Category Archives: architecture

2013 Is The Time For The Solar Decathlon – If I was in college I would be there

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Most colleges could stand to turn the energy spotlight on themselves. The University of Illinois for instance is still using a coal fired boiler from the 50s. Still this is a step in the right direction.

http://www.livescience.com/20710-solar-decathlon-nsf-bts.html

Planned For Solar Decathlon 2013

Monica Kanojia , National Science Foundation
Date: 01 June 2012 Time: 05:24 PM ET

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Every two years, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon encourages competing collegiate teams to design energy-efficient homes that use solar energy.

Launched in 2002, the Solar Decathlon is both an educational and workforce-development program. The competition enlists nearly two dozen teams of students, from various academic backgrounds, who design sustainable homes from the ground up, engineering them with materials provided by major corporate sponsors.

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The Dragon Has Landed – You go space billionaires

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So this is happening as we speak, they are repositioning the solar panels for docking in 16 minutes. So they are a kiss away from either clicking or blowing up . Which ever is going to happen.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

They look like they are about 10 feet apart. That is amazing.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/dragon-capsule-on-course-1446050.html

Dragon capsule on course for space station arrival

By MARCIA DUNN

The Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule approached the International Space Station for a historic docking Friday after sailing through a practice rendezvous the day before.

The unmanned SpaceX Dragon was on track most of the morning to deliver a half-ton of supplies and become the first commercial vessel to visit the space station. But as the capsule drew within 100 feet, flight controllers commanded it to retreat.

The capsule backed off to 230 feet as the SpaceX company worked to resolve a problem with the on-board tracking sensors. Stray reflections from the Japanese part of the space station were interfering with the Dragon’s laser-based sensors, officials said. SpaceX mission controllers quickly fixed the trouble and resumed the docking operation.

On Thursday, the capsule came within 1½ miles of the space station in a practice fly-by. It returned to the neighborhood early Friday so Kuipers and U.S. astronaut Donald Pettit could capture it with a robot arm. First, the capsule went through a series of stop-and-go demonstrations to prove it was under good operating control.

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Solar Power From Dyes – May the force be with you

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It’s a joke son..I say I say It’s a joke son. You know dyes and clothes. I know it is not that kind of dye but it is a joke.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510113719.htm

Solar Power to Dye For: Flexible Lightweight Inexpensive Dyes Could Harvest Energy from Sun

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2012) — Researchers at the University of Turku believe that flexible, lightweight and inexpensive dyes could be used to harvest the power of the sun rather than our relying on costly and fragile semiconductor solar panel that use crystalline silicon

Writing in the International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management this month, Jongyun Moon and colleagues Aulis Tuominen and Arho Suominen, explain that dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) are set to become a ubiquitous source of energy without the complex and expensive clean-room manufacturing processes associated with current solar panels. They point out that the rapid increase in research into novel solar energy conversion technology looks set to revolutionise the industry making electricity generation accessible to all without government or other subsidies.

Solar power is an essential part of the green energy mix, but adoption has been limited in many parts of the world where government subsidies and financial incentives have not been in place. However, as part of a sustainable approach to electricity generation, it offers a clear view of a future in which domestic supply relies less and less on grid power systems or else provides a localised grid for remote places, particularly in sunny climes. Photovoltaic solar cells based on poly-crystalline silicon are the most commonly used devices, having first been used as space satellite technology back in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Culture Wars – The geezers and the cranks against the future

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It is clear that we have to prepare for a future with only clean energy sources in it. Well we used to think everyone agreed with that. But now comes the rich billionaires who have taken over the Republican Party and sucked in all the people who can’t or won’t tolerate change. They want their incandescent lights back.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/16/is-clean-energy-yet-another-culture-war/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29

Is Clean Energy Yet Another Culture War?

May 16, 2012 By

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1c0hi)

David Roberts of Grist had a great post the other day portraying clean energy as a culture war. I think it’s highly worth a read, so I’m reposting it in full from Grist to make it easy as pie to not pass up (note: there’s also a Part II linked at the bottom of the post that is worth a read):

by David Roberts

Not that long ago, some folks were arguing that clean energy — unlike climate change, which had been irredeemably stained by partisanship (eww!) — would bring people together across ideological lines. Persuaded by the irrefutable wisdom of wonks, we would join hands across the aisle to promote common-sense solutions. It wouldn’t be partisan, it would be … post-partisan.

Some day, I will stop mocking the people who said that. But not today. The error is an important one and it is still made regularly, especially by hyper-educated U.S. elites. They think clean energy is different from climate change, that it won’t get sucked into the same culture war. They are wrong.

