EleBlog

31 Dec, 2008

New excuse (I must be fat for SOME reason not having to do with my own personal weaknesses, right?). "Can Electrical Pollution Make Kits Fat? A press release on a book.

I kid you not!

31 Dec, 2008

www.GlobeSt.com is a pretty neat website -- assuming you're interested in real estate, or buildings, or what building owners are doing and thinking, and info along those lines. The only problem (for me and perhaps you) is that stuff on the site "disappears" (behind a firewall) after a short period of time (at least, it has in the past).

So I'm hoping this link, to a Q-and-A with the chairman of BOMA, Dick Purtell, is useful. BOMA = Building Owners & Managers Association. The interview took place at GreenBuild in November. Here are two questions and answers:

GlobeSt.com: What is the biggest sustainability issue facing your members right now?

Purtell: What we’re always focused on is energy conservation and being efficient with our energy dollar. A year and a half ago, we announced a seven-point challenge to our members, and we now have over 100 companies and local associations that have endorsed that. The main goal is a 30% reduction in energy conservation by 2012, with an average building EngergyStar rating of 50. It’s about 20% of the total operating costs of our properties that we manage. When we’re talking industry wide, about a $24-billion annual expense what 30% would mean. That pressure is going to continue. We continue to have members endorse the challenge and all that goes with that.

GlobeSt.com: Are there any parts of the industry that could do some catching up in sustainability?

Purtell: Clearly what the USGBC has been doing is with, primarily, new construction. They’re leading that area. Our biggest focus is the existing building stock and educating that group and keeping ahead of that curve. We’re trying to stay ahead of that. I’m not sure that anyone is necessarily in front or behind.

EleBlog take: Purtell isn't being critical, but the EleBlog will be. New construction SHOULD be green -- and routinely green. But the greatest immediate challenge for the building industry, the green folks, the United States, an the world is reducing energy use NOW. Each year, 2% of the commercial building stock is replaced or built new (however you want to phrase it). That means if we make new construction 100% green beginning in 2009, we won't have a "fleet" of commercial buildings that is 100% green until about the year 2060.

Existing buildings are the key. They should have been USGBC's focus. They should be, now!

31 Dec, 2008

The title of this post is the title of the December "Bottom Line Energy Issues" column written for Buildings.com by Lewis Tagliaferre. This resonated with me for four reasons:

a. I like the idea of "smart" green buildings, I think the modifier (smart) is needed.

b. In 2007-08, Marty Riesberg (of the National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Institute) and I collaborated to present three sessions (at three Natl. Assn. of Electrical Distributor regional meetings) on "Smarter, Greener Buildings."

c. Lew Tagliaferre was marketing services director at NECA when I got there the first time in 1979. He worked at NECA for 27 years. I learned a lot from him.

d. I liked what Lew said (which, given a-b-c above, should be not much of a surprise). Here's a slice (a bit long, but it makes important points):

31 Dec, 2008

"How LEDs Improve the Bottom Line for Commercial and Industrial Users" is the title of a two-page article in the 32-page Nov/Dec issues of LED Journal. You have to download the whole magazine (32p PDF) -- and it's FREE. Go to page 22 to see the aritlce, which includes a slice on "maintenance economics - the missing link." 

31 Dec, 2008

A green blog at the NY Times site notes that "the car's battery helped keep the lights on" for some folks in Massachusetts during recent ice storms. 

31 Dec, 2008

Is there such a thing as whole-house surge protection? A CE Pro article argues not, as in --

24 Dec, 2008

A friend called Sunday night to tell us that "60 Minutes" had a segment on the elephant orphanage in Kenya. Jill and I already knew that (and the EleBlog has a permanent link to the orphange -- see lower right, 3rd link from the bottom).

Here's another link. It takes you to words and footage from the 2006 story on the Sheldrake facility. It's amazing.

No, we've not visited.

