Gov. Rendell is expected to announce Monday that a Greek solar-panel manufacturing company intends to build a production facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, a development that local officials hailed yesterday as an important step in positioning the city to be a key player in the emerging clean-energy economy.

The plant is expected to create 400 to 500 jobs.

The project, in the works at least three to six months, has been so hush-hush that those involved have used the code name "Project Helios" to refer to it. Helios was the personification of the sun in ancient Greek mythology.

The company's name is Heliotechniki S.A. It has been in business since 1998, according to its Web site.

"It's a very significant new project," said Peter S. Longstreth, president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., which owns and manages the Navy Yard on behalf of the city.

Longstreth credited the governor and Mayor Nutter with pulling the deal together.

The governor's office has said Rendell is reserving comment until a news conference set for 1 p.m. Monday in the lobby of One Crescent Drive at the Navy Yard. Nutter was unavailable yesterday as a result of his father's death Wednesday.

Jobs at the Heliotechniki plant would be "advanced manufacturing" involving "a significant amount of technology," Longstreth said.

The facility would be from 400,000 to 500,000 square feet on 40 acres in the middle of the 1,000-acre Navy Yard. It will take "a couple of years to materialize" and would represent an investment of "several hundred million" dollars, Longstreth said.

How much state and local financial incentives will be involved is still under negotiation, he said. The land is a designated Keystone Opportunity Zone, which qualifies companies there for state and local corporate and real estate tax abatements.

In terms of size, the solar manufacturing plant would fall between two other prominent occupants of the Navy Yard: the just-completed 350,000-square-foot Tasty Baking Co. bakery and distribution complex and the 800,000-square-foot Aker shipyard operation.

It will build upon the master plan for the Navy Yard released in 2005, said John Grady, a senior vice president for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. That redevelopment plan, which projected 15 million square feet of capacity on site, includes a "clean-energy campus initiative."

Currently, the Navy Yard has 5.5 million square feet of new and redeveloped buildings and 7,000 employees. When built out, the total workforce there is expected to reach 20,000 to 30,000.

"If we can provide the land and the labor force and the support necessary, Philadelphia can compete as a location for these valuable jobs," Grady said.

Among those enthusiastic about the prospects of solar panels being made in the region was Kira Costanza, whose family runs Sunpower Builders, a solar-installation business in Collegeville.

"At a time when so many manufacturers are moving out of the U.S. to take advantage of cheap labor in China, this is an inspiring commitment to U.S.-made product, quality control, and sustainable, homegrown green jobs," Costanza said. "There is a fantastic opportunity for this new facility to take advantage of the growing commitment by installers and consumers to U.S.-made product, particularly on the East Coast."

Labor leaders were pleased, too - even though it was unclear what portion of any jobs that would be created might be union jobs.

"It's wonderful," said Patrick B. Gillespie, business manager of the Building & Construction Trades Council.

"Anything that's going to generate some commerce," he said, "is great for the building trades unions."

What could be more “green” than a building that already exists? What is more sustainable than utilizing and improving existing resources?

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia will address those questions and more, when it presents a one-day conference, The Past is Our Future: Historic Preservation and Sustainability, on Tuesday, December 8, 2009, from 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM at The Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia.

Historic preservationists, architects, designers, community development organization leaders and developers from throughout greater Philadelphia are invited to convene for this gathering that will focus on the important role of historic preservation in sustainable design. Participants will have the opportunity to explore and discuss how historic preservation can be key in sustainable design and adaptive use of older buildings. Attendees will learn about the latest developments in LEED standards, energy and building codes and their application to existing buildings.

Presenters will describe examples of local and regional projects that utilized and implemented both historic preservation and sustainable design with very successful results. Representatives from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office, along with architects, preservationists and developers will describe the latest efforts to employ and integrate both approaches in order to create stronger projects.

Attendance to this conference is limited to 80 people and reservations are required.

The registration fee is $75 for general public or $65 for Preservation Alliance members.  Price includes continental breakfast and lunch.

For more information and to register for the conference, visit: www.preservationalliance.com or contact Patrick Hauck at 215-546-1146 x4 or patrick@preservationalliance.com.
 

