Between the Poles

Shortage of engineers predicted in the UK

In the UK the median age of Chartered engineers rises 10 years for every 14 that elapse.  A new report from the Royal Academy of  Engineering in the UK, titled Jobs and growth: the importance of engineering skills to the UK economy, concludes that the UK will not produce enough engineers to meet the demand for replacement as engineers retire at a an increasing rate.

It is projected that about 1.25 million science, engineering and technology (SET) professionals and technicians are needed by 2020 to support the UK's economic development.  The report finds that to maintain status quo employment levels the annual demand for SET occupations is projected to be 830,000 SET professionals and 450,000 SET technicians. About 80% of these people will be in engineering and technology-related roles.

For the period 2012 to 2020 the minimum number of science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) graduates required to maintain the status quo in SET occupations is 100,000 a year.  Currently, there are only 90,000 STEM graduates annually and roughly a quarter of these choose to pursue non-SET occupations.  The estimated shortfall is more than 30 000 STEM graduates annually.

The result is that demand for STEM skills will exceed supply in the foreseeable future.  Projections of future skills demand predict shortages of STEM-qualified people for all occupational levels of SET. Much of this is replacement demand resulting from skilled people retiring and leaving the labour market.

The water infrastructure crisis and the evolution of asset management at a small water utility

Last week at the GIS in the Rockies annual conference in Denver Elthron Anderson of Southgate Water and Saniation Districts gave a very insightful presentation on the evolution of asset management at a small water and wastewater utility.  To set the stage and convey the urgency of what he was gong to present,  the first question that Elthron asked the audience is how many of you are aware that there is a crisis with our water/wastewater infrastructure.  If you are not aware that there is a crisis, a good place to start to get a feel for it is the ASCE's Report Card on American Infrastructure, which assigns a grade of D- to America's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

Southgate has followed a fairly typical path for a small utility in the evolution of its ability to manage its assets.  Prior to 2007, asset records were in the form of AutoCAD drawings.  In 2007-2008 Southgate implemented a GIS to manage asset records and had to deal with CAD/GIS integration issues.  In 2009 they implemented a Computer Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and a CCTV pipeline inspection system.  In 2010 they installed a flow monitoring system.  By 2011 they had many operational systems that were generating a lot of data about their assets.

Prioritizing capital spending

At this point the public utilities board posed a fundamental question, how can we use this information to prioritize spending on infrastructure.  It was at this point that Southgate began the development process that resulted in what they refer to as their Infrastructure Optimization (IO) tool, which is designed to help engineers and operators prioritize short and long term captial investment in their infrastucture.  It is GIS-based and provides a onfigurable framework for asset risk assessment and management.  A key financial foundation is baseline replacement costs, which provides an estimated value (replacement cost) for all of their assets.  With this tool Southgate is able to perform scenario based planning  for both renewal (replacement) and maintenance.

Business risk exposure

Risk or Business Risk Exposure (BRE) is computed from three factors, probability of failure (POF), consequence of failure (COF), and redundancy. 

The probabliliy of failure can be estimated from factors such age, condition, operational / maintenance history (breakage, leakage, defects), physical Location (associated soil characteristics, climatic conditions, proximity to construction activity), and asset reliability and performance information.

The consequence of failure is estimated from factors such as accessibility to repair, environmental Impacts, critical facilities served such as hospitals, proximity to structures (roads/buildings/lakes/creeks), cost, health and safety concerns, and regulatory Impacts.

Redundancy refers to whether the asset is whether thet asset is a critical asset or whether there are other assets that are able to provide the same service.  For example, a large diameter pipe responsible for gathering and conducting all the sewage for an entire city to the water treatment plant is a critical asset because there is no alternative.

Business Risk Exposure provides a measure for all their asets of business crticality that allows Southgate to prioritize all of their assets for renewal and maintenance.

