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New York City Announces Plans To Introduce Legislation To Cut Building Emission, Its Top Source Of Climate Pollution (huffingtonpost.com) 87

Posted by msmash from the taking-a-firm-stand dept.
A top New York City lawmaker announced a bill Monday to mandate dramatic energy use cuts in big buildings, by far the biggest source of carbon dioxide, in a historic move that could set a new standard for cities around the world. From a report: The legislation plans to require the city's largest buildings to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2030, as well as to set a framework for increasing the cuts by 40 percent to 60 percent by 2050. Combined with projected increases for renewable energy capacity on the power grid, the city could reduce its climate-warming emissions by 80 percent. Electricity and heating in buildings make up nearly 70 percent of the city's climate pollution, with luxury towers producing the lion's share. "The low-hanging fruit is gone," City Councilman Costa Constantinides, a Queens legislator who leads the council's Committee on Environmental Protection, said Monday morning on the steps of City Hall. "If we are going to make a real impact on climate change, it's going to be on buildings." The legislation, which is not yet complete, would make the nation's largest and most economically influential metropolis among the first major cities in the world to mandate strict retrofits on existing buildings to reduce planet-warming emissions.
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New York City Announces Plans To Introduce Legislation To Cut Building Emission, Its Top Source Of Climate Pollution More

New York City Announces Plans To Introduce Legislation To Cut Building Emission, Its Top Source Of Climate Pollution

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  • Real estate guys will love it (Score:4)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday August 20, 2018 @02:10PM (#57160728)

    Especially the orange ones.

    • Re:Real estate guys will love it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @04:01PM (#57161468)

      I expect this is mostly political, vs actually trying to save the environment. I am no way a Trump supporter, but this seems to be a political stunt just to hurt the president.

  • City owned buildings? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @02:15PM (#57160758)
    The law seems to primarily target city-owned buildings -- hope there's money to retrofit them and it doesn't result in the closing of services. Frankly, I see a better path for NY State: build more nuclear power stations to replace Indian Point when it closes. If you can't reduce energy use too much, you can at least make the source(s) clean.
    • The summary seems to imply that luxury towers are the biggest offenders and I can't imagine the city owning any of those at all. Of course the source is HuffPo and if you click through the article "luxury towers" is a link to a different article about Trump Tower, so for all I know you know more about it than they do and they just wanted to make a jab at Trump.

      They do at least link to the report: https://www.urbangreencouncil.org/content/projects/blueprint-efficiency-80x50-buildings-partnership-report [urbangreencouncil.org]. I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Luxury towers are inhabited by people who have the means to spend the money to consume more energy. This means central air and the money to pay the corresponding electric bill.

        Same goes for McMansions in flyover country.

        If you have money to spend, you have money to "waste".

        Pretty obvious really.

        • Luxury towers are inhabited by people who have the means to spend the money to consume more energy. This means central air and the money to pay the corresponding electric bill.

          I was struck by the fact that buildings do not emit CO2 -- unless they have gas appliances or fireplaces, and these building wouldn't. So the issue is apparently the use of electricity.

          Now, electricity is what makes automobiles "zero emission". Why doesn't it make buildings the same?

          • Buildings in NYC have gas (if you're lucky), oil, or coal (if you've very unlucky) boilers for heat. So yes, they do emit CO2.

          • It gets cold in New York. Heating with electricity is still expensive, and inefficient. We get more heat per dollar with actually burning stuff, and heating water and pumping that water around the building.

            I use wood pellets during the winter myself, with oil heat as a backup.
            Then there is electricity of AC in the summer, powering electrics and appliances.
            Luxury homes tends to have everything ready for your convince. You turn on the Hot Tap, Hot water comes out almost immediately. Rooms are at a comforta

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              Here in Finland, it gets very cold in winters. But you want to heat everything to above 20 degrees C because if you don't, you start seeing heavy increase in illnesses in inhabitants.

              Then there's the mould problem. When you have as much isolation as we put into the building, they have a tendency to develop mould growths. These make people sick, and tend to require very wasteful repairs and in worst cases just tearing the building down. Even if you don't care about the people and just want to lower CO2 emiss

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by nasch ( 598556 )

              You turn on the Hot Tap, Hot water comes out almost immediately.

              In tall residential buildings and hotels, there's a continuous hot water loop. So the hot water goes up to the top of the building past all the taps in the various apartments, and then back down to the heater to get warmed back up. Even when no hot water taps are open, this loop is continuously running. That's how there's hot water available almost immediately. It seems like it's more than just a luxury though, as the alternatives are 1) just build it like a single occupancy house where you turn on the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      • 1. Legislate energy reduction
      • 2. ?
      • 3. Energy consumption reduced!

