My Mcintosh Turned 30 Today!

Can it be possible? The Apple Macintosh turned 30 years old today!  I bought it when I was going on 30 years old, so, perhaps you can understand why I am nostalgic and a bit surprised.

If you watched Super Bowl XVIII between the Washington Redskins and the Los Angeles Raiders, you would have seen a boring game and one of the most compelling commercials of all time, directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed my favorite dystopian film, Blade Runner, in 1982. The commercial ended with, "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you will see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" Referring, of course, to the George Orwell classic, 1984.

What you see pictured above is my vintage 1984 Macintosh, which is still working like it did in 1984. Note the instruction manual showing how to use a mouse. It was a new invention then. Note the fonts on the screen, which had a white background, like a sheet of paper. I have since replaced it with multiple models, but I kept it because it changed everything in the tech world, which I was immersed in at the time, and I used it at a time in my midlife when everything was changing for me. 

Macintosh was my tool of choice for writing weekly newspaper and monthly magazine columns and it accompanied me to architecture school where I used it to illustrate an architecture book about Frank Lloyd Wright's formal language for one of my professors and edit the nation's first monthly sustainable architecture publications for architecture students. 

I purchased it with the proceeds from teaching beginner computer classes and royalties from my 1984 book, Personal Computers: A Complete Handbook for Beginners. The Macintosh cost $2495 in 1984 dollars and, to do any serious work, you also needed the hard drive and the equally expensive Apple dot-matrix printer. So for $5000 you could have a serviceable home computer set-up. 

Pundits of the day thought this was crazy when IBM PCs were less expensive. But PCs lacked the graphical interface, the type fonts, the mouse, and so many other cool things that I HAD to have. For that investment, you got 128 kilobyte RAM, no wireless, no Internet. By contrast, my latest computer has 125 times more RAM for less than half the cost and my phone has 5000 times more storage and is connected to everything everywhere. 

I was doing some consulting on the side for a law firm at the time and one of the partners asked about investing in Apple stock, which was at $18 per share. I said BUY! He did. I didn't. As I recall, my lawyer friend bragged about selling his 1,000 shares later at $64 per share for a gain of $46,000. APPL was down today to $546 per share. You do the math. Perhaps he should have held onto it. If he asks me again, my answer will be the same. BUY!

My Macintosh now sits on a shelf in my basement family room alongside my mother's Underwood typewriter, which also still works. Above it is a Kenwood stereo receiver purchased in 1976, which also still works - blasting through a couple of heavy Pioneer speakers of the same vintage, with an analog quality that is difficult to replicate today. I decided to switch the Kenwood on as I write this to play the top hit from January 1984: Owner of a Lonely Heart - by YES. Of course, I could have just called up iTunes or Pandora on my current iMac, but there's something about vintage electronics that appeals to me. Perhaps that is due to my vintage and my childhood memories of Dad's man cave filled with glowing tubes of radios and oscilloscopes. 

Thirty years is a very long time, but it seems like only YESterday. 

Winter Wonderland

Winter storm Euclid dumped nearly a foot of snow in my neighborhood on Wednesday, December 26, and I thought it would be fun to try to make it into the closed Indiana University campus about three miles away to get some photos during the blizzard. Much to my wife's chagrin, I decided to take my mountain bike, since my driveway and street were impassable. I assumed, correctly, that High Street would be plowed and my bike would get me there. The streets were deserted, as was campus.

 Wimbleton Lane before the plows. My mailbox on the left.

 Hoagy Carmichael keeps at the piano during the storm. 

 Jordan River in front of the Indiana Memorial Union. 

 Herman B Wells watches over Maxwell Hall and the Student Building. 

 A view of a deserted Kirkwood Avenue beyond Sample Gates.

 The Student Building through the Sample Gates. 

 Beck Chapel

Woodburn Hall

The Antidote to Despair: Moving Forward

As scientists continue to reveal new evidence of the declining state of the biophysical systems upon which we depend for our existence, the nightly news seems to reinforce the consequences of these findings. We witness an almost daily stream of bulletins about record drought, heat waves, wild fires, extreme storms, floods, extinctions, and evidence of oceans more degraded than previously thought. This knowledge of environmental degradation can lead to feelings of fear, sadness, grief and despair.

Paul Gilding, in his new book, The Great Disruption, talks about despair “as a necessary stage we must all go through when confronted by the enormity of the challenges to sustainability our society faces today. It is in fact a positive sign and an indication of coming to the end of denial. On sustainability, most people start with denial – there is no serious problem. Then comes what we’ll call ‘denial breaking down’ – a more or less intellectual acknowledgement of the science up to a point, but without fully accepting the factual implications and emotional reactions that full acknowledgement would bring. Then comes full despair, sometimes with fear and anger on the way through.”

“My conclusion,” he states, “is that feeling despair at some point means you’ve genuinely and fully acknowledged the facts.”

Gilding goes on to say, “But while despair is a stage I think we all need to arrive at, individually and collectively, it’s also one that we can and must move through.” He adds, “The easiest way to do that is to go forward. We act. We start doing things.”

Artist Chris Jordan deals with his eco-despair through his art in several journeys to Midway Island to document the effect of plastics on the albatross, but also to witness a place of great natural beauty. Don't miss his Midway Project.

Positive action, going forward, according to Gilding, is the antidote to despair and the pathway to solving the problems we face. By moving forward, we are not immobilized by feelings of grief or powerlessness. By moving forward, we don’t slide back into denial or apathy or numbness. We engage.

Part of my job involves working with 18 student sustainability interns on initiatives they lead in collaboration with various university departments and community agencies. Each has an academic mentor to guide their scientific research and each also has an operational mentor to assist with implementation of their solution on campus or in the community. Some do express feelings of fear, anger, despair and frustration with the pace of the mankind’s response to these urgent challenges. Those are the ones who understand the depth and breadth of the response that will be required to turn destruction into regeneration. Those are the ones who end up going forward and they take all of us with them.

We are recruiting the next class of sustainability interns this month, from scores of qualified applicants. They will be challenged with large, complex problems and they will find their way through. Keep an eye out for them.

In them behold the antidote to despair and a reservoir of hope for our collective future, moving forward.

Late Summer Perspective from a Mountain Pass

A mountain goat ten feet away looks up at me with curious eyes and tilted head, as if to ask, “what are you doing up here?” Behind him the horizon recedes to infinity beyond Lake McDonald, 3,300 feet below. We stand together atop Lincoln Pass in Glacier National Park, sharing a spectacular panoramic view of the Whitefish Range.