Since they know the replacement value of their assets and the costs of maintenance, with their annual budget forecast they can schedule maintenance and replacement of all their assets into the future.  Southgate has done this for 50 years into the future.  This allows them to estimate the impact of gaps in current maintenance and capital replacement budgets on future spending.

 

And this is the crisis that Elthron referred to at the begiining of his talk.  As the ASCE and the EPA have shown, there is a large gap, estimated by the ASCE at $108.6 billion over 5 years, between what we are currently spending on water and wastewater infrastructure and what we should be spending to maintain this critical infrastructure at an acceptable level.   Sooner or later we are going to have to pay the piper.  It will be more expensive later.

New XML-based standard for exchanging information about water sources

The WaterML 2.0 Part 1: Time Series Encoding Standard has been adopted by the Open Geospatial Consortium as an OGC standard.  OGC WaterML 2.0 is XML-based and supports encoding and exchanging hydrological data describing the state and location of water resources, both surface water and ground water. 

WaterML 2.0 is designed to provide a standard for national reporting of water resources as well as for operational echange of data on the state of infrastructure such as water supply systems.  Much of the work was done as part of a joint program between the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). 

The standard is important in Australia because it will be used in the development of the second version of the Water Data Transfer Format (WDTF) which mandates the techniques to be used by the Australian water industry to deliver water data measurements to the Bureau of Meteorology as required under the Water Regulations of 2008. 

The Australian effort was supported by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science Hydrologic Information System (CUAHSI), which developed WaterML 1.0, and other organizations in the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, France, and the U.S including NOAA and USGS.

GITA PNW: Reflections on GITA's role in rapid technology change in the utility industry

In 1982 a not-for-profit organization AM/FM International was chartered to provide the growing AM/FM industry with an educational forum to exchange ideas and keep up with changing technologies including the change from paper to digital mapping, called Automated Mapping/Facilities Management at the time.  In 1998, AM/FM International changed its name to the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA). Since then GITA's mission has been to provide education and information exchange on the use and benefits of geospatial information and technology for the world's infrastructure, particularly in utility organizations including electric power, water and waste water and gas. 

In this time of rapid technology change in the utility industry, driven again by the renewed penetration of digital technologies into all aspects of utility operations, the need for an organization like GITA to monitor new technologies and provide education and an open forum for the exchange of ideas is greater than ever. 

But with current limited travel budgets at many utilities, regional conferences are attracting more participants than national events.  GITA has about 15 chapters in North America, and one of the most active is the Pacific Northwest Chapter (GITA PNW), which just held its annual conference.  I have been attending this event for at least five years.  This year's event was again very worthwhile and included a number of presentations on new IT technologies and their application to the utility sector, several of which I have blogged about.

Green construction and the convergence of model-based design and geospatial

Modern web portals for utilities - asynchronously updatable mashups and standards-based

A cloud-based hosted solution for small utilities

Reflections on GITA's role in technology change in the utility industry by the President of GITA PNW

The event was opened by the President of GITA PNW, Zan Strausz.  He reflected on the origins of GITA and why he thinks that the needs that drove the formation of AM/FM International and GITA are just as important today as they were in the 1980's and 1990's.  I found his talk every perceptive and relevant to anyone contemplating the massive technology changes that the utility industry is just beginning to embark on, and I have included some of his remarks here.

Before we launch into our program I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the venerable tradition you as conference attendees are a part of. I'm speaking of the long history of GITA providing a forum for education, promotion and innovation in the geospatial world. Its roots in the utility industry reflect the early adoption of geospatial technology going back 50 years. With the development of what was then known as Automated Mapping/Facilities Management, or AM/FM, utilities were pioneers in applying geospatial concepts to analysis and asset management, way before the term Geographic Information System became the ubiquitous concept it is today. It was around this technology that GITA, originally called AM/FM International, was organized. Over the years the focus of the organization has expanded beyond just the utility industry to include a more broad base of infrastructure users and service providers involved in the application of geospatial technology. But the core purpose of the organization remains to provide a forum for the dissemination and sharing of geospatial technology concepts as they relate to increasing the efficiency and value of the services our  organizations provide.  

