Elemental

These are my links for June 29th through July 1st:

• Gentrification and Its Discontents – Magazine – The Atlantic – "Zukin declares that she “resent[s] everything Starbucks represents,” which really means that her urban ideal is the cool neighborhood at the moment before the first Starbucks moves in, an ever-more-fleeting moment. Indeed, what has changed since Jacobs’s day—and the reason, as these books attest, that gentrification has become so intense an issue—is the speed of the transition of districts from quasi dereliction to artsy to urban shopping mall. This acceleration results from the ways consumption has become the dominant means of self-expression (Zukin is perceptive on this point) and from—relatedly, ultimately—the acceleration of the global economy."
• CIBSE CHP Group Seminar – Great overview of CHP: "To determine the appropriate size of a CHP system, there are several approaches that can be taken. The base load heat demand could be the benchmark for selecting a unit so that all the heat produced is used. Alternatively, the system can be sized based on the electrical base load without regard to the heat demand. In either case, it is possible that there is a more optimal size than will meet just the base load. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of daily or hourly loads is necessary for correct sizing. It is also important that the true base load energy demand is determined before sizing a CHP system. This means that energy efficiency measures should be implemented first to reduce energy demand and thus reduce the size of CHP system required."
• Interview: Michael Pollan | Life and style | The Guardian – I'm a massive fan of Pollan – great interview: "Big Food as it exists today is, patently, not sustainable. Two shocking statistics: before 1950, every calorie of fossil fuel energy expended on food production resulted in 2.3 calories of food; these days it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of your edible foodlike substance."
• Urban farms: can you source a complete meal from inside the M25? | Life and style | The Observer – Good to see Rosie is grounded in reality – urban food will never feed London entirely: "Nobody knows exactly how many farms there are in London. In a report, I read that there are 500 but I find it hard to believe. "I find that a bit hard to believe, too," says Rosie Boycott. "I haven't found that many. But they are there. Obviously it's barking to suggest London is ever going to be able to feed itself but there are things we can do to help small producers come to market. And of course a lot of it is about education.""
• Taxing carbon: Worth a go | The Economist – Perhaps not the panacea we hope for, but good to see someone is crunching the numbers: "A carbon tax has many more general advantages as a fiscal tool, too. It would be simpler and more predictable than the current jumble of tax breaks, trading schemes and purchasing obligations. The principle—that polluters pay for the damage they cause—is easily grasped, and it is politically attractive to tax “bads” such as pollution instead of “goods” such as work and entrepreneurship. And, by establishing a reliable price for carbon, it could give businessmen the certainty they need to invest in greener technologies. But the effect of that is likely to show up only after 2020."
• New Statesman – No hands to the pump! – The problem with ASHP: "But there's a problem. According to the Energy Saving Trust, carbon emissions are not actually reduced if air-source heat pumps replace gas or oil boilers, but only existing electric heating and coal-fired systems. Ground-source heat pumps are only slightly better. Yet the proposed guidelines do not specify where heat pumps should be installed to qualify for the subsidy. So the danger is that thousands of heat pumps will be drawing a subsidy of more than £1,000 a year, while delivering no emissions benefit."
• Construction Manager – Features – Great article on SKA: "According to Hall, the scheme could address several gaps in the market. “It suits smaller projects, and it’ll help tenants who aspire to a green fit-out but who might have taken space in a building that doesn’t have BREEAM excellent or very good. And I’d say our project managers have found it easier to get to grips with Ska compared to BREEAM.”<br />
  Ska has been developed to capture data from the smallest interior refresh to major refurbishments, judging their sustainability criteria in isolation from the building they sit in. The system is designed to be user friendly, based on a free online tool that helps to guide early design decisions. The project team can then make headway on cutting carbon without calling in a specialist consultant. “The guidance is exceptionally intuitive, so no one’s sitting around saying ‘where’s our BREEAM assessor when we need him’,” says Skansen director James Pack."
• Five Myths About Sustainability – BusinessWeek – Good common sense: "LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide guidelines for, and certification of, sustainable buildings. There are many highly sustainable buildings that are not LEED-certified; it's not a requirement for being green.<br />
  If an organization won't benefit from LEED certification, we don't recommend it. It's costly and time-consuming so there has to be a business value to get the plaque on the wall. There are times when a project is highly sustainable, but pursuing LEED certification is not the right business decision."
• Paul Miller » Whole Earth Discipline – Book duly added to wishlist: "Stewart Brand’s book Whole Earth Discipline is one of the best books I’ve read in the last few years, partly because it’s very well written and researched but mainly because it made me change my mind about some important issues.<br />
  Perhaps the easiest argument for me to accept (although I still learned a great deal) was the section on cities. It’s always made sense to me that cities are more efficient use of resources and are the driving force behind new ideas and problem solving. I’m a pretty big believer that new things happen when you bring people together who have different skills and experiences. You can either design those situations – as things like the Manhattan Project show – or you can just sit and watch as it happens in cities – the more cosmopolitan and connected the better. Of course, as cities grow they develop new problems, but they solve them just as quickly as they produce them."
• Government prepares 2050 low-carbon master plan – 25 Jun 2010 – BusinessGreen.com – "The report is expected to argue that the UK will need to electrify much of its infrastructure if it is to have any chance of meeting the 2050 carbon targets.<br />
  "An 80 per cent target means that realistically we need to electrify large sections of transport and heating," said the government spokesman. "That means that while overall energy demand may fall, demand for electricity could double by 2050. All the big investment challenges we face relate to that change.""
• Sustainability: World’s Most Sustainable Building – Not sure about 'most' sustainable, but it does look striking: "the Wuhan New Energy Center boasts to have a zero carbon footprint. The lily shaped building generates its own energy thanks to the vertical axis windmill and solar chimney. The building also harvests rain water within the building. The roof of the building is basically a solar panel array for generating electricity. The design allows the building to be cooled naturally. Designed by the design consultants Grontmij and Soeters Van Eldonk Architects the building will eventually stand 140 feet tall."
• Target Zero | School Guidance Report Summary – Interesting report – particularly interested on the NPV work: "The maximum on-site derived operational carbon emission reductions of 119% of regulated emissions (against a target of 124% for true zero carbon performance), can only be achieved using a package of energy efficiency measures, a 50kW wind turbine, 1300 m&sup2; photovoltaics, biomass boiler and 216 m&sup2; solar thermal panels. These measures incur an increased capital cost of 11.5%, which have a positive 25-year net present value (NPV).<br />
  To achieve economic true zero carbon performance requires the integration of off-site LZC technologies such as tapping into a district CHP plant"

