Category Archives: architecture

Beautiful Energy Conservation – This Company, Master Remodelers, is very nice

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Look it is summer. It is 95 degrees out. I am a sailor in a calm. So yes I am kinda mailing this in. But in my defense this stuff has really turned interesting. So here is another installation of beautiful energy conservation.

http://www.masterremodelersinc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=62

Sustainability

Master Remodelers is committed to using “green” building science to maximize your energy savings and comfort and your home’s durability. Our green home remodeling efforts in Pittsburgh are on the forefront of our nation’s initiative to address climate change and lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy. We will show you how your home remodeling project or home addition can be beautiful, energy efficient and a smart investment. That’s why we proudly say that we’re about “Advancing the Art and Science of Living.” 

Take a look at our 2010 award-winning kitchen as an example and our blog on the subject for more examples of green home remodeling in Pittsburgh.

OUR CREDENTIALS

We are one of only a handful of home remodeling contractors in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania dual-certified to deliver whole house energy savings for your remodel.

YOUR BENEFITS

home energy audit shows air leaks

While your home remodeling can include new, renewable building materials that are beautiful, healthier and sustainable, our main focus is on energy conservation. This is best determined by a home energy audit. Done right, going green has many benefits:  much lower utility bills, lower mortgage rates, higher resale value… and you’ll enjoy a healthier home for you and your family. Learn more at HomeEnergy.org

(right: Our infrared camera sees leaks that you can’t)

WHAT SHADE OF GREEN?

energy_audits

In the home remodeling Design and Planning process you make decisions about how green you want to go.  “Lite green” home remodeling could mean simply better insulation and doors and windows.  Or low flow showerheads and strategically planted shade trees. Maybe add bamboo floors, recycled-content counter tops, and low VOC paint. “Deep green” could mean solar, a geothermal heat pump or complete energy independence.

Home energy audits

A great place to start your decision-making is with a home energy audit to determine your home’s current energy efficiency.  We offer three different levels of audits plus other ancillary tests to choose from. For most homes, the greatest energy leaks are in floors, walls and ceilings.  Leaky ductwork follows, and then heating and cooling systems.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES

Today there are many benefits and incentives for you to go green.  Ask us about low interest loans, grants, tax credits and rebates, plus monthly utility savings.

Master_Remodelers_DifferenceCall 412-341-6585 today to set up an appointment to discuss green remodeling for your home. Or email us your questions.

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More tomorrow.

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Hydropower In A Small Beautiful Package – New Development

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Beautiful power generation is the theme of this meditation. This grows out of a comment by a friend. We were talking about wind farms and all the silly criticism of them, the worst of which is that they are ugly. I said I found them elegant and he said he found them beautiful. Thus the theme. Here is a post about small hydro. The article includes a build up about large hydrodams and the negative impact on the environment as well as data about Germany where these dams were developed. I have only included the info about the new type dam itself but please feel free to read the rest.

Small Is Beautiful in Hydroelectric Power Plant Design: Invention Could Enable Renewable Power Generation at Thousands of Unused Sites

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2010)

dot dot dot as they say…

A solution to all of these problems has now been demonstrated, in the small-scale hydroelectric power plant developed as a model by a team headed by Prof. Peter Rutschmann and Dipl.-Ing. Albert Sepp at the Oskar von Miller-Institut, the TUM research institution for hydraulic and water resources engineering. Their approach incurs very little impact on the landscape. Only a small transformer station is visible on the banks of the river. In place of a large power station building on the riverside, a shaft dug into the riverbed in front of the dam conceals most of the power generation system. The water flows into a box-shaped construction, drives the turbine, and is guided back into the river underneath the dam. This solution has become practical due to the fact that several manufacturers have developed generators that are capable of underwater operation — thereby dispensing with the need for a riverbank power house.

