IT World

DESIGN

* Smaller is better: Optimize use of interior space through careful design so that the overall building size–and resource use in constructing and operating it–are kept to a minimum.

* Design an energy-efficient building: Use high levels of insulation, high-performance windows, and tight construction. In southern climates, choose glazings with low solar heat gain.

* Design buildings to use renewable energy: Passive solar heating, daylighting, and natural cooling can be incorporated cost-effectively into most buildings. Also consider solar water heating and photovoltaics–or design buildings for future solar installations.

* Optimize material use: Minimize waste by designing for standard ceiling heights and building dimensions. Avoid waste from structural over-design (use optimum-value engineering/advanced framing). Simplify building geometry.

* Design water-efficient, low-maintenance landscaping: Conventional lawns have a high impact because of water use, pesticide use, and pollution generated from mowing. Landscape with drought-resistant native plants and perennial groundcovers.

* Make it easy for occupants to recycle waste: Make provisions for storage and processing of recyclables: recycling bins near the kitchen, undersink compost receptacles, and the like.

* Look into the feasibility of graywater: Water from sinks, showers, or clothes washers (graywater) can be recycled for irrigation in some areas. If current codes prevent graywater recycling, consider designing the plumbing for easy future adaptation.

* Design for durability: To spread the environmental impacts of building over as long a period as possible, the structure must be durable. A building with a durable style (“timeless architecture”) will be more likely to realize a long life.

* Design for future reuse and adaptability: Make the structure adaptable to other uses, and choose materials and components that can be reused or recycled.

* Avoid potential health hazards: radon, mold, pesticides: Follow recommended practices to minimize radon entry into the building and provide for future mitigation if necessary. Provide detailing that will avoid moisture problems, which could cause mold and mildew growth. Design insect-resistant detailing that will require minimal use of pesticides.

SITING & LAND USE

* Renovate older buildings: Conscientiously renovating existing buildings is the most sustainable construction.

* Create community: Development patterns can either inhibit or contribute to the establishment of strong communities and neighborhoods. Creation of cohesive communities should be a high priority.

* Encourage in-fill and mixed-use development: In-fill development that increases density is inherently better than building on undeveloped (greenfield) sites. Mixed-use development, in which residential and commercial uses are intermingled, can reduce automobile use and help to create healthy communities.

* Minimize automobile dependence: Locate buildings to provide access to public transportation, bicycle paths, and walking access to basic services. Commuting can also be reduced by working at home–consider home office needs with layout and wiring.

* Value site resources: Early in the siting process carry out a careful site evaluation: solar access, soils, vegetation, water resources, important natural areas, etc., and let this information guide the design.

* Locate buildings to minimize environmental impact: Cluster buildings or build attached units to preserve open space and wildlife habitats, avoid especially sensitive areas including wetlands, and keep roads and service lines short. Leave the most pristine areas untouched, and look for areas that have been previously damaged to build on. Seek to restore damaged ecosystems.

* Provide responsible on-site water management: Design landscapes to absorb rainwater runoff (stormwater) rather than having to carry it off-site in storm sewers. In arid areas, rooftop water catchment systems should be considered for collecting rainwater and using it for landscape irrigation.

* Situate buildings to benefit from existing vegetation: Trees on the east and west sides of a building can dramatically reduce cooling loads. Hedge rows and shrubbery can block cold winter winds or help channel cool summer breezes into buildings.

MATERIALS

* Avoid ozone-depleting chemicals in mechanical equipment and insulation: CFCs have been phased out, but their primary replacements–HCFCs–also damage the ozone layer and should be avoided where possible. Avoid foam insulation made with HCFCs. Reclaim CFCs when servicing or disposing of equipment.

* Use durable products and materials: Because manufacturing is very energy-intensive, a product that lasts longer or requires less maintenance usually saves energy. Durable products also contribute less to our solid waste problems.

* Choose low-maintenance building materials: Where possible, select building materials that will require little maintenance (painting, retreatment, waterproofing, etc.), or whose maintenance will have minimal environmental impact.