24 Dec, 2008

I believe the U.S. economy is in a Depression, not a recession (and not a "severe recession").

I have great experience visualizing the phrase "beating a dead horse." I have placed significant dollars in win and exacta bets on many harness horses. Many of these horses have been in First Place all the way around the track (most harness races = 1 mile) . . . all of the way to the 3/4-mile pole.

That's when they drop dead. More often then not, the guy behind the horse (the driver) starts furiously whipping the horse.

This never, ever, EVER makes a difference -- which, of course, makes rational people wonder why the guy would do that.

What I've seen in the past week or so tells me the economy is DEAD:

a. Last night (12/23), while watching "House" on national TV, I saw a large number of automobile advertisements. I'm not sure why. This seems a very bad time of year to advertise a new auto. People are concerned with Xmas! Is it counter-trend programming? Cheap TV ads available? Despair on the part of the auto makers? I don't know. I do know I saw a parade of new auto ads (not just from the U.S. auto-makers). House apparently was a re-run, but it is a popular, "hit" TV show (and in theory commands a premium from the advertiser).

b. Just now, the news flashed from Freddie Mac (via Marketwatch) that "the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to a new 37-year low as existing home sales continued to fall. The average fell to 5.14% with an average 0.8 point for the week ending Dec. 24, down from last week when it averaged 5.19%. Last year, the average was 6.17%."

Now, this ain't the time of year to buy or sell a house, of course. But with rates this low, you would think houses would be selling like hotcakes. The fact that such a scenario is NOT taking place tells us one of three things:

24 Dec, 2008

From Money/CNN: Retail Trade Group Asks Obama For Sales Tax Holidays. Another bailout!

What's interesting, of course, is that there is NO NATIONAL SALES TAX. The retailers are asking Obama to tell the states to implement these "holidays."

It does get worse and worse, doesn't it?

24 Dec, 2008

I am pretty steamed about the very IDEA that commercial real-estate developers are going to the U.S. government for a bail-out. Hey -- why shouldn't everybody get in line? Let's all get a piece of the government's money!!!

There's another side of the story, though. I'm not sympathetic, but maybe YOU will be (you pathetic sob sister, you!). The blog entry on it, at REIT Wrecks, can be found here; the graphics below are part of it.

What's the message of the two graphics? SAME BUILDING, different values. Ooooops!

. . . all of the blogger's points being made, I hope you're still asking the same question after you read it through: Why is this the government's problem?

24 Dec, 2008

In a column in 12/07, I predicted crude oil would get to $135/barrel to $175/barrel in 2008. The price ran up to $147/bbl. at mid-year . . . before falling down to below $40/bbl right now. So did I hit with that prediction, or did I swing and miss?

EleBlog verdict: MISS. I predicted oil would be above $135/bbl. by the end of the year. It ain't.

24 Dec, 2008

The folks from EcoBuild did their own blog on the recent D.C. event. Go there to download the 11-page speech by Cong. Carnahan or to view the video of Richard Sweet's speech. 

24 Dec, 2008

Building Design & Construction has released annual white papers (going back to 2003) on GREEN. Now, the magazine offers free downloads of any or all six of the things (by chapter or whole). A neat deal: It offers you a chance to catch up, if you've not kept up, with this hot trend. 

21 Dec, 2008

A blog on the site of BUILDER magazine (the #1 mag in the homebuilding biz) says housing starts will be OFF another 20% to 30% next year. Included:

Weakness in the economy is one reason why Bernie Markstein, who does forecasting for the NAHB, believes housing's recovery will be slow. He expects starts to hit bottom in the first half of the year and "stay on a slow recovery path until the fourth quarter when there is a mild acceleration. Overall, it's a slow recovery once things turn around," he says.

There are some big unknowns in housing forecasts for 2009. What kind of stimulus package will Congress pass to prop up the economy and the housing industry? Will the Treasury really attempt to lower mortgage rates to 4.5 percent? Will the government finally find a way to put its finger in the foreclosure dam?