My morning hike began at the historic Sperry Chalet, a rustic stone compound that was finally opened for the summer season the day before. It had been nearly scraped off its lofty perch on Gunsight Mountain by a winter avalanche that swept an adjacent pine grove into oblivion with unimaginable force.

Fresh grizzly tracks in the snow next to mine -- perhaps left by the mother bear and her cubs spotted in the area the day before -- enhance my ability to see, hear, and smell. Every hair is on full alert. My heart and lungs labor in the high altitude. Warm sunshine takes the chill out of the breeze coming off the snowpack. Distant waterfalls, fed by hanging lakes and rapidly melting snow, whisper a background track for the bright songs of alpine sparrows and finches. Clumps of brilliant green and yellow glacier lilies push up through the snow at my feet.

No AT&T bars exist here to imprison my mind with unimportant emergencies and unnecessary information. Spared from breaking news, email, texts, and phone calls for the past few days, my mind is clear, relaxed and focused.

My surefooted companion scampers easily where I have to tread clumsily with crampons and ski poles to avoid sliding down the snowfields. His cloven hooves, evolved to spread apart and grip the snow, serve him well as he frolics in his realm without a care.

My eyes soak in a scene with infinite detail at all scales, from the luminous fractal lichens on the rocks in front of me to the layered colors of mountain ranges rolling out like waves in the distance. Some are painted with the brilliant golden light of the morning sun, while others are gently caressed by the shadows of watercolor clouds. How many thousand millennia have passed in the making of this glorious scene? No photo could ever capture the grandeur and abundance of this view. I could stand here for a lifetime and not see it all and I know it will change in the next moment.

“What am I doing here? I am trying to be present in this lovely place with you, my woolly friend. Thanks for sharing your home with me.”

The Last Spacecraft

The last shuttle, the 1985-model Atlantis, is preparing to end an era of manned space flight when it glides back to Kennedy Space Center on July 20.

Remembering the space program that grew up with my generation, I am drawn back to Christmas Eve 1968, when millions of us were glued to TV sets to watch the first humans to leave Earth’s orbit attempt to enter lunar orbit over two-hundred-million miles away aboard Apollo 8.

We Earthlings were ready for some good news. The long and divisive war in Vietnam had taken a nasty turn with the Tet Offensive. Assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy shocked our spirits. Soviet tanks put down Prague’s move toward democracy. This was a year when we were at our worst, but we still hoped for the best.

Miscalculation of complex maneuvers to leave earth orbit and later enter lunar orbit would either create another lunar crater or catapult Apollo 8 on an endless orbit around the sun. Using computing power comparable to today’s pocket calculators along with a sextant, the crew, consisting of Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, and Frank Borman, attempted to maneuver their tiny craft into position with timed rocket and thruster burns while we watched and listened.

The critical burn was made on the dark side of the moon where radio signals could not reach. It was one of the most agonizing periods of silence ever broadcast. Millions exhaled in simultaneous cheers when the crew finally resumed contact, precisely where they needed to be.

Astronaut Bill Anders loaded a handheld Hasselblad with color film and snapped an image that is forever stuck in our collective psyche; a lonely blue planet rising above the cratered gray surface against the black background of space. One space capsule took a photo of another space capsule. Both were equipped with limited capacity to support life in the hostile vacuum. One was designed to do so for 147 hours; the other for eons. One had a fixed number of three passengers; the other had 3.5 billion, which will double to 7 billion sometime this summer.

As the shuttle program ends, perhaps it is time to turn our attention to the lonely blue mother ship in that 1968 image. Another 75 million souls climb aboard each year. The gauges show the temperature is rising. Water, food, and fuel limits are becoming increasingly apparent. The O-rings and the heat shields are showing some damage.

We get one chance for a course correction and it happens on our watch. While we still have a choice, will we choose our worst, or will we choose to be our best?

What is the Most Deadly Disaster Likely to Strike Indianapolis?

What is the most deadly natural disaster likely to strike Indianapolis?

Perhaps an EF5 tornado? In a few minutes on May 23, the nation’s deadliest tornado since 1947 cut a six-mile path of destruction through Joplin, Missouri, killing 151 and causing over $3 billion in damages.

Maybe the New Madrid fault will roar back to life resulting in a major Indy earthquake?

No, the most likely deadly disaster is an extreme heat event, according to climate researcher and IUPUI Professor Daniel Johnson, who spoke at the Indiana Environmental Health Summit earlier this week in Indianapolis. (Johnson's presentation available at the link above.)

Johnson defined an extreme heat event, commonly called a “heat wave,” as a period of prolonged high ambient air temperature coupled with high humidity. In a typical year, extreme heat is the number one cause of weather-related death in North America, outpacing all other causes combined.

Famous recent extreme heat events include the Chicago heat wave of 1995 that killed more than 600 residents and prompted that city to take action. A European heat event in 2003 claimed over 40,000 lives and a Russian heat event last summer killed 56,000.

A major factor in extreme heat events is the urban heat island effect, where heavily developed areas tend to be considerably hotter than the surrounding countryside, due primarily to absorption of heat by dark, heat-absorbing roofs and dark paved surfaces. In the country, vegetation creates shade and transpires moisture for natural cooling. Other factors have to do with slow-moving weather systems and domes of stagnant air with high ground-level ozone pollution. The Chicago extreme heat event of 1995 overtaxed the Chicago region’s electrical grid, causing brownouts and blackouts that shut down air conditioners and fans.

People living in dense urban environments may be more vulnerable to extreme heat if they also lack access to transportation or air conditioning or if they have illnesses or other risk factors. Risks increase for the very young and very old and for people who live alone. Part of Johnson’s research is to map these “socially vulnerable” populations in relation to urban hot spots to show areas of greatest risk of mortality. This type of mapping can be used to target areas for mitigation of the urban heat island effect and to inform emergency planning for socially vulnerable populations.

Johnson predicted an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events, due to climate change, the most direct effect of which is increased heat. Scientists at Stanford reinforced that prediction this week announcing research that suggests permanently hotter summers are on the way. A 2007 study (PDF) by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change found a similar connection between climate change and increasing frequency and severity of heat waves in the Midwest. The Union of Concerned Scientists published a report (PDF) in 2009 with implications for the Midwest with continued warming under various emissions scenarios, including an analysis for Indianapolis (see graph below).

Extreme heat events are particularly problematic in temperate climates, such as Indiana, where the population may not be acclimated to heat, especially earlier in the summer. As if to reinforce Johnson’s presentation, one of those early season events occurred this week when Minneapolis set a record of 103 degrees, causing I-95 to buckle in nine locations. Twenty-five other cities reported record highs. Fortunately, this week’s event was cut short by a cold front.

