The wall outside Kansas City Public Library's Downtown Branch

Metropolitan Energy Center awarded $400,000 from U.S. Department of Energy’s Buildings UP Prize

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A buildings upgrade prize supported community-led transformation of existing buildings into more energy-efficient spaces that are ready for clean energy.

Looking to get involved in this initiative for healthy buildings? Use the form at the end of this article to be included in community planning.

Kansas City, Mo. (October 23, 2023) – Acting in partnership with the Kansas City Public Library to improve local buildings, Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) was awarded $400,000 from the U. S. Department of Energy’s Building Upgrade Prize (Buildings UP). The team is one of 45 across the U.S. benefitting from over $22 million in cash prizes and technical assistance for community project planning. Buildings UP aims to support community-led transformation of existing buildings into more energy-efficient spaces that are ready for clean energy upgrades.

Under the guidance of MEC’s Energy Solutions Hub, the project will leverage federal funding to help local library systems work with community leaders to plan upgraded energy-efficient libraries. These upgrades will complement community-developed, community-approved experiential learning exhibits about energy efficiency. Public libraries reflect the cultures familiar to the communities they serve, an approach that guarantees meaningful reach of important information that improves lives. During extreme weather events, local populations also use library buildings to take shelter. This pilot project will be a scalable, equitable initiative that will impact community members across the Kansas City region, influencing practices across the U.S.

Mary English, MEC’s building performance program manager, said, “This project will unlock people’s lived expertise to influence building improvements affecting heath and quality of life. We are excited to see public libraries delivering these experiential learning exhibits across the region, and someday nationwide.”

Kelly Gilbert, MEC’s executive director, said, “MEC is only effective toward real change when we defer to our region’s varied communities—their experiences of how energy affects their lives give us fuel to drive progress together.”

Rep. Sharice Davids (KS-03) said in support of the initiative, “Through the bipartisan infrastructure law and other climate-smart legislation, we can now make our libraries in the KC area more energy efficient. This will decrease energy costs, reduce carbon emissions, and improve indoor air quality for all folks working or gathering at a public library. I’m glad I could support these projects here at home.”ssss

You can influence your library’s involvement in this initiative by signing up to help using the form below.

About MEC: Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates resource efficiency, environmental health, and economic vitality in the Kansas City region – and beyond. The Energy Solutions Hub, as part of the building performance department, informs and supports building owners and their occupants to promote healthy and sustainable buildings in our region. Throughout our 40-year history, MEC has served as a catalyst for environmental and economic vitality of America’s Heartland. We are the only nonprofit in the Kansas City area dedicated to reversing climate change through the reduction of emissions produced in the transportation and building sectors—the two largest sources of greenhouse gases in the U.S.

About the Buildings Upgrade Prize: The Buildings Upgrade Prize (Buildings UP) provides more than $22 million in cash prizes and technical assistance to support the transformation of existing U.S. buildings into more energy-efficient and clean energy-ready homes, commercial spaces, and communities. Buildings UP is an American-Made Challenge funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office and administered by the National Renewable energy Laboratory.

Guide energy advancement, right from your public library.
Get involved with your favorite library's efforts to plan upgrades, exhibits and public information programs.
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Study Links Home Weatherization to Improvements in Health for Children with Asthma

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Kansas City, Mo. (August 1, 2023)

Results from a new preliminary study indicate that weatherizing living spaces can dramatically improve children’s health by improving indoor air quality and reducing exposure to outdoor air pollutants. The research project came about due to previous work and research of the Children’s Mercy Kansas City (CMKC) Healthy Homes Program, where hospital staff witnessed positive health outcomes with many of their young asthma patients whose families had enrolled in the program and received home weatherization repairs.  

Dr. Elizabeth J. Friedman, MD, Medical Director of Environmental Health at CMKC said, “This is a great example of both how much our built environment can impact our health and why it is so important to consider our patients’ lives beyond our clinic walls.” 

