Fuel for district energy and electricity

Tanja, unfortunately for your project burning the construction waste is not consider recycling or reuse. It's therefore treated the same as if you would just dispose it in a landfill. see also Tristan's comment in one of the posts below.

I'm from Germany and came to the US 4 years ago. I can't speak for the USGBC, but maybe offer some insight in the differences between the two continents. I think the reasoning for that is the actual waste combustion practice here in the US. Even thought there is s "Clean Air Act" limiting air pollution from power plants, it's not even close to regulations in Europe in this regard. Also the efficiency of power plants and district heat plants isn't very good either compared to the EU. Just think of the smoking sidewalk in the movies. That's steam from the district heat plants and unfortunately still a common sighting in the US. This I think is one reason for seeing it different then in the EU. Another reason is that burning your waste no matter what is still one of the least favorable approaches in regards to carbon emission and environmental impact in the life cycle of a material or product.

Tanja - As LEED is moving to address more international projects, I would encourage you to post a comment about your situation to the LEED 2012 Third Public Comment Draft, which is supposed to be released in January - http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2360. LEEDuser will most likely have another Guide and Open Forum as well where you could post your concerns instead for this credit. Susann – Your thoughts on the differences would also be useful for the TAG to hear.

Tanja, It doesn't seem to be that easy. I have signed up as volunteer for the TAG especially because there is so little international representation in the TAGs. But that doesn't mean you get to be on one. As for LEED 2012 unfortunately you can only send in one comment per credit per person. Having worked on so many international projects made me have plenty of suggestions and comments, because international projects just have to deal with so many situation not considered by LEED, which are due to cultural, technical and regulatory differences. You may have seen our new topic about LEED for international projects. http://www.leeduser.com/topic/international-projects-alternative-compliance-path User there discuss the short comes and improvement ideas for LEED specifically for international projects.

I can't speak to how USGBC selects members of the TAGs but we will have 3 changes per credit per person to comment on LEED 2012. There have been 2 public drafts already with 2 chances to comment per credit, we now have one more chance - supposedly in January. Even if your part of the credit is not revised and available for comment, I got several replies to comments for the first public draft saying that my comments would be considered by the TAG for future versions. Since the comment process is a public and USGBC facilitated, I feel you have a better chance at being heard by USGBC and having ideas captured for the future.

If you have a spare ID slot, try applying your unique (at least here in the US, burning waste for fuel) circumstances. If the benefits of burning waste gives you more energy (heat &hot water) compared to recycling it, then there goes your green argument. Of course, you have to document that pros out-weight the cons. That will be interesting!

LEED Canada has defined what constitutes a district energy system, and will allow clean wood waste that goes to a district energy system to be calculated as diverted.