Springside''s solar array. (Springside photo)

Springside School in Chestnut Hill formally flipped the switch earlier today on what they're touting as the largest solar installation within city limits. Some 10,000 square feet of the roof on the field house has been covered with panels, constituting a 94 kilowatt array.

And isn't this nice: The project was instituted as a 40th anniversary project by the graduates of the class of 1966. Their fundraising efforts, combined with those of the school's parent association, plus a $400,000 grant from the state Energy Harvest program covered the cost.

Here's the report from the school, which has students ranging from pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade:

“By extending the Energy Harvest grant to leading schools such as Springside, we’re making sure Pennsylvania is doing everything it can to wire young people for energy conservation and to power the workforce for a new energy economy,” said Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell.  “Making this kind of investment today is crucial to  continue developing clean energy resources and growing the Keystone State’s green energy sector.”

Speakers at the unveiling also included Kristin Sullivan, Program  Director for the Solar City partnership from the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability.  The school is proud to align its environmental efforts with those of the City of Philadelphia, designated one of 25 “Solar America” cities in the country.

“Springside’s tradition of stewardship is deeply rooted,” says Head of  School Dr. Priscilla Sands. “Over many years, across the grades and throughout the curriculum, we have worked to preserve and improve the natural world around us. Understanding problems, working for solutions, and accepting individual responsibility are the hallmarks of a Springside education—preparing our students one green footprint at a time as they walk in confidence into their future.”

At Springside, rubber boots worn for forest work share locker space with sneakers, scraps from the cafeteria are composted daily, stormwater runoff is monitored and creek water analyzed, and our student-run recycling was the first school program to partner with RecycleBank and has diverted hundreds of thousands of pounds from the waste stream.

Springside’s solar project has been installed by Alteris Renewables, ranked the fastest growing renewable energy company in the Northeast on the Inc. 500.  “Alteris is working with leading private schools in the Northeast, such as Springside School, a member of the Green Schools Alliance,” said Ron French, president of the Solar Business Unit at Alteris Renewables.  “We’re extremely proud to be helping Springside further its strong environmental commitment with such a visible and important action as this solar installation.”

With this solar array, Springside is taking a major step toward realizing the Green Schools Alliance’s call to become carbon neutral in 10 years and to begin reducing its carbon footprint by at least 30%  in the next five years.

With all the corporate hype surrounding sustainable growth and the energy-conservation movement, skeptics sometimes dismiss the latest wave of environmental piety as more fad than fact.

And indeed, you've seen this before, from 55-m.p.h. highway speed limits, to tax breaks for solar-heated homes during the Carter administration, to the little stickers that appliance makers attach to refrigerators showing annual energy use.

At first, there is a lot of excitement and weeping and gnashing of teeth about past environmental sins and saving the planet.

But as soon as gas prices drop, drivers revert to type, and the fun resumes. Just like that, everyone seems to be tooling around the countryside again in gas-guzzling land yachts.

Yet there are unmistakable signs that this new enthusiasm for energy conservation and reduced pollution might have longevity.

For it seems the recent growth of the alternative-energy industry has as much to do with good intentions as it has to do with the dawning recognition that there's an awful lot of money to be made.

That's one of the takeaways from an alternative-energy technology patent forecast by Philadelphia's Woodcock Washburn law firm, one of the nation's leading intellectual-property firms. The firm is projecting that in key sectors dominated by large global players, the number of patents likely to be approved will double, and in one case triple, over the next two years.

The reason: Competition in this sector is heating up all over the globe.

U.S. carmakers, wind-turbine manufacturers in Germany, and solar technology and fuel-cell makers in Japan have been filing patents (prosecuting is the term used by lawyers) at a torrid pace.

David Bailey, a chemist and patent lawyer who chairs Woodcock Washburn's clean-tech practice group, says big companies have put so much money into not only research and development, but also the patent-filing process, that incentives are aligned for more growth.

For patent-filing costs alone, companies are shelling out at least $425 million a year, Bailey says.

"It has always been, over the years, the case that this has gone forward in fits and starts," he says. Now, the amount spent may be enough "that the people who have funded it will want to see those investments paid off. This has really been ramping up in the last two years."

