GreenClips.115 03.10.99
TWO NEW STADIA GREEN BEYOND THE TURF
The new Gelredome Stadium in Arnhem, The Netherlands demonstrates renewable energy technologies from borehole-driven heat pumps to solar panels and photovoltaics. Here 28,000 fans watch football in a one-million-cubic-meter arena beneath a retractable roof. Gas and electric utility NUON provided the conceptual design of the energy-saving systems and attracted a European Commission grant to demonstrate their application for similar large-scale building projects. Groundwater extracted from aquifers through 80-meter-deep wells is the primary heat source for the heat pumps whose 410 kW capacity supplies 70 percent of the heat required for the arena and playing field. The remainder comes from solar-assisted gas-fired boilers. Summer cooling is limited to the air handling system serving various function rooms around the arena perimeter. Using ground energy storage with heat pumps, says groundwater advisor IF Technology, offers a 45-percent energy savings compared with a conventional installation of gas-fired boilers for heating and chillers for cooling. A 112-square-meter array of solar panels produces hot water for showers, toilets, and kitchens and a natural gas savings of 8,000 cubic meters per year. A 320-square-meter array of photovoltaic cells augments the building's power needs and generates a 30,000 kWh surplus for sale to the grid. And, of course, the fans sit on recycled plastic seats. Meanwhile in Nashville, Tennessee, Bovis Construction Corporation is using recycled concrete for the new 67,000-seat football stadium it's building for the National Football League's Tennessee Titans. By using the concrete from on- site building deconstruction for fill and backfill, says a study by Wilmot and Associates, Bovis saved $222,661 in new crushed stone, waste hauling, and landfill tipping fees. - Building Services Journal, Mar 99, p 42, by Bill Holdsworth, and BioCycle, Feb 99, p 23.
YEANG ADVANCES GREEN TOWER DESIGN IN SINGAPORE
The Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority has given architect Ken Yeang, known for his bioclimatic skyscrapers, a chance to try out his green ideas with more freedom, greater rigor, and over a wider range of ecological issues than usual. Yeang sees his proposal for a speculative 26-story exhibition tower, which could house not only exhibit spaces but also retail areas and auditoria, as a prototype ecological building design. Vegetation designed to provide shade and improve the building's interior microclimate and oxygenation will cover Yeang's tower. Evoking the site's original ecosystem, Yeang has surveyed local species to find which plants are most suitable for the new building's internal terraces and sky courts. Built shading, wind walls that direct breezes to sky courts and internal spaces, and ceiling fans with de- misters will reduce use of the building's air-conditioning system. Gray wastewater and rain collected from the roof and scallops on lower floors will feed the irrigation system and lavatory cistern. A loose fit is an important premise of the tower's design, and Yeang has prepared a scheme for converting the entire building to offices at 75 percent net-to-gross efficiency. Partitions and even floors, which he suggests will be made of innovative structural timber cassettes, will be removable but solid enough to provide sound insulation where needed. And Yeang proposes making all structural joints bolted rather than welded so that the entire structure will be demountable and re-usable without wasting energy and materials. - The Architectural Review, Feb 99, p 52, by Peter Davey.
HAZARDOUS BUILDING COMPONENTS LOST IN C&D DEBRIS
By the time construction and demolition debris reaches a processing facility or landfill, any hazardous building components are often hidden or crushed beyond recognition. Such HBCs - the small fraction of C&D waste that contains concentrated hazardous chemicals - include mercury thermostats and switches, mercury-bearing fluorescent and HID lamps, lighting ballasts with PCBs, lead- acid and nickel-cadmium batteries, and lead pipes and roof flashing. Removing HBCs from a structure before demolition increases reuse options for the components and reduces risk to workers and the environment. Yet US and many state regulations requiring HBC removal and management focus responsibility on waste management operators, not on demolition contractors. Recovering HBCs at the demolition site requires additional time and cost that the contractor's client would incur. The cost of recycling a recovered four-foot fluorescent lamp, for example, is $0.25 to 0.40; HID lamps cost $2 to 4.50 each. To educate demolition contractors and state building officials, the Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management offers a guide titled Recommended Management Practices for the Removal of Hazardous Materials from Buildings Prior to Demolition. For more information, visit <http://www.enveng.ufl.edu/homepp/townsend/Research/DemoHW/Maindemo.html>. - Resource Recycling, Feb 99, p 30, by Timothy G. Townsend, Brian Messick, and Scott Sheridan.
