"So I think it's wonderful what they're doing with the Empire State Building," he said.

Schuur, of the Clinton Foundation's building retrofits program, said the project's value comes from the difficulty of dealing with a famous older building. "It's got all the things that people say are so hard to do."

"While I agree that New York is a very unique city," said Schuur, "a lot of the cities -- the large cities -- that we work with have similar characteristics, in that they are largely developed, and so they have an existing building stock that makes up the vast majority of buildings that will be there in 30 or 50 years."

The project has largely had its desired effect. Schuur said building owners on the opposite side of the planet have approached the foundation, interested in retrofitting their own properties. And many of them mention the Empire State Building by name.

Schuur said that she was eager to see how New York City's building efficiency laws, passed in December, will affect the "building retrofit world" (Greenwire, Dec. 10, 2009).

In New York, she said, "you've got the savviest bunch of real estate professionals in the world. It's a good place for this kind of experiment."

Schuur added, referring to the theme from the movie "New York, New York": "You know the song -- If you can do it in New York, you can do it anywhere."

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

4 Comments

1. 1. candide 04:08 PM 8/24/10

   I remember looking out one of those double-hung windows on
   the 63rd floor - and looking straight down the side of the building. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

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2. 2. Rob Hooft 01:47 AM 8/25/10

   Isn't it great that this project shows that one can in fact make relatively low-tech and reasonably low-risk changes to a building to start saving energy in only a few years? I don't think the project would have been better showcasing super-high-tech changes.

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3. 3. oldvic 06:54 AM 8/25/10

   It's more than a little ironic that so many hard-nosed building owners focus so narrowly on the bottom-line that they end up hurting it. Tunnel vision and navel-gazing are bad strategies, here or elsewhere.
   Hopefully this example will help them look at the bigger picture, helping themselves and everyone else.

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4. 4. scots engineer 07:27 AM 8/25/10

   Here's a suggestion to improve the energy efficiency of tall buildings. All space in tall buildings is expensive so instead of using a lot of it ducting air at only slightly above atmospheric pressure ( to allow it to flow ), compress the air to two or three atmospheres. The pipes that then carry that compressed air require no more metal , but take up much less space. When the air is vented at room level it will experience a drop in temperature, thus fulfilling the air conditioning requirements without needing large heat exchangers which require cleaning and sterilisation ( to prevent legionaires disease ). Compressed air mains could transport the air from some distance away and be more economic with large industrial plant serving the needs of several large buildings and storing air at night using of peak power. Pushing large volumes of low pressure air through the ducting of buildings is not very efficient.

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