By Jennifer McDermott

The Associated Press

If your image of nuclear power is giant, cylindrical concrete cooling towers pouring out steam on a site that takes up hundreds of acres of land, soon there will be an alternative: tiny nuclear reactors that produce only one-hundredth the electricity and can even be delivered on a truck.

Small but meaningful amounts of electricity – nearly enough to run a small campus, a hospital or a military complex, for example – will pulse from a new generation of micronuclear reactors. Now, some universities are taking interest.

“What we see is these advanced reactor technologies having a real future in decarbonizing the energy landscape in the U.S. and around the world,” said Caleb Brooks, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The tiny reactors carry some of the same challenges as their much larger counterparts, such as how to dispose of radioactive waste and how to make sure they are secure. Supporters say those issues can be managed and the benefits outweigh any risks.

Universities are interested in the technology not just to power their buildings but to see how far it can go in replacing the coal and gas-fired energy that causes climate change. The University of Illinois hopes to advance the technology as part of a clean energy future, Brooks said. The school plans to apply for a construction permit for a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor developed by the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, and aims to start operating it by early 2028. Brooks is the project lead.

Microreactors will be “transformative” because they can be built in factories and hooked up on site in a plug-and-play way, said Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Buongiorno studies the role of nuclear energy in a clean energy world.

“That’s what we want to see: nuclear energy on demand as a product, not as a big mega project,” he said.

Both Buongiorno and Marc Nichol, senior director for new reactors at the Nuclear Energy Institute, view the interest by schools as the start of a trend.

Last year, Penn State University signed a memorandum of understanding with Westinghouse to collaborate on microreactor technology. Mike Shaqqo, the company’s senior vice president for advanced reactor programs, said universities are going to be “one of our key early adopters for this technology.”

Penn State wants to prove the technology so that Appalachian industries, such as steel and cement manufacturers, may be able to use it, said Professor Jean Paul Allain, head of the nuclear engineering department. Those two industries tend to burn dirty fuels and have very high emissions. Using a microreactor also could be one of several options to help the university use less natural gas and achieve its long-term carbon emissions goals, he said.

“I do feel that microreactors can be a game-changer and revolutionize the way we think about energy,” Allain said.

For Allain, microreactors can complement renewable energy by providing a large amount of power without taking up much land. A 10-megawatt microreactor could go on less than an acre, whereas windmills or a solar farm would need far more space to produce 10 megawatts, he added. The goal is to have one at Penn State by the end of the decade.

Purdue University in Indiana is working with Duke Energy on the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet its long-term energy needs.

Nuclear reactors that are used for research are nothing new on campuses. About two dozen U.S. universities have them. But using them as an energy source is new.

Back at the University of Illinois, Brooks explains the microreactor would generate heat to make steam. While the excess heat from burning coal and gas to make electricity is often wasted, Brooks sees the steam production from the nuclear microreactor as a plus, because it’s a carbon-free way to deliver steam through the campus district heating system to radiators in buildings – a common heating method for large facilities in the Midwest and Northeast. The campus has hundreds of buildings.

The 10-megawatt microreactor wouldn’t meet all the demand, but it would serve to demonstrate the technology, as other communities and campuses look to transition away from fossil fuels, Brooks said.

One company that is building microreactors that the public can get a look at today is Washington, D.C.-based Last Energy. In Brookshire, Texas, it built a model reactor that’s housed in an edgy cube covered in reflective metal.

Now workers are taking the cube apart to test how to transport it. A caravan of trucks is taking the unit to Austin, where company founder Bret Kugelmass is scheduled to speak at the South by Southwest conference and festival next month.

Kugelmass, a technology entrepreneur and mechanical engineer, is talking with some universities, but his primary focus is on industrial customers. He’s working with licensing authorities in the United Kingdom, Poland and Romania to try to get his first reactor running in Europe in 2025.

The urgency of the climate crisis means zero-carbon nuclear energy must be scaled up soon, he said.

“It has to be a small, manufactured product as opposed to a large, bespoke construction project,” he said.

Traditional nuclear power costs billions of dollars. An example is two additional reactors at a plant in Georgia that will end up costing more than $30 billion.

The total cost of Last Energy’s microreactor, including module fabrication, assembly and site prep work, is under $100 million, the company says.

Westinghouse, which has been a mainstay of the nuclear industry for over 70 years, is developing its “eVinci” microreactor, Shaqqo said, and is aiming to get the technology licensed by 2027.

