Building for the future.

• Author: Scholand, Michael
• Position: Efficient energy usage in buildings - Includes related articles

The terrorists who tried to blow up New York City's World Trade Center a few months ago found that the behemoth Twin Towers are not easily dislodged. But while the structural integrity of the 110-story glass-and-steel structures may be admirable, their energy efficiency is woefully outdated. Between them, the two buildings consume 350 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, roughly equivalent to the annual electrical consumption of the country of Niger. Like many other homes and retail and office buildings, the Twin Towers were built in the late 1960s, when energy prices were low and energy efficiency wasn't uppermost in the minds of architects, home builders, or buyers. But the increasing costs of electricity and growing concerns about the environmental effects of electric power generation have conspired to make energy efficiency a top consideration in more consumer decisions than ever before, including decisions about the buildings we work and live in. Unlike cars or appliances, which eventually become worn-out and are discarded, energy-hungry office buildings and homes are unlikely to be replaced by new, efficient structures for many years, if at all. And unfortunately, despite the advances in energy-efficient technologies, many new structures are little better than the old, possibly because many architects may not be taking into account the actual operating costs of the buildings they design.

Experts estimate that between 75 and 80 percent of energy use in a building or home can be cut with a comprehensive, integrated energy system. One-quarter of energy worldwide is spent on buildings, and where there is big spending, there is potential for big savings. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the share of energy consumed by buildings there was estimated at 20 percent, and the most recent figure for Eastern European and developing countries is 28 percent. In Western Europe, buildings consume about 33 percent, and in the United States, with its climate-controlled, high-tech office space, buildings eat up 36 percent of the U.S. energy budget--which is the largest in the world. Cutting building energy use by 75 percent in the United States would reduce annual energy bills by more than $130 billion, and eliminate the release of millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere.

Such a dramatic reduction is technically achievable, as demonstrated by builders and engineers around the world. In Amsterdam, for example, the International Nederlanden Bank constructed a new headquarters building in 1987 that comes close to the 80 percent savings mark, using just a fifth as much energy as...