I would like to provide one example of an issue that I have observed in my own industry which I believe can be mitigated by benefits of the forum provided by GITA. I refer to what I would term "technology inertia" by which I mean the cumulative effect of bureaucratic momentum and ingrained habits that prevent the adoption of new and particularly emerging technology. This is not necessarily a  bad thing; a responsible organization needs to wisely and considerately adapt to new technology, as  steward of their investors' or customers' interests. However, it becomes a problem when it delays the  application of technology that can definitely improve the efficiency of the organization. It is ironic that  this problem would appear in the utility industry, which has a history of innovation in the application of geospatial technology ... I'm certainly sympathetic with the conservative ethos of not changing with every shift in the winds of technology, and if something works, why change? But, often, this can retard innovation which would benefit  everyone.

Forums such as GITA provides can be an antidote to this ossified conservatism by giving us insights into emerging and successfully applied geospatial technology, provided by our peers and  industry experts; insights that we need to advance our enterprises into the future.  That future holds some immediate challenges to the utility industry in particular. The many  technologies embodied in the concept of the Smart Grid are going to need to be implemented in the  very near future if we are to meet the huge challenges of providing power, water and other basic  infrastructure in a world whose exploding demand is rapidly running up against the realities and  imperatives imposed by the finite nature of the resources of our increasingly small world. Geospatial  technology will certainly play a key role in the management of the huge amounts of data processing  and analysis that will need to be applied to provide any hope that we can we can solve the  infrastructure challenges that absolutely must be met before we can leave future generations the legacy  of a clean, prosperous and healthy world.

Accessing Bing maps in an AutoCAD environment

Project Basejump is a free technology preview that enables AutoCAD Map 3D/Civil 3D users to access Bing web mapping service (WMS) maps including aerial imagery, road, traffic, and other information.  Project Basejump is a FDO provider that enables you to bring Bing Maps layers into an AutoCAD environment as a base map.  Project Basejump was first made available in May 2012.

First Canadian infrastructure report card released

I have blogged on several occasions about the ASCE's widely recognized Report Card for American Infrastructure which has highlighted the poor state of American infrastructure by not only assigning a grade but also attempting to estimate the total investment that is required to bring U.S. infrastructure up to an acceptable standard.  The ASCE Report Card for 2009 includes Aviation (D), Bridges (C), Dams (D), Drinking Water (D-), Energy (D+), Hazardous Waste (D), Inland Waterways (D-), Levees (D-),  Public Parks and Recreation (C-), Rail (C-), Roads (D-), Schools (D), Solid Waste (C+), Transit (D),  and Wastewater (D-), for an overall GPA of D and an estimated five year investment requirement of $2.2 trillion.

Other countries have also attempted to do similar report cards for some of their infrastructure, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.  At least one city, Hamilton, Ontario has generated an infrastructure report card for its municipal infrastructure.

In 2007 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conducted a survey of municipal infrastructure and estimated that the municipal infrastructure deficit in Canada in 2007 was C$123 billion.  The FCM broke this down by key infrastructure categories,

• water and waste water systems - $31 billion
• transportation - $21.7 billion
• transit - $22.8 billion
• waste management - $7.7 billion
• community, recreational, cultural and social infrastructure - $40.2 billion

The first Canadian Infrastructure Report Card was released this month by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE), the Canadian Public Works Association (CPWA), the Canadian Construction Association (CCA) and the FCM.

The Report Card assesses the state of Canada's municipal drinking water, wastewater, storm water and road systems at a national level based on survey results from 123 municipalities representing about two thirds of Canadians.

The Report Card estimates the total value of Canada's municipal water, wastewater, storm water and road systems across the country at $538 billion. Of this

• $50.7 billion is assessed as being in poor or very poor condition.
• $121.1 billion is assessed as being in fair condition.