admin News 2050, ASHP, carbon, CHP, cities, farming, food, gentrification, guardian, heat, Jane_Jacobs, LEED, Lily, London, npv, nuclear, nyc, RHI, Schools, SKA, tax, urbanism, Wuhan, zero_carbon

Fascinating report from RICS – 2009 RICS Global Carbon Capacity Index (28pg, pdf). Whilst I often have rants about the meaningless of the phrase ‘zero-carbon’, I concede we are stuck with it and the goal behind the target is sound (even if the semantics around the phrasing of the target are misguided). Anyway, rant over, lets look at the report.

The executive summary is excellent – does what it is supposed to – summarises the report:

To capture the progress that is being made towards a decarbonised built environment at the national level, RICS commissioned the Environment Institute at University College London to develop a new index: the Global Zero Carbon Capacity Index also known as the ZC2 Index). The purpose of this index is to highlight which countries are developing the capacity to make progress towards the aspirational goal of a zero-carbon built environment.

Reducing the carbon emissions from the built environment – both in terms of energy consumption in the built stock and travel – remains a major priority for the property sector. The ZC2 Index is an innovative measure of how well different countries are performing in terms of moving towards a zero carbon built environment.

The Index is based on three measures of energy consumption (in the residential, tertiary and transport sectors, together with an assessment of the decarbonisation of energy supply through the share of renewables in total production and a count of the extent of the policy portfolio aimed at zero-carbon built environments.

The 2009 run of the ZC2 Index confirmed the leadership of Norway in meeting this challenge. The UK is ranked third after Brazil, moving up from fourth place last year. The fourth and fifth places this year go to China and Australia. New Zealand and India fall out of the top five places this year.

The countries that have made the greatest improvements in their ranking are the Slovak Republic, France, Germany and USA. However, the absolute improvement in Index score for the USA is less than that for the other countries, reflecting less movement in the individual indicators.

Analysis of the data for these ‘improvers’ indicates the importance of concerted action across all elements of the index: that is, significant reductions in energy consumption in the residential, tertiary and transport sectors together with substantial investment in renewable energy infrastructure and continued additions to the policy portfolio of zero-carbon built environment measures.

The Index can also be cross-referenced to performance on reducing the carbon intensity of the economy as a whole. This reveals a group of countries that perform relatively well on the ZC2 Index and on carbon intensity: Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. It is notable that, apart from Brazil, these are all European countries, suggesting that the European Union has been at least facilitating shifts towards low carbon living.

There is a wealth of data in the report. I like the simplicity of the Index and the fact that policy is taken into account as well as hard facts and figures. I’ll be looking out for next years update.

admin Economics carbon, data, global, RICS

These are my links for May 26th through May 27th:

