SunChips Compostable Bag

I'm sure most of you have seen this sunchips commercial... they also have a clever billboard.
http://www.sunchips.com/advertising_television.shtml
The bag is made out of a plant-based polymer called PLA (poly lactic acid) made from corn and other starchy vegetables. Supposedly, in an "active compost system" the bag will completely decompose in about 14 weeks. I was thinking of compost yesterday during our solar decathlon meeting with living systems engineers. Among other things, we talked about bioremediation ponds with plants for treating greywater, green walls, edible gardens, and, of course, compost. Our concept submission for SD2011 is due in 2 weeks, and I think part of this concept will embody the idea of a home that functions like an ecosystem... generating its own energy/food, and recyling/reusing its waste. (we realize this is not fully possible but is an admirable goal, I think) Just thought you might like to know! Anyway, hopefully other companies will follow sunchips and begin implementing similiar environmentally-friendly initiatives.

I came across an article in Reader's Digest called "Climate Engineering." Reader's Digest is not the most scientific credible source, but the article does raise some interesting questions. I wonder how far governments will go to stop globing warming without correcting the real problem. I feel the solution is eliminating carbon emissions, not manipulating the weather. What drastic negative impacts could this have on a global scale when you try to control mother nature? Some of the global cooling options listed in the article include aerosols (blasting chemicals into the stratoshere to reflect the sun's rays), spaced mirrors (orbiting lenses diffuse sun's rays), artificial trees (absorb CO2 from the air and store it underground), and cloud brightening (spraying seawater to create clouds to reflect sun's rays. In the time line in the article, it says that Chinese meteorologists desperate to end a drought in Feb 2009, loaded rockets with chemicals and fired them in the sky, which caused snow to fall in Beijing. In Oct 2009 China also claims to have prevented rain during its 60th anniversary parade by sprinkling liquid nitrogen into the clouds. So what do you think?

Link to article (you may have to copy/paste into browser):

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/quick-study-climate-engineering/article175278.html

Adrienne

Trading Trees II

This one explains it better.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/2010/01/trading-trees.html

Trading trees

I heard this story on NPR. It talks about companies buying trees and getting credits for the carbon dioxide that is stored in them. (I was completely unaware of this new trend!)

It turns out that every time you cut a tree or a tree is burned, it releases back to the air all the carbon dioxide it absorbed during its lifetime.

Brazilians figure out a way to measure how much carbon is stored in a tree, and they are selling them to companies allowing them to collect credits that "helps" them reduce their carbon footprint. The video goes into much more detail, it is quite interesting.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/moneytree/

Enjoy!

PS: There's a follow up of this story tomorrow that is going to talk about the impact of this new trend has on brazilian communities.

"Clean Coal" not so clean after all

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0224/Report-Contamination-from-coal-ash-waste-is-worse-than-EPA-says

Next time I see a "Clean Coal" commercial I will think of this article

-Nick

Behind the Scenes of Shipping Containers

After reviewing all the images of Shipping container architecture, I became interested in how these structures were actually created and what needed to be done in order to design with them. I found this article to be helpful.

Climate change trends: carbon emissions giants

This is more a statistic than an article, but it has important information on countries with top coal reserves, atmospheric CO2 concentration, population growth etc.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121240453

An "Ugly" building is not a sustainable building....

For those that attended James Wines' lecture last night it certainly was an entertaining experience. James talked about how the aesthetics of a building are just as important to sustainability as the technology incorporated within. He mentioned how people will tear down the building as soon as they can if it is not aesthetically pleasing which is one of the least sustainable thing that could happen to your building. I thought that statement was quite interesting.

-Nick

Highly Absorbing, Flexible Solar Cells With Silicon Wire Arrays Created

This new solar cell is created by a team of scientists at California Institute of Technology. This new solar cell that is created only uses 2% of silicon (1/50 of silicon compared to the conventional solar cell) and the rest is polymer. The flexible material allows for manufacturing it in rolls, which will lowering the cost. You can read more on it in the link below.