This is considerably higher for the comparable categories than the FCM estimated in 2007.

Municipal roads (Fair)

More than half the roads surveyed fall below a rating of “good”: 32% are in “fair” condition, and 20.6% are in “poor” to “very poor” condition, for a total of 52.6%. ( A grade of “Fair” means the infrastructure “shows general signs of deterioration and requires attention, with some elements exhibiting significant deficiencies.” ) The estimated replacement cost of the roads in fair to very poor condition is $91.1 billion, nationally.

Wastewater (Good)

40% of wastewater plants, pumping stations and storage tanks in “fair” to “very poor” condition, and 30.1% of pipes are assessed to be in “fair” to “very poor” condition. The replacement cost for the wastewater infrastructure in “fair” to “very poor” condition is $39 billion.  In addition the Federal government has just introduced Canada's first regulations covering wastewater treatment which will require an additional significant level of investment which the FCM has estimated could cost municipalities over $30 billion.

Drinking-water (Good)

15.4% of the systems were ranked “fair” to “very poor” for the condition of their pipes.  14.4% of plants, reservoirs and pumping stations were ranked “fair” to “very poor”.  The replacement cost for the drinking-water infrastructure in “fair” to “very poor” condition is $25.9 billion.

Stormwater (Very good)

12.5% of stormwater installations surveyed fall below “good” condition.   23.4% of stormwater pipes are assessed to be "fair" or "poor". The replacement cost for stormwater infrastructure in “fair” to “very poor” condition is $15.8 billion.

GITA PNW: A cloud-based hosted solution for small utilities

At the 12th annual Geospatial Information and Technology (GITA) Pacific Northwest Conference at Salishan on the Oregon Coast, John Mitchell of Terraspatial Technologies gave a fascinating presentation on a hosted or SaaS (software as a service) solution for small utilities.

I blogged previously about Burlington Hydro, a relatively small utility in southern Ontario that is integrating into an intelligent network many aspects of what is typically included in smart grid including intelligent netwrok devices, self healing networks, smart meters, distributed generation, electric vehicles (EV) , factory ride-through systems (enables factories to continue functioning through outages), battery-based electric storage, bidirectional communications network linking the intelligent devices to the control center, and dramatically increased volumes of real-time data.

Most utilities, large and small, are experiencing or very soon will experience a similar change in the customer services, responsivness, and level of reliability their electric power networks are expected to provide. 

An important difference between large utilities and small utiltiies, many of which are municipally-owned or rural coops, is that large utilities have the IT staff and experience to deal with intelligent electric power networks whereas small utilities often don't. 

Hosted solution

What struck me as as so unique about what Terraspatial is offering and so valuable to small utilities is that it is a hosted solution, in other words, all the utility needs to install at their site is a browser, everything else is running in the cloud.  The most important benefit of a hosted solution like this is that it reduces the level of IT capacity that the utility needs to maintain in house.

One of the utility associations that Terraspatial has been working with is the Central Services Association (CSA), an association of 116 smaller utilities, in central Mississippi.  Jointly Terraspatial and CSA have developed the requirements for a hosted solution called PlantWorx for electric power utilities.  Based on thes requirements, Terraspatial has designed and built, and CSA has been testing a solution called PlantWorx.

The design goals of the solution that CSA and Terraspatial have developed are very relevant to small utilities. 

• It is hosted, which means that the utility does not need to own or manage servers or software. 
• It is secure because it relies on the security of Rackspace a major cloud hosting provider that can provide a level of security, including protection from internal tampering, role-based access by users, protection from external  threats, the latest encryption, redundancy and back-ups, ISO certified data centers, and mirrored servers for persistent backup, in other words a much higher level of security than the average utility network is capable of.
• Because it it running in the cloud, it is accessible from anywhere and from any device, in the office and in the field.
• It is an integrated work order management sytem solution supports staking through to accounting and reporting.  It interfaces to customer information systems, accounting and billing systems, and materials management systems,
• It provides a dashboard allowing the utility to monitor key performance indicators of the utility's business.

