It’s an engineer’s dream: A 220,000 square-foot office space designed with performance as the ultimate priority. Most building projects start in the mind of an architect and are then passed off to engineers, who have to figure out how to make the building function well, but the new net-zero National Renewable Energy Lab office building, in Golden, Colo., started with the engineering.

So it is that the building is a rather unusual “H” shape, with the lobby area connecting two wings, because the project’s engineers determined that shape would maximize daylight and thus reduce energy needs.

The building is meant to be a national showcase and a teaching tool, in addition to serving its primary function as office space for NREL.

“The overarching goal is to demonstrate that highly energy efficient and marketable net zero buildings can be built using available technologies and techniques today,” Jeff Baker, director of the Office of Laboratory Operations for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) said during a webinar about the building’s technologies yesterday. 

A new poll on Thursday found overwhelming support for building giant solar farms on America's pristine public lands.

The poll [pdf] was conducted by Gotham Research Group, a national pollster, and was commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a 1,100-member trade group. It was done mainly to gauge support for plans by the U.S. Department of Interior to fast-track environmental reviews of 14 solar plant proposals in the American West.

The poll found that 75 percent of Americans across all demographics, regions and political parties approve of a utility-scale solar boom. But it also revealed a partisan divide when solar power was pitted against wind farms, nuclear plants, oil wells, natural gas facilities and coal plants.

"Solar energy is the top priority across the board—except among Republicans," Jeff Levine, president of Gotham Research Group, told reporters.

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Senate Climate Bill Tied to Health Issue, Graham Says (Bloomberg)

Senate climate-change legislation won't be introduced until at least next month and prospects for action depend on lawmakers' "mood" following the debate on health care, said Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Enviro Groups Hold 'Encouraging' Meeting with Kerry on Climate Bill (The Hill)

High-level officials from 10 or so green groups met with Sen. John Kerry for roughly 1.5 hours in his Senate office on Thursday to discuss climate legislation, in a meeting they described as "very encouraging" and "productive."

U.S. Wind Power Growing Fast But Still Lags (Reuters)

Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the U.S. but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

Climate Change Cited as Mont. Leases Suspended (AP)

A federal judge has approved a first-of-its-kind settlement requiring the government to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana so it can gauge how oil field activities contribute to climate change.

U.S. Mustn't Discriminate Against Canadian Oil Sands (Reuters)

The U.S. should not discriminate against the Canadian oil sands industry, Canada's ambassador in Washington said on Thursday, warning that trade restrictions could cause the energy supplier to seek out other customers.

EPA to Study 'Fracking' Gas Drilling Method (AP)

The EPA said Thursday that it will study potential human health and water quality threats from an oil and natural gas drilling technique that injects massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals underground.

In an automotive sector strained by recession, lay-offs, bankruptcies, the credit crunch and recalls, one bright spot over the last year has been the move among corporations to more fuel efficient fleets.

Poland Springs Water, a brand of Nestle Waters, has been greening its fleet since 2007, and seeing big savings as a result. It all started when Chris McKenna moved from warehouse manager to fleet manager at Poland Springs. He had been using biodiesel in the warehouse yard trucks and thought it might be worth testing for the fleet.

Just a few years ago, the idea of replacing kerosene-based jet fuel with renewable fuel from plants seemed out of the question. The cost of producing such alternative fuels dwarfed that of traditional jet A-grade fuel, and moving a severely carbon-intensive industry toward cleaner fuels would only happen if the economics worked out.

A 2008 spike in oil prices and a global economic slowdown later, and suddenly bio-jet fuel isn’t just back on the table, it might be in your airplane’s engines in the next four or five years.

Deal Nearing on Senate Climate Bill: Sen. Kerry (Reuters)

The Senate is close to wrapping up talks ahead of introducing a compromise climate bill, said Sen. Kerry, after meeting with a coalition that represents automakers, forestry and paper companies, Big Oil, steel, mining, electricity and others.

Gov. Christie Seeks CO2 Revenue to Close N.J. Budget Gap (Bloomberg)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wants to use funds from CO2 permit auctions in the U.S. Northeast's cap-and-trade program to help close the state's $10.7 billion deficit.

Auto Alliance Opposes Murkowski on EPA Greenhouse Gas Regs (The Hill)

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is officially opposed to Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) effort to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gases through a congressional resolution of disapproval.

UN Chief Wants UN in Charge of Climate Talks (AP)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the UN will remain in charge of talks on a new global climate accord, dismissing a shift to negotiations with a streamlined group of countries suggested by UN climate envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Cancun Climate Talks Get Dim Prognosis Nine Months Before Start (Bloomberg)

Government negotiators are already writing off chances for a global treaty to fight climate change, nine months before the annual talks begin in Cancun, Mexico.

Climate Debate Should be Reframed: Malidives President (AFP)

The climate debate should be reframed in economic and security terms ahead of a year-end UN summit in Mexico seeking a binding climate deal, the president of the Maldives said Wednesday.

By Kunda Dixit, Himal

Namgye Chumbi was weeding his potato garden in the village of Phakding in Nepal’s Khumbu region below Mount Everest on the morning of Aug. 4, 1985. Because of the monsoon season, there were not too many trekkers hiking up the trail towards Namche Bazaar. It was a brilliantly clear day, unusual for the monsoon season, and he was working by the banks of the Dudh Kosi River.

True to its name, the river was milky white and frothing, as the water tumbled noisily over boulders. Yet around 2 in the afternoon, the river suddenly became strangely silent. The water level went down, and Namgye sensed danger.

Much in the same way as coastal dwellers saw the sea recede before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Dudh Kosi was about to reveal its terrifying avatar.

Abandoning Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a potential long-term repository for nuclear waste was an Obama campaign promise, and it garnered public support in the state and from opponents of nuclear power everywhere.

Now that the Department of Energy has officially begun the process to withdraw its application, though, it is clear that not everyone shares the same desire to shutter the decades-old project.

The term “cleantech” is often dismissed as being far too general to encapsulate all the sectors that fall within it—water, energy, smart grid, electric vehicles, green building materials, the list goes on—but there are nonetheless cross-cutting similarities among the start-ups.

There’s typically the charismatic leader who’s got venture capital connections in Silicon Valley, the brilliant head of engineering who stays behind the scenes (not always willingly), and in most cases plenty of money and buzz before the company even has so much as a prototype. At least that’s how it usually goes in the United States.

In the United Kingdom, it’s almost exactly the opposite.

Lawmakers, scientists and advocates in the U.S. intensified calls Tuesday to immediately cut emissions from climate-warming soot — also known as black carbon — as deadlock continues in Congress over far more complicated regulation of carbon dioxide.

"Black carbon is an important, fast-action tool in mitigating long-term warming," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world's leading climate scientists, in testimony before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Although not a greenhouse gas, soot has emerged as a leading contributor to rising temperatures worldwide, scientists say. Limiting these emissions is seen as a relatively cheap and quick way to reign in warming in the short term.