Edward Mazria has a solution for greenhouse gas emissions and a stagnant U.S. economy: buildings that are energy efficient, reducing the need for electricity from power plants while putting cash savings into consumers’ pockets.

 

Mazria is a Santa Fe architect and solar pioneer at the forefront of the burgeoning green-build movement. This month, he released The 2030 Blueprint, a document that makes the case for turning off coal-fired power plants and eliminating the need for much of the energy those plants produce by properly designing and retrofitting buildings.

 

As Mazria says in the blueprint, “Many times, complex problems require the simplest of solutions.” 

 

Architects, planners and policy makers, he says, can increase energy efficiency simply through a buildling’s design, by how it faces the sun, through the use of natural heating and cooling, as well as day-lighting and ventilation strategies, proper shading and use of energy-efficient appliances and equipment.

 

Because more than three-quarters of the electricity generated by U.S. power plants—76 percent—is used to operate buildings, “it is necessary to consider the impact of energy efficiency in buildings as a viable strategy in addressing global warming,” the blueprint states.

 

That is important because coal-fired plants, which represent the majority of power plants, are responsible for 81 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from electric power sources,  the "greenhouse gases" scientists say contribute to global warming.

 

The blueprint comes at a crucial time: New coal-fired plants are being contemplated and over the next 30 years, the document says, three-quarters of the buildings in the U.S. will be either new or renovated, meaning government should step in to incentivize green building codes. This transformation of the built environment "represents an opportunity to dramatically reduce building sector energy demand and the need for existing conventional coal-fired power plants.”

 

The choice the blueprint posits is: Do we want to invest $21.6 billion in "clean" coal or nuclear plants, which create no energy savings? Or do we want to  invest that $21.6 billion in creating jobs?

 

 “… because building is a local activity (construction jobs cannot be outsourced), the money invested in this sector is spread across the entire country and across all industries from wood, metals and glass to sealants, paint and banking.”

 

The blueprint says both the $21.6 billion invested and the $8.46 billion saved on energy bills will cycle thorugh the economy several times.

 

Making buildings more energy efficient is not a new passion for Mazria.

 

Two years ago, Mazria and his Santa Fe-based nonprofit, Architecture 2030, issued a “2030 Challenge,” a message he has taken to conferences around the world. The challenge encourages architects, planners and policy-makers to think differently about how they design and plan for buildings.

 

The challenge has been adopted in a variety of sectors, including by the American Institute of Architects and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the latter of which adopted a resolution for all buildings in all cities that was submitted by four mayors, including Albuquerque’s Martin Chavez.

 

Beginning in 2010, all new and renovated federal buildings must meet the target standards set forth in Mazria’s challenge as part of the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by the president in January of this year.

 

"Of the energy and climate change solutions proposed today, building energy-efficiency is the one that can be implemented immediately, costs the least and produces the greatest benefits to both the planet and the economy."

 

The blueprint’s five steps toward implementation include not only upgrading the national energy conservation code and investing $21.6 billion a year in energy-efficiency over the next five years, but a moratorium on any new conventional coal plants, the phase-out of existing plants and creation of a joint labor-management training program for those who would lose coal industry jobs.

 

 Mazria’s message thrusts him into a major debate in New Mexico involving the construction of a 1,500-megawatt coal-fired plant planned in the state’s northwest corner, already the site of the Four Corners Power Plant and San Juan Generating Station, two traditional coal plants.  

 

Construction of the $3 billion Desert Rock plant — a partnership between the Navajo Nation’s Dine Power Authority and the Houston-based Sithe Global Power — is contingent on approval of an air permit and environmental impact statement.

 

In a column published in the Albuquerque Journal Dec. 23, Mazria wrote that with such a project on the horizon, New Mexico seems to be "sleepwalking toward disaster, disregarding the connection between our actions and the impacts of climate change."

 

Based on the environmental impact statement, Mazria wrote, the Desert Rock plant will annually release about 12.7 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.