Community discussion, Sept. 6, 2023

Welcome to all in attendance tonight and a special thanks to Scott Sklar, and Demetra McBride.  Delegate Patrick Hope was going to speak tonight, but had to attend emergency session of the General Assembly in Richmond.

Our purpose tonight is to provide more information to Arlington residents about how the county can get to a carbon neutral future by 2050 as the county board determined as our goal in 2019.  Over the past decades, advances in building materials and solar and geothermal heating and cooling, and design have made it possible to build and operate homes and commercial buildings that are truly carbon neutral. 

It is far cheaper to build such buildings new rather than attempt to renovate, and thus critical to start with a carbon neutral design.  About one percent of existing buildings and homes are demolished or substantially remodeled every year, and thus over the next 30 years or so, all existing homes and buildings will be torn down or remodeled in Arlington.

Goal set in the CEP for carbon reduction:  36% drop during 2012-21

The county community energy plan (CEP) adopted in 2019 gave details on energy use in the county and some approaches to getting to carbon neutrality.  The CEP indicated that about 62 percent of carbon emissions in the county come from buildings, both residential and commercial, publicly and privately owned.  The focus must be on buildings if we are to get to neutrality at all.  The transport sector with electric cars and hybrids is fast advancing, and that is a sector completely outside the county government’s power to influence.

The CEP indicated that in 2012 carbon use per capita in the county was 11.3 metric tons; the goal was that carbon use by 2021 would drop by 36 percent.  In other words, in ten years, carbon use should drop by 36 percent if the 2050 goal of zero carbon is to be reached.  This is shown in the figure:  the CEP goal starting in 2012 index is 100, and by 2021 the index should drop to 64.

Actual carbon use in buildings in county dropped by 11% in 2012-21

In 2012, there were 1,780,000 metric tons of operating carbon used in buildings in Arlington in the form of electricity and natural gas.  By 2021, carbon use in buildings fell to 1,586,000 tons or by 11 percent.

As shown in the figure, the index for actual carbon use in buildings was 100 in 2012 and then fell to 89 in 2021.   Over these ten years, actual carbon use in buildings fell by 11 percent or by about 1 percent annually.   At this rate of decline, carbon neutrality will not be reached for 90 years or 60 years too late and the Planet fried.

County government influence to cut carbon use in buildings

The county government including schools) uses only a trivial amount (4 percent) of carbon in the county, and it has reduced its carbon use particularly in new school buildings that are carbon neutral like Discovery Elementary.  As far as influencing private builders, the county government has green building program based on LEED or Energy Star ratings that provide modest subsidies to new buildings that marginally cut carbon emissions.  Independent studies of these green building indexes indicate carbon reductions are quite modest or even trivial.  These are simply too little and too ineffective to rapidly cut carbon use in new commercial buildings. The county has no effective subsidy program for new or existing homes.

The most powerful tool the county has potentially to affect energy use in buildings is the building code for new buildings and homes.  The code is unfortunately in Virginia controlled by a state building committee in Richmond. 

This committee and most of the Virginia state government have resisted energy efficiency improvements to this code in part because of the pressure from gas and electric companies that will lose sales and because of the resistance of builders to change and innovation.  Energy conservation and carbon neutrality upgrades do add to the initial cost of the building, but this is more than offset by lower utility costs during the lifetime of the property. 

It is unlikely that Virginia will adopt a carbon neutral building code for the whole state and thus Arlington must get some control over the building code or carbon neutrality will never happen.  Other Northern Virginis jurisdictions could act as well to have a regional carbon neutral building industry with 3 million residents.

Arlington County Board in 2019 adopted a carbon neutral goal for Arlington by 2050; about two-thirds of carbon emissions in the county comes from buildings, office and homes.  New homes and buildings must become carbon neutral in operating energy and in embedded construction  materials or the goal can never be realized. A building code that  mandates new carbon neutral buildings must be adopted first. 

