Building upgrades give downtown St. Paul smaller energy footprint

An economic shift to renewable energy could take decades, but thanks to rapidly evolving disruptive technologies, dropping prices of solar and wind power sources, and increasing market demand for green business, the new age of renewable energy could encompass the world economy much more quickly.

With the prices of solar technology dropping and the opportunity to save drastically on energy usage and costs, businesses and organizations across the country are investing more in solar infrastructure for their buildings and facilities. The Better Buildings Initiative of the US Department of Energy is helping by providing guidance and documenting effective approaches and financing for renewables installations - from hotels, to schools, to big box retail.

Climeworks is focusing on pulling carbon dioxide directly out of the air to store or reuse in some capacity as a way to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. The Swiss company has 16 plants around Europe, with their biggest one in Switzerland that removes 900 tons of carbon dioxide a year that is then sold to Coca-Cola Co. to put in soft drinks or to local industrial greenhouses for plant growth. Scaling the operations to capture more carbon is costly, but the startup recently raised $76 million from investors.

Solidia, a cement and concrete technology company, is changing the chemistry of how cement is created that could make the building material cheaper and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Cement plants create more carbon dioxide than any other manufacturing process, so the American-based company is testing how to use the greenhouse gas to incorporate it into the mixture instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. So far, it can reduce as much as 70 percent of CO2 that is normally emitted from the process and it's faster to make than normal concrete.

Setting the bar high for environmental sustainability can encourage innovation and experimentation. Developers of Paris’ new Clichy-Batignolles eco-district are reducing the neighborhood’s carbon footprint in nearly every way imaginable. Solar panels and vegetation cover the energy-efficient buildings, the water table under the 10-hectare (25-acre) park provides geothermal heating, deliveries are directed to a central drop-off site, and much more.

Iceland, hit by the oil crises of the 1970s, turned to geothermal energy - and they haven't turned back. The island is now powered by 100% renewable energy, and they are taking it one step more, looking to further cut emissions using a unique carbon capture system called CarbFix. It is being pioneered at the Hellsheidi geothermal power plant in western Iceland.

Inspired by the Dutch concept of “Energiesprong,” or “energy jump,” a developer in France retrofitted a group of townhouses for social housing to be more environmentally friendly. They installed polyurethane facades to avoid heat loss and solar panels on the roof. Upgrading the units to be more green cost more than a conventional retrofit, but over time, energy bills were cut in half. These green retrofits are being implemented in towns around the world and could be a model for developers that want to reduce their carbon footprints.

Climeworks, a Swiss start-up, is using technology to suck carbon out of the air and turning it into stone, essentially cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere permanently. Their plant in Iceland is able to turn 50 tonnes of carbon to stone per year. While that amount of carbon won’t solve the climate crisis, they are expanding their work to other countries and are launching a personal carbon removal subscription service as a way for the travel industry to help offset the carbon that they emit each year.

To reduce carbon usage in electric grids, companies around the world have turned to new technologies that store wind energy that can be converted to electricity. One such company called Hydrostor, based in Ontario, Canada, traps compressed air in underground caverns to store energy without the use of fossil fuels.

Across Salt Lake City, Utah, housing developers are building more net zero energy homes. Facing air quality issues, the state has yet to set more energy efficient codes for new homes, which means the kind of homes being built by developers like Redfish, Garbett Homes, and Ivory Homes, are being constructed on a much smaller scale. Such homes, while costing 2-5% more to build, have shown to decrease energy costs by 50-60%.