Hybrid Living

Last month, Google announced that it would no longer use any of the construction materials found on the Living Building Challenge’s “red list.” For a company that is opening new office space at a rate of 40,000 square feet (about 3,700 square meters) per week, that’s a lot of construction activity, and a lot of materials that are no longer being used for those projects. It’s also a leadership role from a company that wants to be environmentally positive.

The red list (as opposed to the green list) is a list of construction materials that include components made from products such as mercury, asbestos, PVC, formaldehyde and lead. In most cases, these materials are poor for the indoor air quality of the spaces where they are installed. But, even if the final form is relatively inert, the production of these materials also has a large environmental toll due to the extraction of materials used to produce them and from the processing of raw materials to make the finished products.

The Living Building Challenge goes beyond LEED and other green building programs with a standard for creating buildings that are restorative and balanced, rather than being merely “less bad” than typical construction. The red list is found in the Materials section of the Living Building Challenge 2.0 guidebook (pdf).

Like LEED itself, Google’s size makes this a decision that will have ramifications throughout the construction industry. Manufacturers who use red list materials in their products will see sales declines not only from Google, but from other companies who will follow Google’s lead in this.

The Building Green blog has a wonderful followup that talks not only about these rules, but offers a wider approach to considering appropriate building materials from an environmental perspective.

link: International Living Future Institute

via: friends on Twitter

Butte College, which lies about 75 miles outside Sacramento, will be the first college in the nation to go grid positive — that is, generate more electricity than it uses.

The college is achieving this amazing feat by operating 25,000 solar panels on its property that will generate 6.5 million kWh per year, enough to power 941 homes.  The reduction in emissions from using renewable energy will be equal to taking 615 cars off the road.

The college will also benefit financially from the solar arrays, saving $50 million – $75 million in the first 15 years by getting rid of an electricity bill, getting paid for excess electricity and avoiding future electricity rate hikes.  That number also accounts for project costs.

Butte has also put a lot of emphasis on efficiency and sustainability measures with several LEED certified buildings, a 75 percent recycling rate of waste materials and a large student transportation system.

via Butte College

Wave power is a compelling technology, but there has been little news on that front in the last few years, other than the cancellation of the Pelamis Power project off the coast of Portugal. The PowerBuoy will be the first commercial-scale wave park on the west coast of the U.S. with an expected capacity of 1.5 MW.

Ocean Power Technologies has been working on this project for several years already. The latest PB150 PowerBuoy will be launched later this year as the first of a ten buoy fleet that will make up the grid-connected wave power park.

The Department of Energy is particularly pleased with its investment because the project is helping to create nearly 100 new jobs, and local governments are further pleased that so much of that work, including the fabrication and construction, is being done by local companies.

The sea is a tough environment to work in, and development has been slow. But the oceans offer massive energy flows with winds and waves and tides, and harnessing that power will be far better than continuing to burn up dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

via: DOE Energy Blog

Wind turbines have a lot of opponents, and lots of regulatory hurdles that they must go through between initial proposal and final approval. One particular difficulty has been from aviation authorities (both civilian and military) whose radar can pick up interference from wind turbines. These objections have led to many wind projects being delayed or shelved indefinitely. But solutions are being developed that may allow wind turbines to coexist with radar.

The moving blades from wind turbines can cause intereference to show up on radar displays.

“At one stage trade association Renewable UK estimated that around 40 large wind farm projects were being delayed because of objections from the aviation sector.” Given the wide expanses of open land in the US, the problem has been less of an issue, but as more wind facilities are developed for locations close to population areas, the problem is likely to become more of a concern. In the UK, a software solution is being explored that will enable air traffic controllers to differentiate between aircraft and wind turbines.

Another possible solution is to build turbine blades with material that is not radar reflective. Using composites that either absorb or scatter radar beams would make the turbine blades invisible to radar.

image: CC-BY 2.0 by Ken Hodge

via: EWEA Wind Directions

As sunny as the southeastern U.S. is, solar power development hasn’t taken off as quickly as you’d think.  That will change dramatically when a new 400 MW solar farm is built in one of three states:  Florida, Georgia or North Carolina.  The huge project could potentially be the world’s largest when it’s completed.  The current largest is an 80 MW solar plant in Ontario, Canada, but many large projects are in the planning or construction stages.

The project, being developed by National Solar Power, will consist of 20, 200-acre solar farms each with a capacity of 20 MW.  The panels will be seven feet tall or less and surrounded by vegetation to help them blend into the landscape.  The project will be able to power about 32,000 homes.