The Department of Defense is working on a microreactor too. Project Pele is a DOD prototype mobile nuclear reactor under design at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Abilene Christian University in Texas is leading a group of three other universities with the company Natura Resources to design and build a research microreactor cooled by molten salt to allow for high temperature operations at low pressure, in part to help train the next generation nuclear workforce.

But not everyone shares the enthusiasm. Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called it “completely unjustified.”

Microreactors in general will require much more uranium to be mined and enriched per unit of electricity generated than conventional reactors do, he said. He said he also expects fuel costs to be substantially higher and that more depleted uranium waste could be generated compared to conventional reactors.

“I think those who are hoping that microreactors are going to be the silver bullet for solving the climate change crisis are simply betting on the wrong horse,” he said.

Lyman also said he fears microreactors could be targeted for a terrorist attack, and some designs would use fuels that could be attractive to terrorists seeking to build crude nuclear weapons. The UCS does not oppose using nuclear power, but wants to make sure it’s safe.

The United States does not have a national storage facility for storing spent nuclear fuel and it’s piling up. Microreactors would only compound the problem and spread the radioactive waste around, Lyman said.

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The final major pieces of the contract to build a wave energy test facility off the coast of Newport are now in place, paving the way for completion of the Oregon State University-led project.

PacWave South will be the first utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in the United States. It will offer wave energy developers the opportunity to try different technologies for harnessing the power of ocean waves and transmitting that energy to the local electrical grid.

Project leaders have authorized the procurement of more than 80 kilometers of cable that will deliver wave-generated energy to a shoreside facility where it can be fed to the local electrical grid. They also finalized the contract with Corvallis-based Gerding Builders for construction of the facility. Work on the project, expected to cost more than $80 million, is expected to begin this spring, PacWave Deputy Director Dan Hellin stated in a news release.

“These are the last two major pieces of the project,” Burke Hales, PacWave’s chief scientist and an OSU professor, stated in the news release. “The cable manufacturing and installation is the most technically challenging aspect. Authorization of the manufacturing is a huge milestone for PacWave and is critical to its success.”

The ocean test site will be located on a sandy-bottomed stretch of the Pacific Ocean away from popular commercial and recreational fishing reefs about seven miles off the coast of Newport. The site will have four different test “berths,” which combined can accommodate up to 20 wave energy devices at any one time.

Power and data cables buried below the seafloor will connect the ocean test site to the shoreside facility in Seal Rock, south of Newport. Louisiana-based industrial electrical services contractor R.T. Casey is overseeing the procurement, construction and installation of the cable. The cables will be manufactured in Norway by the Paris-based Nexans, which also has facilities in the U.S. The cable manufacturing process will take about a year. The goal is for the cables to arrive in the Pacific Northwest in spring 2024 for installation that summer, Hales said. Once installed, the subsea cables will come ashore at the Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site, where they will connect to terrestrial cables in an underground vault. The terrestrial cables will connect to the shoreside facility on Northwest Wenger Lane, just off Highway 101 in Seal Rock.

The recently enacted federal omnibus appropriations legislation provides an additional $22 million to continue construction of the PacWave project. In 2022, crews completed installation of underground conduits that will house the subsea and terrestrial cables. From the shoreside facility, the wave-generated power can reach the local power grid operated by the Central Lincoln People’s Utility District. PacWave’s connection to the power grid will allow wave energy developers to test the efficacy of their devices as well as mechanisms for turning the energy they capture into a commodity with value on the energy market.

PacWave could be operational in 2025. The U.S. Department of Energy already has identified and provided funding to a slate of wave energy developers who will begin testing their devices once the facility is complete, Hales stated in the news release. PacWave is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Oregon and other public and private entities.

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By Dana Beltaji and Mary Katherine Wildeman

The Associated Press

BRIDGWATER, England — Wedged between the southwestern town of Bridgwater and the Severn Estuary is a 430-acre site where some of the U.K.’s future electricity hopes are pinned.

Now reaching over 100 feet high, the first of two nuclear reactors at the Hinkley Point C generating station is under construction, after years of planning.

Hinkley Point C, set to be one of the biggest power stations in Britain, will generate 7 percent of the country’s electricity. Around 8,000 workers, many of them currently living on-site, are shuttled between work and home at any hour of the day, seven days a week, on a bustling bus network.