The TUM researchers still had additional problems to solve: how to prevent undesirable vortex formation where water suddenly flows downward; and how to best protect the fish. Rutschmann and Sepp solved two problems with a single solution — by providing a gate in the dam above the power plant shaft. In this way, enough water flows through to enable fish to pass. At the same time, the flow inhibits vortex formation that would reduce the plant’s efficiency and increase wear and tear on the turbine.

The core of the concept is not optimizing efficiency, however, but optimizing cost: Standardized pre-fabricated modules should make it possible to order a “power plant kit” just like ordering from a catalog. “We assume that the costs are between 30 and 50 percent lower by comparison with a bay-type hydropower plant,” Peter Rutschmann says. The shaft power plant is capable of operating economically given a low “head” of water of only one to two meters, while a bay-type power plant requires at least twice this head of water. Series production could offer an additional advantage: In the case of wider bodies of water, several shafts could be dug next to each other — also at different points in time, as determined by demand and available financing.

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More tomorrow.

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A Solar Farm That Is Beautiful – How not to waste energy

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I am going to be posting things I LIKE this week. It is my summer fun. This is a great site. Please RSS.

http://www.good.is/post/behold-the-gorgeous-solar-farms-of-le-mees-france/

Behold the Gorgeous Solar Farms of Le

Mées, France

  • May 27, 2011 • 12:10 pm PDT

The energy company Efinity opened two new solar-power farms in Le Mées in north-central France this month. They’re huge. Together they occupy 89 acres, generating enough electricity for 9,000 families. They were also designed with the landscape in mind. The panels were installed without concrete foundations, which means when their 20-year lifespan is over and they’re removed, there will be healthy land left behind, and grasses are being planted so sheep can graze among them.

But what’s most remarkable about these solar farms is that they’re really aesthetically pleasing. Set on the rolling hills, they look like some sort of Frank Gehry installation. Carbon aside, they’re just much nicer to look at than a coal plant.


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More fun tomorrow.

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We Even Waste Light During The Day – That’s right

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The people of the US actually turn on more lights then they need and make there eyes worse from the glare. If you don’t believe me listen to this professor.

http://envirowriters.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/proposal-essay-less-wasted-light-equals-more-energy-savings/

Proposal Essay: Less wasted light equals more energy savings

Posted on April 18, 2011 by David Apperson

The UAF campus uses electricity.  Some of the electricity is used to power fluorescent light bulbs which are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs but because they exist as a load in the power grid, use energy.  How much energy is being used by these lights, is it more than is necessary, and how bright to classrooms and computer labs need to be?  In 2010, UAF created its Office of Sustainability to utilize the $20 per student fee towards sustainable projects.  The goal is to supply the necessary funds to make sustainable projects happen but the projects must be cost effective with realistic financial return periods.  Although bright rooms are convenient, the UAF sustainability club should lobby the Chancellor and Facilities Services to implement a program that systematically removes bulbs from over-lit rooms because it will reduce the energy use of the UAF campus, make indoor conditions more comfortable, and save money.

The simplest way to reduce the energy use for lighting is to remove unnecessary bulbs.  Before someone begins pulling random lights from their fixtures at will, some simple calculations can be done to get “back of the envelope” numbers for a cost-benefit analysis.  The following calculations will use some simple energy units, the kilo-Watt (kW) and the kilo-Watt-hour (kWh).  A kW is a measurement of Power and is defined as 1,000 joules per second, how quickly work is being done.  A kWh is a measurement of energy, a fairly large amount of energy at that, being the amount of work by a one kW source for one hour.  Electricity is sold in kWh, because it doesn’t matter how fast someone or something is using the electricity but how much of it they are using.  Light intensity can be measured in lumens or foot-candles.  A lumen is a measure of the power of light perceived by the human eye and the foot-candle can be considered as the amount of light falling on a surface, being defined as one lumen per square foot.