Johnson showed maps of Indianapolis with areas of increasing heat island effects as urban sprawl spread over the past few decades, but the maps also showed areas where the effect had been reversed in neighborhoods with aggressive tree planting programs.

Other mitigation strategies for the urban heat island effect include using heat reflective or vegetated roofs, shading paved areas, using light-colored paving and preserving or restoring open space. In addition to potentially saving lives, urban heat island mitigation can also conserve energy and water, clean the air, and make cities more beautiful and livable.

These urban heat island mitigation strategies will be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, however, unless we begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically. In the future, it may no longer be accurate to refer to extreme heat events as "natural" disasters.

Arborgeddon in the Year of the Tornado

May 25, 2011, will be remembered in Bloomington for seven tornado warnings, one tornado and hundreds of toppled trees. Watching radar, listening for sirens, and heading for the basement were part of the routine here. Thirteen tornadoes touched down in Indiana. At one point a line of severe thunderstorms ran the length of the state and each had an associated tornado warning as I watched on RadarScope.

Thousands lost power and traffic was snarled the next day due to dead traffic signals and trees strewn across city streets. A tornado touched down on the southwest side of town along Highway 45 and wrecked a mobile home park, among other structures. A linear swath of severe damage went from Walmart at Hwy 45 and Hwy 37 all the way through town and through the IU campus. Amazingly, nobody was killed or critically injured. As I write this, three days later, many still are without electricity.

An estimated 300 trees were destroyed on campus and hundreds more have missing limbs.

Dunn's Woods, which fills the old quadrangle, was impassable due to fallen trees and limbs.

Student Legal Services, across 7th Street from the IMU and Dunn Meadow, took a direct hit, illustrating that street trees with limited room for spreading roots are particularly vulnerable to high winds.

This fence at the north side of the tennis courts south of Woodlawn field illustrates the force of the wind, which bent over 2-inch steel support posts.

A typical scene looking east from Woodlawn Field jogging path toward Arboretum (note Wells Library in background).

While some students who ignored the sirens reported harrowing near misses from falling trees along 10th Street, there were no serious injuries. One Campus Division employee I spoke to, who had been with the university for 32 years, said he had never seen anything like the tree damage this storm wrought. Generally, campus buildings held up well.

While not half through, 2011 is already being billed as "The Year of the Tornado." According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with records like the most severe thunderstorm wind reports on record (April 4), largest tornado outbreak on record (April 26-28 - which killed 321 people), and most tornadoes in a month (April, 875 tornadoes - previous monthly record for any month was May 2003, with 542 tornadoes). The Joplin EF-5 tornado was the deadliest since 1947 and 2011 overall has seen the most tornado deaths since 1953. For the year, we have had 1,314 tornadoes so far and the record for a year is 1,817, set in 2004. The average year sees 1,274 tornadoes.

As the May 25 storms here illustrate, we have much better warning systems in place now than existed 50 years ago. I received a cell phone warning from IU prior to every tornado warning, my iPad and iPhone both gave me push notices from The Weather Channel for every storm, TV and radio stations sounded emergency warnings, and even if all that wireless technology was not working, I could hear all of the sirens.

Many of the 132 people who perished in Joplin had warnings but lacked adequate storm shelter for a tornado with 200-plus miles-per-hour winds. If you don't have a basement, it may be worth investigating a simple storm shelter that can be placed in your garage slab or a kevlar and steel above-ground shelter that can be installed in an existing home. Our home in Evansville had an above-ground storm safe room with reinforced concrete floor, walls and ceiling, that also functioned as a spare bedroom during normal weather. Although we have a basement in our Bloomington home, I was missing that comfortable, quiet, secure above-ground room on Wednesday. Our next house will have one.

The Business Case for Solar Energy In Indiana

Motoring north along I-465 on the west side of Indianapolis, you may notice a large solar photovoltaic installation on the south side of an office and warehouse at 5925 Stockberger Place. The new corporation behind this installation is Energy Solutions by JMS, which is a partnership of a mechanical contractor, Johnson Melloh Solutions, and architecture and engineering firm, Schmidt Associates.

A freestanding aluminum frame angled toward the sun supports the array of Onyx solar panels, which will soon be manufactured in Columbus by NuSun, Inc.

Central Indiana receives an average 4.2 hours of sunlight per day, allowing this 100-kilowatt capacity solar photovoltaic array to produce 132 mega-watt-hours of electricity per year, which is more than this 12,000 square-foot building uses. Excess energy produced on sunny days can be sold back to IPL for credits that can be banked for times when the sun isn’t shining. No batteries required.

According to Mike Gardner of Energy Solutions (formerly Vice President for Operations at Butler University) the system cost approximately $500,000 installed. After the owners take a 30% Federal tax credit and a special accelerated depreciation for solar renewable energy, the net cost of the system is about $220,000. These tax incentives will expire at the end of this year unless extended once again.

Indianapolis Power and Light (IPL) is offering $0.20 to $0.26 per kilowatt-hour feed-in tariff for excess electricity sold back to the grid, but Energy Solutions declined that arrangement, which would have transferred their right to sell solar renewable energy credits (SRECS) on the open market to IPL. SRECs are currently selling for about $0.30 per kilowatt-hour. While there is no guarantee that SRECs will hold that rate, Energy Solutions sees it as a good opportunity to gain experience in this market to better guide their customers and they think these rates may increase substantially. They can also sell excess power back to the grid, thanks to net metering offered by IPL, an arrangement that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is considering for other public utilities in Indiana.

“The bottom line,” according to Gardner, “is that the system will pay for itself in about five and a half years.” After that, Energy Solutions pays nothing, but they may still be able to sell about $40,000 worth of SRECs per year and also enjoy 132 megawatt-hours of free electricity per year, for at least the 25-year warrantee period of the panels. As electricity prices continue to climb, this idea will only shine brighter.

Pedaling Into the Friendly Future Together

What unlikely 19th century invention can help fight obesity, traffic congestion, climate change, and our dependence on foreign oil?

On a typical day, about 1,800 of these human-powered vehicles head to the Indiana University campus from points all over Bloomington and its suburbs. Hundreds more ride bikes on campus and park in over 3,400 bike rack slots. While many of these cyclists are students, about 10% of faculty and staff also ride bikes to work at IU. About 70% of faculty, staff and students live within three miles of campus, which is a pleasant 15-minute fat-burning commute by bike. If these 1,800 people drove their cars, four Henderson parking garages or 14 acres of surface parking would be required, and the streets to campus would receive a parade of cars six miles long.

Most of the new buildings on campus are designed to accommodate bicycle commuters with secure bike parking, showers and changing rooms. IU Bloomington’s new Campus Master Plan outlines recommendations to improve campus bicycle circulation along with associated amenities.



