Elemental

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."

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What caught my eye today, March 9th:

• How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips) – The article that started the workaholic furore. Leaving that point aside, the tips are pretty good, especially the second monitor and the expensive chairs. Look after your staff appears to be the mantra – it pays for itself in the end.
• Fire the workaholics – This response by 37 Signals to Jason Calacanis’ (slightly) misrepresented tip of firing folks who are not workaholics has some good points. Worth following the thread to read Jason’s original and subsequent posts.
• Yorkshire’s Top Architects – Carey Jones knock SMC Gower off the top of the chart and DLA jump 3 places. Rance Booth and Smith drop from 21 to 30. All the usual suspects really…
• Go Caroline! – Building – Chris Addison (best known to me from ‘The Thick of It’ – what’s he doing writing for Building?) spoofs Caroline Flint. Best line – ‘I saw it on Grand Designs once’.
• Lightweight vs Heavyweight Construction Seminar – 13th March, Bristol – Is it better from an environmental point of view to build lightweight framed construction with insulation infill or heavyweight masonry construction with thermal mass?
• What’s wrong with cheap flights to Krakow? – Building – What on earth was Mark Leftly thinking? Gets quite rightly trounced in the comments, not so much for his views (he’s welcome to them) but the lack of journalistic rigour to the article. Nil point. Could do much better…
• Second Life avatars and Brazilians: the same carbon footprint – Ack! The internet’s carbon footprint revealed! Not good news…
• A New Form of Accounting as Carbon Calculator Goes Live – CALM is the first free business-based calculator which shows the balance between annual emissions and carbon sequestration of the key greenhouse gases associated with the activities of individual land-based businesses.
• Government fails to deliver on Part L – members of M&E Sustainability have denounced the Govt?s reluctance to enforce Part L. Describing the situation as ?shambolic?, they have raised serious doubts about the future impact of of other sustainability measures.
• Planning policy on renewable energy – Scottish proposal to dump planning permission for domestic renewables
• As Indians get power, carbon emissions rise – India has pledged to ensure that its per capita emissions never exceed those of the developed world. It points out that it contributes 4.6 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases although its people represent 17 percent of the world’s population.
• ASHRAE green building standard (189.1P) open for second public review- 3/3/2008 1:43:00 PM – Building Design & Construction – Proposed Standard 189.1 will provide minimum requirements for the design of high-performance new commercial buildings and major renovation projects, addressing energy efficiency, a building?s impact on the atmosphere, sustainable sites, water use etc
• Water to be the next commoditised resource – Wind generation requires just five litres of water to generate five megawatts, the average amount of energy consumed by a household per year. Coal requires 10,000 litres, while nuclear needs 12,500, to produce the same amount of power.
• Rising energy prices could make microgeneration viable – Faithful and Gould at EcoBuild

mel starrs News Carey Jones, Caroline Flint, Chris Addison, Energy, energy efficiency, energy prices, Freemasonry, India, M&E Sustainability, Mark Leftly, pence, Rance Booth, renewable energy

Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian on Monday wrote a piece on population.  Always a tricky debate, her main thrust was that the debate should enter the green mainstream, whereas currently it is seen as a marginalised issue (due to pressure from some quarters – Bunting cites the Pope and US pro-life factions).

A book which really helped me understand the issue of population was Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty. As well as the population question, it also sheds light on some economic situations in the past 20 years, such as India, China and Russia.  A fascinating read (and might work better as a biography of Sachs work, as the poverty bit felt a bit forced and overly optimistic).

2.1 children per couple – that’s Sachs prescription…

mel starrs Uncategorized Activism, China, India, Jeffrey Sachs, Madeleine Bunting, Russia, the Guardian, United States

Found this great little article by M. BHUVANASUNDAR, chairman, Indian Institute of Architects, Coimbatore Chapter, Coimbatore in The Hindu on green buildings.  Two definitions of green to add to the arsenal:

The voluntary pursuit of any activity, which encompasses concern for energy efficiency, environment, water conservation, use of recycled products and renewable energy is defined as green.

and

Green buildings embody a design intent on balancing environmental responsiveness, resource efficiency, and cultural and community sensitivity.

mel starrs Uncategorized Coimbatore, Coimbatore Chapter, energy efficiency, Green Building, India, Indian Institute of Architects, renewable energy

I’ve had many a conversation over the past few months lamenting the lack of engineers available for hire at senior and associate level. These figures from 2004 show that we’re not imagining this shortfall – look at the massive gap in age bracket 40-44:

General concensus is that in the early 90′s when the industry was in recession, those who were then in their late 20′s/early 30′s left to pursue careers in IT, accountancy or aromatherapy and never came back.

It is estimated that we need 7,000 entrants per annum over the next few years to meet construction demand.

One institute which has come up with a novel way to solve the dilemma is RICS. Reported in Building last week:

  The RICS is set to address the skills shortage in surveying by launching refresher courses for people who have left the profession but wish to return.

