Worries with Wind?

Now that we've explored the meaning of a watt, we can hopefully understand the feasibility of wind power generation on a more global level. Does it even make environment and economic sense to rally for more wind turbines around the world? Is this just a lofty dream to have a good chunk of our energy come from clean sources, or is there enough wind to even do this? In theory, becoming more dependent on wind seems like a good idea, but with the US only using about 3% of it's power from this source, you have to wonder, what's the hold-up and is there a reason for the hold-up?
U.S. Energy Information Administration

First off, let's look at the numbers. According to a recent study, our planet requires about 18 terawatts (or 18 trillion watts) of power to run, and it was determined that yes, our atmosphere provides well over that amount of power in wind before hitting a saturation point (the point at which adding more turbines would actually decrease energy output). Unfortunately that would take many more millions of turbines ( Currently, there are only around 200,000 turbines worldwide today), new infrastructure, and entirely new energy policies to make this work. So you have to ask, if the potential's there, is this still even remotely realistic?
Scientific America: The Sky is the Limit for Wind Power
Global Wind Day

To me, it sounds a bit crazy, but maybe we don't use wind for the majority of power, just a good-sized chunk? Now, countries like Denmark and Germany are already way ahead of the game on this one, so let's look closer to home. Let's see if there's any reason we (the US) can't raise that 3% to something more significant. Recently, (well if you call 2008 recent) a report was prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy (with contributors from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Wind Energy Association, and a handful of others from the energy sector, etc. etc.) outlining a possibly more tangible wind scenario for the US, the idea of 20% Wind Energy by 2030. There, of course, are some major hiccups to overcome along the way, such as, installing about another 100,000 turbines, but in the end, outlook seems positive. Ok, that's good news, but, for now I'm interested in what those pitfalls are that are leaving the majority of our country so blasé about wind at the moment. Besides the simple fact that we have far too few turbines installed to reach this 20% goal, here are a few other constraints holding us back:

The US needs a lot more turbines to produce enough power to reach the 20% goal.
 If each turbine here represents 100 turbines, this is how many we're short.

Turbine size
Over the past 30 years, turbines have done a fair amount of growing up. Starting at about 15m in diameter producing about 50kW back in the 80s, technology has enabled spans over 150m diameter at a rates around 6MW of power (Siemens B75). (Most commercial inland turbines, though, are more like to 60-80m diameter generating between 1.5-2Mw). A point is reached, though, where bade size vs. tower height vs. blade weight peaks at efficiency. Though there are dreams to make even more megafied mills, some serious engineering will have to be mastered to upscale these puppies any larger without compromising efficiency.

Tower Height
The higher you go, the more wind there is to capture, right? And lucky for us, with a 10% increase in windspeed, you get a 33% increase in available power. Unfortunately, towers have only reached about 80-100m in height due to some basic setbacks such as: cost of materials, weight and strength of steel, and physical limitations on transport. In addition, with taller structures (including more massive turbine and rotor components) the tower will need to be a bit beefier to alleviate buckling. Carbon fiber towers are in the works to replace it's clunky competitor, steel. But if this is the next solution, it will surely won't be a cheap one.

Transport
This goes hand-in-hand with developing larger components. Sure, you can design this stuff as large as you like, but how are you going to get it to the site? Trailer capacity/length and highway limits restrict sizes of turbine parts to be no larger than about 4.1m high x 2.6m wide and under 80,000 lbs. Transport by railroad is less of an issue in terms of weight, but component dimensions must also be able to clear tunnels and underpasses. If sizes exceed these limits, expensive rerouting must be done in order to avoid such barriers. Perhaps this will actually lead to more onsite manufacturing?

Construction
So you got your oversized pieces to the site, now how are you going to erect this without the proper crane? Cranes able to lift such oversized items to greater heights are expensive and hard to come by.

