Blogs

A truly underground movement

Suzi Blakley — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:40:27 PDT

Today, we salute a little-known holiday celebrating an unusual underground cause.

While you may have heard of underground music and the Underground Railroad, this is something altogether different: May 14 is Underground America Day, a day to recognize the subset of North Americans who make their homes in the Earth, not just on it.

Even if you are not a Hobbit, there are huge benefits to dwelling beneath the Earth's surface. Since there's little or no need for insulation, underground houses are naturally energy-efficient, with heating and cooling systems utilizing the Earth's geothermal energy.

Subsurface homes also provide shelter from the elements and forces of nature -- an abode and a storm shelter all in one.

As more people strive to live in tune with their environment, this movement encourages sustainable architecture and green building practices, and the aesthetics of nature are of the utmost importance.

What can you do to celebrate this occasion?

It may not be practical to bury your home, but why not start with small steps? Take an underground tour, or use public transportation -- specifically a subway.

Or begin a green roof project. It technically counts as living beneath ground (or at least beneath soil and plants), while at the same time cleaning the air. And the types of rooftops that can go green are limitless.

Suggested sites:

About Malcolm Wells - biography of the creator of Underground America Day.

Unusual Hotels of the World - a listing of worldwide underground hotels.

Sustainable Architecture - Wikipedia - describes environmentally conscious design techniques in architecture.

Greenroofs.com - the green roof industry resource portal.

Directory categories: Geothermal Energy, Energy-Efficient Construction, Sustainable Architecture, Geodesic Domes, Green Roofs

Originally posted on The Spark, a daily blog where Yahoo! Directory editors highlight new and interesting content on the Web.

Your windows could soon clean themselves

Peg Fong — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:29:02 PDT

Donât do windows? Now thereâs an eco-friendly way to not clean as often. A Denmark company has a new cleaning product called ShineOn that keeps windows free from dirt and grime for up to two years.

ShineOn is a thin coating developed using nanotechnology by SCF Technologies. The coating chemically bonds with glass to create a layer that uses the sunâs energy to âburnâ loose dirt that gathers on the glass and loosen it from the surface. The dirt is then washed away from the window by rain.

The coating, which contains titanium dioxide, is applied in two stages with windows prepared with a special fluid to remove all possible contaminants. ShineOn is then polished onto the window with a cloth.

Though other dirt-burning coatings have been developed in the past, this is the first that can be applied to existing windows, making retrofits possible without replacing and trashing millions of panes of glass.

The product makes sense now for commercial use even though the initial application is expensive. The eventual savings are tremendous when you consider how much money is regularly spent on cleaning towers that are surfaced almost entirely in glass.

Environmental benefits will come from using less detergents. In a typical modern office building, windows are cleaned up to 100 times over two years.

Now if only someone will discover an energy-free way to fold laundry.

Full press release from SCF Technologies

Image via Swisscan on Flickr

Plywood prefab could green your life

Jozef Winter — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:01:40 PDT

If youâve ever dreamed of living inside an old Zeppelin, then this pre-fab modular home, the CanÃ¼home, designed by George Brown Collegeâs Institute Without Boundaries, is for you.

Well actually, the designers thought it looked more like a canoe, hence the name. They also wanted the name to provoke a question: âCan Ã¼ make a difference?â Of course the appropriate answer is yes, and certainly so with this unique design.

In their own words,

The design is intended for use by young couples, seniors, singles/small families, as a starter or finisher home. It has been designed to fit in rear gardens in the city, the suburbs, or rooftops of buildings or in the countryside.

At 850 square feet, it fits the bill, being the same size as a typical condo or apartment. It's a fully comprehensive unit including a kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom, and bathroom (with a shower that will hold 4 people for efficient water use!).

Made largely of FSC-certified plywood and other wood materials, the modular home is assembled with the aid of steel brackets. Being modular, it allows you can hook up as many or as few units as you like should your need for space grow or diminish.

