The program then goes on to talk with William McDonough, architect of one of the first green roofs and author of Cradle to Cradle. One memorable things he mentions is that there’s probably 5000 times more solar energy than we’ll ever need, he also talks about the future of the changing world and the traditional idea of beautiful architecture, “How can anything be beautiful if it’s not ecologically intelligent.”
Buildings use a lot of energy--in their construction and building, in the use of them during their lifespan, and finally in their demolition. Most of the energy usage comes from the occupancy of the building, from lights, security systems, HVAC systems, and just daily use. The Coney Island Terminal services millions a year but with its PV roof, that produces 250,000 kWhs a year, enough to power 40 single family houses, its impact in the “green” world as not only a mass transit station but as a mass transit station producing such a large amount of renewable energy is amazing. While PV systems are expensive, there are state and government incentives and if we merely just applied them to roofs of huge warehouse size buildings, shopping centers, Wal-Mart, whose stores account for roughly 18,000 acres of land, larger than the island of Manhattan (at least there are no Wal-Mart’s on the island of Manhattan) the amount of energy that could be produced is huge.
I think that buildings are a huge part of a “better world”, in terms of space taken up by them, the energy they use, the way they are used (strip malls are buildings too). What if Wal-Mart had no physical stores? As mentioned before, buildings use a huge amount of energy just by themselves, even more when you add into the equation their use by people who are “too hot” or “too cold”. It always makes me sick to see a building being knocked down and even worse, when the space it formerly occupied is paved over and turned into a parking lot. Demolition zeros a building out, when a building it knocked down 100% of its energy is lost. As seen in the Coney Island Terminal renovation, buildings can be used to produce needed energy and any reuse of a building impacts the overall energy use of the world.
This is a picture from GOOD magazine showing the acreage taken up by various corporations, the biggest being Wal-Mart.-Studio360 - you can listen to the program via one of their links on the page
-Stillwell Ave. Terminal by Kiss+Cathcart -they are very focused on green projects, their website features a lot more
-NYTimes article on Solar energy - talks about "big box" stores, Wal-Mart beign among them
1 comment:
Good post and it's nice to see that students from some of our nations best schools are trying to wrap their brains around these progressive concepts.
The use of PV cells to generate electricity is often criticized in that there is an assumption that vast areas of now native or undisturbed land will be developed to accommodate thousands of solar panels/arrays needed to generate enough kWh to be useful. In fact, the future of PV technology is in urban areas where PV arrays can be utilized in an efficient manner where the kWh generated may be used to either power large portions of a building or in peak shaving to alleviate pressure on electricity demands from the grid.
A major obstacle to large-scale use of PV is the high initial investment cost. Typical electricity generation costs are between US $0.25 and $1.00 per kWh depending on the type of system or physical location.
Oil production is probably now on the descending area of the bell-curve, our only hope is through conservation, and technology.
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