Panelists:  Dr. Scott Sklar, GWU Solar Institute

Larry Smith, Arlington Green Homes LLC

Demetra McBride, Arl. Cty. Dept.of Env. Mgmt

John Reeder, Arlington Greens  

Delegate Patrick Hope, 47th district, Arlington

Location:  Arlington Central Library, 1014 N. Quincy Street,      Arlington VA 22201 (3 blocks from Ballston Metro) Time  6:30-8 PM,  Wednesday, Sept.  6, 2023

Greens support changes in the the Virginia Historic Preservation law (section 15.2-2306 of the Code of Virginia)  (as written in Senate Bill No. 206 and House Bill No. 1210) to do two things:

                                    Stop the demolition of nominated historic sites, buildings, houses and landmarks until the local government with input from local residents and historians has completed its review and decision whether to designate a nominated site, and 

                                    Allow local residents and historians who nominate a historic site to have access to court review of locality final decisions to ensure that the state law is followed.

Please sign the Moveon.org petition to the Virginia General Assembly.
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/support-proposed-legislation-for-virginia-historic-preservation?share=412d9df2-7d94-43fc-ba61-5bf4c2c286ef&source=s.fwd&utm_source=s.fwd

It is important that historic houses, sites, buildings, and landmarks and areas should be preserved throughout the Virginia, but our current historic preservation law is flawed and should be changed to help keep threatened historic sites as much as possible.  Bulldozers move into demolish nominated sites before the local historic review process is completed.  Local residents and historic advocates have no access to ask for court review and thus often the state historic law is ignored. 

In 2021, the historic Febrey-Lothrop-Rouse (FLR, a graceful 175-year old mansion that had served as Union army hospital, was demolished just a few weeks before the Arlington County Board public hearing and vote on local historic designation despite the pleas of over 1,400 residents and historians. The county board voted against designation and historians were kicked out of court as having no rights to ask for court review.

Local governments must have the time to consider and approve or disapprove historic designation of a site or building or landmark and during that time no demolition or destruction of the nominated site, building or landmark should be allowed.  Further, under current state law, petitioners and advocates for historic preservation have no right to seek court review of a locality decision to deny historic protection as to whether this decision violated the state law.  Petitioners for local historic protection must have the same access to the courts as only property owners do today.

This petition with a listing of its signers will be delivered to the patrons of the legislations in the Virginia General Assembly, Senator Chap Petersen (Fairfax) and Delegate Patrick Hope (Arlington).   Signers may also email their own Virginia delegate and senator directly if they so choose (find your Virginia state legislator and email here  https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/)

We encourage all Arlington residents to sign the petition below urging the county board to save the historic Febrey House and estate from being demolished (located on Wilson Blvd and McKinley Street).   The house was built around 1850 and was the center of Civil War battles and thousands of Union soldiers camped on or around the house which also served as a hospital for union and confederate soldiers.   John Febrey operated a public school on the estate during the war and then became Arlington’s first superintendent of schools. 

There are nine acres of open green space around the house.   We would like the house and as much of the estate as possible used as a public park and historic center.   We need more green space and parks in Arlington given our growing population.

The county board and the local historic review board are considering designating the house and estate as a local historic district which will give some legal protection from demolition for at least one year.  This will give time to do historic investigation of the property and to have the community input on what type of park or public space it could become.

Please sign the petition and circulate to any of your Arlington friends as well.  We have over 900 signers so far.

SAVE THE HISTORIC FEBREY-LOTHROP-ROUSE ESTATE! | MoveOn

In 2019, the Arlington County Board approved the Community Energy Plan with a significant environmental goal that Arlington County become carbon neutral in energy use by 2050.  Nearly two-thirds of the 2.0 million metric ton carbon reduction would occur through de-carbonization of the electricity supply and changing all transportation to electric vehicles.  However, de-carbonization by itself alone cannot achieve carbon neutrality unless building energy efficiency is greatly increased and significant amount of local renewable energy production occurs (solar and geothermal energy).

