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Del Birmingham

CLIMATE: 'Cool' clothing breakthrough could slash building emissions -- Friday, Septemb... - 0 views

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    Turn off your air conditioner and stay cool in your shirt instead. That's the idea behind a new plastic-wrap-like material that Stanford University scientists say could be made into "cool" clothing, the use of which could slash emissions and energy consumption in buildings. If woven into fabric, the wearable cloth could keep humans cool on the hottest of days, eliminating the need to adjust the thermostat or crank up a fan. That could make a dent on a major source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the researchers say.
Adriana Trujillo

REI hits the roof to put a ceiling on data center cooling | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

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    Outdoor retailer REI is saving 1.8 million KW-h per year after installing energy-efficient cooling systems at its Seattle datacenter. The project reduced energy consumption tied to cooling by 93% and had a payback period of less than 1 year.
Del Birmingham

DeepMind AI slashes cooling costs at Google's data centers - 0 views

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    Deep learning AI has been put to work in intelligent drones, sequencing genomes, learning the tactics of the ancient Chinese board game Go, and even keeping cats off the lawn. Now, Google has set its DeepMind system loose on its massive data centers, and drastically cut the cost of cooling these facilities in the process.
Adriana Trujillo

REI hits the roof to put a ceiling on data center cooling | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

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    The amount of energy the outdoor gear store saves through 'free cooling' is enough to power six stores for up to a year
Adriana Trujillo

AT&T, EDF Toolkit Promises 28bn Gallons in Commercial Building Water Savings ... - 0 views

  • cooling towers typically use 28 percent of their daily water for cooling
  • The Building Water Efficiency toolkit is the result of data and lessons from pilot projects that ran across the US during the summer and fall of 2012.
  • For its own operations, AT&T says it identified water savings opportunities of 14 percent to 40 percent per pilot facility and did so in a way that also made business sense.
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  • $100,000 to install but AT&T expects it to produce more than $60,000 in annual water and sewer savings, paying for itself in less than two years.
  • $4,000 equipment upgrade to expand free air cooling will result in about $40,000 in annual savings, the company says.
  • AT&T aims to reduce its approximately 1 billion gallon annual cooling tower water use by 150 million gallons per year by 2015.
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    US commercial buildings can collectively save up to 28 billion gallons of water annually by using a suit of tools produced by AT&T and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the organizations say.
Adriana Trujillo

REI Saves 93% on Data Center Energy with Evaporative Cooling · Environmental ... - 0 views

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    Outdoor retailer REI retrofitted its Seattle data center, resulting in a 93 percent reduction in the cooling energy used
Adriana Trujillo

GE's Advanced Cooling Technology Saves $52M for Natural Gas Platform · Enviro... - 1 views

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    Carigali-PTTEPI Operating Company Sdn. Bhd. is saving $52 million annually at its natural gas development platform in the Gulf of Thailand, while reducing water consumption and chemical use through General Electric's advanced cooling and chemical treatment technology.
Adriana Trujillo

Solar-powered Hotel at Oberlin is first in US to be heated and cooled with geothermal e... - 0 views

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    The Hotel at Oberlin in Ohio is one of five US hotels that have met the stringent sustainable criteria for LEED Platinum certification. The hotel relies on geothermal energy for heating and cooling and uses solar panels to produce electricity.
Adriana Trujillo

Report Release: An Integrative Business Model for Net Zero Energy Districts - 0 views

  • Net zero energy business models are financially attractive to investors because the large capital investments in solar PV, district heating and cooling, and energy efficiency are repaid over time on utility bills, generating a steady return that benefits from enhanced credit because of the utility-customer relationship.
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    Net zero energy (NZE) buildings-responsible for the production of as much (or more) clean energy as they use annually-have been gaining global momentum. In our newly released Insight Brief, RMI presents an innovative business model for developing net zero energy or ultra-low energy districts in a way that creates significant business value. Net zero energy business models are financially attractive to investors because the large capital investments in solar PV, district heating and cooling, and energy efficiency are repaid over time on utility bills, generating a steady return that benefits from enhanced credit because of the utility-customer relationship.
Adriana Trujillo

