Much research is ongoing to find reliable energy sources, available at all times that emit no greenhouse gases. One example is hydrogen. Combust hydrogen (combine with O₂) and you get water and no CO₂. Plus, it is the most efficient fuel from a weight point of view (Btus produced per unit weight). Unfortunately, unlike coal, oil, natural gas, and even the Sun and wind, which are plentiful naturally, hydrogen is not found in significant quantities naturally. Hydrogen has to be formed from other products, taking energy to do so and, thus, taking away from its net potential. Therefore, ways to generate hydrogen for energy systems cheap and easy are being studied. In addition, hydrogen’s efficiency to supply energy (tendency to explode) makes it a challenge for a facility to transport and store it. Therefore, research must continue to develop easier, more effective ways to manage hydrogen, too.

It is estimated that the current percentage of all global energy generated from hydrogen is 4% and growing. Entities recognize the potential of hydrogen as a GHG-less fuel, but more needs to be developed onto the market in a safe way to grow specifically more.

Fossil fuels are the dominant source (over 95%) for the commercial production of hydrogen, with the largest component being natural gas. Hydrogen can be steam separated from methane (natural gas), leaving CO₂ to manage at a fairly high efficiency. Hydrogen can also be produced by the oxidation of other hydrocarbons, coal gasification, water electrolysis, and biomass gasification. These mainly involve fossil fuel combustion to liberate hydrogen, but some require electricity and renewable sources of energy can be used to reduce its carbon footprint.

The future of using hydrogen for energy requires the decrease in cost and increase in convenience to make and store so much hydrogen to be useful. Recognizing the potential of this clean energy source, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will provide billions of dollars of incentives to perform useful research. The major oil & gas and chemical companies all have research groups dedicated to this.

CCES has the experts to help you evaluate whether your operations may be a good match for hydrogen or other “clean” or renewable technologies. Or a candidate for more efficient equipment as a key way to save energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Contact Marc Karell today at 914-584-6720 or at Karell@CCESworld.com.

This is the 2^nd in a series to help us all – in our homes and work facilities – save energy costs. Average US energy costs in August rose 16% compared to August 2021. Wow! Don’t just “shrug your shoulders”, curse a little, and pay your bill. Well, pay your bill, but remember there are ways to reliably bring down future energy costs. And the beauty of reducing energy usage is that such actions will continue to reduce your energy costs for years to come without having to do anything further. Contrast that to sales. If you increase sales, you have to do it all over again every year. When you install energy efficient equipment, it’s not like you are going to re-install the old, inefficient ones again!

Oh yes. These measures will cost money upfront. Yes, I get it. But smart choices will give you a fast return on investment – certainly better than a typical bank or Wall St. can offer you, without the risk! Potential savings are such to make a project quite affordable.

Lighting. Your buildings have many lights. They’re needed not just to safely walk around, but also for your employees to do their jobs properly and for your customers to navigate around and be satisfied with their choices. If you reduced the number of lights or made them dimmer to save electric costs, you know that would reduce worker output, customer satisfaction, and be a safety issue. Goes without saying, right? What if you can install lights that are just as bright as or brighter than the ones you have, and use less than half the wattage of the old lights you have now? The best of both worlds: save on your electric bill AND improve the lighting of your building or business. It’s possible. A no-brainer.

This is not fantasy; it exists in light emitting diodes (LEDs). LEDs use less than half the wattage of equivalent fluorescents and incandescents and actually produce more light. Competition has brought LED prices down recently. At the same time, incentives from utilities or the government exist to pay part of your upfront cost. But don’t wait. These entities see the financial benefits and are cutting incentives; they’re no longer needed.

