Solar tower technology uses mirrors to reflect sunlight on to a thermal receiver atop a tower. The reflected sunlight boils water inside the receiver to create superheated steam at 440C (824F), which drives a turbine and generates electricity.

The plant is a demonstration facility built by eSolar, one company among dozens in California aiming to heed President Obama’s call for a new energy industry that is less reliant on fossil fuels. ESolar, which is based in Pasadena, started less than three years ago and has gathered $170 million (£107 million) of investment, including funding from Google, in its attempt to make solar power mainstream.

The Sierra SunTower facility features two 190ft (58m) towers surrounded by 20 acres (8ha) of mirrors in neat rows that stand at about chest height. The five-megawatt plant produces electricity for Southern California Edison (SCE) and can power more than 4,000 homes. Each one-metre-square mirror, or heliostat, sits on a mechanism that allows computer software to move it in precise increments, so that it is always at an optimal angle to reflect the Sun’s ray’s on to the thermal receiver.

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ESolar claims that its tracking software makes the plant far more efficient than previous technologies for concentrating solar power. The company says that its prefabricated modular designs have solved many of the problems that have held back large-scale solar generation, includ-ing cost, speed of deployment and proximity to existing transmission lines.

In particular, it says that the lightweight mirrors need much less steel and concrete to set them in place, which reduces construction costs. The company touts the Sierra SunTower model as one that can be replicated anywhere that the Sun shines, on industrial sites or on uneven ground, and is looking to franchise out its technology to other companies to build and run solar power plants.

Bill Gross, the chief executive of eSolar, said: “Sierra is just the beginning. Soon eSolar technology will be deployed worldwide to provide clean, affordable energy to hundreds of thousands of homes. We’re at an historic point when technology can finally enable clean, renewable energy at a price competitive with fossil fuels.”

In February eSolar announced an agreement with NRG Energy to develop three plants in California and New Mexico that will generate up to 465MW of electricity. The first plant is expected to come onstream in 2011.

ESolar is also looking overseas. India, in particular, has ambitious plans for solar power generation and, in March, the company licensed its technology to ACME Group, which is based there, for approximately one gigawatt of solar thermal capacity. Its first 2.5MW plant is under construction in Rajasthan and the installation of a 46MW plant is likely to begin in 2010 for completion in 2011. India boasts arguably the most ambitious solar energy development plan in the world, with a target of 20,000MW for 2022. The country has excellent solar resources, particularly in the northwest.

Raed Sherif, eSolar vice-president of international development, said that the business was in talks with companies in Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt and had opened an office in South Africa.

The US Energy Department has calculated that a 62-square-mile (160 sq km) parcel of the Mojave that straddles Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona receives enough sunlight to power the entire country. In Lancaster, the site of the eSolar facility, there are about 300 sunny days a year and the company says tests indicate that the plant works even on partially cloudy days.

Other Californian start-up companies are getting in on the act. BrightSource Energy, based in Oakland, has contracts with Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison for its Ivanpah plants, with a capacity of 440MW in the Mojave. Bechtel, the huge American project-management specialist, has signed on as the engineering contractor and equity partner for the project. BrightSource is also constructing a 29MW thermal plant for Chevron in Coalinga, California, and the company has operations in Israel and Australia. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, has become a keen supporter of solar power generation in the Mojave and has fostered legislation to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change. Last month he mandated that, by 2020, at least 33 per cent of state energy comes from renewable sources.

In all categories of solar power generation, including photovoltaic, the United States ranks fourth, after Germany, Spain and Japan, producing about 8,800MW last year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, or less than 1 per cent of America’s energy use.

President Obama has called for that figure to rise substantially. In all, $80 billion of stimulus grants has been spent to jump-start clean-tech industries such as solar thermal. The American Solar Energy Society has forecast that a shift to renewable sources could create as many as 37 million jobs by 2030.

Global solar industry leaders went to Copenhagen this month to highlight the impact that solar energy technologies can have on combating climate change. Solar arrays leave no carbon footprint after manufacture of components and construction.

However, the ultimate aim of achieving “parity” with fossil fuel power production — when it is as cheap to make electricity from solar sources as from coal — is still some way off, according to experts.