The engineering behind the design is quite ingenious. Its shape allows for convective and radiant heating, and the designers proudly announce that âair is a building materialâ!

The curvature of the structure also channels rain water for capture and use in various applications, and there are plans to incorporate solar collectors to help meet some of the energy needs of the home.

The project has 5 major goals: to engage the public, to raise public awareness of the impact of housing on the environment, to showcase sustainability, to aid in growing the market for sustainable homes and related products, and finally, to enable the housing industry to more easily move towards sustainable practices.

It remains unclear what the future will hold for the faculty-, student-, and expert-designed home after it returns from its show tour, but if properly marketed, it has some real possibilities.

For those of you with spare plywood lying around, the technical drawings (PDF) are available for you online.

via Ecolectic.org

Architecture 2030

Hank Green — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:04:28 PDT

We've got to do something about climate change now. Unfortunately, carbon capture technology is 20 years away, it takes more than a decade to build a nuclear plant, and renewables like solar and geothermal have a huge barrier to overcome before they can be cost competitive.

So what do we do? Well, Architecture 2030 has created a blueprint to the future (PDF), which outlines how to reduce emissions by massive amounts without changing our energy mix at all.

By implementing existing technologies at low costs, Architecture 2030 has determined that we could save far more energy far cheaper than we could ever hope to manage in the near-term with even old, established technologies like nuclear power.

The results of its $21 billion investment scenario are insane -- it has calculated that it would:

Replace 22.3 conventional coal-fired plants.
Reduce CO2 emissions by 86.7 MMT.
Save 204 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
Save 10.7 million barrels of oil.
Save consumers $8.46 billion in energy bills.
Create 216,000 new jobs.

Investing that same money in clean coal or nuclear infrastructure would, in the best case, only replace 8 coal plants.

It's obvious where the money needs to go, and Architecture 2030 is calling on the global architecture community to adopt standards that will make this a reality.

Solar shingles coming to a roof near you

Hank Green — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:15:21 PDT

Dow and Global Solar Energy have teamed up to take on the Department of Energy's "Solar America Initiative (SAI)" to create building-integrated solar.

The purpose of the SAI is basically to create an incentive for the development of cheap, simple building-integrated photovoltaic systems. Dow Building Solutions wants to take Global Solar Energy's panels and, basically, turn them into roofing shingles.

Expensive, shiny, energy harnessing, roofing shingles.

Global Solar Energy produces thin-film, flexible CIGS solar panels for a variety of markets already. Dow was excited to partner with them because they're the only producers currently making flexible panels that meat the SAI's requirement for 10% efficiency.

Photovoltaic roofing shingles aren't a new idea, but using low-cost CIGS panels could make the technology significantly more cost competitive. As more CIGS manufacturers move onto the scene, we could be seeing a lot more of this sort of transparent, distributed power generation.

My house is going to need a new roof in ten years or so ... hopefully by then, they'll be ready for me.

Via Energy Daily andÂ GoodCleanTech

Solar windows could slash energy loss

Andrew Williams — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:48:29 PDT

For us EcoGeeks, windows have traditionally been seen as a weak link in building design. Although they allow essential light into a building, they are a leading culprit for thermal energy loss.

However, all this could be set to change as a result of an exciting new collaboration aiming to reinvent windows as clear, clean energy providers. A team of academics at Queensland University of Technology has teamed up with Dyesol to develop transparent dye-infused solar cells that would significantly reduce building energy costs and could even allow windows to generate surplus energy to be either stored or sold.

The development has been hailed by some as the most promising advance in solar cell technology since the invention of the silicon cell.

Dyesolâs solar cells use innovative technology called "artificial photosynthesis," where a dye works in much the same way as chlorophyll to absorb light and produce electricity. Panels are made up of âan electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and toothpaste), and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass. Light striking the dye excites electrons, which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current.â

Since they donât require expensive raw materials, and require less energy, dye solar cells are much cheaper to manufacture than silicon cells. Dyesol says the panels will be available over the next two years.