* Choose building materials with low embodied energy: Heavily processed or manufactured products and materials are usually more energy intensive. As long as durability and performance will not be sacrificed, choose low-embodied-energy materials.

* Buy locally produced building materials: Transportation is costly in both energy use and pollution generation. Look for locally produced materials. Local hardwoods, for example, are preferable to tropical woods.

* Use building products made from recycled materials: Building products made from recycled materials reduce solid waste problems, cut energy consumption in manufacturing, and save on natural resource use. A few examples of materials with recycled content are cellulose insulation, Homasote®, Thermo-ply®, floor tile made from ground glass, and recycled plastic lumber.

* Use salvaged building materials when possible: Reduce landfill pressure and save natural resources by using salvaged materials: lumber, millwork, certain plumbing fixtures, and hardware, for example. Make sure these materials are safe (test for lead paint and asbestos), and don’t sacrifice energy efficiency or water efficiency by reusing old windows or toilets.

* Seek responsible wood supplies: Use lumber from independently certified well-managed forests. Avoid lumber products produced from old-growth timber unless they are certified. Engineered wood can be substituted for old-growth Douglas fir, for example. Don’t buy tropical hardwoods unless the seller can document that the wood comes from well-managed forests.

* Avoid materials that will offgas pollutants: Solvent-based finishes, adhesives, carpeting, particleboard, and many other building products release formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air. These chemicals can affect workers’ and occupants’ health as well as contribute to smog and ground-level ozone pollution outside.

* Minimize use of pressure-treated lumber: Use detailing that will prevent soil contact and rot. Where possible, use alternatives such as recycled plastic lumber. Take measures to protect workers when cutting and handling pressure-treated wood. Scraps should never be incinerated.

* Minimize packaging waste: Avoid excessive packaging, such as plastic-wrapped plumbing fixtures or fasteners that aren’t available in bulk. Tell your supplier why you are avoiding over-packaged products. Keep in mind, however, that some products must be carefully packaged to prevent damage–and resulting waste.

EQUIPMENT

* Install high-efficiency heating and cooling equipment: Well-designed high-efficiency furnaces, boilers, and air conditioners (and distribution systems) not only save the building occupants money, but also produce less pollution during operation. Install equipment with minimal risk of combustion gas spillage, such as sealed-combustion appliances.

* Install high-efficiency lights and appliances: Fluorescent lighting has improved dramatically in recent years and is now suitable for homes. High-efficiency appliances offer both economic and environmental advantages over their conventional counterparts.

* Install water-efficient equipment: Water-conserving toilets, showerheads, and faucet aerators not only reduce water use, they also reduce demand on septic systems or sewage treatment plants. Reducing hot water use also saves energy.

* Install mechanical ventilation equipment: Mechanical ventilation is usually required to ensure safe, healthy indoor air. Heat recovery ventilators should be considered in cold climates because of energy savings, but simpler, less expensive exhaust-only ventilation systems are also adequate.

JOB SITE & BUSINESS

* Protect trees and topsoil during sitework: Protect trees from damage during construction by fencing off the “drip line” around them and avoiding major changes to surface grade.

* Avoid use of pesticides and other chemicals that may leach into the groundwater: Look into less toxic termite treatments, and keep exposed frost walls free from obstructions to discourage insects. When backfilling a foundation or grading around a house, do not bury any construction debris.

* Minimize job-site waste: Centralize cutting operations to reduce waste and simplify sorting. Set up clearly marked bins for different types of usable waste (wood scraps for kindling, sawdust for compost, etc.). Find out where different materials can be taken for recycling, and educate your crew about recycling procedures. Donate salvaged materials to low-income housing projects, theater groups, etc.

* Make your business operations more environmentally responsible: Make your office as energy efficient as possible, purchase energy-efficient vehicles, arrange carpools to job sites, and schedule site visits and errands to minimize unnecessary driving. In your office, purchase recycled office paper and supplies, recycle office paper, use coffee mugs instead of disposable cups. On the job, recycle beverage containers.

* Make education a part of your daily practice: Use the design and construction process to educate clients, employees, subcontractors, and the general public about environmental impacts of buildings and how these impacts can be minimized.