• Some Transition Thoughts on the Energy Bits of the Queen’s Speech » Transition Culture – I'm not a particular fan of the Transition Towns movement (something too insular and regressive about it to sit comfortably with my world view, each to their own and all that), but Rob writes some excellent pieces. This article is well worth a read – he knows his energy policies well and makes some good points about funding, FiT's and CCS.
• Blogs and Comments – Comments – Dan Box – The Government has found a backhanded way to subsidise nuclear power – The Ecologist – Why Huhne's compromise on nuclear could be a good thing (IMO) although Box is obviously not happy: "The way it works is this: European companies currently pay for each tonne of carbon they emit by buying permits, the price of which is determined by the market itself. A floor price will most likely drive this price up…, making pollution more expensive. It will also encourage investors to put money into non-polluting companies by making the market in which they operate more predictable.<br />
  …Driving up the cost of producing polluting energy from coal- or gas-fired power plants, doesn’t just favour renewables. It also makes the costs of nuclear production far more competitive, even without subsidy."
• Guest blog: Goodbye HIPs, Hello EPCs | National Energy Services – "From today, if you intend to sell your house you no longer need to have a HIP in place, but you do need an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). To comply with the new law, you need to have instructed a Domestic Energy Assessor to prepare one, and either to have paid for it, or given a clear undertaking to pay, before marketing.<br />
  If you are selling through an agent, he or she must be satisfied that an EPC has been commissioned before starting to market your home. Both parties must make reasonable efforts to secure an EPC within 28 days, and all of the new duties carry fixed penalties where somebody fails to comply."
• Footprint » Embodied carbon is the next hot topic – "Carbon profiling methodology is clearly explained and applied to a case study of Arup Associates’ Ropemaker Place, a 20-storey BREEAM Excellent office block in the City completed in May 2009. This research, commissioned by British Land’s Sarah Cary who was also on the panel, shows that embodies carbon makes up more than half of Ropemaker’s carbon emissions.<br />
  The next challenge is creating statutory incentives for reducing embodied carbon. Simon Cox of ProLogis described a recent project where planners were willing to reduce the renewables requirement in light of a sustainability strategy which had addressed embodied carbon. Guy Battle of dcarbon8 (and now Deloitte) remarked that the day will come Part L incorporates embodied carbon. Simon Sturgis noted that BREEAM awards less points for retaining a concrete frame than for putting bat boxes on a building."
• Solar energy reduces electricity bills by a third – Modern Building Services – "The installation of solar photo-voltaic panels on affordable homes in Huddersfield has proved even more energy efficient than Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing and supplier Photon Energy expected.<br />
  Not only have the residents benefited from the production of solar electricity on site, but they have also become more economical in their use of electricity.<br />
  The panels have been installed on 30 all-electric bungalows and flats for older people at Fernside Estate in the Almondbury area of Huddersfield."
• The climate-change greenhouse in a datacentre – "When you're building a datacentre, the biggest problem you've got is often getting rid of the heat generated by so many computers running in such a small area. Some data centres just pump it out into the outside world. Others use the excess energy to heat local homes. But TelecityGroup's newest datacentre, Condorcet – which opened in Paris earlier in the year, uses its heat to conduct research into climate change.<br />
  The building's exterior is comprised of a massive arboretum – a greenhouse, which is maintained at the climatic conditions expected to be prevailing in France in 2050. The French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) operates a research centre there, growing plants from around the world to investigate which will be viable to grow when climate change's effects are starting to be felt in the country."

admin News adaptation, carbon, CCS, centre, data, DEA, embodied, EPC, FiT, Huddersfield, kirklees, nuclear, PV, renewables, TT

These are my links for May 21st through May 24th:

• Two thirds of firms ‘unprepared’ for carbon legislation | ITworld – "At the moment most organisations are just using guess work," he said. "This can't continue. In the same way that financial auditors wouldn't accept guesses as to an organisation's cash position, environmental auditors are unlikely to accept guesses on energy use."
• Scotland should aim higher than clusters of urban lumps, complete with useless ‘gob ons’ – Herald Scotland | Business | Markets & Economy – "What might we better achieve with all this public money?<br />
  Well, in that final leaders’ debate Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg uttered the unfashionable words: “council houses”. Perhaps if we set-aside our prejudiced stereotyped idea of grimy estates, decent quality council houses are exactly what we should be spending public money on.<br />
  Clegg also raised the issue of VAT. Newbuild is zero-rated, but repair and renewal attracts the full 17.5%. This hugely tips the balance towards greenfield building sites, and away from refurbishing our existing stock. There are hundreds of thousands of empty properties lying vacant in our towns and cities.<br />
  Readjusting VAT to encourage the repair of these would deliver more homes for every pound invested, fortify existing communities, reduce car-dependency, and create more jobs (repair being more labour-intensive)."
• Green ArchiTEXT: Flavorpill: Brad Pitt and the Trouble with Vernacular Architecture – Interesting article on an issue I hadn't really been following – the re-building of New Orleans: "Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the designs of the Make It Right (MIR) houses in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward continue to transform the city and influence post-disaster vernacular in America. They also continue to stir discussion, and plenty of critique, from a broad spectrum of architects – certainly from preservationists, who complain the MIR designs are not New Orleans enough, and even from a few sustainability advocates who question whether these unique designs truly offer a cohesive sense of community, even whether they are replicable elsewhere."
• CIRIA survey – CIRIA is co-ordinating a programme that aims to assess the feasibility of identifying a widely acceptable method for construction contractors to effectively measure and report their project-based carbon footprints to clients and principal contractors. The first stage of the programme involves gathering information on current practice across the construction industry. We welcome responses to our questionnaire.
• GRIHA – Home – GRIHA, an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is the National Rating System of India. It has been conceived by TERI and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. It is a green building 'design evaluation system', and is suitable for all kinds of buildings in different climatic zones of the country.
• Security guard admits he hacked hospital PCs • The Register – Last summer, Federal prosecutors charged McGraw with planning a "massive" denial of service attack on the HVAC system. He allegedly scheduled it for the July 4 Independence Day holiday, when it wouldn't be uncommon for temperatures to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He called it "Devil's Day."
• Green Building Certifications to Cover 53 Billion Square Feet of Space by 2020 « Pike Research – "According to a May 2010 report from Pike Research, space covered by green building certification programs will increase from 6 billion square feet worldwide in 2010 to 53 billion square feet by 2020. While LEED and BREEAM will continue to dominate the North American and European green building markets, respectively, Pike Research anticipates that newly developed programs in China and India will represent about 30% of all certified green new construction by 2020."
• Why Planting Farms in Skyscrapers Won’t Solve Our Food Problems | Food | AlterNet – Cox and Van Tassel decimate the arguments for vertical food. Very good article. As always with these ideas, ask what problem is it that they are trying to fix? What is the intention?
• PLoS ONE: Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America – Interesting paper: "The land-use intensity of different energy production techniques varies over three orders of magnitude, from 1.9–2.8 km2/TW hr/yr for nuclear power to 788–1000 km2/TW hr/yr for biodiesel from soy. In all scenarios, temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be most impacted by future energy development, although the magnitude of impact by wind, biomass, and coal to different habitat types is policy-specific. Regardless of the existence or structure of a cap-and-trade bill, at least 206,000 km2 will be impacted without substantial increases in energy efficiency, which saves at least 7.6 km2 per TW hr of electricity conserved annually and 27.5 km2 per TW hr of liquid fuels conserved annually. Climate policy that reduces carbon dioxide emissions may increase the areal impact of energy, although the magnitude of this potential side effect may be substantially mitigated by increases in energy efficiency."
• Passivhaus Refurb: Passivhaus and the planning system – Loving this blog: "The UK planning system does not fit well with the Passivhaus approach, which involves much more upfront, detailed design work than a traditional build. Normally, an architect produces an outline design with just enough detail to satisfy the planners; the point being not to commit more resources than necessary until after planning permission has been given. In any Passivhaus project, but particularly in ours, which is much more challenging because we are new to Passivhaus in the UK and because it is a refurb, more work is needed to be sure we would meet the Passivhaus standard before the planning application can be submitted. If we had submitted our plans earlier, we would have locked in window sizes and other variables that have a significant bearing on the building's energy performance. We have found getting down to the key Passivhaus standard for heating of 15kWh/m2 per annum quite difficult, without throwing silly money at some exotic materials."

admin News agriculture, building, carbon, certification, CRC, embodied, environment, footprint, global, hacker, HVAC, India, MIR, New_Orleans, passivhaus, rating, refurbishment, renewables, Sustainability, system

These are my links for May 3rd through May 6th:

• CIBSE publishes new guidance on LTHW heating systems – Modern Building Services – Legislation has forced designers to improve the efficiency of their heating systems, so a designer now has far more options than before. The new CIBSE Application Manual 14 ‘Non-domestic hot water heating systems’ provides guidance on the design, installation and commissioning of water based heating systems.* It is CIBSE’s first new guide on this topic for 20 years.
• Fishing with Strawberries: on Tim O’Reilly « Scott Berkun – Love this (you might need to read the whole article for context): "To only make strawberries makes you an artist. And to only make worms makes you a capitalist. To make both at the same time, or some of one now and then some of the other later, perhaps makes a successful artist. Or an artistic capitalist. Or in Tim’s case, it means you’re having a successful life that has helped people like me make successful lives, and perhaps that’s the best kind of fishing of all: fishing that helps other people learn to fish."
• Current Issues Note 24: Reviewing the evidence on carbon emissions from rail and air travel | Greater London Authority – "This paper analyses the existing literature on calculating the carbon emissions from high-speed rail and short-haul aviation."
• Interactive: National carbon calculator – can you cut UK emissions? | Environment | guardian.co.uk – A great tool – try reading David McKay's Hot Air with this at your side. Is 80% reduction possible? This highlights how hard it will be – no 'business as usual': "Play UK prime minister and set the policy on energy, transport and other sectors and measure the carbon emissions generated."

admin News advice, aviation, business, calculator, carbon, CIBSE, emissions, GLA, rail, UK

These are my links for April 9th through April 13th:

• Building4Change : Bring disciplines together and get out more, Lovelock warns scientists – POE vs. DSM – similar case in point: "Lovelock also warned that scientists should not regard computer modelling as a substitute for traditional research methods in measuring and tackling climate change. He added: "It is difficult to get the scientific community to go out and measure. They model instead, and sometimes they even look it up on Google. It is utterly necessary to go out and measure.""
• Morrell champions retrofit over eco-towns | News | Architects Journal – [AJ paywall] Morrell on fine form as usual: "Morrell also criticised the government’s eco-town plans: ‘There were nine or 10 [eco-towns] and now there are two,’ he said. ‘That’s Darwin at work and God bless him.’<br />
  Touching on the aims of the government’s feed-in tariff, commissioned last week, Morrell said: ‘We’ve made a big mistake with on-site renewables. I suspect they became a depredation of site value without any massive benefit, and I wonder whether what we’re doing is incentivising the same mistake in a new shape.’"
• Howls of indignation from every corner – The Regeneration Blog – I'm in serious danger of becoming a total Jackie Sadek fangirl: "While I am all for people being able to give their views, comprehensively, both in private and in open forum (and, more importantly, understand they'll be listened to) I do not expect my community in South Kilburn – or anywhere else come to that – to be able to make informed decisions as amateurs, posing as planners (four years training) or architects (seven years training) or what have you, let alone be able to do sufficient NPV calculations to underpin funding proposals or development appraisals.<br />
  Why should they? They're far too busy, doing their own jobs and bringing up their children."
• Building Star Legislation Promises Funding for Retrofits – BuildingGreen.com – Not yet passed through Congress, but interesting: "The two-part bill creates rebates for products and services as well as a package of tax incentives, grants, and low-interest loans for building owners. Rebates would cover insulation, equipment, and lighting as well as services such as energy audits and building commissioning (see table). The bill would also increase the Energy-Efficient Commercial Buildings Tax Deduction from $1.80/ft2 to $3.00/ft2 ($19–$32/m2). Other incentives would be available for variable-speed drives for motors and chillers and Energy Star (reflective) roofs; building owners could take the incentive or the rebate for these products, but not both. Finally, the bill creates a loan program to cover those portions of a retrofit not covered by the rebate program."
• New SEED Standard Introduced – Green Standards, Green Building, Economics – residentialarchitect Magazine – "…a group of architects, designers, activists, and community leaders unveiled a new standard called SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design). …SEED will provide guidance, evaluation, and certification for the social, economic, and environmental relevance of design projects.<br />
  He [Bryan Bell] and a group of collaborators have put five years of work into developing SEED and the SEED Evaluator, an online tool that helps users through the process of creating a socially, economically, and environmentally sensible building or community. The Evaluator addresses issues such as public safety, job creation, and sanitation, to name just a few. And it requires strong evidence of community participation and input for a project to be eligible for SEED certification.<br />
  A group of third-party certifiers will review submitted projects to determine whether they satisfy the SEED criteria."
• Tax, tax, tax and more tax – a rallying cry for construction | Brickonomics – So is there anyone who thinks a carbon tax would be a bad thing?: "The central point is: why generate elaborate policies if they ignoring the blindingly obvious that energy is absurdly cheap if it is doing the damage we think it is to the planet?<br />
  There is of course one clinching argument for taking the simple taxation route to carbon reduction – it should reduce the amount of pious preaching we have to endure from senior executives and politicians who, in all probability, have produced in their lifetime yeti-sized carbon footprints."

admin News carbon, ecotomwns, FiT, funding, Lovelock, refurbishment, regeneration, renewables, retrofit, SEED, tax

These are my links for December 8th through December 10th:

• ASHRAE’s Building Energy Quotient building labeling program – ASHRAE's BEQ (roughly equivalent to DEC) continues to be developed.
• The Language of Sustainability: Why Words Matter | GreenBiz.com – Communicating sustainability: "Provide context for "sustainability," in that it means the ability to continue into the indefinite future by respecting the Earth's ecosystems, its limits, and providing space for the other beings on the planet to exist. Otherwise, we create perverse concepts like sustainable growth, as if we can continue unlimited growth in the face of limits."
• The Greenest Brick is the One That’s Already in the Wall : TreeHugger – Great point: "He understands also that while a sustainable building must be durable, flexible and frugal, it must first be lovable,
  "because it does not matter how efficiently the building performs if it is demolished and carted off to the landfill in a generation or two because it cannot be loved."
• Climate Change | Housing | Quarter-Acre Block – "But relatively high densities have little to do with the use of sustainable transport. The best performer is the Canadian capital, Ottawa, which is much less dense than Los Angeles and about the same as Melbourne. Brisbane has barely half Melbourne's density and a third that of Los Angeles, but use of sustainable transport is similar to Melbourne and more than twice the level in LA.
  Sustainable transport use has more to do with transport policy than density, which is excellent news for anyone concerned about the environment. It would take many decades and vast expense to substantially change the density of a city of 4 million people, and we don't have that much time. Climate change and insecure oil supplies are urgent problems, and we need solutions now. Fortunately, transport policies can be changed more quickly and with less disruption than urban form, so we might be able to keep our leafy suburbs and still save the planet."
• Homophily « twopointouch – Something often on my mind. Tricky: "Often, when I read blogs and tweets, I know that the person writing is doing so because it in some way amplifies or enhances their professional career. A lot of people I connect with are consultants of some description in their jobs. Their job is to be wise and right. That makes them lovely people, by and large, but there are arguably downsides. It can very often have the side-effect of meaning that they are never going to go out on a limb or wish to seem controversial. It’s also a job where you need people to want to work with you, so you won’t go around telling potential clients or collaborators that they’re wrong."
• House 2.0: The Copenhagen Blues – Great article from Mark Brinkley: ”Milliband minor answered thus: “By 2050, our economies will be six or seven times larger than they are now, and so we must ensure that all that growth is low or zero carbon growth.”
  I took a proverbial double take. Six or seven times bigger than 2010? That assumes something like a 10% annual growth rate every year for 40 years. And yet carbon emissions are due to fall by 80% by that time. Just how is that going to work?
  Historically, economic growth has been fuelled by carbon – almost every innovation we come up with involves substituting machines for human labour, which involves burning carbon somewhere along the line. Now we may be able to make machines which are less carbon intensive, but do you really think we will be able to get to zero carbon by 2050 whilst at the same time expanding the world economy by six or seven times?"