Google DeepMind - 0 views

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    Google has achieved a 40% reduction in the amount of energy its datacenters use for cooling through a machine learning technology developed by its subsidiary DeepMind.
Adriana Trujillo

PepsiCo, Unilever Launch Sustainable Agricultural Tool · Environmental Manage... - 0 views

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    PepsiCo, Unilever, Heineken and other members of the Cool Farm Institute have launched an online tool to help farmers assess and improve the environmental and economic performance of their businesses.
Adriana Trujillo

Data Center Uses Reclaimed Water · Environmental Management & Energy News · E... - 0 views

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    DuPont Fabros Technology's Ashburn Corporate Campus (ACC) now uses reclaimed water for the four data centers with evaporative cooling plants.
Adriana Trujillo

GM Chooses Flywheel UPS for Detroit Data Center | Energy Manager Today - 0 views

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    General Motors' enterprise data center in Detroit cut energy consumption 70% by installing a flywheel for battery-free backup power and implementing in-row cooling techniques. The facility also achieved LEED Gold certification.
Del Birmingham

Google alternative helps rainforest regeneration through ad clicks | Springwise - 0 views

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    Ok, THIS is cool! Ecosia works in much the same way as its major competitors (Google, Bing, etc.), but rather than keep any income from advertising and sponsored links, the site donates around 80 percent to charities involved in the replanting of trees in Brazilian rainforests, such as the Nature Conservancy.
Adriana Trujillo

KELLOGG'S GOES GREEN, STAYS COOL - 0 views

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    The Kellogg Company is saving $62,000 per year after implementing an energy-efficient commercial cooling system made by Coolerado. The system enabled the facility to reduce energy consumption by 88%.
Del Birmingham

Inside Interface's bold new mission to achieve 'Climate Take Back' | GreenBiz - 0 views

  • Interface reconstituted its Dream Team, “a collection of experts and friends who have joined with me to remake Interface into a leader of sustainability,” as Anderson wrote in the company’s 1997 sustainability report.The original team included Sierra Club executive director David Brower; Buckminster Fuller devotee Bill Browning, then with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); community and social activist Bernadette Cozart; author and entrepreneur Hawken; Amory Lovins, RMI co-founder and chief scientist; L. Hunter Lovins, RMI’s other co-founder; architect and designer William McDonough; John Picard, a pioneering consultant in green building and sustainability; Jonathan Porritt, co-founder of Forum for the Future; Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael; Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of The Natural Step, a sustainability framework; and Walter Stahel a resource efficiency expert. (Additional members would be added over the years, including Biomimicry author Janine Benyus.)
  • One example is Net-Works. Launched in 2012, it helps turn discarded fishing nets into the raw materials for nylon carpeting in some of the world’s most impoverished communities.
  • But Ray Anderson’s sustainability vision was always about more than just a “green manufacturing plant.” He wanted Interface to be a shining example, an ideal to which other companies could aspire, a test bed for new ideas that stood to upend how business is done — and, not incidentally, an opportunity to stand above the crowd in the world of commercial flooring.Climate Take Back is the noise the company wanted to make.
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  • The mission is that we will demonstrate that we can reverse the impact of climate change by bringing carbon home,” says COO Gould, who is expected to ascend to the company’s CEO role next year, with the current CEO, Hendrix, remaining chairman. “We want to be able to scale that to the point where it actually does reverse the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.”
  • There’s a small but growing movement to use carbon dioxide molecules to build things — plastics and other materials, for example — thereby bringing it “home” to earth as a beneficial ingredient, as opposed to a climate-warming gas in the atmosphere.Interface’s commitment to “bring carbon home and reverse climate change” is a prime example how the company intends to move from “doing less bad” to “doing more good” — in this case, by not merely reducing the company’s contribution to climate change, but actually working to solve the climate crisis.
  • tansfield believes Interface is in a similar position now. “We know now what the biggest issues of our generation — and frankly, our children's generation — are, and that's climate change, poverty and inequality on a planetary scale, on a species scale. We are bold and brave enough, as we did in '94, to stand up there and say, ‘If not us, who? And if not now, when?’”
  • The notion is something Benyus has been talking about, and working on, for a while: to build human development that functions like the ecosystem it replaces. That means providing such ecosystem services to its surroundings as water storage and purification, carbon sequestration, nitrogen cycling, temperature cooling and wildlife habitat. And do so at the same levels as were once provided before humans came along.
  • Specifically, Climate Take Back includes four key commitments:We will bring carbon home and reverse climate change.We will create supply chains that benefit all life.We will make factories that are like forests.We will transform dispersed materials into products and goodness.
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    "Climate Take Back," as the new mission has been named, is the successor to Mission Zero, the name given to a vision articulated in 1997 that, for most outside the company, seemed audacious at the time: "To be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and profits - by 2020 - and in doing so we will become restorative through the power of influence."
Brett Rohring

