|
Step Inside the House of the Future: Passivhaus |
|
Canadians helped invent a house so efficient you could heat it with a hair dryer. Then we forgot about it. First of three parts.
The home of the future was built 34 years ago in Regina. It was called the Saskatchewan Conservation House. It used less than a fifth of the energy consumed by comparable homes. More than 30,000 people came to see it. But Canadian homebuilders ignored the ideas it offered, and the Canadian public forgot about it.
The world would have forgotten the Saskatchewan house, too, were it not for a quirky German physicist interested in energy-saving buildings. After studying the Saskatchewan house and a handful of similar buildings, Dr. Wolfgang Feist wrote a mathematically precise - and elegantly simple - criterion for designing buildings that require less than a tenth of the energy of average buildings. He called it the Passivhaus standard.
Read the rest of the article at theTyee.ca. |
|
|
Some Consumers Resist New Light Bulbs |
|
Faced with a U.S. phaseout of incandescent light bulbs starting next year, some consumers are taking pre-emptive steps: They're stockpiling the bulbs.
Under a 2007 energy law, manufacturers must start phasing out incandescent bulbs in favor of more-efficient bulbs such as compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs.
While CFLs use at least 75% less energy, some consumers complain the lighting is dimmer, doesn't look as warm and doesn't come on right away. Some also worry about the disposal requirements because of the bulbs' tiny mercury content.
The American Lighting Association's Larry Lauck hasn't seen "statistical signs" of stockpiling but has heard anecdotal reports.
Read the rest of the article at USAtoday.com. |
|
TD Bank Builds Net-Zero Energy Branch; What's Wrong with this Picture? |
|
It's the first net zero energy bank branch in the USA, and one of 17 branches of the bank with LEED certification; this one is going platinum, with all kinds of green gizmos. will be rated DOE Class B, meaning that it will generate sufficient energy for its own needs on site from its ground and roof mounted solar panels: about 100,000 kWh, while projected to use 97,000.
So what's wrong with this picture?
Read the rest of the article at TreeHugger.com. |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