Earth Day 2009 is just one week away and it gives us all a chance to become more aware and gain appreciation for our environment. Many countries celebrate this day on April 22nd every year and has been a tradition for many years now.

Photo by johhlegear.

The first Earth day was on Aprill 22nd, 1970, in a time when there was great concern for overpopulation and it’s effects on our environment. Over 20 million Americans participated on this first Earth day in an effort to live a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. This day also represents the start of the first true environmental movement in America. It also gave a huge boost for recycling and made it a worldwide effort by the 1990’s. Earth day continues to grow every year and Earth Day 2007 was the largest ever, with over a billion people participating.

Earth day really seems to fall on a nice time of year, especially for us here on the east coast. The weather is just starting to warm up and it’s a perfect time to really make an impact on our environment. There are so many efforts going on throughout America along with events starting this week and ending late next week. Check out Earth Day Network to find out more information on where you can find an event going on in your neighbor hood or to see steps you can take to make a difference.

Not everybody is completely supportive of Earth Day. Some environmentalist feel that Earth Day does not make a huge impact and that larger changes need to be made before really environmental change can occur. I do partially agree with this side in that sectors like the oil industry are completely outdated and need to lesson their influence on our country and renewable energy needs to take place. On top of that, more needs to be done than just buying an organic cotton t-shirt to make ourselves feel we are doing good. We need to make drastic changes in our lives and put more pressure on the government to stop supporting industries that are hurting our environment and support more sustainable ones.

In my opinion, Earth day should be every day. It is only one day of the year ( sometimes a week ) and we need to take action all year round to ensure that we are living sustainable and more environmentally friendly lives. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t celebrate in the festivities and help out around your community, just try to do the same all year round.

Earth Day should still be a day of learning and an opportunity to educate others about living a more sustainable lifestyle and appreciating our environment.  Please share what kinds of things you are doing during Earth Day 2009.

Okay, so you don’t have enough dough to buy a hybrid. That doesn’t mean you should give up on greening your driving habits—and saving a small fortune while you’re at it. And it’s so, so easy.

About a year ago, Consumer Reports ran a piece about how to save money and gas. It’s full of good advice on saving money at the pump (especially for people who were feeling the pinch from the record gas prices we saw back then).

But guess what? Saving money on gas means using less gas. And using less gas means—you guessed, generating fewer carbon emissions. A fine example of how what’s good for the environment is often good for your wallet.

So here are the five easiest ways you can improve your gas mileage and save big bucks at the pump, according to Consumer Reports:

1. Drive at a moderate speed: Not too fast, not too slow. The optimal speed for most sedans is around 55 mph. Which means you may have to take it slower than usual on the highway, and perhaps put up with rowdy teenagers honking at you, calling you ‘grandma,’ and zipping off in their Roadster to go play mailbox baseball (or maybe my version of teenagers is culled strictly from the movie ‘Stand by Me’). But they’ll be paying at the pump, while you laugh all the way to the bank with your sweet, sweet gas savings.
2. Drive smooth: Gradual acceleration and easy braking uses less gas. That’s just the way it is. It’s science.
3. Keep the engine warm: Cooler engines create more pollution and burn more gas, so combine your short trips into one longer one if you can—you can increase fuel economy by 4 mpg.
4. Don’t buy premium gas: Unless your car requires that you do. Otherwise, how hard is it not to pay 20 cents more? And CR’s studies show that the difference in performance is “imperceptible.”
5. Take off that ski rack: And remove anything else on your car that creates unnecessary drag. Extra drag = extra gas burnt up. At highway speeds, CR found that 50% of engine power goes to overcoming drag—which means you stand to save a lot of gas if you keep your car streamlined.
6. Keep them tires inflated: Come on, it’s super easy. Just fill those tires up with air when you stop at the gas station, and you’ll gain around 1.3 mpg on the highway—which adds up fast.
7. Avoid idling: Another super-simple gas-saving tip: if you’re going to be idle for longer than 30 seconds, turn off the engine. If you’re trying to warm it up, starting to drive does the trick way faster than staying put.

