by aleida, on February 2nd, 2010
Image from BrightTALK web site
The 2010 BrightTALK Green Building Summit on Thursday, January 28 was incredibly informative – hopefully the webcasts attracted a sufficiently large listenership. I joined all seven webinars and arrived at the end of the day with over a dozen pages of notes. While I will not post even a fourth of all those notes, I hope to give a few nuggets about each of the sessions. If my few points pique your interest, all of these webinars were recorded and are available for viewing at any time here.
Programming started bright and early with a presentation by Steven Jurovics titled Responding to Climate Change Imperative: Reducing Energy & Costs. Jurovics works for The Cadmus Group, Inc., an EPA contractor, and his session focused on the EPA’s ENERGY STAR rating for buildings which focuses on the energy performance of the built environment. Buildings that are submitted for evaluation are rated on a scale of 1 to 100, and those that score 75 or higher can actually receive EPA recognition under the rating system. The process, as described in the presentation, goes like this:
- set an energy target during preliminary design;
- once in the schematic design phase, identify the key energy performance of the building (using BIM or other tools) — and don’t move to design development until you know how to meet these targets;
- once in design development, design the mechanical system to be “the right size” — not too large, not too small, but just perfect to meet the energy performance targets;
- once the building is complete, and has been in operation for at least twelve months, you can then use the portfolio manager to analyze its energy performance — and if the score is 75 or higher, the building can then earn EPA recognition.
Since 2007, approximately seven billion square feet have been evaluated under the EPA’s ENERGY STAR system, and, to date, more than 200 projects have actually earned recognition. While I couldn’t tell how many listeners were in on this webcast, the questions at the end revealed that 62% of listeners already knew about EPA’s resources for improving the energy efficiency of buildings still under design, so it does appear to be gaining a little bit of traction.
Image from BrightTALK web site
Next in the series came the webcast titled Nanotechnology: Meeting the Green Building Challenge presented by George Elvin, the director of Green Technology Forum and associate professor of Ball State University. Nanotechnology is big business. Already, it has penetrated markets as diverse as sports, electronics, medicine, automotive, and, naturally, the building industry. Currently, nanotech is used in: solar; insulation; coatings; nanosensors; energy storage; materials; lighting; air and water filtration; low-emitting materials; chemical and pollutant control; controllability of systems; thermal comfort; energy performance; and measurement and verification. In the construction industry, nanotech was a sector of about $20 million in 2006, but is estimated to grow to $400 million in 2016. It is providing super light, super strong, super flexible, and super repellent products. For those products that will inevitably sustain damage, nanotech can make them self-cleaning and self-healing. Elvin gave the following as examples of what nanotech products are coming to market:
- self-healing concrete
- coatings that eliminate the need for heat curing
- a plastic that, when burned, actually releases water vapor
- photochromic glass which reacts based on light intensity and can reduce heat gain and glare
- thermochromic glass which reacts based on temperature
- electrochromic glass which, when a low-voltage current is applied to it, becomes opaque and is dim-able
- OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) that can be integrated into thin flexible panels that can be transparent when turned off (leading to the possibility of windows acting as light sources at night)
A big unanswered question that Elvin did address is the potential negative impact of nanoparticles on human health. He mentioned that it is difficult for the EPA to monitor nanoparticles, and that there are currently no exposure limits for engineered nanomaterials. There are only eleven studies looking at occupational exposure, but zero on consumer or environmental exposure. Considering the exponential grown of this sector, it seems poised to grow without much information on the safety, or lack thereof, of these technological wonders. There is already a nano scale retinal implant similar to a solar panel that can collect light and send it into the eye to repair macular degeneration, but will this “fix” lead to unintended consequences?
My next post will take a look at sessions three and four. Thanks for reading!
Exceptional review. Thanks for sharing this with your audience.
Best,
David Pitta
Evangelist @BrightTALK
Hi David,
We enjoyed participating and presenting. We’re looking forward to the next one in April.
I would like to see self healing cement used for areas of seismic activity. If there was a way to heal cracks from within the structure, just think of the life span of construction.
For nearly 20 years I’ve designed stores with concrete floors, and everyone of them cracked in unexpected ways. And that was without seismic activity. I would love a self healing concrete.
[...] It too was a well attended and an informative day of educational sessions (we posted about it here, here, and [...]