The 61st running of the Little 500 is next weekend and it’s hard to go anywhere without encountering a colorful bike team in training. The Academy-Award-Winning movie that celebrated Bloomington’s love affair with the bicycle, “Breaking Away,” will be featured this month at the fabulous IU Cinema.

Against this backdrop, it is perhaps no surprise that Indiana University was one of the first 20 universities in America to be selected as a Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists. The campus follows the lead of the city of Bloomington, which was the first Bicycle Friendly Community in Indiana.

Representatives of the League of American Bicyclists, including Bill Nesper, Director of the Bicycle Friendly America program, will visit Bloomington next week to celebrate our collective bicycle friendliness. Around since the dawn of the two-wheeler in 1880, the League promotes bicycling, educates cyclists and motorists, and advocates on behalf of cyclists with legislators across the United States. Its Bike Friendly America Blueprint provides guidance on engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation to improve bicycle transportation.

IU students, faculty and staff, with a common interest in safe and convenient bicycling, are forming a Bicycle Friendly University Steering Committee. There’s much work to be done in all five of the E’s mentioned above, but this award provides some tailwind and a roadmap. The campus team can also draft behind the success of the city team as they ride to a safer, cleaner, healthier, less congested community together. Let’s ride!

Own a Piece of the Sun

Tensions are rising in the Middle East as oil-powered dictatorships unravel. Gas prices at the pump are the highest they have ever been this time of year. The new coal-fired Edwardsport power plant may drive up electric rates by double digits over the next five years. Extraction, refining, shipping and combustion of fossil fuels degrade our health and the regenerative capacity of the natural systems that keep us alive. If only we had an alternative to our deadly addiction to fossil fuels.

Enter the sun, a fusion nuclear reactor safely parked 93 million miles away that each hour bathes the earth in enough free energy to equal all the energy used by man in a year. The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet each year is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth’s non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas and mined uranium combined.

You can grab your piece of this free energy bonanza with off-the-shelf hardware to power your home and electric automobile. For about the cost of an in-ground pool or cinema room or speedboat bobbing at the marina, your home and car can become your own power plant and vehicle fueling station.

Solar photovoltaic panels convert sunlight into electricity with no moving parts and they are typically guaranteed for at least 25 years. Electricity from a solar array can be used in the home and any excess can be sold back to the utility company at the same price you pay for it. Your utility provides a credit for excess power you produce that can be applied to months when the meter is spinning in their favor. Lincoln Heritage Public Library’s 2400-square-foot Chrisney branch library, in Spencer County, is completely powered by the sun and it produces about 1800 kilowatt-hours more electricity than it uses each year with its 8.9-kilowatt solar array. They have never paid an electric bill. The all-electric building is heated and cooled using a ground-source heat pump with two vertical wells.

A well-insulated, energy efficient three-bedroom home with ground-source heat pump can be designed in Bloomington to be net-zero-energy with an 8.5-kilowatt solar array with enough extra juice to charge an electric vehicle, like the Nissan Leaf, for 12,000 miles per year.

The electric car would require about three 200-watt panels, which would add about $2000 to the system. Compare this investment to the cost of fuel for a conventional compact car driven an average 12,000 miles per year getting 30 miles-per-gallon at $3-per-gallon and you get an annual fuel cost of $1200 for a conventional vehicle, not including oil changes. In other words, sometime during the second year, you would break even and your fuel is free for the next 23 plus years of the guaranteed life of the solar panels. If gas stays at $3 per gallon for the next 25 years, you would realize $30,000 in fuels savings and smile past the gas pump over 1000 times.

Net cost for a net-zero-energy home and car solar power system described above would be about $47,600 after the 30% federal tax credit. This example would allow you to sell approximately $2200 worth of solar renewable energy certificates and keep about 14,500 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year.

Solar panels may not be as sexy as that swimming pool, cinema room or speedboat, but the payback on investment is much greater and the peace of mind you will experience for the next 25 years of energy independence will be priceless.

One Million Electric Vehicles by 2015: Good News or Bad?

More than twenty manufacturers are poised to offer plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, like the Chevy Volt, and plug-in battery-electric vehicles, like the Nissan Leaf, in 2011 or 2012. A few of these cars are beginning to roll off dealer lots into the electrified garages of early adopters, assisted by tax incentives of up to $7,500. The race is on to see which country will dominate this new transportation frontier. The Obama administration set a goal of one million plug-in electric vehicles on U.S. highways by 2015.

This may be good news for energy security if electric cars can ease our dependence on imported fuel, which currently accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. supply. If the U.S. takes a leading role in the development of electric vehicles, Indiana could see a rejuvenation of its manufacturing sector, which includes a number of electric vehicle assembly and component manufacturers. In concert with a smarter grid and cleaner sources of electricity, electric vehicles hold the promise of significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Most electric vehicles chargers are designed to delay charging to coincide with off-peak hours and many utility companies offer lower off-peak rates to encourage this behavior. Smart grid technology combined with smart vehicle and smart home technology may make it possible to utilize this extra nighttime capacity and may also provide the option for vehicle-to-grid flow of electricity during peak times. Used vehicle batteries, which retain about 80% of their capacity, may also provide storage for alternative energy systems like wind and solar power to further level the peaks and reduce the need for new power plants.

Battery-only electric vehicles have zero emissions at the bumper. The emissions occur at the point of electricity generation. Charged by electricity generated with the average national fuel mix for electric power generation, which is slightly less than half coal, these cars have significantly less overall emissions than gasoline combustion vehicles and even conventional hybrids like the Prius.

Unfortunately, that math doesn’t work in Indiana where approximately 94 percent of electricity is generated by coal. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, nearly half of Indiana power plant coal is imported from other states, mostly Wyoming, relying on diesel fuel for mining, processing, disposal and transport. Both of these high-carbon fuels are subject to rising global supply and demand concerns, rapidly rising costs, increasing risk of carbon legislation, and detrimental health and environmental consequences.

According to a recent study by an expert panel commissioned by Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a 2007 joint study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council, a conventional Prius gas hybrid would currently trump an all-electric Leaf in terms of greenhouse gas emissions in Indiana and a handful of other coal-dependent states.

To realize the full promise of electric vehicles and the smart grid, and to secure its future, Indiana must move aggressively to diversify its renewable energy portfolio. Major wind installations are a good start, but Indiana will need legislative incentives, at least as robust as surrounding states, to encourage renewable energy development and reduce its exposure to the significant health, environmental, economic, and compliance risks associated with having all of its energy eggs in one coal bucket.

