SE&M Updates

Xero Flor Green Roofs Get Cradle to Cradle

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:43:00 +0000

Xero Flor Green Roofs Get Cradle to Cradle:

Xero Flor is a lightweight green roof and system originally developed in Germany. A version was first supplied to Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant by Xero Flor America LLC, the exclusive manufacturer and distributor here in the states, and now the company’s announcing Cradle to Cradle Silver for the technology.

The company’s pre-vegetated green roof mats install above a custom base for a green roof that’s “naturally resistant to weed encroachment, wind uplift, and surface erosion,” according to Xero Flor America.

The mats are supplied by regional farms and used with recycled-content products to help purchasers reap LEED credits if desired.

Xero Flor has been used in private homes across the country, including in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, and Washington, to name a few locations.

[+] More about lightweight Xero Flor green roofs.

Credits: Xero Flor America LLC.

In Benin, Solar-Powered Irrigation Pollutes Less and Produces More

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In Benin, Solar-Powered Irrigation Pollutes Less and Produces More:

In 2007, the nonprofit Solar Electric Light Fund began helping women’s collectives in the west African nation of Benin water their vegetable gardens using solar power. The system they used was simple enough: solar-powered water pumps, paired with drip irrigation. Each of these two technologies have been shown to improve the lives of people living in poverty, off the grid. But few people had ever tried combining them.

“Neither of them were particularly innovative in their own right, but bringing them together truly was,” says Bob Freling, SELF’s executive director. “I found precious few examples of solar water pumping. Frankly, it was puzzling, because it seemed like a perfect fit.”

This technological innovation means the women’s collectives can keep producing crops during the region’s six-month dry season, provide greater food security to their families, and start thinking about sending their kids to school. It also could help communities survive and adapt to climate change. The project is now expanding: At least eight more villages in Benin will start using the solar irrigation systems.

Drip irrigation delivers water directly to plant roots, increasing crop yields and using 40 to 80 percent less water than traditional irrigation systems. It’s particularly well suited for dry places, like the semi-arid Sahel region of which Benin is part. But it also requires power inputs, which can be hard to come by in off-the-grid communities. When SELF began working on the project, one of the pioneers of drip irrigation, Dov Pasternak, was working to spread the irrigation technology across west Africa. Pasternak had designed a vegetable garden that used diesel generators to pump water into the irrigation system, but Freling says “That was going to be a non-starter for us.”

Although Pasternak was skeptical of the affordability and longevity of solar systems, he agreed to work with SELF, and soon, Freling says, became "a die-hard believer in solar." The system installed in the pilot villages pumps water into a holding tank from a surface stream in one and from an underground source in the other. Gravity pulls the water to the plants, a mix of vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, okra, and cabbage. Because it’s powered by the sun, the system self-regulates: more water goes to the plants when it’s sunny, which is when they’re most thirsty.

Since the beginning of the pilot program, SELF has worked with researchers at Stanford’s Center for Food Security and the Environment to monitor the impacts of the program on the communities using the irrigation systems. The women involved the project document their plantings, their haul from the gardens, the portion they feed to their families, and the portion they sell. Already, the women report that they’re better able to provide for their families: Women growing vegetables with the technology fed their families 3 to 5 more servings of vegetables each day during the project's first year. The women in the project use the extra income to buy staples for their families, and the community as a whole benefits from the increased availability of vegetables during the dry seasons.

While SELF installs solar irrigation systems in additional villages, monitoring of the pilot villages will continue to measure the long-term impacts of the project. “Are people actually able to make longer term investments? Beyond that initial boost, are they on a path to growth and reinvestment that could be long lasting?” says Jennifer Burney, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Diego who is affiliated with the Stanford food security center.

The pilot is the first step in a larger vision of bringing solar power to households, clinics, schools and business centers in the district. SELF started with the gardens, because the local communities said that was where their need was greatest. But some day, solar power could electrify the entire district of Kalalé—44 villages with a total population of more than 100,000 people. While the garden project has shown short-term impacts, it could help improve communities' resilience to climate change in the long run. The same agricultural problems that faced these villages to begin with—poor yields and infrequent rains—will likely get worse in the decades to come. The solar irrigation systems not only keep down emissions while encouraging development, they provide the tools to tackle climate challenges they could face in the future.

Photo courtesy of SELF

Bamboo: Good or Bad for the Environment

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Bamboo: Good or Bad for the Environment:

These days everyone is talking about bamboo. From walls to flooring, bamboo is regaled as the environmental answer to wood. Bamboo flooring is commonplace from showrooms to homes, and the building community expects that it will be used in plywood next. Just think, tomorrow your garage doors could be constructed with the renewable source.

Environmentalists love it for its quick growth and for the fact that it can be harvested without harming the environment. However, the downsides of bamboo are now being scrutinized as its popularity grows and expands throughout the world of home construction. Some of those concerns include biodiversity, soil erosion, and chemical use.

Bamboo is technically a grass and is native to South America, all parts of Asia, as well as northern Australia and areas of the southeast United States. It’s touted for its strength, hardness, and fast growth rate. For builders, bamboo has more compressive strength than concrete and the same strength-to-weight ratio as steel in tension. Also, it grows much faster than trees.

