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Buildings

Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings Are Easier Than They Sound

Grid-interactive efficient buildings are a big deal with an equally big name. GEBs, for short, were one of the focal areas in a slate of new building-focused programs announced by the Biden administration earlier this year. Those announcements coincided with the release of a US Department of Energy (DOE)…

Reality Check: The Myth of Stable and Affordable Natural Gas Prices

This winter, natural gas prices are spiking across the United States and are expected to cause high heating bills throughout the heating season. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that residential gas prices will be 27 percent higher than last winter on average, while electricity prices will…

Using Biomaterials to Shrink the Building Industry’s Carbon Footprint

As the building industry seeks to lower its carbon emissions, scientists and entrepreneurs are exploring novel solutions to reduce the so-called embodied carbon of building materials. Embodied carbon refers to the cumulative emissions across a product’s life cycle, from extraction to manufacturing and beyond. The solutions range from…

Typical low-rise apartment building

Investing in Healthier Low-Income Housing

Low-income communities continue to grapple with poor housing quality, high energy costs, and disproportionate health burdens stemming from fossil fuel pollution in their homes and communities.