Group items tagged

"Many people think the idea of putting composting toilets in homes is crazy. One commenter noted earlier when I suggested it: "No one will want this inside their house. I know this, because I still have a few teeth in my head and a few friends in town." But more and more, people are going off-pipe; my friend Laurence Grant has done it for almost 20 years and wrote about it here; now energy consultant Allison Bailes describes how he did it in Green Building Advisor and how his bathroom actually smells better than yours."

The project uses the frame of a 1950s building as a shell in which to build its experimental space. Over the past five years, this formerly vacant building has been repurposed and extended with minimal costs for materials. Professor Bernd Kniess, dean of Hafencity University's urban design department, is primarily concerned with questions of sustainability, renewal and repurposing in urban space. How to transform the existing? How can the new emerge from the old? Both the building itself and the city around it are employed as resources. Every piece of the building that is removed in the remodeling is then redeployed with a new function elsewhere. Discarded materials from surrounding construction sites are harvested and upcycled at the UdN. This patchwork process requires those engaged in the reconstruction to deal with building's structure as it was found, to develop new courses of action and productively channel uncertainty and risk. In this situation, sustainability does not rest solely on the objects used. Most importantly, it is fostered by relationships-by the neighborhood.

¿Por qué no aprovechar la Inspección Técnica de un Edificio (ITE) para realizar también la Certificación Energética? Es más, ¿por qué no aprovechar la subsanación de deficiencias detectadas en una ITE para mejorar la eficiencia energética de un edificio?

Destinos: Western China, Tengchong, a subtropical area in western Yunnan known for its hot springs; Dali, 123 kilometers (76 miles) south of Lijiang, famed for its lake; and a former tea-trading town on the Tibetan plateau, rechristened Shangri-La by tourism officials. Also popular: Lugu Lake, with its original inhabitants, the Mosuo minority, whose inheritance passes through the female head of the household. To capitalize on the trend, his company, Lijiang Derun Real Estate Development, is investing $161 million to build 400 high-end villas and a five-star hotel in Lijiang.

New York is a dense city of buildings: There are almost a million of them in an area of little more than 300 square miles. So it makes sense that if New York City wants to tackle its environmental issues, it will have to concentrate on the buildings. In New York City, buildings are an important part of our environment, and their design and operation affect our environment too.

The seaweed does not swell as such when it rains; it will be wet though. In the beginning all the way through, but later on we expect the seaweed to form a layer that stops the water, as it does in the old seaweed roofs that you find on the island of Laesoe. ...seaweed has exceptional acoustic properties. This creates surprisingly comfortable rooms while the ability to absorb and give off moisture contributes to regulate a good indoor climate.

A Belkin gadget in the works will make it possible to see how much electricity we're spending on the things we use at home. Getting a better look at how we're using electricity could make it easier to conserve or to figure out when it's time to replace old appliances. The device is currently being tested in U.S. homes, and Belkin plans to install 10,000 of them over the next year in places like military housing and hotels. Rather than selling the device straight to consumers, Belkin is focused on working with utility and cable providers, enabling them to offer itemized bills to their customers. Maybe one day, the gadget could be built in to home meters.

Hamburg, Germany's second-biggest city, is preparing to spend 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to buy back energy grids it sold to utilities Vattenfall Europe AG and EON SE (EOAN) more than 20 years ago after its citizens backed the repurchase by a narrow majority yesterday.

The buyback was supported by 51 percent of voters in a referendum held on the same day as federal elections that saw Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats win their highest score since Helmut Kohl's victory of 1990 and Merkel a third term as chancellor.

The port city is one of dozens of German municipalities that are reclaiming control of energy grids after a period of privatizations in the 1990s when money was needed to prop up budgets.