The CEP set a goal that 23 percent of the 2.0 million metric tons of carbon reduction would come from local actions—11 percent from local renewable energy production and 12 percent from improving local buildings’ energy efficiency.  The county must adopt its own energy building code that requires new or renovated buildings to include state-of-the-art energy technology so that new buildings are mostly carbon neutral.  The county government should pass a restrictive energy building code, and then seek permission from the General Assembly to implement it.  The State building code is woefully inadequate and energy inefficient, as compared to most other Northeastern states.

New buildings should be required as part of the building code to add solar and geo-thermal energy.  Thus, Arlington could produce a significant amount of energy locally and not have to rely on the grid to bring in electricity produced elsewhere from solar or wind energy.   The grid cannot supply enough electricity to compensate for the loss of natural gas for heating.

Commercial buildings use 35 percent of local carbon emissions.  In the past, the county mainly encouraged energy efficiency in new commercial buildings through a subsidy program based on a bogus LEED, Energy Star or similar energy rating systems that do not significantly cut carbon emissions.  Academic research has now concluded that LEED and Energy Star and similar energy rating systems do not significantly reduce primary energy use in certified buildings. Marketing claims of 20-30 percent or more decline in carbon use in LEED buildings are bogus.

Arlington County has no data to confirm that the over 80 commercial buildings in Arlington with 37 million square feet that obtained LEED or Energy Star local subsidies used less energy than comparable non-certified buildings in the county.  The county should require as part of the CEP that all commercial property owners annually report use of water, electricity and gas or fuel for heating by building. 

Residential buildings.–About 23 percent of carbon emissions in the county in 2016 came from residential buildings; about half of the residential use was in detached or attached single family houses, and the other half was in multifamily housing.   There are about 28,500 detached single family houses and 11,200 attached single family houses in Arlington in 2019, according to the Arlington County Office of Planning, Housing and Development.  Many of the houses in the county were built in the 1950s and 60s or earlier and are energy inefficient. 

The county government should fund a program to give $1,000 to homeowners to weatherize and retrofit their older energy-inefficient houses.  Basic weatherization and energy refits that cost generally under $5,000 can reduce a typical house’s energy use by up to 20 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.  With more substantial and expensive energy upgrades, such as solar panels and solar hot water heaters, the energy use in existing houses in Arlington could be cut by well over 570 percent and very close to carbon neutrality.

Tear downs of existing houses in Arlington pose a major obstacle to having carbon neutral housing.   The tear down of an existing house and the building of a completely new conventional house typically uses about 50 m tons of carbon.  A new house in Arlington is often twice or three times larger in living space than the demolished house.  Since energy use is directly proportional to square footage, the new larger house built under current building codes will use at least twice as much energy although energy efficiency in the new building can cut perhaps 30 percent use.  Nevertheless, each older house demolished and replaced raises energy use by at least one hundred percent.

The rising value of land and houses in Arlington has resulted in a very unhealthy rise in carbon emissions and other environmental damage because of the demolition of older and smaller houses and the building of mansions with often two or three times the living area of the demolished house. All living vegetation and trees are demolished on site to build the new house, and more open surface area is paved which thus increases storm water runoff and raises the temperature because of loss of tree canopy.

The County Board decided in 2019 to have a carbon neutral county by 2050.  The demolition and then the construction of a new house typically raises carbon emissions by about 50 metric tons. A remodeling of an existing house typically raises carbon emissions by 15 m tons. A typical house in the U.S. generates 7.5 m. tons of carbon a year; even if the new house generated 30 percent less than the demolished house, it would take 20 years to recoup the carbon used in the new construction. However, new and larger square footage houses use more carbon in operating energy than the demolish house.

Energy use of a house is proportional to the square footage of the house. Thus a typical new 4,000 square foot house in Arlington would use nearly twice as much energy as an existing 1,400 square foot house. If the new house meets high insulation and building tightness standards (perhaps 30 percent more efficient), then the new house uses only 100 percent more energy.

