Green Technology Forum

The Box Office, a creative green office building on the west side of Providence, Rhode Island, will be constructed from 32 recycled steel shipping containers painted in bright hues. The developer is Brown and RISD grad Peter Gill Case, principal of Truth Box, a Providence-based design/development firm, which specializes in sustainable building practices.

The 3-story building will contain 12 units of office and studio spaces, of which thirty-seven percent are pre-leased. The building’s design, environmental philosophy and inexpensive small units are attracting innovative small businesses, artists, and young start-ups working in Providence’s growing creative economy. Completion of the project is anticipated March 2010.

source: PRnewswire

A ground-breaking 2-day community wind webconference will use the power of the web to bring live presentations by more than 30 of the world’s top Community Wind experts and the opportunity to meet hundreds of Community Wind professionals on May 26 and 27.

Wind Energy Professionals, Farmers, School Boards, Government Officials, Project Managers, Investors, Designers, Energy Companies, Engineers, Suppliers of Wind Technology and Hardware, Scientists and Consultants will all join this very focused event on Community Wind Energy.

In addition to the live webcast, all presentations will be recorded and available online almost immediately after the broadcast. Log in and listen at your leisure anytime or download presentations to your computer and if you wish save them to your MP3 player or burn them to CD. These replays will be available until October 31, 2009.

source: greenenergyconferences.com

The City of Los Angeles has more Energy Star buildings than any other U.S. metropolis with 262 buildings, according to a new ranking issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Los Angeles and 24 other cities were recognized by the EPA for using engineering and construction techniques that reduce energy consumption. Four California cities made the Top 25 Energy Star Buildings List. San Francisco ranked second with 194 buildings, while Sacramento and Riverside also made the list.

“Energy Star buildings typically use 35 percent less energy and emit 35 percent less greenhouse gases than average buildings,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

“EPA commends all of these cities and all of the others, as well as countless individuals, who are now using more energy efficient appliances and dwellings,” she said. “They are saving energy, saving money and protecting our environment.”

See the list of Top 25 Energy Star cities.

Wired magazine’s top clean technology of 2008 wasn’t nano, bio or info – it was cement:

Cement? With all the whiz bang technologies in green technology, cement seems like an odd pick for our top clean technology of the year. But here’s the reason: making cement — and many other materials — takes a lot of heat and that heat comes from fossil fuels.

Calera’s technology, like that of many green chemistry companies, works more like Jell-O setting. By employing catalysis instead of heat, it reduces the energy cost per ton of cement. And in this process, CO2 is an input, not an output. So, instead of producing a ton of carbon dioxide per ton of cement made — as is the case with old-school Portland cement — half a ton of carbon dioxide can be sequestered.

With more than 2.3 billion tons of cement produced each year, reversing the carbon-balance of the world’s cement would be a solution that’s the scale of the world’s climate change problem. In August, the company opened its first demonstration site next to Dynegy’s Moss Landing power plant in California.

For more background on Calera’s technology, check out the article at Scientific American.

Mayor Richard M. Daley, officials from ComEd, and Chicago business leaders recently launched two environmental projects, “Green Office Challenge” and “Earth Hour,” at a press conference held in the OFS Brands showroom located in the Merchandise Mart.
Mayor Daley repeated his call to federal and state governments to move quickly toward passing legislation that will boost the struggling economy, create jobs, and re-build the nation’s aging roads, bridges, schools, and water systems.

The Mayor points to two environmental projects, Chicago’s own “Green Office Challenge” and “Earth Hour,” in which the City partners with the World Wildlife Federation, as efforts individuals and businesses can undertake right now both to save money in difficult economic times and to help the City meet the goals
contained in its “Climate Action Plan.”

The “Green Office Challenge” initiative is aimed at encouraging the operators or tenants of high-rise office buildings to save energy, increase recycling and water efficiency and reduce paper.

OFS Brands showroom has achieved LEED Gold Certification for energy use, lighting, and water and material use, as well as incorporating a variety of other sustainable strategies. By improving their recycling program for office materials – including paper, electronics, light bulbs, batteries and construction materials, the Merchandise Mart is diverting 743 tons of material from landfills per year.

source: OFS Brands press release

Though a fraction of Chicago’s size, this industrial city in southeast Sweden has plenty of similarities with it, including a long, snowy winter and a football team the town’s crazy about.



One thing is dramatically different about Kalmar, however: It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living.



The city of 60,000—and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people—has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community “district heat,” produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region’s electricity. 

Kalmar’s publicly owned cars and buses—and a growing share of its private and business vehicles—run on biogas made from waste wood and chicken manure, or an 85 percent ethanol blend from Brazil.


Just as important, the switch from oil and gas is helping slash fuel bills and preserve jobs in a worldwide economic downturn. And despite dramatic drops in fossil fuel consumption, residents say nobody has been forced to give up the car or huddle around the dining table wearing three sweaters to stay warm.



“We are not eco-freaks,” said Carolina Gunnarsson, a sustainability officer with the Kalmar County regional council, as her teenage daughter, wearing a tank top, lounged on their living room sofa on a snowy February afternoon. “We’re just making it easy to change, giving people the tools.”