The really good news is that virtually every housing economist thinks 2010 will be a pretty good year, with housing starts returning to 2008 levels. Nothaft predicts starts will reach 1 million again. That would certainly be welcome relief for an industry struggling with the financial crisis of a lifetime.

21 Dec, 2008

An 11/23 AP story on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette site offers this interesting perspective (in the 15th paragraph) on coal-fired power plants:

The Department of Energy had forecast earlier this decade that 36,000 megawatts of new coal-fueled power supply -- enough to power an estimated 36 million homes -- would come online by 2008. Instead, only about 5,000 megawatts of supply were built, or enough for about 5 million homes.

In the last two years, 76 coal plant proposals have been abandoned or postponed, according to the advocacy group Source Watch. In 2007 alone, that amounted to more than $45 billion in shelved projects, the group claims.

21 Dec, 2008

What’s big, gray, and should be approached carefully? If you answered — an elephant, why are you reading an electrical book? If you answered — switchgear, you’re probably a code weenie. So what do these two things have in common? Inspectors often ask what the procedures are for inspecting switchgear; and, like eating an elephant, the best approach is one bite at a time.

....that's the lead from a relatively mundane story, Procedures for Inspecting Switchgear, on the site of the Intl. Assn. of Electrical Inspectors.

21 Dec, 2008

An article in The Capital (Annapolis, MD) from 12/06 talks about putting up Xmas lights and GFCIs. The author, Jim Rooney, offers (last paragraph of the article) an inexpensive solution to providing GFCI-equipped power to outdoor seasonal lighting. 

21 Dec, 2008

Frank Bisbee is a friend of mine, but you should read this piece ("Abandoned Cable Revisited With Solutions") anyway. Quoth Biz:

21 Dec, 2008

That's the sum of this David Bodamer blog post from a shopping center group's New York conference. Snippet: "All anyone knows is that current prices are too high and current cap rates are too low." Which means: Nothing is going to happen for a while. 

21 Dec, 2008

Bloomberg TV interviewed Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, on 12/8 on the infrastructure investment needed. AGC posted the video to its website. 

16 Dec, 2008

As I think I've written here a few times, BATTERIES are the key to the future. Solar power works better if you can store it (i.e., electrons generated when the sun shines are stored to be used later) and this goes quadruple for WIND.

According to this 9/30 item in the New York Times (which I believe you can access without a password), Warren Buffett had taken an almost-10% stake in a Chinese battery manufacturer.

16 Dec, 2008

. . . well, don't you?

This news item (complete with a photo) talks about a Japanese company that is so determined to fight Carbon Dioxide emissions that it has (I kid you not -- unless this is an April Fool's item come six months late?) . . .


According to another item (here), the company is requiring these folks to work on the roof 90 days a year.

16 Dec, 2008

While visiting the EcoBuild Fall show + conference last week, I picked up a great mass of paper. I do this at every trade show. I then find time (when I don't want to face a computer or a telephone) and leaf through the stuff. One thing I picked up was a paper copy of the winter 2008 issue of Buildings Inside & Out. This is the newsletter of the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council.

I can't find it online. I think it's a members-only benefit.

One page of the newsletter was devoted to 8 paragraphs (many of them long) under the headline, SBIC Partipates in Obama-Biden Transition Team Meeting at the U.S. Department of Energy. Here is some stuff I think worth reading (and worth re-typing):

1. Meeting leader: "Lucy Blake of the Transition Team." She's former CEO of the Apollo Alliance and founder of the Sierra Business Council

2. "Among the goals of the new President-Elect are the following"


3. Kyle Kempf (of the Natl. Small Business Assn.) "added that small commercial buildings [less than 10,000 sq. ft.] must also be addressed, since many small business owners are suffering as energy prices increase." Kempt said the ENERGY STAR for Small Business program has a $350K budget, but there are 17M such small businesses (and religious congregations).