The article goes on to suggest that QS’s may be about to be added to the current list of skills shortage occupations. I’m surprised to learn that the only engineering disciplines currently on the list are railway engineers, structural/bridge engineers, transportation and highways engineers and ground engineering. I’d be more than happy to see building services engineers added to the list and start to import talent from India, East Europe and China more freely.

mel starrs Uncategorized China, Construction Industry, India, Resources

Following a tip-off from WorkinProperty (another new kid on the construction blogging block) I followed the proceedings here.  Not sure how long the chat will stick around so I’ve cut and paste it below the break for reference.  It was hard to determine how many of the questions were pre-picked and how many were ‘live’.  Some of the answers seemed fairly polished with links peppered through them but others were definitely more on the hoof.  It’s a good way to guage the government’s perspective of what puplic opinion is on various issues – as the discussion was moderated, those questions which were more relevant (or answerable) will probably have been chosen (they had a few hundred to choose from and only an hour to answer them).

Topics covered include recycling (I covered recent figures on Leeds here),  lightbulbs, plastic bags, food, carbon allowances (DEFRA’s rough guide available here (pdf, 41pages) and the RSA’s working paper came out today (pdf, 7 pages)) and nuclear energy.

Read more…

mel starrs Uncategorized Alan Covel, anaerobic digestion technology, Andrew Candish, Australia, Beth Hewis, Britain, Chris Preist, continued gas, David Milibands, David Norman, Douglas Alexander, electricity, electricity companys, electricity mix, electricity supply, electricity use minute, Energy, energy consumption, energy efficient ones, energy generation, energy saving devices, Energy Saving Trust, energy usage, Europe, Fergus Munro, food, food air miles, food choice, Food Standards Agency, food supply, George Percy, Gill Rhodes, Green Alliance, greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas emissions, Harriet Crosthwaite, Honda, House of Commons, Hungary, incineration, India, Jack Straw, Jill Dowling, John Berry, Jon Doyle, Leeds, London, lower energy lightbulbs, Martin Maloney, Michelle Slater, Miliband, Milliband, National Farmer\'s Union, non-renewable energy, nuclear energy, particular technologies, plastics, renewable electricity supply, renewable energy, Richard Billingham, Rosie Harper, Rowena Moore, Royal Society of Arts, Sam Parry, satellite dish, Sophie, Sustainability, Thames, then produce energy, Tim Duke, UK government, UK greenhouse, United Kingdom, United States, woody biomass energy, www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk

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©copyright 2004 UKAgriculture.com
The government’s energy review will be published next week. The Independent has the following comment on the proposed proportions of renewable energy sources:

They (Adas, analysts from Wolverhampton) have calculated that 3 per cent of all land in Britain, almost
7,000 sq km, will have to be filled with wind farms, and about 15,200
sq km given over to “biomass” crops. This implies that thousands of
acres of what are now corn fields, orchards or unused wetlands could be
transformed in the next few years into tightly packed fields of willow
trees or elephant grass. The acreage of bright yellow rape seed, used
to produce biodiesel, may also have to triple, from around 300,000
hectares to a million hectares.
However, a large field packed with coarse, woody grass over 12 feet
high may be a good way to fuel a power station but it is not everyone’s
idea of a beautiful sight. Elephant grass and coppice willow also need
a great deal of water.

The point about water required is worth remembering. Even if we do manage to get the world’s carbon dependence under control, we have to remember that there are finite resources available to us, and water is the one of the most important. Some scary irrigation facts from around the world:

More than 60 percent of the water used in the world each year is diverted
for irrigating crops. Egypt, which must irrigate all its crops, uses more
than five times as much water per capita as Switzerland. In Asia, which
has two thirds of the world’s irrigated land, 85 percent of water
goes for irrigation. A worldwide doubling in the area under irrigation
to more than 260 million hectares underpinned the “green revolution”
that kept the world fed in the late 20th century. Almost 40 percent of
the global food harvest now comes from the 17 percent of the world’s
croplands that are made productive in this way.

In some countries there is an increasing reliance on pumping underground water,often at rates that rainfall cannot replenish. Libya, for instance, by pumping”fossil” water from deep beneath the Sahara desert, uses seven times more water annually for irrigation than it receives in rainfall. India is pumping water at twice the recharge rate, causing some water tables to fall by between 1 and 3 meters a year. The country’s grain production could fall by 25 percent if it gave up groundwater “mining”.

via:: American Association for the Advancement of Science Atlas of Population & Environment
Another example of the importance of ‘joined-up thinking’ in addressing sustainability issues.

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mel starrs Uncategorized American Association for the Advancement of Science Atl, Asia, Britain, Egypt, Energy, energy review, food harvest, India, Libya, mining, renewable energy sources, Resources, Sahara desert, Sustainability, Switzerland

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