Green Building Articles
Calculate HVAC loads with BIM
3-D building information modeling tools are improving the process of calculating peak cooling and heating loads for buildings.
HVAC cooling and heating load analysis for buildings currently is performed by using widely available software tools. For the past 25 years, this method has become the status quo for
HVAC design engineers, and it has proven to be an effective way to accurately calculate building cooling and heating losses.
However, this method has some disadvantages, including tediousness of inputting data for large buildings and difficulty in reusing the inputted building data for other types of analysis
such as lighting and energy calculations.
With improvements in 3-D modeling software tools and more powerful computers, a different method of performing HVAC cooling loads has emerged. This method allows designers to
create smart 3-D building models that can export all of the building information to analysis software tools to perform peak HVAC cooling and heating load analysis. This article
discusses the evolution of this technology and its advantages over older methods.
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Green Building Initiative launches two certification programs for green building professionals
The Green Globes Professional and Green Globes Assessor Programs will Promote and Expand Green and Sustainable Building Practices
Today the Green Building Initiativeฎ (GBI), one of the nation's leading green building organizations and exclusive provider of the Green Globes green building certification in the United
States, today announced the availability of two new personnel certification programs for green building practitioners. The certifications, Green Globes Professional (GGP) and Green
Globes Assessor (GGA), will help expand the knowledge base around accepted sustainable building best practices including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), as well as extend the reach
of the Green Building Initiative as it responds to growing demand for Green Globes certification.
The GGP designation will expand the base of experts in accepted and emerging green building best practices, including the use of the Green Globes rating system for new and existing
commercial buildings. The GGA credential represents the nation's first and only formal training program for qualified green building assessors open to the public.
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Architects Return to Class as Green Design Advances
It seems like only yesterday that environmentally conscious building practices began making their way into the architecture profession.
How times have changed.
This year, the American Institute of Architects implemented a policy requiring all members to take four hours of continuing education courses in sustainable design every year.
The requirement, which extends through 2012, represents a response to a rapidly changing field and a recognition that architects must continue to refresh their knowledge of sustainable
construction methods and building materials.
"This should be part of what all architects ought to know about," said Fredric M. Bell, the executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "Education
doesn't stop at architecture school. How do you ensure people stay abreast of changes in the profession?"
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Lower-cost Solar Cells To Be Printed Like Newspaper, Painted On Rooftops
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2009) Solar cells could soon be produced more cheaply using nanoparticle "inks" that allow them to be printed like newspaper or painted onto the sides of
buildings or rooftops to absorb electricity-producing sunlight.
Brian Korgel, a University of Texas at Austin chemical engineer, is hoping to cut costs to one-tenth of their current price by replacing the standard manufacturing process for solar cells
gas-phase deposition in a vacuum chamber, which requires high temperatures and is relatively expensive.
"That's essentially what's needed to make solar-cell technology and photovoltaics widely adopted," Korgel said. "The sun provides a nearly unlimited energy resource, but existing solar
energy harvesting technologies are prohibitively expensive and cannot compete with fossil fuels."
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Traffic lights get 'green' bulbs
The new bulbs are expected to save 600 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
Energy-saving light bulbs are to be installed at 3,500 traffic lights across London to reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions.
At least three bulbs will be fitted at each traffic signal head at 300 junctions in the capital next year.
The plans are part of the Mayor of London's efforts to cut CO2 emissions in London by 60% by 2025.
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Washington State Takes the Building Code Challenge
Policymakers seeking to lower greenhouse gas emissions while boosting job creation should consider the residential and commercial building sectors where a few state governments
are exploring the environmental and economic benefits of energy-efficient building energy codes.
One such state is Washington, which took major strides this year by becoming the first to legislatively adopt the fundamental goals of the Architecture 2030 Challenge into its building
energy codes. State Senator Derek Kilmer (D) widely known in Washington as the job creation guru was a prime sponsor of this legislation (Senate Bill 5854), which aims to
enhance business innovation en route to meeting the steady and ambitious building energy use reduction targets prescribed by the 2030 Challenge.
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Homes Pollute: Linked To 50 Percent More Water Pollution Than Previously Believed
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2009) They say there's no place like home. But scientists are reporting some unsettling news about homes in the residential areas of California. The typical
house there and probably elsewhere in the country is an alarming and probably underestimated source of water pollution, according to a new study reported at the 238th National
Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
In the study, Lorence Oki, Darren Haver and colleagues explain that runoff results from rainfall and watering of lawns and gardens, which winds up in municipal storm drains. The runoff
washes fertilizers, pesticides and other contaminants into storm drains, and they eventually appear in rivers, lakes and other bodies of water.