The only realistic way for the Arlington County Board to halt this tear down disaster is to impose a county wide zoning called a historic district designation on all Arlington neighborhoods. A historic district zoning de facto blocks tear downs of houses, but does allow for renovations and additions.

The historic district also requires that older trees and existing green space be preserved so that there is no loss of tree canopy. There is one Arlington neighborhood Maywood that has had a historic district since the late 1970s and in the 40 years, no house has been demolished although most have been renovated and expanded.

June 15, 2020

The Arlington Greens announced today the release online of a talk on March 2 in Arlington by Oberlin College of Ohio professor John Scofield, a national expert on green building technology, on his research into marketing claims that green-certified buildings such as the LEED rating significantly reduce carbon emissions.  EcoAction Arlington, an Arlington environmental non-profit organization, co-sponsored the talk held at the Arlington County public library with the Arlington Greens.  The Arlington Independent Media and Miriam Gennari of the Sustainable Scoop recorded the talk and interviewed professor Scofield.

View the one-hour talk online   https://youtu.be/UeolxpvJzVk

Professor Scofield used energy data from hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings in ten major U.S. metro areas to examine if energy certifications like LEED (a trademark meaning “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design”) significantly reduce carbon emissions over non-certified comparable buildings.  His findings demonstrate very small, almost negligible carbon savings.  Scofield found that carbon emissions reductions in LEED buildings are quite modest, generally well below 10 percent, and well below marketing claims of over 25 percent.

The research finding that LEED and other similar commercial building energy rating systems save only negligible amounts of carbon emissions is an important environmental policy issue for Arlington County and for many other U.S. communities.  Over 40 such certified buildings in the county got generous subsidies based on now discredited claims of substantial carbon emissions reductions.  Arlington County subsidies for bogus green energy technology wastes county funds which should be used to incentivize proven effective green technology that does substantially reduce carbon.

In 2019, the Arlington County Board approved a community energy goal that the county become carbon neutral within 25 years.  About 80 percent of carbon emissions in the county occur in commercial and residential buildings, and thus the county’s goal can only be achieved by large carbon emissions drops in buildings.   The county government’s past reliance on LEED and similar energy certifications to reduce energy use in commercial buildings now appears to be wrong.

Energy use in Arlington for homes has been rising over the past few years, in part fueled by more residents but also by changes in the size of new houses being built, particularly detached houses.  The 9-percent rise in residents in Arlington during 2010-18 increased use of electricity and natural gas in apartments and houses, but so did having more new McMansions.^[1]  During 2010-18, residential use of electricity in Arlington rose 3 percent to 809 million kilo watt hours (kwhs), while use of natural gas rose 28 percent to 91 million therms. [2]

The average house in the United State has about 1,971 square feet of living space; the average house in Virginia is slightly larger at 2,227 square feet, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.[3]  The larger the living area, the more energy is required to heat, cool, and power devices and appliances in that space.

In Arlington over the past decade or so, more and more older detached houses, generally with under 1,500 square feet of living space, are torn down, and replaced by a new 4,000 or larger square foot house.  In 2019, the number of such tear downs amounted to 158.[4]

While the new house may have better insulation and often more energy saving appliances than the demolished house, the much larger living space overwhelms any such energy efficiency savings.  Studies of energy use in U.S. houses indicate that a 4,000 square foot house uses about 160 percent more electricity than a 1,500 square foot house, and about 76 percent more natural gas, as outlined here.[5]

Energy use by size of house in the United States:

Size of house                   Electricity    Natural gas    Combined Carbon 

(Annual in kwhs)  (Annual in therms)    (Metric tons)

Average 1,500 ft2 house     12,000                   10                       8.9

Average 4,000 ft2 house     31,200                   18                     22.0

Increase (percent)               160                          76                      146

From a carbon emissions basis, the larger house uses 146 percent more carbon than the 1,500 square foot house.   The larger house is 167 percent larger in living space, but uses about 146 percent more carbon.  Thus, standard building or appliance efficiency does not overcome the effects of the larger living space.   A new larger house would need to cut its emissions by 146 percent and that would require solar panels, much better insulation, geothermal heating and cooling, and other passive building technology.

