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HOUSTON -- Of all the big cities in the country, Houston ranks second for energy-efficient construction.

In a new study from the University of San Diego, only Los Angeles scored better.

The hole in the ground is less than a month old. But it’s what you don’t see -- 30 stories up, in thin air, that will make the office tower that will eventually rise here -- the first of its kind in the country.

“There will be two stacked on top of each other, and there will be five sets of them across the top,” Trammel Crow spokesman Adam Saphier said.

He’s talking about wind turbines. But they’ll look very different from the ones we’re used to.

Soon sensors on top of cranes will measure the wind speed way up high — to learn how much energy the turbines atop the new “Discovery Tower” will generate.

“As the turbine spins, it creates an electric charge, and there’s a converter that converts that charge into an availability and use for the tenants of the building to flip on a light switch and use them as electrical power,” Saphier said.

Saphier is making sure that everything in the three hundred million dollar tower will save energy. From efficient glass, to recycled water, to the light switches, to the landscaping.

When Discovery Tower opens in two years, it’ll be the most environmentally advanced skyscraper in Houston.

On a smaller scale, tucked away in Upper Kirby, Dan Hedges is building the most enviornmentally advanced “home” in the city. Solar panels on the roof will generate so much electricity—he expects to power other houses with his.

“So at the end of the month if we put as much power into the grid as we took out of the grid we should have a power bill of zero,” he said.

Rather than use an air conditioner, this home turns to “geothermal cooling” — pumping water 300 feet underground, then back up, to cool the home.

“Ten of them,” he said. “It looked like we were drilling for oil.”

So how much does all this cost? Well, Hedges says he doesn’t know yet, because his home isn’t finished. But obviously, the price tag is higher than any normal construction job.

“We just wanted to demonstrate to people that the technology exists now, that you have contractors and subcontractors and engineers in Houston who know how to do this at this time,” Hedges said.

Back at the office tower, profit is most certainly a motive. Numbers show that show the owners of "green buildings" can charge about 6 percent more in rent than traditional buildings. Tenants will pay more both to save energy and, perhaps just as valuable, to get a public relations boost.

“It’s going to have a good draw for the energy companies that are growing in Houston right now,” Aaron Restum said.

BP is a year away from opening its natural gas trading headquarters along the Katy Freeway -- another “green building” that’ll use one-third less electricty, and two-thirds less water.

“Houston is the energy capital of the world, and it’s quickly becoming the sustainable alternative energy capital of the world,” Restum said.

“You can do this,” Hedges said. “It’s here, we’ve got it.”

So green is going up all around you in Houston, more than almost anywhere else.