"An ambitious solar energy project on a massive scale is about to get underway in the Arizona desert. EnviroMission is undergoing land acquisition and site-specific engineering to build its first full-scale solar tower - and when we say full-scale, we mean it! The mammoth 800-plus meter (2625 ft) tall tower will instantly become one of the world's tallest buildings. Its 200-megawatt power generation capacity will reliably feed the grid with enough power for 150,000 US homes, and once it's built, it can be expected to more or less sit there producing clean, renewable power with virtually no maintenance until it's more than 80 years old."
Throw-away Buildings
Thermal Window Failure: How it Happens
Virtually all glass condominium towers feature window wall systems (floor-to-ceiling walls of glass) enclosing the entire facade.
Window walls yield spectacular views, but owners who buy a condo unit for the view may not realize that they're relying on a couple of panes of glass separated by less than an inch of insulated space to protect them from the elements.
That insulated barrier will degrade over time, even as energy costs increase. On some buildings, five per cent of the thermal windows may have failed before they're even delivered to the construction site. Another 10 - 15 per cent will fail by the 20-year mark as they're exposed to the physics of heat expansion. By the 25 year-mark, a growing number will fail every year.
"A British caving team believe they have discovered the world's largest cave passage in the heart of the Vietnamese jungle.
The rocky passage is 150metres long and measures a towering 200metres in height - seven times as high as the vaulted ceiling of York Cathedral."