4. "More than once during the meeting, the Transition Team staff stressed that they were looking for specific suggestions that could be implemented within their first three to six months in office, a positive indication that the new administration views energy efficiency as a critical component of its agenda."

16 Dec, 2008

With today's actions, the Federal Reserve Board has removed all of the stops. Instead of commenting (I have a lot to say about this, and all of it is BAD), I scrambled to find a speech I'd read a week ago or so, by Jeffrey M. Lacker. He's the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; the speech was 12/3, and you can read the whole thing here.

NOW: Here's the part I really want you to read. Maybe a few times. Until it sinks in for you, at least (it's gone right by everyone with any responsibility, apparently!). I have done some editing here, to make it more readable (and to emphasize some stuff) . . . but these ARE Lacker's words, not Joe's!

The striking feature of central bank lending during the recent turmoil is the extent to which it has extended well beyond the boundaries that previously were understood to constrain such lending, both in the range of institutions and the contractual terms on which credit has been provided. Intervention has been driven by a desire to prevent damaging disruptions to financial markets, and thus reduce the overall costs of the turmoil.

While this objective is clearly understandable, central bank lending can create the expectation that similar support will be forthcoming when market disruptions occur in the future.

Such expectations can themselves be very costly, because they can distort the incentives faced by, and as a result, the choices made by private-sector participants.

The critical policy question of our time is where to establish the boundaries around the public-sector safety net provided to financial market participants, now that the old boundaries are gone. In doing so, the prime directive should be that the extent of regulatory and supervisory oversight should be commensurate with the extent of access to central bank credit in order to contain moral hazard effectively.

The dramatic recent expansion in Federal Reserve lending, and government support more broadly, has extended public sector support beyond existing supervisory reach, and thus could destabilize the financial system, if no corrective action is taken.

Restoring consistency between the scope of government support and the scope of government supervision is essential to a healthy and sustainable financial system. One option is simply to adapt our regulatory and supervisory regime to the new wider implied reach of government lending support. This strikes me as an unattractive option, if for no other reason than the current uncertainty about the outer bounds of that support.

Constraining moral hazard in such a regime would be an immense and daunting task. I take it as given, therefore, that the scope of financial safety net ultimately must be rolled back.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN? The EleBlog take:

a. What the Fed is doing might not work.

b. Lacker says that, even if it works, there might be hell to pay anyway.

So it's a case of "damned if you do, and damned if you do."

16 Dec, 2008

A new program from Leviton lets contractors "custom-design [on the web] commercial and industrial switches, receptacles, and GFCIs in configurations that best suit their needs."  Release here. 

16 Dec, 2008

Michael C. Schmitt is senior vp for electrical special projects for Egan Co. in Minneapolis/St. Paul, according to his credit line on an article in the 9/08 issue of EC&M -- Lighting for the 21st Century. The bio note also says "He's a member of the IBEW." Noteworthy (in the EleBlog's view) paragraphs:

Sometimes, it's difficult to convince a customer it's time for a change. Two main factors typically hold companies back from installing new lighting technology. The first deals with cost — as system retrofits can be quite expensive. Although the time needed to see the results on a company's bottom line might take longer than desired, it's your job to convince the client it will likely spend far less in the long-term due to energy bill savings and lower maintenance costs.

Beyond cost, a second factor causing companies not to move forward with the most innovative technology is that new technology is constantly introduced into the market. Some companies are anxious about installing the newest system and then a year later a new piece of technology replaces what was just installed. Your message to those naysayers should be the energy savings they'll reap now will be more favorable than what is presently installed as a system — not to mention electric utility rebate programs can help reduce their initial investment.

Good stuff, Mike.

16 Dec, 2008

The conventional knowledge about natural gas is that we aren't going to have enough of it. The solution is IMPORTS of liquefied natural gas (LNG). I've been following this issue (albeit, from a distance) for a while now.

