Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- And Now, Back to Your Local News…Since the weather’s getting better, I’m sure we’re all totally jonesing to get onto the trails, but in general, they’re a mess. It’s a bummer to see nice singletracks get trashed and widened, so like all of you, I’m grinding my teeth in annoyance while I try to be patient. The good news is that you [...] […]
- Downieville, Take ThreeOkay, well, things went pretty haywire in race promotion after the registration debacle. The organizer received so many hateful emails and comments about the mishap that it made him wonder if he should even bother putting the race on. I can’t blame him, really. In his shoes I might do the same thing. It sounds [...] […]
- And Now, Back to Your Local News…
- Edgy Veggie
You are viewing the archive for the Building, Energy category.
Boulder takes energy-efficiency cues from… Houston?
Workers apply insulation to a wall in a Boulder home | DailyCamera.com
Realizing that that it would be nearly impossible for Boulder to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals without forcing landlords to make energy-efficiency upgrades to rental properties, the city is considering the best way to create such a mandate.
And Boulder is looking to other cities and towns for useful examples. Some are the usual suspects (Berkeley and Burlington), but others are not so often on the same wavelength as Boulder, including Houston and Palm Desert.
The ultimate goal is to force the upgrades — but to simultaneously create a program that would make it easy and cheap for landlords to comply.
Boulder is seeking a unique way of mending the debate between landlords and tenants on energy-efficiency — a single program for homeowners to meet proposed new standards.
The new energy-efficiency recommendations for rental housing have caused an uproar in Boulder, but there’s a second, private-sector arm to the city’s greenhouse gas reduction effort in residential spaces that has received less attention, and will ultimately help property owners meet whatever new standards come to pass. Read more
Net-zero neighborhood takes root in north Boulder
Realtor Matt Podskoch walks through the dining area of the SpringLeaf model home. Eventually, the SpringLeaf neighborhood, which sits across the street from Lucky s Market in north Boulder, will have 12 homes, all of which will be zero-energy. Photo by Cliff Grassmick.
Zero-energy homes have been popping up in Boulder for years. Often they’re built by die-hard greenies or, more recently, those with large pocketbooks and an eco-conscience.
But now, Boulder’s getting it’s firs net-zero neighborhood, where all 12 houses will produce as much energy as they use.
The SpringLeaf "eco-community" across from Lucky's Market.
From the Daily Camera:
Local developer Ron Monahan stood outside the first of 12 homes he and his business partner plan to build in a new north Boulder subdivision and talked about his vision: “We’re bringing this to the masses.”
“This” is a zero-energy home. It’s a house built with less lumber and more insulation; with recycled countertops and bamboo cabinets; with a geothermal system and a 10-kilowatt solar array. And it’s built in what will become the first zero-energy neighborhood in Boulder, and likely, one of the first in the country.
Monahan and co-developer Terry Britton worked with architect George Watt and Silver Lining builders to construct the model home for the planned SpringLeaf “eco-community,” which will sit across Broadway form Lucky’s Market. Read more
El Nino is Spanish for “fewer powder days”
Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
It’s an El Nino year, again, which means that this winter could be a little grim for powder hounds in Colorado (unless you live around Telluride and Silverton).
For the Front Range and ski resorts north of Telluride — including Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, etc. — an El Nino winter means a wet fall and a dry winter.
It doesn’t actually mean that less snow will fall, just that through December, January and February, there will be fewer storms — but those storms could dump more snow.
El Niño may mean fewer snowy days during the winter for most of Colorado’s resorts, according to Klaus Wolter, an atmospheric scientist who works with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“You get fewer storms, and once in awhile we’ll get hit and those storms can be healthy storms,” Wolter said. “But you shouldn’t expect a lot of powder skiing.” Read more
Boulder seeking smart people to monitor adorable squirrels
Who doesn’t get distracted by squirrels chasing each other around and hiding things away? Man, even just listening to people talk about squirrels squirreling around is funny. Just the other day, my friend was telling me a story about an excited squirrel “log-rolling an entire bagel” somewhere, getting exhausted, then just plopping down to try to eat the thing.
Squirrel-in-pumpkin photo by Ani Espriella
Well, those little guys and more are part of our ecosystem here in Boulder and the county needs some help keeping track of them — which means they’re looking for volunteers to stare at squirrels.
“We have a lot of acreage, and we have really diverse natural resources on our open space,” said Michael Bauer, education and outreach specialist for the county’s open space department. “We just don’t have the staff to do the long-term monitoring of those resources that we’d like to do.”
After a year of planning for the new monitor program, the county is now accepting applications from people who have some scientific background and understanding of natural resources. The effort is part of a larger push to engage more volunteers in open space projects.
via Boulder squirrel counting – Boulder Daily Camera.
Your old electronics could help with Alzheimer’s therapy
Even though I’m a total gadget nerd, I tend to be a bit behind the times in what I actually own because I try to hang onto stuff until it runs down. I once had a cell phone that only worked when there was a great deal of pressure being put on it from both the front and the back. For a little while, I’d just hold it really tight while making phone calls. Then I had it held together with rubber bands.
This clock probably wont help folks with Alzheimers -- but your old iPods can.
Then I was told it looked really sketchy, like maybe it wasn’t a phone, but was some kind of explosive that I had very lazily attempted to disguise as a phone. And then I thought about how weird it was that when I was a kid, my mom actually had a novelty clock that was made to look like dynamite (see photo). How far we’ve come!