Water from faucets is a major component of our daily water usage. It’s often common to hear about cutting back on your showers and using the clothes washer less often, but your faucet is an often overlooked way to really save money on our utility bills.

How much water do our faucets use?

Depending on the particular faucet model you own, it will depend on how much water it consumes. The current government set maximum water-use for both showerheads and faucets is 2.5 gallons per minute, but many are closer to 1 gallons per minute. We consume over 15% of our daily water usage, average approximately 11 gallons and get water from the tap 8 minutes out of the day as calculated by H2ouse.org. That’s a huge amount considering that we only have a few activities we do using the faucet. To determine how much water we really are using based off of this 11 gallon average per day using my Shower Calculator:

Faucet Water Use

How about the hidden costs?

The total cost of using water goes beyond just the actual water. Warm or hot water is required in many of our normal tap uses. Water heaters are a part of using water and can often be an overlooked aspect of the total cost of using so much water. To get an idea of how much it will cost to run, I once again will use my Shower Calculator:

Faucet Energy Use

Ways to Save

There are some easy ways that you can cut back your water use from your faucet with little or no affect to your daily activities. Not only will you save on your utility bills every month. The savings may not be huge, but it can really add up in the long term.

• Washing Hands: Next time you go to wash your hands, turn the water off while you are lathering your hands with soap. The same thing applies for when you are washing your face.
• Brushing Your Teeth: Why keep the water on when you brush your teeth? There is just no need to keep the water running the entire time your are brushing your teeth.
• Cleaning Dishes: Try filling one side of your sink with water and clean each dish without the faucet running. Wash off each dish after all are clean. Even if you only have one sink, you can always shut off the faucet while you are scrubbing each dish.
• Aerators: Help reduce the amount of water you are using without having to give up water pressure.  They are really cheap usually at under $5 or you can even ask your local utility to see if they provide them for free.  For very little effort, you can really save on your utility bills.

If you have any other ways to save on faucet use, please share.

Earth Hour 2009 is coming this weekend, on March 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm your local time, . The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is asking everyone throughout the world to make a statement and turn off their non-essential electrical items for 1 hour. Whether it be you as an individual, businesses or the government, we all need to take action to show that we want to make a difference and reduce our energy use.

Earth Hour History

The original Earth hour took place in 2007 in Sydney, Australia and showed just how much of a difference it can make for everybody to turn off energy sources for just one hour. After the success in Australia, it spread worldwide in 2008 and was a complete success. It was supported on every continent throughout the world. There were over 35 flagship cities supporting the event along with over 400 cities worldwide also supporting. What’s also amazing is that over 6.7 unique visitors went to their website during the week before Earth Hour. The event is believed to have drawn close to 50 million people to join in on the event during last year’s event.

Join In

The 2009 Earth Hour event hopes to be an even larger event than last years and I hope it continues to gain notoriety like it has. Check out all the cities that are planned to attend as well as college campuses across the country that are participating in this event. Also, make sure to spread the word whether it be sending email to all your friends, letting people know on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook or sending a letter to your business or local government informing them of the event. There are also some great tips for things you can do while all the lights and electricity are off. Let’s make a difference by taking this simple action to show that we are committed to fighting climate change.

The tireless folks from Google’s for-profit charity, Google.org, are developing a web-based application called PowerMeter that takes advantage of the increasing availability of “smart meters” from utility companies and independent manufacturers. Millions upon millions of homes and businesses are expected to be upgraded to these meters in the coming years, which (among other things) track electrical use in real time rather than just offering a simple sum of total use. This creates an opportunity for people to discover usage trends — and even help to identify specific loads — encouraging informed conservation.

Google puts it like this:

How much does it cost to leave your TV on all day? What about turning your air conditioning 1 degree cooler? Which uses more power every month — your fridge or your dishwasher? Is your household more or less energy efficient than similar homes in your neighborhood?

Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage. Studies show that access to your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you between 5-15% on your monthly bill, and the potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road.