Manufacturing
The US just isn't up to speed in component manufacturing that is required to make this venture super affordable and accessible. In North America alone, there are only a handful of companies with the rest being over the pond in Europe or Asia. And with the dollar not as strong these days, having to buy from overseas doesn't really help the pocketbook. See here for a list of worldwide manufacturer

O&M 
It's said that this year, 2012, $50 billion worth of wind projects will be out of warranty putting the burden, now, on owners to maintain their machines. This is a huge chuck of the overall investment of owning a wind farm, but the DOE's 20% by 2030 report states that O&M costs are actually on the decline. With higher tech machinery and more knowledge available for maintenance crews, we can hope to see these numbers drop more and more over the years to come. For now, though, to any new investor to wind, may see these costs as the deal breaker.

Noise and Wildlife
Ok, I'm going to be a bit biased and wave these off a bit. Yes, they are issues to consider, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving the animals, but I don't see how these could be driving factors on the possible hope for a cleaner environment in the future. I mean, you can't tell me that power plants all over the world aren't already causing some kind of imbalance in the environment, possibly killing more than a few 100 birds each year. Perhaps one day technology with have quieter rotors to keep farm owners and neighbors from going batty and some sort of sonar warning devices to keep birds away? Who knows. Call me heartless, but I kinda see these as non issues in the overall scheme of the scheme.

Transmission
And here's the kicker. You can generate all the power you want, but then what? Where does it go if there's no way to transport it? The DOE has determined transmission as the greatest obstacle for achieving the 2030 goal. With our current, outdated grid in place, these new proposed loads have no way of getting to where they need to go. A conceptual network to handle the planned capacity of wind has been studied and diagramed, but who knows how easily this can come about.

Subsidies
If we do reach this goal of 20% wind within the next 20 years, how will we know that we will be able to maintain this sort of production? Those less optimistic argue that the cost and maintenance that goes into running a wind farm actually outweighs the benefits, and once the subsidies run dry to take care of these costs, they're out of business. The turbines stand still. I read this crazy article, Tens of Thousands of Abandoned wind turbines now little American Landscape, that I can't quite believe to be entirely true (some sources deny this, others simply spread the craziness), but it gets you thinking. If there's no government money (aka, taxes from ya'll) or simply not enough to support the initiative, is it already prone to failure? All the above setbacks are one side of the coin, but if there's no money to begin with, then no deal. Back to using the cheapest dirtiest resources possible to fuel our nation.

All things said (and trust me, with all the info and controversy out there, this is barely scratching the surface), I'm a bit on the fence on all of this. Can all these things be achieved? Of course they can, but I don't see this happening without a ton of hair pulling and name calling along the way. There are a ton of things to make this 20% by 2030 work from many different parties, some of which still may not see the entire benefit of wind and the investment into it.  BUT, to leave you all with a more feel-good vibe, check out the DOE's  Wind Energy Report Card to how the future is looking in their eyes despite all the drawbacks. Sounds good to me. Let's just leave it at that.

My, they just grow up so fast!

Sources:

American Wind Energy Association

Vestas-Turbine Size Chart

Wind Energy The Facts

AWEA Wind Turbine O&M

20% Wind Energy by 2030 Report 

See here for the report along with other supporting studies.

samples...samples...SAMPLES!

Ok, I got a bit sidetracked as I attempted to continue my wind energy research, so that topic will just have to wait. Instead, I came across this video:

Other Uses for Structure from Crossville  

which left me watching it more than once because of it's absurdity. It's hilarious because it's so ridiculous, and therefore, the video did it's job. It made me think.....
I can't wait for more of these to be posted.

