Green Building & Manufacturing

Green Building & Manufacturing Articles

Pressure-Cooking Algae Into a Better Biofuel
ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2010) - Heating and squishing microalgae in a pressure-cooker can fast-forward the crude-oil-making process from millennia to minutes.
University of Michigan professors are working to understand and improve this procedure in an effort to speed up development of affordable biofuels that could replace fossil fuels and power today's engines.
They are also examining the possibility of other new fuel sources such as E. coli bacteria that would feed on waste products from previous bio-oil batches.
"The vision is that nothing would leave the refinery except oil. Everything would get reused. That's one of the things that makes this project novel. It's an integrated process. We're combining hydrothermal, catalytic and biological approaches," said Phillip Savage, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the U-M Department of Chemical Engineering and principal investigator on the $2-million National Science Foundation grant that supports this project. The grant is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
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Canada BIM Council, U.S. buildingSMART alliance team up to create BIM standard
The Canada BIM Council and the buildingSMART alliance of the United States are poised to work collaboratively on development of a North American BIM standard in the wake of the signing of a historic memorandum of understanding.
CanBIM will provide adaptations "addressing Canada's unique needs," said council chair Paul Loreto of London.
He said the intent is to focus on such issues as interoperability between BIM platforms, establishment of specific standards governing model development and creation of an interactive website allowing the architecture, engineering and construction communities to discuss BIM and air any concerns they might have.
"As each common concern is documented and a resolution has been reached, CanBIM will share this knowledge with key Canadian associations that have entered into memorandums of agreement with us so they can leverage our findings to provide direction to their membership," Loreto said.
"Such collaboration will provide a unified approach to resolving issues concerning BIM and will best reflect the joint concerns of members of the Canadian AEC industry."
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BIM Helps Find Feasibility of Construction
The BIM (building information modeling) process can be used for a number of different tasks: scheduling, estimating, design, and even project collaboration. But one of the most valuable uses of BIM may occur before a project even begins-to predict the success and feasibility of a project.
The General Services Admin. (GSA), www.gsa.gov, Washington, D.C., implemented its National 3D-4D BIM program in 2003. The Public Buildings Services has more than 70 capital projects using BIM technologies in support of GSA business needs, and the GSA continues to use BIM, even in the earliest phases of a project.
Recently, Beck Technology, www.beck-technology.com, Dallas, Texas, announced it has been awarded a task order for a building information modeling contract with the GSA. This means Beck will help conduct a feasibility study for the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), www.hud.gov, Washington, D.C.
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AGC Releases New Green Construction Plan
The nation's buildings and infrastructure will become more efficient, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting energy consumption, according to a new green construction plan released Thursday by AGC. The plan outlines measures designed to stimulate demand for green construction projects, boost infrastructure capacity, and improve building efficiency and green construction practices.
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Cape Cod Project Is Crucial Step for U.S. Wind Industry
More than 800 giant wind turbines spin off the coasts of Denmark, Britain and seven other European countries, generating enough electricity from strong ocean breezes to power hundreds of thousands of homes. China's first offshore wind farm, a 102-megawatt venture near Shanghai, goes online this month, with more in the pipeline. But despite a decade of efforts, not a single offshore turbine has been built in the United States.
Experts say progress has been slowed by a variety of factors, including poor economics, an uncertain regulatory framework and local opposition.
When the Obama administration announces a decision this week on the most prominent project - Cape Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts - it could have implications from Long Island to Lake Erie. An approval from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar might well nudge the project to completion as the nation's first offshore wind farm. On the other hand, some developers say a thumbs-down could gut America's offshore wind industry before it ever really gets started.
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REPORT: Smart climate policy will boost growth, create 2.8 million jobs, slash pollution
A new macroeconomic analysis of green economic policies finds that cutting global warming pollution will make the economy grow faster. Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.
The Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), building upon analysis they did of state-level climate plans for the National Governors Association, analyzed the economic and environmental impact of legislation in line with the planned Kerry-Graham-Lieberman framework. As long as state-level policies are boosted, CCS found that previous economic analyses by federal agencies and industry groups are wrong. This CCS analysis finds that instead of slowing the economy, household wealth and jobs will grow faster in a green economy. Carbon limits and efficiency-focused policies would have a net positive employment impact of 2.8 million jobs and expand the economy by $154.7 billion by 2020, while US emissions are cut to 27 percent below 1990 levels - if strong standards are set:
The modeled job creation is consistent with the findings of Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, which used an input-output model to find that a green economy would create 1.7 million new jobs. The center looked at three different policy scenarios, using the industry-standard REMI Policy Insight PI+ macroeconomic model:
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Fuel Cells Get Up to Speed With a New Kind of Platinum
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2010) - A new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created by researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston. The process, described in the April 25th issue of Nature Chemistry, could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen.
"This is a significant advance," said scientist Anders Nilsson, who conducts research at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a joint institute between SLAC and Stanford University. "Fuel cells were invented more than 100 years ago. They haven't made a leap over to being a big technology yet, in part because of this difficulty with platinum."
