Green Building Articles
Watch: Climate Change's Impact on Your Region
Climate scientist Gerald Meehl explains how the latest findings affect you. (ABC News Now)
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ASHRAE Research Targets Tying Together BIM, Energy Efficiency
Ensuring that a common language of "energy efficiency" is spoken by both building information modeling software used by architects and energy analysis and simulation software used by engineers is
the goal of new research funded by ASHRAE.
The project will develop open-source reference models by which developers may test their solutions to interoperability between BIM and energy simulation software. The project will focus on the most
common thermal features in buildings assumed to have the greatest impact on energy use, and provide guidelines for describing thermal models extracted from BIM and the rules for extracting those
models used in whole building energy analysis applications.
"This research will promote the inclusion of energy efficiency measures in the early design of building model development," said Mark Clayton, Ph.D., principal investigator for the project. "It is
expected to greatly increase the efficiency and accuracy of energy analysis and allow building designs to achieve higher levels of energy efficiency."
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Waste Not, Watt Not: Energy efficiency cuts pollution while lowering energy bills
The House climate and clean energy bill has made energy efficiency a centerpiece (see "The triumph of energy efficiency: Waxman-Markey could save $3,900 per household and create 650,000 jobs
by 2030"). It would generate some $500 billion through 2025 in efficiency investments alone (see "The only way to win the clean energy race is to pass the clean energy bill"). This new CAP analysis,
which includes a state-by-state data on energy savings, cost savings, job creation, and pollution reductions from efficiency investments under the American Clean Energy and Security Act (.xls), by
Daniel J. Weiss, Erica Goad, and Jonathan Aronchick was first published here.
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The Greenest White House
Upon first entering the White House, President Obama expressed to Barbara Walters his intention to set an example for Americans on how to live more eco-friendly: "Each of us have a role to play in
not being wasteful when it comes to energy". Part of what I want to do is to show the American people it's not that hard." The Obama family put those words into action very quickly from Michelle
Obama's organic herb and vegetable garden on the south lawn to the Obama girls' green swing-set made of recycled materials, shredded tires and nontoxic dyes.
The current first family isn't the first in the White House to implement energy-saving practices. In 1979 President Jimmy Carter had a $28,000 solar water heater installed on the roof of the West Wing,
and President George W. Bush installed a small photovoltaic system as well as two solar water heating systems. Obama, however, plans to earn a LEED certification to make the White House the
greenest it has ever been. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to measure and reward buildings
and communities that implement green building design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
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Water helps fuel debate on the South Texas Project
During the intense Southeast drought of 2007, when the region desperately needed to power its air conditioners, the Browns Ferry nuclear complex in Alabama had to shut down one of its reactors for
more than a day and significantly reduce power from two more.
In the deadly European heat wave of 2003, many of the French nuclear plants were in a similar bind and were forced to power down as thousands were overcome by heat-related illnesses.
The culprit in both cases was a lack of water in the rivers used to operate and cool the reactors.
Situations like these have many questioning if there possibly can be enough water in fast-growing, drought-prone South Texas to meet the needs of two more nuclear reactors being proposed at the
South Texas Project plant outside Bay City.
But San Antonio's CPS Energy and partner New Jersey-based NRG Energy, which want to build the reactors, contend they have the legal rights to all the water they need. Those rights, negotiated with
the Lower Colorado River Authority, give the plant access to some 102,000 acre-feet of water a year, a massive amount equivalent to roughly half of San Antonio's water needs in a dry year.
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Technologies for Sustainable Streets
NO-COST 60 MINUTE LIVE WEBINAR
Thursday September 24th, 1:00 pm ET
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Five components of sustainable streets
2. Environmental considerations for pavement selection
3. Urban heat island mitigation
4. Green building rating systems
5. Traffic calming lessons from Italy
6. Pedestrian and cyclist oriented - transforming NYC into a livable community
7. The use of existing pavement surfaces to enhance historical & culturally important communities
Register Here