And IN steps in the topic of 'what do do with all those product samples?' Most firms within the building industry have not-so-insignificant square footage dedicated to housing binder after binder, box after box of samples, that for the most part, take up energy consuming interior space, collect dust, and provide an organizational project for any summer intern. Yet the samples keep coming in, keep piling up, and then all of a sudden, your firm changes, perhaps has to downsize or simply update it's inventory, and where do all those precious materials go? Well, if you're someone like me, you snag a bunch of those carpet and tile samples to create your new area rug with the plan to hopefully use the tile for some cool backsplash or at least some coasters. But alas, even those usually gets the boot sooner or later, all to end up with the rest of the pre-determinedly doomed samples that have already hit the bin. It's a shame, really, because a lot of the materials that gets pitched are pretty cool stuff. Just what do you DO with them, though, after they've lived out it's useful life in the office? 

My past firm had recently gone through such a change, and I was there to witness the dumpster after dumpster of STUFF that just had to go. It was seriously jaw-dropping. BUT, when you loose office square footage, it's obviously going to be redistributed amongst money-making employees, not binders and drawers and cabinets and room after room of samples. You look at all the waste and think, can't any of this be recycled? Or Reused? Or up-cycled for that matter?

There actually was a group in town to help take such items and redistribute them to students, and I thought, now THAT is what I'm talking about. I would have loved to have some hands-on time with material samples in school, but no, you don't get to touch any of those until the 'real' world. Unfortunate, I know, when now you see that all this stuff is really getting thrown out! This group,  Save a Sample , does exactly that, and it seemed, at the time, like such a no-brainer. I'm not positive if it was the exact entity my firm had considered using (I'm guessing so because I wasn't able to round up any other group who does this), but in the end, we ended up not even contributing because of the amount of restrictions on type and amount of items you could donate. We just had TOO MUCH stuff that wasn't organized, and therefore, not deemed suitable for this. So this good idea backfired and into the dumpster it all went. All of it. Again, such a shame. I'm thinking, hmmm, if only there were more incentives or simply less restrictions on donating, then MAYBE, more firms would be on board? Who knows....

Now, not all hope is lost because often times, the samples are able to be recycled if you return them back to the companies from which they came. But what do you do when you don't have the time or money to call up all those reps to come pick up your 'garbage' all the time? First off, just stop collecting samples. OR take only what's needed if a rep comes by and shows the entire collection. OR just take more advantage of the internet and if you really need something, then call your rep. When he/she comes, be ready to give back some of your out-of-date stuff to be returned to the company. OR take these samples and do something amazing with them. I don't know how many compliments I've gotten on my mismatched area rug, and how many jaws drop when people hear this was all stuff heading for the can. Or for a bit more competitiveness, find a local contest such as Ample Sample to show off your design skills. Can't you totally see some of these things being sold for top dollar at some designer store? And it's made from FREE stuff. It can't get any better than that. This should really be a whole market in itself.

In the grand scheme of things, of all the waste that is generated from actually producing a building, from office paper to construction waste, is pitching a 'few' samples really a big deal? Project after project passes, this stuff builds up, gets stacked in random corners of the office, and then all of a sudden no one really knows what these materials were for. Totally not the idea of the materials library, eh? Samples are not even serving their original purpose, but are now just crowding the workplace, waiting for someone to get fed up with the mess and just throw it all away. If offices tend to focus so much on recycling and making those double-sided prints, then is it really such a far stretch to be concerned with all of this much more energy-intensive STUFF piling up around you? Maybe it's not such a stretch after all. Maybe it's time to implement a 'Sample Plan' into your recycling agenda.

Lifting the Fog of Power vs. Energy

My curiosity on wind power has been sparked again, and I really wanted to understand what makes this idea so NON-cost-effective. Wind turbines are springing up more and more, yet you still hear the complaint that there's not quite the ROI as desired. Looking at some comparison charts of wind turbine sizes, I noticed (with actual conscious interest this time) that they were categorized in terms of kWs or MWs (and just to be super clear kW = 1000 watts and MW = 1 million watts). So, I asked myself, what do those numbers really mean? Is it saying it's producing a certain amount of power....or a certain amount of energy? And what is the difference between power and energy anyways? A shameful question I must admit for someone who's probably aced all the tests on the subject when the info was fresh in the brain. But like many others I've encountered, no matter how much we study that chapter on electricity, we leave with the same amount of fog we entered with. Well, let's try and lift that fog once and for all, so we stop doubting ourselves and sounding ignorant when really talking about energy. I originally set out to look deeper into this issue of size vs. cost. vs. energy output, but first I needed to step back, waaaaay back to understand the basics.  Back we go to high school physics.......

