Wonder why your energy bills have gone steadily up over the years? Have a building that is experiencing 3x the average per square foot of space? The solution may be simple and does not require new energy modeling.

Example Case: LEED Gold School built 5 years ago.

LEED Building Experiencing: 3x Energy Costs per square foot!

Solution: Inspect filters on air units. Clean condensers and evaporators (preferably no chemicals) and replace your air filters. We recommend doing a quick visual inspection every 3 months.

Building Inspection:

The USGBC has announced at the beginning of 2011, the top 10 states for LEED projects in 2010 for LEED-certified institutional and commercial buildings. Taking the front spot is the District of Columbia with an average 25 square feet (2.32 m²) of LEED certified project space per person.

“Using per capita, versus the more traditional numbers of projects, or pure square footage, is a reminder to all of us that the people who live and work, learn and play in buildings should be what we care about most,” says USGBC SVP of LEED, Scot Horst.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It was first started in the United States, but now spans over 30 countries. It is used to make building designs more environmentally sustainable. If a building designer or developer wishes to have his or her project certified they must adhere to several fairly strict requirements.

Contributed from the American Society of Landscape Architects. This video explains how to divert waste from demolishing buildings to create a new park.

In old style construction materials from torn-down buildings are dumped in a local landfill.

The office building in downtown Houston has become the first Texas skyscraper to achieve LEED Platinum certification for existing buildings from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The 33-story tower owned by Hines was the first downtown office building to receive LEED certification from the council when it was awarded a Silver certification in early 2009.

The question remains will the mining industry develop the facilities to generate heat from its other processes or break the rules when they are allowed to desalinate and go through with their operations.

"Seawater desalination for industrial activities in Chile and Peru has a relatively low impact on energy consumption when compared to water conveyance"- the director of Hatch Water in Chile, Raymond Philippe.

Water availability is one of the most significant challenges for further development of the mining industry in Chile and Peru.