You could feel the energy at W&J conference
Chris Velasco paused to allow the geographical and meteorological mix to marinate properly.
“We created a new building in Minneapolis with no furnace,” he said. “Keep in mind, this is Minnesota in the winter. We used building envelopes, so no cold air could get in. We did not need a furnace.
“We actually had to eject heat. People were cooking, showering and moving around, and that was sufficient.”
A building envelope is a physical barrier between the exterior and interior environments of a structure, and it apparently is more secure than any envelope carrying your junk mail.
Velasco is executive director of PLACE, a Minneapolis nonprofit dedicated to making communities energy efficient and environmentally sound. One of its focuses is to upgrade buildings that aren’t making the grade.
He was one of four speakers at an energy event Wednesday at Washington & Jefferson College. Saving energy, reducing energy costs, and outlining trends in energy production, transmission and consumption were the main topics during the three-hour session inside Yost Auditorium in the school’s Burnett Center.
“We are wasting one-third of the energy that is available,” said Velasco, who is bullish on “taking on wasteful buildings,” as he put it.
Velasco has several recommendations to tackle this issue: require energy checkups when houses are sold; enact tougher standards for building codes; and provide incentives to finance upgrades to building envelopes.
He said, during a PowerPoint presentation, that “the strictest U.S. code allows energy use more than two times what is allowed in Denmark.”
Building envelopes, however, are a personal passion. “They make a huge difference,” Velasco said. “If you never turn on the lights – never – you cannot match what you get from a building envelope.”
Isaac Smith, of Green Building Alliance, kicked off the program in the morning. He was followed to the dais by Velasco, Joel Morrison, fund administrator for West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, and Alanna Colvin, technical adviser for the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PennTAP).
Smith, LEED green associate and data and performance director at GBA, said the alliance has a vision that “every building in every community” reduces the environmental footprint and sustains healthy occupants.
“Green buildings are healthy and high-performing, thoughtfuilly designed, durable and long lasting,” he said.
Isaac has worked with the Pittsburgh 2030 District, which has a goal of 50 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2030. There are a number of such districts in the United States, and Pittsburgh’s is among the largest.
Data from 2018, Isaac said, indicates a positive trend to the carbon issue: “a huge rise in people working at home or riding to work with others and fewer driving alone.”