The first thing to be determined is whether or not rooms are over lit.  If they are, then energy is being wasted.  The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), recommends that in an office setting, the light intensity be between 20 and 50 foot-candles (OSHA).  As I write this essay, I am sitting in the Students of Engineering Computer Lab (SOECAL) in Duckering.  The room is quite bright and approximately 20 ft by 40 ft and holds 15 light fixtures, each containing three fluorescent bulbs.  The bulbs are GE Ecolux Starcoat bulbs consuming 32 Watts and producing 2800 lumens a piece (light bulb).  To determine if this particular room is over lit, the following calculation is made:

It appears that the SOECAL lab is over lit by three times the amount of recommended light for a work office, perhaps other similar classrooms and computer labs are as well.  Since we can assume the SOECAL lab and many other rooms are over lit, it can also be determined how much energy is being wasted and how much it is costing.  The following calculations are performed considering a single bulb for a single hour.

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In the room where he is writing no less. More tomorrow.

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We Waste Millions O Megawatts On Night Lighting – I have been complaining about this for 25 years

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Guess what it just gets worse every year. One year I put up the classic “night sky” compulation from the space station. It is horrid. And the excuses are myriad. One year I put up a picture of the Stratton Building in downtown Springfield. I swore 30 years ago I would live to see those lights out. Guess what? They are still on. The excuse: There are no individual shut off switches in the offices. Each floor is controlled my its main electrical panel,and the night janitors couldn’t see to do their jobs! Lighting on highways? What don’t cars have headlights? Street lightening? Gotta be able to see criminals. Put spotlights on the squad cars and get them off their dead asses. It just goes on and on and on and on. There is no off. So here is another story.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?catid=158&storyid=132655

Federal Agency Headquarters Leave Lights On In DC

8:10 PM, Jan 25, 2011  |

WASHINGTON (WUSA) — Night after night, year after year, this nightside reporter observed lights left on in federal government buildings. So I decided to see just how much taxpayers were spending to keep empty buildings illuminated.

For several months, we kept track of the lights left on in a dozen federal buildings, including the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation and Energy always checking after 10 p.m., each on at least six occasions.

“Turn the lights off. That’s what I do anyway. That’s how I save money,” said one visitor from North Dakota.

Just how much are the federal agencies electricity bills costing you, the taxpayer? First, using the Freedom of Information Act, we requested six months of utility bills for the headquarters buildings of more than a dozen agencies. Then, we asked taxpayers to estimate the price of one month in one building.

‘Whew. $3,000 a month?” one woman estimated.

“$5,000 a month?” guessed a young man from New Jersey.

“Monthly? $5-10,000,” said a man from Virginia.

The low end is about $200,000 a month. The high end more than a million. One month’s electricity bill at the Department of Labor topped a MILLION dollars. That was a bill paid in July of last year. The month before, the department paid a bill of nearly $700,000. And utility costs of that magnitude are not unusual.

“Whoooo. That’s too much!” exclaimed a taxpayer.

“Maybe the perception is, they want to tell the American people that we’re always on,” speculated another.

The Department of Health and Human Services paid a bill last August of $799,000 for a month of service.

“Oh my God. That is per month?” was one reaction.

The Department of Commerce paid a bill last June of $794,000.

“I used to work for the federal government. I know they waste tax dollars. Do it every day,” said a man in DC.

“Turning off the lights is about the simplest way that the government can save money. There is no excuse not to do this on a regular basis,” said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste.

Most federal agencies purchase their electricity through PEPCO and Constellation New Energy of Baltimore. The buildings are large, and some appear to be making an effort to turn off their lights consistently, like the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Energy headquarters was so dark on one of our nighttime visits, we could barely see its sign.

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More next week.

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Inproved Solar Panels By Transphorm – What is in an element

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Gallium nitride makes the DC to AC conversion process much more effective.

http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/solar-research/google-transphorms-solar-efficiency/

Google Startup ‘Transphorms’ Solar Efficiency

google transphorm energy efficiency

The name of the company is Transphorm, and since its inception in 2007 it has been busy transforming the very nature of energy.

No bumps on solar cells, no cars that run on jellied jellyfish. Transphorm, emerging at the head of the class after three years of sitting in the back row, has discovered a technology that could ultimately capture some of the power lost in converting from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC).

