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While wind may be one of the most economical power sources out there, photovoltaic solar energy has a big advantage: it can go small.
While wind gets cheaper as turbines grow larger, the PV hardware scales down to fit wherever we have infrastructure. In fact, simply throwing solar on our existing building stock could generate a very large amount of carbon-free electricity.
— Ars Technica
But, as many homeowners already know, installing solar panels can be quite cost-prohibitive. New research might just have solved that problem by incorporating solar hardware into the most basic light filter used in architecture: the window.According to a study, solar windows could filter out a... View full entry
California has water resources that Australia does not have...
Even assuming the forecasts of climate change in California are correct, it is not correct to say California’s climate is likely to become drier overall—more like Australia—so much as it is to say that our dry periods may be longer, and our wet periods may be “flashier” and more intense.
The policy prescriptions that flow from that, then, make a discussion about adopting “the Australian model” a complete non-sequitur.
— Natural Resource Report
For related coverage of the drought in California, check out these links:Coating the LA reservoir in "shade balls" will save 300M gallons of waterWill turning California farmland into residential development help save water?A portrait of Fairmead, California: where water goes to crops first, and... View full entry
Humans have exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than eight months, according to an analysis of the demands the world’s population are placing on the planet. — The Guardian
According to the Guardian article, the world's population currently consumes the equivalent of 1.6 planets a year – and, at the rate we're going, that will jump to two planets a year by 2030. But what does that mean, exactly?Earth Overshoot Day, or Ecological Debt Day, refers to the "date on... View full entry
'There is no one size fits all approach — every region is completely different...' Hurricane Sandy underlined the urgency by ruthlessly exposing New York's structural weaknesses...California also suffered as historic droughts settled in, and the 2014 wave of winter storms terrorized the North, emphasizing that extreme conditions were here to stay and could strike anywhere. This bought the U.S. into line with the global situation. — CNN
More on Archinect:The Hurricane Katrina Cottages: where are they now?Coating the LA reservoir in "shade balls" will save 300M gallons of waterHow the Cascadia earthquake threatens America's coastal NorthwestThe Pragmatics of Adaptating to Sea Level Rise: The Next Wave @ UCLAU.S. Department of HUD... View full entry
Lego's 57-year-old toy empire was built on plastic. But now the giant Danish toy company is investing millions into getting rid of it. By 2030, Lego bricks will no longer be made from ABS, the oil-based plastic in the 60 billion blocks the company makes each year. — Fast Co.Exist
Lego has already spent a good deal of effort trying to minimize its carbon footprint, including investing in wind farms. But the plastic toys themselves account for roughly three-quarters of their footprint. Three years ago, the company set a goal to find a sustainable alternative to... View full entry
A Dutch court has ordered the government to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent by 2020 in a groundbreaking climate case that activists hope will set a worldwide precedent.
A judge in The Hague said the state must “ensure that the Dutch emissions in the year 2020 will be at least 25 percent lower than those in 1990.”
— Al Jazeera
Collectively, the encyclical affirms how important it is to make the moral case for city design. Too often, developers, urban planners and city leaders seem to think that it is obvious or implied why the decisions they make are in the best interest of the public. But there is no shortcut to articulating why our planning choices speak to the fundamental human dignity of the communities we’re working in. — nextcity.org
"Given the interrelationship between living space and human behaviour, those who design buildings, neighbourhoods, public spaces and cities, ought to draw on the various disciplines which help us to understand people’s thought processes, symbolic language and ways of acting. It is not enough to... View full entry
Each year, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) bestows its Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award to a federal agency with the best model practice that can be adopted government-wide. Today, ACUS announced that the 2015 Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award is being presented to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Rebuild by Design Competition. — US Department of Housing and Development
There's something of a mise-en-abyme quality to a competition winning an award, but it's a good occasion to remember the Rebuild by Design was, after all, not quite your regular competition. Organized in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and funded primarily by the US Department of Housing and... View full entry
The daughter of the man who was awarded what is considered the most prestigious prize in architecture said her late father was increasingly concerned society was not adequately confronting the looming ecological challenges.
Frei Otto, a German, was named as the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Architecture Prize earlier this year, just days before his death...
The award was received by...the architect’s daughter who...said he had been worried that the concerns he tried to voice were not heard.
— independent.co.uk
[Mark Herrema] and Kenton Kimmel, a high school classmate, founded the Irvine, California-based company Newlight Technologies in 2003. After years of research, the team unveiled a way to produce plastic from carbon emissions that is actually more affordably priced than oil-based plastics.
The "secret sauce" is a biocatalyst that combines air and methane, and reassembles all of the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen molecules into a thermoplastic the makers call AirCarbon.
— Smithsonian
Newlight's work appears really interesting, addressing two separate but related issues: "first, oil dependency, by replacing oil with captured carbon emissions, and second, climate change, by creating a market-driven carbon capture platform." Basically, the technology comprises using a biocatalyst... View full entry
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued an executive order to establish a California greenhouse gas reduction target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 - the most aggressive benchmark enacted by any government in North America to reduce dangerous carbon emissions over the next decade and a half. "With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it's one that must be reached - for this generation and generations to come," said Governor Brown. — gov.ca.gov
Currently in the midst of four consecutive years of exceptional drought, California is experiencing first-hand the real-life implications of a warming climate. Before the order, the state was already on track to "meet or exceed" targets for reducing CO2 emissions to pre-1990 levels in the next... View full entry
Another year has gone by for the Harvard University Graduate School of Design's $100K 2015 Wheelwright Prize. Hosted by Harvard GSD since 1935 and previously open only to Harvard GSD alumni, the prestigious travel grant is in its third year as an international open competition for any individual... View full entry
I have to admit to a degree of wariness when I first opened Designed for the Future: 80 Practical Ideas for a Sustainable World, a new book edited by Jared Green and published by Princeton Architectural Press. The introduction makes some bold claims for a rather slim book with little text. “We... View full entry
Perhaps the most important and widely-used building material, concrete also has an enormous environmental impact. This is largely because in order to produce one ton of cement – the material that binds together rock aggregate in concrete – about 900 kg of C02 are emitted. In fact, the concrete... View full entry
The issue of water supply in the context of climate change was the topic for the recent 5KL: Water symposium, organized by The Architectural League and The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.
Twelve experts in water resource design and management — from architects to geographers to former government officials — addressed the carbon intensity of providing a clean and adequate water supply and how design and planning can contribute to that goal.
— urbanomnibus.net