First off, let's define what each item actually is:

ENERGY: a measure of HOW MUCH fuel is contained within or used by something over a specific amount of time. (kWh, Joule, Calorie, BTU, Therms....)

POWER: the RATE at which energy is generated or used. (J/s, W, kW, MW.....)

Read them again. Notice the differences? Energy is like talking about miles while Power is like mph. Amount vs. rate. Got it?

kW and kWh explained

But let's look a little closer into energy, then we'll tie that back into power. Now, energy, as you know, comes in many different forms, cannot be created or destroyed, but can be converted. So it's a bit misguiding to say you've 'used all the energy' when in fact, it's merely been converted into some other form that is no longer of use to you.

Below you will see a list of different kinds of energy and some examples of conversion:

Electrical

Mechanical

Chemical

Thermal

Radiant (electromagnetic Radiation)

Nuclear

Magnetic

Elastic

Sound

Light

Mass (E=MC2)

Thermal energy   --- into ---> Mechanical Energy --- via ---> Steam Turbine

Chemical energy   --- into ---> Thermal Energy --- via ---> Fire

Electric energy   --- into ---> Electromagnetic Radiation --- via ---> LED

Electromagnetic Radiation  --- into ---> Electrical Energy --- via ---> Solar Cell

Forms of Energy

Electricity is one of the major items we think about in terms of energy, but electricity is measured in volts. How then, does this translate into, let's say, an 800kW turbine? 

To do this, we first need to understand the components of electricity. Like water in a hose (the electrons in a wire) there is a pressure [volts (V)] pushing the water through which creates a current [amp (I)]. If you have something trying to slow down your flow of water, you then have a resistance [ohm (Ω or R)]  in the current. With these items and a little thing called Ohm's Law, you can now calculate a watt!

Think of electricity like water flowing through a hose.

The most basic formula being:

Power (Watts) = Voltage * Current

P = V * I

Remember, power is a RATE, and to measure the electrical power (P) of something the Watt (W) is used as a nice abbreviation for the RATE, J/s (joules/second) or (energy/time). But then you say, hey, how do you get J/s from the equation Volts * Amps? I'm not going to go into that here, just trust that it works that way (or see yourself how the conversion works). All you need to remember is that Volts * Amps = Watts, and that Watts is a RATE of energy usage.

You can use these triangles to help you remember what calculations give you certain variables. Simply cover one letter and the other two's position within the triangle will give you the calculation you need.

So back to our 800kW wind turbine. This number is telling us the rate at which electric power is being produced. NOT the amount of power, but the RATE (again, think of mph). If this is its rate at full speed, then at no speed, you now have a 0kW turbine (just like if your car stops, you are then going 0mph).

800kW               vs.               0kW

But we want to also know how much ENERGY is being produced from this. And this is where we introduce Mr. Power to Ms. Time. With these two together, we can create little energy babies.

Energy = Power (or Watts or J/s or RATE) x Hours (Time)

E = W * h............. = Wh

(first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Wh in the baby carriage....horrible, right? but doesn't 'Wh kinda look like the sound a baby makes? ' Waaaaaaahhhhh)

Therefore, we can say that for an 800kW turbine running for 2 hours, it can produce 1600 kWh of energy. And THIS, the kWh, is how utility companies charge you for electricity.... those sneaky guys.

For example, if you are running five 100W light bulbs in your home for 8 hours each and electricity is charged at $0.07 a kWh, then it will cost you....