All the heating, cooling, humidity control and ventilation needs of the household are taken care of by a single heat pump based system, which was specially developed by Ty and Ben Newell at their company, Newell Instruments. The system manages to maintain a comfortable temperature and humidity level in the home, while it also brings in a constant flow of fresh air from the outside, which it achieves without the loss of conditioned air inside the house.

renewable power equipment is an example of a piece of capital that offers global externality benefits as its adoption reduces global GHG emissions. This means that importing nations and the rest of the world gain if exporting nations such as China choose to strategically subsidize green industries such as solar panel makers and wind turbine makers. Note that these products are different than toys or cars that the mass production of these goods lowers the price of adopting green technology by mainstream U.S firms such as Walmart. The U.S in its pursuit of protecting "U.S jobs" is sacrificing environmental progress. Will mainstream environmentalists acknowledge this point?

Life Off Grid is a two-year journey exploring the lives of Canadians in every province and territory who have made the choice to disconnect. Life Off Grid is a film and book about people who have chosen to build their lives around renewable energy, with beautiful, inspiring, and often challenging results. It is about different lands and islands. It features stories about people that came from all over to find, quite literally, a piece of earth.

New Energy Husum: 10 years of renewable energy at a glance In recent years New Energy Husum has established itself as one of the most important renewable energy exhibitions and trade fairs. It has served as a showcase for decentralised energy generation using all kinds of renewable sources since 2002. Topics and techniques range from small wind turbines (up to 30 kW), biogas, solid biomass (pellets, logs and wood chips for heating systems), solar heating, photovoltaics, electromobility, near-surface geothermal energy generation, energy storage, energy-efficient construction, and mini-CHP's. From 15 to 18 March 2012, leading manufacturers and renewable energy experts will be meeting once again in the North Frisian town of Husum to set the course for the innovations needed in this rapidly growing market. The 10th anniversary fair in spring 2012 is expected to draw around 300 exhibitors and 18,000 visitors from around the world. New Energy Husum offers 16,000 sqm of exhibition space. 

The blue rectangle in the midst of all those oranges and reds is New York City's first certified Passivhaus project, a retrofit of a 1899 townhouse in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Blue is cold, meaning the exterior surfaces of the house aren't shedding energy. Around it are houses glowing with wasted energy.

"Aside from being a definite eyesore because of their large blades and causing birds in flight to succumb to them, modern day wind turbines cause tremendous hazard to our ethical and natural environment. Wind turbines require large areas and optimum locations with its moving segments. Netherlands researchers and architectural firm Mecanoo, however, have attempted to upgrade the existing wind power generators by suggesting a bladeless wind turbine design."

the rocket mass heater, based on rocket stove technology.  This is a wood burning stove that will replace a conventional wood burning stove in a home and keep that same home just as warm using 1/10th the wood.  But that's not all.  You would think that with 1/10th the wood there would be 1/10th the smoke, but it works out to be closer to 1/1000th the smoke.  As a result, the overall environmental damage ends up far less than natural gas, electric, oil or conventional wood heat. Ernie and Erica Wisner have built over 700 rocket mass heaters and what was shown at this workshop is the result of their most advanced work to date.

Architecture In Development is a non-commercial, collaborative knowledge platform that welcomes everybody to share information about architecture related to its tradition, culture and innovation.

The printing of the home and its assembly by construction company Heijmans is projected to take about three years. Though the firm doesn't ultimately wish to use plastic for the construction of buildings, the architect points out that "it's not that we think everyone should live in a plastic house, ha ha. It's the material that works at the moment."

It describes neighbourhoods that combine the autonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of shared resources and community living.

Located in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico, OOHA's primary objective is to meet the high demand for affordable housing on the reservation that preserves our Tribal culture and traditions. Through innovative approaches to financing and implementation, OOHA creates sustainable new single and multifamily housing and rehabilitates existing substandard homes through the ongoing Housing and Self Determination Act. In addition to NAHASDA funds, OOHA seeks and utilizes a broad array of alternative methods of financing to support its development and rehabilitation projects. Our staff has a combined experience of over 25 years of development and housing management experience.

Ganó el premio del concurso de Bill and Melinda Gates "Reinventar el Baño": "The process of supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) also produces excess heat, despite the presence of water. Energy is only needed to start the system initially, once it reaches a certain temperature the remaining hot water may be supplied to the community directly or used to power an electrical generator."