Minneapolis goes green?

this is a good idea and way too late to now be thinking like this in the State of Minnesota.

You think it is too little too late, Rick? When should they have started? What else can Minneapolis - and other cities - do?

Now is about the right time. The construction industry and the manufacturers are finally coming up to speed with the whole LEED certification process. The learing curve has been challanging and sometimes very expensive. The whole concept makes sense but it must work and not just make everyone "feel good". The industry is getting much better in all aspects making it more practical and affordable.

One has to put this into perspective, every 7-10 years their is a new "concept" or trend in building design. I'm a product supplier to the HVAC industry and have experienced all the "trends or fads or concepts" in building design. LEED make sense because it does not specify one specific plan to achieve the goals but relies on a points system so you can pick and choose various schemes to achieve your goal.

I don't think the city of Mpls is builidng enough new buildings or doing major renovations of that many buildings for it to make a huge initial savings in energy but is a good commitment for future work.

It makes people feel warm, fuzzy and it gets people to forget that they have a serious crime problem that is driving people out of the city.

I am taking a wait and see on this one.

I worked in City Hall for 10 years in a room near what was then "The Falls Cafe".

In the afternoon people would fall asleep at their desks because of the poor ventilation system, people were always getting sick too.

Some of these people slept in the afternoon even when they moved but getting people out of the room brought about a skyrocketing of productivity.

Gary may know about this sort of thing, but I suspect it was because of a fad in ventilation systems to save energy.

The bottom line is that saving energy should not be the first priority, the health, safety and productivity of staff should come first.

We went thru a "phase" in which we cut outside air intake thus to cut down on having to heat or cool the outside air, thus causing poor air conditions. Then, we "opened" those buildings up to bring in fresh air, which cause more problems such as a lack of humidity or from mold from trying to humidify the buildings.

Building designers have always had to follow ASHRAE standards, those standards have changed as technology has changed, research on diiferent strategies is done, and of course real life experiences.

There is always a tradeoff between higher efficiency equipment and short term versus long term building costs and function of the building. If you are a government operation like Minneapolis, you are not going to move, change tennents, or go out of business like a private company, so buildings can be built with a more specific design and layout and don't have to be as flexible as a private building.

We should be getting the best bang for our buck in government buildings. Meeting LEED standards is a good idea and now that there is more experience in it, government doesn't have to pay the premium for a LEED certified building.