Building Technology

You can meet up with friends, go shopping for high fashion clothing, browse through a fanciful New York City, and build your dream house.  You can also participate in your company’s annual conference, practice patient care in an O.R., and attend a lecture by a Harvard professor.  All in the Second Life virtual world.  And recently added to that list of activities to do in Second Life is: learn how to inspect a home built from structural insulated panels (SIPs), an advanced, energy efficient building system.

But why construct a building inspector training module in Second Life?

Both the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside billions for energy efficiency and energy savings programs and green industries.  A key aspect of these bills is the creation of “green” jobs and training workers to fill these positions, with a strong emphasis on existing home weatherization and retrofits.  After all, the building sector in the United States currently use more energy and more electricity than any other sector, and much of this energy is lost to inefficient structures with a leaky thermal envelope and poor (or no)  insulation.  Substantively reducing energy demand therefore requires a combination of constructing more energy efficient, sustainable new buildings and performing deep retrofits on existing buildings.  Doing so will save money at both the household and national levels and will decrease our nation’s carbon emissions from energy.

The federal government has appropriated money to advance the state of energy efficient housing technologies and subsidize retrofits and new construction projects.  However, neither retrofits nor new construction can take place without a well-trained workforce of architects, engineers, building professionals, tradesmen, and code officials who know how to design, built, and inspect energy efficient structures.  At present, many industry professionals have no experience with or training in how to properly utilize advanced building technologies and materials and this lack of training and experience has proven to be a huge barrier to their adoption.  And so in order to transition the building industry into a more efficient and sustainable sector, tools and programs must be rapidly developed to train industry professionals in energy efficiency theories and practical applications.

In order to train workers effectively within a short period of time, the tools must be virtually based to eliminate geographical restrictions, they must be interactive and engaging to enable learning, and they must be able to simulate scenarios and situations in the real world, promote collaboration between students and instructors, and provide the means by which to learn through problem solving and independent exploration.  And at the present time, one of the only tools available that fulfills all of these requirements is virtual world technology.

To assess the utility of virtual worlds to building industry training, the Federation of American Scientists Building Technologies Program has created a pilot training module for building inspectors that utilizes the Second Life virtual world and web-based tools.  This module educates building inspectors about how to inspect houses constructed with structural insulated panels (SIPs).  In this interactive virtual environment, building inspectors can investigate structural and architectural details, interact with animated models, click on details to obtain descriptions, CAD Images, and drawings of the detail, watch a presentation, and take a self-assessment of knowledge gained.  Through these features, users learn about the importance of energy efficiency and how to achieve a tight building envelope, constructability and code compliance issues commonly found in SIP construction, and information about SIPs themselves.

While not a fully functional pilot, initial feedback indicates that virtual worlds are indeed valuable training tools, especially when coupled with an independent web-based learning module.  By combining classroom learning with field-based learning scenarios, virtual world training improves comprehension of classroom material and shortens the in-field learning curve, thereby speeding up the training process.  And due to its web-based nature, virtual world training can allow students to be trained in areas of the country where there are few trainers or certified professionals.  As such, FAS recommends further development of virtual training modules as a solution to the need to train workers for a more energy efficient building sector.

To read the Building Technology Program’s report to Lawrence Berkeley National Lab on the training, click here.  To visit the building inspector training module in Second Life, teleport to: 142, 18, 27.

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In the ongoing efforts to reduce our nation’s carbon output by improving the energy efficiency of our built environment, a new old idea is shaping up to be a key player: cool roofs.  Used throughout the Mediterranean and tropical climates worldwide, the solar reflectance value (albedo) of a white or light-colored roof has been long understood—the more sunlight the roof reflects, the less the building absorbs and the easier it is to keep the building cool.

A recent report by Hashem Akbari, Surabi Menon and Art Rosenfeld titled, “Global Cooling: Effect of Urban Albedo on Global Temperature”, quantifies cool roofs’ potential impact on improving energy efficiency and slowing climate change.  The report notes that painting 100 feet² of black roof a lighter color offsets the extra heating caused by 1 metric ton of CO₂ in the atmosphere.  Scaled up to the national level, converting dark-colored roofs and pavements in urban areas around the world to lighter colors would offset the extra heating caused by 44 billion metric tons of CO₂in the atmosphere, effectively offsetting over 6 years of the U.S.’s CO₂ equivalent greenhouse gas output and saving the country over $1 billion per year in energy costs.