Via Inhabitat

New Aerogel 37x better than fiberglass

Mick Skolnick and Hank Green — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:45:05 PDT

Aerogel has been around for decades. It's the lightest substance ever created, being 99% air. It's strong, light, and translucent, and is excellent for sound-proofing.

But the really exciting thing about Aerogel is that it insulates 37 times better than fiberglass. Using Aerogel as insulation in walls, ceilings, and (as it's transparent) even between double-paned windows, could drastically reduce the amount of energy used in heating and cooling.

Unfortunately, Aerogel isn't easy to make. In fact, it costs about $1,300 per pound to produce. But a Malaysian researcher at the Universiti Teknologi, Dr. Halimaton Hamdan, has led a team of researchers who have created a way to produce Aerogel that will be 80% cheaper.

What's more, the new Aerogel is produced from rice husks, a discarded agricultural product. As you might expect, Malaysia has plenty of rice husks, so the team is pretty excited about the possibility of turning them into something valuable. As such, the government has given Hamdan a $65 million grant to help develop a technique for the large-scale production of the new Aerogels.

Hamdan's breakthrough was at first accidental. She wanted to do research on silica, but was having a hard time finding the raw material. One night, she saw a television program on the difficulty of disposing of rice husks. And rice husks, it turns out, are 20% silica. After eight years of work, Hamdan finally found a cheap way to produce pure silica from rice husks. And once the silica is acquired, making the Aerogel is a cinch.

If Dr. Hamdan and her colleagues are able to use that $65 million to scale up production of this material, we should soon be seeing it everywhere. If that happens, the energy savings would be incredible.Â As a bonus, the production of Maerogel (short for Malaysian Aerogel) would also make use of an abundant natural waste product.

Clean tech tower harnesses the Windy City

Hank Green — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:22:47 PDT

They don't call Chicago the "windy city" for nothing. Chicagoans routinely brave tropical-storm-force winds. So why is all that energy is only used to knock over pedestrians and scatter trash when it could be used to power the city?

Well, the "Clean Technology Tower" will finally be exploiting Chicago's wind with dozens of wind turbines tucked into its body. These aren't your average, everyday building-integrated turbines either.

AS+GG Architecture has actually done the math, and it has determined the best way to harness the wind as it flows around the tower. Depressions in the face of the tower channel wind into the turbines. As the tower becomes taller (and wind speeds increase), the turbines are more tightly spaced.

The result is more than perfect for capturing power. Plus it's a much more organic and pleasing design than we've seen with a lot of wind-capturing buildings.

The tower will have more than 2 million square feet of hotel, retail, and office space. The wind will be used both to power the building and create negative pressure for natural ventilation. And, as if this wasn't enough clean technology, the domed roof will be covered in photovoltaic panels!

I haven't heard any time-scales for this thing tossed around, but hopefully sooner rather than later. AS+GG is plenty busy with amazing green building projects, like the Masdar Headquarters, but hopefully it'll put this one on the fast track as well.

Via Jetson Green and AS+GG

World's largest retail building goes green

Hank Green — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:15:06 PDT

About a week ago, EcoGeek realized the efficiency improvements in America's buildings could save more energy than is used by all planes, trains, cars, and trucks in America.

This vast energy savings won't come easily, but it must come. A commenter pointed out that it's important to focus on cars and trucks because they have shorter life spans, and thus efficiency improvements can be realized faster.

But buildings can also be retrofitted to be greener and with great effect. In fact, since only 2% of buildings in America were built in the last few years, retrofitting is going to have to be a huge part of this.

It's pretty inspiring to see that we're starting with the largest retail building in the world, the Chicago Merchandise Mart.

The Merch Mart is huge, more than 4 million square feet. During the day, 20,000 people inhabit this single structure. It has its own ZIP code (60654).