This is done by your regional electric utility, which transmits electricity in DC and delivers power to the plug-ins in your home as AC. Why? It’s cheaper, for one thing. It’s also safer, and the amount of power lost to heat during transmission is minimal.

dot dot dot as they say

Increasing energy efficiency is one of the best ways of achieving that  “green energy” economy we all want and need. Waste not, want not, as my mother used to say, and this particular waste-not strategy benefits not only large power users (factories and control centers, for example) but also the smallest user, which means you and I. This is because the cost of lost power is built into the cost per kilowatt-hour charged by the utility.

Transphorm’s secret weapon? Gallium nitride, a material that has to be fabricated, making it initially more expensive but consistently more efficient than silicon. It is, according to CEO Umesh Mishra, “a miracle material.”

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for more on that see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a binary III/V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in bright light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. The compound is a very hard material that has a Wurtzite crystal structure. Its wide band gap of 3.4 eV affords it special properties for applications in optoelectronic, high-power and high-frequency devices. For example, GaN is the substrate which makes violet (405 nm) laser diodes possible, without use of nonlinear optical frequency-doubling.

Its sensitivity to ionizing radiation is low (like other group III nitrides), making it a suitable material for solar cell arrays for satellites. Because GaN transistors can operate at much hotter temperatures and work at much higher voltages than gallium arsenide (GaAs) transistors, they make ideal power amplifiers at microwave frequencies.

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More tomorrow.

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Wind Power Blows – So this is the alternative energy Presidency

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You think it has been a bad year for nuclear power or Japanese grown vegetables?

http://www.frontlinestocks.com/hrte/

Wind energy declines in USA

28 July 2010

Wind power installations to date this year have dropped by 71% from last years level, according to the latest quarterly report from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Only 700 MW of wind turbines were added in Q2 2010, down 57% from comparable 2008 levels and down 71% from 2009.

Even with 5.5 GW of wind power under construction and a more active second half of the year anticipated, AWEA projects that total 2010 installations will be 25% to 45% below 2009 installations, depending on policy developments.

Combined Q1 and Q2wind energy installations in 2010 are 1239 MW, 57% below 2008 half-year levels and 71% below 2009.

AWEA and a coalition of renewable energy, labor, utility and environmental groups are calling on the US Congress to enact a strong national renewable electricity standard (RES) to spur demand for green power, attract manufacturing investment and save (and create) jobs.

“Strong Federal policy supporting the US wind energy industry has never been more important,” says Denise Bode of AWEA. “We have an historic opportunity to build a major new manufacturing industry.”

“Without strong, supportive policy like an RES to spur demand, investment and jobs, manufacturing facilities will go idle and lay off workers if Congress doesn’t act now – before time runs out this session,” she adds.

US wind energy now in ‘coasting momentum’

There is no demand beyond the present “coasting momentum” and, without stable policy, without demand and new power purchase agreements and without new wind turbine orders, the domestic industry is sputtering out, the group notes. “Passage of a strong national RES will boost demand and fire up the industry’s economic engines.”

The US wind energy industry has repeatedly criticized the ‘boom-and-bust’ cycles which result in layoffs and also discourage investment in new manufacturing facilities. The USA is losing the clean energy manufacturing race to Europe and China, which have firm long-term renewable energy targets and policy commitments in place, warns AWEA.

According to a national poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, an RES is popular among US voters with strong support from 65% of Republican voters, 69% of Independents and 92% of Democrats.

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More tomorrow…

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CWLP Talks About Joining The Future – How long do you think I can avoid talking about the Middle East

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I have not talked about local issues for awhile but the Illinois Times had several green stories this week so what the heck. Instead of talking about slaughtered civilians and mad men.  I will talk about civility.

http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-8402-cwlp-readies-for-greener-future.html

Thursday, March 3,2011

CWLP readies for greener future

By Rachel Wells

A contract requiring Springfield’s public utility to be more environmentally responsible doesn’t expire for another six years, but local activists are already urging the city and its residents to start thinking now about how today’s decisions can determine City, Water, Light and Power’s seemingly distant future.

