Journal #13: LEED Innovation in Design

I found an article at BuildingGreen.com that discusses some new problems with the LEED rating system in promoting innovation in green design. One of the staples of the LEED rating system is the ambiguous "innovation in design" which a building can earn up to four points on. When this point was asked about in class, someone said that "innovation in design" could be as simple making a furniture out of used soda cans. This specifically entails products that have zero net greenhouse gases. One example that I found was FLOR, which uses specialty materials for tiles and other flooring materials.

This article discusses how just recently, after pleads from LEED designers, released compiled information of the products that were created to achieve these points:

For years, designers have been pleading for a more accessible list of previously approved innovations. Why force everyone to reinvent the wheel? If the point of LEED is to help the industry as a whole innovate its way to greener buildings, shouldn't USGBC be doing all it can to share that information?

This is another example of USGBC being a little behind in evolving LEED and tailoring it to designers instead of creating a rigid system that does not promote the concept of green buildings as well as it could. LEED could allocate a standard amount of points for a building using an existing product that is considered in innovation in design, and could allocate more points if the chosen innovation in design is newly created or the first to be used in the new construction. Maybe further incentives could be awarded to designer (non-building) companies that want to promote their products as innovation in design products, furthering the concept of green design and stretching the reach of LEED.

Journal #12: Greening Pittsburgh, Incentives

I read the article put up on the course website about Pittsburgh's plan to enact environment friendly legislation. I saw a lot of things I had not thought about, such as hybrid government vehicles and rubber sidewalks, and am glad to see Pittsburgh at least aggressively talking about making changes. Also, the help of outside organizations such as the Sierra Club helping in preparing possible actions things could really start improving.

One thing I did not agree with Mr. Peduto on was his idea of creating incentives for people who make environmentally friendly decisions. I think it could anger a lot of people if there is suddenly special parking spots for people driving hybrids. Something like tax breaks sounds much more subtle and less likely to draw a ton of attention, but could be very effective nonetheless. What he talked about sounded more like handing someone who biked to work or carpooled a dollar everyday publicly. Although that would show that the city is very serious to a lot of people, I think it could end up making some of the more economically challenged city members resentful.

On a side note, I loved the idea of rubber sidewalks. I had never even thought of that. But it reminded me about how much I liked playgrounds with rubber decking when I was a kid because it really reduced the impact. Using different sidewalk material made me think about this blurb I found in the LEED Pro blog about compressed earth blocks. I wonder if something like this could be used as well.

More Dr. Deez In Your Face

Here's a sweet story that completely changed my view of civil engineering forever.

We were at the "Welcome to the Department" sophmore dinner, and I was talking to Dr. Dzombak with Chris Watts. Initially, he was telling us how "we are really going to enjoy the program here" and that "there are so many opportunities for civils right now." Tell me something I don't know buddy. Somehow we got on the topic of the hurricane (Katrina) that, at the time, was 2 weeks away from hitting New Orleans.

Dr. Dzombak predicts that no one is even close to realizing how devastating this storm is going to be. Two weeks ahead! Dr. Doomsdaybak went on to discuss how inept we are at planning to not see the catastrophe that would absolutely occur at a harbor metropolis built below sea level. Then he called out "and just wait until L.A. is leveled by an earthquake." You heard it here first.

I think Chris left the conversation at this point, there were good free appetizers and Dr. Dzombak was on a mission to ruin appetites. And this is when he spat out by far my favorite quote I have ever heard since studying civil engineering:

"You know, people think of technology as televisions, cell phones, computers... What they need is Civil Engineering technology. That's technology that's saving lives."

And then this caterer who had been eavesdropping on our conversation accidentally spilled the punch everywhere. Just kidding. Maybe. But he definitely did drop his humanities major and rethought his entire life.

Journal #11: LEED rating problems

First of all, I'd like to note that since this class started, I now subscribe to the LEED Pro and Treehugger blogs. Both haven't given me much to think about yet in application to this class.

I thought after Tuesday's class that I'd write a little more about the problems we discussed in the LEED certification system. I wrote down a bunch of them as I thought about it, so I will just run through them quickly here:

1. The point values are all equal, which allows designers to neglect some of the more challenging possible aspects of design for LEED certification.
2. The current levels of certification have large ranges at the gold and platinum levels, and we can assuming that designers will probably only aim at the minimum for each of those levels as it could only cost more to achieve more.
3. The certification system does not take into account design aspects that could be more crucial geographically. For example, in Arizona a design could get more points for water conservation and solar power use instead of alternative transportation.
4. Mary mentioned that the county she lives in has started to make LEED certification for new buildings a requirement. I had never heard of this before and think that it could be a very valuable tool to have government support. This doesn't mean simply government LEED requirements as in Mary's example, but tax breaks and other incentives could be initiated.
   
