Green mortgages are used to finance climate-friendly house improvements. In the U.S. they already exist, but need to be made far more accessible and marketed widely. Greg Hopkins at RMI cites their report “Build Back Better Homes: How to Unlock America’s Single-Family Green Mortgage Market” to explain that the financial markets are looking increasingly favourably at lending that is certified as ESG (environmental, social, and governance). … [Read more...]
Buildings Renovation in Germany: success story or potential failure?
The German Federal Association of Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW) has claimed that money and effort spent on the nation’s buildings renovations have not worked. But Andreas RĂĽdinger at IDDRI has looked into the evidence and concluded that the opposite is the case. CO2 emissions from the residential sector in 2018 were 37% lower than in 1990. Though final energy consumption was broadly stable, that’s because efficiency gains were offset by … [Read more...]
From Buildings to Solar Thermal: using electric charge to vary insulating properties tenfold
The insulating properties of a material don’t normally vary. Applying an electric charge to a material can vary its electronic and magnetic qualities, but not its thermal conductivity, normally. David Chandler at MIT says now a team of researchers there have found a way to do it. Their “electrical heat valve” can increase the thermal conductivity of thin-film strontium cobalt oxide (SCO) on demand by running a charge through it after adding … [Read more...]
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