Archinect - News

Boston has officially banned fossil fuels in all new city-owned buildings

2023-08-07T15:57:00-04:00

Boston is officially ending its reliance on fossil fuels in government-owned buildings after Mayor Michelle Wu signed a new executive order banning their use in all new municipal construction and renovation projects across the city.

In a press statement released on July 31st, Wu told reporters: “Week after week, we see the signs of extreme heat, storms, and flooding that remind us of a closing window to take climate action. The benefits of embracing fossil fuel-free infrastructure in our City hold no boundary across industries and communities, and Boston will continue using every possible tool to build the green, clean, healthy, and prosperous future our city deserves.”

The initiative is part of a larger Green New Deal for Boston, which takes aim at various issues surrounding topics in the built environment. Boston’s stock of municipal buildings is currently responsible for only 2.3% of emissions city-wide, and proponents say the new mandate will help speed their overall decarboniz...

New York State set to ban natural gas appliances in new buildings

2023-05-01T17:02:00-04:00

A handshake agreement between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and lawmakers in Albany is on the cusp of banning natural gas in most new buildings statewide as part of a $229 billion budget deal that looks to broadly reduce the use of fossil fuels in the building sector.

The proposed ban covers appliances in most new construction and would take effect by late 2026 for smaller buildings under seven stories. The move puts New York in league with Washington state as the first two to legally bind builders to the use of either all-electric heating or kitchen appliances, which pave the way for an influx of new technologies such as heat pumps and induction stoves.

Cities like Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Jose, and Berkeley, California have joined twenty-one others, including New York City, whose own 2021 ban provided a model for the state’s new law, which was opposed by Republicans who are bolstered by legal challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals’ 9th Circuit.

Earlier on Archinect: NY...

Sustainable design trends are already outpacing One Vanderbilt's once-lofty green goals

2023-02-16T17:07:00-05:00

It is also the rare skyscraper designed with climate change in mind. It holds a self-contained, catastrophe-resilient power plant capable of generating as much energy as six football fields of solar panels. The building captures every drop of rain that falls on it, and reuses that runoff to heat or cool its 9,000 daily visitors. But One Vanderbilt is also something else. It is already out of date.

New York City’s recent ban on fossil fuels is making the green technology built into the merely two-year-old KPF-designed tower obsolete in terms of energy sources, the NYT's Ben Ryder Howe writes. Foster + Partners’ nearby 270 Park project is cited as an example of the forthcoming delineation triggered by the new mandate.

Speaking to the Times, SL Green’s director of engineering Jonathan Wilcox said it remains “to be determined” which elements, including a set of powerful natural gas-burning turbines, will be replaced in unison with city and state guidelines in the future.

Heat pumps may hold the key to Germany's energy independence this winter

2022-12-06T12:08:00-05:00

After decades of heating their homes with relatively cheap Russian natural gas, Germans are facing exorbitant prices for energy. The search is on for an alternative source of warmth that is climate-friendly and free from natural gas. Enter, the heat pump.

The prohibitive price of units and installation is being covered by the government up to €60,000 ($63,000 USD). Still, it lags behind the Netherlands and other European counterparts in terms of the total number currently used across the country. Most estimates place contemporary heat pumps in the 250%-550% efficiency range (compared to 80% for traditional gas boilers), according to a report conducted by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Some DIY-ers are installing the pumps on their own, though companies like Valliant are trying to stay on top of the issue by establishing training centers to account for an estimated shortage of 175,000 skilled workers. The government says its goal is to install 500,000 pumps per year starting in 2024. Beginning in January, a banon new heating systems powered by less than 65% renewables will kick in.

Boston may soon become the next major American city to ban fossil fuels in new buildings

2022-08-19T17:46:00-04:00

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced an ambitious new city-wide plan that would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new developments and major renovations in an effort to take "every possible step to climate action."

If passed, the Home Rule Petition to the state’s new Bill H.5060 would make Boston the next large city to adopt such measures, following New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, and Berkeley which have all codified similar mandates into local construction laws in recent years.

Furthermore, the city has announced the formation of a special advisory committee made up of local architects, environmental and public health experts, real estate developers, and other stakeholders who will all be tasked with creating guidelines that will later be recommended by Wu as ordinance to the City Council.

In a press statement, Councilor Kendra Lara said: "Implementing meaningful e...