admin News aesthetics, ashrae, benchmark, beq, building, carbon, cities, COP15, DEC, definition, Economics, Energy, green, growth, planning, policy, socialnetworking, social_media, Sustainability, transport

These are my links for November 27th through December 2nd:

• Smart Vendors: Biomass Supply Chain (UK) – Innovation & Cleantech – Possibly interesting (but very expensive – £150!) report on biomass (not sure how independent the authors are?): "The future evolution of the UK biomass supply chain will be significantly impacted by the opening of proposed major biomass power generation plants by firms like Drax Power and Prenergy in the next 3 years."
• Debt storm threatens Dubai’s ambitions | Last Word | MEED – The most understandable commentary on Dubai which I have come across this week: "Dubai World has gone into a form of protective bankruptcy, similar to the US’ chapter 11 arrangements. It is a situation fraught with difficulties that could damage Dubai and the UAE. And the true scale of what Dubai owes is still unknown.
  But it is Dubai World’s creditors that face the biggest immediate problem. None can expect to receive any money until Dubai World’s assets and liabilities have been fully assessed, a judgement made about how big the gap between the two is and a schedule defined for when creditors will be paid, and how much. It is tough, particularly for those who are owed money today. But it is fair."
• Regulation shapes revolution in Gulf sustainable buildings | Last Word | MEED – Interesting summary of green building accreditation throughout the Middle East. Will the Dubai ripples have an impact?:
  "Abu Dhabi’s new building code, regulations that make sustainability compulsory in all buildings and major retro-fits throughout the emirate, come into force on 1 January 2010."
• First Net-Zero Neighborhood in the US Being Built in Boulder | Inhabitat – At last, some aesthetically pleasing (to my eye at least) net zero homes in my favourite US city, Boulder. Still enormous compared to the UK – 280m² for a townhouse is 3.5 times larger than the average new build UK home (76m² according to swing a cat):
  "Located on Broadway and Poplar Ave in Northern Boulder, the 1.5 acre neighborhood is conveniently located across from a market, shops and restaurants and with easy access via bus to the rest of the city. Six townhomes border Broadway, while six single-family homes sit back behind around a communal park. All the homes will be orientated to the south and photovoltaic systems can installed on the roof, which will completely provide the homes with all the energy they need."
• Rebooting Britain: transform cities into lush jungles – Another article from Wired. This time, I have to disagree slightly – IMO London is currently the *only* UK city suitable for walking and public transport?: "Cities are at present vulnerable to the smallest interruptions in oil and gas supply. The first step in cutting this dependency should be a ban on private car ownership in metropolitan areas. Even a sprawling city like London can be comfortably navigated by walking, cycling, and use of public transport – powered, like delivery vehicles servicing businesses and homes, by batteries, biofuels, or hydrogen fuel cells. The great tidal flows of commuters could be reduced by rezoning commercial areas for residential use and introducing workshops and offices into residential areas, as in the human-scale, mixed-use street plans of medieval cities."
• Rebooting Britain: tax people back into the cities – Really looking forward to PD Smith's new book. Here a flavour from Wired UK: "To create a low-carbon economy we need to become a nation of city dwellers. We tax cigarettes to reflect the harm they do to our health: we need to tax lifestyles that are damaging the health of the planet – and that means targeting people who choose to live in the countryside. We need a Rural Living Tax. Agricultural workers and others whose jobs require them to live outside cities would be exempt. The revenue raised could be used to build new, well-planned cities and to radically upgrade the infrastructure of existing cities."
• When provided a choice, do people choose? – The Social Enterprise – Suw is spot on about adoptation of social media within companies (my experience on Yammer and Skype backs this up): "The successful implementation of social software doesn't stop with a technically successful roll-out. In fact, that's when the process begins because that's when your adoption strategy should kick in.
  Adoption is ultimately about behaviour change: persuading people that, for example,
  instead of sending an email to everyone with a new version of a document they are working on, they should put it on a wiki where it's easier to collaborate. This might seem like a small step – and for a few people it is – but for the majority that's a fundamental change to the way that they have learnt to work on documents."
• Gordon Brown’s ‘eco town’ vision quietly shelved – Times Online – "Gordon Brown’s vision of establishing distinct “eco towns” across the country has been quietly shelved, it emerged today.
  The Government tried to keep up the project’s momentum by announcing a further 14 locations where “green developments” have local council backing.
  But it became clear the new sites will not be for the self standing towns of up to 15,000 homes originally envisaged by the Prime Minister.
  Most will be developments of no more than 5,000 homes on the edge of urban areas, which will be cheaper, easier to plan and attract much less local opposition than those first proposed by the Government."
• Futerra Sustainability Communications – Conspiracies, Climate and Communication – More climategate fallout – Solitaire from Futerra defends her position (well said): "So in my own voice I want to get one thing straight; I hate climate change. I really really hate it and wish it wasn’t happening. Some of the climategate posts seem to imply we’re part of a ‘pro’ climate conspiracy. Considering how deeply and passionately I wish the darn thing wasn’t happening that accusation left me fish-mouthing in surprise. I don’t want climate change, I don’t like climate change, and I’m bloody annoyed that my best years will be spent trying to combat the darn thing.