GITA PNW: Modern web portals for utilities - asynchronously updatable mashups and standards-based

At the 12th annual Geospatial Information and Technology (GITA) Pacific Northwest Conference at Salishan on the Oregon Coast, Michael Baker gave an enlightening presentation on web portals and how modern architectures make it possible for them to be much more than a flashy website.

A modern web portal is a web-based, business-critical system that integrates information,  business applications, and views to create a collaborative environment for managing utility workflows such as outage management, vegetation management, inspections, reliability, and other critical workflows.

The most important factor that differentiates modern web portals is that a modern web architecture (which is based on a service oriented architecture or SOA) allows data from many independent, data sources to be mashed together into a single web application in which each data source is independently (asynchronously) updatable.  Michael gave a simple example in which the base map came from Google Map, point outage data from a utility's outage mamagement system, weather data from an external weather service, and an additional aggregation layer provided a dashboard showing the utility's key performance indicators.

The other important factor that differentiates modern web portals is that they are standards-based.  Michael specifically mentioned Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards such as WMS, WFS and WCS that enable the integration of data from different geospatial applications from different vendors, ESRI, Intergraph, Autodesk and others.

He also provided guidelines on how to go about creating a utility portal.  He recommended focussing on how the portal helps the utility's business needs, and how critical clearly understood business needs are to defining good portal requirements.  He also made the interesting point that a portal is often the first step a utility makes toward a service oriented architecture.  Finally, he recommended that if you listen carefully to your business users, you will be able to create a shared vision for the portal including how it will be used and how it will benefit your utility. 

As an example, I blogged previously about Burlington Hydro and the portal that AGSI has built for managing and analyzing in real-time large volumes of data coming from many intelligent electronic devices comprising a smart grid.

GITA PNW: Green construction and the convergence of model-based design and geospatial

The 12th annual Geospatial Information and Technology (GITA) Pacific Northwest Conference is being held in Salishan on the Oregon Coast.  I have been coming to this event for about five years, because it is one of the very strong regional events.  In line with GITA's mission its focus is education in geospatial technology.  GITA guidelines specifiy that talks must be about general technology trends and solutions, not vendor-specific solutions. 

I had the opportunity to kick this year's session off with a talk about the changing face of the construction industry as a result of the impact of environmental issues and how this is contributing to the use of more geospatial technology by the construction industry.

Construction and climate change

The construction industry contributes about $7 trillion annually to the world economy.  According to McKinsey about $3.6 trillion of this is "narrow infrastructure", transportation, utilities, and public and social infrastructure, and the remaining $3.4 trillion is real estate, residential, commercial, and industrial.

Global climate change is changing the construction industry.  The Interational Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that we will spend $45 trillion adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change over the next 40 years to 2050, that's about $1 trillion per year.  According to a projection by Global Insight, about 6% of current contruction qualifies as “green”.  But as a result of the increasing awareness of climate chnage by 2020 regulation, owner and investor demands, resource cost, security concerns, and third party standards could result in 75% of construction being “green”.  This is a dramatic change that has important implications about how buildings and infrastructure are designed, built and maintained. 

Energy efficiency of buildings

According to World Business Council for Sustainable Development, buildings account for 40 % of the world’s energy use. According to the Energy Information Administration n the U.S.in 2011 71% of electric power was consumed by buildings, residential (37%) and commercial (34%).  So increasing the energy efficiency of buildings is a prime target of government initiatives around the world.

