LEED=:

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO₂ emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is intended to provide building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

Since its inception in 1998, the U.S. Green Building council (citation LEED for existing buildings v2.0 reference guide page pg 11) has grown to encompass more than 14,000 projects in the United States and 30 countries covering 1.062 billion square feet (99 km²) of development area.^[1] The hallmark of LEED is that it is an open and transparent process where the technical criteria proposed by USGBC members are publicly reviewed for approval by the almost 20,000 member organizations that currently constitute the USGBC.

The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) was established by USGBC to provide a series of exams to allow individuals to become accredited for their knowledge of the LEED rating system. This is recognized through either the LEED Accredited Professional(LEED AP) or LEED Green Associate (LEED GA) designation. GBCI also provides third-party certification for projects pursuing LEED.  From Wikepedia. Read more about LEED, including certification here.

Green Construction News:

Green bites back: New Zealand homeowners suffer from a crisis legislated in the 1990's when building regulation codes where relaxed, allowing the use of untreated wood in home construction due to pressure from the enviromentalists, who were eager to get rid af any and all chemicals in home building. Mated with an architectural change toward more Mediterranean style homes (flat roofs with no overhangs) and widespread use of EIFS systems (they call it monolithic cladding) and today they  have a perfect storm of leaky, rotting houses in a depressed market that owners cannot afford to repair and buyers won't touch.........

Paint your roof, get solar power....well, a liitle bit anyway. Professor finds nanny nanny nanny nanoparticle paste put together on an ordinary benchtop genernates power

A new method of layering natural materials from clay and crab shells could provide new and less toxic flame retardants.......

Is the green construction movement myopic? Focused only on positives? Here is a story about a main cemetery building that has achieved a Silver LEED rating, but what about the cemetery itself? Does it still retain the ungreen practices of the past? Here are some examples of what a truly green cemetery is all about:

...........One........Two.......Three

Europe's heavy investment in green technology has bankrupted many economies. These investments are not totally to blame, but piled on top of the existing heavy "cradle to grave/early retirement" obligations that socialism requires, and the worldwide economic stagnation, they have been the "straw on the camel's back". Here is an interesting article about an intelligent street lighting solution in a historic district, but the article does not mention the cost to payback ratio involved. The same issue occurs with this article on Delft University of Technology's new system, which is touted to save 80% in electricity costs and is cheaper to maintain. One would think that over time, payback would occur, but how do we know?

New LED's look more like traditional bulbs, but at 40% longer life, they need to cost twice as much as traditional incandescents, not four times as much...........The old hot bulb is still a cheap source of heat for plants and such, you know..........

Here is a glowing prediction on the growth development of these new systems for commercial buildings. Including the current global energy consumption (17.5%) of lighting for commercial buildings. This is a no-brainer, the controls are getting cheaper and they eliminate waste. They should pay for themselves within a few years. Here again, no specifics are provided. Are they trying to hide something?

Specifiers, here is the new Federal Green Construction Guide for Specifiers to help you stay out of the gunsights of Homeland Security and off the no-fly lists of the world. Probably also brought to you by our stimulus money.................

The Department of Energy has also recently released the Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings. This link will take you to their web page to access several of these design guides, that are based on either 50% or 30% energy savings. The 30% Guide topics range from Small Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities, Small Office Buildings. Small Retail Buildings, K-12 School Buildings, Small Warehouses and Self-Storage Buildings, and Highway Lodging. You can also access a series of stand alone articles from the Small office Buildings Guide ranging from cool roofs, heating and cooling systems, interior lighting, daylighting good design practices, system balancing to noise control. The 50% series is limited to the K-12 Guide above and one for small to medium office buildings.

City of Chandler, Arizona new City Hall is going for platinum LEED certification. You won't find it in this article, but reports have been made that it looks "out of place", more like a monstrosity in the desert than a jewel............This city has also stripped its staff to bare bones, but all of the management is still there!

High efficiency furnaces have achieved 98% in recent years, can they go any higher?

Boiler rooms are hot places, can the heat be used?

A better way to manufacture solar cells.........

Building demolition may seem like the finale in a building's life, but in addition to the film industry getting to use the demo footage in movies, materials are recycled in many ways, proving that karma and reincarnation are facts of life, not abstract concepts.......

Green construction workers face greater dangers................

American Recovery and Investment Act Projects;  Your children's, grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's Money at work:

According to the guvement, the Stimulus/Recovery Act has spent
$4.5 billion: Federal building conversion to high-performance green spaces
$750 million: Federal building and courthouse renovations
$300 million: Fuel-efficient vehicles
$300 million: Land ports of entry renovation and construction