Almost all of the bamboo used in the United States is grown in China. Some of the bamboo plantations there date back hundreds of years, and most of the world’s population uses the grass in some form. Bamboo is common in housing for flooring, in construction as support poles, and in household implements like chopsticks or cutting boards. The fact of the matter is that bamboo is flourishing.

A positive aspect of bamboo is that it can be harvested without killing the plant. A decade ago farmers cleared virgin forest in order to plant their bamboo farms. The profitability of bamboo surpassed the profit of rice and other kinds of farming. This hasn’t been the case in recent years, but a bamboo plantation doesn’t have the biodiversity of a natural forest. Given its invasive nature, bamboo can also quickly take over a nearby forest.

The clearing of forest also incited concerns over soil erosion as did newly planted fields, especially on steep slopes. Researchers found, though, that planting bamboo along river banks helped decrease erosion. Once the grass was established on farms, erosion decreased there as well.

The downside to bamboo lies in its construction. Instead of being cut and used whole, like wood, bamboo is sliced into pieces and glued together. There are serious questions regarding health and safety surrounding how the bamboo is handled and the chemical components used to glue and seal it. Currently there are no standardized requirements for its construction or the glue holding it together. In fact, rates of strength and hardness vary from one end of the spectrum to the other depending on supplier, and the glue can contain formaldehyde and be harmful to the environment.

Although planting and harvesting bamboo may not impact the environment negatively, the handling of it certainly can. In six years there has been little done to ensure that it’s safe for handlers or the people that manufacture it. There is still lots of room for improvement and debate of bamboo.

Join in the discussion in the comments below and/or share the piece.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by mike lowe

Misawa Homes Unveils Home with PV Wall Panels for Year-Round Power Generation

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Misawa Homes Unveils Home with PV Wall Panels for Year-Round Power Generation:

Misawa Homes Co., a major Japanese housing manufacturer, opened an eco-friendly model house in Asahikawa City, Hokkaido in May 2011, with photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on the exterior walls, aiming to consistently generate electricity throughout the year.

In this region, where temperatures fluctuate over 50 degrees Celsius over the course of the year and high levels of snow accumulate in the winter, most households require heating more than half the year. Because heavy accumulations of snow make it almost impossible for rooftop PV panels to generate any electricity, Misawa Homes designed a house with PV panels on the side in November 2010, and completed the prototype in May 2011.

As there has been a growing interest in renewable energy, this model house is attracting much attention from people who realized that enabling power generation at home will be also helpful in saving energy.

Next Generation Zero-Energy Model House Debuts in Asahikawa, Hokkaido (Related JFS article)

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/027090.html

Solar Power on Vertical Walls Possible with New BIPV (Related JFS article)

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031089.html

Leading Scientists Predict Giant Orbiting Power Plants Could Power the Earth by 2041

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:08:00 +0000

Leading Scientists Predict Giant Orbiting Power Plants Could Power the Earth by 2041:

Solar power has been studied and tested for nearly 40 years, but only within the last few years have we seen innovations truly make leaps and bounds. Looking towards the future, scientists are now saying that with the technology we have in development today, giant solar-powered satellites able to collect energy and shoot it back down to earth could be used to power the entire globe as soon as 2041. John Mankins, former NASA scientist and U.S. Space Agency former Head of Concepts, is credited with pioneering the theory, which is creating quite the buzz with a number of international scientists and organizations.

Read the rest of Leading Scientists Predict Giant Orbiting Power Plants Could Power the Earth by 2041

Interactive Map Compares Transit Habits of Hundreds of Cities

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Interactive Map Compares Transit Habits of Hundreds of Cities:

The European Platform on Mobility Management (EPOMM) just unveiled a new interactive web tool that makes it easy to compare transportation data between cities internationally. Now analysts, designers, and planners can conveniently view data on transportation habits in hundreds of cities. Unfortunately, all of this data highlights how far behind American cities are compared to European cities.

Read the rest of Interactive Map Compares Transit Habits of Hundreds of Cities

Smarter Sprinklers Can Cut Outdoor Water Use In Half

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:49:00 +0000

Smarter Sprinklers Can Cut Outdoor Water Use In Half:

Bathroom faucets, showerheads, residential toilets, flushing urinals, and irrigation systems: one of these things is not like the others. Only irrigation systems are optional equipment used outside the bathroom, but they recently joined the list of products eligible for the Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense label, which is awarded to water-efficient technology that’s sound, frugal, and innovative.

And while watering the lawn might seem more avoidable than flushing the toilet, landscape irrigation uses the better part of 7 billion gallons of water every day and can add up to well over half of a household’s total water use. In the same way that smart grid technologies can help consumers cut energy use, smart irrigation systems can help consumers manage water use. Like smart grid technology, the leading smart irrigation systems depend on collecting and monitoring huge amounts of data. And in the best case scenarios, they can cut a household’s or a business’ outdoor water use in half.

Smart irrigation systems start from the premise that most people aren’t paying close attention to their water use. Homeowners set a timer on their sprinkler system and forget about it, leaving it to run during a downpour or afterward, when the soil is saturated. Smart irrigation systems pay much closer attention to the weather and adjust their behavior—one type measured how dry a patch of a soil was and watered accordingly. But studies have shown that those systems are less effective than ones that base watering schedules on huge amounts of processed weather data.