The areas that are being considered for the huge solar project are Gadsden, Hardee, Osceola and Suwannee counties in Florida, Sumter and Tatnall counties in Georgia, and Guilford County in North Carolina.  National Solar Power is weighing factors like amount of undeveloped land, economic development and tax incentives, community support and access to a qualified workforce.

The project will create 400 jobs during its five-year construction and about 120 permanent jobs.  The decision of where it will be built should be made by the end of the month.

via Sustainable Business

Image via National Solar

A recent study by the National Resources Defense Council finds that cable and digital recording devices are now “the single largest electricity drain in many American homes.” The study found that “In 2010, set-top boxes in the United States consumed approximately 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to the annual output of nine average (500 MW) coal-fired power plants.”

This power consumption translates to roughly $3 billion in annual electricity costs paid by consumers, as well as being responsible for the release of 16 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year. Furthermore, according to the NRDC report, an average HD set-top cable box and HD-DVR uses more energy (446 kWh/year) than an average 21 cubic foot Energy Star refrigerator (415 kWh/year).

Even worse than the “standby drain” of electricity used by equipment in a supposedly “off” position, many of these television set-top boxes – which include cable and satellite equipment, digital video recorders (DVR), and the like – are on 24 hours a day. Power strips can be useful for turning off these vampire loads, but consumers are reluctant to use those when they want their DVRs to be able to record programs.

NRDC points out that these devices could be designed to be more energy efficient, but that the service companies who provide these to consumers feel little incentive to do so, since it is the end users who pay for that power use.

image: CC-BY 2.0 by Scott Thomson

via: New York Times

The Obama administration will formally propose new fuel efficiency standards in September, but recent meetings with domestic automakers reveal that the administration is gunning for a 56.2 mpg standard for cars and light trucks by 2025.

The new standard would be a huge jump from the current 30.2 mpg standard for cars and 24.1 mpg standard for light trucks.

The White House will hold more meetings with both domestic and foreign automakers and the numbers could change before September.  According to reports, the initial proposal would require automakers to increase fuel efficiency by an average of five percent each year over years 2017 to 2025.

If the 56.2 mpg standard were to be finalized, the cost of new cars could increase by $2,100 – $2,600, but consumers would actually save $5,500 – $7,000 in fuel costs over the life of the car and the extra cost of the car would made back within about 2.5 years.

via The Detroit News

A plan that originated in the 1980s to build a system of interstate bike paths has come back to life after lying dormant for 30 years. Only two stretches of bike interstate were established back then:  U.S. Bicycle Route 1 from Virginia to North Carolina (initially planned to run from Florida to Maine) and U.S. Bicycle Route 76 from Virginia to Illinois (initially planned to run from Virginia to Oregon), but new routes may soon cover the whole country.

The Association of American State Highway and Transportation Officials has already approved six new routes. Four of these will be in Alaska, one will span Michigan’s lower peninsula and one will go from New Hampshire to Maine.  Another 15 have made it past the planning phase.  The ultimate goal is to have a nationwide system of bicycle routes, and 42 states have expressed support for the plan.

If you’re curious, the eight states that haven’t jumped onboard yet are Alabama, Hawaii, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.

AASHTO has created a full map with prioritized routes marked.  It’s a sight to behold.

via GOOD

It’s the electric car that we all covet.  It’s high performing, long-range, gorgeously designed, crazy expensive, and about to be discontinued. It’s being reported that in mere months, Tesla will stop production of the Roadster to start focusing all of its attention on the upcoming Model S sedan.

“People in Europe and Japan probably have another six months to place orders for the Roadster.  In the U.S., it’s maybe a month or two,” said CEO Elon Musk.  So, if you’re one of the lucky people destined to drive a Roadster, act now.

While it’s sad to see the Roadster go, there are plenty of exciting EVs coming soon from Tesla.

The Model S is slated to launch next year, while a crossover SUV called the Model X should be revealed by the end of this year, but a production date hasn’t been set.  Musk has also promised an affordable $30,000 all-electric sedan within the next five years.

via SF Gate

The Department of Energy is providing backing for a $1.4 billion loan for Project Amp, a plan to install 733 megawatts of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on industrial buildings in 28 states and the District of Columbia. This is nearly equal to the entire amount of PV installed in the US in 2010. The project is expected to lead to the creation of one thousand new jobs and is expected to last for four years.

When complete, Project Amp is expected to produce up to one million megawatt hours annually. The power that is produced is not going to be used on site necessarily, but will instead be fed to the grid to add more solar power to the available production.

image: US Navy Photo