TWISTED-TUBE CFLs MORE COMPACT
Compact fluorescent lamps nearly as small as standard incandescent light bulbs have arrived from Duro-Test, Sunpark, Link USA, and Lights of America. Though generally narrower than folded-tube CFLs, twisted-tube models still have thicker throats than incandescent lamps due to their integral electronic ballasts. The output of the twisted-tube lamps at 900 to 1,560 lumens compares with a standard light bulb output of 890 to 1,710, yet the CFLs at 15 to 26 watts are considerably more efficient than a standard 60 to 100-watt lamp. The cost of the twisted tubes is $6 to 9 per lamp. Distributors and manufacturers of the CFLs are marketing them through the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory website. [For more information, visit <http://www.pnl.gov/cfl/welcome.stm>.] - Environmental Building News, Feb 99, p 9. Full text: <http://www.ebuild.com/Archives/Product_Reviews/Twist.html>.
US GOVT OFFERS FREE GREEN BUILDING SOFTWARE
The US Environmental Protection Agency offers free software [developed in its Energy Star Buildings and Green Lights programs] to analyze building energy upgrades, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory offers free pollution prevention software. QuikPlan software from the EPA helps plan, manage, track, and report on building energy upgrades. Its users construct a database of facility utility data and upgrade costs, choose actions for each facility, and view long-term financial and energy effects. The EPA's QuikChill software performs economic and energy analyses of new centrifugal chillers, upgrades, and retrofits. QuikChill is particularly useful for plants facing CFC-phaseout issues. QuikFan software from the EPA assesses the cost-effectiveness of upgrading variable-air-volume (VAV) fan systems. The EPA's ProjectKalc software analyzes potential lighting upgrades, providing comprehensive energy and economic analysis of upgrades involving controls, relamping, delamping, tandem wiring, and other factors. ProjectKalc's users can modify its database of costs, labor time, and performance. P2-Edge software from the Pacific Northwest National Lab helps incorporate pollution prevention, or P2, strategies in the design of products, processes, and buildings. This software uses examples, pictures, and references to support its more than 200 suggestions for building P2 into projects. To download the EPA software, visit <http://www.epa.gov/appdstar/appd/download.html>. For a free copy of P2-Edge, email <kim.fowler@pnl.gov>. - The Green Business Letter, Mar 99, p 1.
DULUTH TIMBER LOGS THE INDUSTRIAL FOREST
Logging the Industrial Forest is the motto of the Minnesota-based Duluth Timber Company. Since 1985 it has reclaimed wood from barns and industrial sites, producing fresh wood from the timbers by removing nails and paint and remilling. With a showroom in downtown Seattle and a mill in Skagit County, Washington, Duluth has supplied wood for a number of recent Seattle-area projects. It's also working with retailer REI on a new Denver store. Despite prices that are often double or more the price of new hardwood flooring, reclaimed wood is responsible, some homeowners reason, and its quality superior. Douglas fir ranges from $3 to 5.50 a square foot at Duluth. Heart pine, a dense wood grown in the Southeast and salvaged from Eastern warehouses and factories, sells for $5.50 to 7.75 a square foot. Australian eucalyptus at $5.50 a square foot has the look of chestnut. Duluth Timber's Seattle store also sells reclaimed wood furniture from simple bookshelves to big dining room tables. [For more information, visit <http://duluthtimber.com>.] - Seattle Times, 6 Mar 99, by Katherine Long.
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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER Architectural researcher and environmental consultant Chris Hammer of Sustainable Design Resources publishes GreenClips in San Francisco. Ms. Hammer helps planners, developers, building owners, designers, builders, and facility managers practice sustainable planning, development, building design, construction, and operation. GreenClips is written by Chris Hammer and James Richert.
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