“Green Building” can mean more than just building environmentally-friendly or energy-efficient structures – clean energy and green techniques can also be used during the construction process itself. This videos show how 150 construction workers in Binghamton, New York are on the job without a single conventional generator in use. Instead, their entire project is powered by wind and solar energy systems. Needless to say, the final products of their work will be energy efficient as well.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Green Construction with Wind and Solar Energy.

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Thinking of the sprawling, materialistic metropolis of Las Vegas can send shivers up the spine of any environmental advocate: excessive water use, unsustainable urban planning, and unnatural buildings in the middle of a desert.  Over 50 green, manicured golf courses in an area that shouldn’t have one.  The ostentatious display of water flowing in monumental fountains, combined with a car-dependent population and enormous energy inefficient buildings, will leave anyone doubtful of sustainable developments in the building sector any time soon.

Yet new legislation is being considered in Las Vegas that will jumpstart the green building movement.  At least we hope.  As of March 2009, the debate continues over increasing tax credits for sustainable buildings throughout the state.  The outcome looks good, as stimulus funding is flowing from the federal government to jumpstart the green economy.    What’s more, the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 was held in Las Vegas this past Monday, August 10th, a sign that things might be changing in this desert oasis.

Meanwhile, some developers have decided to take matters into their own hands by creating a 62- acre “eco-development.”   Spearheaded by MGM, the city’s new CityCenter is expected to be complete by the end of this year and perhaps become the nation’s largest LEED-certified project.  There is talk of other developers following suit.

The developers hope to reduce utility bills, decrease energy use, and foster a healthier environment for guests and employees.

The increased attention being paid to Las Vegas as a potential center for environmental leadership will help make green building mainstream.  While Nevada may lack water, it certainly does not lack sun.   As the National Clean Energy Summit leaders remarked, “Nevada has abundant clean energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and efficiency technologies that could be developed to meet its future energy needs. The question is whether Nevadans—and all Americans—will shift to a clean energy economy.”

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Las Vegas to Promote Green Building?.

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Design teams are competing to make your hotel room greener.  The US Green Building Council has joined forces with The American Society of Interior Designers and The Hospitality Industry Network to launch the Sustainable Suite Design Competition.  The winning sustainable suite will be on display May 2010 at the Hospitality Design Expo (HDExpo) in Las Vegas, NV.
Hotels have given the nod to green (and savings) through low-flow showerheads, in-room recycling bins, and allowing guests to put the hold on towel and sheet changes.  LEED-certified element Hotels boast recycled carpet, low-VOC paints, and bathroom dispensers in lieu of individual bottles.  With fresh innovation, who knows what’s next?

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Sustainable Suite Design Competition.

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The US-China Clean Energy Research Center.  Yup, you read that right.  The two countries that produce about 42 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions AND two of the countries that refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol are getting together to study how they can curtail carbon emissions.  The joint effort will have a $15 million influx of cash and will compile all the research that has been done and will be done on reducing emissions.  The center will also conduct research into other technologies to help address climate change.

“The U.S. and China are two great nations, and clean energy is one of the great opportunities of our time. Working together we can accomplish more than acting alone,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.  China and the U.S. have a history of working together on science and technology dating back to President Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping.

China has accused the developed world of creating the carbon emissions problem and insists that treaties like the Kyoto Protocol will ripple their fledgling economy.  At the July 2009 G8 meetings, the developing nations refused to accept any binding targets for lowering emissions.   Yet experts point out that unless the developing world actively works to curtail emissions the global effort to stop global warming will be unsuccessful.   The developing world seems anxious to have the developed world pass on their technologies, however.

The teams of scientists and engineers from the U.S. and China will have as priorities:   building energy efficiency, clean coal including carbon capture and storage, and clean vehicles.  The Center will have one headquarters in each country with the locations yet to be determined.

Of course, the priority of building energy efficiency caught my attention. I’ll be anxious to see what innovations can be produced with the combined brain power of two great nations.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at The US-China Clean Energy Research Center.

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Interested in wind turbines?  You might want to take a peek at the on-line book “Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects.”  It was written by some important sounding people: Committee on Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Division on Earth and Life Studies and published by the National Research Council of the National Academies. Whew…

On-line books can be a little tough to read from a computer monitor, but a FREE on-line book should inspire you to give this one a shot. The book gives you info on the state of the art of power generation from wind turbines in the U.S. It also has chapters like “Ecological Effects of Wind-Energy Development” and “Impacts of Wind-Energy Development on Humans.” The book outlines the research on the benefits of wind-energy and it is also very frank in pointing out its limitations on being a viable option for mass power generation. It gives the facts and aids you in making your decision process.

