Comments on: Links for November 23rd from 16:41 to 17:01 http://www.melstarrs.com/elemental/2009/11/27/links-for-november-23rd-from-1641-to-1651/ Communicating sustainable solutions for the built environment Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:38:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Nick Grant http://www.melstarrs.com/elemental/2009/11/27/links-for-november-23rd-from-1641-to-1651/comment-page-1/#comment-2796 Nick Grant Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:17:05 +0000 http://www.melstarrs.com/elemental/2009/11/27/links-for-november-23rd-from-1641-to-1651/#comment-2796 In my mind 'Near Zero' is far more exciting as a concept than the UK's redefinition of 'zero' farce. Near Zero is actually worthy of analysis, debate and consultation, economic levels of efficiency, life cycle costing etc etc. Have been working on strategy for a business park development where we argued for efficiency to deliver buildings with 10% of standard heat demand and no active cooling. Argument was won on practicality and cost. But then the M&E were appointed to look at infrastructure and they said that 10% isn't zero so propose putting in biomass powered district heat (after rightly pointing out that all other energy supply technologies were too expensive or not invented yet). However that makes no sense with such low heat demand buildings as losses greater than actual demand (especially summer hot water). The solution? Save the money that would have been spent on efficiency - after all the heat is zero carbon, until biomass prices go through the roof. Unbelievably oil boilers running on biodiesel were actually considered but rejected on cost! Just need to sort the overheating now! Since rational argument has been exhausted a friend, Mr Naughty has pointed to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mr._Men#Mr._Nonsense In my mind ‘Near Zero’ is far more exciting as a concept than the UK’s redefinition of ‘zero’ farce.

Near Zero is actually worthy of analysis, debate and consultation, economic levels of efficiency, life cycle costing etc etc.

Have been working on strategy for a business park development where we argued for efficiency to deliver buildings with 10% of standard heat demand and no active cooling. Argument was won on practicality and cost. But then the M&E were appointed to look at infrastructure and they said that 10% isn’t zero so propose putting in biomass powered district heat (after rightly pointing out that all other energy supply technologies were too expensive or not invented yet).

However that makes no sense with such low heat demand buildings as losses greater than actual demand (especially summer hot water). The solution? Save the money that would have been spent on efficiency – after all the heat is zero carbon, until biomass prices go through the roof. Unbelievably oil boilers running on biodiesel were actually considered but rejected on cost!

Just need to sort the overheating now!

Since rational argument has been exhausted a friend, Mr Naughty has pointed to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mr._Men#Mr._Nonsense

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