      After you've replaced your bulbs with CFs or LEDs, there's not really a next huge leap you can take.

      • > After you've replaced your bulbs with CFs or LEDs, there's not really a next huge leap you can take.

        Nonsense, there's lots you can do.

        Smarter lighting (daylight harvesting, occupancy sensing) can reduce energy usage by 20% or more right off the top regardless of lighting type. (The now enforced 2016 ECC goes absolutely bonkers with this kind of stuff)

        Replace older AC units with more efficient heat pumps.

        Replace older fuel burning appliances (especially oil fired boilers) with newer, more efficient ones

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbialac ( 320955 )

          > Smarter lighting (daylight harvesting, occupancy sensing) can reduce energy usage by 20% or more right off the top regardless of lighting type. (The now enforced 2016 ECC goes absolutely bonkers with this kind of stuff)

          You're assuming that people don't already turn off the lights when they leave a room and that one isn't already installed. If they do or one is, there's no gain in a situation where you're mandated to cut energy use by 60%.

          > Replace older AC units with more efficient heat pumps.

          • > You're assuming that people don't already turn off the lights when they leave a room and that one isn't already installed.

            They don't, and they aren't unless they were installed per some higher standard prior to 2014 (or to code 2014 and after). It may shock you just how bad people in general actually are at this.

            > Heat pumps don't work well in cold climates as they can't generate enough heat.

            Modern heat pumps are a lot better than you give them credit for. We now use heat pumps as far north as Alban

    • The law seems to primarily target city-owned buildings

      Another poster says TFA talks mostly about luxury towers.

      This is NYC. If it's city buildings, it's a kickback scheme to 'crony' city contractors, suppliers, and labor unions financed by taxpayers. If it's privately owned luxury apartment towers, then it's both a kickback scheme to various politically-connected interests as previous, it's also a 'get those dirty rich' move to be used in NYC election campaign ads.

      If this proposal was made in Tucson or Kansas City, I might entertain the idea that this was prop

  • Is it really a percentage? (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @02:34PM (#57160876)

    I really hope the bill is not to make all buildings cut energy use by 20% - that would mean buildings that tried to be forward thinking and have low energy use to begin with, would have to spend quite a lot more to meet a 20% target than some buildings that didn't care about energy use and could meet a 20% target with simpler and cheaper measures...

    So hopefully it's more complex than the article makes it sounds. But knowing politicians, probably not.

  • When will American developers stop building highrise buildings that look like radiators? Yes, I mean ones with protruding floor slabs. Rebar inside them is a very good heat conductor. You can't talk about insulating walls until the slab is insulated.

    Second, at least some easing of glass "curtain walls" everywhere (hanging panoramic glazing) is needed. Even the most well insulated glass is nothing when compared to cheapest piece of insulation of equivalent thickness. See, even in the dirt rich UAE, skyscrape

  • that are the biggest source of the CO2 emissions will be happy to turn down the temperature in winter if it means the whole world will benefit. They are a benevolent, selfless lot, always looking out for their fellow man, and seeking ways to improve themselves and the lives of everyone around them.

  • They should hire homeless people to climb up to the top floors of buildings and take the elevator down.

  • Seriously, in any large city, there are 2 main sources of pollution and CO2.
    1) electricity since most cities have 1 or more coal plants.
    2) vehicles, esp since nearly all are ICE.

    NY and NYC have been going at things in a catywhumpus sort of way. At this time, NY would be smart to implement a modified form of CA's new regs; require that all new buildings of 6 stories and under to have enough unsubsidized on-site AE to equal/exceed the energy used by HVAC. This will encourage things like more insulation,geo-thermal HVAC, and even high lumens/watt bulbs. The reason is that solar is more expensive than those alternatives.
    Likewise, all rentals AND home sales, should be required to have all high lumens/watt bulbs upon tenant turnover. THis will drop the energy used by about 5-10%.
    In addition, for any building below 6 stories that is doing rentals/leasing, they should be required to pay for the HVAC. In doing that, it will encourage the landlord to either insulate it and move to CHEAP HVAC, OR sell it to somebody that will do it.

    Finally, it is time for cities to have some courage and stop allowing vehicles in.
    FOr starters, stop all passenger diesels.
    Year after that, stop the commercial diesel.
    Then ALL ICE passenger vehicles.
    Followed by all ICE.

