Brown on Green

CRES seeks proposals for Denver Sustainability Park

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) is requesting letters of interest from organizations interested in developing projects or programs for a “sustainability park” to be built near downtown Denver. The letters are due by December 14.

CRES and the Denver Housing Authority are partnering to develop Denver Sustainability Park on a 2.7-acre site at 2500 Lawrence Street, five blocks west of Coors Field.

The park “is a first-of-its-kind demonstration and testing site for a full spectrum of sustainable technologies and strategies,” CRES said. It also will include an outdoor commons area serving as an open-air classroom and venue for community and cultural events.

“Denver’s Sustainability Park will be a place to showcase and demonstrate established and emerging earth-friendly strategies,” CRES added. “It will serve as a hands-on learning laboratory for students, developers, green industry professionals, municipal leaders and the public at large.”

CRES said proposed projects or programs should include at least one of five elements: renewable energy, green building, urban agriculture and sustainable site development, community outreach and education, or transportation. The proposals can include established technologies or “emerging or nontraditional ideas.”

The proposals will be evaluated by a committee of renewable energy and green-building experts, design professionals, community stakeholders and representatives from CRES and the Denver Housing Authority.

The letters of interest should include a brief description of the project or program, space requirements including any special siting requirements and an explanation of how it will enrich the sustainability park’s mission of “advancing a holistic model for developing health sustainable communities,” CRES said.

CRES said it “understands that all information submitted may not be 100% firm and accurate. At this stage, specifications or other information regarding your proposal are not meant to be binding contractual commitments.”

CRES said it expects visitors to the sustainability park to number “in the tens of thousands” annually. “With strategic involvement in events like the World Renewable Energy Forum coming to Denver in May 2012, and the Annual Green Route Festival, the park and its supporting partners and exhibitors will get local, national and international exposure,” CRES said.

Letters of interest and questions should be submitted to DJ Cardi, program manager, Colorado Renewable Energy Society, 3245 Eliot Street, Denver, CO 80211. He can be reached at 303-882-5300 | d.cardi@cres-energy.org.

Energy Efficiency Inspired by The Jetsons and The Anasazi

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

John Avenson has been a science fiction fan all of his life.

So, when he saw The Jetsons on TV as a boy it didn’t take long for him to decide he wanted a house like theirs -- full of gadgets that would make everyday life easier.

He’s also been fascinated by the idea of getting free heat from the sun, which dates back to a childhood trip with his family to Indian cliff dwellings near Colorado Springs.

Using plans he obtained from the Solar Energy Research Institute, now NREL, Avenson built a house in the suburbs of Denver nearly 30 years ago that combines elements from The Jetsons and the lessons he learned during his visit to those cliff dwellings.

“I’ve lived in a home that for 29 years has had almost no heating bills,” Avenson says.  He says his largest heating bills, in February, are somewhere between $30 and $40

In fact, his heating bills are so low that he’s hasn’t bothered to replace the furnace that came with the house with one of the new high-efficiency furnaces now on the market.  “I hardly ever use my furnace,” Avenson says.  “It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Avenson shares his living space with Rex, a computer that keeps track of how much energy he uses and how much energy he generates with the solar panels on his roof.  Rex also keeps track of temperatures throughout the house, turns lights on an off and -- my favorite trick -- automatically raises and lowers a set of heat-trapping shades.  Rex raises the shades when the sun is shining during the winter to let the sun heat his home and lowers the shades when the sun sets -- or goes behind a cloud -- to trap the heat in the house inside.

I met Avenson through Steve Stevens, who has also made his house highly energy efficient.  I featured Stevens’ home in an earlier story on BrownOnGreen.Net.

Both Avenson and Stevens have done most of the work on their houses themselves.  One key difference:  Stevens has done much of the work on his house on the cheap with materials he’s either scrounged for free or purchased at deeply discounted prices; Avenson hasn’t.

Click on the picture at the top of this story to see a live update of the energy usage at Avenson’s house.  Or play the video for a tour.

 

Making homes more energy efficient one neighborhood at a time

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

If you live in Centennial, Colorado, one of Denver’s southern suburbs, chances are you’ll be hearing from Brian Brainerd sometime in 2011.

What he has to say could save you money – and make your house more comfortable.

Brainerd created US Weatherizing two years ago to bring more efficiency to making homes more energy efficient.  He’s doing that by targeting entire neighborhoods for energy improvements.

Why did he pick Centennial as his starting point?  The reason is surprising, at least to me.

“Centennial houses have a lot of opportunity to save energy through cost-effective air sealing because the houses are large and have a lot of interesting architectural details,” Brainerd says.  “And the people that can gain the most are people with beautiful big houses because all of those beautiful features that the houses have is where the energy leaks out” – things like fireplace inserts and overhangs that aren’t properly insulated or air sealed.