Fuel cells hold significant promise for clean energy because the cell's only byproduct is water. But current fuel cell designs can require as much as 100 grams of platinum, pushing their price tags into the thousands of dollars. By tweaking platinum's reactivity, the researchers were able to curtail the amount of platinum required by 80 percent, and hope to soon reduce it by another 10 percent, greatly trimming away at the overall cost.
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Germany's First Offshore Wind Farm Goes Online
Germany's energy supply is on the verge of an important turning point. Over the coming months and years, German utility giants plan to build massive offshore wind farms that are expected to produce huge amounts of green energy. The first such wind farm went online this week.
It is wet, cold and somewhat unreal on this morning in Emden, a small city on the North Sea coast in northwestern Germany. Patches of fog are slowly beginning to dissipate, but the worst thing of all is that it's dead calm.
"Let's hope they're working at least," says project manager Wilfried Hube, with a worried look on his face. Then he tightens the belt on his life vest and climbs into the waiting helicopter. The chopper takes off and flies at low altitude toward the coast, passing the islands of Juist and Borkum before heading out over the North Sea. That's where the destination of Hube's short flight lies: Alpha Ventus, Germany's first and thus far only offshore wind farm. At first, the forms look tiny as they appear on the horizon. But as the helicopter approaches the wind farm, the gigantic dimensions of the project become apparent.
Twelve wind turbines tower above the icy water, covering an area of roughly four square kilometers (1.5 square miles), or about the size of 500 soccer fields. At a height of 150 meters (492 feet), each turbine is as tall as the Cologne Cathedral and, at 1,000 tons, as heavy as 25 fully loaded semi-trailer trucks.
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Catalyst Brings Cheap Hydrogen Fuel Closer to Reality
Hydrogen sure seems like the perfect alternative to fossil fuels. Just zap water with a bit of energy to split it into hydrogen and oxygen, and presto, you've wound up with a gas that can be used to power the planet-and that emits no CO2. Ah, were it only so simple. Conventional water-splitting catalysts that make hydrogen gas are either too expensive, too frail, or too finicky to work in water alone.
Now, however, researchers report that they've created a new molybdenum-based catalyst that cranks out the hydrogen, is cheap to make, works in water, and is robust. The catalyst isn't perfect, as it requires too much energy to generate hydrogen. But its unusual character offers chemists a valuable new lead for making and improving water-splitting catalysts.
Generating hydrogen gas (H2) isn't difficult. Platinum is adept at transferring pairs of electrons to pairs of protons to make H2. But the precious metal is far too expensive to use for commercial hydrogen production. A cheaper model would use bulky microbial enzymes called hydrogenases that make H2 using proteins based on nickel and iron. Researchers have made slimmer versions for years, but most either work too slowly, work only with the addition of organic acids and other additives, or quickly fall apart.
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Renewable Energy: Inexpensive Metal Catalyst Can Effectively Generate Hydrogen from Water
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2010) - Hydrogen would command a key role in future renewable energy technologies, experts agree, if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed. An important step towards this elusive goal has been taken by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley. The team has discovered an inexpensive metal catalyst that can effectively generate hydrogen gas from water.
"Our new proton reduction catalyst is based on a molybdenum-oxo metal complex that is about 70 times cheaper than platinum, today's most widely used metal catalyst for splitting the water molecule," said Hemamala Karunadasa, one of the co-discoverers of this complex. "In addition, our catalyst does not require organic additives, and can operate in neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth and a natural electrolyte. These qualities make our catalyst ideal for renewable energy and sustainable chemistry."
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Scotland the Saudi Arabia of Marine Energy?
Blessed with some of Europe's strongest tides and waves, Scotland is piloting the world's largest program to generate commercial ocean energy.
The stormy seas of northern Scotland have wrecked many ships navigating its maze of rocky islands and the fearsome Cape Wrath.
Now these formidable waters are a different kind of testing ground, one that could be either the birthplace of a clean energy revolution or its watery grave. This is where marine power must prove itself.
In March 2010, the UK awarded leases to build ten wave and tidal power sites around the Orkney Islands and in the Pentland Firth-a narrow channel between the Orkneys and Scotland's northern coast.
In total, the sites will produce up to 1.2GW of clean energy-600MW each for wave and tidal-which could power up to 750,000 homes from about 2015 onwards.
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US research paper questions viability of carbon capture and storage
Document from Houston University claims governments overestimated CCS value
A new research paper from American academics is threatening to blow a hole in growing political support for carbon capture and storage as a weapon in the fight against global warming.
The document from Houston University claims that governments wanting to use CCS have overestimated its value and says it would take a reservoir the size of a small US state to hold the CO2 produced by one power station.
Previous modelling has hugely underestimated the space needed to store CO2 because it was based on the "totally erroneous" premise that the pressure feeding the carbon into the rock structures would be constant, argues Michael Economides, professor of chemical engineering at Houston, and his co-author Christene Ehlig-Economides, professor of energy engineering at Texas A&M University
"It is like putting a bicycle pump up against a wall. It would be hard to inject CO2 into a closed system without eventually producing so much pressure that it fractured the rock and allowed the carbon to migrate to other zones and possibly escape to the surface," Economides said.
