Houston Goes Dark Tonight
Friday, April 25, 2008 by: Laurie Johnson Tonight companies across the city wil go dark. Lights will be turned out in downtown skyscrapers, in schools, and in government buildings. It's all part of an energy-saving plan called Lights out Houston. Laurie Johnson has more. listen now: Starting at 10 o'clock tonight, lights will go out across Houston. More than 300 buildings will turn off non-essential lights. Andy Bergman is with Arizona International, one of the participating companies. He also serves on the Greater Houston Partnership's Green Building Committee. He says the idea came out of an energy summit a few months ago. "And we heard Mayor White talk about how he wanted the city to conserve energy, that this was free money that we're all leaving on the table. And when we saw the downtown district that night at 8:30 all lit up like a Christmas tree we knew that there was a lot of opportunity for improvement." Most of the buildings in the Central Business District are involved. Also all city of Houston buildings, Humble Independent School District buildings and NASA's Johnson Space Center will turn out the lights this weekend. That's 101 million square feet of office space that will go dark. "If these pledging organizations continue this program like we all believe they will and that they've all committed to, the energy savings could easily top $3 million." Of course it'll take more than just turning out the lights this weekend to get those results. But Bergman says Lights Out Houston will follow-up with companies and encourage them to make energy conservation a corporate habit. Laurie Johnson. KUHF-Houston Public Radio News. > view printer-friendly version listen to audio: > in your media player download audio: > podcast > iTunes > direct subscribe to audio category: > latest podcast > iTunes > return to previous page |