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Less than one-fourth of buildings adopt energy efficiency measures, according to
the American Council for an Energy Efficient
Economy (ACEEE). Upgrades can save
money in the long-term and increase occupant productivity immediately, so why are
facilities managers hesitant to invest?
ACEEE posits that there are four key
reasons behind FM apprehension: more
efficient technology is often expensive and
risky, building teams are too understaffed
and lack the expertise to implement efficiency upgrades, it’s challenging to convince
senior leaders in organizations to buy in and
the department lacks adequate financial
resources.
To combat these objections, ACEEE offers
a few suggestions to increase investments
and to embrace energy efficiency. Consider
these four strategies:
1) Promote the non-energy benefits of
energy efficiency. It is easy to fall into the
money trap. Specifically, it is easy to get
caught up in estimated savings and percentages, especially when making the case
to senior decision makers. Advocate for
employee health, worker productivity and
environmental protection when emphasizing
the need for increased energy efficiency to
Making the Case for Energy Efficiency Projects
make the situation more human and less like a
mathematical equation.
2) Learn about easy-to-use and affordable
financing. What is the biggest barrier to any
investment? The upfront cost, of course. While
you have to spend money to make money,
know that you do have options. There are
plenty of easy-to-use financing strategies, like
on-bill financing (OBF) and property-assessed
clean energy (PACE) financing, that help
decrease the heavy burdens of initial costs.
3) Use policies that are already proven to
work. This may seem like an easy one, but
it cannot be overstated just how effective
efficiency programs like ENERGY STAR have
been at saving energy and money on a micro
and macro level. Energy-saving performance
contracts have been eliminating high upfront
costs for building owners since ENERGY
STAR’s inception in 1998.
4) Look for local incentives. The push for
changing your building’s approach to energy
may be in your backyard. Special tax rates
are available in places like Charlottesville,
VA, for commercial and residential buildings.
Community programs in Hood River, OR, and
Marshfield, MA, have taken hold and facilitated
collaboration among business owners and
community members.
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led research team has developed a method
of converting used cooking oil – with the
help of the reusable carbon material from
old rubber tires – into biofuel, according to a
study recently detailed in Chemistry Select.
In a collaboration with researchers from
Wake Forest University and the Georgia
Institute of Technology, the study reveals
how biofuels can be produced inexpensively,
environmentally friendly and with high value,
which is a major step toward greater biofuel
production.
The process combines modified, recovered
carbon with sulfuric acids, which is in turn
mixed with free fatty acids found in house-
Cooking Oil and Tires: The Future of Biofuel?
NEW PROCESS OPENS UP THE POTENTIAL FOR INEXPENSIVE FUEL PRODUCTION
hold vegetable oil to produce usable biofuel.
“This report demonstrates a new direction for the design of solid acid catalysts
by emphasizing the use of carbon derived
from waste tires and environmentally benign
protocols for surface modification,” writes
the research team. “The obvious advantages
of STC-cys catalyst include relatively benign
functionalization process involving L-cysteine,
very good catalytic performance and stability. The work shows promise for both green
and economic production of biofuels using
inexpensive FFA-rich feedstocks. The sulfonated, tire-derived carbon should also find
use in acid-catalyzed chemical reactions
beyond biofuel applications.” B
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