Tag Archives: technology

Are Smart Buildings Really Smart? by Anthony Ricigliano

Posted on by
Reply

News and Articles by Anthony Ricigliano: It’s actually surprising that the United States has the third largest ecological footprint per capita, behind the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. While we try to do the right thing we still face huge challenges in overcoming our environmental deficit. Sustainability comes in many forms with one of them being “smart buildings.”

What we need to do to truly make positive changes in terms of how we treat our environment is to consider the big picture of our actions to see whether we’re actually headed in the right direction. Let’s take a look at smart buildings and their role in reducing their inhabitants’ carbon footprint. Unfortunately, smart buildings may sound great in theory but could be falling short in a number of areas. In terms of sustainability and shrinking carbon footprints smart buildings fail the test under the following circumstances, according to TED.com, a non-profit organization devoted to "Ideas worth spreading”:

  • Employees are required to commute over long distances.
  • The energy they consume is carbon-intensive.
  • Their technology is too complicated to use or too difficult to maintain.
  • Their impact stops at the property line.
  • They deny the use of pre-existing infrastructure or building fabric.
  • They are conceived in isolation from larger, systemic environmental change.

By looking at the big picture, a smart building could actually do more harm than good simply by moving further away from the people that work there. Even a building that is self sufficient to the point of being off the grid will have a higher carbon footprint than a dilapidated old building if it encourages or requires dependence on an automobile to get there. To wit, shortening the daily commute of a typical person by six miles can save as much carbon as a 50 percent reduction in energy use for home heating.

"Green" buildings and green initiatives in a vacuum are not enough to make a material difference. What is required is a big picture approach to avoid the common practice of doing some good and then undoing it with an action that cancels out the position actions which preceded it.

In short, we must make the most of what we already have and be aware that all of our actions can have an impact. We have to get over the feel-good perception that going "green" and leaving it at that is the answer to all of our problems. By analogy, (also from TED.com) “the electric hybrid Toyota Prius is an energy-efficient car. However, when accounting for the energy used to manufacture a new Prius, one would actually save more energy by continuing to drive a mid-'90s Geo Metro.” This probably isn’t what Prius owners want hear but you get the picture.

Going green must become a behavior or a lifestyle as opposed to a series of isolated actions. It’s not going to easy and, by the way, this isn’t meant to diminish isolated actions. It’s often these very actions that act as the seed of change in our overall behavior.

By Anthony Ricigliano

Going Mainstream with Solar

Posted on by
2

Cost and efficiency issues continue to make solar power a tough investment to sell against power generated by fossil fuels. At the present price levels for oil it could still take another ten years of research and development to get solar prices down to the point where they can compete with petroleum, according to some experts. Despite the long path ahead for solar, there is conviction that solar power can become a mainstream source of power.

The biggest challenge is reducing the cost of photo voltaic (PV) panels to the point where interest shifts away from coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other non-renewable sources of electricity. In other words, it has to make economic sense combined with providing other benefits for buyers to choose solar over the other options. Buying is now done with acknowledgement that the cost will be higher but that there are other benefits such as personal energy independence and environmental issues. The tiny size of that market sector will keep a lid on solar sales, even with government incentives such as rebates and tax credits. The math of equation works this way; PV generated energy costs about 35 to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour. The complex of fossil fuel options provides electricity at approximately 5-6 cents per kilowatt-hour, making solar energy six to eight times as expensive. Other challenges include developing cost-effective and longer lasting solar cells as well as reducing the amounts of toxic materials used in the production of the cells.

Experts in the field insist that solar energy doesn’t need to be equal to or less than the cost of electricity produced by traditional methods. Solar’s benefits as a renewable source of clean energy would make it a viable choice for many consumers if costs of photovoltaic energy can be reduced by technological and design advances to about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. With growing acceptance by consumers, higher production levels for PV panels and other equipment would reduce kW per hour costs even further due to economies of scale.

Beyond electricity produced by photo voltaics is the use of solar panels to power the development of clean burning chemical fuels, splitting hydrogen away from water to be used as fuel, and the development of fuel cells. The promise of solar power may not be a cost effective reality at this point but sunlight as fuel has two powerful characteristics; sunlight is free and more of it hits the surface of the Earth in an hour than could be consumed for the needs of the entire planet in a year.

By Anthony Ricigliano

Going Big in Wind

Posted on by
Reply

Dogger Bank, UK — 9 GW

Offshore wind power projects have the advantages of vast areas in which to set up shop and the capability to benefit from steadier and faster winds. The largest of these proposed projects is the Dogger Bank development, which is part three of the UK’s offshore wind licensing program. Dogger Bank will have a massive target installation capacity of 9 gigawatts with potential to expand to 13 gigawatts
The project will be directed by Forewind, a consortium of major energy companies including Scottish and Southern Energy, subsidiaries of RWE, Statoil and Statkraft. The consortium won the license to develop the Dogger Bank zone in January. The area of the site is 3343 square miles with turbines ranging 77 to 150 miles from shore. The depths of Dogger Bank range between 59 and 206 feet. The unrivaled size, the distance from shore, and the area’s depth present several logistical challenges. They include the actual construction of the project and the subsequent connection to the grid.

Due to the challenges involved in the undertaking, the project will take years to get started and then several more years to complete. To those points, Forewind has yet to target a date to go online and doesn’t plan to make its first investment decisions on the project until 2014.

Rated for nine gigawatts, Dogger Bank is massive project, especially when compared to current and proposed wind farms. The largest wind farm of any kind is the 782-megawatt onshore wind farm in Roscoe, Texas, which completed its fourth phase under the direction E.ON Climate and Renewables in October 2009.

The recently approved Cape Wind project will be the first offshore wind project in the U.S. Cape Wind will be rated to produce up to 468 megawatts of wind power with each turbine producing up to 3.6 megawatts. It is anticipated that Cape Wind will produce enough power to cover about three quarters of the electricity demand for Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The scale of the Dogger Bank project will require cutting edge engineering combined with construction equipment built to take on greater challenges than the current offshore wind projects present. For example, the Resolution, a charter specifically built to anchor offshore wind turbines, is able to anchor the turbines at depths down to 59 feet. Coincidentally, that is the shallowest depth at Dogger Bank, meaning that anchoring capabilities will have to be extended by another 150 feet to anchor turbines in the area. Allowing time for this kind of upgrade may be one of the reasons that Forewind is willing to wait another four years to start their budgeting process.

Author Anthony Ricigliano