HydroPoint, a California-based company that has been a leader in developing this second type of irrigation system, was named to the Cleantech Group’s annual list of 100 top clean tech innovators this year. The company downloads massive quantities of data from weather satellites run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then translates it all into numbers relevant to kilometer-square patches of land. Its WeatherTRAK system knows, more or less, the condition of a family’s front yard or a business’ campus grounds. Customers can also input the types of plants and soil they’re working with for even more specific watering plans.

Using a smart irrigation system doesn’t guarantee water savings. If a piece of land has been underwatered, for instance, a smart system can increase water use. And using water more responsibly doesn’t address the fundamental disconnect of water use in America: People are still trying to grow grass lawns and green golf courses where they’ve no right to be.

There’s a growing interest in net-zero landscaping—creating outdoor spaces that thrive on a supply of rainwater and graywater from household appliances. The winning entry in this year’s Solar Decathlon, for instance, paid particular attention to the house’s water use. Smart irrigation systems can support this type of sustainable landscaping: When there’s less water to work with, it’s all the more important to use it wisely.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Matt McGee

Company Starts Selling "Water Cells" To Generate Electricity Using Only Water

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:44:00 +0000

Company Starts Selling "Water Cells" To Generate Electricity Using Only Water:

Nakabayashi Co., a Japanese company specializing in products and services for supporting information management, announced on June 24, 2011, that it will start selling in August its new product called Digio2 Water Cell NOPOPO (TM), which generates electricity when water is poured into it. The cell can be easily stored for use during disasters and emergencies.

The water-powered cell, the size of an AA battery, is activated when water is put into an opening using an attached syringe. An ordinary cell battery discharges a slight amount of electricity even when not in use, causing a gradual decease in power capacity over an extended period of time. The water-activated cell, in contrast, can be stored for about 20 years unopened because the cell works only when water is poured into it, causing a chemical reaction.

One of these batteries can, for example, provide enough electricity to light a light-emitting diode (LED) for about five hours. The number of uses depends on the amount of electricity required by the device used with the cell. When its power weakens, the cell can be recharged several times simply by adding more water.

Because 100 units weigh only 1.5 kilograms -- lighter than 100 ordinary batteries weighing 2.3 kilograms -- it is ideal for storage, such as at public facilities. In addition, it contains no toxic substances such as mercury, hexavalent chromium, or cadmium, permitting safe disposal after use.

Frito-Lay Plant in Arizona Approaches Net Zero Energy

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:28:00 +0000

Frito-Lay Plant in Arizona Approaches Net Zero Energy:

Frito-Lay and its parent company PepsiCo probably aren’t the first companies that come to mind when you think about green businesses, but with the unveiling of Frito-Lay’s new facility in Arizona, the company just took a big step towards bolstering its green cred. The Casa Grande plant is ‘near net zero,’ meaning that it will be mostly run on renewable energy sources, like solar power. Additionally, the facility will be water efficient, recycling and reusing most of its own water, and the plant will divert most of its waste from local landfills.

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Stunning Net-Zero Energy Homes of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:30:00 +0000

Stunning Net-Zero Energy Homes of 2011:

The biennial Solar Decathlon finished today and teams will begin the grunt work of taking their homes back or sending them off if the homes were acquired. As we’ve done in the past, here’s a short roundup of all 19 Solar Decathlon homes for 2011. The competition fosters the design, build, and operation of net-zero energy homes that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. Maryland won the entire competition, and Appalachian State was given the People’s Choice Award.

Appalachian State University

The Solar Homestead — www.thesolarhomestead.com

Florida International University

perFORM[D]ance House — solardecathlon.fiu.edu

Middlebury College

Self-Reliance — solardecathlon.middlebury.edu

New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington

First Light — www.firstlighthouse.ac.nz

The Ohio State University

enCORE — solardecathlon.osu.edu

Parsons and Stevens Institute of Technology

Empowerhouse — parsit.parsons.edu

Purdue University

INhome — www.purdue.edu/inhome/

SCI-Arc/Caltech

CHIP — www.chip2011.com

Team Belgium: Ghent University

E-Cube — www.solardecathlon.ugent.be

Canada: University of Calgary

Technological Residence, Traditional Living (TRTL) — www.solardecathlon.ca

Team China: Tongji University

Y Container — solardecathlon.tongji.edu.cn

Team Florida (USF, FSU, UCF, and UF)

Flex House — www.flexhouse.org

Team Massachusetts (MassArt, Umass Lowell)

4D Home — www.4dhome.us

Team New Jersey (Rutgers, NJIT)

ENJOY House — www.solarteamnewjersey.com

Team New York (The City College of New York)

Solar Roofpod — www.ccnysolardecathlon.com

Tidewater Virginia (ODU, Hampton U)

Unit 6 Unplugged — www.teamtidewaterva.org

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Re_home — www.solardecathlon.illinois.edu

University of Maryland

WaterShed — 2011.solarteam.org

The University of Tennessee

Living Light: UT Solar Decathlon House — www.livinglightutk.com

[+] Check out the Solar Decathlon 2011 models.

[+] Check out the Solar Decathlon 2011 renderings.

*University of Hawaii has withdrawn from competition.

Credit: Jim Tetro/U.S. DOE.