Obama admitted that the “idea may not be very glamorous” but declared Tuesday that he found insulation “sexy.” Lawmakers also are getting excited by the concept, which they said could help create badly needed jobs for the beleaguered building trades.

Some supporters have dubbed the program “cash for caulkers” because it would use direct government incentives to consumers to spur economic activity, similar in some respects to the popular “cash for clunkers” rebates that sparked a surge in auto sales last summer.

Under one proposal being considered by House Democratic leaders, $20 billion from February’s economic stimulus package would be used to offer incentives of $1,000 to more than $3,000 for people to apply to projects that improve the energy efficiency of their homes. About 5 million homes could be retrofitted under the program, saving homeowners a total of $3.3 billion annually on energy bills, supporters said.

“Here’s what’s sexy about it: saving money,” Obama said at a Home Depot store in Alexandria, Va., as he stood in front of rolls of pink fiberglass insulation.

“If you saw $20 bills just sort of floating through the window up into the atmosphere, you’d try to figure out how you were going to keep that,” he said. “But that’s exactly what’s happening because of the lack of efficiency in our buildings.”

The idea is simple, he said: The incentives would increase consumer spending, helping create jobs at retailers such as Home Depot and for contractors who would do the weatherization work. The program also would help consumers save on their heating and electricity bills as well, saving on the nation’s energy use.

Australia launched a similar program aimed at retrofitting 2.9 million homes that it projects will create 4,000 jobs.

“It makes sense because it’s a win-win-win,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who proposed such a program last winter. “Our U.S. manufacturers are the ones that produce about 85% of the product. It’s our local contractors that do 100% of the work.”

Welch’s proposal was included in climate change legislation passed by the House this year that would take effect in 2012. The Senate has not acted on that legislation. But Welch and other lawmakers recently have begun pushing to offer weatherization incentives immediately as a way to create 600,000 to 850,000 new jobs.

Former President Clinton and Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr also have been promoting versions of such a program. Environmental groups, labor unions and construction industry groups support the concept, along with building supply dealers and manufacturers.

“This is the kind of thinking that is going to get America back to work — and make a big difference in many homeowners’ monthly utility bills,” said Joe Robson, chairman of the National Assn. of Home Builders.

Lane Wesley Burt, manager of building energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the program could be set up as a government rebate administered by certified contractors that would shave the money from a homeowner’s bill when the work was completed. The contractor then would apply to the government for reimbursement of the incentive, similar to how auto dealers administered cash-for-clunkers rebates.

But auto dealers complained about balky government computer systems and slow reimbursements with that program. And some Republicans are critical of a cash-for-caulkers program. They said the cash-for-clunkers program paid money mostly to people who intended to buy cars anyway and argued that $5 billion in weatherization funds in the $787-billion economic stimulus package passed in February hasn’t helped reduce unemployment.

Obama said the new weatherization program is among several “strategic surgical steps” he is pushing to help create jobs as the unemployment rate remains at 10% despite a return to economic growth after the deep recession. He sketched those ideas in a speech last week and added more detail to the cash-for-caulkers concept Tuesday.

Obama was joined at the event by Frank Blake, chief executive of Home Depot, and Michael Thaman, chief executive of insulation-maker Owens Corning, as well as workers from the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Obama said Owens Corning had seen an increase in exports of insulation to Australia because of that country’s weatherization incentive program.

Thaman said afterward that he could not quantify the increase but said he would expect to see growth in the U.S. as well for its domestically produced insulation.

“We believe if there were a direct incentive to homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, that would result in a nice uptick in demand for insulation. And obviously we think that’s both good policy and good for Owens Corning,” Thaman said.

He said homeowners usually prefer to invest in home improvements that are more visible to friends and neighbors, such as new windows. But with government incentives, many could be lured into adding insulation, which is a simple way to improve energy efficiency.

“That emotional attachment to insulation just isn’t here, yet it’s critically important to the country,” Thaman said.

Obama said that homes built in the first half of the 20th century can use about 50% more energy than those built today. Much of the energy is lost through leaky roofs and windows.

Making homes more energy efficient not only helps the environment but also helps homeowners save money and boosts the economy, he said.

” “We’re going to create . . . so many business opportunities for contractors here that over the course of the next several years, people are going to see this, I think, as an extraordinary opportunity,” he said. “And it’s going to help America turn the corner when it comes to energy use.”