Bailey produced the patent forecast with his Woodcock Washburn colleague, Ruben Munoz, who in addition to being a lawyer holds degrees in chemical and mechanical engineering. The forecast focuses on five sectors of alternative and clean-energy development: wind, solar, biofuels, hybrid-energy vehicles, and fuel-cell technology.

The firm uses a proprietary formula to project future patents of individual firms based on pending applications and the projected attrition rate of applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

It has projected not only the number of approved patents in each sector, but also the companies that are likely to hold them. Such studies are used by law firms as marketing tools, helping establish their street cred.

But Bailey says clients have a practical use for the information. The findings are a road map to what the competition is up to.

And they also can show the way to a high-tech shortcut. If one company has a patent that it isn't using, another company can avoid substantial research-and-development costs by persuading the owner to license that unused idea.

The forecast shows robust growth in solar technology, increasing from 379 patents this year to 934 in 2012. Woodcock Washburn projects the leaders in this sector will include Sanyo Electric, Samsung, Applied Materials, and DuPont.

Carmakers dominate patent filings in hybrid-electric car technology, with Ford near the top of the list this year and next, then dropping off.

GM tops the list in 2011. Toyota dominates from 2009 through 2012, heading the list in three out of the four years.

Of all the alternative and clean-energy technologies, fuel-cell patent filings show the least growth: From 2009 through 2012, patents for them are projected to grow only 7.5 percent.

This apparently is because the sector, where the first scientific findings emerged in the early 19th century, is mature, while the others are less developed.

Patent filings typically increase during tough economic times, as companies and individuals seek to generate new income through innovation.

In the clean-tech sector, an added spur has been the spike in energy costs.

With so many emerging economies now competing with the developed world for energy, it seems that many companies are betting that there will be profit in stretching those resources further.

Up on the roof at the Four Seasons Hotel, behind latticework meant to keep things pretty, three turbines are humming away, transforming the way the luxury hotel produces - and saves - energy.

They're taking a waste product - heat - and reharnessing it as a resource.

Part of an overall greening effort at the hotel, the new "microturbines" will help reduce the Four Seasons' energy bill 30 percent and halve its carbon footprint.

While this is the first installation of the technology in the city - Mayor Nutter will formally introduce it at a rooftop ceremony today - other hotels and universities are looking at it as well.

The "microturbines" use natural gas to generate 25 percent of the hotel's electricity. The process also creates heat - in this case, an amount that would keep 275 average homes comfy all winter long.

But instead of venting the heat into the atmosphere, as usually happens, the hotel is putting the heat to work warming the water for all the showers, for the kitchen and laundry, for the hot tub and the indoor pool, kept at a tropical 85 degrees.

And there's enough hot water left over to provide 15 percent of the hotel's heat.

"We're capturing and recycling wasted heat," said Marvin Dixon, director of engineering for the hotel.

The effort turns the notion of waste heat on its head. In essence, the equipment is "a boiler that makes electricity simultaneously," said Jeff Beiter, managing partner at E-Finity Distributed Generation L.L.C., of Wayne, the local sales rep for the equipment.

The Four Seasons microturbines cost $1.049 million. But the equipment is expected to pay for itself in three or four years, Dixon said.

Still, "it wasn't all about savings," Dixon said. "We were just as interested in doing it because of the impact on the environment."

The microturbines are simply one of the latest incarnations of thinking that goes back to the origins of electric power generation. Manhattan's Pearl Street Station, built in 1882 by Edison Electric Light Co., sold electricity and the accompanying thermal energy.

But gradually, electric power plants moved to rural areas, where there was no need for the excess heat. "So we built cooling towers, which dumped heat into the air," said R. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, an advocacy group.

The efficiency of power generation actually declined, he said. Improved technologies brought small increases, but changes needed to meet subsequent environmental regulations wiped out the gains.

Today, about 60 percent of the energy in fuel used to generate power in the United States is lost as heat. An additional 7 percent is lost in transmission.