“Here at Hinkley, everything’s on a grand scale,” said project delivery director Nigel Cann as he gestured toward the giant site. “We have the third-biggest bus service in the world. We serve more eggs and sausages and bacon than anywhere else in the U.K., I imagine.”

Sites like Hinkley have become integral to the U.K. government’s strategy to become net zero by 2050. Some experts say nuclear energy will be needed to help nations wean off fossil fuels, but there are concerns about the substantial cost and time frame of building large nuclear reactors as well as worries over safety and nuclear waste. Wind farms, for instance, and other clean energy infrastructure can be built and come online much faster.

The outcome at Hinkley, energy analysts say, could help determine whether more large nuclear reactors like it are built in Britain and other countries in the future.

Nuclear power is generated through fission – the process of splitting uranium atoms. The energy released by fission turns water into steam to spin a turbine that generates electricity, a process that doesn’t emit planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. Scientists say that for the world to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, fossil fuel emissions need to be cut dramatically, with the remainder being canceled out.

“Everyone wants nuclear,” said Neil Hirst, a senior policy fellow for energy at Imperial College London. “They want it because nuclear provides security at a time when gas supplies are at risk – and also because a lot of countries have got a net zero by 2050 commitment, which may be quite difficult or even impossible to reach without substantial nuclear.”

But not everyone wants the costs and time commitments that come with it.

The Hinkley Point C project is estimated to cost up to 26 billion pounds ($30 billion) and is set to be completed in 2027. It’s already around 7 billion pounds ($8 billion) over budget and has suffered delays that owner EDF – a French state-owned energy company – says are largely tied to the COVID-19 pandemic causing supply chain issues and labor shortages.

The United States, which still leads all countries in capacity to generate nuclear power, has seen just one new nuclear reactor connected to the grid since 2000 – a Tennessee-based project that required decades of construction. Meanwhile, plans for at least 21 new nuclear reactors have been cancelled since 2007, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. One American project is under construction in Georgia, though the budget has more than doubled, per Associated Press calculations.

France’s Flamanville 3, the same type of reactor as Hinkley Point C, is still under construction. It has exceeded the original budget by several times (it’s now expected to cost $12.7 billion) and experienced multiple setbacks. Finland’s Olkiluoto-3, which began generating electricity a decade behind schedule, saw its costs nearly quadruple to around $11 billion.

These massive overruns have “certainly given people a cause to be hesitant,” said Jennifer Gordon, director of the Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “But that said, in the last year the geopolitical calculus has changed so dramatically” as climate and energy security concerns mount.

But Paul Dorfman, from Sussex University’s Science Policy Research Unit, said that “nuclear would be far too late to help us with our energy dilemma and unfortunately, really far too late to help us with our climate dilemma.” He added that the huge uptick in renewables shows they can meet growing electricity demands.

Nuclear projects need billions of dollars up front before they start generating any electricity and have an ongoing fuel cost, something not true of wind or solar energy. They also don’t see a return for several years, so they rely on government backing in most instances, and to that end, public support.

This is more feasible in Europe, where governments are willing to dig into the public purse, Hirst said. In the U.S., it’s more difficult to get such big expenditures approved, even with recent incentives for nuclear power, meaning the country is likely to skip ahead to a newer advanced technology: small modular reactors, which cost less up front and can be constructed more quickly. This makes them an attractive prospect for many nations, Gordon said.

She added that large reactors could instead act “as a bridge to the next generation of nuclear and also as a bridge to renewables and breakthroughs in storage” technology.

Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind or hydropower, doubled in capacity between 2000 and 2021 worldwide, according to an analysis of data from a global energy think tank. Nuclear power, meanwhile, grew by just 13 percent during that time, with more than half of that growth concentrated in China.

Renewables’ power is more variable, but a lot of solar and wind farms now use batteries to get closer to a 24-hour supply of electricity. Some experts believe nuclear can provide backup for other low-carbon energy sources in a future with no or very few fossil fuels, but there are concerns over whether it really has the modern flexibility needed to pair with sun and wind.

“It doesn’t provide what’s known as load flow to account for variability,” Dorfman said. “It’s much too inflexible to ramp up and down with the swings of demand.”

Concerns over safety and nuclear waste also persist because of high-profile disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima.

“The public perspective regarding the nuclear energy industry is one of our main challenges,” nuclear risk analyst Jenifer Avellaneda said. “We have had errors. But we do better, and we must do better.”