Bond Program Expanded To Aid Contractors

(NAPSI)-There’s good news for small construction or supply companies that require a completion bond–also known as a surety bond–to bid on a project.

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Small Business Administration (SBA) can temporarily guarantee bonds on contracts of up to $5 million for small businesses that might not otherwise be able to obtain such bonds.

A surety bond guarantees a company will fulfill an obligation to another party–such as work to be done or goods to be delivered under a contract. In the event the company does not fulfill the contract, the bond is supposed to cover the other party’s losses.

For more than 30 years, the SBA’s Surety Bond Guarantee program has helped small and emerging contractors who have the knowledge and skills necessary for success but lack the combination of experience and financial strength to obtain bonds through regular commercial channels.

The SBA guarantees bid, performance, ancillary and payment bonds issued by surety companies to small and emerging contractors and reimburses the surety a percentage of loss if the contractor defaults.

The agency does not directly bond a contractor. Instead, the contractor chooses a bonding agent, and the SBA reimburses the bond writer between 70 percent and 90 percent of the costs incurred if a contractor defaults.

This government guarantee allows sureties to write bonds for contractors who would not otherwise meet their minimum standards–thus providing small and underserved contractors with contracting opportunities for which they would not otherwise qualify.

In addition to meeting the bonding company’s qualifications, a business must qualify as a small business. This means a company must meet the SBA’s definition of a small business.

The SBA has also implemented another provision of the Recovery Act that would allow it, in some cases, to guarantee bonds in contracts of up to $10 million.

For more information, visit http://www.sba.gov/financialassistance/borrowers/surety/index.htm or call (800) U-ASK-SBA.

The Nacimiento Water Project — the county’s largest public works effort — heads into its final months of construction in 2010.

But even as residents and businesses prepare to use the millions of gallons of drinking water that the 45-mile pipeline will carry, one city is still figuring out how to pay for it, and the fallout from three construction deaths continues.

The $176.1 million project, which includes infrastructure as well as the pipeline, is slated to be finished in July, six months early.

Its finish is timely given that the state is heading into its third straight year of drought. The project stretches from the eastern shore of Nacimiento, through Camp Roberts, south to Paso Robles, Templeton and Atascadero and through the Cuesta Grade to a spot just north of San Luis Obispo at the city’s treatment plant.

Deaths on the job

Three people have died on the project since construction began in December 2007.

Local and federal officials began their investigation in August into the death of Timothy Nelson, who was run over by a dump truck at the Camp Roberts segment of the pipeline.

The 29-year-old Ojai man worked for Teichert Construction, the same Sacramento company that employed two men who drowned in October 2008 when an excavator ruptured a water pipe while they were inside it.

Teichert was fined $70,000 in February 2009 for each of the drowning deaths — Jacob Gaines, 24, of Bakersfield and Manuel Villagomez, 38, of Elk Grove.

That was the largest fine for any company in California doing excavation work in the state in at least three years, records show. Teichert is looking to appeal the fines, officials with the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday.

Federal OSHA investigators, who have jurisdiction over Nelson’s death, didn’t give a specific update on its investigation Wednesday but said the case is still open. In the summer, officials there said they would determine whether adequate safeguards were in place before the incident.

Water rate woes

Paso Robles, one of the pipeline’s five partners, faces severe effects to its reserves if it can’t increase water rates to pay for its share.

The city has proposed four separate water rate plans in the past three years in hopes of addressing concerns raised by a local citizens group. Voters rejected the latest proposal in November.

As the last partner to secure its pipeline funding, the city is working to develop yet another version of its rate plan that will now include a low-income aspect. The City Council has set up a public rates workshop for 6:30 p.m. Jan. 6 at 1000 Spring St. The city will unveil its newest proposal in early 2010 using input to be taken from that meeting and plans already in the works.

“It’s a much more difficult question,” said Shiloh Ballard, who, on behalf of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, shepherded the two-year effort alongside the Santa Clara County Cities Association. “How do you determine whether an applicant has met green building requirements?”

The guidelines adopted by all 15 cities do not mandate green building standards, but they do set the process in motion by requiring all municipal buildings to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards. For commercial buildings there are LEED guidelines for commercial buildings and builders are required to fill out “green” checklists to become educated about the process.