5*100W = 500W = .5 kW

.5kW * 8 hours = 4.0 kWh

4.0 kWh * $0.07/kWh = $0.28

Measuring Electricity 

Electric Current, Electric Power....

Ok, that was a lot of variables all at once, but hopefully the fog of energy vs. electricity vs. power vs. W and kWh and how you get charged on your electric bill has been lifted, and we can all move on to more exciting things...like perhaps my original ponder about the cost effectiveness of wind turbines in general or any other energy producing (or more correctly put, converting) apparatus. More on this to come.....

Water 'Pac Man'

Water is pretty much super awesome. On top of helping gobble up CO2 in the atmosphere, it keeps us clean, provides us with food, sustains life, and allows our fave fishies to flourish for that date-night sushi night out. And we all have heard that rumor that fresh water is becoming scarce, yet why is this not more openly being discussed? Why was THIS not an issue in the debate next to clean coal and wind power? We all need water to survive just as much as we think we need natural gas, coal, solar power, you name it, so why are we not fighting to conserve it on a more national level? Now, being Friday, I'm going to save you from pages of scary statistics all pointing to a looming worldwide disaster and present you with some other items to ponder. Below you will find a great link to a study showing the overconsumption of renewable fresh water per country around the world. Are we thirsty or what?!

Water Depletion Chart by the SASI Group and Mark Newman

After seeing this global view, let's think small. Let's think about our own personal consumption. For some serious procrastination, I mean, educational fun as your Friday afternoon slowly ticks by, check out the EPA's version of water pac man. I am ashamed to admit that I had to play the game twice to get all the questions correct. I really never realized we personally use as much as we do. And do watch out for the bad-guy water-wasters; my favorite is Swirly. Happy Friday.

A Closer Look at CO2

There's a lot of hype about CO2 these days concerning its emissions, reductions, dangers, sources of, etc. etc, and we all love to blame this tiny little molecule for destroying the world, but what actually is going on here? And I don't know about you, but whenever a building or product or business or whatever it may be says it's going to cut emissions by 'X'  metric tons, I never know what that really amounts to. Is it worth a good pat on the back? Or is it like our lovely government priding themselves for saving 'X' million dollars on such-and-such when really that's just pennies in the jar of their overall budget. To us common folk, these numbers sound big and they sound important, but you have to ask yourself, how big does the number need to be to really mean anything?

Here's what it all comes down to.

Everything from factories to people to animals, forests, and oceans omit CO2. Is that bad? Well, it's kinda part of life, so not exactly. Now, I'm not here to argue about global warming and whether it's our fault or simply nature's cycle, but what the numbers are telling us is that humans and manmade things produce only a tiny fraction of what the rest the greenery and water bodies produce. The kicker is that the latter two items are able to absorb equal amounts if not more of CO2 to keep the atmosphere within check. Simply the tiny bit extra that we're adding is supposedly creating an imbalance in the system. Whatever source you check, exact numbers will vary, but the percentages are roughly the same. See here for a graph that may put this into perspective.

Nature does a great job of  gobbling up CO2,  but it can only take so much 

OK, so back to the question of CO2 reductions and what those quantities really mean. The EPA has a great online Greenhouse Gas Equivalency Calculator to give equivalents to help us understand this vague concept. For example, if we were to take a commercial building who claims to reduce emissions by 50% saving 600 metric tons annually we can see that:

600 metric tons of CO2
= annual greenhouse gas emissions from 100 cars
= annual electricity use for almost 70 homes
= annual amount sequestered from over 100 acres of forest
= burning 3 railcars worth of coal
.......... etc, etc.

Sounds like a lot, right? But in the grand scheme of things, not so much. For a rough number, let's just say that total annual manmade emissions is about 30 gigatons or 30 Billion tons. Saving 600 may not sound like a lot (only about .000002%), but if all buildings (which amount to about 40% of emissions in the US) were to cut back, the effect could be quite significant. This will be a whole other post in itself, but the 2030 Challenge has the aim for buildings to do just that, to taper down their energy consumption to eventually be carbon neutral by 2030. An aggressive goal, but completely doable considering the technology is out there to make this happen. More to come on this later....