5. This past summer I worked at 5 different construction sites, most of them being commercial strip malls (walmart, lowes, etc..) and it was apparent that LEED was not on anyone's mind. The designs for these types of buildings are continual reused, and it could be incredibly beneficial for these types of companies to start requiring it in design.

Points 1-3 directly relate to the rating system, and 4-5 are just aspects that I think could greatly enhance the reach of the LEED system. I think that points 1 and 3 are the most important, and I would think that these should be the first changes in the system. When thinking about it, having an equal point spread seems very simplistic, and it's incredibly surprising that the U.S. Green Building Council hasn't done anything to change this yet. Hopefully we can see something like this implemented soon, and as LEED grows it could start to have smaller governing bodies in different regions who could control the local rating system.

Journal #10: Dr. Deez

I was struggling to find interesting things to read about, no thanks to crappy blogs, and decided to check out the Steinbrenner Institute at CMU's webpage. Eventually I found the faculty presentations, and was immediately drawn to finally reading some of Dr. Dzombak's work. This particular one was a report on his study of the Mississippi River and its relationship with the Clean Water Act.

Initially, it is made clear just how substantial the effects Mississippi River reach. The MR basin covers 50% of the continental U.S, mostly the eastern half of the country. The water discharge and quality are primarily controlled by man made levees and dams. The Upper MR is much bigger than the Lower MR, which results in different structures controlling the water flow.

The introduction of these man made structures has created a significant change in the distribution of sediment along the MR. Sediment has been forced into tributaries and areas where there was once little or none, and has dissipated from the main portion of the MR where it had once been greatest. The average nitrate content has steadily increased, due to agriculture (nonpoint) sources in the basin, that has resulted in a greater area of low dissolved oxygen.

The Clean Water Act requires regulations on water quality and is enforced by the EPA, but because the MR is so large, it is difficult for the EPA to coordinate this effort on a whole. The presentation criticizes the EPA as it has not acted to coordinate the different state regulatory efforts under one single entity.

It is clear that what one state may stress on regulating one contaminant, when overlooking another that becomes problematic at lower parts of the river, especially the Gulf of Mexico. The UMR and LMR both have different levels for interstate cooperation, but the LMR states have a much narrower focus and are not as well organized and able to regulate the entire region as a whole. The study stresses that LMR creates a better entity, and that the EPA helps this by coordinating both organizations then. This combined with better regulatory efforts by the EPA and work with the USDA in conservation methods are the key recommendations.

Being exposed to the efforts in regulating the entire MR as a whole makes me wonder how things are regulated on a smaller scale. The report cites the efforts in the Chesapeake Bay as something to model. It would be beneficial to see how the Ohio River is regulated and if it has similar coordination efforts.

Maybe Next Year Pittsburgh

I think this is what the Pirates' owner said after we lost in the NLCS in 1993... and then we went on our 15 year journey of blowing. But really, Pittsburgh didn't make the top 50 in Popular Science's "America's 50 Greenest Cities." Portland now has Greg Oden, and consistency across the board baby!

Journal #9: Power Mac G4 Assessment

I checked out one of the articles that I hadn't read posted on the course webpage which was an environmental assessment of the Power Max G4 released in 1999. This, I assumed, was the first G4 model since the model was manufactured between 1999-2004.

The reading first states that it is not a complete life cycle analysis, but a focus on the product's environmental impact in its use stage. I was a little leery of the study's neutrality, as I figured the authors were consultants hired by Apple. But they presented several areas where the product could be upgraded as challenges for the future, mostly concerning the hazardous materials used in the product.

There are three areas the reading cites as significant improvements in desktop computers at the time: energy consumption, materials, and repairability. Where the G4 showed the greatest achievements were in its energy consumption as its maximum power usage was 75% below the Energy Star requirements at the time. This is due to its ability to use only 5 watts of power during sleep mode. The G4 has a greatly reduced number of components in the model, as well as making many of the parts easily repairable. This saves in the amount of material used along with customers being able to repair the product more often than just having to scrap it.

This is a great example of what we talked about in class, along with one of my earlier posts, about choosing what to design for. In this case, we can assume that there was a heavy focus on reducing the energy use and materials waste in the design phase of the product, although there could be other aspects that were not discussed in the study. I went to apple's environment site to learn a little more about what they focus on now, and it appears that from the design to the end-of-life, environmental aspects are continually considered.