LA is banning the gas burner in favor of electric appliances

2022-06-01T11:47:00-04:00

Citing the climate crisis, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to ban most gas appliances in new construction, a policy that’s expected to result in new homes and businesses coming equipped with electric stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters and furnaces. The nation’s second-largest city was late to the game, said Councilmember Nithya Raman, the policy’s lead author — but no longer.

Raman’s motion echoes that of many other cities in the state as well as a recent proposal to phase out non-electric car sales by the year 2035. It also includes a provision that all newly-constructed buildings be emissions-free, a requirement it first adopted for all municipal properties in 2020.

Current estimates have it that 10% of all emissions can be traced to natural gas installations in California, with another 15% being attributed to the electric grid needed for those homes and businesses.

NY Governor Kathy Hochul calls for ban of greenhouse gas emissions in new buildings by 2027

2022-01-10T14:51:00-05:00

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for an end to the use of natural gas in new buildings in a policy blueprint released Wednesday ahead of her State of the State address.

The governor's plan will require that there be zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions from new construction by 2027. It would also require energy benchmarking, a process that requires large buildings of similar sizes or occupancy levels to compare their energy consumption. Hochul’s blueprint would mark the first statewide requirement if passed. This follows a similar New York City bill signed into law in December that bans the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

Previously on Archinect: New York City Council reaches agreement to require the use of all-electric heating in new buildings

In addition to this new policy blueprint, Governor Hochul also announced in her State of the State address a plan to establish a rail line that connects Brooklyn and Queens dubbed the Inter-Borough Express.

New York City Council reaches agreement to require the use of all-electric heating in new buildings

2021-12-09T17:26:00-05:00

The City Council is poised to ban the use of gas in new buildings, requiring most to use electricity-powered heat and hot water. Lawmakers reached a deal late Wednesday on a bill requiring new buildings shorter than seven stories to go electric on Jan. 1, 2024, and taller ones after July 1, 2027. Projects that get their construction documents approved before those dates will be exempt.

Buildings of less than seven stories and at least half of its units subject to an affordable housing regulatory agreement are exempt if construction documents are approved before December 31, 2025. New buildings that are taller with the same agreement will have two more years. The measure allows the limited use of fossil fuels in new buildings as long as they are not used for heat and hot water and are used intermittently.

The City Council will vote on the bill next week.

Los Angeles adopts all-electric, embodied carbon standards for municipal buildings

2020-02-12T13:52:00-05:00

With a new Executive Directive issued by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City of Los Angeles has become the latest California municipality to make a plan to decarbonize its municipal building stock.

Under the recently unveiled Executive Directive No. 25, L.A.'s Green New Deal: Leading By Example vision, the city will, among other broad efforts aimed at bringing environmental sustainability and economic and social justice initiatives to the fore, "ensure that all new municipally-owned buildings or major renovations be designed to reach carbon neutrality by 2030," according to the memo's text.

In addition, the directive will make the city the first in the state to adopt the guidelines of the Buy Clean California Act, a measure that indexes and rates on the embodied carbon of building materials for new building projects and renovations. The move aligns "procurement decisions for steel, flat glass, and mineral wool using Sate of California-adopted Global Warming Potential limits"...

After years of improvement, air pollution in the U.S. is getting worse again

2019-10-24T14:09:00-04:00

Air pollution worsened in the United States in 2017 and 2018, new data shows, a reversal after years of sustained improvement with significant implications for public health. In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Washington Post reports that "concentrations of the pollutant have risen about 5.5 percent since 2016," and points out several contributing factors that the Carnegie Mellon study identified: increased natural gas use and vehicle traffic, risen severity and frequency of wildfires, and the rollback of regulatory enforcement of the Clean Air Act in recent years.

"The health implications of this increase in [annual average fine particulate matter] PM2.5 between 2016 and 2018 are significant," explains the research paper. "The increase was associated with 9,700 additional premature deaths in 2018. At conventional valuations, these deaths represent damages of $89 billion."

Berkeley's natural-gas ban creates a chain reaction in the West

2019-10-03T09:00:00-04:00

When Berkley, California recently made the announcement that it would become the first city in the United States to ban natural-gas installations in newly constructed buildings, public took note. After the news broke, four other California cities established new rules to "encourage buildings to use only electricity," according to a report from Salon. Since then, more cities, such as Santa Monica, San Jose, and Menlo Park have made the change, as well. Several larger California cities are seriously considering such a ban, as are more far-flung cities like Seattle and Brookline, Massachusetts. However, why is there still a group of individuals against this proactive approach to helping mitigate better carbon cutting practices?

