EETD News #7, Vol. 2, No. 3
Table of Contents

New Commercial Building Energy Efficiency Program Launched

A new three-year public-private research initiative, which will target substantial reductions in the $100 billion spent annually in energy costs for commercial buildings, has been launched under the leadership of Environmental Energy Technologies Division scientists. More than $13 million in research funding has been pledged by the California Energy Commission (CEC), the DOE, private sector partners, and Pacific Gas & Electric. EETD has assembled a team of 14 public and private sector partners to carry out the varied tasks within the High-Performance Commercial Buildings Systems Program. The program will develop new information technologies to design, commission, and operate buildings, and integrated design techniques to generate substantial and sustained energy savings in commercial buildings—offices, schools, and other structures. Partnerships with the private sector will commercialize and deploy these technologies in the marketplace. Principal investigators include Stephen Selkowitz, Philip Haves, Mary Ann Piette, Frances Rubinstein, and Michael Apte of Berkeley Lab's EETD and David Claridge of Texas A&M.

Clean Energy Future Assesses Technology and Policy

A new report prepared by five Department of Energy National Laboratories assesses technologies and policies to meet the energy-related challenges of the United States as it enters the 21st century. It concludes that a number of policies and measures described in the report can lead to faster development and deployment of energy-efficient, low-carbon technologies, and that the successful implementation of these policies can reduce energy inefficiencies, oil dependence, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions at essentially no net cost to the U.S. The policies include increased R&D; voluntary agreements to promote energy efficiency in vehicles, buildings and equipment, and industrial processes; programs promoting cogeneration; electric sector restructuring; and a domestic carbon cap and trading system.

Managing the Health Impacts of Waste Incineration

Incineration destroys contaminated hospital wastes, reduces municipal waste volumes, and substantially cuts down on the amounts of hazardous chemical and biological wastes. But does this widespread practice threaten public health? This question was tackled in the September 2000 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology in an article penned by EETD's Thomas McKone and Katharine Hammond of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. They write that in spite of continuing efforts to evaluate the health impacts of incinerated waste emissions, key data limitations still exist.

The Residential Ventilation Standard

In August 2000, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) released the first public review draft of its proposed residential ventilation standard entitled "Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings." The Standard Project Committee (SPC 62.2P) responsible for developing this draft is now reviewing the results of that public review and will likely make changes to it, but the fundamental principles are unlikely to change.

Improving Air Quality Modeling Results

Computer models of air quality provide local governments with the scientific information they use to regulate air pollution emissions, but these models are not always as accurate as regulators would like.

Research Highlights

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