Clearly, cool roofs are a big deal.  But from a building technology perspective, just painting the roof a lighter color isn’t enough, since the lighter color only solves half of the cool roof equation.  Calculating the coolness of a roof requires measuring both solar reflectance (the fraction of solar energy reflected by the roof) and thermal emittance (the measure of a roof’s ability to radiate absorbed heat as infrared light); the most useful method available for calculating roof coolness is the solar reflective index (SRI).  This index utilizes both factors to generate a 1-100 SRI rating, where 100 indicates a roof with perfect solar reflectance and thermal emittance.  The higher the SRI, the cooler a roof will be, even in full sunlight on a hot day.

Much like the HERS index for whole house energy efficiency, this rating index is essential to meeting the goal of retrofitting and constructing new buildings with cool roofs.  Without a scientifically sound method to rate the cooling properties of various roofing materials, consumers cannot make educated decisions and the maximum cooling benefits cannot be harnessed.

And while many current cool roof materials apply the latest and most advanced technologies, from spray polyurethane foam systems to brightly-colored tiles that reflect infrared energy, our historic understanding of the relationship between color and solar reflectance retains its preeminent importance.  Lighter roofing materials keep buildings cooler than darker materials, yielding more energy efficient structures that have a lower carbon footprint and are less expensive to operate.

Resources on Cool Roofs:

Hashem Akbari, Surabi Menon and Arthur Rosenfeld, “Global Cooling: Effect of Urban Albedo on Global Temperature”, 2008.  http://repositories.cdlib.org/lbnl/LBNL-63490/

Energy Information Administration, “Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Report”, December 2008.  http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Cool Roofing Materials Database. http://eetd.lbl.gov/coolroof/

The Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC).  http://www.coolroofs.org/

Celeste Allen Novak and Sarah Van Mantgem, “What’s So Cool About Cool Roofs”, GreenSource, March 2009.  http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=68&C=488&P=1

The DOE Cool Roof Calculator provides an estimate of cooling and heating savings for small to medium size facilities that purchase electricity with a demand charge and an alternative version for larger facilities. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs%2Bwalls/facts/CoolCalcEnergy.htm

The EPA Cool Roof Calculator allows the designer to input specific details about a building, including heating and cooling systems as well as location and the cost of energy. http://www.roofcalc.com/RoofCalcBuildingInput.aspx

A PDF version of this document is available here.

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The FAS Building Technologies program has just released a policy analysis titled “Implementing Energy Efficiency in Building Codes Based on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009″, written by FAS intern Amit Talapatra.  Link to the full PDF of the paper here.  

The purpose of this analysis is to provide better understanding of the implications of Section 201 of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill. This analysis examines specific provisions of the bill and investigates ways for the Department of Energy and private code-development organizations to implement these policies using existing tools and methods available to them. The topics covered here include: ways to meet new energy efficiency targets, methods for defining cost-effectiveness, procedures to assure state compliance and issues that may arise if private organizations do not meet the requirements of the bill. For each of these topics, this analysis focuses on the relevant language in the bill, determines what questions stakeholders are interested in and answers these by taking both technical and policy factors into consideration.

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The Building Technologies Program has just released a new report titled “Adaptations of Cementitious Structural Insulated Panels for Multistory Construction“.  Written for the Charles Pankow Foundation, this document explores the procedures for designing and constructing cementitious structural insulated panels (CSIPs) elements in multi-story buildings.  While the International Residential Code currently covers SIPs for buildings of two stories or less, no code has been written and very little testing has been performed on utilizing SIPs, especially CSIPs in multistory (3+stories) construction.

Both in practice and in code, SIPs are primarily targeted toward single-story, residential construction.  However, FAS believes that SIPs have strong potential to play a wider role in both the commercial and residential sectors of the building industry.  One barrier toward the adoption of this advanced technology system is the lack of available information for architects and engineers on the properties of CSIPS and on methods to adopt in applying CSIPS to multistory buildings.