Nathaneal Johnson of Salon highlights, "The Berkeley ban outlaws gas in new single family homes starting in January. It will apply to the construction of larger buildings as soon as state regulators put the finishing touches on standards for all-electric buildin...

Seattle is the latest city to consider banning natural gas infrastructure

2019-09-05T21:00:00-04:00

The Seattle City Council will consider a ban on natural gas for newly constructed homes and buildings, favoring the use of electricity for heating and cooking. Councilmember Mike O’Brien plans to introduce legislation this week that would prohibit natural-gas piping systems in new structures, starting next summer. The ban would take effect for permitting on July 1, 2020, according to a draft of the legislation.

If successfully implemented, the ban would position Seattle alongside Berkeley, San Jose, San Francisco as American cities that have recently banned new natural gas infrastructure.

A 2016 report estimates that roughly one-quarter of Seattle's total greenhouse gas emissions come from natural gas use in buildings.

San Francisco, San Jose set to join Berkeley in banning some new natural gas installations

2019-08-22T11:00:00-04:00

San Jose, Santa Rosa and Petaluma are among the cities looking into phasing out natural gas in some new buildings as a means of meeting climate goals. Heating and appliances like dryers and ranges would have to run on electricity instead. San Francisco is also set to consider legislation that would ban natural gas in new municipal buildings, of which there are few.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that several San Francisco Bay Area cities are looking to ban new natural gas installations in some types of upcoming construction projects.

The move follows a recent city council ordinance in nearby Berkeley that calls for eliminating natural gas-powered appliances in new residential construction there. The push to electrify home and commercial appliances and operations is part of a state-wide decarbonization effort aimed at eliminating carbon emissions in California by 2045.

Berkeley bans natural gas in new homes (and makes city code language gender-neutral)

2019-07-18T15:02:00-04:00

The city of Berkeley will no longer allow natural gas pipes in many new buildings starting Jan. 1, 2020. It’s the first city in California to pass such a law, officials said. [...] Public support was also unanimous during 45 minutes of comment from community members and representatives of the University of California’s Office of the President (UCOP), energy giant PG&E and the Sierra Club, among others who spoke.

According to the council report on the ordinance, "the effect of this legislation will be that builders will be prohibited from applying for entitlements that include gas infrastructure — gas piping to heat water, space, food, etc. — except for specific building systems that have not yet been modeled for all-electric design" by the state, reports Emilie Raguso for Berkeleyside.

"We have to take more drastic action," said Berkeley Councilwoman Kate Harrison who had initiated the legislation.

Berkeley's direction could soon be replicated by other municipalities nationwide. In 1977, it became the first U.S. city to ban smoking in restaurants and bars and later spearheaded now widely applied environmental regulations.

The Berkeley City Council this week also approved an ordinance that eliminates masculine and feminine pronouns from its municipal code to introduce a gender-neutral language: "he" and "she" will switch to "they" and "them." Certain other terminology will get a makeover as ...

Gas-fired power plants are becoming obsolete

2019-06-24T13:28:00-04:00

General Electric Co said on Friday it plans to demolish a large power plant it owns in California this year after only one-third of its useful life because the plant is no longer economically viable in a state where wind and solar supply a growing share of inexpensive electricity.

GE's Inland Empire Energy Center, a 750-megawatt natural gas-fueled plant located in Riverside County, California, built in 2009 is shutting down 20 years early.

The culprit? Affordable wind and solar energy, which are surging in California, and outdated technology.

On most days, California generates roughly 50% of its energy from renewable sources, with new records set every few weeks. See here for an up-to-the-minute breakdown of where California's energy comes from.

The trend is a long-term one, as California has pledged to eliminate fossil fuels in its energy supply by 2045, and recently met its 2020 emissions and renewable energy goals several years early. That's bad news for natural gas- and coal-fired power plants.

A moment-in-time breakdown of California's energy sources from Monday, June 24, 2019. Image courtesy of California's Independent System Operator.

A representative from GE told Reuters, “We have made the decision to shut down operation of the Inland Empire Power P...

Protests at Renzo Piano's new Whitney Museum building

2015-04-15T17:59:00-04:00

The Whitney Museum of American Art has yet to open its doors in a new location in the meatpacking district, but on Tuesday night it unwittingly played host to its first radical art exhibition. At 11 p.m., activists from groups including Occupy Museums and Occupy the Pipeline gathered on the street in front of the museum for a performance art-style demonstration about a natural gas pipeline that is adjacent to the $422 million building and its vast art collection.