TY - BOOK AU - National Academy of Sciences AU - National Academy of Engineering AU - National Research Council TI - America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation: Summary Edition SN - DO - 10.17226/12710 PY - 2009 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/12710/americas-energy-future-technology-and-transformation-summary-edition PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Energy and Energy Conservation AB - Energy production and use touch our lives in countless ways. We are reminded of the cost of energy every time we fill up at the gas pump, pay an electricity bill, or purchase an airline ticket. Energy use also has important indirect impacts, not all of which are reflected in current energy prices: depletion of natural resources, degradation of the environment, and threats to national security arising from a growing dependence on geopolitically unstable regions for some of our energy supplies. These indirect impacts could increase in the future if the demand for energy rises faster than available energy supplies. Our nation's challenge is to develop an energy portfolio that reduces these impacts while providing sufficient and affordable energy supplies to sustain our future economic prosperity. The United States has enormous economic and intellectual resources that can be brought to bear on these challenges through a sustained national effort in the decades ahead. America's Energy Future is intended to inform the development of wise energy policies by fostering a better understanding of technological options for increasing energy supplies and improving the efficiency of energy use. This summary edition of the book will also be a useful resource for professionals working in the energy industry or involved in advocacy and researchers and academics in energy-related fields of study. America's Energy Future examines the deployment potential, costs, barriers, and impacts of energy supply and end-use technologies during the next two to three decades, including energy efficiency, alternative transportation fuels, renewable energy, fossil fuel energy, and nuclear energy, as well as technologies for improving the nation's electrical transmission and distribution systems. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Achieving High-Performance Federal Facilities: Strategies and Approaches for Transformational Change SN - DO - 10.17226/13140 PY - 2011 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/13140/achieving-high-performance-federal-facilities-strategies-and-approaches-for-transformational PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Engineering and Technology AB - The design, construction, operation, and retrofit of buildings is evolving in response to ever-increasing knowledge about the impact of indoor environments on people and the impact of buildings on the environment. Research has shown that the quality of indoor environments can affect the health, safety, and productivity of the people who occupy them. Buildings are also resource intensive, accounting for 40 percent of primary energy use in the United States, 12 percent of water consumption, and 60 percent of all non-industrial waste. The processes for producing electricity at power plants and delivering it for use in buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. federal government manages approximately 429,000 buildings of many types with a total square footage of 3.34 billion worldwide, of which about 80 percent is owned space. More than 30 individual departments and agencies are responsible for managing these buildings. The characteristics of each agency's portfolio of facilities are determined by its mission and its programs. In 2010, GSA's Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings asked the National Academies to appoint an ad hoc committee of experts to conduct a public workshop and prepare a report that identified strategies and approaches for achieving a range of objectives associated with high-performance green federal buildings. Achieving High-Performance Federal Facilities identifies examples of important initiatives taking place and available resources. The report explores how these examples could be used to help make sustainability the preferred choice at all levels of decision making. Achieving High-Performance Federal Facilities can serve as a valuable guide federal agencies with differing missions, types of facilities, and operating procedures. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Academy of Sciences AU - National Academy of Engineering AU - National Research Council TI - America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation SN - DO - 10.17226/12091 PY - 2009 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/12091/americas-energy-future-technology-and-transformation PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Energy and Energy Conservation KW - Environment and Environmental Studies AB - For multi-user PDF licensing, please contact customer service. Energy touches our lives in countless ways and its costs are felt when we fill up at the gas pump, pay our home heating bills, and keep businesses both large and small running. There are long-term costs as well: to the environment, as natural resources are depleted and pollution contributes to global climate change, and to national security and independence, as many of the world's current energy sources are increasingly concentrated in geopolitically unstable regions. The country's challenge is to develop an energy portfolio that addresses these concerns while still providing sufficient, affordable energy reserves for the nation. The United States has enormous resources to put behind solutions to this energy challenge; the dilemma is to identify which solutions are the right ones. Before deciding which energy technologies to develop, and on what timeline, we need to understand them better. America's Energy Future analyzes the potential of a wide range of technologies for generation, distribution, and conservation of energy. This book considers technologies to increase energy efficiency, coal-fired power generation, nuclear power, renewable energy, oil and natural gas, and alternative transportation fuels. It offers a detailed assessment of the associated impacts and projected costs of implementing each technology and categorizes them into three time frames for implementation. ER - TY - BOOK AU - Transportation Research Board AU - National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine A2 - Jen McGraw, Peter Haas, Center for Neighborhood Technology A2 - Reid Ewing, Sadegh Sabouri, University of Utah TI - An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions DO - 10.17226/26103 PY - 2021 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26103/an-update-on-public-transportations-impacts-on-greenhouse-gas-emissions PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Transportation and Infrastructure AB - Transportation is a major source of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are causing climate change. As communities work to cut emissions and become more resilient, they are including public transportation advances as a significant part of their climate action strategies.The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Board's TCRP Research Report 226: An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions provides updated national analysis of public transportation’s role as a climate solution by documenting its 2018 GHG impacts.Supplemental materials to the report include three factsheets (Fact Sheet 1, Fact Sheet 2, and Fact Sheet 3); various key findings regarding transit as a climate solution; a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the findings and research and a template for transit agencies to add their own data for climate communications; and a simple spreadsheet tool that provides this study’s 2018 GHG impact findings by transit agency and allows the user to apply several of the future scenarios to see how their transit agency’s GHG impacts change with electrification, clean power, and ridership increases. 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