New SolarWindows Would Be First See-Through Windows To Generate Electricity

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:26:00 +0000

New SolarWindows Would Be First See-Through Windows To Generate Electricity:

Solar technologies are constantly evolving, becoming more and more effective as new designs and discoveries are made in the field. New Energy Technologies continues this trend with the advent of their new product, the SolarWindow. The new windows will be the first see-through windows that can also generate electricity through a specially designed spray put on the window.

They are developing six different types of SolarWindows for different situations:

Commercial- A flat glass window for installation in commercial buildings
Structural Glass- Structural glass walls and curtains for tall structures
Architectural Glass- Textured and decorative interior glass walls, room dividers, etc.
Residential- Window glass for installation in residential homes
Flex- Flexible films that can be applied to existing windows
BIPV- Building product components associated with building-integrated-photovoltaic(BIPV) applications in homes, buildings, and office towers.

Automakers Debate Visions of the Future of Clean Urban Transport

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:39:00 +0000

Automakers Debate Visions of the Future of Clean Urban Transport | GreenBiz.com:

How will people get around in the cities of the future? To listen to heads of R&D departments at Toyota and GM, people in perpetually sunny, clean cities will zip around in electric-powered pods that drive and park themselves while accidents and emissions become a thing of the past.

That vision was presented during today's Changing Cities-Changing Cars panel at the Meeting of the Minds conference in Boulder, Colo. Less starry-eyed dreamers on it talked about car sharing, electric buses, lighter vehicles and reducing idling.

The panel's tone was set by its moderator, Bill Reinert, national manager of advanced technology at Toyota. "… A bus with one passenger is one of the most inefficient ways to move people around," he said. "Cars done the right way can be an effective way to move people."

The vision of Chris Borroni-Bird, director of advanced technology vehicle concepts and the EN-V program for GM, meshed nicely with that. Cities and residents have competing needs from transportation, he said. Cities want clean air, to use less energy, to have fewer accidents, less congestion and less parking needs. People want to drive in urban environments because of the comfort and convenience personal transportation offers. (Pictured above is a concept image from GM's rollout of the EN-V last year.)

"There's a reason why people still drive cars in dense cities," he said. "It's a freedom of expression. For some, it's a status symbol."

His team's solution is the EN-V or Electric Networked Vehicle. This highly maneuverable electric pod is networked and provides autonomous driving capability so it can automatically caravan with other EN-Vs and avoid accidents. "It retains the essential benefits of a car without the downsides of car," he said. (The video at right has Borroni-Bird walking through the EN-V concept.)

Autonomous cars would not only be more efficient from an energy perspective -- the 500-pound EN-V has a 3.4-kwh battery compared with the 34-kwh battery in a Nissan Leaf, according to Larry Burns, director of the Roundtable on Sustainability Mobility at Earth Institute (and one of the presenters at GreenBiz.com's VERGE event last June) -- but freeing people from driving could give them an extra hour a day, which he valued at $12,500 a year, or half the price of a car.

"Alternative propulsion and energy technologies get all the attention," Burns said. "Driverless vehicles and the coordination of all that moves us and goods around will be the most sustainable transportation we'll get to experience."

Offering a different kind of solution was Sascha Simon, director of Advanced Product Planning for Mercedes-Benz USA. Two years ago Mercedes started exploring the concept of car sharing because personally owned cars sit unused about 80 percent of the time, he said.

The increased efficiency of shared assets drove the company to launch Car2Go, first in Germany and then in Canada and Austin, Texas -- where there are currently 15,000 members. Soon electric vehicles are planned to roll out when Car2Go launches in San Diego as "the future of urban mobility," according to Austin.

Even more pragmatic was the vision of Michael Austin, vice president of BYD America, which focuses on selling electric selling cars to fleet operators and electric buses to governments.

The buses run 187 miles on a charge and could carry about 40 passengers in the United States for about $8 in energy costs. Compared with using 25 gallons of diesel, e-buses make moving people in cities "very much about public transportation," he said. At a cost of about $650,000, e-buses are twice the cost of a diesel bus but save $500,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over 12 years, according to Austin.

Wrapping up the panel was a late addition to it: John Coleman works on fleet sustainability for Ford. His goal is to make the 5 million cars Ford currently sells each year significantly reduce emissions without requiring new infrastructure.

Ford is aiming to cut between 250 and 750 pounds from the weight of its vehicles and plans to make its new trucks 30 percent lighter, according to Coleman.

The company also looked at idling technology for applications such as utility bucket trucks which idle all day long. By adding a small battery that only runs the bucket, Ford reduced fuel usage by 80 percent and doubled the amount of time workers could be out because of reduced noise concerns.

"It's not as sexy, but with an 80 percent reduction in fuel, now we're making a difference," Coleman said.

New Material Cleans Polluted Water by Acting Like a Toxin Magnet

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have developed a material that they call SLUG-26 which acts like a pollutant magnet when tossed into contaminated waterways. SLUG — perhaps a play on the California school’s Banana Slug mascot — is a new material that is cheaper and more effective than current methods of removing negatively-charged pollutants from waterways. The material is a positively-charged substrate which, that when placed in polluted water, exchanges non-toxic negative ions for negatively charged pollutants thereby cleaning the water.