Source: Chicago Tribune

In Portland, new buildings that are not LEED Silver-certified or better may face a punitive tax, if a recent proposal goes through.

New commercial buildings 20,000 square feet or larger would fall under a so-called “feebate” program, in which developers that merely comply with Oregon’s state building code would be charged as much as $3.46 a square foot. For buildings that achieve LEED Silver certification or better, the fee would be waived, and some developments would even qualify for a rebate of $1.73-17.30 per square foot depending on the certification level.

Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability also may require buildings to achieve specific LEED credits, such as for energy efficiency and reducing water use.

source: Environmental Leader

Innovative Glass Corp announced the completion of the largest SPD-SmartGlass window installation in the world, at the Indiana University Health Information and Translational Sciences Building using the latest generation SPD light-control film technology developed by Research Frontiers and produced by Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd.

The completion of this SPD-SmartGlass installation is a milestone for this industry and sets a new standard of being able to produce large architectural-sized electrified glass panels containing SPD-Smart film. This film has the ability to have its tint level and light transmission characteristics infinitely adjusted from less than 1% to over 50% in a matter of seconds using a simple wall switch or remote control. In addition to manual control, it can also automatically adjust its darkness according to environmental conditions, thus maximizing the efficient use of daylight to conserve energy. Glass produced with SPD-SmartGlass film also blocks 99% of harmful UV rays entering the building.

Richard Thompson, Senior Associate University Architect for Research at Indiana University, promoted cutting-edge, “green” solutions for their IU research Center at the Health Information and Translational Sciences Building in Indianapolis for the IU School of Medicine. According to Thompson, “We wanted a high-tech glass that would eliminate mechanical shading systems in several areas throughout the building due to the unique characteristics of the architectural layout. Our goal was to incorporate the latest and most innovative technologies in the Center reflecting the innovative ongoing research in the facility, and to use energy saving systems where budget would allow.”

source: Innovative Glass Corporation

To kick off our new series of concise interviews with leaders in new technologies for green building, GTF director Dr. George Elvin spoke to Christian Tasser, CEO of Tassertechnologies, producers of WEKA sheepswool insulation panels.

WEKA insulation panels are made out of sheep’s wool and have been proven to increase indoor air quality and to greatly reduce heating and cooling biils. Sheep’s wool is a sustainable green building material, which can be used in new and existing homes or public buildings, where comfort and sustainability are of upmost importance.

The WEKA panel is a completely natural product, which is based on sheep’s wool and natural stabilizers to provide a rigid fire resistant thermal insulation panel. These panels are ready to be mounted on top of existing walls, which allows the panel to be the visual finish.

GTF: Can you overcome the belief among people familiar with wool insulation that it has an R value of about half what yours is certified at?

CT: An independent institute (FIW in Germany) has certified the thermal conductivity value of 0.05 W/mK. Also, based on our in-house testing using a comparative test set-up with 2 insulated boxes using WEKA and similarly rated insulation WEKA performed superior.

GTF: Is the embodied energy low?

CT: The embodied energy for the production is minimal, no chemical or thermal process is needed. The only carbon foot print is the transportation of raw materials; the wool and lime are produced locally in the USA. The final process step includes drying of the panels, which is currently also accomplished by drying in the open air.

GTF: Are the sheep the wool comes from treated with pesticide?

CT: The sheep wool is from herds raised primarily for meat and we can use wool with shorter fibers, which would not be suitable for the textile sector.

Environmentally friendly construction “can be done in a way that’s good for the economy, not bad,” said Bill Clinton, who spoke last week at a roundtable discussion sponsored by Shangri-La Industries, a green development and construction company founded by Hollywood mogul Steve Bing. Bing was a major contributor to Clinton’s charitable foundation, which launched a climate-change project in 2006, as Forbes.com explains.

As evidence, Clinton touted the efficiencies of the airport hangar in which Shangri-La held the event: It has been designated an “LEED Platinum” facility by the U.S. Green Building Council, the council’s highest rating for energy efficiency. The hangar, now leased by a Burbank company called Avjet, produces all its own power–mainly through solar panels–but nonetheless cost about the same to build as comparable, non-green facilities, Shangri-La officials said.

Builders shaved expenses by not covering all the walls with steel, using skylights to bring in natural light during the day and installing polished cement floors that cost less than traditional flooring, among other measures. Private jets parked in the hangar also can use the building’s sun power to run their daily checks, instead of having to turn the planes on and draw power from the engines.

Clinton, in his comments, even noted the high-tech hand dryers in the building’s bathrooms.

Mr. Clinton stressed the international importance of green building in his talk. He said developing countries–and big polluters–like China and India won’t pursue sustainable construction on a large scale if the U.S. doesn’t lead the way, and do it at a price businesses can stomach.

Separately, he praised the just-passed federal stimulus bill for targeting creation of “green” jobs and said the U.S. Treasury should offer loan guarantees for banks to finance green retrofits of buildings, particularly public housing.

source: Forbes.com