While we await progress on this legislative imperative, it is currently possible to have a home in Indiana powered completely by renewable energy, with the extra capacity to charge an electric vehicle. See my next column to learn how to supply your power, heating and cooling, and transport needs at home with current technology.

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Sidebar: An expert panel, commissioned by the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, spent the last year surveying the electric vehicle horizon. Their timely 80-page report, Plug-in Electric Vehicles: A Practical Plan for Progress, released earlier this month, addresses the barriers to the million electric vehicle goal and associated interrelated strategies that would contribute to success. http://www.indiana.edu/~spea/news/tep_press_release.shtml

Ten Strategies to Beat High Gas Prices

Some experts, including AAA and the US Department of Energy, warn of a potential summer rerun of July 2008 gas prices, when the national average reached $4.11 per gallon. Remember outraged citizens demanding suspension of gas taxes, prosecution of oil companies, and the call to “drill here, drill now?” SUV sales plummeted along with the stock value of their manufacturers. Toyota Priuses were snapped up with long waiting lists, while Hummers became white elephants and eventually were discontinued. Rural housing demand dropped as shorter commutes became popular.

Many have apparently already forgotten 2008. The Washington Post reported that sales of mid-size sport utility vehicles jumped 41 percent in the first 11 months of 2010, led by vehicles like the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which average about 18 miles per gallon.

A number of signs indicate, however, that the days of cheap gasoline may be over. In 2010, Chinese auto sales rose nearly 50% to 13.6 million vehicles and China became the world's biggest auto market by units sold and the second largest importer of oil, behind us. The 2010 IEA World Energy Outlook noted that global conventional oil production peaked in 2006. Generally speaking, when demand exceeds supply, prices trend upward.

Consider these ten actions you can take now to reduce your risks of higher fuel costs while also reducing environmental impact, improving your quality of life, and enhancing national energy security:

1. Trade for a fuel-efficient, alternative-fuel or electric vehicle. Surviving manufacturers have ramped up their offerings of vehicles that get more than 30 miles per gallon. Check out fueleconomy.gov.
   
2. Move closer to your work, school, and essential services. Evaluate potential locations using walkscore.com, transit maps, and bike route maps.
   
3. Carpool. If you can’t move or you don’t want to trade your Yukon Denali, carpool with friends. If you attend or work for a university or a large corporation, they may have a carpool program with perks like special parking spots and free rides home for family emergencies. For students, faculty and staff at Indiana University, carpools get a discounted parking pass and a marked spot near the door, and you can find a carpool match with zimride.com.
4. Drive less. Consolidate trips. Plan ahead.
5. Let your fingers do the driving via your computer keyboard or cell phone. Sign up for online bill paying and banking.
   
6. Slow down - each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas.
7. Service your vehicle regularly. Keep your engine tuned, your filters clean, your tires properly inflated and use the recommended grade of oil. This could save you 10% of your fuel bill.
   
8. Enjoy the bus or shuttle. Text or read safely while somebody else drives. IU students, faculty and staff can get a pass for the entire campus/city bus system. K-12 students get a free ride in those cool yellow buses. Teach your children how to ride the bus or walk or bike to school. Bloomington Shuttle buses operate on a regular schedule between Bloomington and Indianapolis International Airport.
   
9. Telecommute. Ask your employer about their policy. Utilize online virtual meeting software or conference calls to cancel some of your road trips.
10. Use muscle power. Bike, walk, jog or skate and enjoy the great outdoors in better health. Get your workout and your commute done at the same time, for free. Progressive employers provide perks like secure bike storage, showers and changing rooms.
    

Learn to thrive within your means, while others curse forces they deem beyond their control.

The Impossible Library - Revisited

Four years ago, a majority of the 540 residents of Chrisney, Indiana decided they wanted their own public library branch their kids could walk to after school. They had no money to build a library, no viable existing buildings or partnerships for a shared storefront library, their public library district refused to support capital or operating costs for a new branch and the town had no money or bonding capacity for the project. The local school district cited legal risks in sharing the Chrisney Elementary Library media center with the public. If the folks in Chrisney wanted library service, they had to drive about 25 miles round trip. Andrew Carnegie would be appalled, but this is becoming common throughout rural America as consolidation of public schools and libraries is the norm to save property tax money.

But this was clearly a town that was not willing to give up on an idea they deemed critical to their civic identity and the quality of their children’s future. I was repeatedly amazed to see a quarter of their population show up for planning meetings. As the architect performing their feasibility study, my brain said “this is impossible, walk away” while my heart said “there’s got to be a way to pull this off.” The way was clear - build a new library with virtually no operating costs.

After months of consideration, the North Spencer County School Corporation agreed to donate an ideal one-acre site with street frontage that also backed up to Chrisney Elementary School’s wooded outdoor learning lab. The town sweetened the deal by offering to provide free sewer and water service and site maintenance for the life of the building. Over 100 local residents signed up to volunteer at the service desk of the new library. This was a deal too good for the Lincoln Heritage Public Library to refuse and they agreed to accept a new net-zero-energy library branch from the Town of Chrisney, should they succeed in finding capital funding for such a facility, without relying on the bonding capacity of the LHPL. And, oh yeah, there’s that net-zero-energy thing.

All that remained was coming up with an affordable design for a solar-powered public library, funding it, bidding it, and building it. No precedent existed.

Undaunted, my team at my former employer, Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf Architects, designed a net-zero-energy library and the Town of Chrisney applied for an Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs grant that provided the bulk of the funding for this $478,000 project. The community raised $66,000 for their local match in an incredible six weeks. This illustrates, I think, a little-known fact – community buildings that push the clean technology envelope in the pursuit of education are grant magnets.



An 8.9-kilowatt grid-tied photovoltaic system (just under Indiana’s worst in the nation net metering limit of 10 kilowatts) was designed to produce more than enough power for this all-electric building that employs geothermal heating and cooling and old-fashioned passive solar design. Transparent solar panels roof the Learning Power Pavilion that provides an outdoor classroom for the elementary school’s outdoor learning lab.

Did it live up to the hype? Does this little library really produce as much electricity at it uses?

A year has passed since the library opened and I was anxious to see how it had performed in its first full year with real people, real plug loads and real weather, which included a brutally cold winter. I asked for the first year’s utility bills.

Every electric bill for the full year came up with $0 due and all had a net credit! They actually generated over 1800 kilowatt hours more than they used. No gas bill. No water bill. No sewer bill. The town maintains the site. The library district provides a librarian. The elementary school students stroll across school property to get there. Everybody wins.



Sometimes it pays for small towns to dream big. Sometimes that is the only feasible way. Just ask the parents reading with their kids in Chrisney Branch Library.

Why Conserve Water?