The application is still in prototype — you can’t get it yet — but when it comes online, how much will it cost? Answer: Nothin’. Free to the users, free to the utilities. We really don’t know when it will be rolled out to the public, but it’s likely not too far off.

So why are utility companies switching over to the smart meters in the first place? Partly because they transmit data — providers can save money by pretty much eliminating the dwindling population of meter readers. It also opens up the opportunity to introduce peak billing to residential users.

University of Michigan is about to publish a paper on PowerNap as a technique to save data center power.

PowerNap plan could save 75 percent of data center energy

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Putting idle servers to sleep when they’re not in use is part of University of Michigan researchers’ plan to save up to 75 percent of the energy that power-hungry computer data centers consume.

Data centers, central to the nation’s cyberinfrastructure, house computing, networking and storage equipment. Each time you make an ATM withdrawal, search the Internet or make a cell phone call, your request is routed through a data center.

Thomas Wenisch, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and students David Meisner and Brian Gold will present a paper about improving the energy efficiency of data center computer systems on March 10 at the International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems in Washington, D.C.

Wenisch and the students analyzed data center workloads and power consumption and used mathematical modeling to develop their approach.
The approach includes PowerNap, the plan to put idle servers to sleep, and RAILS, a more efficient power supplying technique. (RAILS stands for Redundant Array for Inexpensive Load Sharing.)

Reducing the environmental footprint of our data centers starts with reducing their electricity consumption. Several years ago we surveyed existing approaches and traditional data center designs and realized they could not meet our goals. A typical data center facility spends almost half of its energy consumption on the systems powering and cooling the computers inside, and not on the computers themselves. In other words, they use twice as much power than they would in a perfectly efficient scenario. In a 2007 report the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed this sad state and estimated the average energy overhead of current data centers at 96%. Back in 2004 we decided to move much of our infrastructure into new data centers built for efficiency and cost, and our engineers set out to find ways to eliminate wasted power. Our goal was simply to build the world’s most efficient data centers. Here’s how we did it:

A data center is a fancy name for a warehouse-like building that contains thousands of servers. Because these servers consume a lot of electricity, there is a great deal of electrical equipment required to bring the power to the servers, including equipment to provide power in the case of a utility power failure. Typically 10-20% of the incoming power is lost in this machinery. We first focused on streamlining this equipment with a goal of eliminating most of the waste.

But we still had to address all of the power spent on cooling. All the electricity that goes into a data center building ultimately turns into heat, and thus there are fans, pumps, and air conditioning equipment to remove all that heat. In many data centers, cooling alone is responsible for a 30-70% overhead in energy usage. Fortunately, there is a simple way to remove all of that heat – let water evaporate.

Evaporation is a powerful tool. It maintains our body temperature even when outside temperatures exceed our normal 98.6°F. How? Energy is required to change water into vapor; this energy is heat that is removed from the immediate surroundings, causing a cooling effect. Our data centers make extensive use of this evaporative process with cooling towers. Below is a simple representation of a cooling tower. Here’s how it works:The goal of using evaporative cooling is to minimize the time chillers need to run. A chiller works basically the same way as an air-conditioner, except that it could be operating in liquid or air. When chillers are required to run, they can consume many times more power than the rest of the cooling system combined. With cooling towers, our data centers spend most of their time running in a mode called “free cooling”. This means the chillers are off. Free cooling isn’t technically “free,” but it is really inexpensive and really efficient.

Optimizing every part of the system took a lot of work, but it really paid off. We reduced the energy-weighted average overhead across all Google-built data centers to 19% versus the average of 96% reported by the EPA. In other words, compared to standard data centers we’ve reduced the overhead by more than fourfold. To our knowledge, no other large-scale production data center has ever operated as efficiently. In fact, one of our data centers is running at an even lower overhead of only 15%, a sixfold improvement in efficiency. (For those interested, read the technical details of our measurements.) Operating data centers at this level of efficiency has a significant impact on both our operating expense and our environmental footprint.

Software-as-a-service has the not-so-tapped potential of Software-as-a-Green enabler too. Is that just a new marketing spiel for vendors or something worth a thought…

Well, not much is left to guessing.