In 2006, the Sangamon Valley Group of the Sierra Club threatened costly delay to the construction of CWLP’s newest power plant if the city didn’t agree, among other things, to bring wind energy into its portfolio for at least 10 years. The city agreed, but local Sierra Club president Will Reynolds says the mayor and aldermen elected this April will determine the success of several additional “green” initiatives that CWLP is already researching. If those initiatives are successful, they could prepare Springfield for continued use and promotion of renewable energy, even without a contractual obligation.

“There’s not going to be, unless something really unexpected happens, another Sierra Club agreement that is just going to make CWLP buy all that wind power,” Reynolds said last week at a public forum where CWLP provided an update on its work in renewable energy and sustainability. “What happens next is going to be up to the next city council and the next mayor we elect and it’s going to be up to people organizing and putting on pressure for Springfield to use clean energy.”

Cool Cities is a national Sierra Club program encouraging cities to reduce their carbon footprints. Springfield’s Cool Cities advisory group is already working on preliminary goals for increasing Springfield’s energy efficiency, growing its sustainability-linked economy and conserving land and water. Once the group’s goals are finalized, members will meet with the new mayor.

“If we can take sort of this global, high-level wish-list, at the moment, to the mayor and we get affirmation that ‘OK, this makes sense. I will put the name of my administration behind this,’ then at that point it goes public,” says CWLP Energy Services Office manager Bill Mills. “If there is not affirmation, basically we take our toys and go home because we were told to quit playing.”

Mills’ office is also researching programs that, if adopted, could encourage growth of solar energy production and the use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles by CWLP customers.

At the point when solar power peaks – on hot summer afternoons – CWLP customers and their air conditioners are using the most energy. Increased solar panel use by CWLP customers means the utility is under less stress to power their homes and businesses and can sell more of the energy it produces to the wholesale market. Doing so brings in more money for the utility to use on environmental initiatives, Mills says. Because installation cost is a significant barrier for increased solar power, CWLP is now studying the economics of starting a solar-panel rebate program this fall.

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Read more there. More tomorrow.

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Chicago is such an energy dog – Tear it down and rebuild

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Forget the skyscrapers, and forget the suburbs, when you tear down buildings and then replace them you waste tons of energy. Not to mention the crap that they put in landfills. This is especially true when you produce negligible results. If you address the economic issues instead of the housing issues, you solve the problem. Case in point.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/chicago-public-housing-0303.html

Chicago hope

Ambitious attempt to help the city’s poor by moving them out of troubled housing projects is having mixed results, MIT study finds.

Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office

In December 2010, the last remaining resident was removed from the last high-rise building standing in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing projects, long a national symbol of urban blight. The relocation was part of Chicago’s ambitious Plan for Transformation, a 15-year enterprise aimed at breaking the poverty cycle in which tens of thousands of the city’s poor have lived, by moving them out of the projects and into better, safer living environments.

So far, according to a study by MIT researchers, the Plan for Transformation is faring only moderately well. Leaving the projects has produced positive psychological effects for some of Chicago’s poor, but has not appreciably improved their economic prospects, while relatively few participants in the program are living in drastically different types of housing.

“The results are mixed and nuanced,” says Lawrence Vale, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning at MIT, who produced the report along with Erin Graves, a former postdoctoral research associate in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The report, “The Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation: What Does the Research Show So Far?” released in October by the MacArthur Foundation, surveys 83 previous studies of the Chicago plan conducted by social scientists.

On the positive side, the report notes that people leaving Chicago public-housing projects display better mental health; one study showed that the percentage of residents suffering anxiety problems in a given year dropped from 30 percent to 21 percent. Relocated residents also said they felt safer.

However, it is not clear that relocation helps residents increase their employment prospects and incomes. One study shows that among working-age public-housing residents, the proportion employed between 1999, when the plan was founded, and 2010, remained between 50 percent and 55 percent, including part-time workers. “The question of whether they’ve made significant economic gains is unresolved,” notes Vale.