Here is the conventional knowledge, as expressed (here) in  an article in the Sept/Oct issue of ENERGYBIZ magazine. The interviewee is Thomas F. Farrell II, the guy who runs Dominion Energy - which happens to be my local utility here in VA.

LNG is a loser. Like crude oil, it is put on ships and sailed across oceans. Like crude oil, some big piece of the world's resources (like 70%) of the stuff that becomes LNG and can come here is going to come from the Middle East. Sound familiar?

The diff: Electric utilities no longer burn crude oil to produce electricity. If coal is going to be a problem (because of pollution it causes), the utes will burn gas. They can't get enough of it, Farrell said -- which leads in the direction of IMPORTS.

14 Dec, 2008

I've been "around" the construction industry since 1979, more or less. I can't tell you how many presentations I've sat through, and how many articles I have read in magazines, AND how many I might have edited myself, on the importance of documents in the construction claims process.

Much of the stuff I've edited and/or read and/or listened-to has been about electronic instead of paper documents.

But recently I came across an article written for LAWYERS -- from Canada. Headline: "The paper trail: successful construction claims often rely on thorough documentation."

Here's how the article concludes. The piece is well worth reading!

14 Dec, 2008

At least, they are in Allegheny County, Pa. (Pittsburgh), according to the local biz weekly. 

14 Dec, 2008

The Consumer Electronics Assn. let loose last week with the news that it is partnering with "Green Life Smart Life." GLSL is "a custom green home building project." CEA and some of its manufacturer members "will be featured in real-life applications of green living."

To see the project, go to the GLSL site.

14 Dec, 2008

Headline from the 12/8 New York Times: "Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up." The lead:


Why this is relevant: I've written previously that the "green" movement engenders in me certain "I've seen all this before" feelings. That includes certain specifics, including the plummeting of prices for recyclables. Back in the mid-1990s, $ paid for recyclables plummeted. The newspaper I had founded in 1987 at the National Solid Wastes Management Association, Recycling Times, went out of business in 1997 as a result.

So I take this personally. I also know that when recyclables can't be sold off by recyclers, the incentive to collect them goes Out The Window. If the rotten price scenario is sustained (which it might well be, at least for a while) . . . we're going to suddenly be LESS GREEN.

14 Dec, 2008

S&S Electric (Oldsmar, Fla.) issued a press release about the stunning development from the IEC annual convention: Two awards. S&S took home a Residential excellence award for its work with a homebuilder in a specific development. The other award was for the S&S website.

EleBlog comments:

14 Dec, 2008

NECA posted a 726-word write-up on "How Obama's Presidency Could Impact NECA's Legislative Agenda" to its website -- where the public can see it. Among other things, the Obama administration:

14 Dec, 2008

The 10/27  issue of Engineering News-Record provided info on construction industry political contributions in 2008. Obviously, what the ENR editors had access to when writing the piece (at least one week and maybe two weeks earlier) was NOT the whole story. But here's the electrical angle:

NECA -- $553,000 in campaign contributions, with 54% going to Republican candidates. The percentage going to the GOP guys and gals in 2004 was 73%.

IBEW -- not reported for some reason.

12 Dec, 2008

Sometimes it seems to me that I've been rooting for solar photovoltaics most of my life, and the headline "solar struggles" sums up the whole period (which dates back to when I first heard about it, in the 1970s).

Solar struggles with Congress, which puts into place time-limited tax benefits. Solar struggles with return-on-investment, which isn't that good. If we as a nation (or as a planet) funded a dramatic ramp-up in solar PV cell production, the price would drop, the return-on-investment for building owners and utilities would improve, and we'd have a lot more clean energy.

But we've not done that, we've never really discussed that, and we're not on course to even THINK about it.

What occasions these words? I went looking on the FORTUNE magazine site for articles I cut out of the physical magazine on "Solar Stocks for a Rainy Day" and other articles on "green investing" from the Nov. 10 issue.