Weatherization is a building upgrade process that keeps indoor air in and outdoor air out. A good weatherization upgrade keeps you safe and comfortable in your home, no matter what the weather is doing. For nearly a decade, Kansas City-based nonprofit Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) administered weatherization and energy efficiency renovations under various partnerships, including the City of Kansas City, MO’s EnergyWorks KC (EWKC) program. 

A research partnership with MEC, CMKC and the Center for Economic Information at the University of Missouri Kansas City (CEI) brought even bigger data to the table for a more comprehensive picture of potential health improvements. Staff at CMKC and CEI matched MEC-weatherized homes with CMKC historic health data for acute care visits in children with asthma living in the homes. A research database maintained by CMKC provided encounter-level historic pediatric asthma data, and the CEI team collected additional geographic and census data as part of the KC Health CORE research collaboration with CMKC. 

The team compared frequency and severity of healthcare visits before and after the upgrade and found “as much as a 33% reduction in the frequency of acute care visits for children with asthma” who resided in homes that received energy efficiency improvements. 

Kevin Kennedy, Environmental Health Program, Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said that for their patients’ families, the preliminary report indicates that “even if you participate in a program like this weatherization program just to make improvements to your home, and not because you were thinking about a health impact, there can also be big improvements in your health, especially if you have a chronic respiratory condition like asthma.” 

Kelly Gilbert, Executive Director of MEC said, “this stunning result demands more research to discover which home upgrades have the biggest impact on health, and we look forward to supporting that work in the future.” 

The research team is preparing to develop and submit a peer-reviewed academic report with the goal of publication in a research journal later this year. 

The preliminary report is available here.

We are funded by readers like you. Even $5 helps expand clean energy access.
Your donation helps scale new technologies—tools that are public-ready, but only utilized by people of moderate affluence at a minimum. Clean-energy technology is a game changer, not only for the planet, but also for small businesses and low-income households. Thank you for helping to broaden clean tech's horizons.
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Helping Rural Towns Stay Ahead of the Technology Game

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written by MEC Greater Kansas Clean Cities coordinator Jenna Znamenak

This article chronicles recent efforts by Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) and its Clean Cities Coalitions to make electric vehicle operations a reality in areas that are often left out of new connectivity trends. 

To a person who has always lived in a highly populated city, connectivity is a daily reality. Cities get the fastest internet, the most cell coverage, and more nicely paved trafficways. But for the 20% of the population of the United States who live in rural areas, equal connectivity has never been the norm. 

As reported in the January/February issue of the Kansas Government Journal by Mike Scanlon, City Manager of Osawatomie, Kansas, “It is no secret that rural communities are historically left behind when the United States adopts the latest technology.” And in recent months, more rural leaders are seeing a potential pitfall that could widen the access gap for their communities: the advancement of electric vehicles (EVs). 

As the latest consumer-use scenarios are analyzed and early-adopter reviews roll in, the reality is clear: EVs cost less money to fuel and to maintain than their gasoline-fueled counterparts. And with the recent monumental increases in grants and tax incentives for EV purchases, governments are becoming much more interested in EV funding pipelines than they are in vehicles fueled by oil pipelines. But urban and suburban governments are making the switch much faster than rural governments. 

Scanlon is not surprised, but he is hopeful that this time rural America can keep up with the trend. “By 2030 the federal government proposed that half of all new cars sold in the U.S. will be zero-emission vehicles, with 50,000 electric charging networks. By proactively supporting rural EV development now, we can prevent history from repeating itself.” His article in the Kansas Government Journal, co-written with MEC’s Central Kansas Clean Cities Coalition coordinator Jenna Znamenak, prepares rural leaders with real facts and funding connections so they can stay in the fight to stay connected. 

The most exciting grants on the list are the ones that get rid of nitrous-oxide-producing diesel school buses by helping school districts convert to EVs, for little to no cost to the schools. “These grants replace older school buses with electric school buses to reduce harmful emissions around children,” says Central Kansas Clean Cities coordinator Jenna Znamenak. But she says there are enough programs available through MEC’s grant assistance to help more institutions than just schools involved with the national sea-change. 