Read the rest of New Material Cleans Polluted Water by Acting Like a Toxin Magnet

from INHABITAT by Brit Liggett

California says yes to recycled water

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:00:00 +0000

The state Senate today passed a bill allowing so-called graywater systems in homes and commercial buildings.

The bill, AB 849, is aimed at clarifying a patchwork of local regulation that has at times prohibited these "non-potable water reuse systems," which divert drain water for irrigation and other purposes.

If signed by the governor, the new state law would prohibit local jurisdictions from banning graywater systems, which have gained popularity as more municipalities face restrictions on fresh water. It would allow those jurisdictions to enact stricter graywater standards than those of the state only if they provide climatic, geographic and topographic reasons for the tougher regulations.

The state adopted uniform rules for installing graywater systemsin 2009, according to an analysis of the bill, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles).

The Assembly already has approved the bill.

Photo: A graywater system collects and filters laundry water in an East Rancho Dominguez low-income housing development. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times

This article is taken from: California says yes to recycled water

Cap-and-Trade Program for Water Quality Gets a $1M Boost

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:32:00 +0000

Cap-and-Trade Program for Water Quality Gets a $1M Boost:

U.S.-based cap-and-trade programs seeking to monetize carbon emissions have encountered obstacles in this year of budget deficits and climate denial. In May, Governor Chris Christie noisily pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), stating, "RGGI does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses, with no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment."

In response, RGGI stated that the ten-state collaborative "is delivering more than 700 million dollars in investments in the clean energy economy that are saving energy consumers money, making businesses more competitive and creating jobs throughout the region." At the time of Gov. Christie's, announcement, New Jersey had received more than $100 million from RGGI.

Even as such setbacks demonstrate to what degree scientific consensus on climate change has become tethered to political fortune, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving forward with its support for a cap and trade system relating to water quality, awarding a $1 million Conservation Innovation Grant to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Launched in 2009, EPRI's Ohio River Basin Water Quality Trading Project will consist of a voluntary cap-and-trade program involving eight states with access to the Ohio River Basin. According to EPRI, "The proposed trading program in the Ohio River Basin will allow exchanges of water quality credits for nitrogen and phosphorus aimed at protecting and improving watersheds at lower overall costs."

Jessica Fox, senior scientist for EPRI's Water and Ecosystems Program, stated, "The conservation practices have the potential for ecological benefits, such as improved wetlands and restored habitats, with the credit trading program offering new revenues for farmers and a potentially cost-effective alternative for power companies and other industries to meet nutrient effluent permit obligations."

At the time of its launch in 2009, EPRI's program received $1.3 million in federal grants from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USDA. EPA stated at the time that the project "will develop a legal framework for interstate trading, targeting nitrogen and phosphorus to help reduce the hypoxic zone in the Northern Gulf of Mexico."

This article originally appeared on SocialFunds.com and is reprinted with permission.

Vertical Gardens by the Bay

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:01:00 +0000

Gardens by the Bay / Grant Associates and Wilkinson Eyre Architects:

Gardens by the Bay will be Singapore’s largest garden project and is central to the country’s continued development of Marina Bay. Managed by the Singapore‘s National Park Board, the gardens were designed by a team of two firms: landscape architects, Grant Associates and architects, Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The gardens will feature two cooled conservatories – the Flower Dome (cool dry biome) and Cloud Forest (cool moist biome), as well as themed horticulture gardens, heritage gardens, and hundreds of thousands of plants from around the world.

Low Carbon and Economic Growth: Are Both Compatible in Developing Economies?

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:13:00 +0000

Low Carbon and Economic Growth: Are Both Compatible in Developing Economies?:

At the intersection of global energy depletion and concerns about human impact on the environment lie some serious and oft overlooked issues. Largely gone from our public discourse is the idea that oil is infinite. It is now accepted, even to previous staunch cornucopians, that increasing, or even maintaining oil production will come only at higher costs. The new response to the energy/environmental crisis is to transition to a green economy, replacing our declining stocks of fossil sunlight with new technologies able to harness our current sunlight in its various forms. That these renewable technologies are available, viable and becoming more popular is not in question - however, whether these low carbon strategies can combine with now more expensive fossil fuels to maintain a growth trajectory for both the developed and developing worlds is another question entirely.

I am on the Board and work closely with the Institute for Integrated Economic Research (IIER) - an institution concerned with the transition of human societies following a likely end to global growth. Recently, IIER was commissioned to produce a report sponsored by the British Department for International Development (DFID), addressing the question as to whether it will be possible for emerging economies to simultaneously go green and still grow economically. The answer, which also applies to advanced societies, is that the traditional path of urbanizing and industrializing nations is most likely incompatible with the reduction of carbon emissions, as long as economies don't find someone else to do the "dirty" part of the work.

This "dirty" work is currently to a large extent conducted by China, a country which consumes about 40% of all natural resources and produces about 40% of all industrial outputs, while its own GDP share only amounts to a little more than 10% of the world total. Shifting all the "heavy lifting" away from advanced economies has made it possible for them to become less energy-intensive over time, thus reducing their carbon emissions - while carbon dioxide output has skyrocketed in other places. Unfortunately, this model isn’t scalable globally, as in the end, when China tries to copy that Western success story, there won’t be another place to go where cheap energy and labor is available.