Instead, I found "No happy new year for the solar industry" -- which included this:

After grappling with a shortage of polysilicon - the base material of conventional solar cells - for the past couple years, the industry now faces falling prices. The spot market for polysilicon has plummeted 35% since October, writes HSBC alternative energy analyst Christine Wang, who predicts prices will fall 30% next year.

That’s bad news for solar module makers who locked in long-term contracts at higher prices - which looked like a smart move when polysilicon was in short supply and prices rising rapidly. “The winners will likely be the companies with competitive cost structures, scale, good product  quality, strong balance sheets, and strong customer relationships,” according to Wang. “We believe that new entrants and small players will suffer the most as they lack brand recognition.”

What about the green investing section? I couldn't find it replicated on the web, and I could not figure out the FORTUNE site's layout to find each issue of the magazine (to get to the 11/10 issue). Therefore all I can give you is is this link to the solar stocks story.

12 Dec, 2008

A study from Good Energies reportedly has results that show "benefits of building green outweigh cost premium." Several notes before you go and read it:

12 Dec, 2008

A short news item on the site of Environmental Design & Construction talks (briefly) about "the next generation of LEED credentialing," with a link for more. 

12 Dec, 2008

Speaking of The Wall Street Journal, the 11/25 issue played up (on page A3) a story with the headline, "Construction Industry Is Poised For A Rebound." The lead of the story said the industry "could be poised for a rebound under" the new President's stimulus package.

EleBlog take: It feels as if we're time traveling. This headline is from 2013.

12 Dec, 2008

Markets around the world are reeling at this moment (630am on Friday 12/12). That includes copper which, according to Kitco, seems to have dropped roughly 8 cents in the past 24 hours, to around $1.40/lb. Here are some of the things happening:

08 Dec, 2008

That's the headline on a Seeking Alpha piece (11/27) focusing on housing. 

08 Dec, 2008

The Construction Financial Management Association held a webcast on the Economic Outlook on 12/4. I've not yet listened, but I did download the slides. Eye-catching (to me) was a slide on inflation:


EleBlog take: It's impossible to disagree, but I wouldn't be all that certain that material prices STAY down.

08 Dec, 2008

From Donna Ricciardi of Eric Mower & Associates (Syracuse), which does marketing for Pass & Seymour/Legrand. I've worked with EMA in the past:


She's quoted in a brief piece in BtoB magazine.

08 Dec, 2008

My problem with the US Green Building Council and its LEED program is the priority that's put on NEW construction, and the almost total lack of attention to Existing Buildings. Folks, the Existing Buildings USE THE ENERGY. We add maybe (MAYBE) 2% to the nation's building stock every year.

In other words: If you're serious about green, you attack the buildings that are standing (and stress energy-smart retrofits, esp. including lighting -- which is widely considered to be among "the low-hanging fruit").

Instead, USGBC and its LEED program have stressed NEW buildings. The LEED-EB program exists, but is not emphasized.

Here's a fine fact to back all of that up, from a Q-and-A with a guy from CB Richard Ellis. He says:

Big frickin whoop! We've got millions of commercial buildings in existing, and maybe 1,000 have registered for LEED-EB certification.

08 Dec, 2008

"Philips Illuminates World's First LED Nation" reads the headline on a 12/2 press release.

The "nation" referenced is, I kid you not, North Dumpling Island.

Yougottabekiddingme with that name, right?

Yep. And with the release.

05 Dec, 2008

Here's what Jim Haughey, the economist at Reed Construction Data, had to say about the recent Construction Spending report (the EleBlog noted it earlier, but Jim's POV is more important):

The steep plunge in starts is partly a shock reaction to the abrupt worsening of credit conditions and the outlook for construction demand.  As always, private commercial developers reacted the quickest to the changed environment.  The value of starts for “for lease” buildings plunged 44% in October: office (-51%), retail (-42%) and hotel (-32%).  Education starts dropped only 7.0% and hospital starts increased 0.7%.

