Oberlin has one remarkable building, around ten years old, which is home to the Program of Environmental Studies. It’s called Adam Joseph Lewis Center (AJCL). Part of its energy comes from solar photovoltaic panels located on the building’s roof. Excess energy is sold to the local utility center. Further, the Lewis Center has a “living machine”, designed by John Todd, which processes waste water, making it available for irrigation and toilets.
Solar technology is fabulous, and at a glance, looks an ideal solution and alternative to fossil fuels. However, it may also have an environmental impact, which is worth considering. That’s why the life cycle of the solar installations on the Lewis Center was assessed, and what was discovered was that their eco benefits exceed their costs.
The Center also carefully monitors its environmental performance, including energy use and generation. It has 150 environmental sensors, and on its website lots of specific data is available to evaluate progress. Among the Lewis Center’s awards are having been named one of the 30 milestone buildings of the 20th century by the US Department of Energy, and one of the top 10 green projects by the American Institute of Architects. What’s also interesting is that during the design process, the community was invited to suggest ideas, students participated, and different buildings and projects were visited seeking for inspiration and ideas.
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Seattle has been working hard to be more environmentally friendly for years now. It is one of America’s more advanced cities in terms of sustainability. Last week, the City Council announced that Seattle aims at becoming carbon neutral by 2030. The city will analyze the feasibility of making this ambitious project a reality.
Let’s look at what Seattle has done so far.
In 2005, the city’s mayor, Greg Nickels, launched Seattle’s Climate Protection Initiative. This helped maintain the city’s already existent environmental programs. By 2008, greenhouse gas emissions were 7% below 1990 levels, meeting Kyoto’s targets. This stands out even more when we consider that Seattle has grown 16% since 1990.
Environmental actions are organized in different fronts.
The most challenging area is transportation which accounts for around 40% of Seattle’s GHG emissions. So what is being done? The car as a means of transport is intended to be increasingly replaced by alternative methods. Walking and biking are encouraged. Last year, Seattle adopted the Pedestrian Master Plan, which works specifically on fostering walking and improving conditions, such as better sidewalks. Regarding biking, there are now 201 miles of bike lanes. “The Bicycle Master Plan calls for Seattle’s bike system to more than double in size, stretching 450 miles.” Hopefully, biking as a means of transport will continue to grow; between 2007 and 2009, it grew 15%.
Caryn Heilman and Nana Simopoulos have designed and built the Topia Inn, a small hotel not far from New York and Boston, that minimizes its environmental impact and introduces its guests into a green experience. From powering itself with solar energy to cleaning with ecological products, to covering its beds with organic cotton, the hotel goes far beyond green marketing and makes an effort to be as sustainable as possible.
In an interview with Sustentator, Caryn Heilman says finding the organic materials the Inn uses “took an incredible amount of research”, yet it enabled them to get to know green companies and artists, which was “so gratifying”.
The inn powers itself partly with solar photovoltaic panels. For heating and hot water generation, it uses biodiesel. Resorting to biodiesel allows the inn to emit 78% less carbon dioxide. When you’re taking your eco-friendlier hot bath, you also have access to organic shampooing. While in the bathroom, another useful gadget is the dual flush toilet, which helps reduce water consumption.
Caryn says most of the inn’s green products are more expensive than regular ones, including the organic beds, linens, bath and bodycare products, breakfast, fair trade coffee and tea, nontoxic building materials, FSC-certified wood, recycled insulation and efficient appliances. Besides, she adds that biodiesel is very expensive. Solar panels were also costly but they “will pay back within 5 years”, thanks to the savings on electric bills. All this spending and efforts in greening the inn are a great source of marketing; thus by attracting more guests, the costs are offset.
We have already looked at Cambridge and its green development plans. Now it’s the turn for Yale University. One of the most surprising and encouraging facts I’ve found doing some research is that Yale has developed a new building which has recently been awarded the highest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificate. It also has an organic farming project on campus, and has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 10% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
The building I just mentioned is the Kroon Hall, home of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. It consumes 81% less water and 58% less energy than other similar buildings.