In the EU, 40% of all energy is consumed in buildings.  In 2002 European Commision issued the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) that required all EU member states to upgrade their building regulations and to introduce energy certification schemes for buildings.  The EU mandated what are referred to as 20-20-20 objectives.  By 2020 the EU member states are legally bound to achieve the following objectives

• 20% reduction in emissions
• 20% renewable energies
• 20% improvement in energy efficiency

In June 2012 a progress report which assessed progress toward meeting these objectives found that while the EU was on track toward meeting the first two objectives, it was projected that with the current regulatory framework, the energy efficiency objective was not going to be met.

To ensure that this goal is met, the European Commison has proposed a new Energy Efficiency Directive, often referred to as the EPBD recast.  It proposed several changes to the original EPBD including

• legal obligation for all member states to establish energy saving schemes
• the public sector to lead by example
• major energy savings for consumers.

In Germany energy efficiency is of particular importance in the aftermath of the decsion by the German government to shut down all nuclear power facilities by 2022.  In spite of the fact that Germany is making inpressive strides in increasing renewable power generation (in the first half of 2012 fully 25% of electric power was produced from renewable energy sources), energy efficiency remains a critical part of the German plan for reducing CO₂ emissions.  The German 40 year Masterplan proposes the development of new buildings codes for buildings and that all buildings in Germany will be required to be refurbished in line with new standards by 2050.  It is project that this will reduce energy requirements for heating by

• 20 % by 2020
• 80 % by 2050.

and that energy efficiency could save German consumers €10 billion per year.

Building performance labelling

In the UK since 2008 Display Energy Certificates (DEC) are required for all public buildings over 1,000 m².  The DEC documents the actual energy usage of a building and looks similar to the energy labels provided on new cars and electrical appliances.  In additon an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which documents the energy performance of a building is required whan any building is built, rented or sold.

In the U.S. several cities and states have passed laws making it a legal requirement to report the energy performance characteristics of buildings.  Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin TX, and most recently Philadelphia have made energy benchmaring a requirement for commercial buildings, typically 50 000 ft² and over.  The states of California and Washington also have passed laws requiring energy benchmarking of existing buildings.  In the case of California energy performance data must be available when a building is sold, leased or financed.  It is estimated that these laws affect 4 billion ft² of floor space in major real estate markets.

In Australia commercial buildings 2000 m² and over are required by the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Act 2010 to have a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC).  In the case of residential buildings the Council of Australian Governments committed to phase in the mandatory disclosure of residential building energy, greenhouse and water performance at the time the building is offered for sale or lease.

 Net zero energy buildings

A "net zero energy" or "nearly zero energy" building is one that on average over a year produces as much energy as it consumes.  One of the most important provisions of the EU's EPBD recast mandates that new buildings must be designed to be “nearly zero energy” beginning in

• 2018  for new public buildings
• 2020  for all new buildings

In the U.S.the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) mandates that by 2030 all new Federal facilities must be designed to be “net zero energy” buildings.  To support this objective the U.S. Department of Energy is funding research into net zero energy buildings.  An example is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Research (NREL) Support Facility in Golden, Colorado that

• uses half the energy of an equivalent code-compliant building
• produces as much renewable energy as it consumes annually

 A recent Pike Research report has projected that because of the recast EU EPBD Directive and similar legislation in other parts of the world, worldwide revenue from “net zero energy building” construction will grow at an annual rate of 43% over the next two decades reaching

• $690 billion by 2020
• $1.3 trillion by 2035

 Electric utilities and energy efficient buildings

IDC Energy Insights' top 10 predictions for the North American energy and utility sector and Jesse Berst's top 9 predictions include smart buildings as a top priority in 2012. 

Burlington, VT provides an example of why energy efficient buildings are important to utilities.  In 1990 rate payers in Burlington, Vermont approved a bond issue to fund energy efficiency programs.  Since 2003, Burlington Electric Department (BED) customers pay a small monthly Energy Efficiency Charge (EEC) support aggressive energy efficiency programs.   As a result of the energy efficiency initiative BED has been able to meet the energy needs of a growing local economy over the last 19 years through energy efficiency.  Burlington’s annual electricity consumption in 2009 only about 2 percent greater than in 1989. 