Green building is not a hard sell in the environmentally conscious Bay Area. But another reason to adopt the same set of standards countywide is that it’s better for builders if all cities follow the same consistent guidelines.

“We hear that having different flavors of green standards is not helpful,” said Joe Horwedel, head of San Jose’s Planning Department. “We adopted LEED for commercial and Build It Green criteria for residential and decided not to come up with our own San Jose standards.”

Whereas policymakers are comfortable with the idea of adopting green building standards, they are wary of pushing the building industry too far. As Ballard pointed out, there is a “lot of trepidation” on the part of builders.

“The entitlement process is already complicated enough,” she said. “Now we’re overlaying another set of rules that staff is not necessarily trained to do. We advocated that cities be flexible and understanding.”

Verification controversy

Many, but not all, cities support independent verification of a structure’s green building features.

Breene Kerr, a Los Altos Hills councilman and environmental consultant, has created a Web site featuring a central database illustrating each city’s requirements. As a green point rater, certified by Build It Green, he’s a believer in third-party verification.

“I object to watering down (the requirements) and letting the homeowner or builder check it off,” Kerr said.

Yet those who support submitting certification to the U. S. Green Building Council, which created the LEED guidelines, know it can take months for the council to process the documents and issue the coveted certificate. The backlog is reportedly into the thousands. That plays havoc if a city decides to require LEED certification before issuing an occupancy permit.

“There is tension between different folks,” Ballard said.

But if cities decide their planning departments must verify, they must have the resources to train staff, tough during an era of extreme budget cuts. Horwedel said he still has some funds for training, but recently lost half of his environmentally trained staff during three rounds of layoffs this year.

The third option — allowing builders to check a list — was dismissed by Ballard as akin to “the fox guarding the henhouse.”

Carrot over stick

Tony Mirenda, president of TBI Construction Inc., said he believes builders would be more likely to support incentives to build green than they would mandates. He supports requiring a minimum level of green features, but to encourage builders to aim higher, offer a carrot, he said.

“It is very interesting to see that nearly all of the cities offer no sort of incentive,” he said in an e-mail.

Ballard agrees that such suggestions are worth exploring, adding that now that everyone is moving in the “same direction,” it’s time to “raise the bar.”

In the meantime, she is working to expand the project to all cities in San Mateo County and eventually to the entire Bay Area. Yet she is realistic about the actual impact of everyone’s efforts given the fact that building is currently at a standstill.

“Even if all the cities adopt (the next phase) tomorrow — that’s great, but there’s very little to evaluate,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot of building going on.”

Green building by the numbers:

• 40 percent: Amount of all carbon dioxide emissions in the country from buildings, according to the Environmental Protection Agency

• 2 percent: Extra cost to builders to incorporate environmental standards, or about $3 to $5 a square foot

• 20 percent: Amount saved in operating costs over the life cycle of the building

It was the lowest sales pace since April and followed months of steadier sales boosted by the tax break that was set to expire on Nov. 30.

Buyers would have had to sign a contract on a new home by early October at the latest in order to receive the original tax credit, which was ultimately extended until June and expanded to include repeat buyers.

New home sales are recorded when a contract is signed, not at closing, as existing-home sales are. On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that resales popped 7.4% in November as buyers rushed to complete sales ahead of the deadline.

“The housing recovery is far from becoming self-sustaining,” wrote Anna Piretti, an economist for BNP Paribas. “The current rebound remains very much dependent on government support.”

November’s sales were far weaker than the 421,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See our complete economic calendar and consensus forecast.

October’s sales pace was revised lower to 400,000 from the 430,000 earlier reported.

Sales were down 9% compared with last November. Through the first 11 months of 2009, 349,000 homes had been sold, down 24% from the same period a year ago.

Government statisticians have low confidence in the monthly report, which is subject to large revisions and large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government isn’t sure whether sales rose or fell. The standard error in November, for instance, was plus or minus 11%. Read the full government report.

The government says it can take up to five months to establish a new trend in sales. Over the past five months, sales have been on a 395,000 seasonally adjusted annual pace, down slightly from 404,000 in the five months ending in October.