    4 years is plenty long.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      In terms of climate change, would restricting passenger vehicles in NYC to EVs really do that much? I don't think people in NYC are doing the miles that people in lots of other places are. I'm in favor of EVs overall, but I'm not sure that making everyone in New York sell their functioning ICE cars and buying new EVs which are not going to be used all that much is the best way to do that. Especially since a lot of EVs are currently supply constrained.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In terms of climate change, would restricting passenger vehicles in NYC to EVs really do that much?

        Yes, oh yes. While New Yorkers talk about being able to walk wherever they wanted to go, the boroughs survive because of enormous amounts of small vehicle traffic. This is not just the out-of-towners coming in from suburbs (New Jersey has much better housing rates, and if you go east on Long Island thngs start to become affordable again), but also the traffic in-city that either cannot or will not travel by a combination fo walking and subways. The immense NYC gridlocks are a side-effect of the amount of

      • Actually, it should make a HUGE difference.
        NY is a fairly tiny state. It is in the bottom 1/2 (almost bottom 1/3) and only around 47,000 sq miles. However, HUGE population. There are almost 9 million in NYC ALONE, vs 20M in the New York state. So, adding in the surrounding areas of NYC and you are looking at 1/2 of the state being in NYC area (SWAG). Even though most of the ppl outside of NYC will have further to drive, they are mostly SHORT SHORT distances (here in Colorado, I used to drive >200 miles

      • In terms of climate change

        Climate change? Who cares about that. If climate change weren't a thing we should push for this anyway. Give me lower noise, cleaner air, no dust, particulates, NOx or Ozone anyday.

    • It's good that you are finally waking up to reality Windy.

      Seriously, in any large city, there are 2 main sources of pollution and CO2. 1) electricity since most cities have 1 or more coal plants.

      Since Americans use way above average [worldbank.org] levels of electricity. It leads to them using more coal powered electricty per person that just about any country. More than China even.

      2) vehicles, esp since nearly all are ICE.

      And America also has the most vehicles [wikipedia.org] it also has less eficient vehicles and drives them further than just about any other country.

      Just these two things by themselves go a long way to explain why Americans per capita are amongst the dirtiest in the world.
      And both those things

  • as in pozzolanic cements, fiber reinforced steel-free construction?
    French experiments and real-world installations show us the way to 35% lower CO2 [researchgate.net] impact but NOT while concrete is a mob controlled business backed by risk averse, antiquated civil engineering.,br>
  • So New York City took a historic step in cutting all building emissions? I was very interested to find out more, as this would certainly affect my company's business in New York, but it quickly became clear the this article was about draft legislation that had not even been finished, much less submitted to the council. If this is a "historic step", I cannot imagine what Huffington will call it when (and if) the bill is submitted, and will they even be able to describe the earth-shattering relevance if it

  • Ever walked the streets of NY in summer? How about we spend some effort on the giant fucking piles of dripping, stinking, rat-infested garbage bags that line even the nicest streets?

    I know it's not nearly as TRENDY to clean up garbage as it is to prevent 0.1mm of sea level rise, but still, if we're talking about where people live maybe making it liveABLE can be part of the equation?

    • Garbage is picked up twice a week. The garbage is put out at night and picked up the next morning. This means that the garbage is not on every street on every day.

      How else would you do it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Anything from properly stored garbage not allowing rodents in to underground vacuum garbage retrieval systems.

      • Actual trash receptacles that have lids that close and are waterproof, instead of MOUNDS of leaking trash bags, for one?

        Dumpsters for another.

        There are lots of solutions worked out by other cities.

        • Garbage is stored in bins on a daily basis. But then the garbage is brought to the street for pickup. On small residential streets people often just bring the bins out but once you get past a three family dwelling it's far easier to simply bring the bags out. Commercial garbage (Stores and restaurants) are set out much later and are picked up in the middle of the night by commercial garbage trucks.

          If you're on a street with both residential and commercial garbage it may seem like a lot to someone not us

  • Lets turn off all of the elevators in the high-rise buildings, and only have hot water 6-9pm.

  • In cities, it's mostly suburban cars that create pollution, but NYC has barriers that make that less of an impact.

    If it weren't for major polluters like Trump, they'd be fine.

  • Bawack Ubama, the godking, was still preezy.

  • Make it illegal to cool a public place below 25C (78F), or warm it above 20C (68F).

    This would apply to hotel spaces, restaurants, office buildings, etc.

    Too often I walk into restaurants, of other spaces in the summer and actually feel cold, or in the winter, immediately way too warm.

    I have frequently checked the thermostat in restaurants, or retail shops and found many, many of them set to 18C in summer, or above 23 in winter.

    There's no excuse for that.

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