The industry’s many regulatory bodies and strict procedures make it a safer bet than many other energy sources, especially high-polluting ones, Avellaneda said.

The share of nuclear energy for electricity generation worldwide has dropped to 9.8 percent – the lowest value in four decades, and 40 percent below the peak in 1996, according to a recent report on the state of the industry.

Britain alone has decommissioned three nuclear sites in recent years when their lifespans ended.

Hirst believes the future of large nuclear reactors, particularly in Europe, will hinge in part on whether Hinkley Point C is successful.

“They’ve already had some cost overruns, but not on the scale of development,” he said, adding that if the project remains on its updated schedule and is “reasonably in touch with original costs, then I think we will see more orders.”

The team in Bridgwater understands what’s at stake.

“We understand our responsibility to get this plant generating as quickly as possible,” Cann said. “We feel that pressure, we feel the responsibility, but we will never compromise safety or quality.”

Editor’s note: Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report. Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut.

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BY: Troy Hill, Cronkite News Service

Amid global climate change and a chronic shortage of affordable housing, construction companies and nonprofits are taking innovative steps to make homes more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable.

Strata International Group, headquartered in Phoenix, has made a name by building homes out of foam and concrete, and Habitat for Humanity of Central Arizona has  for a Tempe family – the first structure printed in Arizona.

These energy-efficient and affordable materials and techniques arrive at an opportune time. A 2018  reported a shortage of more than 7.2 million rental homes for low-income renters, and a 2019 report by the International Energy Agency and the U.N. Environment Programme found that the construction industry accounts for 39% of energy-related carbon emissions.

The foam home

To form the structure of a house, Strata uses a system it calls SABS, which utilizes an expanded polystyrene foam that is similar to Styrofoam. The foam is shaped, the shapes are bonded together into walls, ceilings and floors, then coated inside and out with a layer of the company’s special concrete mix, called Sabscrete. It holds everything together, protects the foam from impact, weather and fire, and allows the surface to be painted and textured. No lumber or steel is used.

“These houses are built to last 300, 400, 500 years,” said Amir Saebi, executive operations manager at Strata, adding that the foam acts as insulation – meaning less energy is required to cool or heat homes. That benefits both homeowners and the environment.

Contractor Kenneth Skinner, who’s using SABS to build his personal home in north Phoenix, expects the solar panels he’s installing on the roof to meet all his energy needs because of the insulating foam.

Because SABS doesn’t use lumber, it’s a big cost savings at a time of supply chain issues and inflation.

“It was going to cost me somewhere between $35,000 to $40,000 more … because of the lumber prices,” Skinner said. “So that’s right when I got introduced (to) Strata, and so I saved that money.”

Skinner is constructing his home with only a few workers; Saebi said some builds can have as few as three workers, given that construction is less intensive because workers only have to move large slabs of foam and Sabscrete mix.

But it’s not entirely eco-friendly, as Saebi acknowledged. Expanded polystyrene foam is made from petroleum waste products, he said, but that impact is offset because the homes are expected to last centuries – far longer than contemporary homes made of wood.

The printed house

Habitat for Humanity took another approach to affordable, sustainable homes: a giant 3D printer.

The equipment applies thin layers of concrete, one over the other, until a full wall or frame is erected, then workers pack insulation in the space between the wall layers. Once the exterior and interior walls are complete, the floors, ceilings and installations are completed using traditional building techniques. Habitat for Humanity estimates 70% to 80% of the 1,738-square-foot, three-bedroom house was printed.

It’s the first 3D printed home the nonprofit has built – and the first in Arizona – and the idea came from two Arizona State University graduates in sustainability. Habitat officials say they can’t calculate an exact cost for the project because most materials were donated, but they hope to use this technology to build more at lower costs.

3D printed houses are more energy efficient than traditional houses because concrete and the solidly packed insulation sustain internal temperatures.

“We’ve heard from the family (who lives in the home) that the AC doesn’t really come on much,” said Dusty Parsons, the chief marketing officer for Habitat for Humanity. “When it does, it’s only on for a few minutes, the house … stays very, very cool because it’s a solid double wall of concrete with foam insulation.”

The printer, made by the German company Peri and donated by them for use in this project, is supported by metal pillars and moved around the site on sliders controlled by computer.

Cronkite News reporter  contributed to this story.