  The horrible irony is how much I want the deniers to be right. If I had one wish it would be for climate change to be untrue, a blip, misread data, to slope off in embarrassment. If only."
  Now, can we stop being distracted by the semantics and arguments and get on with some design? Thank you.
• CRED Guide | The Psychology of Climate Change Communication – Via Joanna Yarrow, a fascinating document on communicating climate change. Niggets include: "balance information that triggers an emotional response with more analytic information to leave a mark in more than one place in the brain."
• A Climate Scientist Who Engages Skeptics – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com – Read the whole article: "In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics…
  Most scientists retreat into the ivory tower. The CRU emails reflect elements of the circling of wagons strategy. For the past 3 years, I have been trying to figure out how to engage skeptics effectively in the context of #3, … Some of the things that I’ve tried in my quest to understand skeptics and more effectively counter misinformation include posting at skeptical blogs, such as climateaudit, and inviting prominent skeptics to give seminars at Georgia Tech. I have received significant heat from some colleagues for doing this (I’ve been told that I am legitimizing the skeptics and misleading my students), but I think we need to try things like this if we are to develop effective strategies for dealing with skeptics and if we are to teach students to think critically."
• The Guardian – Poignant and depressing: "But I find I can't say this stuff anymore; not because I have stopped believing in climate change, but because I have stopped believing we can prevent it.
  Which is not to say that the End Times are here. One of the other problems with the climate change narrative is that it offers only two futures: Saving the World, or Apocalypse Now. We will probably get neither. More realistic is that we will experience what most previous human societies experienced – a painful decline after a period of over-expansion. We hear a lot about the year 2050: it is a handy date on which to hang our hopes of a "sustainable society", which has come to mean business as usual but without the carbon. It seems much more likely that by 2050 we will be mining our landfill sites for valuable metals and struggling to keep the electricity on, while we dream of the coral reefs that once flowered in the emptying oceans."

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These are my links for November 14th through November 19th:

• Welcome to amazonails – Enerything you ever needed to know about straw bale building.
• Footprint » Common carbon language – "The ‘Common Carbon Metric’ will be piloted by the leading green building rating tools and made available to anyone dedicated to promoting the understanding and development of a low-carbon built environment. The real impact of this initiative lies in the detail which has yet to be announced, but it is an indication of the growing consensus about the role the built environment can play in mitigating climate change."
• Publications – News & Publications | BioRegional: solutions for sustainability – via Hattie at AJ, I find that BioRegional are making lots of their reports free. Will be interesting to read the One Planet Communities and compare to BREEAM, LEED and Estidama. Communities (rather than buildings) will be the buzzword for 2010. Unfortunately Pooran Desai's book is not free, but can be ordered from Amazon.
• marklynas.org | Closed because of geoengineering works – Mark Lynas on geo-engineering (something I'm really not comfortable with): "Geoengineering deeply divides scientists and environmentalists. Should we really consider spraying sulphates into the stratosphere, planting artificial trees across deserts or dumping iron filings in the Pacific as legitimate options to cool down our planet? Kruger, whose preferred solution involves spreading billions of tonnes of lime in the oceans (see cquestrate.com), likens the approach to having an airbag in a car: it’s better not to crash, but also sensible to insure against the risk that the worst will happen. Plus, “the time to design an airbag is before you are skidding on ice”."
• Predicted vs. Actual: Closing the Gap – "Marcus Sheffer, chair of LEED’s Energy and Environment Technical Advisory Group (TAG), shared some ideas under consideration for the next update to the rating system slated for 2012. The group is closely looking at LEED’s energy credits so that energy simulations more accurately predict performance. For example, the TAG is looking at ways to encourage modeling earlier and more frequently in the design process. “We need to change the practice of validation modeling at the end of a project,” said Sheffer. “We need more iterative modeling.” "
  Interesting comment after the article – can we *really* predict performance?
• Three older houses to be Passivhaus retrofitted – "An architects practice is being funded by the Technology Strategy Board to undertake design and feasibity studies into a proposed scheme to retrofit three empty houses to Passivhaus standard. The Retrofit for the Future competition is designed to address the challenge laid down by the government's target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050."
• Announcing Living Building Challenge Version 2.0 — ILBI – For those unfamiliar with ILBI, think of it as uber-LEED: "Version 2.0 of the Living Building Challenge expands its focus to local food production, unrestricted access to nature, no gated communities and other equity issues."