A local journalist recently asked me, “Why conserve water here in South Central Indiana when we have an unlimited supply?”
It is indeed comforting to have a 10,750-acre reservoir in our back yard and 44 inches of annual rainfall. Water conservation was not a consideration in Atlanta, either, prior to their historic drought in 2008. When the water level of their 38,000-acre Lake Lanier dropped 21 feet, revealing the foundations of houses that had been torn down in the 1950s to make way for the reservoir, water conservation suddenly became an issue. Even if we manage to dodge the drought bullet, wasting water does come at an increasing cost, including some costs we rarely consider.
One hidden cost associated with water use is the amount of energy we use to pump, filter, heat, cool and retreat water before putting it back into the water cycle. When the City of Indianapolis began investigating their energy use and their greenhouse gas emissions, they were surprised to discover that their second largest electrical energy cost was for pumping water. Heating hot water can account for as much as a third of home energy bills. Chlorine and other chemicals required to filter and treat potable water and sewage constitute another hidden cost.
For Indiana University Bloomington, where 11,000 students reside on campus, water use is a $3.4 million annual cost (combined water, sewer, and storm water), not counting the substantial energy cost of pumping and heating water. Although campus building area increased by 480,000 square feet since 2004, water use has been reduced by over 24% through simple but effective conservation programs initiated by IU Physical Plant, saving millions of dollars that can be spent on educating students.
The greatest associated cost of wasted water may well be the environmental and health costs of pollution associated with fossil fuel combustion, which provides the energy to pump, process, and heat our water. We all pay these costs indirectly. Air and water pollution already impact the quality of our water supply. Climate change, population growth, and increasing consumption will provide increasing stress to our water quality and quantity and make it necessary for all of us to work together to conserve this critical life-supporting resource.
“When oil runs out, motors stop. When water runs out, life stops.”
Turkish official

Linchpin Driven to Switch

I enjoyed Spring Break in exotic, sunny Bloomington where I decided to catch up on my reading. So what does a professional change agent who leads and teaches organizational change read for fun? Uh, books about change management? Yes! And I have three current bestsellers you must read if you want to boost your horsepower as a catalyst for change, even if the target of that change is yourself.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard – Chip Heath and Dan Heath

You have probably already read the Heath brothers’ first bestseller, Made to Stick. If not, you may want to grab that to find out why some great ideas stick and others don’t. Their new book surpasses that essential first hit. In Switch, they use an analogy for our brain function that says we all have an emotional component, the Elephant, and a rational component, the Rider. They argue convincingly, referring to research and anecdotes, that both have to be reached to affect real change. They suggest techniques to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path using examples of successful change efforts around the world. This book is essential if you are trying to change your own behavior or perhaps that of a major university.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Daniel H. Pink

Pink returns! No . . . not her. I’m talking about Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and now another bestseller, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. So, you think external rewards are the best way to motivate ourselves and others? Pink says that’s a mistake and he has plenty of research to back up his assertion that the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Intrinsic motivation trumps extrinsic motivation. In his words, “we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice – doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.” He examines three elements of true motivation – autonomy, mastery and purpose (AMP) and offers a practical toolbox of techniques to put these into action.

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? – Seth Godin

Seth Godin’s previous bestsellers, like Purple Cow, The Dip and Tribes are among the most dog-eared books on my shelf but this one is a level of magnitude more important than those previous jolts of inspiration. This book is about finding one’s unique value in a rapidly changing world where none of the old rules seem to apply. If you are just showing up for work, you are replaceable. He argues that we all need to become artists that do “emotional labor” whether we are waiting tables or bagging groceries or working for a major university. We need to be creative, passionate and personal, and we need to “bring our gifts to work” no matter what our job description. Godin finds indispensability at the intersection of dignity, generosity and humanity and he believes we all have an artist within. He suggests that our resistance from expressing our artist within is coming from our “lizard brain” which is full of fear of risk (the Heath’s Elephant) and he provides strategies for overcoming that resistance.

These three have considerable overlap and, especially when read together, they make a great Swiss Army knife for personal and organizational change management and an elephantine motivational kick to the lizard brain. Read them and become driven to switch to indispensability.

Back to the Future

You may have noticed less frequent postings to this blog lately. Allow me to explain. My spare time has been focused over the past few months on a quest to become the first Director of Sustainability at Indiana University and making the transition from one career to another. I start that new career on Monday.

For me this is a return to the beautiful Bloomington campus where I first learned about the foundational ecological concepts that guided my career as an architect and led me to focus on the sustainable design of buildings and communities. The Indiana University Task Force on Sustainability has been busy the past two years formulating a road map for a more sustainable campus and I am anxious to catalyze the implementation of that exciting strategic plan in collaboration with a cast of thousands. This is also an opportunity for me to teach, learn, lead, research and write in a career where my personal mission and what I get paid to do are in complete alignment. That is a my definition of a dream job.

Stay tuned as I head back to the future and attempt to have as much positive impact on my alma mater as it has had on me.

Ball State University Going Geothermal to Slash Their Carbon Footprint in Half

Ball State University's Board of Trustees voted Friday to cut their campus carbon footprint in half by investing in the largest university geothermal heating and cooling system in the country in lieu of a proposed upgrade of their coal-fired boiler plant.

Four coal-fired boilers will be taken off line in two phases saving $2 million and 85,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. In addition, the switch will place BSU on the positive side of the proposed carbon cap and trade economy where they will be able to sell carbon credits and they will have greater immunity to volatile fossil fuel prices and new EPA regulations for coal-fired plant emissions, according to their news release.

To finance this bold plan, BSU plans to use $41.8 million already in hand that was previously approved for boiler replacement and apply it to the new geothermal proposal. The proposed system will be phased in and will be partially paid for with savings. It may also be poised for some of the federal stimulus package money as a "shovel ready" project. Speaking of shovels, to provide enough heat transfer capacity to heat and cool 40 buildings on campus, they will need 3,750 boreholes 400 feet deep. This is not a well system, but a closed-loop system that uses the earth as a heat sink and does not tap into water supplies like an open-well system. Borrowing heat from the earth and using it for cooling requires a fraction of the energy needed to generate heat and cooling using conventional methods.

Ball State University President Jo Ann M. Gora was a Charter Signatory to the American College & University President's Climate Commitment, which now includes 609 institutions representing over 30% of our nation's college student population. Under her visionary leadership, BSU has been a national leader in convening events for collaboration among colleges and universities to promote more sustainable campuses and curricula to deal with climate change. Robert Koester, AIA, LEED AP, Director of the BSU Center for Energy Research, Education, & Service and Chair of the BSU Committee on the Environment has been a pioneer in the campus sustainability movement and the driving force behind their important Greening of the Campus Conferences.