Some of the delayed private commercial projects will come off hold in the next few months as the credit market continues to improve and developers believe they have more visibility on space demand in the next few years.  Some but not most.  The AIA billings index, a measure of project design work underway fall to 36.2 in October from over 50 early in the summer. the project starts trend in clearly down through next summer even if private commercial project starts bounce up briefly during that period.

EleBlog take: I read Jim H's posts regularly, and talk about some of them here. It seems to me he's wavering with the data. He's been optimistic in some earlier posts, but this one is black. If you want to sum it up in a sentence, it's: "clearly down through next summer" in nonresidential construction.

05 Dec, 2008

Here are the month-to-month figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for "production workers" in electrical contracting. You have to multiple each cell by 1,000 to get the actual number -- which means, for October 2008, the figure was 730,900. The (p) means the 10/08 number is subject to adjustment.

If you're comparing this number to the previous post on all-construction, you'll note that "something is missing." BLS provides the numbers for subcontractors on a one-month lag. So the next report, out in early January 2009, will include a preliminary number for November 2008 and a revised ("final") number for October.

For the month of October, employment in electrical construction was down all of 2.4% from one year earlier. The industry is still doing well, as electrical contractors are STILL doing work on nonresidential construction projects begun in late 2007 and early 2008.

The question is: What will these numbers look like at this time in 2009? I can't be precise, but my bet is they are going to look A LOT WORSE.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	April	May	June	July	Aug	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Yr. Avg.
2007	708.1	701.3	705.7	716.1	727.0	742.0	752.0	746.8	746.3	748.9	740.5	739.2	731.2
2008	721.5	714.1	714.3	715.5	720.5	728.0	739.4	741.7	733.6	730.9(p)

05 Dec, 2008

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides construction industry employment data with a "lag" and a NOTE that the last two months in each report are subject to revision. With that proviso, here are the November numbers for "production employees" in construction (i.e., the gals & guys who do actual in-the-field work!):


Those figures give us a chance to take a look at JUST HOW BAD this report is for construction: November 2008 is:

05 Dec, 2008

Lots of folks have been calling a "bottom" of some sort -- in the stock market, the economic downturn, and such.

The EleBlog remains convinced that we're just getting started, especially in the "real economy" impacts of the credit cataclysm.

Here's a graphic that shows that unemployment has already exceeded the 2001 lows. Of course, you can argue that the 2001 "recession" wasn't much of a downturn. My counter to that is YES -- it wasn't much of a downturn, and NOW we're going to get a lollapalooza!

The graphic, by the way, comes from the BLS.


 (More)

05 Dec, 2008

I've been speculating, openly, that the various economic programs that are being tried (and that WILL be tried) will not work. Here's some additional evidence, if you need it, from Paul Krugman's blog:

1. Krugman's 12/4 entry: I bolded the key point --

2. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times "says big stimulus programs by debtor countries will end in tears," according to the Naked Capitalism blog: You can follow the link to see what Wolf says (and what others say). Here's the NC blogger's thinking:

03 Dec, 2008

Rapid Link Power is a product from Vanco International. I got an e-mail on it that attracted my attention, and went to the company's website. There, it says:

Application:  Provides an affordable in-wall power solution for wall mounted HDTV flat screen plasma and LCD TVs.

