SF City Hall: Now With Electric Car Chargers

Posted on February 23, 2009 by ameliaaboff

car3 Last Wednesday, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom announced the addition of electric car chargers in front of city hall in what he called “the first step towards creating the electric vehicle infrastructure of the future”. The chargers are intended for the city’s electric fleet vehicles as well as electric Zipcars and other private but sustainably managed electric car companies, and Newsom hopes they will draw the public’s attention to the feasibiltiy of alternative-fuel and electric vehicles.

Although not strictly a building component, things like electric car charging stations do contribute points to LEED standards, and (I believe) the original Green Dorm Feasibiltiy Study called for charging stations to be incorporated. Seeing publicity aimed at electric cars, especially in this economic climate, is heartening, and worth keeping in sight despite being outside the stricter realm of green buildings.

Gavin Newsom on Electric Cars

Green Roof or White Roof?

Posted on February 21, 2009 by NicoleG

Let's take a tip from the Greeks

This is why I love LBL so much:

One of the senior scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Hashem Akbari, is trying to counter the effects of climate change by making all rooftops and paved surfaces white, or at least cool gray colors to reflect the sun’s rays, instead of attracting and absorbing heat. (We were talking about this today in CEE 176A as well: how much heat gain comes from the color of the roof tiles. Plus it is cheaper than a green roof… although I do love the idea of a green roof.) Akbari is hoping to launch a 100 Cool Cities program, where the hottest urban municipalities internationally would convert government-owned buildings to white roofs and offer homeowners incentives to make the switch.

The concept of painting homes and buildings light colors to reflect heat is an old one. Growing up in Tehran, Akbari recalled large white structures in the desert that captured night wind to cool the building, keeping the people inside comfortable. Homes built along the banks of the balmy Mediterranean are still painted white to this day (Greece anyone?).

In one study of a “heat island” – a densely packed urban area – Akbari and his team focused on the Los Angeles Basin and found that if all black surfaces were converted to white, the surface temperature could drop as much as 5 degrees. With cooler and cleaner air, a domino effect would occur: Less smog and pollution means fewer health problems, which lead to savings in medical bills. A cooler temperature also means less air conditioning, lower energy use, lower utility bills and so on.

In September, Akbari and his team published a study in the academic journal Climatic Change, which found for every 100 square feet of black rooftop converted to white, a building owner could offset about 1 ton of carbon dioxide. Add to that all the world’s paved urban surfaces (Akbari recommends converting black asphalt to an aged concrete color instead of white), and the team concluded enough cooling benefits to offset 44 billion tons of CO2…Â that’s roughly the same amount of CO2 the planet emits every 18 months.

But it would probably take at least 20 years for worldwide conversion, if not more and California is the only state to embrace white roofing, at least on commercial projects (Title 24: a new building standards law that requires all builders and owners of commercial flattop roofs to first consider cool colors for major retrofits or new buildings). The roofing industry has responded well, designing new materials and cooler colors to appeal to builders and home owners who are seeking cost savings and ecological benefits.

So, we should have a white, or light grey or terracotta roof, if not a green roof (which would help with stormwater mitigation, reduce heat island effect, reduce cooling load, give the roof a higher R-value, and increase the life of the roof membrane)…

and maybe even a wind tower??

Here is the article for reference (thanks to my mum): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/20/DDTL15VQAG.DTL

Breaking News – Carnegie Mellon is Still Cool

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Michael Delgado

A class at Carnegie Mellon University has students taking green back to the drawing board – Literally.

Students created posters designed to influence sustainability

“One of several assignments given by Melissa Cicozi in her Design and Social Change class, the project asks students to design a poster showing how an individual can reduce carbon emissions by changing a single behavior.

While some of the students try to get you to make the switch to fluorescent bulbs, others suggest you turn the lights off altogether. A few encourage you to plant a tree and even consider getting on your bike instead of into your car â€” all in the name of saving our planet.

Global warming is so overwhelming,” said Cicozi, winner of this year’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Advising and Mentoring.Â “I wanted the students to not only grab people’s attention, but to make viewers feel like one person really can make a difference.”