[1] The population of Arlington rose 9 percent from 207,000 to 225,000, according to Arlington County VA,  Profile 2018, and Profile 2008 https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2018/04/2018Profile.pdf

[2] A therm is the heat value of natural gas; 100 cubic feet of gas (CCF) equal 1.036 therms.

[3]  U.S. Dept. of Energy,  “Household energy use in Virginia,” based on 2009 data,  www.eia.gov/consumption/residential

[4] Arlington County, “Quarterly Development Tracking Report,” for 2019, https://projects.arlingtonva.us/data-research/development/quarterly-tracking-report/

[5] Natural gas use data from Http://pemc.coop, and electricity use from https://comparepower.com/kwh-electricity-energy-usage-calculator/  Energy data were converted to carbon equivalents as follows:  1,000 therms equals 5.3 metric tons of carbon; 1,423 kwhs equals 1 metric ton of carbon.  Source:  EPA.

Measured Energy Savings & Greenhouse Gas Emissions from LEED-Certified Buildings, Talk by Oberlin College Professor John Scofield, followed by Q&A on implications for 2020 Arlington Energy Plan for Carbon Neutrality

Monday, March 02 at 7-9 PM  Arlington Central Library   (1015 N. Quincy Street)  Arlington, VA 22203

Oberlin College professor John Scofield, a national expert on U.S. green building certification, will speak about his research on energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions from LEED buildings that demonstrate such building certifications do not significantly reduce emission from commercial buildings.   Discussion follows on Arlington County’s own green building program, and the forthcoming 2020 Community Energy Plan in Arlington that proposes to make Arlington carbon neutral.  Attendance is free.   EcoAction Arlington is co-sponsor with the Arlington Greens.   Attendance is free.

At the January 7 meeting, Arlington Greens agreed to ask Arlington state delegates and state senators to support granting Arlington County local powers over energy/environmental building codes so that Arlington can achieve carbon emissions cut set by Paris Climate Treaty.  We ask that Greens and community members also contact their delegates and senators to support this common sense environmental legislation:

Petition to Arlington state delegates and state senators, January 2020 on allowing local authority to achieve environmental/energy plan

To:   Virginia General Assembly Delegates Patrick Hope, Alfonso Lopez, Mark Levine, Rip Sullivan, and State Senators Barbara Favola, Adam Ebin, and Janet Howell:

As residents of Arlington, we ask that you support environmental legislation in this session of the General Assembly that would allow the Arlington County Board of Supervisors to modify the existing Virginia building codes so as to strengthen energy savings and environmental protection for any buildings in Arlington.   We ask that Arlington be permitted a local option to override Virginia State building codes so that Arlington can fulfill its Community Energy Plan that would meet the required carbon emissions stipulated in the Paris Climate Treaty.  The Arlington County Board approved its community energy plan in September 2019, but does not have the full authority under state law today to implement it.

The Virginia Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD) has repeatedly failed (as recently as 2017) to approve the minimal International Environmental Conservation Code that would have achieved at least a 30 percent savings in energy use in new buildings, and thus new buildings in Virginia are very energy wasteful.

Arlington County needs authority to require builders of new structures to meet stringent energy savings including carbon neutral buildings, mandating geothermal and solar voltaic panels, enhanced insulation, among other features in order to meet its community energy plan goal to have a carbon neutrality goal by 2050.  It cannot do this since 80 percent of carbon emissions in Arlington occurs in buildings without stricter building codes.

We therefore act that authority be delegated to Arlington County or to any other jurisdiction that may also want to implement its own strict environmental energy plan (such as the City of Alexandria) to strengthen building codes so as to achieve energy savings and thus meet environmental goal on carbon emissions.