Moreover, as Vale and Graves emphasize, only about 2,100 of the 26,000 households relocated as part of the Plan for Transformation have moved from the projects into mixed-income housing: the smaller, safer developments, where middle-income families are mixed in with low-income households.

“The public perception is that Chicago is replacing all of its infamous public housing with low-rise mixed-income communities,” says Vale. But as the report notes, about 9,000 households have moved to senior-only public housing, and 6,000 households have stayed in renovated public buildings that house only low-income residents. Similarly, Vale says, “The academic literature has focused on the least common experience, not on what the city has done with the majority of the housing.”

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Read the rest of the article, but it doesn’t get any better. More tomorrow.

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Kites And Big Boats – Cargill returns to sailboats

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I first read this here:

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/02/28/cargill-cuts-co2-emissions-worlds-largest-kite-powered-ship

But it is just a lift from Cargill’s website.

http://www.cargill.com/news-center/news-releases/2011/NA3040908.jsp

Cargill propels shipping forward with largest kite-powered vessel

Date: 28 February 2011

Contacts:

Cargill:
Francis De Rosa, +44 1932 861174, francis_derosa@cargill.com
Corinne Holtshausen, +44 1932 861174, corinne_holtshausen@cargill.com

SkySails:

Anne Staack, +49 40 702 99 444, anne.staack@skysails.de

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — 28 February 2011 — Cargill has signed an agreement with SkySails GmbH & Co. KG (SkySails) to use wind power technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry. SkySails, based in Hamburg, has developed innovative, patented technology that uses a kite which flies ahead of the vessel and generates enough propulsion to reduce consumption of bunker fuel by up to 35 percent in ideal sailing conditions.

Next December Cargill will install the 320m2 kite on a handysize vessel of between 25,000 and 30,000 deadweight tonnes, which the company has on long-term charter, making it the largest vessel propelled by a kite in the world. Cargill and SkySails aim to have the system fully operational in the first quarter of 2012. Cargill is currently helping SkySails develop and test the technology and has identified a ship-owner – supportive of environmental stewardship in the industry – with whom it will partner on the project.

The SkySails kite will be connected to the ship by rope and is computer-controlled by an automatic pod to maximise the wind benefits. The kite functions at a height of between 100 to 420 metres and flies in a figure of eight formation. The SkySails system is automated and requires only minimal action by the crew. An automatic control system steers the kite and adjusts its flight path. All information related to the system’s operation is displayed on the monitor of the SkySails’ workstation on the ship’s bridge.

“For some time, we have been searching for a project that can help drive environmental best practice within the shipping industry and see this as a meaningful first step”, said G.J. van den Akker, head of Cargill’s ocean transportation business. “The shipping industry currently supports 90 percent of the world’s international physical trade. In a world of finite resources, environmental stewardship makes good business sense. As one of the world’s largest charterers of dry bulk freight, we take this commitment extremely seriously. In addition to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the SkySails technology aims to significantly reduce fuel consumption and costs. We are very impressed with the technology and see its installation on one of our chartered ships as the first part of an ongoing, long-term partnership.”

“We are delighted that Cargill is the first company to embrace our technology on a vessel this large as part of its commitment to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry”, said Stephan Wrage, managing director of SkySails. “We are excited that our technology will shortly be used on a handysize vessel for the first time and see great potential to incorporate it on larger ships in the future.”

According to a United Nations (International Maritime Organisation) study, up to 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) could be saved every year by the broad application of the SkySails’ technology on the world merchant fleet.1 This figure would equate to 11 percent of the CO2 emissions of Germany.

Cargill is a significant global transporter of agricultural, energy and industrial commodities. Although the company does not today own or operate ships, its ocean transportation business ships more than 185 million tonnes of commodities each year, in the process connecting supply from areas of surplus with demand in areas of deficit.

Photos are available for download at http://www.skysails.info/english/information-center/press-lounge/photos-graphics/

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More tomorrow.

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