Elemental

These are my links for October 5th through October 7th:

• Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes – Partnership Publications – EEPH/CLG report: "This report presents results and findings of the joint EEPH (Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes) and Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) project to study the levels of compliance with Part L of the Building Regulations.
  Specifically, it presents the results from a study of compliance for new dwellings built since April 2006 in accordance with Approved Document L1A (2006). The results for the full sample for the 2nd Phase of the project are presented"
• The future of green building in China – ClimateChangeCorp.com – Interesting (long) article on green building in China: "Perceived high cost is another barrier. When a World Business Council for Sustainable Development survey in 2007 asked the real estate developers and building professionals worldwide how much more they thought green buildings cost than normal buildings, the Chinese respondents said they thought certified green buildings cost 28% more. They were unaware that in China the average extra cost for a LEED certified building has been 3-5% more. This figure is similar to the global average incremental cost for LEED certified buildings.
  Lewis says as long as the Chinese developers have a perception that green buildings cost a quarter more, they will surely not go for green projects."
  China’s green building targets
  * Reduce building energy use in all cities by 50% by 2010 and 65% by 2020 (base year 1980)
  * Top 1000 State Owned Enterprises Programme aims to improve energy efficiency in the largest SOEs by 2010…
• Target Zero – About Target Zero – AECOM have been commissioned by Corus and BCSA: "The aim of this project is to understand the implications of the UK Government's move towards 'zero carbon' for five steel framed non-domestic building types.
  Target Zero will research and cost options for improving operational energy consumption and reducing embodied energy and other life-cycle impacts. The fully costed solutions generated will demonstrate how to achieve the three highest BREEAM ratings and meet the anticipated changes to Part 'L' of the Building Regulations."
• Zerofootprint » Communities – Interesting competition to retrofit a post-war, pre-90's concrete building and operate at net zero for a year. Their definition of net zero is on-site NOT community level, and by my reckoning excludes biomass: "All the energy required to power household amenities, cool, heat, and light the building must be provided on a net zero basis. Possible onsite energy systems can include wind, solar, bio-fuel cells (from occupant produced organic waste), hydrogen cells, etc. Energy must be produced by devices located within the building and its nearby property, and cannot be powered by fuel brought to the building. The building can contribute excess energy to the grid and, when necessary, access an equivalent amount, but no more."
• Passivhaus Windows | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com – I've been slightly obsessed with window u-values recently. This article has a great overview of German vs. US calculations differences and some good suppliers for windows from Canada: "When I interviewed Dr. Wolfgang Feist in 2007, he told me, “The reason for the number which we now use in Europe is the comfort of the occupants. It is a functional definition. During the winter, the coldest surface temperature in the room will be the window. If you don’t have a radiator in your room, the difference between the surface temperature of the window and the mean surface temperature of the room should not be more than 3 degrees Celsius; that’s for comfort reasons.”
  The colder the climate, the more important it is to use U-0.14 or better windows in a Passivhaus building — and not just for comfort. Low U-factor windows are necessary to meet the Passivhaus maximum annual heating energy standard of 15 kWh per square meter."

admin News building, Canada, carbon, China, competition, compliance, domestic, dwellings, German, green, part_L, passivhaus, residential, targets, u-values, UK, US, windows, zero, zero_carbon

What caught my eye today, January 15th:

• Weather Data – For use with Google Earth – loads of weather data in EnergyPlus weather format ? 295 locations in the USA, 71 locations in Canada, and more than 800 locations in 100 other countries throughout the world.
• Lyons-Dubai – via BLDGBLOG, news that “The Arab emirate of Dubai will build a replica of Lyons” – why???? And how does this fit into their sustainability push?? I’m confuddled…
• USGBC Publishes Catalog of LEED Innovation & Design Points Online- 1/14/2008 9:01:00 AM – Building Design & Construction – Building Teams pursuing certification under the USGBC?s LEED now have the opportunity to view the Innovation & Design Credit Catalog ? a listing of proven green building strategies that have been submitted and utilized by LEED Certified projects.

mel starrs News Canada, Dubai, Google, United States

Looks like Matt Grace has moved to Enermodal Engineering (a Canadian company) in Calgary:

Leading UK Sustainability Expert Joins Enermodal Calgary: Matt Grace, B.Eng., M.Sc., C.Env.