As an alumnus of Ball State University, I could not be happier with this strategic direction. It seems every time I pick up a publication that is describing the tsunami that is the campus sustainability movement, Ball State is named as an exemplary example. See the National Wildlife Federation's outstanding Campus Ecology publication, for example. One of the many benefits of this strategy is to attract the best and brightest students and faculty. A recent survey by the Princeton Review, which now issues Green Scores for campuses, noted that 63% of college candidates consider campus sustainability as an important part of their college decision process. In addition, this strategy represents a smart investment with a guaranteed return due to avoidance of rising utility and regulatory costs for fossil fuels. Finally, it transforms the University into a learning lab where theory becomes reality and the economic, social and environmental bottom line is all positive. I can easily imagine business classes where undergrads are learning about the advantages of clean renewable energy by looking at their university's own high-performance energy systems and comparing the costs and benefits verses conventional systems. Everybody wins, including Indiana taxpayers, and creative brain power triumphs over bureaucratic inertia.

Allow me to suggest a next step: create a for-profit consortium to build a large wind farm with the capacity to offset the campus electrical load, with reserves to provide for future growth and to provide a carbon neutral campus. Indiana has significant wind capacity, as already demonstrated in six counties and it is poised to be the 15th state in terms of total wind power capacity when all the wind projects in development are completed. The Cardinal Power consortium would be able to leverage the new tax incentives and carbon cap and trade credits for the next twenty years while it sells electricity to the University for an attractive 20-year fixed rate. After that period, the University owns the wind farm and essentially has no need to buy fuel, assuming they have converted their entire campus fleet to electric vehicles by then. Outrageous? Twenty colleges and universities have already invested in wind power and several others are utlizing large-scale solar electric systems. If BSU combines renewable energy with building energy efficiency upgrades, they could have excess power to sell to help pay for more interesting things, like reduced tuition and increased pay for employees.

What is outrageous in these rapidly changing times is business as usual. As longshoreman, philosopher, author and self-educated Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Eric Hoffer said, "In times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." Congratulations to Ball State University for leading America's colleges and universities to a more sustainable future.

Building Dashboard for the Whole Elon University Campus Helps Save Energy

Elon University, located in Elon, North Carolina in the Piedmont region east of Greensboro, has just over 5000 students who know to the watt how much energy they are using at any given moment. EU realized that if you want to change something, you typically will have more success if you have a method to measure your progress (like my bathroom scale and my diet). Trying to teach students and faculty how their activities and habits affect electricity and water usage is greatly enhanced when everyone has a public scoreboard to help them keep score. It also helps to keep score when you are involved in a residence hall energy conservation competition, which is another use for the Elon University Building Dashboard.

You can see other campus dashboards at Lucid Design Group's web site.

Fasten Your Seatbelt and Prepare For a Soft Green Miracle Landing in 2009

One prediction for 2009 that I'm sure will be true is it will be a very interesting year. We have a new president taking office amid a perfect storm of foreign and domestic problems of epic magnitude on our hot, flat and crowded world. Add several hundred billion in new federal funding and tax breaks to attempt to stem the most pressing of those problems and you have a recipe for even more historic excitement than we had in 2008.

We will need some more miracles like the Miracle on the Hudson, where outliers with 19,000 hours of experience use all their training and skills to calmly produce excellent outcomes while facing grave consequences. Perhaps we will find a way to a soft landing on smooth water. Fasten your seat belts! It may be a wild ride.

Locally, it is also shaping up as an interesting year as the Indiana legislature considers how to build a balanced budget around dwindling tax revenue as the farm ponds aren't the only things freezing up and the temperature gauges aren't the only things going down.

In the realm of moving from brown to green, this would seem to be an unlikely time for progress for sustainability, but there may be an opening in the form of all that cash that Congress may be about to print to fund the economic stimulus bill. Among the programs that would be funded, if Congress acts in accord with the new administration, are incentives to encourage renewable energy, green buildings, green job training, building energy retrofits, electrical transmission grid upgrades, mass transit infrastructure, and basic research, to name a few. Add to that mix proposed legislation for a national renewable energy portfolio, minimum national energy code standards, more stringent enforcement of air pollution rules, and a carbon cap and trade system and you have stimulus for unprecedented change in a state that is 96% dependent on coal for electric power and where our energy code is the most outdated in the nation.

Three events coming to Indianapolis in the next few months will attempt to make some sense of these dynamic challenges and opportunities and they all have a decidedly green tint. First up is the Indianapolis Business Journal's Power Breakfast Series: Going Green event on February 13 at the Weston Downtown, Indianapolis. This popular series is always well attended but this year should sell out early due to the mix of environmental and business expertise focused on questions like, "What are the main elements of Barack Obama's environmental agenda and what are the chances they will become law? What have we learned about Green buildings and LEED-certified projects? What are the implications for business of CO2 restrictions?"

Next up is the popular IU Kelly School of Business Annual Business Conference on March 11 at the Indiana Convention Center featuring energy guru Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and climate change activist, author, professor Bill McKibben, and editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, Susan Dentzer, moderated by New York Times columnist and author David Brooks. The theme is the storm of change facing health care, energy and the environment in 2009. After the three subject matter experts speak, chief executive officers of three major corporations that are known for their responsible approaches to energy use, the environment and employee health care will talk about how their companies are addressing these issues.

Later that week, on March 12 and 13th the third annual Indiana Building Green Symposium will take place at the Indianapolis Museum of Art with the theme: Think Green. Headlining this event is architect Ed Mazria who wrote "the bible of passive solar design" but is best known today as the creator of the 2030 Challenge, which calls for signatories to design only carbon neutral buildings by 2030. Those signatories include the American Institute of Architects, the U. S. Green Building Council, the U. S. Conference of Mayors, and the State of Illinois among many others. Leith Sharp, the sustainability director at Harvard University from 2000 to 2008 will tell how she built the nation's premier campus sustainability program from scratch and how Indiana's colleges and universities can follow her lead, saving millions of pounds of carbon and millions of dollars along the way.

Not a bad lineup for the first quarter. Fasten your seat belts! We may be in for a wild ride.

Seven Surefire Steps to Passing the LEED AP Exam

A LEED Accredited Professional is someone who has passed an 80-question multiple choice exam which tests their ability to apply the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System™. Currently three versions of the exam exist, for New Construction, Existing Buildings and Commercial Interiors. New exams are under development and major changes to the rating system and the accreditation process will come on line later in 2009. LEED for New Construction (LEED NC) is the original system and the mother of all the others.