When it was built, it was the largest building in the world.

Thanks to the leadership of its owners, and the City of Chicago, the Merchandise Mart has a new spot in the Guinness book -- as the largest green building in the world.

It now uses 35% less water and 10% less energy than before the upgrades. And, for a building this size, the upgrades were significant:

Most of the 4,000 windows were replaced.
Water waste was tracked to determine which of the 2,000 toilets needed to be replaced with more efficient ones.
Leaks in the air conditioning were tracked down and fixed, saving over $4,000 a year.
Many of the buildings spaces were metered individually to determine high energy use areas and bill tenants accordingly.
A supply shop for tenants was opened in the basement, making everything from low-vapor paints to high-efficiency bulbs available, inexpensively, to all tenants.
Lighter carpets make rooms brighter, meaning less electricity is needed.
A "bulb-eater" in the basement eats fluorescent bulbs, contains their toxins, and produces waste bins that are recycled properly.

For more information on this absolutely fantastic retrofit of the world's largest retail Building, check out this article in Business Week.

Solar-collecting roads heat Dutch buildings

A. Siegel — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:41:52 PST

Solar is a highly efficient way to heat water. Combine it with underground storage, and a year-round system can be created where the system can cover heating requirements in the winter and cooling in the summer.

The Dutch company Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV has taken this concept and moved it a step forward with the Road Energy System^Â® (RES).

Rather than putting tubes on a rooftop, RES lays the collection system within concrete -- like the black asphalt of a road or runway. The piping connects to underground storage areas. Remember the last time you walked on black asphalt on a sunny August day, and you'll understand the heat being transferred into the water in the pipes.

This water is then transferred into the storage area. On demand, in cold weather, the hot water is used to heat buildings and to keep the road above freezing. After cooling, the water is moved into cold storage to provide air conditioning for summer months.

This creates a year-round solar/geothermal heating/cooling system for both the road and buildings. The renewable combo greatly reduces electricity requirements (and thus pollution), and the cooling/heating of the road reduces maintenance requirements by lowering/eliminating the deicing and plowing requirements in winter.

And it is deployed: "Solar Energy collected from a 200-yard stretch of road and a small parking lot helps heat a 70-unit four-story apartment building in the northern village of Avenhorn. An industrial park of some 160,000 square feet in the nearby city of Hoorn is kept warm in winter with the help of heat stored during the summer from 36,000 square feet of pavement. The runways of a Dutch air force base in the south supply heat for its hangar."

Europe's tallest (and greenest) tower from a gas company?

Hank Green — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:36:30 PST

Russia's oil and gas industry has taken on new life in the last decade. Consolidation and capitalism have increased production and raised profits to new heights. And so we should start expecting to see these companies to start doing outlandish things with their profits.

First to the plate is state-run Gazprom, Russia's largest company and, by some measures, the third-largest corporation in the world.

St. Petersburg has bent over backward to get Gazprom to build their headquarters there, actually offering to pay for 49% of the project (in exchange for 20B roubles -- 800M USD -- a year in taxes). Most oddly for Europe's tallest tower, this HQ is being built in a city that, before this, allowed no buildings higher than 50 meters tall.

That century-old provision has now been waived, and the Okhta tower is a go. In addition to being 400 meters high and lording its superiority over its 50-meter tall great grandparents, this will also be (according to the architects) "one of the most environmentally sustainable high-rise buildings in the world."

The one obvious reason for this is that the tower will have to be super-insulated in order to stay warm during the 30-degrees-below-zero Russian winter. The super-insulating double pained glass is likened to a fur coat in the press release. Though they should probably stay away from the fur metaphor amongst American environmentalists.

Other environmental innovations are apparently going to continue to leak out of RMJM, the British firm that designed the tower. As for now, we're just going to have to take their word for it.

Via Inhabitat and Entre Rayas