And BED has found that energy efficiency is the cheapest alternative fuel.  It is estimated that energy efficiency investments save Burlington consumers more than $10.1 million of retail electric costs annually. 

Burlington has one of the highest proportions of LEED-certified buildings in the country.  It is important to note that BED not only participates in writing the energy performance guidelines of Burlington's building code, but also in the inspection and enforcement of those aspects of the building code.

Another example is Ontario where the Ontario Energy Board's (OEB) Conservation and Demand Management Code for Electricity Distributors (CDM Code) sets out the obligations and requirements for all provincial electricity distributors (80 EDCs).  By 2014 EDCs are required to reduce

• provincial peak demand by 1,330 MW by the end of 2014
• electricity consumption by 6,000 GWh accumulated over the four-years 2011-2014

As an example of one of the 80 EDCs, for Horizon Utilities, which has 237,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers,  this translates into a legal requirement to reduce

• peak demand by 5.6%
• total consumption by 4.9%

Since over 70% of electric power in North America is consumed by buildings, Horizon has targetted buildings for the bulk of the energy savings.  Horizon is using energy density mapping to identify buildings with a high energy footprint.  Partenrships with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), Teranet, and others provide Horizon with access to building and property information such as building age, sun exposure, heating type, air conditioning, and parcel data and with NRCan/CanmetENERGY, Environics for Prizm, and Canadian Urban Institute demographics, lifestyle profiles, and standard metrics for different building types.

Energy performance modeling

The convergence of building information modeling (BIM), geospatial data and energy modeling enables designers to reduce the energy footprint of existing structures as well as design new, highly energy efficient structures. 

For an existing structure, laser scanning can be used to derive a dimensionally accurate building model (BIM).  Using  the geographic location of the building and local historical insolation and weather information. a building energy performance analysis of an historic, 140 year-old government building shows that zoning, natural ventilation, daylighting, decoupling interior spaces, and solar photovoltaic panels can reduce the building’s annual energy consumption of 5.5 million kWh by 60%. 

For a new building an architect’s BIM model provides the key elements that are required for the energy analysis such as simplified walls and floors, room bounding elements, complete volumes, and window frames and curtain walls.  Together with the geographical location of the building and the local environmental conditions, an energy performance analysis can reduce annual energy consumption and power bills by 40%.  As an added benefit, reducing the electric power usage of a new building over code generates an immediate payback of $400 to $800 per kW saved from the Ontario Power Authority’s HPNC program.

Japan announces plan to phase out nuclear power by 2040

Prior to Fukushima, Japan generated about a quarter of its electric power from 50 nuclear power plants.  Japan lies in a heavily earthquake prone area, and all of its nuclear power plants are on the coast and susceptible to earthquake originated tsunamis such as those that led to the Fukushima disaster..

Japan has just announced plans to phase out nuclear power by 2040.  The announcement was made by issuing a "policy goal", which is not binding on future governments and which a new government administration could reverse.

The new energy policy aims to

• shut down reactors that are more than 40 years old,
• not issue new licenses for reactor construction
• restart existing reactors only if they pass standards issued by the new Nuclear Regulatory Agency

The Nuclear Regulatory Agency, which is an independent body to be launched on Sept 19, replaces two regulatory agencies, NISA and NSC, which were heavily criticized after the Fukushima disaster.

All but two of Japan's 50 reactors remain shutdown in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.  After Fukushima all reactors were shutdown and the first two reactors were only restarted in June 2012.

At this point Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium have announced that they plan to phase out nuclear power by 2022.  France has announced that it plans to reduce its reliance on nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2025.  In contrast the United States and Canada have issued the first new licences for nuclear facilities in 30 years.  However, in the U.S. a recent court decision has temporarily halted the issuance of any new licenses until the disposal of radioactive waste is resolved.  Both India and China are actively investing in new technologies to expand their nuclear fleet.