Explore trends and issues impacting our industry
Scott Foster, Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Sustainable Energy Division, joins host John Sheff to discuss the future of sustainability. Some of the topics they cover include reducing the environmental footprint of existing systems, investing in sustainable resource management, and reforming current energy systems for future needs.
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work. Many offices are either totally empty or operating at a fraction of their intended occupancy. Remote work, once thought of as a drag of productivity, has proven so successful that it’s likely here to stay in some
Growing technology enhancements are providing new opportunities for power conversion and variable speed motor control. With improving efficiencies across system architecture, technology is helping to economically move industries forward into an energy transformation. By using less energy to perform work throughout product lifecycles, new opportunities with strong returns on investment arise — and serve as
A recent report from Navigant shows that just from implementing existing technology solutions for electrification of transport, energy efficient heating and cooling of buildings and sector integration – urban areas can bridge half of the gap needed to reach the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target in urban areas
Guest bio Ian Stonington, Marketing Manager for Danfoss Editron, has been in the electric vehicle industry since 2012. Much of that time has been with UQM Technologies, which was acquired by Danfoss Editron in mid-2019. Stonington’s previous positions include Account Manager and Global Sales Account Manager. Stonington is passionate about electrification and what the future
Buildings — with their thirst for electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil — are a major contributor of atmospheric carbon. However, the building stock in the United States turns over, on average, every century, meaning today’s carbon emission output cannot be resolved without deep changes in existing buildings. The task is transformation. The challenges are
Many organizations today are working to identify ways to meet decarbonization goals, reducing their dependence on carbon-rich fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, oil, and propane. Their goal: to dramatically reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases implicated in climate change, while, hopefully, also decreasing their energy costs and bolstering organizational reputation at the same time. For
A safe transition to low-GWP refrigerants in the US is made more complex by the Montreal Protocol, the original international treaty finalized in 1987 to phase down Ozone Depleting Substances, or ODS, which included HFC predecessors CFCs and HCFCs. The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol amended the international treaty in 2016 to reduce greenhouse
In the previous post, we looked at the global path to a safe transition to low-GWP refrigerants, and the impact that actions by states like California are having on creating a patchwork of regulations and move us toward the use of highly flammable refrigerants. Here, I trace how the move impacts standards and codes, as
The global transition to low-GWP refrigerants is beginning in a disorderly manner in the United States — the world’s most mature HVAC market. In the absence of a federal framework, individual states are beginning to regulate HFCs. A handful of states are following SNAP Rules 20 and 21, the EPA regulations that were vacated by
Central to the life and operation of any community is its infrastructure. From its roads and other transportation platforms to its sewers and waste treatment facilities, and from its telecommunications and power generation and distribution networks to its building stock, a community’s infrastructure not only defines its quality of life in the moment, but also
For vessel owners interested in reducing fossil fuel consumption to meet IMO 2020 international marine emission standards, hybridization and electrification technologies complement or offer an effective alternative with many benefits. A basic definition of hybridization is any system with two or more sources of energy acting together to accomplish a task. In the automotive world,
The American building stock as a whole turns over at a rate of only one percent per year. Transformation that takes a century to complete is not transformation. That means the existing building stock needs to be retrofitted for efficiency and resilience—and those retrofits need to be deep. With the lack of federal leadership, states
With Congress and the Administration still plotting their next moves in the wake of the federal courts’ vacating of SNAP rules 20 and 21, many states are pledging to regulate HFCs themselves. And while the risks of this approach, particularly the fracturing of the U.S. HVAC market, have been well documented, one aspect remains relatively
In order for the world to meet the climate goals of limiting global warming temperature rise to no more than 2oC, we will need to make a significant investment in energy efficiency and renewable forms of energy. On the other hand, the cost of doing nothing would likely run into the many trillions of dollars
The dialogue on buildings and energy is quickly shifting. Not that many years ago the focus was on the push for more efficient equipment—an HVAC unit with a higher SEER. Then came the recognition that such progress had both practical limits and limits written into the laws of physics. Attention began to shift to systems thinking—how
Currently, 282 cities have signed on to the ‘We Are Still In’ Group, and in support, the C40 Cities initiative (now actually 94 cities around the globe) and American Cities Climate Challenge are just two of the organizations that provide for cities to share best practices. Among those best practices are energy benchmarking and disclosure
If you’ve been in facility management long enough, you’ve encountered a few of these problems before: variable speed pumps that run close to 100% much of the time; a chiller that labors with low Delta T; or, worst of all, complaints of hot and cold spots in occupied spaces. So, what do you do? Look
One of the barriers to the new refrigerants is the recognition of flammable refrigerants in building codes. Codes dictate so much about building construction and what mechanical equipment can be used. There are codes for fire protection, building construction, mechanical systems, and other aspects of buildings; all affect the HVACR system. A good article on
Henry Ford once said, “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black”—a slogan that launched the early industrial model. And still today industry relies on economies of scale—and scaling means as little product differentiation as possible within a product line. Industrial efficiency thrives on product commoditization, but in a competitive global
John Masters, Industry Affairs Advisor for Danfoss Drives and the former Vice President of Sales, Water Division at Danfoss, joins host John Sheff for episode 16 of the EnVisioneering Exchange podcast. The two Industry Affairs experts have a comprehensive conversation about water infrastructure and the outsized role you may not realize it plays in maintaining our daily lives―what it is, what challenges current infrastructures face, how it can be improved, and what the future of water infrastructure may look like.
Francis Dietz calls in to the show to discuss the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ), especially in a post-pandemic world. Their conversation centers around what IAQ is, how it can impact health and safety, some of the costs associated with upgrading HVAC systems to improve IAQ, and some of the challenges businesses and schools face in improving IAQ.
Host John Sheff meets with Vince Canino to look into the future of the cooling industry. Their discussion focuses on the importance of energy efficiency and how it can be achieved with oil-free and variable-speed technologies.
A new report from Navigant shows that urban areas can get on track for the 1.5 degree target and eliminate air pollution in a cost-effective way by prioritizing investments in 1) electrifying cars, busses, trucks and vessels, 2) energy efficient heating and cooling of buildings, including district energy, 3) and sector integration.
Guest bio John Mandyck joined Urban Green Council in 2018 as its first-ever CEO. He capped a 25-year career as Chief Sustainability Officer for United Technologies Corporation, a Fortune 45 global leader in the building, aerospace and food refrigeration industries. He also serves as a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of
John speaks with Clay Nesler about building energy efficiency, especially how it ties to economic recovery and resilience in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Their discussion includes some of the various efficiency standards throughout the world and different approaches to retrofitting existing buildings.