“Bonus rooms” – rooms built over garages or in attic space are examples – also are notoriously energy inefficient.  And they’re plentiful in Centennial.

And the height of the houses is a factor.  Many Centennial houses with walkout basements are three stories high if you count the exposed basement.  Tall buildings create their own chimney effect, sucking air from the bottom and – if not properly sealed – sending it out through the roof.  The taller the building, the stronger the wind tunnel that’s created.  That’s why you often feel a gush of air when entering a high rise building.

“The plan is to reach out through homeowner associations to offer educational sessions about what air sealing can do as a first step to energy efficiency,” Brainerd says.  “It’s one of the highest returns on your investment.  It typically pays you back in about two years."

Brainerd had planned to be doing his neighborhood outreach before now.  But he had to take a detour along the way.  He figured out that there weren’t enough contractors trained in air sealing techniques to do the work that will need to be done if he convinces most of the homeowners in a given neighborhood to make their homes more energy efficient.

So, with funding from the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office (GEO), Brainerd spent much of 2010 conducting classes to teach contractors how to air seal a home.  He has funding from GEO to continue the training through June 2011.

“We’re very focused on training insulation contractors to do effective air sealing prior to adding additional insulation,” Brainerd says.  “The reason air sealing is so important is that it has to be done before you add additional insulation or it’s a missed opportunity.”

What’s air sealing?  If you live in Colorado, chances are you have at least one fleece that you wear in cold weather.  A good fleece will keep you warm on a cold day – if there’s no wind.  But on a cold, windy day you’ll also need a windproof shell to deflect their wind.

The fleece is like the insulation in your home that keeps cold air out in the winter and hot air out in the summer.  But on a windy day even a well-insulated home will leak air and waste energy if it's not properly air sealed.  And insulation can cover up many of the areas that need to be sealed, making them inaccessible for sealing.

Brainerd is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP) by the US Green Building Council and is a certified Building Performance Analyst. He has been involved in sustainable residential development since 1992.

 

Green schools improve student and teacher performance

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

How do we help our kids do better in school?

Like many Americans, I’ve followed the debate over this issue for years without a clear understanding of what the answer is.

But here’s something I learned this year.  There’s an important point missing from the public debate, or at least from the portion of it I’ve heard:  Students and teachers alike perform better in green schools.  And school districts can save money by building them.

I've always thought of green buildings as being about saving energy and water and reducing the amount of waste that goes to our landfills.

The contribution green schools make to improving our kids' education is something I hadn’t heard about until I sat in on a presentation by Dan LeBlanc, a LEED Accredited Professional with YRG Sustainability Consultants of Boulder.

LeBlanc reviewed the findings of a four-year old study by Gregory Kats, managing principal of Capital E, a national clean energy and green building firm, who concluded green schools provide “an extraordinarily cost-effective way to enhance student learning, reduce health and operational costs and, ultimately, increase school quality and competitiveness.”

Failure to invest not financially responsible

The benefits of green schools are so great that “failure to invest in green technologies is not financially responsible for school systems,” says Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, in a quote published in Kats’ study.

A few examples of what Kats found:

• School districts in Chicago and Washington, D.C., found that “better school facilities can add 3 to 4 percentage points to a school’s standardized test scores.”
• A study of schools in the state of Washington found a 15% reduction in absenteeism and a 5% increase in student test scores among students attending green schools.
• Students moving from a conventional school to a new green elementary school in Pennsylvania experienced substantial improvements in health and test scores – including a 19 percent increase in oral reading fluency scores.
• Students at Third Creek Elementary in Statesville, NC, “improved from less than 60% of students on grade level in reading and math to 80% of students on grade level in reading and math” after moving into a new green school.

Since hearing LeBlanc’s presentation, I’ve talked to more than a dozen educators and others about green schools and green offices.  Without exception, they said green buildings improve the performance of students, teachers and workers.

For example, Chris Bergmann, a science teacher at Kinard Core Knowledge Middle School in Fort Collins, doesn’t have statistical evidence but says he can see a difference in student attitudes and performance since moving from a conventional school to Kinard, one of Poudre School District’s six green schools.

“It’s hard to put a number on it,” Bergmann says.  “But I’ve noticed a change in the students and how positive they are.”

He attributes part of that to the school’s natural lighting.  “With our lighting, the students are in touch with the outside world,” Bergmann says.  “Other schools feel like you’re getting out of a movie theater almost into a complete other world.”

Another benefit of working in a green school, Bergmann says, is that the school itself becomes a teaching tool.  “It really is a helpful thing.  There’s all this great science and technology that goes into how our school works.  Using it (the school) as a teaching resource is great.”