Matt Grace brings to Enermodal 12 years of professional experience in sustainable building design and assessment, including work on office, institutional, industrial and housing developments, renewable energy and energy efficiency. He has conducted over 150 assessments of green buildings, developed BREEAM (the UK equivalent to LEED), and conducted building research for the International Energy Agency. Matt’s education includes degrees in both Engineering and Energy and the Environment, and he is a Chartered Environmentalist (UK). We look forward to the fresh perspective on green building design and rating that Matt brings to Enermodal.

Matt was last seen at Ferguson Brown, whose website is still under development some 8 months after I first reported it ‘coming soon’.  The Calgary office of Enermodal opened in November from what I can gather.

Good luck in Canada, Matt…

mel starrs Uncategorized Calgary, Canada, Energy Agency, energy efficiency, Enermodal Engineering, Ferguson Brown, Matt Grace, News, renewable energy, United Kingdom

image via Flickr
Malcolm Gladwell, journalist and author of the Tipping Point and Blink, has an interesting post on his blog where his father explains how his newly installed geothermal heat pump system works.

Most of us prefer the temperature in the house in the winter to be nearer 70˚F then 60˚F, so we need to raise the temperature of the relatively warm air a little. For this we use the gas equation that you may remember from High School Physics: PV=RT. Here P is pressure, V is volume, T is absolute temperature, and R is a constant. If we keep the volume constant, we see that the Pressure is proportional to the Temperature. This means that if we want to raise the temperature of the air a little, then we should increase its pressure a little. To see how much, we must work in absolute temperature, which is 273˚+temperature in Celsius (centigrade) . Take an example: suppose the temperature of the water coming out of the ground were 50˚F; that is 10˚C or 273˚+10˚=283˚ absolute. We want to heat the air from 50˚F to say 68˚F. 68˚F is 20˚C or 273˚+20˚=293˚ absolute. Raising the temperature from 283˚ to 293˚, means that we raise it by (293-283)*100/283 percent, or 3.5 %. That small increase in pressure can easily be done by using a compressor.

He then goes into the capital costs for his local market (Canada). For a domestic market with a wide summer/winter temperature differential and plenty of land, it’s a perfect solution.

Technorati Tags: sustainability

admin News Canada, GSHP, Malcolm Gladwell, physics

Story from the Yorkshire Post on 1 June 2006 in which a local ecology company are spreading the word about BREEAM.

In Canada, green buildings are happier more productive buildings:

One study of a green renovation to the post office in Reno, Nevada, found that the $500,000 cost was offset by productivity improvements in the first year — with energy savings as an extra bonus.

Brad Pitt is waving the green flag on US TV on PBS:

Pitt starts each episode with a rhetorical introduction: “They use 40% of the world’s energy and emit 50% of its greenhouse gases. They are not the cars we drive. They are the buildings we work, live and grow in.” Those statistics aren’t new, but they don’t seem to have completely sunk in yet, particularly with the environmental activists who continue to make the SUV the bête noire of the green movement.

And some good news regarding the seemingly unstoppable expanding economies of India China and Brazil and their impact on carbon. This report thinks it’s not too late to help out and with the right finance, structure things in a way which will reduce emissions:

“Rapidly developing countries such as China, India and Brazil need many people and consulting firms to do that same thing at the level of an industrial facility or apartment building, for example, to identify energy efficiencies across the board and exploit large-scale energy use reduction opportunities, and enlightened banks to finance them.”

And finally, CIPFA will be officially launching ‘Sustainability: A Reporting Framework for the Public Services’ at the CIPFA Annual Conference in Harrogate on Thursday 15 June.

mel starrs Uncategorized Brad Pitt, Brazil, BREEAM, Canada, China, Energy, energy efficiencies, energy savings, Finance, India, large-scale energy use reduction opportunities, Nevada, News, Reno, Sustainability, United States, USD