Green Building & Manufacturing
A Truly Concrete Business Plan
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's entrepreneurship competition, the M.I.T. 100k, gave a new venture, C-Crete Technologies, top honors and a $100,000 cash prize on Wednesday night. One of 204 initial competitors, the company advanced to the finals through a year-long series of pitching and plan-writing contests.
C-Crete has invented and patented a new type of cement, which it says is harder and more durable than any other on the market. The company's co-founders, Rouzbeh Shahsavari, the chief executive, and Natanel Barookhian, chief of finance, say their innovative building material will help meet a rising global demand for cement and concrete, while allowing the industry to reduce its negative impact on the environment.
According to reports from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a major industrial trade association, cement production is responsible for at least 5 percent of the world's anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions each year.
The founders say that longer-lasting cement like C-Crete's can be used to make concrete that weighs less and is less bulky (but stronger) than standard varieties and requires less energy for manufacturing and transport. "It gives architects the option to build walls half as thick as normal walls," said Mr. Shahsavari, "to build taller, more impressive and more elegant structures."
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Taiwan builds plastic bottle structure
It's light, airy and made out of 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles.
The main exhibition hall of the Taipei International Floral Exposition -- set to open in November -- is this city's answer to the environmental degradation caused by the rapid proliferation of petrochemical-based drinks containers.
Showcasing cutting-edge technologies for green, low-carbon construction, the building with transparent walls and chandelier-like ceiling lights is called EcoARK, and bills itself as the world's first large structure fashioned from recycled plastic bottles.
It's basic building blocks, called polli-bricks, are formed from reprocessing plastic bottles into a hardened construction material.
Architect Arthur Huang says Taiwan is a natural for a building like EcoARK, because the island's well-developed plastics industry has bred a local expertise in dealing creatively with plastics products.
"From making plastics, Taiwanese have acquired the skills to process plastic bottles into useful building material," he said.
With hardly any effort, Huang lifted a panel of hollow polli-bricks interlocked into a honeycomb shape.
He said the pieces are melded together in a lego design strong enough for EcoARK to withstand major storms and earthquakes -- an important consideration in a city where typhoons and violent seismic jolts are not uncommon.
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Wind farm could site on Hudson County shoreline
Five 300-foot-tall windmills could soon anchor the Hudson County skyline and provide clean energy to a portion of the Port of New York and New Jersey and some local neighborhoods.
The Port Authority wants to build wind-powered turbines that will provide a combined 7.5 megawatts of electricity to support an expanded marine terminal on the Jersey City and Bayonne border.
The turbines will also provide surplus electricity that could power hundreds of homes and help the state meet its goal of supplying 200 megawatts of wind energy by 2020, Port Authority officials said Friday.
The Port Authority wants bids from companies that could join a public-private partnership to help fund, build, operate and maintain the turbines by 2014. The deadline for proposals is June 11.
The windmills will help reduce carbon emissions in an area that is plagued by industrial and truck pollution, said Bill Baroni, deputy executive director of the Port Authority.
"This allows us to harness one of our great natural resources, which is wind," he said. "We're going back to the technology that our friends in the Netherlands have been using for centuries."
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Turning to Water Conservation to Save Energy
SAN FRANCISCO — In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit conference last year, water researchers and advocates held a special meeting to address the fact that water issues were absent from the draft negotiating text. This was a major oversight, given the amount of energy that is used to collect, treat, distribute and use water and wastewater.
Just how much energy is consumed has not been measured in most places, but a 2005 energy policy report published by the state of California found that annual water-related energy consumption in the state accounted for 19 percent of electricity consumption, 32 percent natural gas consumption, and 88 million gallons, or 333 million liters, of diesel fuel. River Network, an organization that advocates water conservation, has extrapolated that data nationally. In a report last year it calculated that Americans use 520 megawatt-hours, or 13 percent of U.S. electricity consumption, on water.
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Building Intelligence for Greener Buildings
It's been awhile since I've written about some of the big picture stuff and my inspiration to do so comes from Tom McKeag's immensely thought-provoking piece, "Giving Green Buildings a Smarter Skin."
I can imagine two basic reactions to Tom's piece, the deep breath followed by "Whoa, that's cool," or the "What a waste of time, that'll never happen!" I'm not so subtly in the first camp, though admittedly the practical side of me is rolling its eyes at the radical departure from building buildings as we know them.