Home builders continued to slash their inventories of unsold homes. The number of unsold homes dropped 2.1% to 235,000, the lowest in 38 years. The number of homes for sale that are under construction or not yet started fell to a record low.

Builders have cut back on production of new homes, but still face stiff competition from unsold existing homes as foreclosures continue to mount up.

At the November sales pace, it would take 7.9 months to sell the inventory, up from 7.2 months in October.

Once a home is completed, it’s taking 13.6 months to sell it, a reflection of the mismatch between the more expensive homes in the inventory and the lower priced homes that have been selling.

Very expensive homes did sell better in November, however, with the market share of homes costing more than $750,000 rising to 5% from 2% in October. Forty-five percent of sales were for less than $200,000 and 76% were for less than $300,000.

The median sales price of a new home sold in November was $217,400, down 1.9% in the past year.

Sales fell in three of four regions, led by a 21% drop in the South to a 19-year low. Sales fell 9% in the West and 3% in the Northwest. Sales increased 21% in the Midwest.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said income from wages and salaries rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in November, pushing total income growth to 0.4%. Real spending increased 0.2% in November. See full story on the income and spending data.

Also, consumer sentiment improved slightly in December, but consumers are still anxious about their own finances, according to the University of Michigan/Reuters survey released Wednesday. See Economic Report on consumer sentiment.

Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

While we at the California High-Speed Rail Authority don’t second-guess the will of the voters the way Jon Coupal seems to – instead we make it our mission to carry out the will of the voters – we actually agree with the position of the taxpayer advocate who doesn’t want a single cent of the taxpayers’ dollars wasted. We want to ensure that the $9 billion voters decided to put toward the construction of a high-speed rail system is not wasted and is used to its fullest effect. And in fact we have a plan to grow that $9 billion into the $42.6 billion needed to construct the project.

So, in that light, let us run through a number of reasons we think taxpayers would be pleased at the approach taken by the High-Speed Rail Authority.

First, investment in infrastructure is good for our economy. Without a doubt, putting money into brick-and-mortar construction creates jobs and spurs economic stimulus. In the case the of the high-speed train project, a conservative estimate shows we’d create 600,000 construction related job-years over the life of the project’s construction and 450,000 permanent jobs thereafter. The benefits of $43 billion pumped into our economy cannot be overstated.

Which brings me to the second point: it should be noted that California will put up only 25 percent of the cost of this project, but will reap 100 percent of the benefits. One hundred percent of the jobs, 100 percent of the assets, 100 percent of the environmental benefits will be in California, despite the state having put up only 25 percent of the capital. Any business person or taxpayer advocate would say this is a good deal for the state.

Third, our state needs additional modes of transportation to maintain our economy. It’s vital to our continued economic strength, and in order to keep our economy humming over the next two decades as our state’s population swells by a third to 50 million residents, we must be able to move goods and people throughout the state more efficiently than we are able to today. That means more roads, or it means more airports, or it means alternative modes of transportation. High-speed rail is the most cost-effective mode of transportation to construct and maintain, and it will carry enough people such that it will reduce the need to add lane-miles to freeways or departure gates and runways to airports.

Here’s something else that we know Jon Coupal would be laudatory of: the high-speed rail project’s business plan calls for a reliance on contractors, rather than on state public employees. Now, that makes good sense for our project, as it will move through several phases that require expertise in certain areas only for a finite period of time; it makes more sense to hire environmental planners only for the environmental planning phase rather than bringing them on as state staff and then being forced to find work for them after the environmental planning for the project is complete, for example. But it also means the state is getting a better bargain for its dollar. Contract language and risk management mechanisms ensure that taxpayers are getting what they asked for, on schedule, and for a better deal than if the state itself was managing the project.

Lastly, unlike highways or airport runways or any other mode of transportation, the high-speed rail system will pay for itself and require no government subsidy for its operation. Whether that means a ticket to ride it from San Francisco to Los Angeles will cost $50 or $150, we’ve shown that the system will produce a profit. The actual price of a ticket won’t be decided for several years (heck! we don’t even have a single shovel in the ground yet, much less a ticketing operation!) but under a number of scenarios we can see that the system will generate revenue, just as high-speed rail systems do around the world. We can’t understand why the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association wouldn’t be applauding that.

