don’t.
Click to expand...

I'm unclear what point you were trying to make, other than perhaps trying to expouse the general benefits of having building codes? I don't disagree that there is value in safety standards. However, adding new building codes and regulations does come with a cost. Whether those costs add value is another debate altogether.

For example, I used to live in MN and built a home there in 2016. That year, two new building regulations went into effect.

The first required a fire barrier for unfinished basement ceilings. The fire barrier requirement could either be met by spraying fire retardant foam on the floor joists and basement ceiling or hanging drywall. Most builders opted for the latter as the cost was similar. The second regulation required that indoor air be routinely cycled with outdoor air. Builders generally met this requirement by installing an air exchanger.

When quoting my floorplan, every builder I spoke with (and I quoted with five or six) consistently stated that costs were $10,000 higher than they would have been one year earlier strictly due to the change in building codes. These are changes I didn't ask for and frankly didn't need. I certainly would not feel less safe living in a home built one year prior and I doubt most homebuyers would care either. Also, someone who built the same home one year earlier could have saved $10K on their mortgage or put it into something that made their home more marketable / valuable from a resale perspective (e.g., hardwood floors, nicer countertops, partially finished lower level, etc.).

The point here is that there is a cost to these mandates. Whether you think it's worthwhile or not is another matter, but there's no question who's going to be the one paying for it in the end.
 
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Alfonso Maruccia said:
Internet was a government-funded innovation. The Web was a government-funded innovation.
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Oops! While the first WAN was indeed ARPANET, all the components enabling the Internet -- Ethernet, TCP/IP, and a fully-decentralized architecture -- came from the privately-funded Xerox PARC. The idea that government intervention was required to enable these is a myth.

As for the "invention" of the World-wide-web, the first HTML and HTTP implementations were a few months-long side project by one man: Tim Berners-Lee. A great idea, but again, not a case requiring government subsidies.
 
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Dimitrios said:
Maybe they should focus on the wars going on.

What's funny is that they admitted flying migrants from other countries to America 332K total that's a lot of pollution shipping them here. Waiting for a hero comment.
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I mentioned in my first comment how if the government cared about CO2, that advancing things like nuclear power would do WAY more then BS like this, especially since there will likely just be some credits that the consumer has to pay for to "offset" things. Of course, the mods disliked this comment and shadow-banned it.
Endymio said:
Oops! While the first WAN was indeed ARPANET, all the components enabling the Internet -- Ethernet, TCP/IP, and a fully-decentralized architecture -- came from the privately-funded Xerox PARC. The idea that government intervention was required to enable these is a myth.

As for the "invention" of the World-wide-web, the first HTML and HTTP implementations were a few months-long side project by one man: Tim Berners-Lee. A great idea, but again, not a case requiring government subsidies.
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Shhhhh. Dont notice! You have to ACCEPT the narrative! The jannies might get upset otherwise.
 
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LetTheWookieWin said:
Which will make buildings more expensive to build, which will raise commercial real estate costs and rents, which will then be passed onto the consumer. There are no free lunches.
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That is one thing every ordinary person needs to tell everyone around them, every one of these green measures puts their hand deep inside everyone's pocket and keeps taking more and more.

Then these politicions act concerned for life getting too expensive for ordinary people.
Damn it, you do it, again and again.
But people are also responsible. Liek I said, a lot of people like to talk about climate change and doing something, but not often enough about how expensive pretty much everything gets with each "improvement."
 
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