LEED Energy and Atmosphere

Energy along with space and water will help to define my generation and our children's lives in the next 50 to 100 years.  Many countries, including the USA, are struggling to come up with ways to create energy needed by an ever growing population of blackberry, iPOD, and HDTV addicts.  Burning coal is no longer viewed as the solution to our power needs over the long term (as seen in this post from www.treehugger.com).  Nuclear, wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy are becoming more and more mainstream.  Please note that I have included nuclear because I view it as a longterm source of energy and it doesn't contribute to the warming of the earth via greenhouse gas (GHG).

LEED looks to reduce the amount of energy required in our building by using energy more efficiently and designing buildings to take advantage of renewable sources of energy.

In practice, the best way to reduce energy use is to reduce building size...put simply don't design, construct, or renovate more building than you need.  Smaller buildings require less energy to heat, cool, light, and provide services like water and sewer.

In this area of LEED we get into designing the building envelope (i.e. the outer skin of the building) to ensure as little transfer of energy (heat) between the inside and outside environments.

This is important as heating and cooling a building can account for nearly 50% of the energy used.

Beyond reducing energy needs LEED pushes designers and builders to use available renewable energy sources such as solar, geothermal, and wind.  Using these available sources of energy helps to reduce GHG emissions and save energy costs over the longterm.

Finally, LEED asks that the energy use be monitored for performance after construction and/or renovation to see what can be done to make the building even more energy efficient.

Who knows, perhaps all it will take to power your next home will be one bolt of lightning...after all it is a renewable source of energy.