For many rural leaders, adapting to standardizing trends sounds like “small budgets with not much room for experimentation, time constraints that do not allow us the ability to learn about technology, and grant opportunities that can look like a 10-acre corn maze,” says Scanlon. “That’s why we’re here for you—we’ve helped connect local communities and fleets to easier funding for clean energy for the past 40 years,” says Znamenak, referring to MEC’s stockpile of resource-accessing tricks and their dependable grant assistance services. 

See the original article published in the Kansas Government Journal here. 

To stay current on all available funding, sign up for MEC’s free newsletter at metroenergy.org/newsletter-sign-up. To talk to an expert about your next clean energy project, call 816-531-7283.

We are funded by readers like you. Even $5 helps expand clean energy access.
Your donation helps scale new technologies—tools that are public-ready, but only utilized by people of moderate affluence at a minimum. Clean-energy technology is a game changer, not only for the planet, but also for small businesses and low-income households. Thank you for helping to broaden clean tech's horizons.
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Shouldering The Nuclear Baseload

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written by Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coalition director David Albrecht

Nuclear power may be America’s most controversial source of energy.  A dam can drown a stunning stretch of river.  Coal may loom larger in climate and public health debates, given its airborne pollutants and toxins buried in coal-ash dumps dotting the nation.  Solar-thermal plants, seen as environmentally benign, can incinerate birds in mid-flight.  Using any technology has consequences, but with nuclear power, they feel more . . . consequential.  It might be origins of nuclear power in the fires of World War II.  It could be echoes of Chernobyl or Fukushima.  Whatever the reason, bring up nuclear and you may generate heat that has nothing to do with physics.

The Nuclear Landscape

Whatever the opinions, these are the facts – 95 reactors at 57 plants in 29 states supply about 20% of America’s electricity.  As mentioned earlier in this series, nuclear plants are baseload plants.  They operate at maximum output nearly all the time, except when refueling or during maintenance.   The oldest active reactor came online in 1969, the newest in 2016 – the latter the first such in 20 years.  Two more reactors are now under construction in Georgia.  And though we’re down from 107 units operating in 2003 –upgrades and more efficient refueling mean total output is about the same as it was 17 years ago.  France remains the most nuclear-heavy country – more than 70% of its power comes from fission.  But in terms of total output, the US still leads the world.

It’s all driven by physics on a scale that’s hard to grasp.  Atoms of a few heavy, unstable elements like uranium are prone to split, or “fission”.  In the process, they release neutrons – neutral subatomic particles – and huge amounts of energy.  As those neutrons speed away, they hit other atoms.  Some of them split, releasing more neutrons and more energy.  That energy boils water, which generates steam, which turns a turbine – and so on into the grid.  Under controlled conditions, you’re in the control room of a nuclear power plant as smokeless fire converts steam to electricity.  Under uncontrolled conditions, you’re in the New Mexico desert on July 16th, 1945, as light brighter than the sun springs from the earth.

Keeping intense heat and potentially deadly radioactivity under control is an expensive, complex process.  American reactors are surrounded by massive containment domes of concrete and steel.  They’re cooled by networks of pumps and condensers backed up by multiply redundant systems in case of emergency or loss of power.  And given their fuel, they’re operated to the most exacting standards in any industry in terms of security.  All this adds up.  It’s not that nuclear power is all that expensive in terms of routine operations, fuel and maintenance.  EIA data show that between 2008 and 2018, these costs for fossil plants ranged from 3.5.to 4.1 cents per kilowatt-hour.  For hydropower, it was .9 to 1.2 cents and for nuclear, ranging from 2.1 to 2.7 cents.

Up-Front Costs vs. Climate Benefits

What has tilted the table against nuclear projects in recent years has been costs – driven by this need for safety.  An example:  the Tennessee Valley Authority began construction on its Watts Bar plant in 1974.  By the time a second reactor was done in 2016, total costs for the project hit $12 billion.  “Abundance of caution” fits the industry’s outlook.  After the Fukushima tsunami in 2013, new flood protection measures more than 6% to the costs of  that second TVA reactor.  And in Georgia, two new units for the Vogtle plant, first priced at $14 billion in 2009, are now estimated at $25.7 billion.

