Photo credit: mevans

Reducing our national carbon footprint, stemming global warming, and creating green-collar jobs is a two-pronged attack. It involves an increase in energy from clean, renewable sources and a decrease in energy consumption, i.e., an increase in energy efficiency. This plan of action, as well as more specific steps to achieving it, were a top priority for Energy Secretary Steven Chu while addressing a symposium for Nobel laureates in London.

While most attention goes to harnessing and storing abundant renewable energy, Chu was adamant about the importance of energy efficiency as well. In an op-ed piece appearing in the Times of London just prior to the symposium, he stressed that, “The quickest and easiest way to reduce our carbon footprint is through energy efficiency.” And a key part of making new and existing buildings more energy efficient is through white, or “cool” roofs.

Quite simply, cool roofs involve painting or producing roofs that are white, roofs that will reflect solar radiation rather than absorbing it. The benefits involve significantly lower cooling costs, reducing energy use from air conditioning, and helping to stem global warming by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. The movement toward cooler roofs would also include roads and automobiles, said Secretary Chu, all of which spend a good deal of energy on cooling as well. Painting roads a paler color would help to curb the urban heat island effect.

For those of us who might find white-roofed towns and neighborhoods mundane or difficult for the eye to handle, Chu pointed to scientific breakthroughs that make possible “cool colors” that look normal to the human eye but reflect heat in the same way that pale colors do despite their apparent darkness. The Department of Energy hopes to create a new cool roof and transform existing roofs into energy-saving, heat-reflecting, “cooler” versions.

The St. James Place Nobel Laureate Symposium, attended by Energy Secretary Chu and 20 other nobel laureates, focused on climate change and strived to create international cooperation and collaboration in order to realize that change.

Posted on June 18th in Solar News by Dan.