The Balance Sheet compiled prognostications on some key energy issues: Coal stays stable. After a two-year decline, global demand picked up in 2017 and 2018. China accounts for about half of the world’s consumption, and growing demand in India and Asian countries is offsetting declines in the U.S. and Western Europe. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that the country’s electricity generation share from coal will average 26% in 2019, down from 30% in 2017. Oil retreats. The International Energy Agency and OPEC cut their forecasts for global oil demand growth in 2019, reflecting lower economic growth assumptions. The last time world oil consumption fell was in 2008-09, driven by surging prices and the recession. U.S.’s natural gas role grows.  New liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia are scheduled to come online, doubling U.S. LNG exporting capability. China is a key driver of demand as the world’s largest gas importer. EIA expects the share of U.S. total utility-scale electricity generation from natural gas-fired power plants to be 35% in 2019, up from 32% in 2017. Politics play out. Climate politics will ramp up in the U.S. as the 2020 presidential election campaign gears up. In December 2018, leaders in the House of Representatives announced plans to establish a new panel, the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. ‘Smart’ gets bigger. Investors and building managers will continue making green practices a core part of their business. “’Smart’ buildings are becoming more common because of new technology, which impacts building operations, and provides both efficiencies and connectivity which is increasingly being sought by tenants,” says the Counselors of Real Estate, an international property professionals organization. The Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research and education group, adds, “Real estate has been proactive...

Touted as the one of the nation’s most energy efficient structures, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s new headquarters doesn’t just survive Colorado’s harsh winters – it thrives. With nighttime temperatures hovering around 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, and an average of 90 inches of snow per year, Basalt, Colorado may not seem like the ideal spot for one of the world’s most energy efficient buildings. That didn’t stop the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) from choosing a new location along the Basalt’s Roaring Fork River for their new headquarters. With neighbors like Aspen and Snowmass, RMI’s property shines like a beacon amidst snowcapped mountains and knee-high drifts, but it’s the 252 days of sunlight per year that help this architectural set piece maintain 60-degree indoor temperatures even during the coldest night of the year. The surrounding ski resorts actually helped inspire the building’s structure. As Justin Brooks, lead designer ZFG Architects explains in an interview with Gizmodo, “It’s a very Colorado Solution. If you’re wearing a down jacket that’s highly insulated on the back, you can still sit outside and enjoy a beer.” RMI’s building follows similar logic. The building capitalizes on all those sunny days by using airflow, directed ventilation and solar panels to capture the solar gain from the south side of the building – which gets the most direct exposure to sunlight – and use it to manage the temperature inside. Rooftop solar panels and high-performance quad-pane windows also do their part, the former contributing to the structure’s power load and the latter trapping thermal energy. The building’s exterior also contributes, with a “super tight” building envelope and sunshades on the façade that move based on weather sensor data. Kinetic and responsive, the outside of the building excels at controlling glare and...

There is really only one renewable energy source that can power the whole planet —solar energy. The sun’s energy can power the earth many times over. We’re all familiar with solar technology’s limitless potential, but have yet to actualize its true capability. One of the main hurdles with solar technology is where to put it, as the places where we most need power are lacking space for the big, heavy panels. Silicon Valley startup Ubiquitous Energy, a company spun off by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University, believes they’ve found the solution—a new type of technology that could span from industrial applications to consumer devices and handheld gadgets—cell phones and tablets that never run out of battery life. Sounds like fantasy, doesn’t it? Until now, solar cells have been only partially transparent and usually a bit tinted, but the startup’s transparent solar cells are so clear that they’re practically indistinguishable from normal panes of glass. Transparent solar is something taught in elementary school: the sun transmits energy in the form of invisible ultraviolet and infrared light, as well as visible light. A solar cell that is engineered to only capture light from the invisible ends of the spectrum, will allow all other light to pass through—thus, it will appear transparent. “It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way,” Richard Lunt, co-founder of Ubiquitous Energy, said in an interview with Michigan State’s Today blog. “It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.” The secret to creating such material is organic chemistry....