6 ways Apple's new mothership will be ultra green | GreenBiz.com - 1 views

  • 6 ways Apple's new mothership will be ultra green
  • 1. Fruit trees
  • The new plan will transform an existing site almost entirely covered with buildings and asphalt into a landscape featuring almost 7,000 trees – including the apple, apricot, cherry and plum fruit trees that made San Jose's orchards thrive long before silicon was invented.
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  • When Apple Campus 2 is finished, 80 percent of the site will be green space
  • 2. Renewables
  • the campus will run entirely on renewable energy. The plan calls for about 8 megawatts of solar panels to be installed on the roof of the main, spaceship-shaped building as well as the parking structures. An unspecified number of fuel cells also will be installed, with the rest of the electricity needed for operations sourced through grid-purchased renewable energy.
  • Primary opposition to the site has centered on its transportation plan. To combat those criticisms, Apple has expanded its Transportation Demand Management program, emphasizing the use of bicycles, shuttles and buses that will link employees with regional public transit networks.
  • 3. Net-zero building design
  • the structure itself is being designed to create as much energy as it uses. There is a strong emphasis on energy-efficiency: the passive heating and cooling systems will use 30 percent less than a comparable campus. A central site will contain fuel cells, back-up generators, chillers, condenser water storage, hot water storage, an electrical substation and water and fire pumps.
  • 4. Attention to water conservation
  • Attention has been paid to reducing the number of impermeable surfaces on the site. (Up to 9,240 of the parking spots, for example, will be underground so that Apple can invest in landscaping that absorbs water. A recycled water main is under consideration, and other steps have been taken to minimize water consumption by about 30 percent below a typical Silicon Valley development. Those measures include low-flow fixtures, the use of native plans and roof rainwater capture.
  • 5. An expanded waste management program
  • Apple already diverts about 78 percent of the waste associated with its existing headquarters from landfills. The proposal calls for the company to recycle or reuse any construction waste; from an operations perspective, it will step up recycling from solid waste sources as well as the use of composting.
  • 6. A sharpened focus on commuting alternatives
  • As part of its transportation program, the plan calls for buffered bike lanes on streets adjacent to the campus that are segregated from vehicular lanes and that also allow for bikes to pass each other. The focus will be on encouraging all employees that live within 15 minutes of the campus to use sustainable or public transportation alternatives. The site will start with 300 electric vehicle charging stations, with the built-in capacity to expand.
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    The iPhone maker's master plan features extensive green space, aggressive water conservation and one of the largest corporate solar arrays in the world.
Adriana Trujillo

The App That Will Make Sustainable Energy Cool - 0 views

  • The app is designed to inspire, empower and motivate a generation of global citizens to take positive action around the world
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    When you ask kids about their favorite things, sustainable energy probably doesn't top the list. But a new movement and mobile platform called mPowering Action might change that.
Adriana Trujillo

Whole Foods, Walgreens and other retailers see the light on retrofitting | GreenBiz.com - 1 views

  • lighting retrofits [PDF] can save upwards of 30 to 50 percent of lighting energy, as well as 10 to 20 percent of cooling energy. Intelligent controls with sensors at each fixture can lead to even greater saving
  • The store in Raleigh, N.C., achieved total energy savings [PDF] of 25 percent over a baseline store, and nearly 50 percent savings in lighting energ
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    By adding thoughtfully planned and well-timed daylighting fixtures, big-box stores see significant energy savings.
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