"The rise of the green building" -- "Gherkin" might save 25-50% on energy
The Gherkin is the popular name for London's new landmark, the Swiss Re Tower. I love the address: 30 St. Mary Axe.
The Economist has some interesting numbers on the Gherkin and other green buildings in this three-page article:
In America, buildings account for 65% of electricity consumption, 36% of total energy use and 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Among the benefits of green office buildings: natural lighting seems to increase productivity:
Lockheed Martin ... found that absenteeism fell by 15% after it moved 2,500 employees into a new green building in Sunnyvale, California.
A consultant claims that natural lighting in green buildings can boost store sales and classroom performance of students:
The Heschong Mahone Group, a California-based consultancy that specialises in energy-efficient building technologies, found that sales were as much as 40% higher in stores lit with skylights. It also found that students in naturally lit classrooms performed up to 20% better.
The Freedom Tower, to be built on the site of the World Trade Center in NYC, will be a green building:
The main tower ... will include solar panels and a wind farm, the turbines of which are expected to deliver ... up to 20% of the building's expected [power] demand. Like other green buildings, it will rely on natural light and ventilation, and energy-efficient lighting.
Upwind blackout reduced Md. air pollution 90% (SO2) and 50% (ozone)
From an article in Baltimore Sun today by Frank Roylance:
The idling of electric power plants [last August...] resulted in drastically healthier air and bluer skies downwind, including the Baltimore-Washington corridor....
This has implications for interstate air pollution policy:
The findings could lend new support to efforts by Maryland and other eastern states to force emissions cleanups at upwind power stations [in the Midwest].
The Sun quotes MDE Secretary Kendl Philbrick:
"This is what we've been saying all along. It's not a model, not a meteorologist's dream. [The pollution cuts] actually happened."
Another thing to consider:
Scott H. Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that stiffening [air pollution] rules [for power plants] could decrease their reliability and increase the cost of electricity, he said, "and that has a lot more direct health impacts than a temporary decline in emissions."
UPDATE: U. of Maryland scientists publish a paper on the blackout in the American Geophysical Union's journal. [via the American Institute of Physics' Physics News and Glen Reynolds.