In contrast, the microturbine is 85 percent or more efficient, said Thomas E. Knudsen, president of Philadelphia Gas Works. "This is a powerful, powerful technology that we see with broad applications."

Last December, a study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded that combined heat and power - a.k.a. CHP - "is one of the most compelling sources of energy efficiency that could, with even modest investments, move the nation strongly toward greater energy security and a cleaner environment."

The Department of Energy recently lobbed recovery act funds at CHP, and the Environmental Protection Agency has formed a "partnership" to encourage its use.

About the time the Four Seasons system was revving up, a similar set of turbines from the same company - Capstone Turbine Corp., based in California - was being installed at the Bridge Business Center on the former Rohm & Haas site in Bristol Township.

There, the excess heat is used for heating and cooling air, partly to meet the large needs of a chemical research and testing laboratory, said Pete Krauss, senior vice president of the Keystone Redevelopment Group, which owns the property.

Capstone, founded in 1988, has sold more than 5,000 microturbines. The company incurred losses of $5.3 million last year - partly attributed to an increase in manufacturing costs for new, more powerful units - yet reported its revenue from microturbine shipments increased 40 percent, from $31.3 million to $43.9 million.

The Four Seasons project is the latest in a green initiative begun in 2005, reducing overall energy consumption by more than 20 percent since then.

The microturbines, which generate about 65 decibels from 10 feet away - roughly comparable to that of a vacuum cleaner - are hidden by latticework and raised beds of blueberries, winterberries, kiwis, and other edibles.

Nearby are rooftop gardens where the chef raises salad greens and herbs in compost made from food scraps.

Dixon commutes from his home in northern Chester County to the city in a truck that runs on the hotel's used vegetable oil.

As he walks through the hotel, he cannot help but note the heat produced by the kitchen stoves. Or the laundry dryers and pressers.

To him, it's all fuel, awaiting his attempts to capture it and feed it back into the loop.

As I wander among the West Philly High School students milling about a noisy garage a few blocks from their school, I can't help thinking, "MIT must be sick of these kids."

MIT, of course, is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the country's august science, technology and engineering university. Its alums have scored Nobel Prizes, founded companies like Intel and headed prestigious schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

West Philadelphia High, as we all know, is a school dealing with every scourge of the inner city. The fallout of poverty, crime and family dysfunction play out daily in its ancient, neglected halls at 47th and Walnut, challenging teachers to keep good kids above the fray and wayward kids from causing it.

So tell me:

If you learned that MIT and West Philly had entered a $10 million, international contest to produce a car that gets 100 mpg, which school would you expect to make it through the first qualifying round of the competition?

Answer: Not MIT.

"Yeah, we beat out MIT," smiles West Philly junior Daniel Moore as he shows me the Harley Davidson 1340 motorcycle engine that he and fellow students are retrofitting for one of two cars they're building in the school's garage on Hanson Street.

"We brag about that a little. But we still want to win the big prize. We want to design the cars of the future."


 

You know that movie "Stand and Deliver"? About the struggling Los Angeles high-school kids who mastered calculus, inspired by teacher Jaime Escalante's belief that they were capable of the rigorous study that the difficult math required?

At West Philly, Simon Hauger, Ron Preiss, Jerry DiLossi and Ann Cohen are the same kind of teachers, and their students the same kind of kids.

Eleven years ago, Hauger, 40, was a math and science instructor, fresh out of Drexel, who believed that the best way for kids to learn was to sit in rows, in a classroom, taking notes. After four years, he believed, they'd do best to partake in additional college academics, after which they'd get good jobs.

"I learned pretty fast that not all kids learn the same, and that college isn't for everybody," says Hauger.

He was humbled to discover that some West Philly grads who'd gone through the school's Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering (the only certified auto academy offered by a Philly public school) were earning more with their certificates than he was with his fancy-pants Drexel degree.

Hoping to engage the kids who were zoning out at their desks, he started an after-school automotive club in which they could put their math and science classwork to use in the garage.

From the get-go, he urged the teens -a dozen-plus boys and girls, freshmen to seniors - to think big. For the school district's annual science fair, he had them build their own car, cobbled together using donated equipment, scavenged body parts and unique doodads that the kids created on their own.

