U r b a n T r e k k e r

Rice University's ZEROW HOUSE

The ZEROW HOUSE, has one of the best looking designs at the Solar Decathlon competition, in my opinion..

  

image: own collection

Total Number of Tweets in Real Time

It's Friday! Yay. I read this interesting piece on Trendwatching about the power of now or NOWISM, which shows that Twitter is the 'poster child' of one of the three developments to watch: 1) online impulse, 2) living the live, and 3) instant commerce. And Twitter leading the way in real-time search everything, even Google founder admits it that they've done good job. From the time the article was published online, the total number of tweets have gone up from,

this

 

to this

  

image: Gigatweet

Lots of numbers. For more real time tweets, here..

Moving Windmills

This is such a heartwarming story [h/t dailykos].

"Some people see lemons and make lemonade. William Kamkwamba saw wind and made a windmill.

This might not seem like a mighty feat. But Kamkwamba, who grew up in Masitala, a tiny rural farming village off the grid in Malawi, was 14 years old in 2001 when he spotted a photo of a windmill in a U.S. textbook one day. He decided to make one, hacking together a contraption from strips of PVC pipe, rusty car and bicycle parts and blue gum trees.

Though he ultimately had big designs for his creation, all he really wanted to do initially was power a small bulb in his bedroom so he could stay up and read past sunset."

[via Wired]

Related articles by Zemanta

• William Kamkwamba: Harnessing the Wind (whiteafrican.com)
• Powerful idea (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Teen's DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village New Hope (wired.com)

Solar Homes Tour 2009

Over 70 solar homes in DC, Maryland, Virginia hoods will be part of the tour this weekend, October 3-4. The complete tour booklet is now available through this site. Takoma Park Green homes and garden tour only, here.

Team Ohio State University

Their design theme for 2009 Solar Decathlon is 'Ohio-centric,' that uses local materials as much as possible, Whirlpool appliances and reclaimed barn wood.

image: the Ohio State University

Their story..

Building Green Straw Bales

Straw-bale construction is a building method that uses straw bales as structural elements, insulation, or both. It is commonly used in natural building. It has advantages over some conventional building systems because of its cost, easy availability, and its high insulation value.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Straw Insulation for the Home (greenbuildingelements.com)

At Least One Builder is Doing It..

According to Eco-Home, K Hovnanian builds a concept high performance home in one of their communities, Eagles Pointe in Woodbridge, VA. They call this project "Building America Concept Home" as a result of its partnership with Department of Energy's Building America research initiative.

Via Eco-Home.

The house starts with all of the features of the High Performance Home (HPH), Hovnanian’s standard in its Mid-Atlantic markets. The HPH standard, which the builder implemented over the past year without raising prices, includes improvements such as a 90% AFUE furnace, a 14-SEER heat pump for the second zone, sealed ductwork, supplemental spray-foam insulation at critical areas, optimized framing, and advanced drainage planes. The dwelling is 32% more efficient than the DOE benchmark for new homes, and Hovnanian estimates that it saves $1,659 per year in energy costs.

You can read more about the concept house here. 

A complete list of Building America project locations, part of DOE initiatives, here.

Green Thursday: Avoid Phantom Power

Phantom power is also known as 'stand-by' power. This stand-by power really waste energy spew carbon footprint even when you're not using it, via Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

"A surprisingly large number of electrical products—TVs to microwave ovens to air conditioners—cannot be switched off completely without being unplugged. These products draw power 24 hours a day, often without the knowledge of the consumer. We call this power consumption "standby power."

An individual product draws relatively little standby power (see here for examples) but a typical American home has forty products constantly drawing power. Together these amount to almost 10% of residential electricity use." (emphasis added)

Among the 40 products that constantly draw energy (have stand-by power) when you left it unplugged into an outlet, i.e. cell phone charger, computer, TV, kitchen appliances.