In a second component of the course, the students get together in groups and study the recycling habits of the Carnegie Mellon community. After careful consideration, they design an improved recycling plan – complete with container and label design, a strategic plan for placement of the containers, a plan for “communicating the plan,” and a proposed ad campaign for the nationwide college and university competition known as Recyclemania.

Encouraging a return to nature can be very productive

The course’s final component encourages the students to literally dig deep and reach for any remaining scraps of inventiveness: they have to make something out of trash.Â Their work will be exhibited and sold at Construction Junction, an organization that supports and promotes conservation in Pittsburgh through the reuse of building materials, starting April 28.

“The students are in the middle of the final project right now,” said Cicozi. “I know they are considering everything from tools and accessories to furniture and housewares.Â Any profits will go to Construction Junction, to help them continue their promotion of reusing construction waste and architectural artifacts.”

Cicozi’s Design and Social Change class is just one of more than 100 Carnegie Mellon courses exploring environmental issues through a variety of disciplines. It’s also one of more than 30 courses that integrates environmental awareness as part of the three-year “Greening of Early Undergraduate Education” project, funded by The Henry Luce Foundation.”

Source: CMU Green Practices

I think these advertising campaigns are a great and creative way to get students involved and passionate about the Green Dorm and sustainability in general. Can we host events to promote sustainability like we were beginning to plan last quarter?

PG&E and SCE contract 1.3 GW Solar Thermal Plant with BrightSource

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Michael Delgado

Concentrated Solar Thermal Power uses mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy and convert it to electricity using a steam, or rankine cycle

Soon to be added to PG&E’s existing Solar Thermal plant in the Mojave is 1.3 additional GW of Solar Thermal capacity, the largest solar energy deal ever. With the capacity about equivalent to a large nuclear fission facility, this installment will encompass 7 new individual collecting stations spread out over 2 sites. The first of these projects, with a 100 MW capacity, is expected to be completed by 2013. Southern California Edison (SCE) is planning to install 250 MW of distributed photovoltaic generation in the coming years on consumer’s roofs in addition to these solar thermal installations. BrightSource, a solar thermal company based in Oakland, is looking at land across California, Arizona, and Nevada, and hopes to install 4.3 GW of solar projects in the near future. Considering the earth consumes about 16TW, and solar capacity is still around 1 GW, this is a huge step for solar.

Full Article: Greentech Media | BrightSource Inks 1.3 GW SoCal Edison Deal

Stanford Daily’s Front Page 3/4 Environmental!

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Michael Delgado

I just thought it was phenominal that of the 4 front page articles on Tuesday, February 10, 2009′s issue of the Stanford Daily, 3 of them pertained to the environment. The articles, “Eco-carnival touts sustainable living,” by Katherine Jewett, “University Eyes Research Money,” by Christine McFadden, and “Professor Contributes to Google Ocean,” by Robert Toews gave a clear impression of where the interests on this campus and in these times lie. An environment-related editorial, “The sky is spitting on me and I want rain,” by Emily Grubert, focused on a lack of community awareness of the serious droughts we are heading into this summer. In total, 4/8 non sports-related articles and editorials in the day’s issue pertained to energy and the environment. Congratulations, Daily Staff, you officially are awesome in my book! Here are some synopses of my favorites… if you like them I recommend the full articles: Continue reading →

Crazy Russian Design Website

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Michael Delgado

Just to blow/expand your minds. Crazy russianÂ

designsÂ that will challenge your conception of livingspace. Sometimes that’s a good thing, so I thought I’d post it.

MAGIC Materials: Cork Flooring

Posted on February 9, 2009 by adamting

What a cork tree looks like

I was just looking into various flooring options, and Cork Flooring seemed to me to be the best (even over something like Bamboo flooring).Â The following article discusses the pros (of which there are many) and the cons (really just long-distance shipping): Cork Flooring.Â To give a brief summary, cork flooring is much more sustainable than traditional hardwood flooring in that “the material is acquired by stripping most of the outer bark from the cork oak tree. This regular harvesting does the tree no harm, and the bark grows back, to be stripped again every nine years.”Â This is in contrast to the 60+ years required for similar traditional wood floorings.