• Provides a complete professional installation solution                  
• Package that includes: Dual Recessed Plug-in A/C Power Outlet, Safety-Designed Recessed Plug-in A/C Power Inlet, 36” Power Cord, In-Wall PVC Electrical Boxes
• In-Wall PVC Electrical Boxes Easy and safe to install at the same time as running the A/V cables
• Offers a cost-effective way to protect expensive home theater HDTV equipment from surge damage and A/C electrical circuit when connected to a power surge/conditioner
• Perfect for retrofit construction projects
• Unique recessed power in-let wall plate eliminates the risk of electrical shock
• Complies with National Electric Code Requirements
• Requires ROMEX Electrical Wire (not included)

BUT: I went back to the e-mail and read this:

Note:
This product is not to be hard-wired directly to an electrical circuit. It is designed as an electrical plug-in device to an existing A/C grounded outlet only.
This product is rated for use with an existing outlet 15-Amp 125V grounded circuit only.
Do not put the TV power cord inside the wall or ceiling. Check with your Local Building Jurisdiction, as to permit or code requirements for installing electrical wire and outlets within a wall.

03 Dec, 2008

"The Glass Stampede" is a 7,000-word opus from New York magazine on architecture in the city of New York. There are 54 items about specific buildings (with photos). It's reproduced online WITH the photos.

I've not read it all yet, but my "skim" produced some interesting stuff:

FACT:

In the past fifteen fat years, more than 76,000 new buildings have gone up, more than 44,000 were razed, another 83,000 were radically renovated—a rate of change that evokes those time-lapse nature films in which flowers spring up and wither in a matter of seconds.

FANCY:

Leaping across Houston Street, AvalonBay leveled McGurk’s, a rickety five-story dive that in the 1890s employed whores so desperate that the place came to be known as Suicide Hall. The glass block that went up instead—Avalon Bowery Place—might not oppress its residents quite that much, but its aggressive blandness has a way of chipping at the soul.

03 Dec, 2008

Recently, TEDMAG.com posted a column on copper's price (now and future), which I wrote a few weeks ago.

This past weekend I tackled the Fortis metals monthly (11/08). On page 28 (p29 of the PDF), there's a full page on COPPER. Key sentence:

"If this recession turns out to be as dire as that in the early 1970s, when copper demand plummeted about 9% over two years, than further price falls to sub $3,000/t may be unavoidable."

$3,000/t = $3,000 per metric on = $3,000/2,250 pounds = $1.33 per pound. Copper is at $1.57/lb. right this moment.

03 Dec, 2008

I've read stories (here and there) about widespread cancellation of coal-burning power plants that were on the drawing board.

BUT WAIT: Here comes an 11/21/08 piece on power plant construction (and enviro retrofits to existing plants) from UtiliPoint's Issue Alert, in which it concluded:

• 69 coal-fired power plants either are under construction or permitting. This represents $85 billion construction expenditures. This includes 20 scrubber installations in the 2009-2010 timeframe;
• 102 existing power plants are undergoing scrubber retrofits or about $4 billion in annual environmental expenditures.

Leaving the enviro/scrubber issue alone for the moment, it would appear that a significant number (49?) of new coal-fired power plants are in the pipeline.

03 Dec, 2008

One focus in what I've tried to write about the "Green" residential construction movement is that there is too much of an emphasis on NEW construction (which is going to make up a miniscule % of the total homes in any given year, or any given 5-year period) . . . and NOT ENOUGH on existing homes.

Confirmation for this point of view comes from a letter to the editor printed in the 11/17/08 Nation's Building News:

By our early estimates, more than 50% of the total energy used in these homes is being wasted. That’s more than $135,000 a year that is lost paying for wasted electricity and natural gas.

This does not include the cost of the carbon dioxide and other pollutants that the utility is discharging into the environment for this wasted energy. Pensacola's electricity is created by coal.

02 Dec, 2008

Through 10 months of 2008 -- now officially a recession year -- total construction spending (as reported by the Commerce Department) was $906.3 billion, an estimated 5.7% below the 10-month total in 2007. Where the losses are:


Note: According to this report, Power construction was up 44% to $48.4B. Manufacturing construction was up 49%, to $50.2B. Add those together, and they come out to $98.6B, or 10.8% of the 10-month 2008 total. At the same point last year, these two together constituted 7.4% of the total.