The report looks at the context of past productivity gains and at the reasons why it won’t be possible to extrapolate them into the future, because traditional economics look at past successes by omitting the role of (cheap) energy. It concludes that while it is possible for emerging economies to improve the well-being of their populations without growing greenhouse gas emissions, it won’t be feasible to industrialize them in the “green” way everybody hopes for.

Below the fold is a 2-page executive summary and links to the full 66 page report.

Economic growth is highly correlated with the availability of low-cost, high-quality energy

Advanced economies may accomplish some decoupling based on the outsourcing of heavy industrial activity

Given the superior characteristics of fossil fuels in terms of cost, density and manageability, renewables will offer only limited potential to replace them as key drivers of industrial output

While this limits the chances for middle-income economies to reduce emissions, low-income countries have opportunities to grow wealth and well-being without adding large amounts of CO2

In December 2009, the 15th Annual UN Climate Change Conference ended without a globally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The outcomes from the 2010 talks in Cancun were equally non-committing. Among the reasons for these failures were concerns of emerging nations such as India and China that limits on carbon-dioxide emissions would impair their ability to further grow their economies. Given the evidence we outline below, they probably have a valid point.

1. The crucial role of energy in growth: On a global scale, economic growth has always been highly correlated with higher energy consumption. Between 1980 and 2008, to produce one additional unit of GDP, 0.55 additional units of primary (raw) energy inputs were required[i]. When looking at energy that can be directly applied to societies, correlations are even stronger: during the same period, for one unit of GDP, electricity use grew by 0.95 units globally.[ii]

GDP and primary energy use (1980=100)

This strong connection between economic growth and energy consumption is often overlooked. It is based on the key paradigm of the industrial age: a significant portion of the productivity gains of the 19^th and 20^th century were achieved as greater mechanical energy use released human labour capacity. In industrial societies, one unit of human labour, measured in food intake, was often replaced by 100-1000 units of mechanical energy, mostly delivered from fossil fuels.[iii] This mechanism produced benefits during periods of low energy cost in the form of lower prices for goods, higher wages and profits. When energy prices rise, this same model begins to work against us. IIER research shows that rising manufacturing-related energy prices quickly reverses benefits for wages and profits. Efficiency increases are rarely able to offset those productivity losses, as they – for most process chains – are typically only in the 10-30% range.

2. How advanced economies became more energy-efficient: Whilst apparently advanced economies have been able to post economic growth without growing their energy footprint, a significant portion of ‘energy efficiency’ gains are related to the outsourcing of heavy industrial activities to emerging economies. For example, in 2007, China produced 41% of all iron and steel and 37.5% of all aluminium globally, while representing only 10.8% of global GDP, leading to significant embedded energy transfers to advanced economies. This reflects overall trends in globalisation as supply chains have been repeatedly reconfigured to exploit the benefits of low-cost labour and energy. When netting out these benefits, a majority of energy and carbon footprint reductions in advanced economies have been due to “energy used elsewhere” from global shifts of energy-intensive processes, and not related to real efficiency improvements[iv].

3. Fossil fuels are key drivers: In order to grow, economies not only require more energy, but the properties of the energy sources used, such as density, cost and manageability, matter a great deal. Today, almost unchanged from 1990, coal, crude oil and natural gas provide approximately 85%[v] of global primary energy.

Energy efficiency of economies ($/GJ of primary energy consumption) and other key factors

Low-income countries may grow despite carbon reductions

Fossil fuels are – despite recent price increases – the cheapest and most useful fuels, as long as externalities such as pollution and environmental issues are not factored into their pricing.

The key challenge in replacing coal, oil and gas is that they are formed from historic solar inputs. A barrel of oil contains past solar energy from growing plant biomass, from biotic or abiotic fermentation, and added pressure and heat from geological, solar and geothermal mechanisms applied over millions of years. This process has yielded high density energy sources that are easy to extract, transport, and handle. To accomplish the same, for example with biomass, the required “upgrade” from plant material to a combustible fuel needs additional energetic effort, which adds cost and reduces net benefits. This need for “upgrading” directly translates into higher energy cost for the future[vi].

Furthermore, alternative sources, like nuclear, solar, wind and biomass, are based on significant fossil fuels inputs. If solar panels were produced with energy from solar panels, their price would be prohibitive, compared to today, where 50% of all panels are manufactured in China using coal-based inputs. This makes a true replacement of fossil fuels extremely challenging, unless currently unknown new technologies come into play. Given the “historic energy” embedded in fossil fuels, this is maybe an unrealistic expectation.

Benefits of fossil fuels over renewables - past energy inputs

4. What low carbon translates to: To establish a low-carbon economy will require us to work against the key trend that has driven wealth creation during the 19^th and 20^th century – the replacement of small amounts of expensive human labour by large quantities of low-cost fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources do provide energy, but very likely only with reduced benefits, given their higher extraction and conversion effort and thus higher cost. The same is true for cleaner fossil fuel uses. For example, carbon sequestration might reduce generation efficiency by approximately 24% and lead to cost increases of up to 82% over regular coal based electricity[vii].