I was interested in the impact of wind-energy on the environment, specifically the impact of turbines on birds. The chapter on “Ecological Effects” provides some interesting information:

• Bigger turbines cause fewer deaths of birds
• Bats and raptors are the most impacted
• Locations of the turbines matter (ridges, etc.)
• Structures and vehicles kills more birds than wind turbines

Not all the information is that earth-shatteringly new, but the book gives you the sources for the various studies. If you don’t have time to tackle the entire book, there is an extra long Executive Summary that is quite helpful. The “Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects” is worth your time especially if you’re considering a wind-energy investment of any kind.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Thinking about a Wind-Energy Project?.

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My grand-dad used to say “pick your poison.”  He knew that nothing is perfect.  There are good things and not so good things about every choice.   When sustainability is your primary goal, you make decisions with a different set of parameters.  You might be willing to put forth a little more time and effort knowing that the end result will benefit not only you, but the environment.  But before you begin any big project, you better sit down with a paper and pencil and make the old “T” chart.  I started one for you.  Behold, some pros and cons of earthen plaster.

Pro

• Low Environmental Impact
• Energy intensive
• Adds thermal mass for both passive and active solar heating
• Relatively inexpensive
• Easily patched and repaired
• Adds a warm, natural feeling to your dwelling
• Has great breathability
• Provides a protective shell for your straw bale home
• Lots of warm, rich colors
• Variations in texture
• Allows for artistic expression

Con

• Can get saturated by rain and constant wetness
• Can mold (grows on the organic matter in your plaster,  but there are techniques to minimize or stop this)
• Labor intensive
• Doesn’t meet building codes in some localities
• Can crack and “dust” if composition and consistency of earthen plaster is incorrect
• Requires multiple coats
• Sensitive to temperature and weather when applying
• Is pretty messy!

I think the pro list is longer than the con.  So if we follow “T” chart rules, this project is a go. Earthen plaster has been used for centuries.  Earthen plaster dwellings have stood the test of time; you can find these dwellings literally scattered around the world. Why not add your home to the list?

Looking for “recipes” for earthen plaster? You can find several in my last post, Earthen Plaster Recipes.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Should I Use Earthen Plaster: the Pros and Cons.

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Recipes for earthen plaster abound.  Some recipes use straw, some use manure, some cattail fuzz, and others add lime.  Read a ton and learn, but remember the earthen plaster mix or recipe you end using is your individual choice.  You’ll end up doing a lot of experimenting because the clay soils differ from area to area.  So don’t get frustrated.  Just remember to write it down after you figure it out.

I’ve collected some earthen plaster recipe options.  Most of them provide some instructions on their specific procedures.

Recipe 1

• 3 (five gallon) buckets of sifted sand (sand sifted through a 1/8″ screen to remove pebbles)
• 1 bucket of mixed wet clay
• 3/4 bucket fresh cow manure
• cattail fluff (see fibers in every handful of material)
• 8 cups of wheat paste

Recipe 2

• 4 Parts Clay (presoaked overnight in water)
• 4 Parts Sand
• 1 Part Flour Paste
• 2.5 Parts chopped Straw or Cattail Fuzz (straw cut into one inch lengths)

Recipe 3

This one is for rough coat:

• 1 part creamy clay slip (from site or mixed water and clay)
• 2 parts medium sand
• ½ part fiber (chopped straw)

Recipe 4

• One part clay soil
• Three to four parts sand
• One-half part fine fiber
• Enough water to make the plaster into a consistency slightly wetter than peanut butter.

This is just a small sampling of what’s out there.   Clearly the recipes for earthen plaster differ, so experiment, experiment, experiment.  For mixing the mud, save yourself some pain and get a mixing paddle that you attach to a drill.  Professional mud guys wouldn’t be without this tool.

Time to get that mud slung on the walls. Good luck!

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Earthen Plaster Recipes.

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Smear mud all over the walls of your house.  Really.  It’s an idea whose time has come.  Actually it’s an idea that’s been around for eons of time, but has been mostly lost to contemporary American culture.  I know that the dry wall guys claim to be using “mud,” but I’m talking about real earth, real mud.   I have to say I became a little more eager to entertain this possibility to do some eco-decorating when I started reading articles about how earth plaster can be used in ways that are similar to some of the current wall finishes and treatments; such as Venetian plaster.