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The Greening of Silicon Valley: It Looks Like the Next Big Thing
California's high-tech giants have long used renewable energy to help power their Silicon Valley headquarters. Now, companies such as Google, Adobe Systems, and eBay are preparing for the next step - investing in off-site solar and wind installations and innovative technologies that will supply their offices and data centers with green electricity.
From the street, Adobe Systems' San Jose headquarters looks like any other collection of skyscrapers that dot the downtown of the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley.
But ascend to a skyway that connects two of the software company's towers and you'll find a wind farm. Twenty vertical turbines that resemble a modern art installation slowly rotate in the breeze that blows through a six-floor plaza. Down in the parking garage, a dozen electric car-charging stations have been set up. Adobe, which makes the ubiquitous Flash player software, will install 18 more chargers this year to accommodate workers expected to be first in line when the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, and other battery-powered vehicles roll into Silicon Valley showrooms later this year.
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Developing World Will Produce Double the E-Waste of Developed Countries by 2016, Study Predicts
ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2010) - Developing countries will be producing at least twice as much electronic waste (e-waste) as developed countries within the next 6-8 years, according to a new study published in ACS' semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology. It foresees in 2030 developing countries discarding 400 million -- 700 million obsolete personal computers per year compared to 200 million -- 300 million in developed countries.
Eric Williams and colleagues cite a dramatic increase in ownership of PCs and other electronic devices in both developed and developing countries. At the same time, technological advances are shrinking the lifetime of consumer electronics products, so that people discard electronics products sooner than ever before. That trend has led to global concern about environmentally safe ways of disposing of e-waste, which contains potentially toxic substances.
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U.S. Office Buildings Need to Get Smart, New Study Says
OAKLAND, CA - Despite rapidly developing technology to support and manage facilities, office buildings in the U.S. are falling behind the curve when it comes to adopting smart solutions that can ramp up energy efficiency and other aspects that affect costs, occupants' comfort and productivity, according to new research from IBM.
Building systems have largely remained rooted in the past, even though the people who occupy them have come to expect increasingly smarter technology in the tools and equipment they use, IBM found in its Smarter Buildings Survey. Results of the research are being released today.
The findings are based on responses from 6,486 adults, who participated in IBM's online survey earlier this month and work full or part time in 16 major U.S. cities. The survey questions covered building automation, security, elevator reliability and conservation practices by the company and individuals.
Here are highlights of what the office workers told IBM:
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Purple Pokeberries Hold Secret to Affordable Solar Power Worldwide
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2010) - Pokeberries -- the weeds that children smash to stain their cheeks purple-red and that Civil War soldiers used to write letters home -- could be the key to spreading solar power across the globe, according to researchers at Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. Nanotech Center scientists have used the red dye made from pokeberries to coat their efficient and inexpensive fiber-based solar cells. The dye acts as an absorber, helping the cell's tiny fibers trap more sunlight to convert into power.
Pokeberries proliferate even during drought and in rocky, infertile soil. That means residents of rural Africa, for instance, could raise the plants for pennies. Then they could make the dye absorber for the extremely efficient fiber cells and provide energy where power lines don't run, said David Carroll, Ph.D., the center's director.
"They're weeds," Carroll said. "They grow on every continent but Antarctica."
Wake Forest University holds the first patent for fiber-based photovoltaic, or solar, cells, granted by the European Patent Office in November. A spinoff company called FiberCell Inc. has received the license to develop manufacturing methods for the new solar cell.
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With a push from society, green buildings can cut CO2 emissions
Imagine buildings that have high-efficiency windows and insulation in walls; water that is collected, used, purified and reused on site; construction materials and interior finish products with zero or low emissions; careful integration of natural and artificial light sources; and energy generated from photovoltaic or solar panels...
These are just a few features of green buildings, also known as sustainable or green construction, developed to meet humanity's need for more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly construction practices.
"As we were trying to decide which topic will be the hottest one in the next 10 years, we decided that it would be the topic of green buildings," said Baris Onay, assistant general manager of the Building Information Center (YEM), which provides information for professionals of building products and technologies.
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IBM Survey Reveals How Efficient U.S. Buildings Really Are
According to IBM's survey, U.S. office buildings have failed to keep pace with the revolution in automation that pervades modern life
In the past 12 months, New York City office workers have spent the equivalent of 22.5 years either waiting for an elevator or stuck in one, according to a new IBM survey.
This statistic, paired with the other findings from the survey, indicates that U.S. office buildings have failed to keep pace with the revolution in automation that pervades modern life. The survey indicates that inefficiencies built into office buildings are taking a toll in lost productivity and added costs.
Designed to gauge how intelligent certain automated and green office buildings are, the IBM survey of 6,486 office workers in 16 U.S. cities looks at a number of important factors, including security, office temperature, use of alternative energy sources, environmental and conservation issues, and elevator reliability. Here are just a few of the survey's findings:
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