Despite high capital costs, nuclear power has one huge advantage over other forms of electricity in an era confronting climate limits.  It produces power without producing CO2 or other greenhouse gases.  Obviously, building plants and parts and refining fuel consume energy and generate greenhouse gases.  But nuclear plants – with up to nearly 4 gigawatts of capacity, and operating flat-out for months on end – do so without any GHGs.  With this in mind, there’s a big effort to extend the lives of nuclear plants now in service through the USDOE with improved materials, plant upgrades and risk analysis.

What’s Next?

There’s been a great deal of time and money invested in developing the next generation of nuclear technology.  We’re now in the fourth generation of plant designs, though none have gone beyond prototypes.  Some designs use water at very high pressure, others use helium or molten salt as coolants.  This next generation is designed to operate at higher temperatures, use much less fuel and generate way less waste.  Some new designs can use nuclear waste as fuel.  An additional important field is the development of passive safety designs – reactors that need no or minimal human intervention in emergencies.

Finally, given the high costs of nuclear, modular design is seen as the wave of the future.  Smaller, more efficient reactors could allow for deployments of this form of low-carbon power without the enormous costs seen in current projects.  Whether economic conditions and public opinion permit the deployment of this fourth generation will be one of the big climate/energy questions of the 2020s.

We are funded by readers like you. Even $5 helps expand clean energy access.
Your donation helps scale new technologies—tools that are public-ready, but only utilized by people of moderate affluence at a minimum. Clean-energy technology is a game changer, not only for the planet, but also for small businesses and low-income households. Thank you for helping to broaden clean tech's horizons.
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Energy Myths Series: Batteries (Increasingly) Included

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written by Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coalition director David Albrecht

Batteries are ancient, by today’s tech standards.  Benjamin Franklin is the first person we know of to use the term, and the first published science on the topic dates to 1791.  The days of metal disks stacked in brine are long gone (except in middle school science class).  Lead-acid batteries in cars and golf carts are still common and will be for years, given their low cost.  But the focus here is on the next generation of large-scale systems.  And the question is how these batteries – bigger and more powerful than anything we’ve known – can redefine and remake the world’s electrical grid. 

You’ve likely heard the expression “lightning in a bottle”.  Storing electricity at industrial scale is very much like that.  Electricity moves fast.  In copper wire or other conductors, it’s traveling at somewhere between 50% and 99% of the speed of light.  And in grid operations, it has to be sold – that is, used – as soon as it’s produced.  If it isn’t, grid and utility engineers run the risk of power plants disconnecting, since they’re only designed to run in a very narrow range of conditions.  What this next generation of battery tech provides is a way to store that electricity and in doing so provide a whole basket of benefits – financial, technical and environmental.   

Arguably the biggest single benefit battery storage provides is the ability to capture electricity from renewable sources.  Obviously, the wind doesn’t always blow.  And even when it does, that’s an issue in itself.  In February 2017, the Danes powered their entire country for 24 hours on windpower.  But if a wind farm produces more power than needed, the system operator must start shutting down turbines or face overloading the grid.  And while the sun defines “predictable”, solar plants only provide power for so many hours per day.  Large-scale storage means that intermittent, low-cost, and environmentally-friendly electricity can be stored now and used later.    

Having large amounts of electricity in storage and ready to go at a moment’s notice is a financial boost for power companies.  It means that utilities can sell back low-cost power from renewables to meet peak demand; when power sells for far more than it cost to generate.  It also means that utilities can meet their own demand spikes without having to pay the often-bruising high prices electricity markets produce at peak demand. 

There’s more.  Energy storage can improve the system’s operating reserve.  Like energy, the grid is always moving – more demand here, less demand there, big storms and equipment failures now and again.  It’s a dance that never stops.  Engineers and analysts meet these constant changes with machines and data to keep the system balanced.  But they are never 100% correct in predicting what will happen on any given day.  Having stored reserve power that can be deployed in seconds boosts the operating reserve, and in doing so, boosts grid stability.  Improving stability can mean lower infrastructure investment costs.  It can also cut the costs of “black starts” when generators go down.  Typically, they have to be restarted with diesel generators, but battery systems for just this purpose have already been successfully tested. 