What’s more – and contrary to Jon Coupal’s assertion – tremendous momentum is building for high-speed rail in California. Voters last November said yes to high-speed rail, then two months later we got a president who strongly supports high-speed rail to the degree he included $8 billion for its development in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and advocated for a continuing appropriation for its construction. Congress has put its support behind high-speed rail construction. Private companies and other countries that have high-speed rail have been beating down California’s door to be part of our project – because they know it will be successful and they know it will generate revenue.

At the High-Speed Rail Authority, we’re keeping our sights focused on carrying out the will of the voters of California – and that means creating jobs and improving our state by responsibly and transparently building a desperately needed transportation alternative.

Tom Barr is no stranger to developing homes in northeast Springfield.

Barr developed the 100-lot Pearson Meadows subdivision in 2004, where all lots were sold in about 18 months.

The success of that development led Barr to spearhead a second subdivision in the same area – the 155-lot Pearson Park.

Barr’s latest project, however, is not moving as smoothly as his previous efforts.

Construction begins on four speculative homes – those without buyers in place – at the site next month.

But the lackluster economy and banks’ reluctance to make loans – especially for spec building – mean Barr is expecting a much slower build-out in Pearson Park, where lots start at $39,000.

“Where we were able to sell 100 lots in a year and a half before, the number of lots sold per year now will be a lot less – we’ll be lucky to build and sell 20 houses a year,” said Barr, who is developing Pearson Park with Brian Willaby of Richland Homes.

“The challenge is that the banks aren’t making construction loans to a lot of the people they dealt with in the past, and the demand is down for new construction and developed lots,” Barr added.

Barr is not alone. Several developers have started new subdivisions in southwest Missouri in the last year, and nearly all say they face the same issues: slow demand for new homes, lack of lender support and market uncertainty.

“I don’t think we’ll see building where it was a few years ago,” said Branson Realtor Gary Coder with Gary Coder Properties.

Coder is the listing agent for Jay Sneed’s 101-lot Pinnacle Shores subdivision near Kimberling City.

There are 92 lots ranging from $45,000 to $250,000 still available in the Pinnacle Shores development.

Waiting on banks

While buyer uncertainty still plagues the market – interest in the development is “hit and miss” from day to day – tighter lending makes the situation more precarious, Coder said.

“Our banks down here won’t loan anything for spec homes,” he said. “If it’s a custom construction loan, that’s one thing, but with spec homes, I don’t know if there’s a banker down here that will even talk about it.”

Bankers view custom homes more favorably because they are built to the specifications of an identified buyer.

Bob Hammerschmidt, Springfield region president for Commerce Bank, agreed that banks have tightened lending practices, especially on speculative projects. He said the change is due to a combination of lack of available liquidity – most banks have loan-to-deposit ratios of more than 100 percent, meaning money is scarce – and lender concerns about market stability.

“On a lot of speculative building loans, there hasn’t been enough equity, and that’s getting more scrutiny now,” Hammerschmidt said. “I think lenders are considering not only probable scenarios but the worst case, and they’re worrying about the builders’ staying power to weather what will probably be two more years of economic downturn.”

Fast change needed

Developer Jack Stinson hopes that, regardless of whether it comes from banks or from increased customer demand, the market turns soon. Stinson is in the early stages of developing Kelby Creek in Nixa. No lots have been sold in the 109-lot development, where lot prices range from $39,900 to $69,900, because the developer is awaiting approval of the final plat.

Stinson said in addition to banks loosening their hold on their money, the market needs to finish cleaning out its existing inventory.

“We have a lot of inventory sitting around that banks have taken back, that builders are getting rid of at a discount, and (new homes) can’t compete with that,” Stinson said. “But once that inventory gets eaten up, it creates a chain reaction. The people in those $150,000 homes will move up and buy something a little nicer. But you have to get rid of the excess inventory first.”

But once existing inventory is culled, Coder is concerned that restrictive lending practices will hamper builders’ efforts to meet market needs when the economy improves.

“The second this thing does turn – and I see it rounding the bend right now, because there’s more confidence (among) buyers than there was in January – we’re going to have a shortage because there’s been no spec homes put on the books in six to eight months,” he said.