USGBC Press Release on Carbon Neutral Buildings by 2012

So just think, if buildings account for 40% of the 30billion metric tons of CO2, that's 12billion tons. Cutting this down to zero could potentially put our environment back in balance. Yes, there's a lot of variables to consider with this one, and no, ALL buildings will never be completely net zero, but hopefully this puts things a bit more into perspective.

A few more fun links:

A team or US scientists have devised a way to graph CO2 emissions on a more local level to help pinpoint major problem areas.
Carbon Emissions at Street Level

A new study shows that using sustainably managed forests helps in the fights agains CO2 (another reason to use that FSC wood!)
Can Growing Trees for Fuel actually cut down on CO2 Emissions?

The US has some cutting back to do!
List of Countries by Greenhouse Gas Emissions

FSC say what?

Using FSC products on a project is supposedly one of those things that you should do, and it will help you get that extra LEED point, too....but what the heck is it again? Yes, we know that the wood was harvested in some sustainable way, but what does that really mean? Whether the wood's coming from an FSC certified forest or just a normal joe-schmoe forest, isn't it still killing a tree? Now I love trees, but I also love buildings, and buildings need wood, so I'm not going to be the one to tell you to chain yourself to an old dying oak to save a forest. BUT I would like to know that by using that forest for our own built environment that we're not completely giving mother nature a nasty scar.

And IN steps the FSC, or Forest Stewardship Council who decided to make some serious guidelines for practices worldwide to help keep our forests going strong for years to come. And thanks to LEED, the FSC has become the most popular council of it's type, raising more and more awareness of sustainable forest management. LEED v4 (or LEED 2012) is now on it's 5th commenting period, and though credit MR7 Certified Wood may be transformed into 'Sourcing of Raw Materials,' FSC products will still be viable items for qualification. And for the most part, FSC hopes to be a model for others in the industry since this credit will now require a more stringent certification/documentation of other non-wood products.

But anyways, back to what it means to be FSC Certified. Now, to clarify, there are two types of certification which work hand-in-hand. The first is the Forest Management Certification which is meant for forest managers and land owners. To obtain this, managers and land owners need to prove to an FSC approved third-party independent certifier that they are abiding by FSC's Principles and Criteria. Below you will find the outline of FSC's principles with more in depth info here. (and mind you, this is just for the continental US. Regional variations have been made for other areas around the world). Follow these things, and you are certified.

• PRINCIPLE #1: COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS AND FSC PRINCIPLES - Forest management shall respect all applicable laws of the country in which they occur, and international treaties and agreements to which the country is a signatory, and comply with all FSC Principles and Criteria.

• PRINCIPLE #2: TENURE AND USE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES - Long-term tenure and use rights to the land and forest resources shall be clearly defined, documented and legally established.

• PRINCIPLE #3: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS - The legal and customary rights of indigenous peoples to own, use and manage their lands, territories, and resources shall be recognized and respected.

• PRINCIPLE #4: COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND WORKER’S RIGHTS - Forest management operations shall maintain or enhance the long-term social and economic well being of forest workers and local communities.

• PRINCIPLE # 5: BENEFITS FROM THE FOREST - Forest management operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest’s multiple products and services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits.

• PRINCIPLE #6: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT - Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils, and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes, and, by so doing, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest.

• PRINCIPLE #7: MANAGEMENT PLAN - A management plan — appropriate to the scale and intensity of the operations — shall be written, implemented, and kept up to date. The long-term objectives of management, and the means of achieving them, shall be clearly stated.

• PRINCIPLE #8: MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT - Monitoring shall be conducted — appropriate to the scale and intensity of forest management — to assess the condition of the forest, yields of forest products, chain of custody, management activities and their social and environmental impacts.

