And he also called to make a major investment in infrastructure, suggesting that inefficient buildings might be replaced with more efficient ones, if renovations aren’t practical.

I would not underestimate the number of jobs this would create in the building trades. Joe the Plumber will be needed to install those new heating systems.

You’re right that it’s largely a one-off, but it will take some years of one-offs to get it all in place.

There’s also the procurement thing, which will eventually benefit everyone – when a customer as large as the federal government specifies more efficient products, industry listens – and the economy of scale trickles down to smaller goverments and institutions which buy the same kind of equipment (efficient boilers for very large buildings, for example).