The heart of what McKeag is talking about, I believe, is rooted in Professor Donella Meadows' Leverage Point No. 4 of her 12 most effective leverage points for promoting change in a system: "The Power to Add, Change, Evolve, Self-organize System Structure." The other thing I loved about McKeag's piece was the whole different way of thinking, which occupies the top three most effective spots in Meadows' hierarchy.
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Companies Search for Energy Savings, With Mixed Results
The yen for energy efficiency is beginning to take hold in industrial America. Whether it's axles in Detroit or beer in Delaware, there are companies that realize they could eventually be touched by pending federal legislation to put a price on carbon emissions.
So they have begun to take a second look at the power-hungry machines they use to carve metal and to heat kettles of their brew.
Thousands of companies that operate factories, power plants and refineries would begin paying fees to emit carbon dioxide if Congress passes a law regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Many others, like Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, could see their electricity bills rise as utilities hike their rates in response to federal carbon charging.
Generally, they are finding a lot of room for improvement, using power-conserving equipment, efficient light bulbs and keen energy management. For some, it's as simple -- and novel -- as hitting the "off" switch during idle periods.
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LED Bulbs for the Home Near the Marketplace
The prospects of replacing today's inefficient incandescent light bulbs with long-lasting, low-power LEDs are increasing.
Two of the lighting industry's three biggest manufacturers, Osram Sylvania and Philips, plan to sell energy-efficient LED bulbs this year that can replace a 60-watt bulb, the most commonly used incandescent lamp.
The third company, General Electric, will sell an LED equivalent to a 40-watt bulb this year, but it will not have a 60-watt replacement ready until 2011.
Beginning in January 2012, federal law will require that light bulbs, or lamps as the industry calls them, will need to be 30 percent more efficient than current incandescent bulbs. Standard incandescent lamps will most likely not be able to meet those requirements. LED makers hope their bulbs will.
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MIT-Designed Futuristic Airplanes Use 70% Less Fuel Than Current Models
Looking 3 Plane Generations Ahead
What will the airplanes of the future be like? This is the question that the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT tried to answer for NASA. The goal was to look 3 generations ahead of the current planes (that's around the 2035 timeframe) and improve substantially on current tech in the areas of fuel-efficiency, noise, NOx emissions, safety, etc. Two plane designs came out of the research project; one to replace the current Boeing 737, and the other to replace the 777. Read on for more details.
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A Leaky Old House Becomes a Net-Zero Showcase
Renovators wrap a 1970s ranch house with a new SIP shell
Jane Bindley had a dream: to turn her 1978 ranch in central New Hampshire into a net-zero-energy house. How hard could that be?
As it turned out, pretty hard. But with help from a dedicated team of experts and a generous budget, Bindley achieved her dream.
Can a north-facing house be net-zero?
Bindley chose her team wisely. She hired a New Hampshire company, Garland Mill Timberframes, to renovate her home. Ben Southworth from Garland Mill is an experienced design/build contractor. When it came time to choose an energy consultant, Southworth advised Bindley to select Marc Rosenbaum, one of the most experienced designers of net-zero-energy homes in the country.
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Roofing and Siding Jobs Are Energy-Retrofit Opportunities
It's time for roofing and siding contractors to offer thick exterior foam
In order to meet the carbon reduction goals that are necessary to avoid a global climate catastrophe, almost every U.S. home will need a deep energy retrofit. In most cases, the work will require walls and roofs to be covered with a thick layer of rigid foam.
The logical time to do this work is when siding or roofing is replaced. It stands to reason, therefore, that siding and roofing contractors should:
* Educate themselves on the building science issues surrounding exterior foam insulation;
* Be familiar with techniques for installing rigid foam under new siding or roofing;
* Regularly suggest that customers consider including thick exterior foam under new siding or roofing.
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Fiber Optics for Daylighting
High-Tech "Active Daylighting" a Pricey But Cool Option for Bringing Natural Light Into Dark Interiors
Fiber optics, that miracle of modern communications, can also be used to deliver natural light to spaces deep in a building.
Last week I focused on tubular skylights, which provide a great way to bring daylighting into home offices, hallways, bathrooms, and other spaces. An aluminum tube that's highly reflective on the interior transmits daylight down through an unheated attic to the space below—delivering the light through what appears to be a fairly standard light-diffusing ceiling fixture.
It's a great technology—especially with the relative low cost—but it has some limitations. You need a relatively straight shot, and it's hard to extend the tubes through living space to reach first-floor spaces in multi-storey buildings.
