Just a few days ago, the $41 million Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental & Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE), a 55,000 square-foot building designed to LEED Platinum certification, was dedicated.  The facility was built to be a living laboratory and platform to showcase technological innovation.  Currently, the south facade of the laboratory wing includes a spot to test building envelope and window systems, and it's currently testing this innovative integrated concentrating dynamic solar facade. 

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When you buy a house, there’s no clear way to know what you’re getting.  There’s no miles per gallon sticker, as with cars, or nutrition label, as with foods.  You’ll pay for an inspection and walk through the place any number of times, but you definitely can’t see through the walls.  It’s strange that we allow ourselves to spend, or mortgage, so much with so little information.

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If you had the chance to catch 60 Minutes on Sunday, you saw their exclusive on Bloom Energy.  The company has been in stealth mode for some time, but all of that appears to be over.  As reported by Lesley Stahl, which you can view in the video embedded below, Bloom makes a fuel cell that will be used to power homes (in the future) and commercial buildings (right now).

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Sloan Valve Company, manufacturer of water-efficient plumbing products, including the AQUS greywater system, last summer installed two small wind turbines in Illinois from Aerotecture International.  The Franklin Park headquarters building now has two 712V Aerotecture vertical-axis models.  One is over the front entrance and another is over the employee entrance, while both are ballasted to the roof. 

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Adobe’s installation of 20 small wind turbines on the sixth floor of their headquarters building made big news recently.  But this is even bigger.  Quinnipiac University in Connecticut is putting the finishing touches on a micro wind turbine cluster on its new green campus in York Hill.  The “wind garden” is made with 25 vertical-axis turbines from Mariah Power and estimated to generate about 32,626 kWh annually.

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