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216140259.htm

Everyday Grass Could Provide Green Fuel

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216221301.htm

This article is from Science Daily.

Amanda

The technical side of green building....

One of the magazines I have been following for the past month has been the Journal of Light Construction, on loan from Professor Bennett. There is an interesting article titled, "Blower Door Testing"! Very Exciting. I actually found out though that air leakage accounts for 30 to 50 percent of the heat loss in some homes. So to analyze this there is a contraption that gets mounted in a doorway and exagerrates air leaks allowing a skilled technician to find the leaks. I learned about some ways of measuring this air leakage through CFM and ACH. ACH is air flow changes per hour, with homes maintaining 5-6 ACH per hour at 50 Pa (pascals) pressure considered "tight" and those over 20 ACH per hour being "loose." Very riveting. CFM or cubic feet per minute is sometimes a better measure to use because ACH might make a small space seem "leaky" and a large space "tight" just by the nature of the spatce volume. CFM is also easily obtained through single point tests. (Where they measure the air in one location) The article goes on describing the specific steps in the measurement process, which involves turning off certain building systems, etc. I think this magazine provides a good technical contrast to articles that describe things in a more general manner. I recommend taking a look at this magazine! Come find me to see it.
-Nick

Shipping Container Homes: The Daily Green

Last class we briefly discussed building with shipping containers. Here's a great slide show of container homes & offices that shows some innovative uses and configurations.

Recycled Building Materials

Hi all,

Here is the link from an article on Inhabitat that leads to Inhabitots- the child centered branch of Inhabitat.

http://www.inhabitots.com/2010/02/22/the-santa-cruz-familys-plastic-bottle-palace/

While this is designed to be a somewhat fun take on reusing recycled products to construct an entire house, it is a pretty interesting concept of using items that you would find in a recycling bin to design and construct an entire dwelling. This also brings up an idea of the potential for utilizing these bottle house (or even aluminum can houses) as a temporary fix to housing/ dwelling issues throughout the world that would be able to be stored as a kit of party in a variety of different conditions without really worrying about the way that water and mold are impacting the structure.

"Out of the Ruins, a More Sustainable Haiti"

Hello All!
I am excited for our class blog! I have been following globalgreen.org as one of my publications. Global Green is an environmental non-profit that has helped with rebuilding in New Orleans after Katrina. I found an interesting article on their website regarding the re-building of Haiti. (The article was originally at TreeHugger) The disaster offers a unique opportunity to rebuild in a sustainable manner. The article describes many of the challenges prior to any new construction starting in the country. Standards in building practice and code need to be put in place before building can start. There are also dangers of exploitation by hiring inefficient financially-motivated government contractors. Also, many of the temporary structures set up will also ultimately be used by the Haitians as permanent settlements. Clearly there are many challenges ahead for the country. Many do not even know if many of the people that left the capital for the countryside will come back. The president of Global Green wonders whether it would be better for the country to move towards a more agrarian economy. There are so many questions and challenges listed in the article, one architecture question I had is listed below.

I wonder if there is a way to design a temporary structure that has the potential to be converted to stable long-term housing?

Just a thought.
-Nick

Researchers Unveil Green Rating Systems for Roads

Hi Everyone,

So this is the article I shared in class the other day about green roads rating. The link to the article is http://greensource.construction.com/news/2010/100211Green_Rating_System.asp#

and the link to the actual document in found at http://www.greenroads.us/14/manual.html. The manual is also available for download. There are also other resources on the site, including videos and presentations.

Amanda

Hello All

Arch418M students, this is our brand new class blog. Hopefully it can serve as a new class bulletin board so we will not have to print out as much. This way, we can look at all the posts in one place (and even open the page in class on the projector). Expect e-mails inviting you all to be authors. Make sure you sign up for the blog's RSS feed so you can see when someone makes a new post.

Cheers,
Dave O.