Some interesting properties of this very practical surface:

Soft like suede, insulating qualities and resiliency of carpet, the easy-to-clean surface of wood or tile
Scraps are collected for reuse, so almost nothing is wasted
The material is waterproof, and the natural waxy substance inherent in cork, called suberin, makes it mold and mildew resistant
If someone in your family suffers from allergies, a cork floor could provide a soft and warm alternative to allergen collecting carpets
Cork is naturally flame-resistant
Acoustically insulating properties keep foot traffic quiet.
Costs as low as $2/sq. ft. (which is cheap, though like woods they do have expensive options)
Can be used in just about any room

All of the aforementioned benefits would seem useful for MAGIC, and the fact they come from Europe, which is really the only negative here, won’t matter if their house is being built over there anyways!Â I think we should look into this material.

Stanford’s Green Building Page

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Michael Delgado

Y2E2 is not the only building Stanford's webpage flaunts. Can we hold them to it?

Yes… It talks about the green dorm.

I knew this had to be out there somewhere, but I just never knew where. Sorry to all of you for whom this is obvious. It’s a page about what Stanford is currently doing to be sustainable, off the SustainableStanfordÂ site, in the realm of buildings. I talks all about the performance goals, and how Y2E2 and the Jasper Ridge Field Station have won all these awards, but then it talks about how sustainable they are because they’re building a new dorm. Maybe we can hold them to it!

“The upcoming Green Dorm will be a living laboratory for sustainability and represent the latest in sustainable building technology and practice. Itâ€™s expected to generate more electricity than it uses, emit no net carbon and use half the water of comparable dorms.”

Sustainable Stanford Building Page

Sequestering Carbon in Cement

Posted on February 5, 2009 by ameliaaboff

Moss Landing, where Calera makes cement from smokestack gas

Last week’s post on Permable Pavement reminded me of another sustainable paving material: cement made from carbon dioxide and seawater. This technology has been pioneered by a Northern California company called Calera, situated near the Moss Landing gas-fired power plant. Their process involves capturing the “stack gas” created by the power plant, running it through fresh seawater, and adding the resulting calcium carbonate to a concrete mix for commercial use. Calera claims that they can use up to 90% of Moss Landing’s carbon dioxide emissions for such processes, but it has not yet been fully approved by the construction industry or relevant building authorities, which are generally slow to accept changes.

More research needs to be done on the impacts of seawater intake/outtake and cost-effectiveness of this technique, but it offers a benefit that few other building materials do: it actually sequesters carbon dioxide, not by storing it in leaky underground reservoirs like other CCS techniques suggest, but by creating useful and necessary new materials from it. In all likelihood, CCS-cement won’t be available in time for the Green Dorm, but it’s an interesting technology to be aware of as we move forward, looking for bothÂ sustainable materials and emissions-reduction strategies.

Cement from CO2, Scientific American

Climate Action by Calera, Treehugger

The Middle East – Eco-cities – Rem Koolhaas

Posted on February 3, 2009 by iryskornbluth

When we were talking last week about large, pre-planned cities vs. cities that develop over time, it reminded me of one of my favorite designers, Rem Koolhaas. Koolhaas has been very involved in projects in Dubai and is even championing a project in the UAE that will compete with Masdar in being a zero-emissions city (see image below – Ras al-Khaimah). He’s a great urban philosopher and innovator – he once did a project studying the city of Lagos in Nigeria, where he argued that the horrible traffic congestion actually enhanced the city’s economy and culture. He likes to be experimental when designing and thinking about cities, and I believe he will be at the forefront of sustainable, eco-city design in the Middle East.

A deep quote: “I think that the urban effect is really interesting – the language, the rhetoric, the aesthetic, the practice. That is a very important shift. Today, we’re not building cities; we are building resorts. The resort has become the dominant DNA, in a certain way. It’s more an anti-city than a city, defined by its non-linear growth.” -Rem K.

Also, I think anyone interested in the topic of sustainable urban design should look to the Middle East because they are right now on the cutting-edge of that topic. After researching urban design there for PWR, I came to the conclusion that the political and economic condition of parts of the Middle East has and will continue to make it a leader in experimental and sustainable urban design.

Ras al-Khaimah

Stanford Green Idea Lab

Green Idea Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2009