2011 September » Alberta Construction Association

California Company Produces Green Cement

Green Building, Technology Comments Off

Sep 252011

Cement is a vital building material, but one that emits copious amounts of CO2 during its production. Caldera, a company based in California, claims it has created a process that produces cement while reducing CO2 in the air.

The company takes smoke stack emissions from nearby power plants and runs the CO2 through brackish water. The minerals in the water bond with the CO2 to precipitate out limestone, in a similar way to how limestone is created naturally. The end product is cement, hard aggregate, and water that is already one step towards being purified for drinking.

Caldera is now expanding production and preparing to test its cement with industry partners. If the process works, and is economic, then concrete may be the next big green building material.

Smart Glass Saves Energy, Reduces Glare

Technology Comments Off

Sep 232011

Glass is an inefficient building material; it cannot be as well insulated as other materials, and needs more maintenance. However, glass allows building occupants to feel connected to the outside and provides daylight.

Instead of using blinds to control glare and air conditioning or heating to make up for glass’ weak thermal properties, smart glass provides a solution by automatically adjusting its tint to dynamically control the amount of sunlight admitted into the room.

There are three benefits of smart (or electrochromic) glass:

Energy savings, in terms of reducing HVAC and lighting load.
It allows the architect to design buildings more sustainably.
Environmental savings, because you reduce the tonnage of the air conditioning equipment. Those materials don’t need to be there, on-site.

Japanese Manufacturing Group Plants Green Curtains on Walls to Reduce Energy Needs

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Sep 222011

The Kyocera Group, a Japanese manufacturing company, is planting green curtains of climbing plants on the outer walls of 19 of its manufacturing plants and office buildings to achieve its 15 percent energy reduction target. The shade of the green walls reduce temperatures by up to 15 degrees Celsius compared to bare walls, enabling the group to considerably reduce air conditioning expenditures and energy use.

The Kyocera Group has planted green walls that cover 2,479 square meters, which in addition to reducing energy costs, also absorb carbon dioxide and provide vegetables that are served in employee cafeterias.

BuildingRating.org Catalogs Global Energy Performance Policies

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Sep 182011

BuildingRating.org is a global library of building energy performance rating and disclosure policies. Maintained by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), the website allows users to compare energy performance policies among 100 countries and jurisdictions.

Swedish Researchers Investigate Intelligent Ventilation Systems

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Sep 162011

Researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology are currently developing a conference room fitted with an information system that can adjust its heating and cooling systems in relation to the number of persons inside it. It can be switched off when no one is using the conference room.

This will serve as a prototype for expanding the system to entire buildings, helping to manage energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. Better Buildings Challenge Announces Initial Partners

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Sep 122011

President Obama launched the Better Buildings Challenge in February of 2011 to catalyze private sector investment in commercial building upgrades and make America’s commercial buildings 20 percent more efficient over the next decade.

On June 30th, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the 14 initial partners have committed over $575 million to finance energy efficiency improvements on more than 307 million square feet of both government and private structures.

The initial partners are Citigroup, the cities of Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Seattle, and 10 other U.S. companies.

Passive House – A European Green Building Standard Gaining Ground in the United States

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Sep 102011

Passive House, or Passivhaus in German, is a highly energy efficient building standard that was created in Germany, and is promoted by the Passivhaus-Institut. There are currently over 25,000 buildings built under the Passivhaus standard in Europe.

Despite the name, any kind of building may be built to Passive House standards. Passive House has only three criteria:

An annual heating/cooling allowance of 4,733 Btu per square foot;
An annual cap on primary energy of 11.1 kilowatt hours per square foot for all energy needs including heating and cooling, along with water heating, appliances, and other devices;
The building must be essentially airtight with 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure.

While there are only about a dozen certified buildings in the U.S, the standard is gaining ground and more are under construction. Passive House advocates claim that the standard is the most organized, effective, and affordable approach to making deep reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector.

Alcoa’s New Building Panels Reduce Smog and Self-Clean

Green Building, Technology Comments Off

Sep 062011

Aluminum giant Alcoa has developed a new environmentally friendly building panel called Reynobond with EcoClean.

Reynobond are pre-painted aluminum panels that are coated with EcoClean, a titatium oxide coating that, in combination with sunlight, acts as a catalyst to break down smog and other air pollutants. The panels are also superhydrophilic, so that rain water does not bead on the surface, and instead flows down the building, taking the broken down pollutants with it. Only a small amount of rainfall or humidity is required for this to happen, which means that the building is essentially always being washed. This reduces maintenance costs for the owner.

Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab Receives Highest Living Building Challenge Status

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Sep 042011

The Energy Laboratory, a 5,902 building on the Kamuela, Hawaii campus of the K-12 Hawaii Preparatory Academy became the third building in the world to receive the Living status under the Living Building Challenge. This means that the building is net-zero energy, net-zero water, and does not include any hazardous materials on the Challenge’s Red List.

The Laboratory opened in January 2010, but the Living Building Challenge requires a year of operation before certification. Since opening, the building has generated twice its electricity needs, and operated on entirely passive ventilation.

GE and EnOcean Partner on Wireless Building Automation

Technology Comments Off

Sep 022011

Technology conglomerate General Electric and German firm EnOcean have formed a partnership to automate buildings wirelessly using GE’s HabiTEQ building automation technology, combined with EnOcean’s zero-maintenance wireless sensors.

HabiTEQ runs the functional systems in a building, and can be programmed with a personal computer or can operate automatically in response to environmental stimulus; e.g. changing the heating in a room in response to changes in external temperature, time of day or human presence. EnOcean makes self-powered, zero-maintenance, ultra-thin sensors that harvest energy from ambient heat and light or a switch being pressed.

Combined, these technologies will make it practical to run a building automation system in buildings where it would not be otherwise practical, such as all-glass or historical buildings.

Alberta Construction Association

California Company Produces Green Cement

Smart Glass Saves Energy, Reduces Glare

Japanese Manufacturing Group Plants Green Curtains on Walls to Reduce Energy Needs

BuildingRating.org Catalogs Global Energy Performance Policies

Swedish Researchers Investigate Intelligent Ventilation Systems

U.S. Better Buildings Challenge Announces Initial Partners

Passive House – A European Green Building Standard Gaining Ground in the United States

Alcoa’s New Building Panels Reduce Smog and Self-Clean

Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab Receives Highest Living Building Challenge Status

GE and EnOcean Partner on Wireless Building Automation

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