Buildings and Death Rays

Curved mirrors and the sun. As one newspaper noted, the old saw about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas seems not true in this case. Love to know more detail however as stories of melted plastic bags and singed hair are quite extreme, even given the intensity of the Vegas sun.

Thanks Terri for pointing this out...

Apart from this spoof what is remarkable about this story is the lack of evidence. Youtube has a bunch of links all of which are people talking about the

issue. The melted plastic bag is the only proof offered. Not to doubt the local heating effect of the concave mirror, but singed hair and no burnt skin?

It seems the original story broke in the Las Vegas Review. Illustrated thus:

What I want to see is the video showing what happens. Not the cheap, sun glinting off the facade pic.

A new model for financing home solar power

One of the charms of living in Berkeley for 8-9 months in 2008 was to discover all that "lovely Berkeleyness" as one resident described it during a sustainable neighbourhoods workshop that I attended. This news item refers to a scheme that was proposed to the Berkeley City Council way back in October 2007. To quote the SF Chronicle of the time: "plan for the city to finance the cost of solar panels for property owners who agree to pay it back with a 20-year assessment on their property. Over two decades, the taxes would be the same or less than what property owners would save on their electric bills, officials say."

Apparently the inspiration was the financing that cities across the USA already undertake for undergrounding cables in a nighbourhood: the city brings together a neighbourhood and brokers the deal with a finance company to pay for this neighbourhood improvement programme. The idea is that the individual house owner cannot afford the individual cost of undergrounding. The Council is needed as the property tax collector to ensure payment over time. Neighbourhood improvements help the house owners, so brokering the deals is not too difficult. Some people in Berkeley thought why not expand this to solar electricity?

I encountered this idea in an East Bay Express article in November 2008: "Will Berkeley's Solar Plan Go Viral?". That article notes: "If Berkeley's plan goes viral and spreads nationwide, it could have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. According to a yet-to-be released paper from researchers at UC Berkeley, a nationwide program could eliminate a gigaton of carbon dioxide emissions throughout the country. "This would conservatively contribute 4 percent of the savings needed for the US to reach 1990 emission levels by 2020, with very significant additional savings if the program expands to commercial buildings," the report concludes."

On April 19 2009, the Augusta 'Metro Spirit' carried an article by Erica Gies - a freelance reporter - in which she notes:

"In February 2009, Aaron Mann became the first person to benefit from Berkeley FIRST, installing 32 solar panels on his 2,800-square-foot home. Mann estimates that the new system, which generates 25 to 30 kilowatts on a sunny day, will provide 90 percent of his family’s needs. Functionally the electricity works exactly as it did before. Whether the house runs entirely off solar, pulls power from the local utility at night or on cloudy days, or uses a blend, “I don’t know the difference,” he said."

Ths scheme does not come cheap - because PV is not yet cheap. Apparently Aaron Mann got a rebate from Pacific Gas and Electric - his utility company - of US$6,000, cutting the total bill from US$41,000 to only US$35,000! "To repay that $35,000 loan [from Berkeley FIRST] , Mann’s property taxes increased $3,300 a year, which sounds like a lot of money until you realize that his annual pre-solar energy bills with PG&E totaled $4,200. So solar nets Mann an energy savings of $900 a year!"

The most significant part of the Metro Spirit article though is Gies' following two paragraphs which suggest that Berkeley who claim to have lead the world in kerbside recycling may be providing a lead in this solar scheme also 'going viral':

"In coming months, similar solar pay-as-you-go programs will begin in Boulder County and Denver, Colo.; Flagstaff and Tucson, Ariz.; Albuquerque and Las Cruces, N.M.; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; Burlington, Vt.; Belmar, N.J.; and San Diego, Solana Beach, Santa Monica, Sonoma County, and San Francisco, Calif." Apparently several other states are amending their laws to make the scheme possible.

And finally - having started with PV: "Berkeley hopes to expand its program to include insulation, new windows, and other energy-saving projects. More places will likely follow suit."

A load of rubbish - otherwise known as the eco-friendly homes of the future | Expat Living | Global | Telegraph

A load of rubbish - otherwise known as the eco-friendly homes of the future | Expat Living | Global | Telegraph

Great headline - but how long have these been around? Old news...

Still an Earthship in France could (just) be considered news.

Green Museums - a possibility?

The Art Newspaper -- New A brief article in "the Art Newspaper" on the value of 'going green' even in museums. The classic argument that has been promoted by conservators for many years has been that the stringent conditions under which art 'must' be stored are the reason for the highly serviced spaces and hence high energy use of museums. That there might be alternatives to this approach has been discussed, but never proven.

The oft-quoted Gary Thomson book on 'The Museum Environment" can be blamed for a lot: drawers full of unanalysed thermo-hygrograph charts in conservators' offices; the tyranny of the 55%+/-3% RH and 21 degrees C +/- 1degC recommended Humidity and Temperature; but sadly its considerable discussion of the buffering of temperature and more particularly humidity has mostly been restricted in Museum environments to management of storage and display case environments. Unlike the trivial once-over-lightly tone of the Art Newspaper article - a standard journalistic overview of a topic that mentions the US LEED scheme but mentions nothing about the building design. However, it is now possible to find articles on use of building design to manage the internal environment, such as this self-published article: How to design Climatically Stable Museums by Tim Padfield a 'retired museum scientist'.

Back in 1981 and again in 1985 I was involved in the production of two reports on major institutions in New Zealand which were of a design that made their internal environments extremely stable. In one case, the building had no heating system and yet maintained conditions for most of its aretefacts that arguably were better than those now experienced by the artefacts with a full humidity control HVAC system installed. 600mm thick masonry walls, low ventilation rates, large volumes of air and display cases with large areas of internal surfaces of unpainted or unvarnished wood made for thermohygrograph readings that were much more stable than can ever be achieved by electronically controlled on/off running of mechanical plant responding to the changes in the internal conditions in a normal highly insulated / highly serviced box. There was a space in one of these buildings that was conditioned and one could notice the 1 to 1.5 degree drop in temperature below the set point before the heating plant turned on and then a total 3 degree rise before the temperature was 1-1.5degC above the set point and the heating turned off. During this same time the naturally conditioned spaces did not vary noticeably - the graphs were so flat as to appear at first glance to be faulty!

I have been offering this idea as a research topic for students for many years now, to no avail... Some day?

'Hero' architect builds green - but is it different?

TOWERING EXPECTATIONS / S.F.'s new federal building challenges ideas of what a government high-rise should look like -- its humane design is green, dazzling One of the interesting architectural design questions people have tackled over the last 30 years has been the idea that green buildings might define a new aesthetic.

Back in the late 70's, the question was would a passive solar non-residential building define a new aesthetic. There was even some speculation about the inclusion of some of our other senses in the definition of aesthetics. Could a definition of the spiritual values of a welcoming warmth in winter and 'coolth' in summer; a calm quietness; become a new aesthetic?

Now, however we have a corporate architecture that is allegedly more comfortable because it is naturally lit and naturally ventilated. However, looking at the illustrations, I wonder whether the future of this brave new idea is to be similar to the critical acclaim / popular opprobrium of that wonder of mid last century the new brutalism...?