Kimberly Wilder put together a short video on Tuesday’s weather. Stepping outside Tue Jan 8, in Babylon , NY is like stepping into the twilight zone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kW9gGdvRsI
Green Drinks, Jan 10 5:30pm – Thu Jan 10 9pm. Cirella’s Restaurant & Bar, 14 Broadhollow Road , Melville. Join canvas and other eco-minded business people for a night of networking. $5 cover charge includes drink specials and a hot buffet. http://cirellasrestaurant.com/index.html
Other News
California Utilities Subsidize CFL Bulbs. By Rebecca Smith, WSJournal, January 9, 2008. ” California policy makers have set the most ambitious conservation targets in the U.S. The state’s three major investor-owned electric utilities were told last summer to reduce their combined energy use by the equivalent of three power plants to earn big bonuses — or face the possibility of big penalties if they fail… PG&E and other California utilities have poured millions into subsidizing CFL bulbs, with dramatic results in the marketplace: Bulbs that cost $5 to $10 in 1999 — and can still cost several dollars elsewhere — can be had in California for as little as 25 cents to 50 cents. Since small rebates and conservationist appeals never made much headway in the past, utilities paid manufacturers to offer cheap bulbs branded with the utilities’ logos. Big retail chains agreed to sell the bulbs at steep discounts.”
A Solar Grand Plan. By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis , Scientific America , January 2008. “A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S. ‘s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050… A vast area of photovoltaic cells would have to be erected in the Southwest… Excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours… Large solar concentrator power plants would be built as well… A new direct-current power transmission backbone would deliver solar electricity across the country… But $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would be required to fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive.”
Monitoring Tools Would Save Significant Amounts of Energy, Study Finds. By Steve Lohr, NYTimes, January 10, 2008. “Giving people the means to closely monitor and adjust their electricity use lowers their monthly bills and could significantly reduce the need to build new power plants, according to a yearlong government study. The results of the research project by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the Energy Department, released Wednesday, suggest that if households have digital tools to set temperature and price preferences, the peak loads on utility grids could be trimmed by up to 15 percent a year. Over a 20-year period, this could save $70 billion on spending for power plants and infrastructure, and avoid the need to build the equivalent of 30 large coal-fired plants, say scientists at the federal laboratory.”
Scientists Puzzle Over Polar Opposites at Poles. By Peter N. Spotts, CSMonitor, January 10, 2008. “Over the past 20 years, southern sea ice has expanded, in contrast to the Arctic ‘s decline, and researchers want to understand why. Many climate-model experiments show the Arctic responding more rapidly than Antarctica as global warming kicks in. But after looking at the latest projections from the IPCC, ‘Arctic sea ice is well ahead of the models, and Antarctic sea ice is well behind what the models project,’ says Stephen Ackley, a polar scientist at the University of Texas , San Antonio . Moreover, recent studies have shown that in key regions off the Antarctic coast, sea ice shows a strong, coherent response to El Niño-La Niña cycles… Indeed, outside the tropics, Antarctica boasts the strongest climate response to El Niño of any region on the planet. This suggests strong climate connections and feedbacks among sea, ice, and air in the Southern Ocean that are poorly understood.”
Federal Trade Commission Investigates Carbon Offsets. By Louise Story, NYTimes, January 9, 2008. “Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects to balance the emissions created by, say, using a laptop computer or flying on a jet. But where exactly is that money going? The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, raised the question Tuesday in its first hearing in a series on green marketing, this one focusing on carbon offsets. As more companies use offset programs to create an environmental halo over their products, the commission said it was growing increasingly concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated. Environmentalists have a word for such misleading advertising: ‘greenwashing.'”
Hi all, The ASAP house was written up in two local papers last week. The Sag Harbor Express, and the Southampton Press Residence section.
SH Press From the Southampton Press Eastern Edition Residence Section January 3rd, 2008
Marrying Two Trends
One local architect is combining prefab building with eco-friendly design
By Oliver Peterson
The Kiss family came out to watch and celebrate last week as a backhoe tore apart their house in Sag Harbor.
Nothing would remain when the dust settled, but the way would be paved for architect Laszlo Kiss and his prefabricated, zero-energy and modular house About Saving A Planet (ASAP).
“The house is going to be here January 28,” Mr. Kiss said, explaining that in just six weeks the property would go from demolition to a fully constructed and sustainable home. He said that the ASAP house is the first of its kind offered as a complete package with all aspects of solar, geothermal, basement and building structure included in one price. At $250 to $265 per square foot, before additional customizing, Mr. Kiss said the cost to build is about 30 percent less than other East End houses.
