GreenClips.61 12.04.96 PV POWER ONE YEAR LATER The University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne unveiled the UK's largest photovoltaic (PV) demonstration project in January 1995. The five-story 1960’s concrete Northumberland building received a new rain screen over cladding with a PV array on its south face. Engineers designed the 17-percent efficient modules to generate about 27,000 kWh AC annually - about a quarter of the computer-filled building's demand - with a peak DC electrical output of 39.5kW. They are monitoring the system's performance for two years. First-year results show its daily output usually peaked between 30 kW and 35 kWDC depending on light levels and module temperatures. Output reached a high of 39kW in March 1995. But over the year the PV system provided only 22,000 kWh AC, somewhat less than expected due in part to below average light levels and underestimated shading effects. Conventional electricity here costs under 8p/kWh. The Northumberland building's PV electricity costs about 45 p/kWh but would drop to about 30p if the system were completely unshaded. These estimates account for the capital cost of cladding materials that the PV modules replace. If the building were clad in polished stone, the PV power would be a free byproduct since the modules cost less than the stone. But since the Northumberland building's new cladding is relatively inexpensive, the cost of its PV power includes the extra cost of the modules. – Building for a Future, Autumn 1996, p. 20, by J.P.R. Tansley. IN THE SIERRA, GREEN IS GOOD BUSINESS Business leaders in California's Sierra Nevada are calling for policies to protect the environment because they recognize that the region's grandeur is the key to their business success. The Sierra Business Council, now a group of 450 businesses, formed in 1994 to secure and enhance the region's economic and environmental health for future generations. First on its agenda was a Sierra Nevada Wealth Index, 42 indicators of the region's well-being from water quality to school test scores to employment. Council members will use the index to muster political will to change land use planning guidelines in each of the region's 11 counties. The town of Truckee may serve as a model of the new planning guidelines. Here, planners encourage developers to fill vacant lots and reuse abandoned buildings downtown rather than sprawling into the surrounding forest. Council member Placer Savings Bank, which has offices in 25 Sierra Nevada communities, encourages environmental practices through its owner-builder construction loans by requiring construction waste recycling and asking for amenities like streamside paths in development plans. Outsiders are watching the council's efforts closely. Last month a group of 20 foundations from around the country including the Ford Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation came to Lake Tahoe to see if the council's approach might work in other places. - The New York Times, November 30, 1996, p. 21, by Jon Christensen. MAPPING THE MATERIAL WORLD Despite lots of data, our nation has little sense of where and how we create our food and manufactured goods and expend our fuel and raw materials – or what the consequences of these processes are. Architect Pliny Fisk's Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems is developing software that will analyze where a house's wood, fiber, and steel come from, how much of each is needed to build the house, how much energy is needed to transport them to the site, and how much pollution is generated throughout the process. The software couples a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) process with a Geographical Information System (GIS) - the idea of project officer James White of the US Environmental Protection Agency, a project partner. The software will use LCA to analyze the impact of raw material extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use, and waste. The GIS will link data about a region's natural and human-made conditions to digital maps. The first task was assembling a database of 12 million construction industry businesses and linking it to the digital maps. The next is to add information for each business' environmental impact and by-products like air and water pollution, solid waste, and greenhouse gases. Visit the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems at http://www.greenbuilder.com/maxpot/ for more information. - Metropolis, December 1996, p. 44, by Andrea Moed. RMI'S ECONOMIC RENEWAL GUIDE In 1993, 60 percent of downtown commercial space in economically depressed Orange, Massachusetts was vacant. So community organizer Deborah Becker and her team of volunteers spent nine months leading Orange citizens through a series of town meetings using Rocky Mountain Institute's Economic Renewal Guide. The sessions encouraged them to envision their "preferred future", figure out what the town needed and what it had to work with, and choose projects that weighed the town's social and environmental values along side its economic needs. Instead of supply-side solutions like courting outside businesses or approving new subdivisions and malls, RMI's Economic Renewal process helps communities like Orange do better with what they already have. RMI offers its do-it-yourself Economic Renewal Guide filled with worksheets, media materials, success stories, and resources for $17.95 plus $3.50 for shipping and handling. Email orders@rmi.org for more information. – Rocky Mountain Institute Newsletter, Fall/Winter 1996, p. 4. FISK HOUSE DEMONSTRATES GREEN MATERIALS Architect Pliny Fisk's Advanced Green Builder home near Austin, Texas demonstrates earth-friendly materials - Ashcrete, a 97-percentrecycled-content concrete, made with coal fly ash and bottom ash. Ferro cement, a combination of ashcrete and reinforcing wires, for structural columns and beams. Naturally foamed ashcrete for hollow wall infill. Molded blocks of the earthen material caliche in walls and floors. Enzymatic stabilized adobe for walls, roads, and pathways. Bagasse board, a recycled byproduct of sugar cane, for siding underlayment. Recycled oat and wheat straw plywood. Bales of wheat straw, a waste product of grain harvesting, for constructing walls. Recycled Styrofoam in stressed skin panels for wall insulation. AERT, or plastic wood, made from recycled juniper fiber and recycled PET plastic, for doors and windows. Polyethylene plumbing and ABS drain pipes instead of PVC and copper conduit. At least 60-percent recycled corrugated steel for roofing and siding. Reinforcing bars recycled from crushed car steel. Mesquite, says Fisk, is "good as charcoal, but excellent as floor tile". - Metropolis, December 1996, p. 37, by Eugenia Bone. EPA PROPOSES NEW AIR STANDARDS The Clinton Administration proposed tighter air quality standards last week. The US Environmental Protection Agency seeks to change its definition of healthful air, as measured by ozone and particulate matter that can exacerbate asthma, bronchitis, and other lung ailments. Both ozone and particulates generally come from fuel combustion by power plants, factories, and automobiles. The EPA's new standard would limit ozone to 80 parts per billion measured over eight-hour periods instead of the existing limit of 120 in any hour. The new rules would count particles far smaller than the size now being controlled, limiting those less than 2.5 microns to concentrations of 50 micrograms per cubic meter as a daily average and 15 micrograms per cubic meter as an annual average. EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner says the government has based the new standards squarely on health considerations and the best available science. To meet the new standards, states might include these strategies as part of their federally approved compliance plans – mass transit projects, incentives for companies to limit emissions, new requirements for pollution controls on factory smokestacks, and improved programs for vehicle inspections. Industry groups are already calling the new standards impossible to meet at any realistic price and are challenging their scientific basis. - The New York Times, November 25, 1996, p. 1, and November 28, 1996, p. 1, by John H. Cushman, Jr.