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By SARA CLINE
Associated Press/Report for America

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s clean energy bill, which sets one of the most ambitious timelines in the country for moving to 100 percent clean electricity sources, was signed by Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday.

The legislation lays out a timetable for the state’s two major power companies — Portland General Electric and Pacific Power — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity sold to Oregon consumers. Additionally, it bans the expansion or new construction of power plants that burn fossil fuels and allocates $50 million in grants for community-based energy projects, among other measures.

“With these policies, we will create jobs in a 21st Century, clean energy economy,” Brown said. “We will reduce carbon emissions. And, we will make sure the economic, environmental and health benefits of our clean energy economy reach all Oregonians, especially those who have been disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution.”

The bill requires Portland General Electric and Pacific Power to submit plans to reduce emissions by 80 percent from a baseline amount by 2030, 90 percent by 2035 and 100 percent by 2040.

Dave Robertson, vice president of Public Affairs at Portland General Electric, says the timeline is an “important step toward the clean energy future”.

“It provides a clear path for this critical transition while protecting the affordability and reliability of electricity, and it establishes greenhouse gas reduction targets that are in line with the climate goals we set for ourselves late last year,” Robertson said.

At least 17 other states and the District of Columbia have already adopted similar goals, according to the Clean Energy States Alliance.

But officials say Oregon’s timeline is the “strongest electricity emissions reduction timeline in the country”. The deadline is nearer than nearly every other state that has adopted a clean power plan, including Washington and California.

Oregon would measure its progress in an atypical way, too.

Most states have opted to ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions by requiring utilities to gradually increase the amount of power they get from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Oregon, which has already had such a “renewable portfolio standard” since 2007, is taking a more straightforward approach: requiring Portland General Electric and Pacific Power to reduce their overall carbon emissions, which are tracked by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.

“Already, we are seeing the devastating impacts of climate change, from more frequent drought to more severe wildfire seasons that put our homes and our families in jeopardy,” said Rep. Jason Kropf, a sponsor of the bill and a Bend Democrat. “This bill will put Oregon on a pathway for a more environmentally sound future and create economic opportunity and jobs for our working families.”

Environmental activists have called the bill’s passage a huge victory, especially as the state and country continue to see the worsening effects of climate change. But the bill, which passed in Oregon’s Senate 16-12 and in the House 35-20, has also been criticized.

“Hiking Oregonians’ energy costs during an economic recovery is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard of,” said Senate Republican Leader Fred Girod. “This bill just adds insult to injury to the countless Oregonians who have endured massive hardship over the last year and a half.”

Opponents of the bill say the policy will increase electric prices for Oregonians, cause business energy costs to skyrocket and put strain on the power grid — possibly leading to rolling blackouts.

“This bill accomplishes nothing for our environment,” Girod said. “It is simply a bill to virtue signal to extreme environmentalist groups that will cause Oregonians to pay more for less reliable energy.”

Whether or not the timeline is attainable is also uncertain.

“If you go out to 2030, we think we can hit that,” PacifiCorp Senior Vice President Scott Bolton told The Oregonian/Oregon Live last month. “We were pretty clear though, beyond that we don’t have a plan that shows we can get there.”

Likewise, Brett Sims, a vice president at Portland General Electric, told The Oregonian the company can meet the 2030 target by eliminating coal, operating its natural gas fired plants to serve peaks rather than base load demand, and adding substantial wind, solar, storage and demand reduction strategies to its resource mix. However, the 2040 target, he said, remains aspirational.

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Portland State University is preparing to offer a graduate-level, cross-disciplinary certificate in energy policy and management.

The program will focus on energy issues for students looking to hone skills for a career in the energy field, according to Loren Lutzenhiser, PSU Urban Studies and Planning professor and director of the new Certificate in Energy Policy and Management. Certification will be available for students in existing graduate programs as well as a stand-alone option for college graduates.

Applications are now being taken for winter quarter admission, and are considered on a rolling basis. Enrollment in winter classes is now open for undergraduates, graduate students and new certificate admits. Classes start Jan. 4.

Five PSU units helped devise the program: Public Administration, Urban Studies and Planning, Economics, Engineering Technology Management, and Systems Science.

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Owners of commercial buildings with at least 20,000 square feet by 2017 could be required to track and report energy use to the city of Portland.