And here is another benefit of LEDs. Proper LEDs last 7 to 10 or even more years before needing to be replaced – unlike fluorescents and incandescents, which burn out often in just a couple of years. That means less work and distractions for your O&M crew (stopping work on an important project just to replace a key light somewhere) and lower risk of an accident from fewer trips up and down ladders. More cost savings! And LEDs give off less heat than the others, reducing your cooling demand in the summer, enhancing your AC equipment. Again, going to LEDs is a no brainer. Don’t wait. And one more thing: when you install LEDs, you’ll get and see electric cost savings right away – in your next bill!

All this said, it is not in your interest just to go to the nearest big hardware store, buy LEDs and install them yourself. You need to have the right fixtures and ballasts. Thus, make sure you get an experienced LED vendor to evaluate your existing ballasts and recommend ballast replacement or the proper LED lights; have a licensed electrician do all installations. Yes, this adds to the cost, but is still quite affordable given the great savings; plus, you don’t want to sacrifice the savings due to faulty equipment.

And there are other ways to save electricity usage, demand, and cost with lighting. Review your space and determine whether you need all those lights. Many areas in a building may be overlit. Get the IESNA guide for illumination standards for different operations. If your areas are too dim, that’s another reason to change to LEDs or add additional fixtures. But if some areas are well overlit, consider removing fixtures (“de-lamp”). Going to 0 kWh of electric usage is a great way to save, if it does not affect operations. For example, I audited a school and most of the classrooms had illumination levels of 100 or more foot-candles, when the IESNA standard for classrooms (for proper student learning) is 40 foot-candles. I recommended to the manager to disconnect one fixture near a window (which gets additional sunlight) and see whether any teacher or student even notices, not to mention affects performance. If not, then disconnect a second fixture, etc. until a comfortable lighting level is met, meeting IESNA standards. What’s nice about this is achieving electric cost savings with no upfront cost (just disconnect).

Last lighting tip: consider automated controls. As you review your space, are there periods when the area is not used? If so, consider occupancy sensors (which coordinate well with LEDs) to turn off lights or make them dim when nobody is in the area and then turn them on when someone enters. You might think: “I don’t need controls; I’ll start a campaign with reminders to get people to turn off lights when they leave a room.” This approach has been tried by several major firms, spending much money on researching how to motivate such behavior and for proper reminder signage. Every effort has been a failure. Automated controls works and is another major electric cost saving strategy with a fairly low upfront cost showing up right away in your next bill.

One practical example. I performed an energy audit for a warehouse that used fluorescents to light their warehouse area 24/7. The manager acknowledged that there was one wing which is hardly used (perhaps a worker goes there once per week). I calculated that the simple payback for converting the lights to LEDs with occupancy sensors was just 3 months (the electric bill savings would be so great). The company went ahead and fully installed LEDs and occupancy sensors and determined that my estimate was wrong; it took just under 2 months to get the upfront money back!

CCES has the experts to help you assess your lighting, manage your upgrade with top-line lighting firms, and provide options to save you significant costs right away and improve the comfort and effectiveness of your tenants. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

As this is being published, climate leaders have finished the annual global meeting on Climate Change, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Here are a few items that were discussed and may become areas of movement in the future.

Climate Finance was perhaps the most intensely discussed topic at COP 27. Physical effects of Climate Change are clearly occurring more often and affecting more parts of the world, especially in poorer, developing nations. Developing countries used the meeting to demand funding by industrialized nations for loss and damage from climate-related disasters and funding for adaptation projects to minimize future disasters. While the US and the European Union agreed to discuss this, they refused to agree on any set amount or mechanism for transferring funds. The Chair of the African Union requested $100 billion in Climate financing, but no overall commitment was made. However, several individual countries did pledge funds for loss and damage projects in developing nations, mainly in ones that they used to rule.

Green Transportation. The COP 27 meeting identified an underutilized area with great potential for success in bringing down GHG emissions: sustainable transportation. Implementing more low or zero-emission vehicles and green shipping corridors was a high-priority industry at COP 27. The US was a leader here, announcing success stories about the shipping sector. The US believes that full decarbonization of shipping can be achieved by 2050. The US also led a Collective 2030 Zero-Emissions Vehicle Goal at COP 27, encouraging a collective goal that 50% of vehicles on the road in 2030 be Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEVs).

