Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Man with a plan?

From GlobeSt:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that New York City plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% over 2005 levels by 2050. The plan—called One City, Built to Last: Transforming New York City’s Buildings for a Low-Carbon Future—includes the intention to retrofit public and private buildings to dramatically reduce the city’s contributions to climate change while spurring cost savings and creating new jobs.

This effort makes New York the largest city to commit to the 80% reduction by 2050 and charts a long-term path for investment in renewable sources of energy and a total transition from fossil fuels. Nearly three quarters of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions come from energy used to heat, cool, and power buildings, making building retrofits a central component of any plan to dramatically reduce emissions, according to the Mayor’s office.

Every city-owned building with any significant energy use—approximately 3,000 buildings—will be retrofitted within the next ten years, by 2025, with interim goals along the way. The city also will spur private building owners to invest in efficiency upgrades, setting interim targets and incentives and implementing mandates that trigger if interim reduction targets are not met.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing that with all the new construction in tha last ten years,it is mostly low tech/ cheaply built. We have 2 nearly brand new sports stadiums and they both use 20th century inefficient lighting both inside and out.

Anonymous said...

The moment the plan calls for creating new jobs you know it's all B.S. these people don't care about creating anything especially jobs, the idea is to have an agenda that allows them to spend and funnel money to the appropriate entities

Anonymous said...

The easiest way to scam people these days is dress up your scam as something "green" or good for the environment. The greener-than-thou types fall for it every time.

Text book case: light bulbs containing mercury that cost ten times more than the perfectly good incandescent ones we used to use.

Anonymous said...

Our neighborhood needs to breed clean air. Many years you known that the city and state was ignoring the probmlem. Stop giving candy to the people and slove the real problem.

Anonymous said...

Where will the money come from to retrofit exisiting buildings? How much more service cuts or raise taxes will the city do? Or for that matter, how high will the rents go in private buildings? So much for an affordable city. I am all for reducing emissions but this plan does not seem to be thought out well.

Anonymous said...

... and the final step is to add a million people which leaves you further in the hole then when you started.

Zero population growth.

F*ck the developers and their toady politician nit-wits.

Anonymous said...

Reduce emissions by 2050? Seriously, how about a goal that we can judge him by in, say, 8 years instead of 35 years, as he completes his term of office and begin a run for another office?

Anonymous said...

Cheap buildings that will need to be replaced or rebuilt every 30 or 40 years with glass walls that are a nightmare to keep clean, or keep warm or cool as the season dictates.

Wasteful but will get the pols elected with money from happy developers which are the only two groups that are benefiting from all this development.

Anonymous said...

Good thing the rest of the industrialized world is doing the same thing, right?

Anonymous said...

Where will he money come from?
Considering the high local energy prices (oil and electricity) shifting over to nat gas and solar will save money over the long haul.

Efficiency retrofit projects, with payback periods of 2-5 years, are already attractive to many property owners...on paper. The question is financing and regulatory permits. More banks and companies need to come up with responsible ways to shrink the up front cost hurdle. If DeBalsio is serious, his administration needs to look at how the regulatory hoops and requirements from City, State and ConEd affect whether these people/organizations go through with this.

There are several companies that offer solar energy systems with no upfront cost, with the system paid off over time in lieu of regular electric bills. There are several pilot projects, including Newtown Creek WPCP, that take sewage sludge and bio-digest it into bio-methane. There is a project in Sweden that aims to replace all fossil methane (natural gas) with sewage/trash derived renewable bio-methane (biogas).

One relative cheap solution would be to install better temperature control systems at buildings with steam heating systems. They are notorious for using both oil heat (including #4 and #6 oils) and the "Double Hung Thermostat". Having windows open provide ventilation, but wastes huge quantities of energy. Adding removable seasonal window heat exchangers (essentially sheet metal, a small fan, and air filter) would provide both fresh air and save energy.

Anonymous said...

"zero population growth"

The Baby Boomers aren't going to keel over at 65 or 75 like their parents. Heck, if we get better at removing arterial plaque (Cardiovascular disease) and managing diabetes, the cohort might get to 90 regularly.

Their kids (Late Gen X and Echo Boomers) are an even bigger cohort, and either already have children or are starting families in the next 10 years.

Where will they all live if there isn't new housing?

NYCHA needs to build attractive senior specific housing (1-2 bedroom units) that will open up 2,3,4,5,6 bedroom apartments for people on the waiting list.

Last but not least, take a look at NYS Rent Regulation. When vacancy rates stay above 5%, the regulations mostly go away. Why? If you look at what happens to property markets when the vacancy rates are 5%-7% countywide or citywide, rents and property prices are stable or fall. This is what Seattle is trying to do, though they still can't keep up with the demand, and vacancies have fallen below 5% recently.

Anonymous said...

while a nypd officer enroute to the "CLIMATE/GLOBAL WARMING " march in Manhattan was dieing & 8 others injured in the van crash, The red diaper baby mayor was to busy marching with his anti-capitalist fellow travelers ,Al Gore & Bobby Kennedy Jr..

he made the tv news at 11 pm, saying that he was "OUT OF TOWN".

Anonymous said...

Anon No. 12:

Proving what?