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These are my links for October 30th through November 5th:

• GEO DYNAMICS – How sustainable are heat pumps? -:- Construct Ireland – Great, but long, article on the pros and cons of air source heat pumps. Level of detail is just right, with plenty of graphs and good argument.
• BSRIA review of NG Bailey’s Solais House – Great review of Solais House. I hadn't realised that it was a spec office before, having seen David Frise present it recently. That explains why it's aesthetically…dubious. Despite this constraint, promises to be a great example – although we await the POE results.
• A place for PVC in a sustainable world? | Forum For The Future – Fascinating article on PVC. Still not convinced about the green guide rating of A for PVC windows, but things are getting better: "It’s not the first time that TNS has wrestled with the issue. It originally grappled with the stuff in 2000, when, with the support of the UK Environment Agency, it investigated whether PVC could have any place in a sustainable society. The answer was a cautious ‘yes’ – providing the industry addressed some of its most pressing challenges."
• Sir Nicholas Grimshaw – People – Dwell – Great quote from Grimshaw on sustainability: "You’ve got to do a bit of lateral thinking on these green issues. It’s quite important to be pragmatic. The one thing we have to watch very carefully is polarization"
  Unusual to find a pragmatic architect – consultants and engineers usually much more pragmatic as they don't play the same zero-sum game as architects are forced into.
• Footprint » You should have been at the RIBA tonight… – Intriguing – anyone know anything more on Bill's views?: "Dunster also made a strong plea on behalf of the Code for Sustainable Homes, calling it ‘an enlightened piece of legislation in danger of being dumbed down by the UK-GBC and the ZeroCarbonHub.’"
• News : NDS – From Mandelson's Hinto Engineering Lecture: "Snow didn’t use the term, but he was angling at the idea that Britain was becoming a scientific knowledge economy. This is certainly the case now. We need to understand more clearly than ever the way in which our pure science and applied science underwrite our prosperity, not least so we can strengthen their contribution to economic growth.
  The wider costs of any failure to do this are very high, both for our own economy and society, but also globally. Snow was worried about how a scientifically illiterate society might fail to feed the expanding populations of the developing world. That concern is still very much with us, and to it our society would have to add the massive problem of decarbonsiation and the management of our environmental impact on the planet. "
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Never Waste a Good Crisis – Another report added to my 'must read and comment pile': "Government, as a client, needs to understand the enlightened thinking that better and more intelligent designs improve patients’ recovery in hospitals and learning outputs in schools. So, rather than reduce the number of schools and hospitals being built, it must sponsor smarter and more productive solutions and reduce the amount of money wasted on the procurement process. For Government as a policy maker, the challenge is to create an environment that incentivises innovation and speeds up the modernisation process."
• Thoughts on Copenhagen: Nicholas Stern | News | Architects Journal – Good series of interviews from Hattie in the AJ, on COP15, including this one from Nick Stern: "Energy consumed in the construction and operation of buildings is responsible for more than one third of total energy use. According to the fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, the building sector has great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
  It concluded that the energy consumption of new and existing buildings can be cut between 30 and 50 per cent without significantly increased costs.
  Architects, together with other built environment professionals, have the strategic and technical skills to deliver buildings that both lead to lower emissions and withstand those impacts of climate change that are now inevitable. With existing technologies, these buildings are now affordable. New technologies are constantly being created. What is required is the vision, leadership and commitment to make a low-carbon future reality."
• Thoughts on Copenhagen: Pooran Desai | News | Architects Journal – The run up to COP15 has started, with this snippet the most interesting thing I found in AJ's recent piece, from Pooran Desai: "To achieve effective change, we need elegant solutions and a sensible systems-based approach to zero carbon; for example, recognising electricity as a pooled resource and not unnecessarily converting buildings into power stations. Land use is as critical as carbon emissions."

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