The Kroon Hall also uses renewable energy; it has solar panels on its roofs that provide it with 25% of its electricity needs. Solar power is also being used for heating around 50% of water, with solar water heaters.
As regards recycling, the Kroon has a system to reuse water. Storm water is collected, as well as grey waters. These are filtrated using native aquatic plants. Grey waters and storm water are used for flushing toilets and for irrigation. On the other hand, plumbing includes low-flow mechanisms, and so do irrigation fixtures, which greatly lowers the demand for water.
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eBay is a huge American Internet company, founded in 1995. In its site you can buy and sell products, it is an online auction and shopping website. Since 2007, and thanks to a group of environmentally concerned employees, the company has started to work to become greener.
The company’s green actions are organized in the eBay Green Team, which mainly tries to enhance smart ways to shop green and more sustainable buying choices. With this in mind, it has started to work with three organizations, with the aim of uniting innovation with older or vintage products. Behind this is the idea that most times the greenest product is one that already exists.
Since its creation in 2007, when a group of employees decided to green their workplace, eBay Green Team has grown a great deal. Today, more than 2,000 eBay employees in around 23 countries have become members. They not only promote sustainable activities within eBay, but they also support environmental projects in their nearest locations. As a whole, the company is also helping advance environmental legislation.
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A small ISP (Internet Service Provider) and hosting company in Illinois has become the first data center operator to be powered entirely by wind energy. The company is called Other World Computing (OWC) and is located in Woodstock, Illinois. It has installed a wind turbine on its premises, that supplies all of its energy needs.
The turbine is 131 foot high and it can generate 500 kilowatts of power. Per year, it generates 1.2 million kW, more than twice what OWC needs. The surplus power will be sold to the local power provider. When the wind blows stronger, the wind turbine can produce in one week more energy than what OWC needs for a whole month. On the other hand, the company knows that the wind may not always blow; in those cases, energy is taken from the local provider.
When wind power is transformed into energy, the energy goes to the company’s metering device; OWC uses the amount it needs, and the rest is sold to the local provider.
Further, the company’s facility was rated LEED Platinum. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a rating system that provides a set of standards for environmental construction. Also, thanks to its different green initiatives, OWC was ranked N 9 on a list of green-IT vendors, by computerworld, in 2008.
The turbine was designed to function and produce energy at low speeds, given that the area’s average wind speed is of 10-15 mph. Even at 9 mph, the turbine can generate power.
The whole installation of the turbine cost $1.25 million, an investment that OWC expects to recover within 10-14 years. This period can be reduced considering the rising energy costs.
VIA: DataCenterKnowledge
A neighborhood of 12 net-zero energy homes (which consume as much energy as they generate) is being built in the north of Boulder, Colorado. They are designed to meet green building standards, specifically LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification, the most demanding ones around. The so-called SpringLeaf Boulder project wants to make green homes available to a larger amount of people. That’s why costs are trying to be lowered.
The houses were designed by architect George Watt, and are now being built by Silver Lining Builders.
Electricity will come from the photovoltaic panels that will be installed in each house, on the roof. The system will be linked to the grid, via a net-metering system. So, when the panels aren’t working, (at night or on cloudy days), homes can use energy coming from the grid. However, the homes are designed to generate enough electricity to be self-sustaining.
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Starbucks is one of the largest coffee companies around. It is a tremendously popular store, growing and expanding to more and more countries at an impressive rate.
It’s been a few years since they’ve been working on their environmental impact. Lately, they’ve been developing quite interesting initiatives, and have many plans.
Their work is organized in a number of areas.
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An engine in a hospital in Wisconsin, U.S., converts the methane gas discharged by a brewery into electricity. The gas, which used to be released to the atmosphere by City Brewing Company, is now renewed by one of the Gundersen Lutheran healthcare system hospitals.
The power obtained is not only used by the hospital, but also by other local consumers. To compensate the costs, the local utility pays the hospital for the energy it produces. Furthermore, the heat emitted by the engine when working is recycled to produce energy for the waste treatment process in the brewery.
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