A great example of how the green technology at Kinard has become teaching tool is Kinard C.A.R.E.S. (Community, Action, Results, Environment, Service), which Bergmann runs.  It’s an environmental club that gets students involved in a variety of environment-friendly activities.

“Kinard C.A.R.E.S. has grown extraordinarily,” Bergmann says.  Last year, 50 students applied for the 25 slots available in Kinard C.A.R.E.S.  There are 90 applicants to be in the club next year.

With Bergmann’s help, the students in Kinard C.A.R.E.S. produced a series of online videos about their school and their own efforts to live up to the school’s potential for being environmentally friendly.  There are videos about the school’s lighting, its geothermal heating system, and its vermicomposting program – using worms to turn paper, fruits and vegetables into compost.  And more.

If you have a few minutes and are so inclined, I recommend you browse through the students’ videos.  You’ll see kids who are engaged in their school – while learning some very cool stuff.  And you’ll learn some cool stuff about a green school and how it works.

One reason the schools have become teaching tools is that the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University held a two-day workshop last year for teachers from the Poudre School District's green schools to show them how to use their buildings as a tool for teaching science, energy, math, health -- and even art.

"We're onto something really good and important," says Brian Dunbar, executive director of the institute.

Green office buildings offer same benefits

Green office buildings provide the same kind of benefits as green schools.  And many of the same barriers exist to getting them built – concerns about cost and/or ignorance about the benefits.

Kats cites a 2005 survey of 665 senior executives that found “executives are discouraged from undertaking green construction because of concerns about cost, and a lack of awareness and available information on the financial benefits of green buildings.”

That may be changing as more companies begin building green facilities.

Xcel Energy is the process of moving most of its Colorado employees into a LEED Platinum building at 1800 Larimer Street in Denver.

“It’s a real nice atmosphere,” says Noel Mattison, project manager for the move.

Like almost everyone I’ve talked to about green buildings, Mattison points to the natural light as a major benefit.

“Because there are floor-to-ceiling windows around the whole perimeter, there’s lots of natural light,” she says.  “Studies have documented that lots of natural light reduces eye strain and headaches and can create better moods for people.  Just that in itself increased productivity.”

But much of Mattison’s enthusiasm focuses on the new building’s ventilation system. 

“All of the mechanical and electrical is under the floor,” she says.  One benefit of that, she says, is that air circulates from air to ceiling instead of pushing down from ceiling vents as it does in many conventional office buildings.  That, in turn, means there’s up to 35 percent more fresh air flowing through the building.  And every employee will have their own air diffuser to control the amount of air flow in their work space.

“Studies we’ve read show fresher air leads to increased productivity and reduced absenteeism due to illness,” she says.  “One study in particular of a Lockheed Martin building in California documented a 15 percent increase in productivity.  We’re not saying we’ll achieve 15 percent.  But the numbers are out there.  We’re looking forward to experiencing some amount of increase because of the improved environment.”

Mattison says the new office space also has been designed to increase collaboration among employees.  That, too, is expected to lead to increased productivity, she says.

And, Mattison adds, the company expects the new building to be a strong recruiting tool.  “We think it will help us attract and retain top talent,” she says.

Controlled natural daylight the biggest benefit of green buildings?

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of green buildings?

If you said “energy savings,” you’re not alone.

Here’s another suggestion:  Natural daylight.

Controlled use of natural daylight is a core ingredient in the success of the Poudre School District’s (PSD) six green school buildings, says Mike Spearnak, director of planning, design and construction for the Fort Collins district, widely regarded as one of the greenest school districts in Colorado and perhaps the United States.

Before the industrial revolution, people spent most of their waking hours outside, Spearnak says.  And in the days of the one-room schoolhouse there were no electric lights but plenty of windows.  So, teachers and students relied on natural light to do their work.

But those windows weren’t very well insulated and they let in a lot of cold air and dust.  So, as artificial lighting became more popular, windows grew fewer and smaller.  Some companies and schools eventually did away with them altogether to eliminate the “distraction” of staring out the window and improve energy efficiency following the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s.

Daylight affects human beings

That was a mistake, Spearnak says, because “daylight affects human beings.”  People like natural sunlight and like to spend time in buildings that have a lot of natural lighting as long as it’s properly controlled, he says.

Spearnak had his first experience with “daylighting” buildings back in the 1980s when he worked for an architect who did several buildings that made use of a lot of natural daylight.  His first experience with it at PSD followed the passage of a $200 million bond issue in 2000 that included funding for several new schools.

Spearnak’s first experience with school daylighting at PSD was almost his last.  The school, Zack Elementary, was built in the early 2000s during a drought, when most days were filled with clear skies and no clouds.  But the first day of school was cloudy and windy.

