Green Building Blog - Jetson Green

Wind Turbines Big and Small at WINDPOWER 2008

This is a guest post provided by Maria Surma Manka direct from WINDPOWER 2008.  Maria writes about renewable energy policy, innovation, and private sector leadership at Maria Energia.

Greetings from Houston, site of the American Wind Energy Association's WINDPOWER 2008 conference. I am a guest of AWEA and have spent the last few days meeting several of the 12,000 attendees and visiting many of the nearly 800 exhibitors.  Below are some of the interesting small wind turbine designs I found.

Smart Home: Green + Wired Debuts at MSI

Architect Michelle Kaufmann has made a big splash in Chicago this week during the opening of her Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. The PrairieMod crew and myself were fortunate enough to be able to spend the past two days previewing the home and are excited to share some details with you. If you're interested, feel free to check out our podcast interview with Michelle where she explains how the project came to be and the 5 eco-principles utilized by her firm.

The showcase "Smart Home" is Kaufmann's mkSolaire plan, which is designed for a city lot and has a loft-like feeling to it. Its goal is to address the space challenges found with infill lots and standard row home configurations. The brilliant thing about this exhibit is that it is fully functional, not just a shadow of what the design could be. And in case you're wondering, the house will be dismantled after the exhibit closes in January 2009.

Dutch Building Powered by Energy from Asphalt

Tom Konrad is an Analyst at Alternative Energy Stocks, where he writes about investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency companies.  This article is a guest post for Jetson Green.

The December 6 Technology Quarterly from The Economist profiles a Dutch office building that is both heated and cooled using heat (or cold) from the asphalt of the road outside the building, as opposed to the more conventional use of solar thermal panels on the building's roof.  The article optimistically ends:

The result is cheap heating in winter and cheap cooling in summer. And there is a bonus. Summer heating softens asphalt, making it easier for heavy traffic to damage the road surface. Dr de Bondt's system not only saves electricity, but also saves the road. Expect to see more examples of it, in other countries, soon.

Guide for Finding a Comfortable, Safe, and Energy Efficient Home

Tom Konrad is an Analyst at Alternative Energy Stocks, where he writes about investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency companies.  This article is a guest post for Jetson Green.

As a Jetson Green reader, you probably love efficient, modern homes, and probably dream of building your own one day.  But that may not be much help if the home you are looking for today is your next rental, or you need to live in an area where land is not available to build your own place.  You may find yourself looking at existing homes instead. (Existing homes account for 85% of the homes sold each year, and more of the rentals).

At the 2007 Energy Star Summit, which I attended December 3rd and 4th, I sat in on multiple workshops geared towards Energy Auditors, the people who verify the performance of your home and recommend cost-effective improvements.  After three of these workshops, I decided I will never buy a house that is not a new Energy Star, Built Green, or LEED certified one, without first having a home energy audit by a professional auditor, no matter what the price.  Each of the above ratings/certifications included some form of energy and safety audit.

Royal Homes Modern Prefab: from Concept to Reality

This excellent story was originally published by Treehugger's Lloyd Alter on July 21, 2007.  Inconspicuously placed into the blog stream of information on a Saturday, it's particularly special in that it offers a glimpse of taking prefab from nothing to something.  I hope you enjoy the following information, links, and images as much as I did. 

Until recently my day job was working with Royal Homes to promote modern prefab. We commissioned Kohn Shnier Architects to design the small and efficient Q series, which was seen by a Toronto patron of the Arts, who asked for a larger version as a second home for two families in Muskoka, Ontario. I visited the site this week for the first time since the construction and installation, which can be seen here. Another disclosure: I am a terrible photographer and these pictures do not do it justice.

The building is essentially a sixteen foot deep wall; that the maximum width that can go down the road, and Martin Kohn took advantage of this to create the thin, long structure.