The students won the contest. The car they created for the next year's fair took top prize, too.

Inspired, they created a car that won first place, in 2002, in the national Tour de Sol, a contest in which competitors develop alternative-fuel vehicles. That's when they first bested MIT.

In 2005, West Philly snagged the award again, cheering crazily as New York's then-Gov. George Pataki handed them the trophy in Albany.

"That was wild," says Hauger, recalling how the team blew out the car's custom axle during a practice run the day before the contest and scrambled to rebuild it. "We worked on it all night."

After their win, as national accolades poured in, Hauger realized that something had changed in how he regarded this little club he'd put together to give kids something meaningful to do after school.

"I'd always told them that we could do whatever we put our minds to, but that's something that adults tell kids all the time," says Hauger, a father of three. "You want them to believe in themselves, even though you know that not everyone is going to be a superstar."

After the second Tour de Sol, though, it dawned on Hauger that maybe the West Philly club members really could do whatever they put their minds to.

It was no longer a clichéd statement of encouragement.

It was the truth.


 

Eighteen months ago, Hauger set his students' eyes on what ought to be an absurd competition for a small, underfunded high-school club to enter: the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE.

The competition requires entrants to create an affordable car that gets 100 mpg and can be mass-produced. They must also submit a business plan detailing where and how the car will be produced and how it will be marketed for sale.

The contest will award $5 million for the best four-door economy car. Two prizes of $2.5 million each will go to top winners in a two-seater category. West Philly submitted applications in both classes.

Of the 111 international contest entrants, 21 dropped out. The remaining 90 submitted plans to X PRIZE judges early this year.

Last month, the West Philly team was among only 43 given the green-light to remain in the contest. Their competition includes teams from Cornell University, Tesla Motors and Tata Motors, to name a few heavyweights with access to massive resources and funding.

MIT - ahem - did not make the cut.

"West Philly is the only high school in the competition," says X PRIZE spokeswoman Carrie Fox. "We're very excited to have them on board."

And lest we think that West Philly made it through on sentimental favoritism and not merit, think again, says Steve Wesoloski, a member of the X PRIZE technical team that reviewed the school's submission.

"The West Philly team was very thorough in the plan they presented for review," he says. "Their level of detail and professionalism proved to us that they deserved to move forward in the competition."

The kids must now build their car, finalize their business plan and submit their application by next spring for testing and evaluation over the summer. Winners will be announced next October, but editors at Popular Mechanics, which evaluated the finalists' proposals, have already pegged West Philly among the top-10 contestants likely to win.

"We're definitely being taken seriously," says Hauger.

But they need money to stay in the game.

West Philly has already raised $300,000 via grants from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Philadelphia Academies, as well as smaller cash contributions and in-kind service donations from a number of supporters, including Drexel University, which is helping develop the business plan.

But the team is still $80,000 to $100,000 short of what's needed to knock their application out of the park.

"The blood banks have already told us we can't sell any more of our blood" to raise money, Hauger says - and it's not clear whether he's joking.

A big fundraiser is planned for January, which I'll provide details about in a future column. But if you feel the urge to support the team right now, go to www.evxteam.org to make a

donation online.

I'd give the kids my entire bank account, if I could. As student Azeem Hill told me this week, "People talk about school-reform strategies in Philly. Our car club is a reform strategy."

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly.com/ ronnieblog.

Alas, the scenario is all-too-familiar: A family buys a new, energy-saving refrigerator. So far, so good. But then they put the old one in the basement or the garage. And then they PLUG IT IN!  Aieee. Total energy use goes up, not down.  And often, that second fridge is mostly empty. It's just used for extra drinks or parties or some such.

Now, PPL is following the lead of other utilities companies. Today, it's going to inaugurate an appliance buy-back program by picking up the old refrigerator of Mary Anne Smeltz, who lives in Dalmatia, north of Harrisburg.  PPL is offering $35 for any old -- but working -- refrigerators, freezers or room air-conditioners their customers have.