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7 Steps to an Energy-Efficient House: 7. Renewable Energy
Add renewable-energy equipment
Step 7: Install renewable-energy equipment
Once your energy consumption has been reduced significantly, it may be reasonable to produce your own energy with a photovoltaic system, wind turbine, or even a small hydro system (if you happen to have a stream nearby). Energy-efficiency improvements yield a faster return on your investment than renewable energy equipment, though — so until you slash your energy use, it makes no sense to invest in photovoltaics or wind. Conservation is still the cheapest game in town.
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Energy Sleuths in Pursuit Of the Truly Green Building
The practice of "commissioning," in which an engineer monitors the efficiency of a building from its design through its initial operation, just may be the most effective strategy for reducing long-term energy usage, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. So why is it so seldom used?
In a different world, it could be a reality television show — "Buildings On Trial," with a street-savvy engineer going into skyscrapers, factories, offices and other commercial buildings to find the dumb mistakes that make them waste energy and produce a disproportionate share of the nation's global warming emissions.
And in almost every case, even new buildings proudly displaying a LEED "green building" plaque by the front door, the engineer would come back out with a list of energy hog culprits: Here's the ventilation system fan installed backwards, so it blows full force into another fan blowing in the right direction. Here's the control system set up so heating and cooling systems both work at once, like driving with your feet on the brakes and the accelerator at the same time. Here are the stuck dampers that prevent the building from drawing on outside air when the temperature is right.
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BIM to the Rescue: Creating Sustainable Buildings
Buildings are responsible for about 48% of the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Fortunately, there's a growing move in architecture, engineering and construction—or the a/e/c world—to construct buildings that are greener, more energy efficient and more sustainable. And to do that, many in the industry are turning to building information modeling.
BIM is an evolving concept that uses technology to create extraordinarily detailed 3D models of a building's innards and overall structure. One of its aims is to better marry design intent and actual construction. But another is to have that model serve as a blueprint to facility managers, as an aid in maintaining and operating the building and evaluating and enhancing energy efficiency.
And it was BIM and its green-ness that was the focus of the McGraw-Hill Green BIM conference in Boston on May 19, where one speaker focused specifically on BIM's importance to the sustainability factor.
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GREEN School & University Virtual Conference & Expo
The 2nd annual GREEN School & University Virtual Conference & Expo will be held on June 24, 2010 from 10:30am–6pm EST. We hope you enjoyed the experience last year and will join us again! Click here to save your seat.
This award-winning event will feature industry experts and thought leaders in education facilities, architecture, business and operations. You may participate in one or all of the following educational sessions:
* How to Transform Your Facilities Into Environmentally-Friendly, Cost-Effective Environments.
* Keys to Creating Sustainable, High-Performance Education Institutions.
* Uncovering Funding Opportunities for Green, Sustainable, Energy-Efficient Schools and Universities.
* What Makes Cleaning "Green," and How Can You Ensure Your Program is Accomplishing its Goals?
* Renewable Energy Options for Schools and Universities.
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One Moos and One Hums, but They Could Help Power Google
America's dairy farmers could soon find themselves in the computer business, with the manure from their cows possibly powering the vast data centers of companies like Google and Microsoft. While not immediately intuitive, the idea plays on two trends: the building of computing centers in more rural locales, and dairy farmers' efforts to deal with cattle waste by turning it into fuel.
With the right skills, a dairy farmer could rent out land and power to technology companies and recoup an investment in the waste-to-fuel systems within two years, Hewlett-Packard engineers say in a research paper to be made public on Wednesday.
"Information technology and manure have a symbiotic relationship," said Chandrakant D. Patel, the director of H.P.'s sustainable information technology laboratory, which wrote the report. "And having these data centers locally will give farmers a new opportunity."
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Report: Kan. could have 30,000 green jobs by 2012
Kansas has the potential to create up to 10,000 "green" jobs in the next two years, adding to the 20,000 people already working in that sector, according to a new state survey.
The Kansas Department of Labor released results Tuesday of a voluntary survey designed to gauge potential employment growth in sectors including renewable energy development, energy efficiency, agriculture and natural resource conservation, pollution prevention and remediation, and alternative transportation and fuels.
The report said the largest increases were expected in renewable energy, up 121 percent; energy efficiency, up 57 percent; and clean transportation and fuels, up 37 percent.
"This gives us our first good look at the areas of the green economy where we have jobs today and where we're likely to grow jobs in the future," said Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Jim Garner.
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Solar Power Manufacturing Makes Good Business Sense for Governments, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (May 20, 2010) — Canadian and provincial governments could spend $2.4 billion to build a large scale solar photovoltaic manufacturing plant and then give it away for free and still earn a profit in the long run, according to a financial analysis conducted by the Queen's University Applied Sustainability Research Group in Kingston, Canada.