The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability has launched an informational campaign aimed at educating owners what would be required if the City Council in April 2015 approves a proposed ordinance requiring building owners to participate in an Energy Star-affiliated Energy Performance Reporting Policy.

“Commercial buildings are responsible for nearly a quarter of Portland’s carbon emissions and spend more than $335 million on energy every year,” said Alisa Kane, green building and development manager for BPS. “The 5,000 commercial buildings in Portland are the city’s second-largest emitter of pollutants.”

At the Thursday campaign launch Kane noted that the bureau will hold stakeholder engagement meetings in January and February.

“We want to collect comments until mid-February to help shape the program and make it easier for owners to implement,” she said. “All we’re going to be asking for is that owners track their energy use score and report it to the city so we can make the information into data that’s accessible to the public.”

The program would require owners of buildings 50,000 square feet or larger to begin tracking and reporting energy use by April 2016. Owners of buildings between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet would be required to begin reporting energy usage by April 2017.

“The proposed policy will build awareness in the commercial building sector about energy performance,” Bureau of Planning and Sustainability Director Susan Anderson said. “Energy-efficient buildings are a win for the building owner, the tenant and for Portland’s carbon reduction goals.”

The proposed Energy Performance Reporting Policy would require owners to track energy usage and performance with a free online tool called Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and report it to the city annually.

Energy used to power buildings is the single largest source of carbon pollution in Portland, according to the BPS.

Kane said 10 other major U.S. cities have already implemented this program, and have found that by tracking energy usage, tenants have become more aware and have responded, on average, by decreasing usage by about 2.5 percent.

“It makes people aware of their energy use and they start looking at things differently,” Kane said. “It shines a light on improved performance and links people to resources if they need and want to do a little better at lowering energy use.”

Buildings that would be included in the policy are offices, retail spaces, grocery stores, health care facilities, higher education institutions and hotels. Residential and nursing homes, places of worship, parking facilities, primary and secondary education institutions, warehouse spaces and industrial use buildings would not be included.

By requiring reporting from only commercial buildings with 20,000 square feet or more, the program would cover 1,000 Portland buildings. They account for 80 percent of the total commercial space in Portland.

This program would benefit potential buyers and tenants, Kane said, educating them about spaces’ possible hidden expenses.

“This is a great step in the right direction for the real estate industry,” said Renee Loveland, sustainability manager for Gerding Edlen. “If we’re going to get to a place where we have more environmental responsibility as a society, then tackling the built community is important.”

Loveland said the program aligns with the green building practices Gerding Edlen uses, but that allowing tenants and owners to see energy usage is the “last frontier” to sustainability.

“The first step is to see where you’re at,” she said. “That’s the first stepping-stone to knowing how to tackle the problem.”

David Zier, president of Melvin Mark Construction Co., said it also tracks its buildings’ energy usage, but doesn’t think a city mandate is the way to go.

“We use it for self-evaluation because we know the intricacies of our properties, but there are some major flaws in the Energy Star program,” he said. “The rating is of very limited value, and in fact can be confusing to someone who doesn’t understand its limitations and how it’s calculated.”

Kane argued that providing energy consumption information to tenants increases awareness and often inspires behavioral changes that decrease energy use, but Zier said that’s unlikely.

“Tenants typically aren’t what drive energy consumption,” he said. “Building owners have more control over that than tenants do, as a practical matter.”

Air conditioning and lights in a building often are linked to a timer that the owner or landlord controls, he said.

Zier said that publishing energy consumption data for a building as a whole fails to take into account tenants’ contrasting usage levels, which can vary widely depending upon the type of business. He also said that, in his experience, energy consumption levels aren’t a deciding factor for potential tenants.

“That hasn’t been a factor for the majority of our prospective tenants,” he said. “As a property owner we’re driven to control energy consumption because it affects our bottom line, but most buildings in Portland are rented on a gross basis, so energy consumption doesn’t change the rent amount for tenants.”

Zier said he doesn’t think that requiring building owners to report energy usage levels is of value to the community. Tracking and reporting costs time and money that could be better spent elsewhere, he added.

The bureau has two January events scheduled where interested parties will be able to ask questions and understand next steps. The first information session will take place from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 14. The second is scheduled from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 20. Both events will take place at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave., Room 2500A on the second floor.

People can learn more about the program, provide feedback or sign up for policy updates.

