Phil Kaplan and I have not been active podcasters for a while. (The last couple of years, life had other plans for us.) But we’re back and committed to a new season of the Green Architects’ Lounge for 2019! We’ll be issuing about one episode a month this year. It all started back in November when we were asked if we’d host a cocktail hour and record a live episode the evening before the PassivhausMAINE Fall Forum. We had a blast and talked about a subject dear to both of our firms, Passive House Schools. Phil’s firm, Kaplan Thompson Architects,…

Energy efficiency programs, such as the installation of smart meters, is much cheaper than building new energy plants and can win support on both ends of the political spectrum. Image credit: Lloyd DeGrane / Midwest Energy News The Green New Deal, a bundle of proposed policies that would combat climate change, create green jobs, and address economic inequities, is eliciting the usual partisan debate over what to do about global warming. But one humble and noncontroversial way to reduce carbon pollution has been gathering steam in red and blue states alike: energy efficiency. Policies like those that encourage the retrofitting…

An updated version of Dow's Powerhouse solar shingle is now available from RGS Energy. It was named the best energy efficient product at this year's International Builders' Show. Image Credit: Dow Three years after Dow Chemical dropped out of the solar shingle business, a reinvented version of its Powerhouse shingle is back on the market under a new license holder. RGS Energy, a company that started selling solar panels in Mendocino County, California, in the 1970s as the Real Goods Solar Company, now holds the license to produce the shingles. The low-profile shingles — called building-integrated PV, or BIPV— are…