Queen's University Mechanical Engineering Professor Joshua Pearce conducted the study -- to be published in the August edition of the academic journal Energy Policy -- to find out if it makes economic sense for governments to support solar cell manufacturing in Canada. He was surprised to discover the answer is an overwhelming yes even in extreme situations and feels governments should be aggressively supporting this industry to take advantage of the financial opportunity.
"This study uses hard financial numbers. Everything we did is transparent and all our equations are in the study," says Professor Pearce. "The benefits of encouraging solar manufacturing in Canada are clear and massively outweigh the costs."
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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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Toyota Buys Tesla Stake for Electric Car Tie-Up
May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest automaker, is buying a $50 million stake in electric-car producer Tesla Motors Inc. as the companies seek to offer low- polluting models.
Tesla also will buy a closed Toyota joint-venture plant in California to build its Model S and other vehicles, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said yesterday. The companies plan to cooperate in developing electric cars, parts, production systems and engineering.
The deal may help Toyota compete with Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. in selling electric cars in the U.S., where regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency are pushing them to offer advanced vehicles. It may also help Toyota's image, battered by recalls, by reviving the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant, known as Nummi, an analyst said.
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Experts tout use of energy monitor
Industry specialists seek ways to boost efficiency
Americans would have an easier time conserving energy at home if they had some type of "speedometer" for their power use, energy experts said last week in Phoenix.
While it may be some time before people are widely able to track their power use by the minute, anything that helps the public understand how much power their activities use and what it costs should encourage efficiency, they said.
National and local experts discussed what it would take for the U.S. to conserve more electricity and use more power from renewable sources at the American Solar Energy Society meeting at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Arizona Public Service Co., the state's largest utility, will test in-home energy displays next year as part of an extensive energy-efficiency research project. And Salt River Project already offers an advance-payment rate plan that uses a simple in-home display that tells customers how much money they have spent.
Displays in all homes could show how much energy - and money - is used at particular times, such as when their air-conditioning is blasting or when drying clothes.
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Behind-the-scenes work on brink of landing solar plant
Oregon officials worked clandestinely for the past three years to land a California company willing to invest more than $200 million building a Portland-area solar factory.
Using the code-name Project Ready, whose blandness perhaps discouraged exposure, state investment recruiters persuaded Solexant Corp. to list Oregon as first choice for a plant that could eventually employ hundreds.
The San Jose, Calif., company is pioneering a new "thin film" technology designed to drive down costs of solar cells and panels. It's applying for state loans and subsidies to help build the plant, likely near Wilsonville or Gresham.
Officials and executives Friday declined to disclose much about the factory, whose manufacturing output could approach that of SolarWorld's Hillsboro plant, which will soon employ about 1,000.
"We are excited," said Damoder Reddy, Solexant chief executive. "I really prefer not to comment on it now. I can give you more details in a couple of weeks."
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Renewables need helping hand from gas
Alternative energy sources are becoming more important to San Diego County, but natural gas continues to play a vital role. That's why new power plants must be flexible and efficient.
For all the talk about green energy — solar, wind, geothermal — our way of life is primarily powered by burning stuff we get out of the ground.
Only 14 percent of the electricity San Diego Gas & Electric Co. distributes comes from green sources, and a similar amount comes from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
That means more than two-thirds of our power comes from fossil fuels, and that's overwhelmingly natural gas.
Gas will continue to be an important part of the mix even as the share of electricity generated with solar panels, wind turbines, underground heat or methane from landfills and sewage plants increases.
"Natural gas ought to be viewed as complementary, and not competing with renewables," said Jim Marston, director of energy programs for the Environmental Defense Fund.
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VERSATILE HYDROGEN: FUEL, ENERGY STORAGE, AND MORE.
The renewable energy industry fully understands the need for energy storage. According to ABI Research, utility-scale energy storage worldwide will increase to nearly 150 GW (150,000 MW) by 2015. That's a small fraction of the renewable electricity generated around the world and a very small fraction of all the electricity generated. Still it's a substantial business opportunity for those interested.
Energy storage comes in more technologies than batteries and hydrogen from water of course: molten salt thermal energy storage, pumped hydroelectric storage, compressed air energy storage (CAES), supercapacitors, flywheels, flow batteries and zinc-air fuel cells are a examples. While low cost is certainly a desirable factor in determining the best energy storage technology, it's not the only one. Another factor is which is the best match for source of the energy being stored. Pumped hydroelectric storage only works when there are hills to build storage reservoirs is an example.