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While Northwest residents pride themselves on their efforts to live sustainably, one of the biggest foils to those claims can be found in 55 percent of Northwest homes, where electric water heaters are installed.

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance estimates that if all those electric units were replaced with high-efficiency heat pump water heaters, the region could save enough energy per year by 2025 to power all of the homes in Seattle and Boise annually.

Getting consumers to make the switch to heat pump heaters hasn’t been easy, though. Even though the technology for heat pump water heaters has been around for more than three decades, the heaters don’t necessarily operate well in cool, rainy climates like the Northwest.

That’s why the NEEA has spent the past several years working to convince water heater manufacturers to build heat pump water heaters designed specifically for colder climates.

The first heater in that next generation, the GeoSpring Heat Pump Water Heater by General Electric, will go on the market in early January, according to Jeff Harris, director of emerging technology for the NEEA.

The heater design is the result of several years’ worth of work by Harris’ group to help manufacturers and distributors understand the climatic conditions in the Northwest that can negatively impact the energy efficiency of heat pump water heaters.

The biggest problem: the heat pump water heaters currently found on the market traditionally work best at warmer temperatures. But in the Northwest, water heaters are often located in garages.

“Those garages get cold in the Northwest,” Harris said. “For a heat pump water heater to work effectively, it needs to work at the cold, rainy temperatures we have in the Northwest.”

In its Northern Climate Specifications, created five years ago, the NEEA determined that heat pump water heaters would need to be able to function down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in order to operate efficiently in the Northwest.

General Electric’s new heat pump water heater, though, is actually capable of continuing to operate efficiently down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Two years ago, we added what we called a third tier of efficiency, a stretch goal, (to the specifications),” Harris said. “We wanted to put a marker out there. GE took up the challenge and came up with this product.”

Although GE’s product is the first to be designed with the Northern Climate Specifications in mind, Harris thinks it soon will have company in the market.

“We expect to see more manufacturers step up now,” he said.

Convincing manufacturers to create heaters designed specifically for cooler climates is just one step in the number of homes switching out electric water heaters for heat pump ones, Harris said. While the NEEA focuses mainly on those manufacturers and their distributors, the nonprofit is working with groups such as Energy Trust of Oregon to help spread the word to consumers not just about the GeoSpring heater, but about the efficiency of water pump heaters when compared with electric resistance heaters.

The cost savings with the GeoSpring heater are realized long term, Harris said. Initially, a heat pump heater runs $500 to $1,000 more than a conventional electric resistance heater. When the GeoSpring heater hits the market, though, its price will be comparable to other heat pump water heaters, Harris said.

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The Oregon Department of Energy has opened its window for applications for $1.5 million in grant money for renewable energy production projects in the state.

The state hopes the grants, which are being offered through a Renewable Energy Grant program, will encourage a range of development. For example, projects can receive points for location in low-density areas that suffer from high unemployment rates. They also can gain points for technological resource diversity.

“We really want to see diversity in the types of systems (that would be used): biomass, solar, wind, biogas, wave or other ocean technology,” said Rachel Wray, communications manager for the ODOE.

With $1.5 million available, the ODOE believes opportunities exist for a wide range of project sizes.

“Historically, we have given to large and small projects,” Wray said. “It’s been a really good mix.”

To be considered for a grant, applications must be received by the ODOE by Jan. 23, 2015. All applications will undergo an initial review to make sure packets are complete. Applications may undergo a secondary review, depending on the number of projects submitted, Wray said. The final review stage will focus on technical aspects.

All applicants should have an idea of where they stand in the review process by March or April 2015, Ray said. The state hopes to announce the projects selected to receive grants in August.

For more information about the RED Grant program and details about submitting projects, visit .

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has selected Portland General Electric as the recipient of a 2014 Green Power Leadership Award for outstanding efforts to supply its customers with energy from sustainable and renewable sources.

PGE was one of four power providers from around the country to receive the EPA‘s Green Power Supplier of the Year Award.

Carol Dillin, PGE’s vice president for customer strategies and business development, said the utility received the award in large part because of its customers and their willingness to voluntarily buy renewable power.

PGE created its renewable power program in 2002 as a way to provide users with an affordable alternative to traditional power. The program now provides three renewable power products – all sourced regionally – to 209,000 customers. The utility’s participation rate of more than 12 percent ranks it first in the nation for participating customers and for megawatt hours delivered (a whopping 980 million kwh and counting), according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

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