Posts filed under ‘Technology’
Social Distancing Help?
One of the biggest problems in California where I live is traffic and one solution is an increase in the use of mass transit, in our case, buses. However with the recent emergency that is problematic. Enter Arrival a bus designed around this issue. https://inhabitat.com/arrivals-zero-emissions-buses-are-designed-for-social-distancing
Self Cleaning Buildings?
I found a real interesting article today about a newly completed building in Manhattan that eats pollution! Well it’s not quite that simple, but with a special new coating it provides relief from pollution that is equivalent to 500 trees. I will be curious to see how long this coating lasts, especially the self-cleaning side effect. I would expect that it would have to be renewed like any paint or coating but the article doesn’t mention this.
In one of the articles I read a price of 60 cent a square foot applied in mentioned, your mileage may vary, but that seems reasonable to make a self cleaning building. Definitely a technology to watch!
Quartzy Article: https://quartzy.qz.com/1269569/this-nyc-luxury-building-has-the-air-purifying-power-of-500-trees/
Inc.com Article: https://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/big-ideas/pureti-cleaning-surfaces.html
Pureti Company Website: http://pureti.com/
Energy Efficient Windows – Retrofit Opportunity?
I am an energy efficiency consultant out here in California and there has been a great deal of emphasis on replacing older single pane windows with dual pane, usually vinyl models. I many cases where a building is being remodeled the building owner has no choice but to install them in order to comply with the 2013 energy related code sections. This is especially problematic if the building has some historic value to the city. Now the Federal government in the form of Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) is sponsoring research into methods to retrofit these older windows through its SHIELD program.
The full story is here on Green Building Elements (http://greenbuildingelements.com/2015/10/09/doe-announces-shield-program-for-energy-efficient-windows/). The DOE website with detail on the program can be found here: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Default.aspx#FoaId038dc107-a7de-407a-8253-86e3bc99ae00
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Storing water in your fence?
I just read about an interesting new product just about to be released this month (Feb. 2015). It is a rainwater storage system that takes the place of your fence. Assembled like a typical fence with concrete footing and steel posts you would then use these high density plastic inserts that store the rain water. 
Interested? Learn more at the site: http://www.waterfence.com/
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Go to source web page>>
Solar Power A Requirement For New Construction
It is looking like the wave of the future is increasing requirements to include renewable energy for newly constructed homes and commercial buildings.
The most interesting new story is somewhat local to me here in Southern California where the City of Lancaster now requires 1 kilowatt of solar power for all newly constructed single family homes. The ordinance that passed last March went into effect in Jan. 1, 2014. Here is the link to an article that covers it more in depth. (http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/04/lancaster-home-solar-mandate-1st-us-world-leads-city-2014/).
This is a significant escalation on the Californian mandate of net zero homes by 2020. The City of Los Angeles has been requiring that the conduit and wiring be put in place in all new home construction to make adding solar panels easier in the future for the homeowner.
I certainly hope that more cities follow Lancaster’s lead and make similar requirements as it can only help the environment and speed the transition to the renewable energy economy.
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Can Concrete do Everything?
It seems that concrete remains a wonder material that has no end to its uses. Who would have imagined that the material we walk on could be transformed into a substance that may one day be part of our portable electronics.
It seems that folks at the Argonne National Laboratory have come up with a method to give concrete a metal configuration that makes it conductive for electricity. The full article is here: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-cement-metal.html
The link to the Argonne National Lab is here: http://www.aps.anl.gov/
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Walkable Neighborhoods Prefered?
It seems that we have finally gotten to the place where downtown is preferred to suburbia and I for one think it is about time. The only thing keeping me from doing more walking and biking is this weekend’s heatwave in Southern California. I live in a portion of suburbia where I am actually close enough to walk to the market or drop my car off at a local shop and walk home and I consider myself very fortunate.
In a great report on BuildingGreen.com (http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2012/9/11/Walkable-Neighborhoods-Replace-Suburbs-as-Preferred-Real-Estate/) you can read the report.
There is a disappointing report on a main feature of our current downtown’s not keeping up with their neighbors on the green front. New hotels are actually worse power guzzlers than some built 50 years ago. In the story on Ecogeek.org via Metropolitan Magazine (http://www.ecogeek.org/architecture/3807-hotels-not-getting-greener-even-the-green-ones?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoGeek+%28EcoGeek%29) it seems it is time top rethink the whole process.
But there is always hope and the next story for tonight re-purposes something we see a lot of in Southern California since we host one of the world’s largest port, shipping containers! From the pages of Inhabitat .com (http://inhabitat.com/koma-modulars-live-work-store-in-luneburg-germany-is-made-from-recycled-shipping-containers/) we have a cool looking and very functional live/work space.
Lastly we have a couple of articles concerning one of the most enjoyable parts of a walkable community, creative landscape. We have a great article on the other not so obvious benefits of community gardens from Sustainablog.org (http://sustainablog.org/2012/09/community-gardens-provide-more-than-food-in-dc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-sustainablog+%28Sustainablog%29). Also a fun thought about fitting our mass transit buses with green roofs from Ecogeek.org (http://www.ecogeek.org/ecogeeks/3809-green-roofs-for-buses?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoGeek+%28EcoGeek%29)
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Hard to be Green….
I know that we are all trying our best to be green, but it seems sometimes that life throws us under the bus despite our best efforts.
Our first story tonight is about the confusion that all of the ecolabels are causing in the marketplace. From the article on IMD.org (http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/sustainability-ecolabels-effectiveness-ralf-seifert-joana-comas.cfm)
” In a nutshell, ecolabels have been useful in increasing sustainability awareness and performance, but there are also credibility concerns given the proliferation and fragmentation of such labels. And indeed, by now the Ecolabel Index lists 431 ecolabels in 246 countries and across 25 industries. [1]”
This proliferation leads to little or no consistency and the consumers at large will simply throw up their hands in confusion.
Next we have bad news for homeowners because the Federal Home Finance Authority (FHFA) has proposed making the rules permanent that will most probably kill the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program. This is a wonderful tool used by local governments to provide a method of financing for energy upgrades for homeowners that are in turn paid back through and assessment on their yearly property taxes.
This rule would prohibit Fannie-Mae or Freddie-Mac from financing a home with a PACE loan. Many cities have had PACE programs in place for some time and this rule will adversely affect many consumers throughout the country.
The full story is here at: Green Building Law (http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com/2012/07/articles/pace-1/even-after-installing-extra-insulation-the-fhfa-proposed-rule-on-pace-leaves-homeowners-out-in-the-cold/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenBuildingLawBlog+%28Green+Building+Law+Blog%29)
Lastly we have a study out of New York warning us that the Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFL) in your desk lamp may be harmful to your health. The good news is that you have to be really close (less than 8 inches or 20cm) for a long time. A very good reason to upgrade the bulb in your task lighting on your desk to that LED bulb you have been thinking about.
The full story is here at: BuildingGreen.com (http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2012/8/7/Damaged-CFLs-Could-Make-Your-Desk-a-Tanning-Bed/)
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Improvements in Earthquake Resistant Building Design
Living in Southern California I am always interested in improvements to building design that affect how well they ride out an earthquake. I found this article from the Christian Science Monitor intriguing to say the least.
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Interesting Disaster Shelter
I ran across and very interesting concept in rapidly deployable shelters. They are called concrete canvas shelters and you can find all about them here: http://www.concretecanvas.co.uk/
Here is a youtube video on the product:
Pretty amazing stuff!
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com
Askthefm's Weblog 