Autodesk joins forces with the Clinton Foundation to build sustainable cities

Autodesk will provide the technology, initially based on Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, that will act as the model-based visualization environment used to view, evaluate and compare the results of analysis and monitoring in the C40 city. Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise software is a powerful mapping solution for delivering information more quickly, easily, and cost-effectively via the web.

Green Building Elements had a chance to speak with Brett Smith of Autodesk and Olivia Ross of the Clinton Foundation.  Here is what they had to say.

GBE: How does the software track emissions?

Brett Smith (Autodesk): The Project 2° Emissions Tracker is designed to measure as many municipal and corporate activities as possible. Users enter data on emission producing activities such as fuel and electricity consumption, vehicle traffic, waste production, industrial processes and air and sea vessel fuel use. The software then converts the data into greenhouse gases, including tons of CO2 equivalent, taking into consideration the source and type of activity.

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The city of Los Angeles intends to retrofit 140,000 streetlights with LED light bulbs. If successful, this will be the nation’s largest lighting retrofit, and it comes with a price tag of about $57 million.

With nearly 35 million streetlights in the United States, it’s estimated that they use 1% of all the electricity is consumed nationwide.

The initiative was announced in Los Angeles by former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. That’s because LA is getting help with the retrofit from the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Outdoor Lighting Program. Part of the funding also comes from a $14 million rebate from the Department of Water and Power. The Clinton Climate Initiative has become an increasingly active arm of the Clinton Global Initiative.

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“If you have ever been to Death Valley National Park and looked up on a clear night, you would see that the stars seem to be dimmer than they were when I was a child. But they are not getting dimmer, really–the rest of the sky is getting brighter because of all the lights from Los Angeles and Las Vegas and other surrounding cities and communities,” President Clinton said.

“This is the best place in the world — in the U.S. at least — to lead this,” Clinton went on to say, citing the city’s ongoing environmental efforts. “This is like taking 6,000 cars off the road. “If every major city followed your lead, we could eliminate 2 1/2 coal-fired power plants.”

Once the overhaul is complete, the city will get an energy savings of about 40-percent and reduce carbon emissions by 40 tons/year. It is expected this will save the city $48 million, and reduce carbon emissions by 197,000 tons, over a seven year period.

The program is scheduled to start in June. Initially 20,000 bulbs will be replaced, and 30,000 with each following year.

While the program will start before New York City’s own efforts to provide LED streetlights, but NYC hopes to replace up to 300,000 streetlights with LEDs. Oh snap!

Photo: © Kineticimagery | Dreamstime.com