GreenClips.195 07.03.02 SOLAR POWER EXPANDING IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA'S SUBDIVISIONS Architects and urban planners often criticize suburban subdivisions for their uniformity. In Northern California, however, the sameness of suburbia has helped to foster the largest and most aggressive renewable energy program in the United States, according to Donald Osborn, renewable-energy chief of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). In Sacramento, over 1,000 solar-energy systems are completed or are under construction, mostly on residential or small commercial buildings, generating over 10 megawatts of electricity. Osborn and others at the utility district realized that standardized new home construction offered the most cost effective and efficient means for developing widespread solar usage, and they formed partnerships with seven of the largest homebuilders in Northern California. SMUD used high-volume buying to bring down the price of standard PV components, while a "public-good" subsidy (a state-mandated charge collected from ratepayers) paid approximately $2 to $3 per watt, bringing the cost of solar energy to less than $4.50 per watt -- below the residential rate charged by many U.S. utilities. SMUD now has projects underway in 20 new subdivisions. Osborn is looking to work more frequently with architects on high-end custom buildings, but not many architects have responded to the call. "Builders have shown they want to be part of the solution," says Osborn. He hopes that the design community will follow suit, calling it "a wonderful opportunity for architects." Architecture, June 2002, p 52, by Alan G. Brake. [More: http://www.smud.org/solaradv_home/index.html ] NEW POLYESTER ELIMINATES ANTIMONY AND CAN BE SAFELY RECYCLED Although many fabric manufacturers carry a recycled polyester product, traditionally produced and recycled polyester is far from optimal. Most polyester is manufactured using the heavy metal antimony as a catalyst. Along with being a carcinogen, antimony is toxic to the heart, lungs, liver and skin. Recycling polyester can taint wastewater with antimony trioxide, while burning it releases antimony trioxide into the air. But Eco-Intelligent Polyester, introduced in 2001 by Victor Innovatex of Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, changes the story. Developed in partnership with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry and its German sister company EPEA, Eco-Intelligent Polyester is the first polyester produced and dyed with all environmentally safe ingredients, including dyestuffs, auxiliary chemicals and a new catalyst that replaces antimony. Eco-Intelligent Polyester is designed to be safely recycled into new fabric at the end of its life, with none of the hazardous byproducts of traditional polyester recycling, thereby eliminating the concept of waste. As a result, Victor has been able to satisfy the needs of its customers -- furniture manufacturers such as Steelcase, as well as textile distributors Designtex, Carnegie and C.F. Stinson -- for cutting-edge solutions to environmental problems. Green @ Work, May-June 2002, p 36, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. [More: http://www.victor-innovatex.com/en/eco/Index.htm ] CONNECTING GREEN PRODUCT DESIGN TO BUSINESS VALUE To motivate designers and decision makers to incorporate environmental product attributes, such as amount of material, degree of recyclability, amount of energy consumption during use, and ease of disassembly, into their products and services, the value of these attributes to the organization must be established. Product designers, however, seldom understand how to employ existing business improvement techniques in a systematic manner for environmental design. When used, their application is rarely linked to business benefits. Links that are made are often limited to cost reductions derived from waste avoidance or dematerialization, or the putative benefits of marketing to "green" customers. But there are tools available for crafting an environmental product design strategy, including the Kano model. This technique, developed in the 1980s to facilitate innovative products, can be used to clarify customers' perceptions of an environmental attribute and reveal that attribute's business value. Although time is needed to learn the Kano technique, it involves an easy-to-design survey and straightforward analysis. Critical to this approach is helping designers first view the environment as a customer segment and then identify key voices along the material-flow value chain that could both create environmental knowledge and inform the design process about opportunities to add business value. "Linking Industrial Ecology with Business Strategy: Creating Value for Green Product Design," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol. 5, No. 3, p 107, by Mark Finster, Patrick Eagan and Dennis Hussey. [View article summary: http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE ] LOOKING FOR A VACATION RENTAL? TRY AN EARTHSHIP Built of recycled consumer waste, the Earthships of New Mexico consist of 30 self-sufficient homes with renewable energy sources. Three Earthship units are available for vacationers to rent, beginning at $130 a night or $960 a week. Two of the units are also for sale at $140,000. Information: (505) 751-0462. Michael Reynolds, an architect, started Earthship seven years ago on 640 acres of scrubland just outside of Taos. The houses are made with earthen mounds and walls constructed from used tires filled with dirt. Recycled bottles and cans are used as bricks for retaining walls, planters and interior walls. Each house is self-sustainable. "There are no lines in, and no lines out," Mr. Reynolds said. Water is collected from rain and snow and is recycled and reused for showering, for watering indoor plants, for toilets, and for irrigating outdoors. Electricity is generated by wind and solar sources. "We want people to know they can have sustainable technology," Mr. Reynolds said, "and still make coffee, watch TV and even blend up some margaritas." The New York Times, 28 June 2002, by David Kirby. [More: http://www.earthship.org ] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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