While green living and sustainable technology may be in fashion, Mr. Kiss has been incorporating energy-efficient elements throughout his 30-year career. The first house he ever designed was built with a passive solar system in 1980, and Mr. Kiss said it became quite famous. “It’s been in 10 books and 15 magazines,” he noted, and later explained that passive solar uses the sun for light and warmth, without the aid of photovoltaic panels. Looking back at his work, Mr. Kiss said he has been experimenting with green technology and design all along. His past work includes passive solar, double-skin construction for cooling and warmth and other advancements that were far from industry standards when he made them. The ASAP house is a natural progression from that work, he said, and Mr. Kiss is ready to proliferate his design.
“It became quite clear that this was a repeatable project,” he said.
The first ASAP house will become the Kiss family home and will position them as examples of living green. “Lisa and I have become active in the sustainable living movement,” Mr. Kiss said.
Ms. Kiss said she was sparked into action by a film at the Museum of Natural History in New York that said the world’s coral reefs could be gone in 40 years. The brief timetable had a profound impact on her and when she returned home she began to do some research on the web. Before she knew it, Ms. Kiss was deeply entrenched in the internet’s green community, frequenting the sites and taking up causes.
“I was signing petitions left and right,” she said, adding, “There was so much happening during that two-year period that shifted our consciousness.”
“Once you have that attitude, you start changing everything in your life,” Mr. Kiss said.
ASAP’s 2,520-square-foot structure is one floor, with bamboo floors, four bedrooms, two and a half baths, two studies, a full basement and a combined living room, dining room and kitchen. Mr. Kiss said the house has five skylights and plenty of glass, which will flood the spaces with natural light and have integrated lighting for nighttime use. It’s factory built “for better quality with less waste and 30 percent more wood for a stronger structure,” and meets or exceeds Energy Star home standards with top-of-the-line bathroom and lighting fixtures, according to the architect.
No oil, gas or propane is used in the house, and it is equipped with a 10-kilowatt photovoltaic system and geothermal heating and cooling, which Mr. Kiss said are very efficient and makes the ASAP house a net zero energy home. It has a flat roof, unusual for the Northeast, and is built to 120-mph hurricane wind code.
Mr. Kiss said what really separates a factory built house from those built by more traditional methods is that it’s built from the inside out. “It’s a very different process,” he said, pointing out that when walls are made from the Sheetrock out, electrical outlets can be insulated with foam, and the entire structure will be tighter and have less leakage. When a standard house is framed, it typically stands out in the elements for four to six months, allowing mold to form and eventually be closed into the walls. In that amount of time, Mr. Kiss said he can manufacture 10 ASAP houses.
“Literally, it was built in two and a half weeks at the factory,” he explained. Once out of the factory, Mr. Kiss said the ASAP’s build time befits its name, adding, “All the large components have to be assembled on site, so it happens very quickly.” He said it takes five weeks to position the house and hook up all the local systems, and his materials are limited only by what fits on a flatbed truck.
With its ease of implementation and predetermined systems, ASAP is already conceptually innovative, but Mr. and Ms. Kiss have added some truly unique features, with even more on the way. He had to convince the factory to do it, but in the end Mr. Kiss designed the house to fit only compact fluorescent lightbulbs, forcing homeowners to abandon the old standard and embrace the more cost- and energy-efficient alternative.
Ms. Kiss acknowledged that not everyone cares for the quality of light fluorescent bulbs produce, but she said sacrifices have to made for sustainable living. “It’s hard to live this way,” she remarked. Ms. Kiss said that green living can also be more expensive, but noted that as she moves further into the lifestyle, and must confront a world of waste, change becomes inevitable.
“Right now, if you live in a house you really don’t know how much energy it uses,” Mr. Kiss said, leading up to what is perhaps his most compelling innovation. He is trying to make the ASAP house more interactive, and taking inspiration from their Toyota Prius, Mr. Kiss said he’s working on something to gauge exactly how much energy it’s using. “We adjust how we are driving in our Prius when we watch the gauge on the dashboard that tells us exactly how many miles to the gallon we are getting, moment to moment,” he explained, adding, “We want to drive our house this way as well,” adjusting their lifestyle as they chart their energy use. “ASAP house is really a start for us,” Mr. Kiss said, hinting at what’s to come.
The first ASAP house will be up soon on the Kiss’s 100-foot-by-200-foot lot on Whitney Road in Sag Harbor, and Ms. Kiss said that people are already interested. “They’re flying to it,” she said, explaining that East End property owners with open land are often overwhelmed by the long and arduous building process. The ASAP house makes that process quick and provides simplicity of choice, and the couple is confident people will like the finished product.
Filed under: Global Warming, Long Island Politics, News, video
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