Excerpted from a post titled "The Unclear Origins of Oil" on Kevin Kelly's CT2 (Conceptual Trends and Current Topics) blog:

Crude oil is almost $140 per barrel. By now you'd think we would know where it comes from.

The conventional wisdom is that oil descends from algae from eons ago. Lots and lots of algae. Unimaginable mounds of dead algae in quantities no longer found on this planet, pressed, and cooked into hydrocarbon liquids. Thus: fossil fuel. Others, notably the Russians, have an alternative theory that oil comes from non-biological carbon compounds deep in this planet, like the methane oceans we find on other planets.

An emerging third theory is that bacteria living within rocks produce oil.

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Excerpts from a BuildingGreen press release that's being distributed today:

Some heating fuels that used to be quite affordable, such as heating oil, have risen in price dramatically, making competing energy sources such as electricity relatively less expensive. In parts of the Northeast and Upper Midwest, even the most expensive form of electric heat — electric-resistance baseboard heat — is now less expensive than fuel oil.

The challenge in comparing fuel costs is the fact that most fuels are purchased by volume or weight, rather than energy content. It's hard to compare gallons of fuel oil with hundreds of cubic-feet (ccf) of natural gas and kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. Adding to the complexity, there are big differences in how efficiently energy sources are converted into heat and how efficiently that heat is distributed throughout a building.

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On June 20, a briefing about straw-bale construction organized by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) was held in the Russell Senate Office Building.

• Audio of the briefing (MP3)

Laura Bartels (President of GreenWeaver Inc. and member of the Builders Without Borders Building Team), Sandy Wiggins (immediate past Chairman of the Board of the USGBC), Bob Gough (Secretary of the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy), and David Eisenberg (Director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology and chair of the USGBC's Codes Committee) spoke.

• Laura Bartels presentation (PDF)
• Bob Gough presentation (PDF)
• Sandy Wiggins presentation (PDF)
• David Eisenberg presentation (PDF)

In researching Forbo's Marmoleum Composition Tile (MCT) for the July issue of EBN, I found out that the product wasn't actually all that new. We had first covered the idea of it in 1998:

"Forbo Industries also has some exciting new developments. The company is introducing a new linoleum tile this December that will be thinner (2.0 mm) and priced to compete more directly with VCT. This 13" by 13" (330 mm x 330 mm) tile is being targeted specifically toward K-12 schools." (EBN Vol. 7, No. 9)

Curious, I got in touch with Tim Cole, the director of environmental initiatives and product development for Forbo. He told me that the product met with limited success ten years ago, but that the market for environmentally friendly products had grown, particularly for schools, so MCT's chances of making it as a product now were quite good.

LEED for Schools, the Collaborative for High-Performance Schools (CHPS), and other programs are bringing green schools into the mainstream. Parents are worried about their children's exposure to chemicals at school, including those present in vinyl composition tile (VCT). Enter MCT.

In one sense, MCT is a product made mostly of marketing. It's the same material as Marmoleum, only thinner and less expensive. At the same time, MCT's similarity to VCT in size, thickness, and cost may make it more acceptable to a market that tends to stick with what it knows. The guaranteed installed cost is pretty cool, too. So maybe Forbo was just ahead of its time ten years ago, and now the time is right.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, swings and swings and swings and misses the point entirely. As do most of the comments — over 2,200 of them so far. So much darkness.

A graphic from The Oil Drum — Gigatons per Year of Cement Produced:

Quoting from the website:

Remember, in China, oil isn't used in cement production. In the "clinker" stage, it's all coal. In the blending stage it's electricity (which is generated 80% from coal in China).

And cement production in China is inefficient. There are hundreds of small plants, both wet and dry processes, and the local environmental impact is severe.

There is some interesting discussion about the chart in that site's comments.

For more about cement production and its environmental impacts, see the Environmental Building News feature, "Cement and Concrete: Environmental Considerations." Much more information about the cement industry is in BuildingGreen Suite as well.

USGBC is distributing the following email:

The USGBC public comment period for LEED 2009 will be open until this Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 5 PM PST. Any member of the public may comment on the proposed changes to LEED. USGBC will respond to all comments and post the comments and responses (without commenter names or organizations) to the USGBC Web site. If changes are made as a result of comments, a 15-day second public comment period will be conducted on those changes. The resulting draft will then be sent to USGBC membership primary contacts for ballot. Visit the public drafts page for more information and to participate.

Since the opening of the public comment period, we've gotten lots of questions about how LEED 2009 will (and won't) affect other USGBC program areas. Here are some quick facts to respond to the most frequently asked questions:

• LEED 2009 is part of LEED Version 3 (v3); LEED 2009 refers to the LEED technical rating system.
• The current versions of the LEED AP exams will be available through 2008.
• Beginning in early 2009, after the new version of LEED launches, the AP Exams will be updated to reflect the changes.
• Updated LEED Workshops that reflect LEED 2009 will be offered beginning at USGBC's annual Greenbuild Conference & Expo in Boston during November of this year.
• Projects registered under a current version of LEED will have the option of either "updating" to LEED 2009 or continuing with the system under which they originally registered.
• LEED 2009 only applies to commercial building applications and their existing rating systems (LEED for: New Construction, Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, Commercial Interiors, Schools, and Core & Shell). LEED for Homes will be updated next year for anticipated release in 2010.

Please contact leedinfo@usgbc.org with any questions. Visit the LEED 2009 page for more information.

In the process of looking into carbon calculators for buildings as a behind-the-scenes assistant, I took a short detour into the wider carbon calculator world. While construction calculators may still be rare, the Web offers a multitude of general carbon calculators for businesses and households and also specialized calculators for everything from wineries to land remediation activities. It seems everyone is getting into the act — utilities, environmental groups, oil companies, government agencies, and offset providers (especially offset providers) are all offering up their own calculators. These vary widely in their approach, scope, level of complication, rigor, transparency, visual appeal, and results — including what aspect of household or business operations is the greatest contributor to total emissions.

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