"Results from our sampling and monitoring study revealed high detection frequencies of pollutants such as pesticides and pathogen indicators at all sites," Oki says of their study of
eight residential areas in Sacramento and Orange Counties in California.
Preliminary results of the study suggest that current models may underestimate the amount of pollution contributed by homes by up to 50 percent. That's because past estimates
focused on rain-based runoff during the wet season. "Use of pesticides, however, increases noticeably during the dry season due to gardening, and our data contains greater resolution
than previous studies," Oki says.
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Energy Secretary Steven Chu visiting a Columbus, Ohio, home
DOE also released a video showing Energy Secretary Steven Chu visiting a Columbus, Ohio, home as it is being weatherized. He is joined in the video by Ohio Governor Ted
Strickland and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, and they discuss the benefits of weatherization and how funding from the Recovery Act is having a direct impact in communities
across the United States. See the video.
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Ultrathin LEDs Create New Classes Of Lighting And Display Systems
ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2009) A new process for creating ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and assembling them into large arrays offers new classes of
lighting and display systems with interesting properties, such as see-through construction and mechanical flexibility, that would be impossible to achieve with existing technologies.
Applications for the arrays, which can be printed onto flat or flexible substrates ranging from glass to plastic and rubber, include general illumination, high-resolution home theater
displays, wearable health monitors, and biomedical imaging devices.
"Our goal is to marry some of the advantages of inorganic LED technology with the scalability, ease of processing and resolution of organic LEDs," said John Rogers, the
Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois.
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Solar Thermal Heating Up Sharply
Solar thermal heating worldwide expanded by 19 gigawatts of thermal equivalent (GWth) with the highest annual growth rate since 1995 to reach 147 GWth (210 million square meters
(m2)) of capacity in 2007. (See Figures 1 and 2 on solar water heating-a subset of solar thermal heating applications.) Water heating for domestic uses accounts for 126 GWth (180
million m2), or 86 percent of all installations, while space heating, swimming pool heating, and industrial processes account for the remaining 21 GWth (30 million m2). Preliminary
estimates for global solar thermal heating suggest additions of between 18 and 19 GWth in 2008, mostly in China.
The most mature of solar technologies, solar thermal heating harnesses the sun's energy for domestic water heating, space heating, swimming pool heating, and drying and other
industrial processes. Solar thermal systems can also meet cooling needs by fueling a compressor driven by heat rather than by traditional mechanical energy. It is one of the most widely
used renewable heating technologies and the only one to produce energy at levels comparable to renewable power, second only to wind in terms of energy produced annually. Solar
thermal heating produced enough energy globally in 2007 to meet the equivalent heating needs of 15 percent of U.S. households.
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Not from My Back Yard? Homes Pollute
They say there's no place like home. But scientists are reporting some unsettling news about homes in the residential areas of California. The typical house there and probably
elsewhere in the country is an alarming and probably underestimated source of water pollution, according to a new study reported today at the 238th National Meeting of the
American Chemical Society.
In the study, Lorence Oki, Darren Haver and colleagues explain that runoff results from rainfall and watering of lawns and gardens, which winds up in municipal storm
drains. The runoff washes fertilizers, pesticides and other contaminants into storm drains, and they eventually appear in rivers, lakes and other bodies of water.
"Results from our sampling and monitoring study revealed high detection frequencies of pollutants such as pesticides and pathogen indicators at all sites," Oki says of their study of
eight residential areas in Sacramento and Orange Counties in California.
Read More...
Toward a BIM Paradigm
A systems approach to building information modeling should not be confused with the notion of a single building information model. Implementing BIM does not mean that all of the
information about a building must be compiled into a single data file, reside in a single physical location, or be maintained by a single business entity throughout the life cycle of the
building.
The notion of a comprehensive life cycle building information model while conceptually appealing is problematic from a business point of view. Often cited as one of the primary
goals of a BIM implementation strategy, the single building model is beyond the reach of any end user today for the same reason that it has been out of reach for 30 years: neither the
technology nor the market conditions needed to support it exist. To the best of our knowledge, not one viable comprehensive building information model residing within a single data file
has ever been created.
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