This report seeks to fill that information gap by providing material, data and appendixes in such a manner and in sufficient detail that a knowledgeable engineer can replicate and apply the design and construction methods and principles described herein.  In addition, the first chapter serves as a detailed overview of history, materials, fabrication methods and current uses and markets related to SIPs in general and CSIPs in particular.

A PDF copy of the full report is available here.

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One year ago today, an earthquake struck the Sichuan Province in China. The earthquake was the 19th deadliest of all time. Early surveys indicate that over 170,000 square miles were affected at a level of “slightly damaging”, and over 1200 square miles on the level of “devastating”. As of May 7^th,, 2009, there are 68,712 dead and more than 17,923 missing. With such excessive damage, rebuilding has been required on a massive scale.

In late April of 2009, media outlets reported that families displaced by the Sichuan Earthquake housed in Temporary Housing Units (THUs) were experiencing health related problems due to the buildings. There is speculation that formaldehyde is the culprit. While FAS has no direct evidence to support or discredit this claim, the work we did on air quality in emergency housing built after Hurricane Katrina makes it possible to make some informed guesses about what is happening in China.

To this end, we’ve put together an article looking at the potential indoor air quality problems in China, with proposed solutions moving forward. The paper can be found here.

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Construction continues on FAS’s demonstration house in Houston, Texas. Trusses have been put up, and the envelope is almost finished. We’ve gotten more pictures as well, and we’re posting them on FAS’s flickr account, which can be found here.

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When it comes to solving the nation’s energy crisis utility bills hardly seem like much of a big deal.  But improving access to the information in the billing records of the nation’s gas and electric utilities could provide powerful tools to increase the efficiency of energy use in the US.  This is particularly true in residential and commercial buildings that consume 70% of US electricity and are responsible for 40% of all US greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, utility bill information is stored in a huge number of idiosyncratic formats and is not accessible to individuals and organizations that could use it.  This complex, un-standardized landscape means that anyone interested in comparing their energy use with national averages, or understanding how their building is performing in terms of energy consumption, has to do an enormous amount of work sorting through confusing bill information.  The small investment it would take to get these billing records into standardized formats, and making them easily available to anyone with permission to use them, would pay large dividends, for example by helping individual consumers make better decisions when they are purchasing and operating buildings, and by helping officials managing public programs designed to encourage building energy efficiency make better management decisions.

In the future, detailed information about patterns of consumption may make sense when there’s widespread use of “smart meters” that keep track of energy use minute by minute, and possibly appliance by appliance.  But major gains are possible simply by reporting energy use for each month.  Here are some examples:

• Legislation could require that billing records and benchmarking data be disclosed to potential buyers at time of sale.  Labels providing data on a building’s energy use have been developed in Europe and are being considered in California and other parts of the US.  Most labels being considered include both calculated energy demand (called “asset rating”) and measured energy consumption (called an “operational rating”).   The US Environmental Protection Agency has developed a tool called a portfolio manager that lets building owners compare the energy performance of their buildings with the performance of similar buildings in similar climates.  At present nothing similar is available for residential buildings. The burden on the user would be greatly reduced if billing data can be uploaded automatically, using standardized formats.
• If billing records for a building are available online with suitable permissions, a utility, or a third party like Google could provide a service where a consumer could go on line, identify themselves with an appropriate password, and get access to the building’s history of energy use by month – preferably several years of data.  This could then be automatically compared with energy use from similar structures in similar climates, and estimates of the reductions likely to result from cost-effective retrofits.  Consumers might well be motivated to take action.  Benchmarking tools for this purpose have already been developed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Good building energy audits involve entering data about a structure into a computer model that estimates a building’s energy use and also computes the savings that would result from different retrofit measures that could be taken (adding insulation, replacing windows, etc.)   Unfortunately these models are often wrong since the outcome depends on the skill and experience of the person using them.  Accuracy can be improved if the models include an analysis of the actual energy consumption of the structure.  Monthly consumption data, made available to building auditors by permission of the building owner, can be used to track the sources of inaccuracy in the data input and, and algorithms could be developed over time that would suggest corrections to the user.   Improved models will lead directly to retrofits that show better performance and are more cost-effective.   The cost of doing this would be greatly reduced if auditors could access consumption data directly over the internet using appropriate network security tools.  In the future most auditors are likely to be using wireless, handheld units at the building site to collect data and perform the energy use estimates.  These could also have direct access to the data.  The software for these tools would need to be adjusted for each utility if each company keeps data in a different format – at a significant increase in cost.
• Utility data available online could also be used to strengthen project management for retrofit programs.  The performance of individual auditing and contractor teams could be continuously measured and compared based on the actual impact their work had on energy use in the buildings they serviced.   The persistence of savings could be measured over a period of years and the actual performance of different approaches to retrofits compared in ways that could lead to continuous improvement of the programs.  This, of course, would require collecting and maintaining data on the kinds of measures undertaken and  the cost of the installations in a standardized format.
• Energy use data collected in a consistent form would also permit continuous analysis of progress, or lack of progress, of city, state, and national programs to improve energy efficiency.  It could be used, for example, to compare programs in different cities, and track the impact of different policy interventions in considerable detail.  While care would need to be taken to ensure that identifiable personal information is not released, statistical agencies have considerable experience in analyzing data scheduled for publication to ensure that this doesn’t happen – and they have a good track record of success.  The novelty in this new system, of course, would be that the data would be gathered online.  Careful design of network security would needed.
• The introduction of “smart grid” technology will open more opportunities for collecting detailed information about building performance.  The new systems will let building owners and utilities adjust consumption to avoid system peaks and provide information useful for understanding the consumption of specific equipment in the buildings that can, among other things, be used to understand the impact of any retrofit measures undertaken in the building — with statistically significant samples.   The smart grid will require standardized approaches to measuring and reporting consumption data.