And they'll come pick the aged appliances up to boot. Customers can schedule a pick-up by calling 1-877-270-3522 or visiting www.pplelectric.com/recycle  The $35 comes as a rebate.  The electric company says it will recycle 95 percent of the materials in the old appliances.

In Smeltz's case, she realized the old fridge was costing her $150 a year to run, just to store a few drinks and frozen foods.

PECO customers, your turn is coming. Just wait a few months.

Yesterday, the company announced a few more details about a suite of energy efficiency programs that they say will save their customers $1 billion. One of the programs is, yep, $10 million in customer incentives to part with older, inefficient appliances. Not to mention $42 million in rebates for buying newer ones.

Other programs, all of which begin in March, 2010,  include $28 million in weatherization programs for low-income customers plus $112 million in rebates and energy efficiency programs for non-profit, educational, governmental and business customers. A $20 million program discounting compact fluorescent light bulbs at more than 800 PECO-area stores has already begun.  And that's not even a rebate. The clerk gives customers the cheaper rate at the register.

Both the PPL and PECO programs are a response to a state law that requires all state electric utilities to reduce energy use by one percent by May 31, 2011. The PECO programs are estimated to cost residential customers $1.50 a month on their bills, so "selling" the utility your old appliance is a great way to get that money back, as well as seeing a reduction in your bill without that old think sucking up so much energy. Plus, you get to feel great about helping the environment.

The Delaware Valley Green Building Council invites you to a presentation on Designing for Net Zero EnergyThe requirements for energy performance in sustainable design are constantly evolving. The latest LEED rating systems raise the bar yet again and will challenge project teams to think about building design in new ways in order to meet the much more stringent energy performance requirements. Netzero energy buildings require an integrated design approach that focuses on identifying and reducing all building energy loads and then designing efficient and effective passive and active systems. Additionally, the building occupants must be engaged in the design process as they control energy use,
not designers. The presentation will focus on some of the challenges faced designing a net‐zero energy building to meet the Living Building Challenge. Using a case study, the presenter will relate the lessons learned in designing at the extreme edge of building performance to the challenges faced in designing buildings to achieve LEED certification. Participants will come away with a new understanding of how to think about energy use in buildings and will gain valuable insights into how to engage building users to reduce building energy use in actual operation. The presentation will provide examples of passive and low energy active systems and will discuss ideas for building/user interfaces to help occupants optimize energy use.

Speaker: Robert Diemer, PE, LEED‐AP – Partner, AKF Group, LLC ‐ Mr. Diemer has over 28 years of experience and has been a partner of AKF Engineers for the past 15 years. His specialty is sustainable design and high performance building systems for green buildings with an emphasis on reducing energy use in new and existing buildings. He is a LEED Accredited Professional and a Professional Engineer licensed in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mr. Diemer has a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering degree from Penn State University. Mr. Diemer is past chair of the DVGBC.

October 21, 2009 · 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Location: Carpenter’s Hall
320 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
Schedule: 5:30 Doors open + refreshments served
6:00 Presentation begins
Cost: $25 members, $35 non‐members, $15 students
$5 additional at the door
CES: 1.5 AIA/CES (HSW/SD)
RSVP: Register online at https://dvgbc.org/civicrm/event/register?id=42&reset=1
The deadline to register is Sunday, October 18, 2009
Contact info@dvgbc.org with questions

On Wednesday October 21st, a national bus tour featuring military veterans discussing the dangers of climate change and its threat to national security will be stopping for a town hall meeting in Philadelphia, and you’re invited.  Hear from military leaders about how energy and global warming will affect our national security and what we can do about it.

If you’re interested in attending, we need you to RSVP ahead of time, even if you aren’t 100% sure you can attend. Click here to RSVP

What: Veterans for American Power Bus Tour Town Hall Event
When: 6:30pm – 7:30pm
           Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Where: Philadelphia City Hall
    Mayor’s Reception Room
    Broad & Market Streets in Philadelphia
NOTE: You will have to enter City Hall through the Northeast corner of the building (near the intersection of Market & Juniper streets), and there is security there, so you should allow plenty of time to clear security and be at the event at 6:30pm.