On clean energy, the material/financial aspects of the conflict are the easiest to understand. Wind, solar, and the rest threaten the financial dominance and political influence of dirty energy. Last week, the Guardian broke the story of a confidential memo laying out a plan to demonize and discredit clean energy, meant to coordinate the plans/messages of several big right-wing super PACs funded by dirty-energy money.

At the bottom of that same piece, though, is one of the best expressions I’ve ever seen of the cultural and psychological aspects of the conflict

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Nice To Have A Nuke In The Basement – Really the article is more hype than anything

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Still it is kind of interesting. I wonder why no one spilled the beans. Was it because the bulk of their workers were blind and totally dependent on Kodak. I do not know but it is an amusing tale nonetheless.

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/so_kodak_about_that_nuclear_reactor_in_your_basement

So, Kodak — about that nuclear reactor in your basement

It seems that, until 2006, Kodak had a basement that housed a nuclear reactor, complete with a cache of weapons-grade uranium. How did the company get away with that?

by May 14, 2012 11:16 AM PDT

Corporate America is a place of many layers.

Though fanciful movies made by drug-addled Hollywood directors sometimes suggest that corporations are behind wars, most believe that CEOs are just too harassed to find the time for that sort of action.

And yet, this morning Gizmodo has turned my head toward the explosive reporting of The Democrat and Chronicle, the local newspaper of the Rochester, N.Y., area — home to Kodak.

This paper reveals that between 1978 and 2006, Kodak had a nuclear reactor. No, not a picture of one. A real one — albeit a small one intended for research — housed in its basement.

Surely, you might think that there’s some exaggeration here. And yet it seems that this nuclear reactor contained three-and-a-half pounds of enriched uranium. Highly enriched uranium, indeed, which some might describe as “weapons-grade.”

I am sure that everyone in Rochester — not to mention, say, North America — will be pleased to hear that nothing ever went wrong with this reactor. No leaks. No strange explosions. It apparently bore no responsibility for Kodak’s own implosion, either.

Given that it was only dismantled in 2006, though, it is remarkable that few locals — or, indeed, Kodak employees — knew anything about this 14×24-foot bunker

 

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The Grass Is Always Greener Next Door – And many people don’t even believe in lawns as a legitimate space

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In fact, some are so radical as to imply that our yards should be filled with food plants and locally indigenous plants. I personally believe that is food overkill but at least there would be no hunger in America. Here is more on lawns if you like them.

http://www.organiclawncare101.com/

The Grass is Greener … and Safer!

Lawns may have been invented in Europe, but they’ve reached their apotheosis in North America. For those in the U.S. of A, that green, green grass ranks right up there with apple pie, backyard barbecues and softball. For Canadians it’s proof of place, both a responsibility and a privilege, like wearing decent clothes when you leave the house. Keep your teeth clean and your grass green. In the lower 48 states and much of southern Canada, grass is practically an obsession.

The problem with the perfect lawn is that it wreaks havoc on both your wallet and the environment. Between 30 and 40 million acres of land in the U.S. are devoted to turfgrass (see Curbing the Lawn), and Americans collectively spend big bucks — about $40 billion annually — on seed, sod and chemicals. In Canada, which has around one tenth the population of the U.S., sales from all lawn and garden products have risen steadily over the past five years, to over $2 billion by 2007. Click on “Canadian lawns and gardens: Where are they the ‘greenest’?” for more on this.

Much of that money goes to products that “help” grass only in the most superficial ways and that degrade the soil, pollute any water they reach, and pose serious health threats to humans, their pets, and any wildlife in the area, including birds. As people become aware of these facts, attitudes towards conventional fertilizers and pesticides are beginning to change. In Canada, over 130 communities and two entire provinces have passed laws severely restricting pesticide use, so homeowners and city park services are going organic perforce. In the U.S., where municipalities in many states lack the power to pass such comprehensive laws, a number of cities and towns have restricted the use of pesticides on school grounds or in parks. Furthermore, while many pesticides remain legal in the States, more and more people are becoming aware of the strain that they place on the eco-system. All across North America, people are not only considering going green, but whether the perfect lawn is worth the long-term environmental price we’re paying for it.

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Building The Buildings Of The Future – No Air conditioning is a place to start

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This is an old piece but it is still as true today as it was then. Air conditioning and by that I mean cooling air when it is hot is very expensive both financially and with regards to energy consumption.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/buildings-without-air-conditioners-the-latest-in-energy-efficiency-5413/

Buildings Without Air Conditioners: The Latest in Energy Efficiency

Air conditioners consume an inordinate amount of power in the U.S. and they aren’t very efficiently used. To save energy, some say leave them out.