5. The challenge - growing economies: Our research indicates that mid-level income countries (like China and India) have only limited opportunity to continue a growth trajectory without significantly adding to their carbon footprint, unless they too find other places to outsource their industrial production – which seems unlikely and would not yield a net reduction in global emissions. This reality is likely to be the main driving force behind the reluctance of China and India to accept clear carbon limits, as this – almost certainly – would impose almost impenetrable ceilings on their growth expectations[viii].

A closer look at China corroborates this view. China procures more than 90% of its energy from oil, natural gas and coal. It operates with a much lower energy cost vis-à-vis OECD countries (3-4 cents/kWh of industrial electricity in China vs. 6-11ct/kWh in most OECD countries)[ix]. This advantage is driven by a number of factors, but the most important is the predominance of coal in China’s electricity mix, which can be exploited at low cost. This advantage is further enhanced by lower labour cost and different environmental standards in mining and power generation. Without the use of coal-based electricity, China’s significant competitive advantage would shrink, removing an important driver of its recent growth.

6. The opportunity – low-income economies: In poorer countries, we see a much higher potential to combine low carbon and welfare-improving efforts. In many cases, the benefits of industrialisation are not widespread and the transition from human to mechanical labour hasn’t fully taken place yet. At the same time, many low-income countries are dependent on patchily available crude oil, currently the most costly fossil fuel per unit of delivered energy. In 2009, Africa (excluding Egypt, Algeria and South Africa) consumed 60.3% of its primary energy from oil, compared to a 35.5% share of oil globally[x].

This opens a window of opportunity for quality-of-life improvement from relatively low-yielding sustainable technology solutions. These are not likely to be high-tech, but instead simpler approaches based on enhancing locally available resources to transform solar flows into usable energy and other benefits. Examples might be simple solar power systems, water purification and desalination solutions, the growing and processing of oil seeds from marginal, non-arable land for biofuels[xi], and improvements in agricultural technology that secure higher yields[xii].

[i] World Bank (GDP PPP), EIA (primary energy)

[ii] U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA)

[iii] Cleveland, Kaufmann, Stern. 2000. Aggregation and the role of energy in the economy, Ecological Economics, 32(2): 301-317. Cleveland, Costanza, Hall, Kaufmann (31 August 1984) Science 225 (4665), 890., IIER research

[iv] Guan, Peters, Weber, Hubacek (2009). “Journey to world top emitter – an analysis of the driving forces of China’s recent CO2 emissions surge.” Geophysical Research Letters. 36, L04709, IIER analysis (unpublished)

[v] U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA)

[vi] Pimentel, David. 2008. Biofuels, solar and wind as renewable energy systems: benefits and risks. [Dordrecht, Netherlands]: Springer.

[vii] Hamilton, Herzog, Parsons, Cost and U.S. public policy for new coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration, Energy Procedia, Volume 1, Issue 1, Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 9, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-9), 16-20 November 2008, Washington DC, USA, February 2009, Pages 4487-4494, ISSN 1876-6102, DOI: 10.1016/j.egypro. 2009.02.266. Cost and U.S. public policy for new coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration

[viii] Climate Change—the Chinese Challenge

[ix] Industrial Countries’ Power Cost Comparison

[x] BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010

[xi] Biofuels from Marginal lands: Some insights for India; Achten, Maes, Aerts, Verchot, Trabucco, Mathijs, Singh, Muys, Jatropha: From global hype to local opportunity, Journal of Arid Environments, Volume 74, Issue 1, January 2010, Pages 164-165, ISSN 0140-1963, DOI: 10.1016/ j.jaridenv.2009.08.010

[xii] Rockstrom, Kaumbutho, Mwalley, Nzabi, Temesgen, Mawenya, Barron, Mutua, Damgaard-Larsen, Conservation farming strategies in East and Southern Africa: Yields and rain water productivity from on-farm action research, Soil and Tillage Research, Volume 103, Issue 1, April 2009, Pages 23-32, ISSN 0167-1987, DOI: 10.1016/j.still.2008.09.013.

The link to the full report is here.

Harvard Reaches 50 LEED Certified Projects

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:17:00 +0000

Harvard Reaches 50 LEED Certified Projects:

The U.S. Green Building Council has recently announced that Harvard University has achieved a worldwide first – the construction and completion of 50 LEED certified buildings. It is also a great feat for an institution as large as Harvard. They were able to successfully coordinate a decentralized campus with separate buildings that each have their own organizational structures. Read more about the five lessons they learned along the way after the break.

The first is to set aggressive and logical goals. One of the main priorities is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2016. In addition, it has become a priority to ensure and unify Green Building standards for all construction on the campus.

The second lesson is to engage the community. Harvard currently has over 200 faculty, students, and staff that review and approve proposals, including future building occupants. This ensures that a wide spectrum of the community is able to voice their opinions.

Focus on the development of sustainability tools such as the Life Cycle Costing calculator guarantees projects that are economically and environmentally responsible are prioritized.

The Harvard Office for Sustainability functions as a catalyst for change by engaging with and providing opportunity for the local community.

Lastly, Harvard emphasizes and celebrates the success of the leaders in sustainability roles. Their roles are recognized in the Annual Green Carpet Awards.

For more information, visit the Harvard’s Office for Sustainability.

Photographs: green.harvard.edu

References: usgbcblog.blogspot.com

Harvard Reaches 50 LEED Certified Projects originally appeared on ArchDaily

Russia Green Lights $65 Billion Siberia-Alaska Rail and Tunnel to Bridge the Bering Strait!