Methane Emissions Reduction. Because methane is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas, compared to CO2, COP 27 encouraged implementation of methane emission reductions to meet temperature goals. The US, which already promised methane reductions of at least 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, went further at COP 27. The Biden Administration pledged stronger federal regulations pertaining to oil wells, the largest source of methane in the US, if not the world. Methane leaks from the million active or retired oil/gas wells is having a major impact on Climate Change. Most of the wells are not monitored for leaks. The new proposed federal legislation would do so. There was also discussion at COP 27 about levying an annual fee payable by each nation for total methane leaks within it, payable to the International Monetary Fund.

CCES has the experts to help you understand Climate Change, how it affects you, and what you can do to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions in an economically beneficial way. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

If the US will reach its Paris Climate Agreement goals and individual cities and corporations their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals, entities will have a lot of emission reductions to do. One fortunate thing about reducing GHG emissions is its positive effect on Climate Change whether you reduce your own GHG emissions within the operations you control or any other GHG emissions around the world. GHGs is a global problem, with GHGs having no special impacts in any region, as far as any research shows. Therefore, reducing GHG emissions outside your operations or your property lines may be more economical than controlling them in house. Reducing another’s GHG emissions is known as “carbon offsets” (offsetting your own emissions by reducing them elsewhere). Reducing GHG emissions beyond what you are required to, resulting in bankable excess emissions, is known as “carbon credits”.

Carbon credits and offsets, including their trading, have been established for nearly two decades in Europe and other parts of the world. However, the concepts are not as well known in the US. With New York City about to implement aggressive GHG emission limits in 2024 and building owners scrambling to comply, the issue of carbon credits has come up. What if a building cannot reasonably reduce their GHG emissions to meet its limit (for example, it must provide residents heat, but does not have natural gas service and, thus, has no choice but to use higher-GHG emitting diesel oil instead)? Local Law 97 in NYC, while not in effect yet, is still evolving. It allows carbon offsets for a building to include in its compliance calculations, but only if it is renewable energy being built and offsetting GHG emissions in New York City proper. Offsetting GHG emissions outside of New York City, while an honorable act, is not recognized in Local Law 97.

Looking at the history of carbon credits and offsets, starting with the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, a framework was created for nations and companies to offset emissions by sponsoring projects far away, particularly encouraging these in developing nations. Such projects generate sellable Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) credits in metric tons of CO2e and can be used towards meeting a GHG Emissions reduction limit or sold for what the market will bear. Such flexibility encourages more such investments and projects. The Kyoto Protocol also established an international carbon credit trading program, allowing excess carbon credits to be monetized globally, further encouraging investment, managed by the World Bank, with credits verified for their validity and transactions (amounts and price) memorialized. This program also manages the sales of other credits, including Renewable Energy Certificates or RECs.

The Paris Agreement of 2015 went further, establishing GHG emission goals for both developing and developed nations. The Paris Agreement established two new programs for creating and trading carbon offsets and credits, with better defined rules on what is a qualifying project and the amount and value of the credits. While the Kyoto Protocol counted one ton of carbon emission offset as one ton of credit, the Paris Agreement changed that to show an overall increase in emission reductions, not the shifting of GHG emissions from one location to another.

The carbon market in Europe and Asia is healthy and thriving with businesses and nations evaluating ways to reduce GHG emissions the most technically- and cost-effectively, and such planning is a fundamental part of many major company’s operations. As portions of the US begin to adopt similar GHG emission reduction rules, the approach that has evolved in Europe may very well be utilized in the US.

CCES has the experts to help your firm determine its carbon “footprint”, your current and historic GHG emissions, and to recommend reliable ways to reduce your footprint, saving you significant cost. We can also investigate offset opportunities to further your flexibility. Contact us today at karell@CCESworld.com or at 914-584-6720.