The building’s owners, leasing agents and architects said Wednesday that they are literally taking environmental sustainability to new heights with a $350 million retrofit of the 1970s-era modernist building — and the turbines are only the tip of the transformation. The plan, to begin immediately, aims to reduce electricity use in the tower by 80 percent over five years through upgrades in the glass exterior, internal lighting, heating, cooling and elevator systems — and its own green power generation.

In such a huge tower, with 4.5 million square feet of office and retail space, 16,000 windows and 104 elevators, the project is bound to be one of the most substantial green renovations ever tried on one site, planners said. The Sears Tower is significantly larger than the 102-story, 2.6-million-square-foot Empire State Building, for instance, which is also undergoing renovation to reduce energy consumption.

“If we can take care of one building that size, it has a huge impact on society,” said Adrian Smith, an architect whose firm designed the Sears Tower renovation. “It is a village in and of itself.”

Buildings are among the world’s largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. After the retrofit, energy savings at the Sears Tower, which is to be renamed the Willis Tower this summer, would be equal to 150,000 barrels of oil a year, officials said. The savings are expected to help redeem some of the project’s cost, which is to be financed through private equity investment, grants, debt financing and government funds.

The Sears Tower plans to open a first-floor center to educate the public about the redesign, and hopes to serve as a model for other aging skyscrapers around the world, officials said.

Single-family projects dropped 3 percent, the first decrease since January, while work began on 25 percent more multifamily units such as apartments, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Totalhousing starts rose 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 598,000, the highest level in nine months and matching economists’ expectations.

Builders may be reluctant to further increase the supply of homes amid uncertainty over whether the Obama administration’s $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers will be extended beyond November, economists said. The incentive, plus foreclosure-driven declines in prices, has helped stabilize the housing market in recent months following the biggest slump since the Great Depression.

“We may be in for a period of consolidation, given the apparent end of the tax credit” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. “We’re certainly going to see, over time, housing starts rise.”

A separate report today from the Labor Department showed the number of Americans filing first-time claims for jobless benefits fell unexpectedly last week, a sign the labor market is deteriorating at a slower pace as the economy pulls out of the recession.

Continuing Claims

Applications dropped by 12,000 to 545,000 in the week ended Sept. 12, from a revised 557,000 the week before. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance rose the prior week.

Stocks fluctuated, a day after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed to an 11-month high, as disappointing sales at Oracle Corp. and FedEx Corp. offset the decrease in jobless claims. The S&P 500 was up 0.5 percent to 1,073.83 as of 10 a.m. in New York.

Starts were projected to rise to a 598,000 annual pace from a 581,000 rate initially reported for July, according to the median forecast of 74 economistssurveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from 570,000 to 640,000.

Permits, a sign of future construction, climbed 2.7 percent to a 579,000 annual rate in August, also led by an increase in multifamily. They were projected to rise to 583,000, economists forecast.

Construction of single-family houses, which account for about 85 percent of the industry, fell to a 479,000 rate, the first decline since January. Work on multi-family units, which makes up the rest of the market and is often volatile, jumped to a 119,000 rate.

Gains in Northeast

The increase in starts was led by a 24 percent increase in the Northeast. They rose 0.9 percent in the Midwest, and fell 2.4 percent in the South. The West was little changed.

Volatility in multifamily projects has obscured the underlying improvement in residential building. Construction of apartments and condominiums surged 56 percent in May only to slump by 21 percent and 15 percent the next two months.

Americans are taking advantage of the Obama administration’s $8,000 tax credits for first-time buyers that expires at the end of November. Those with jobs, cash to make down payments and good credit scores are picking up bargains as record foreclosures have driven down home prices by about 32 percent from their peaks in mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller index.

Home Sales Rise

Combined sales of new and existing homes rose in the four months though July.

A report yesterday showed gains in sales and buyer traffic pushed builder confidence this month to its highest level since May 2008.

Luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. is among companies that see demand improving, even as losses mount.

“In the last six months, we see a pretty significant change in some markets,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll said in an interview Aug. 27 with Bloomberg Television. “People are now concerned with missing the market.”

The expiration of the tax credit for first time buyers may result in a downdraft for sales and construction, Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said before the report. The housing market is unlikely to recover fully until the unemployment rate stops rising and the economy begins creating jobs, he said before the report.