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:42:00 +0000

Russia Green Lights $65 Billion Siberia-Alaska Rail and Tunnel to Bridge the Bering Strait!:

In what could certainly be one of the boldest infrastructure developments ever announced, the Russian Government has given the go-ahead to build a transcontinental railway linking Siberia with North America. The massive undertaking would traverse the Bering Strait with the world’s largest tunnel – a project twice the length of the Chunnel between England and France. The $65 billion project aims to feed North America with raw goods from the Siberian interior and beyond, but it could also provide a key link to developing a robust renewable energy transmission corridor that feeds wind and tidal power across vast distances while linking a railway network across 3/4 of the Northern Hemisphere.

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How Solar Hot Water Works [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:04:00 +0000

aHow Solar Hot Water Works [Video]:

On average, about 18% of home energy consumption is for water heating, the second largest consumer behind space heating. The primary technology used to do this is the tank-type water heater (both gas- and electric-powered), but solar water heating can be a cost-effective way to generate hot water.

Solar hot water systems vary, and one system we’ve mentioned previously is a passive-pump system by a Virginia-based Sunnovations. This video explains it.

Sunnovations offers a system with less parts, less maintenance, and a one-day installation because it doesn’t have a pump, controller, wiring, or expansion tank.

Sunnovations uses a geyser pump, or bubble pump, that starts working as soon as fluid in the system warms. The gravity-fed system naturally circulates water, so, as explained in the video, a homeowner may get warm water even if the power goes out.

Solar Thermal, Water, and Cold Climates: Can't We All Get Along?

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:11:00 +0000

Solar Thermal, Water, and Cold Climates: Can't We All Get Along?:

36,597 square feet of Ritter XL solar collectors were installed on an exhibition hall in Wels, Austria, providing almost 7 million Btu/hr of supplemental hot water for district heating. Photo: Ritter Group

Most solar thermal systems installed in cold climates use antifreeze, but Ritter XL Solar is engineering its systems with water. Can a large-scale commercial system survive the cold?

Ritter XL is doing what few solar thermal manufacturers have dared: creating large-scale solar thermal systems in cold climates running on only water. The company is using its compound parabolic concentrating (CPC) collectors to generate high-temperature water for commercial, multifamily, district heating, and other applications that have high demand for hot water. Distributed in the U.S. by Regasol USA, a subsidiary of the German company Ritter Gruppe, these complex systems require precise engineering and controls but can provide supplemental solar hot water in cold climates without freezing

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Recycled Wooden Museum Protects Precious Water Sources

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Recycled Wooden Museum Protects Precious Water Sources in the Sierra Nevada Mountains:

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New Energy Tools to Assist in China’s Rapid Urbanization

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:06:00 +0000

New Energy Tools to Assist in China’s Rapid Urbanization: "

A new set of tools have been developed by researchers at MIT in collaboration with China’s Tsinghua University that will evaluate the performance and energy consumption of large-scale projects. Led by Dennis Frenchman and Christopher Zegras from MIT’s School of Architecture + Planning, these new set of guidelines and tools are a proactive response to the rapid urbanization of China and its ever-increasing development and infrastructure projects. The main goal is to introduce sustainable methods of implementation and construction, and responsible energy patterns one neighborhood at a time.

The two part tool package includes a book of neighborhood patterns that illustrates sustainable and highly successful typologies from across the globe. The second tool is called Energy Proforma, which utilizes a single number to evaluate the total lifecycle energy consumption of a neighborhood. This number is arrived at through a process that involves the calculation of 3 different types of energy components; the first relying on the how the neighborhood affects the use of transportation within its vicinity, the second being the amount of energy consumed for heating and cooling, and lastly the energy required for construction.

The end goal is that these tools and guidelines will assist in the evaluation of development proposals and become an adopted standard.

These tools were recently utilized for a proposal for a town on a new high-speed rail line, with the assistance of five teams from MIT and Tsinghua.

Photographs: MIT, Tsinghua University

References: MIT, www.inhabit.com

New Energy Tools to Assist in China's Rapid Urbanization originally appeared on ArchDaily

Berkeley Researchers Say Carbon Pollution Can Be Turned Into Energy

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:24:00 +0000

Berkeley Researchers Say Carbon Pollution Can Be Turned Into Energy: "

It’s a beautiful thing when innovators take two problems and turn them into one solution. That’s the goal of a team of scientists out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who believe they can sequester carbon dioxide pollution while simultaneously using it to generate renewable energy. The project, which recently received a $5 million grant from the Department of Energy, would inject carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere deep into the earth, where the temperature is 125 degrees Celsius. The gas would become “supercritical” at this temperature, taking on some liquid properties. It would then be pulled up and fed into a turbine that converts heat into electricity.

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Drought-Stricken Texas Town Turns Urine Into Tap Water

noreply@blogger.com (HG) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:08:00 +0000

Drought-Stricken Texas Town Turns Urine Into Tap Water: "

Texas is in the midst of a drought so severe that local water management teams have decided to distribute reclaimed wastewater (aka urine). From toilet to tap, the treated wastewater will be mixed with reservoir remains for a refreshing and clean H2O cocktail.

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