[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: BuildingGreen Bulletin - GreenSpec Updates and New Case Studies

[Lawrence Lile]

The DOE used to build these kinds of pointless projects - huge wind
towers costing megabucks with payback periods longer than turtle's ages,
then point to them and say "SEE?  Wind power is not economical.  Build
some more nukes!"  I wonder how much of this sort of misdirection
happens with these high-profile projects?  Or maybe some funder just had
the oversimplistic idea that this is the essence of Green and didn't
care about the cost, just wanted a high profile Greenwashed project?

We have a commercial building in my town from the 1970's, with a wedge
shaped array of active solar heating panels covering the South roof.  It
was a colossal failure, because the double glazed panels quickly fogged
up and never worked right.  It was a very poor choice of systems, when
passive solar and good insulation would have achieved more at lower
cost.  Experimenters often go down dead end paths. 
 
Lawrence Lile, P.E., LEED AP

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Drew A.
Gillett P.E.
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 10:42 AM
To: notices at buildinggreen.com; NESEABuildingEnergy at yahoogroups.com;
greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Cc: Marc Rosenbaum
Subject: [BULK] Re: [Greenbuilding] BuildingGreen Bulletin - GreenSpec
Updates and New Case Studies
Importance: Low

just took a moment to look at the info on the hawaii energy gateway.
(see 
link below)

wow, a 3500 sq.ft building costing $3,500,000 or $1000/sq.ft ! all to
house 
3 workers and only 30  2-hour visitors per day.

despite the heroic efforts of a 20kw pv array only producing 1.2 
kwh/watt/year despite being in the sunniest location in the country, and

eliminating air conditioning and lighting entirely , the building still 
consumes   13 kwh (43000btu) /sq.ft/year  and has to buy as much  power
from 
the utility as is produced by the pv.

90% of the building energy goes into pumps and fans!

am i missing something.  ?

the spnhof (society for protection of nh forests)  building in concord
nh 
in a much more extreme climate  (7000 dd and 95 degree summers) was down
to 
21000 btu/sq.ft year in 1985 (on passive solar and wood chips and pv )
and 
the recent 2000 french wing addition performs at least as well on 
daylighting, insulation and venting) albeit with a much different
design.

as striking as the hawaii center is as a rack for a pv array, isn't the
tail 
wagging the dog?

www.crest.org