“Many colors are possible, mostly in muted hues. Earthen plasters, with their slight–or major if you choose–variations in surface texture, reflectivity, and color bring a sense of life to a room or a whole house. They lend a handmade feel, often in a classic Old World sense. Some finishes look almost like leather or marble, but there is a lot of room for creativity. You can smooth and round corners and transform boring flat sheetrock by adding a bit of sensuous undulation or trowel or hand marks. Most people feel more comfortable in rooms that have some variation in wall surface, shape, texture, and color, perhaps because we humans have been housed for millennia in caves, and houses of wood, stone, mud and thatch–not in flat-planed boxes!”

Sounded pretty good to me; definitely worth some research.  All plasters have to have three ingredients:  a binder, an aggregate and some fiber.  In the case of earthen plaster, clay (good old fashion dirt) is the binder, sand serves as aggregate, and the binder, well…it needs to be from some kind of straw and manure.  The odor leaves when the “mud” dries.  People experiment with all sorts of additives to make the mud easier to apply and more durable; things like wheat paste, whey and milk products, even cactus juice.  Having grown up in Arizona, that last item seems like a stretch.

Now there are companies like American Clay that make a commercial product that is pretty simple to purchase and use.  Somehow I feel like using this type of a product is missing the point.  Even though this product states that they are an “environmentally friendly alternative to cement, gypsum, acrylic, and lime plasters,” the processing, packaging and marketing renders it not that eco-friendly.

So if I don’t go the prefab route and hire a professional to apply it, just how hard is this?  More in my next post.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Dirt on the walls is a good thing.

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July 5th Ruminations:

Parades, picnics, fireworks, add family and friends—seems like a perfect 4^th of July.  As I watched and experienced all the events yesterday, I wondered what we could have done differently.

The small town parade was exactly what it should have been:  fire engines blaring their horns, wildly decorated motorcycles and go-carts spewing exhaust as they weaved along the parade path, cleverly decorated floats with their riders tossing candy, and horses and horses and horses…  When it was over, there were piles of garbage everywhere.  Same for the picnics; good food, good conversations, and lots of trash.

Now the fireworks were enchanting and all the kids thought they were just great.  And they were.  I couldn’t help but wonder how much junk they were putting into the air.  I sure could smell it.  I wonder how debris is actually being generated and falling to the ground.  If it were daylight when the firework displays were lit, I’ll bet we’d be more disgusted because we’d see it.  Besides, I don’t know about you, but with every “bomb bursting in air” and with each “ooohhh and aaahhh” there is some meter or calculator in my head adding up how much each one of those things must cost.

Now I’m feeling like the Grinch who stole the 4^th of July.  But I feel like I owe it to my country (how’s that for patriotic) to stop and analyze what we do and see if there isn’t some way to have a great time, but do it in a more environmental friendly way.  We’ve been doing the same traditional things forever.  Is there a better way?  Gotta be.  There has to be a way to have equal amounts of enjoyment and fun with friends, family and community without so much damage.  Send me your ideas and I’ll be working on my own.  Check back next 4^th.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at A Green July Fourth.

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So you thought it was that swarm of cars on the freeway or that refinery’s smokestack belching black fog that was the major contributor to CO2 emissions.   Well it turns out that it isn’t cars or even industry that is the biggest contributor to this CO2 mess….it’s buildings.

Take a look at these charts and graphs from the U.S. Energy Administration.   If you add both residential and commercial real buildings together, a new picture of the energy drain emerges.    The website Architecture 2030 has parsed some of the data from the US government in a slightly different way.  Their pie chart shows that 48 percent of U.S. energy consumption goes to buildings.

There is regular discussion about developing countries, particularly China, and their increasing appetite for fuel and energy.  Once again increasing car ownership and fuel consumption in China usually get the lion’s share of attention.  Yet building is a major contributor, perhaps the largest overall contributor, of CO2 emissions.  Why isn’t this the topic for the evening news?  If you have close to 50 percent of the problem being generated around the world by our houses and our office buildings, green building and re-building should be at the top of the list.

I’m irritated and inspired by this information.  Irritated that there isn’t more attention given to green building.  Irritated that the general public—me included—have spent a lot of time wringing our collective hands over transportation issues (cars and fuel) when I should have been more focused on homes and buildings.  I’m inspired by all the options for green building and rebuilding.  I feel like this is something that every person can actually do something about.  I’m probably not qualified to develop hydrogen fueled cars, but I can analyze my own home and start making changes.

This article was first published on Build and Rebuild. To continue reading, please view the original post at Change of Focus — Green Building.

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