• PRINCIPLE # 9: MAINTENANCE OF HIGH CONSERVATION VALUE FORESTS - Management activities in high conservation value forests shall maintain or enhance the attributes which define such forests. Decisions regarding high conservation value forests shall always be considered in the context of a precautionary approach.

• PRINCIPLE # 10: PLANTATIONS - Plantations shall be planned and managed in accordance with Principles and Criteria 1-9, and Principle 10 and its Criteria. While plantations can provide an array of social and economic benefits, and can contribute to satisfying the world’s needs for forest products, they should complement the management of, reduce pressures on, and promote the restoration and conservation of natural forests.

http://us.fsc.org/mission-and-vision.187.htm

The second is Chain-of-Custody (or CoC) which applies to manufacturers and suppliers who use wood from Forest Management Certified forests. The CoC has been put in place for people like us in the building industry to guarantee products we purchase actually do come from these forests. Because most often FSC wood goes through many hands before hitting the shelves, CoC is there to document the trail and make sure that each supplier, manufacturer, whoever, has abided to certain handling/labeling/threshold requirements. If any entity along the way from forest to shelf (with some exceptions) does not hold this certification, the chain is broken, you may not be guaranteed that the product you have contains x% FSC wood, and it cannot be labeled as such.

Now to earn Chain-of-Custody as a member in the supply chain,  you have three options since there is such a wide array of ways wood can be processed. All-in-all, if the wood you're specifying for LEED has one of these certifications, you're good to go.

• Individual Chain-of-Custody certification - for individual operations or groups of enterprises wanting to certify a chunk of their services together
• Multiple Site Chain-of-Custody certification - for companies with multiple sites
• Project Certification - for objects or buildings complying to FSC standards

To date over 40% of our forest area in the US has been FSC certified with more on the way. Once thought of as a novelty item, having FSC products is not only smart, but becoming more mainstream and more attainable, not to mention quite marketable. Hopefully some of this info will prove a good argument the next time a client gripes about necessity of sustainable wood.

FSC International 

FSC US

FSC Program Areas

FSC Certificate Database

US Green Guys

Becoming a LEED AP has been all the rage these past few years, and everywhere you look, you now see those string of letters on EVERYONE's email signatures. The US may not be number one when it comes to worldwide rankings of greenness, but with all the hype out there in our homeland, you'd think that everyone and their mom's a LEED AP by now. This really got me wondering exactly how many people really do get to tack on a million more letters of prestige after their signatures.

According to GBCI's tally on LEED professionals, the US boasts a whopping 82,019 people with 24,951 being architects (it was not specified if these were licensed individuals or not, but for now, let's just assume so). Wow, that's a lot of architects, right? Or is it? NCARB's list from 2011 counted a total of 104,301 individually registered architects in the country (not counting reciprocities) which makes only 24% of us 'marketably' green. Not to say that those other 76% don't practice responsible design, but should we be pushing this type of standardized education harder since it IS our products that guzzle up a huge chunck of today's energy consumption? Or is there some other way besides passing the LEED exam to show that we actually do know our stuff without having to pay $100s of dollars to another organization? I don't know if there's any clear answer on this one, but the numbers do at least show that LEED is nowhere near slowing down. For the amount of gripes about the system, at least it's moving us in a more positive direction.

Below you will see a diagram showing the total number of architects in the States, one leaf for every 1000 individuals with only about a quarter being a LEED professional of some sort. What do you think? Do more of us architects need to be 'green leaves'? (and no, I'm not alluding that all non-LEED people are 'dead' leaves....it's just a fun tribute to fall, ha). Or does it really make a different in our industry?

And so you might ask, ok, so what about all those other leaves underneath the pile that we can't see.....well it's obvious, right? there are no other leaves, just a guy and his dogs hanging out in the shadows. Random, of course. This whole blog isn't going to be completely serious number crunching material at every post : )