Michael Kanellos: December 22, 2008

Sometimes the most efficient air conditioning system is not having one at all.

To curb energy consumption, architects with projects in temperate cities – Seattle, Portland, San Francisco – have started to design buildings without mechanical air conditioners. These buildings will have heaters in all likelihood, but not air conditioning (see Can Greentech Make Housing Cheaper and Green Buildings No Subsidies Needed).

“There are only five days a year you need cooling in Seattle,” said Amanda Sturgeon, an architect and senior associate at the firm Perkins + Will, who recently designed a building without a mechanical conditioner.

In some cases, architects are putting in air-side economizers, i.e., computer-controlled windows that open to let in cooling breezes (see The Solar Window). The General Services Administration building in San Francisco uses openable windows on 12 of its 18 floors that let in cool breezes at night that, ideally, keep the offices cool in the daytime.  There is no mechanical cooling in the open office areas.

This shift comes courtesy of two trends. One, building developers and contractors have latched onto green buildings as an economic opportunity. Designing a building to LEED Silver or Gold standards – the environmental building standards promulgated by the U.S. Green Building Council – only adds around 2 percent to the overall cost or less, according to various contractors, architects and researchers. Designing to the LEED Platinum standard can add only 6 percent if carefully planned. The trick, say Sturgeon and others, is to exploit as many passive, design-centric techniques for scoring LEED points before moving on to the potentially more expensive, equipment-centric ones like biomass boilers or new types of lighting systems.

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Vegetable Gardening At The White House – This is an old story but

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I loved it when Jimmy Carter put up solar panels and I love it for the same reason when Michelle Obama put in a vegetable garden. It is telling of course that Ronald Regan tore the solar panels off the White House and destroyed them. The division in our culture is so clear. The White House had a vegetable garden all the way up to the 60s or so when it “fell out of favor”. Now it is back and it will be interesting to see what the next occupant does with it when he is elected.

http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/obama_garden.htm

First Lady Michele Obama Plants Organic Vegetable Garden at White House

Obamas Hope White House Organic Garden Will Cause Healthy Lifestyles to Blossom

From , former About.com Guide

On March 20, 2009, First Lady Michele Obama celebrated the first day of spring by using her famously well-toned biceps to pick up a shovel and break ground for an organic vegetable garden at the White House. (See the official layout [pdf] of the new White House garden.)

Educating Children a Primary Goal of White House Garden
In talking with reporters about the new garden, the first lady got down and dirty about the benefits of good nutrition and the need to educate children, families and whole communities about the importance of a healthful diet, especially at a time when obesity and diabetes have become national health crises.

Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, DC, helped the first lady dig up the 1,100-square-foot garden plot on the south lawn of the White House, which is near the tennis courts and the swing set the Obamas installed for their daughters and can be seen by people passing by on E Street. The plan is to have the students stay involved in planting, tending, harvesting and cooking the presidential produce.

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Gardening Nude – She is my favorite gal

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Seriously, since we are talking spring gardens, though I am still counting on cold in April or May, here is one of the best in the biz. Shawna Coronado is a real hard worker.

http://www.chicagonow.com/gardening-nude#

How To Make a Strawberry or Vegetable Planter From A Recycled Light Fixture – Sustainable!

It is time to think about Spring!! Here is a super-easy trick for recycling something old into a brand new vegetable planter. Learn how a light fixture can be transformed into something wonderful and useful!

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Spring Gardening Can Mean Work For You – Or it can mean work for them

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Gardening is kind of hard to define. Some people would call this landscaping but not if you did it yourself.

http://www.ecogardens.com/about.html
Sustainability

At the core of Ecogardens mission is a dual responsibility, to the earth and to our clients, to provide quality landscaping services that minimize environmental impact. Sustainability begins when a client chooses from among our diverse services to satisfy their unique artistic and functional needs.

For each step – Design, Build, and Maintain – we research and utilize the latest industry technologies and techniques to promote energy-efficiency, resource conservation and biodiversity.

We emphasize our green roof and rooftop garden services for their potential to expand outdoor living spaces and improve the quality of our environment. The results are landscapes as safe as they are attractive, to be enjoyed with a clear conscience and easy mind.

As a member of the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance and a partner of the GreenScapes Alliance, we encourage industry-wide sustainability. We also realize that we are but one member in a larger team effort toward responsible coexistence with urban communities and the environment. As such, our greenBacks program allows us to assist not-for-profit organizations in their own work toward a shared, sustainable future.

At Ecogardens, everyone experiences the height of green™

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Sorry for the small print. Go there and read large. More tomorrow.

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