The bus tour, which is traveling through 21 states, is being sponsored by Operation Free, a coalition of veterans’ and national security groups working together to raise public awareness about national security threats posed by climate change and the importance of building a clean energy economy that is not tied to fossil fuels.

Local veterans and elected officials will also take part, including state Representative Bryan Lentz, who is also a veteran. 

As many as 30,000 green-building advocates from around the world will convene in Philadelphia for an industry conference three years from now.

And already, the worrying has begun about the spotlight this high-profile, November 2012 event - sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, a driving force in the sustainable-construction movement - will focus on this region.

"If you invite 30,000 sustainability/green-building advocates to your city, you better hope you have some good news for them," said Heather Shayne Blakeslee, programs and advocacy director at the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, the national group's only Pennsylvania chapter.

Even the most enthusiastic supporters acknowledge that getting to the point where building green is more the norm than the exception will be a rigorous road.

They cite the need to change state and local building codes and policies to specifically require green amenities, and convert skeptics who doubt such construction is worth the investment.

This week, the push begins to help ensure that Philadelphia will have an impressive array of sustainable construction to show off in 2012.

About 300 officials from government, higher education, commerce, and nonprofit organizations, including Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter, will meet tomorrow and Thursday at the Sheraton City Center Hotel "with the goal of fostering unique partnerships for research, investment, collaboration, and education" in green building, said Rob Fleming, director of Philadelphia University's graduate program in sustainable design.

"This event seeks to establish a new kind of conference - a forum for ideas, policy, and strategies that will underpin the green economy for decades to come," said Fleming, one of its organizers.

The BuildGreen 09 Conference is being held by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, which will make news of its own there.

The conference's first day also will be the first day on the job for the building council's new executive director, Janet Milkman, who has led the smart-growth advocacy group 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania and, most recently, Erthnxt, a program to connect children with nature.

In an interview last week, Milkman summed up her new challenge this way: "Our job is to make the case" for green building.

It is a case that has to have consumers in mind - home buyers, and commercial property owners, and tenants alike, said Kevin Gillen, vice president at Econsult Corp., a Philadelphia economic-analysis firm.

"I'm not in favor of green if it means expensive additions that make housing unaffordable," Gillen said.

With its sea of rowhouse roofs, Philadelphia could be a prime candidate for solar panels. But with photovoltaic systems costing at least $35,000 even with state rebates, most homeowners cannot afford to go solar, he said.

Because the city already ranks among the highest in the nation when it comes to average construction costs, Gillen said that driving those costs even higher in the name of sustainability was the last thing Philadelphia should want if it hoped to encourage more economic development.

If city government is not going to help drive down those costs by instituting new zoning and building-permit processes that would make it easier - and cheaper - to incorporate green features into new construction and building retrofits, then it should consider tax breaks and public subsidies for projects that do, Gillen said.

City Council had hearings in the spring on a proposal to extend the 10-year tax abatement to buildings qualifying for platinum certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. Work on that is continuing.

Sam Sherman, president of the 150-member Building Industry Association, said the discussion about what constitutes green needed to look beyond LEED.

"How green can it possibly be when every employee is driving 30 or 40 miles to arrive at a LEED-certified office building?" he asked.

At the townhouses he has built recently in the city, Sherman has not sought LEED status, but he has added extra insulation and installed high-efficiency water heaters to reduce operating costs.

The green movement, he said, is "too focused on technology [when] it needs to be focused on common-sense planning and taking advantage of existing infrastructure."

Cities such as Philadelphia, Sherman said, are already sustainable because they are walkable and oriented to public transit. One way it could get greener is to grow the job base so more people could walk to work, he added.

In the suburbs, where the green movement for decades meant protecting open space, it is increasingly gaining a construction connotation.

Last Wednesday, night, the Lower Makefield Township supervisors took a step toward adopting an ordinance that would require all new municipal construction or major renovations to be built to the LEED silver standard. They voted to advertise the proposed ordinance, which will be subject to public comment before a final vote.

As a member of the township's environmental advisory committee, Lisa Grayson Zygmunt promoted the ordinance as a first step toward green-building measures with broader applications.

"We felt it was important the township walk the talk," she said, "before it would ask the private sector to do the same."