So using power strip, turn the power strip off or unplugging it from an outlet when not using it, maybe the easiest thing that one can do.

If you're on the market for new gadget, be on the lookout for information on how to buy products with low stand by power.

Solar Decathlon - Contest for the Fittest

I had the opportunity to go to the Mall to see the 2007 Solar Decathlon, the competition, this past Sunday. Twenty teams competed in this year's competition.

The event was well attended. There were so many people around. You see long lines everywhere. The long lines deterred me to wait in line and see each individual home. So- instead of waiting in lines, I tried to capture the pictures of some of the houses in the competition.

Pictures speak louder than words.

You'll see (below) that some of these houses are boxy-looking-contemporary themes. From marketability point of view, I am not sure if regular Joe and Jane buyers would be attracted to such design.  Will it sell? That's a good question. There is no actual data of how many solar-powered homes are in the Washington Metro area. From the DC Solar Homes Tour, there were 40 area homes take part in the tour. But, really - is it really only 40 solar homes out there? It's gotta be more than that. A solar-powered home supposedly have higher resale value.

The Solar Decathlon is competed in 10 different areas: 1) Architecture, 2) Engineering, 3) Market Viability, 4) Communications, 5) Comfort Zone, 6) Appliances, 7) Hot Water, 8) Lighting, 9) Energy Balance, and 10) Getting Around (to fuel their electric vehicle).

These student-designed homes are completely off-grid. Meaning that the energy generated to run the house from electricity, running the appliances, cooling and heating, and power electric vehicle MUST come exclusively from direct sun or solar-powered. You will see the contestants use green strategies to built the homes: Green building, passive solar energy and daylighting, evacuated-tubed solar thermal collectors (to heat water), and active solar PV energy.

SOME OF THE CONTESTANTS

Santa Clara University

University of Maryland

University of Missouri-Rolla

Penn State

Lawrence Technological University

NY Institute of Technology

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Kansas Solar House Project

Cornell University

Observation from the outside, it looks like the homes are designed to suit the type of climate of where the universities are based at. You will see that solar home designed by students from -- Texas !&M, Univ. of Texas at Austin, Kansas Project Solar House (KSU and Univ. of Kansas), Georgia Institute of Technology -- are solar panels heavy.

MOST UNIQUE: UNIV. of COLORADO at BOULDER

This house is unique because "..the core of the house -- including the heating and cooling systems, electrical service, laundry, and kitchen -- are all enclosed within two modified shipping containers."

Recycle products. Surplus shipping containers. Interesting concept.

Just for the fun of it. Here is my pick four looking it from architecture or design and market viability:

• University of Maryland [won the communication contest!]
• Cornell University
• Lawrence Technological University
• And the uber German-made, Technische Universitat Darmstadt. The made in Germany is  high-tech designed with low-tech passive way to condition the house. 

The Awards Ceremony is this coming Friday, October 19 at 2 pm. Come and see this year's winners of Solar Decathlon.

Looking at the flow of people going to see the competition on solar-powered homes, you can feel that the future looks bright for solar.

Cross-posted with Shades of Green.

Links:

* SOLAR DECATHLON Website
* PHOTO GALLERY OF HOMES
* SOLAR DECATHLON TEAMS

Energy Guide Label

Ever wonder what's the use and how to read the energy guide label found in many of energy efficient appliances, i.e. refrigerator? I was clueless until I took Eco-Broker course.

The purpose of the label for consumers to use it for comparison shopping. It is a fair comparison using similar product and rate based (average national rates as opposed to average local rates).

Here is the how-to, via Energy Savers.

1- Estimated energy consumption on a scale showing a range for similar model.

2- Estimated yearly operating cost based on the national average cost of electricity. (emphasis mine)

Technorati Tags:  energy-efficient appliances ,  energy guide label ,  energy star ,  energy savers ,  eco-living ,  eco-friendly products ,  appliances ,  GE ,  electricity ,  green living ,  green strategies