Since I became the second Hoosier to pass the LEED AP exam, it has gotten harder, but there are many more people taking the exam now as LEED has become the standard metric of achievement for green buildings. There are more LEED APs in Indiana now (675) than there were in all of America then (500). Currently more than 65,000 LEED APs exist in the world and the pace of accreditation is accelerating. I have had numerous requests to teach people how to pass the exam since 2001, including a request from an engineering firm in Dubai (signs of Peak Oil?). Since USGBC is coming out with a new series of exams this year, I have gotten a lot more requests than usual lately for tips on how to pass the old exam before the new ones (presumably harder) come on line. If you pass the current exam, you will not have to take the new exam. You will be a Legacy AP. You will, however, have to eventually sign an ethics agreement and maintain your credentials through continuing education once the new system is up an running. You have until March to register and until May to take the old exam. If you wait, you will have the opportunity to take exams for the LEED for Homes or LEED for Neighborhood Development rating systems later this year as well as newer versions of the three exams currently available.

I have happily offered my services as a teacher on an almost voluntary basis (I typically teach this course one-on-one over a decent long lunch) for dozens of would be LEED APs over the years, including an energy guru of a multi-billion dollar real estate investment company and a facility official for a large higher education institution.

Some people drop up to $1400 attending all-day workshops, webinars, fancy flash cards and computer software, but I recommend some old-fashioned methods that are relatively inexpensive but involve some good old-fashioned hard work. So far, nobody that I coached one-on-one has failed to pass when they followed my:

SEVEN SUREFIRE STEPS TO PASSING THE LEED AP EXAM

1. COMMIT: Chisel an exam date in stone. Register. Put money on the line. Tell your family and co-workers. Post the date over your desk and your refrigerator and your bathroom mirror. Get a t-shirt printed with LEED AP OR BUST! on it. Whatever works for you. The point is, COMMIT! Don't stretch this out forever. Set the date for no more than six to eight weeks out (I have coached some successful candidates who only had two weeks to prepare, but I wouldn't recommend it). More than eight weeks invites procrastination. Start your journey by going to the Green Building Certification Institute and read the LEED AP Candidate Handbook. Do this before the next moonrise.

2. READ: Buy a copy of the LEED NC Reference Guide (unless you are an operations and maintenance professional or an interior designer, this is probably the version of the test you will take). This is the only big dollar investment other than your testing fee you may have to make. See if your employer will pay for your Reference Guide and your Testing Fee and let them know when you will be taking the exam and that you want the test morning off. Many employers will pay for the exam ONCE, which provides additional incentive to succeed. I recommend you have your own copy, if possible, so you can mark it up. When you have the fat guide in your hands, read through it thoroughly and underline or highlight those passages you feel are important, add numbered tabs and make separate summary outline notes on a separate notebook. By reading and taking notes, your brain is forced to utilize multiple neural pathways repeatedly and this helps build your ability to understand and later recall the information. Finish in two weeks or less.

3. FLASH YOURSELF: Make your own flash cards (uh, question on one side, answer on the other). Yes, this seems primitive and almost like hard work, but we want your hands and your left and right hemispheres fully engaged to begin to hard-wire all those neural pathways to success on the exam. Making your own cards causes you to summarize long passages again and rewrite with primitive tools and it causes you to plow back through the reference guide again (repetition is one key to success here). I recommend to my students that they prepare one flash card (standard 3.5 index cards) for each of the six typical sections (Intent, Requirements, Technologies and Strategies, Reference Standards, Submittal Documentation, Definitions) of each credit or prerequisite (62) or 372 cards. Add to this any general flash cards required to cover more general questions (see the Outline of Exam Content). Plan on buying 400 index cards. Block out time over a weekend or make this your lunchtime routine until you get all your cards done. Finish in week two or three, then add to and edit as you find out more below.

4. EXPERIENCE: If you are associated with the building industry (and don't we all spend 90% of our time in one?), apply your new-found knowledge to an actual project. Score it. Teach the system to others you are working with. Ask them what it would take to achieve a particular point (hmm, do I have an actual "view" from my workstation per EQ Credit 8.2?). Make it real. Practice it in real life. Apply your knowledge. You will find if you have to open your mouth to explain this to somebody else, your brain will be on full alert and your neurons will be firing like nano-machine guns. Peruse case studies of LEED Certified projects and, if possible, take guided tours of certified buildings (contact your local USGBC Chapter for upcoming tours). Do this after completion of steps 1-3 and continue after you pass the exam.

5. IMMERSE: Surf the web for other resources where you will find a wealth of information on LEED and also on the specific objectives of the test along with sample test questions and vivid descriptions of the test-taking process. A growing number of other web sites cater to future LEED APs with tutorials, webinars and sample tests. Visit the indespensible Real Life LEED blog to follow vicariously a real LEED AP, Joel McKellar, in action and browse his outstanding list of resources for exam success. He also has links on his blog to examples of actual LEED submittals posted by Harvard University and the University of California, along with many other valuable links.

Visit the unofficial LEED exam prep site: intheLEED. Here you will find a treasure trove of useful free stuff like the blank study guide, which I highly recommend. The Colorado Chapter of USGBC has a number of exam prep resources including their excellent LEED-NC Study Guides, which include sample exams. You can also get advice and a free sample exam from BuildingGreen.com.

Don't take the tests yet, just get familiar with the nature of the test by looking at some of the free exam questions available through USGBC and others and the resources that are out there. Surf and immerse yourself in the culture of thousands of successful exam takers. Adjust your flash cards accordingly. If you have unlimited resources, by all means invest in some of the LEED workshops, webinars and online LEED AP exam prep courses (see U.S. Green Building Council, Green Building Educator Services, Professional Publications, Inc.). The more ways you process the information, the more likely your brain will retain it. Do this only after step 3 is complete, lest you get distracted by bright, shiny objects.

6. MEMORIZE: Memorize 100% of your flash cards one card at a time. Brute force. Use mnemonics. Doodle. Make up acronyms, silly songs, whatever works for you. Toss the easy cards aside and concentrate on the dwindling pile of those you couldn't answer. Repeat until your child (or your boss) can quiz you on the entire deck and you appear to be a genius. Finish at least one week prior to the exam date. Repeat often, but not while driving.

7. PRACTICE: Now, take sample exams until you consistently pass 90% of 80 questions in less than two hours. You want to be able to do this with 24 hours to spare before taking the exam so plan backwards and gauge your progress. If you can accomplish this, you can rest easy the night before and be well rested for the exam. If you can't accomplish it 24 hours in advance, cram through the night until you get it. You only have to stay awake for 2 hours during the exam. You can sleep in your car afterwards. You will know your result instantly.

You will pass. You will be a LEED AP.

Welcome aboard!

Where are we going for lunch?