Hey, that was a fun little trip we just took, wasn’t it? Point is, I finally had to get rid of the thing, and I’ll bet you’ve got stuff to get rid of, too. If you’ve got old electronics — or plain old e-waste — in Boulder, here are some ideas for getting rid of your gadgets — which we hope you use, for the most part, until they totally die on you.
There’s a terrific outfit looking for old working iPods right now. They load them and use them for therapies that are proving to be extremely effective with Alzheimer’s patients, stroke survivors and more. All you have to do is mail in your device. See bethabe.org/WellTuned286.html for more information.
Best Buy, with local branches in Boulder, Broomfield and Longmont, accepts most items including old cell phones and digital cameras for free (up to two items per household, per day.) They charge $10 for some items including small television sets and laptop computers, but give consumers a $10 gift card in exchange.
Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (ChaRM) will take old devices, and refurbish what they can, or have the gadgets dismantled and safely recycled.
ChaRM, by the junction of the Goose Creek Path and the Boulder Creek Path, charges a $3 fee for every vehicle coming to recycle.
They will take your old cell phones for no charge; other items have various (very nominal) fees attached. A digital camera or an iPod each cost $2, for instance. For more information, go to ecocycle.org/charm.
via the Camera.
Boulder delegation to Copenhagen?
The Camera’s asking folks to weigh in on something BGB readers might be into — should Boulder be sending a delegation to Copenhagen to talk climate?
Presumably, our delegation will fly to Copenhagen via DIA.
This week’s question: On their first day together as a new board of nine elected officials, the Boulder City Council started to tackle the planet’s climate crisis and advocated global nuclear disarmament. The council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to support a two-person delegation heading to Copenhagen, Denmark, next month to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties. Boulder is paying an estimated $2,500 for the trip, including airfare and meals. The money will come from the city’s carbon-tax fund. On Monday night, Plan-Boulder County, a group that advocates city policies that preserve the environment, unanimously approved a motion objecting to Boulder’s plans to send the delegation to Denmark, saying the trip sends the wrong message: The flight overseas will cause the very harm to the environment that the city seeks to eliminate. What do you think?
via the Camera.
Let us know here, or on our Facebook page or on Twitter.
Creepy clowns against climate change?
Members of WildEarth Guardians dress as clowns and wear Gov. Bill Ritter masks during a protest outside the state Capitol on Wednesday | Denver Post
Front Range environmentalists gathered in Denver yesterday to tell the governor to quit “clowning around” when it comes to climate change.
The state’s air quality commission will take public comment tonight on Xcel Energy’s request to renew its air permit for the Cherokee coal plant in Denver. Earlier this year, Xcel also sought to renew its air permit for the Valmont coal plant in Boulder.
The clown-protesters — wearing wigs and Ritter masks — said that the state shouldn’t issue any permits until coal plants are forced to deal with their carbon dioxide emissions, but the state says it has no authority to do that.
Read more about the protest at DenverPost.com.
Boulder considers forcing landlords to go green
It’s not likely that any amount of convincing, or educating, or outreaching will convince landlords to make energy-efficiency upgrades to their rental properties. (Since tenants are the ones that usually pay the utility bills, it’s not a particularly attractive investment.)
So in Boulder — where 57 percent of all housing is rental housing — the city is considering a set of rules that would mandate upgrades.
Without such rules, advocates argue, there’s no way Boulder will ever meet its goal of complying with the Kyoto Protocol. But landlords are not psyched.
The proposed rules would tie the upgrade requirements to the existing rental-license renewal process, which happens every four years. Landlords would have to show that they’ve made necessary upgrades — or possibly that they’ve purchased carbon offsets to buy them more time to make the upgrades — before their licenses would be renewed.
The maximum necessary investment per rental unit would also likely be capped, possibly based on the value of the property.
Landlords across the city are “very frustrated,” said Sheila Horton, executive director of the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association. Read more
When the neighborhood Eco Pass comes back, who will buy it?
The Eco Pass allows people to ride local buses, like the Hop, for no extra charge | Cliff Grassmick
RTD is lifting its ban on new neighborhood Eco Passes in January, but Boulder is worried that new communities won’t sign up and that old ones may fall off the alternative transportation band wagon.
Now, 45 neighborhoods are enrolled in the program, which allows every house in the neighborhood to get an Eco Pass and ride most RTD buses for no additional charge,
Despite record participation of about 11,369 people in Boulder — the only municipality aside from single neighborhoods in Louisville and Lafayette to participate in the program’s 16-year history — volunteers are finding that the state of the national economy has hurt people’s willingness to pay for the program.
Andrea Robbins, a transportation planner and spokeswoman for Go Boulder, the city’s alternative transportation program, said the problem is that everyone in an eligible neighborhood receives an Eco Pass even if residents contribute different amounts. Read more
Boulder to support goals of UN’s Copenhagen conference
The conference kicks off Dec. 7.
Tomorrow night, Boulder’s city council is expected to pass a resolution expressing general support for the goals of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, also called COP15.
The city if Boulder is sending a delegation to Copenhagen to advocate on behalf of local governments and to talk about Boulder’s efforts to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists hope that world leaders will come to an agreement about how to tackle global carbon emissions at the conference, ultimately signing an accord that would pick up where the Kyoto Protocol left off.
The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which would have obligated us the reduce our carbon emission by 7 percent below 1990 levels. But in 2002, the city of Boulder decided to try and meet the target on its own.
Aside from the Boulder delegation, scientists from the University of Colorado and other locals are headed to Copenhagen as well. If you’re going, BigGreenBoulder wants to know about it. E-mail Laura Snider at laura@biggreenboulder.com.