So, what do utility-scale batteries look like?  Imagine shipping containers lined up in an electrical substation, or row after row of gigantic desktop computer towers.  The Hornsdale Power Reserve, in South Australia, was designed and built by Tesla.  It uses lithium-ion batteries (like in your computer) and provides 129 MWh of power – enough to supply all the electricity for about 3,500 homes for an hour.  These projects sound large, though total deployments to date are tiny – globally about 6 GWh through 2018.  But there’s one simple fact that you need to remember.  In 2010, commercial battery packs cost about $1,100 per kilowatt-hour.  By December 2019, that price had fallen to $156 per kilowatt-hour, a drop of 87% – and nearly 50% of that total decline came in the preceding three years.  With costs set to break the $100 mark by as early as 2024, batteries are increasingly likely to be included in energy infrastructure and development for years to come. 

We are funded by readers like you. Even $5 helps expand clean energy access.
Your donation helps scale new technologies—tools that are public-ready, but only utilized by people of moderate affluence at a minimum. Clean-energy technology is a game changer, not only for the planet, but also for small businesses and low-income households. Thank you for helping to broaden clean tech's horizons.
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radiant solar energyDennis Schroeder / NREL

Energy Myths Series: A World in Motion

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written by Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coalition director David Albrecht

You have power.   

Your access to energy would have cracked human credulity for most of our species’ time on earth. For millennia, we elbowed away the margins of night with the smoking glow of wood, grass or buffalo chips. Just 200 years ago, whale oil and candles lit the homes of a slowly industrializing world—for those who could afford them. For those who couldn’t, wood remained the main source of light, heat and cooking, along with the coal that drove that industrialization. Now, in an eye-blink of human history, we have become the beneficiaries of a world in frenzied motion.   

The energy we use never stops moving. It hurtles from point to point at velocities approaching the speed of light. It slowly plows the oceans in ships big enough to dwarf the fever-dreams of Pharaohs. It is explosive coal dust shot into a furnace, feeding flames five stories high hot enough to melt platinum. It is water roaring 600 feet down a pipe, turning a generator the width of a small house 100 times per minute. It is mazes of pipes and conduits, steam and heat, toxic and explosive chemicals, all combining to refine Jurassic sunlight into jet fuel and gasoline. It is today’s sunlight knocking electrons out of their orbits and into batteries and wires. It is the fission of a single uranium atom unleashing enough energy to make a grain of sand visibly jump, triggered by a neutron moving 1.4 miles per second in reactor spaces unimaginably dense with such reactions. This frenzied motion never stops, only occasionally slows, and makes our world—food, music, lighting, medicine, communications, trade, everything—possible. 

As Americans, how does all this shake out? What drives our nation’s energy system today, and what will that system look like tomorrow? And what kind of future do we face as the consequences of this vast, and amazingly productive disruption become clearer? These are the kinds of questions this continuing series of short essays will try and provide some answers to.   

We are Metropolitan Energy Center. Part of our mission is to present the best information available on energy, its principles, power and drawbacks, whether it’s heating your house or powering your car. We’ll be covering a lot of ground–from the grid to the feedlot, and from alternative fuels to solar technology. We’ll touch directly on the projects we pursue and probe larger questions of energy policy. We hope that in the process we can hold your interest, provide food for thought, and perhaps puncture a few myths about what new technologies can and can’t do.   

Things are already moving fast, and we hope you’ll hop on board for this excursion.

We are funded by readers like you. Even $5 helps expand clean energy access.
Your donation helps scale new technologies—tools that are public-ready, but only utilized by people of moderate affluence at a minimum. Clean-energy technology is a game changer, not only for the planet, but also for small businesses and low-income households. Thank you for helping to broaden clean tech's horizons.
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COVID and the Intersection of Transportation and Health

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How MEC Impacts WEALTH of the Heartland

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