"Passivhaus" - Uncommon, But Shouldn't Be

The new building above doesn't look like anything special, but it is. It is Seattle's first permanent building designed to meet the Passivhaus standard, which means it will use 70% to 90% less energy than buildings constructed using normal standards.

Now you may think it requires some kind of high-tech solution to achieve that much energy savings. It doesn't. It is actually pretty simple to do, and could be done by any competent builder. All it requires is three ingredients:
1. Highly insulated walls and windows.
2. A tightly sealed envelope.
3. Heat recovery ventilation.

There are already over 25,000 homes built to the Passivhaus standard in Europe -- mostly in Germany. The building above did cost about 10% more in construction costs, but in Germany (where they have some experience in this type of construction) the additional cost runs about 5% to 8%. The beauty of this is that the small extra building cost is quickly recovered by the huge savings in energy. Just think of how much could be saved by cutting gas and/or electric bills by 70% to 90%.

The house above doesn't even have a furnace. It can easily be heated by a couple of small baseboard electric heaters that would only have to be used on very cold days (and then for only short periods of time). Most of the time the house would be sufficiently heated by the excess heat from appliances, from people, and from sunshine coming in through the windows. The heat recovery ventilator does have to run 24-7 when the windows are closed, but it only draws about as much electricity as a 50 watt bulb.

Now some of you may be saying that since you live in the South and Southwest where the winters aren't too bad, this kind of construction wouldn't be as valuable. Not true. The house can keep in cool air as easily as it does warm air -- meaning an air conditioner (preferably a very efficient one) would have to be used for only short and infrequent periods of time. This house saves on energy costs all year.

So why aren't all new homes and other buildings constructed using the Passivhaus standard? That's a very good question. Using this construction method would not only save owners a ton of money in energy costs, once they became numerous they would be an important part of energy conservation for the country as a whole -- meaning far less dirty and polluting electric power plants would be needed to heat and cool them (which would be important since the U.S. seems determined to keep using coal to produce electricity). It would also reduce the need for natural gas and heating oil.

If we were a smarter country, we would require all new construction that could to use the Passivhaus standard. But don't hold your breath for that to happen in the United States. That would reduce the need for oil, gas and coal. And our politicians are far too busy protecting the corporations supplying these energy sources. They are not about to do anything that would reduce the need for these carbon-based and environmentally-damaging fuels.

There are those who say that renewable energy sources (like wind energy, wave energy, solar energy, etc.) could never supply our total energy needs. That may or may not be true, but if we built much more efficient buildings and drove much more efficient cars and used other conservation methods we might be able to do it.

It's too bad that our politicians are more interested in protecting corporate profits than they are in solving our energy problems. Many of the solutions, like Passivhaus, are already out there. All we need is the moral and political will to begin using them.

More Economic Bad News

If the unemployment numbers (hanging around 10%) weren't enough to convince you that everyone but the rich in America are still mired in a continuing recession, then consider the housing market. According to the Commerce Department, new home sales have dropped to their lowest level in nearly half a century.

Last month new home sales fell by a whopping 16.9%, to an annual sales volume of about 250,000 homes. That's pretty bad, considering that economists consider a sales volume of 700,000 homes to be the sign of a healthy economy. And there's little hope of the sales rising significantly any time soon (even though new home prices dropped 14% to a median price of $202,100). The pundits say the sales won't pick up until the homes foreclosed on are cleared from the market. That'll be a long time since there are 3 million foreclosures expected to happen this year.

This is also a bad sign for job creation. New home construction usually leads a jobs recovery. But builders are building right now. With the glut of unsold new homes on the market (and losing value), the number of building permits they have applied for is the lowest number in more than 50 years.

The economic pundits are now saying it could take another three years for the housing market to recover. Personally, I think that's an optimistic estimate. I don't think there'll be a significant recovery in housing until there's significant improvement in job creation. Our economy didn't just suffer a little downturn -- it saw millions of jobs disappear in a large and lasting recession. No segment of the economy will truly recover until most of those jobs are replaced (and I don't mean replaced with low-wage no-benefit jobs).

It would help if the government was spending to help with job creation, but they aren't. The Democrats have been too timid to do any extensive job creation, and now that the Republicans again control the House of Representatives they are in a position to block any job creation efforts (since their corporate masters like the current job situation).

As the unemployment and housing numbers clearly show, things are not getting any better. With the government inaction, it won't get better any time soon. We might as well get used to these bad times. They're going to last quite a while.