Taken together, the benefits of a consistent national format for the energy consumption of individual utility customers would be considerable.  The benefits would include much improved management and accountability for retrofit program funds, and more energy savings per dollar invested.  While some utilities may complain about the cost of converting existing data formats to a new format, the overall costs would be small compared with the savings that could be achieved.

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I want to share a recently published paper by John Millhone, senior advisor to the FAS Building Technologies Program. John authored a paper for FAS recounting the history of the Weatherization Assistance Program, as well as recommendations for future actions, which can be found here.

John is currently a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program. He is currently evaluating and commenting on U.S. energy policies and focusing on clean energy and economic stimulus initiatives. He is also providing analysis to the U.S.–China provincial and municipal energy efficiency management program for the Carnegie Endowment.

John’s paper for the Carnegie Endowment examines if the massive increase in funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program can be spent well, or if it is simply money thrown at a “feel-good program”.  According to the paper, the answer to this question will “depend on the ability to successfully complete three tasks:

1. Accelerate the administration of the program, including bringing together a federal, state, local, and private sector implementation structurewith transparent monitoring and verification of the results.
2. Secure the support and participation of stakeholders with an interest in the success of the program, not only because their support is essential,particularly in the southern states, but also to build confidence in the directionof the stimulus package.
3. Translate the federal stimulus investment into a self-sustaining,ongoing activity that relies on other funding sources and is recognized as vital in meeting long-term national goals.”

John analyzes each of these three tasks, discussing the potential problems and opportunities associated with each, and he provides recommendations for successfully accomplishing each. The full paper, which I highly suggest reading, can be found here.

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Construction has begun!

FAS is partnering with the Citizen League for Environmental Action NOW (CLEAN), an environmentally conscious community organization in Houston, Texas, to build a home to demonstrate the use of structural insulated panel construction. The home uses fiber cement board faced SIP panels with expanded polystyrene cores. These panels passed rigorous test requirements established by the International Code Council (ICC), which dictates standards for building in the United States, as well as additional tests conducted by FAS that looked at structural and fire safety under extreme conditions.

And now, after extensive designing and planning, construction has started!

I’ll be posting pictures here periodically and providing a running commentary on the construction process as the house takes shape. Photos of foundation prep and the first walls going up can be found after the jump…

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The Weatherization Assistance Program Technical Assistance Center has a great page of information about ramp up capacity and planning for the program to handle the $5 Billion on its way from the stimulus bill. The page contains information about ramp up capacities, workforce scenarios and projected workers needed, and impacts and savings.

While there is still a lot of planning to be done, this page is a great insight into a lot of the discussions that have already been happening.

Read more here.

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