“We hadn’t calibrated the dimming system for the lights,” Spearnak recalls.  “It was an on-off system, turning off individual lamps in the lighting system as it got brighter during the day.  It was designed to change the lighting about every 20 minutes.  But the lights were going on and off about every 10 seconds that day.”

The reaction from teachers, students and Spearnak’s bosses?  Never again.

Fortunately for Spearnak’s career and the students and teachers who have benefited from the green schools he’s built for PSD, those early problems were soon fixed.

A four-year-old study on the costs and benefits of greening America’s schools, concluded that green schools cost about $3 per square foot more to build than conventional schools but that the added cost is offset many times over from savings in operating costs and improved student and teacher performance.

Spearnak agrees green schools boost performance and save money once they’re built.  But they don’t have to cost more to build, he says.

Don't be dogmatic about being green

The trick, he says, is to design a building that meets specific performance criteria without being dogmatic about everything being “green.”

“If you try to be a purist, if you try to make sure every single element is green, you can wind up spending lots of money,” he says.  “One of the pitfalls is being very dogmatic about it.  You have to learn to compromise.” 

LEED certification is a good example, Spearnak says.  “There is the danger that designers go chasing points” to achieve a higher rating, he says, when that’s not always the sensible thing to do.  He points to Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins, which has a LEED Silver rating.

“It could have been rated gold if we had been willing to spend $3,000 to add an electric-car charging station,” he says.  “But we don’t have any electric cars.  It would have been a waste of money.”

Poudre School District has two LEED-certified schools – Fossil Ridge High School and Bethke Elementary – but uses its own PSD Sustainable Design Guidelines, not LEED, for its schools.  “We just used LEED as a third-party verification on two of our schools to see how we we did using our system,” Spearnak says.

With his background as an architect, Spearnak invests extra money up front in design but recoups those costs during construction.

“We’re asking people to think harder” at the planning stage to design buildings that meet specific performance goals but can be built on budget and on time, he says.

One way he’s done that is by switching from a linear design to integrated design approach – everyone involved in project design is represented at every step of the design process.  “The landscape architect knows the first name of the mechanical engineer and everyone else,” he says.  “It costs more money to have this level of design team involvement.  But we get a better product.”

The other thing Spearnak has done is “remove the heavy mantle of risk for the designers.  Typically, there’s all this risk avoidance going on that keeps people from coming up with innovative solutions.  We tell them we want a building that meets these 10 goals and that’s on budget and on time and that we’ll take the blame if they screw up.  It gets people to a place where they’re free to come up with all kinds of creative design strategies, like fifth graders coming up with all kinds of cool ideas.  We’re paying the design team to be more creative in finding ways to save money without cutting quality.”

NEXT:  Other benefits of green buildings

Spending Earth Day on CSU's Green Campus

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

Who would have guessed that a student dining hall could save 6,000 gallons of water a day by getting rid of its food trays?  Or that you could put a 70-yard football practice field indoors and manage to get it LEED Gold certified?

Those are a couple of the things I learned last week when I joined a  busload of people from the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce's Renewable Energy Task Force who spent Earth Day (April 22) on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Renewable Energy Task Force Organizer Brian Bartony arranged the day for us.

We made three stops:  the Ram’s Horn Dining Center, the Athletic Department’s LEED Gold certified Academic and Training Center, and the university's Center for the Arts.  All three were quite impressive, because of the facilities themselves and the thought that went into making them what they are.

Here’s my recollection of what we saw:

Ram’s Horn Dining Center

Maybe it’s because there was food involved, but I found this to be the most impressive of the three impressive facilities we saw.  And CSU Food Services Director Deon Lategan sounds like the proud papa of a newborn when he shows if off. 

The Ram’s Horn has a 200-seat sports grill on the ground level and a 600-seat main dining area upstairs featuring eight separate food stations, including a Mongolian grill, burger bar, salad bar, pasta bar and more.

It’s all-you-can-eat, but there are no trays and the plates are somewhat smaller than you’ll find in most American homes and restaurants.  Eliminating the trays and downsizing the plates is a subtle way of encouraging students to take less food back to their tables – which means less food ends up being thrown away.  And it saves water.  Eliminating trays saves about 195,000 gallons of water a month because there are no trays to wash, Lategan says.

The 25 ventilating hoods in the cooking areas contain variable-speed fans and sensors that reduce the amount of air vented from the building when cooking equipment isn’t running at full capacity -- which saves energy by reducing the amount of air vented from the building that then needs to be replaced by air that needs to be either heated or cooled, depending on the time of year.

An evaporative cooling system reduces the amount of air conditioning required to keep the building cool in the summer.  And they make their own ice, a full room of it,at night when energy prices are lowest.  The ice provides chilled air for the evaporative cooling.

Two pulpers grind up food and other disposable waste that's sent to a compost farm for use.  Lategan estimates the pulpers reduce the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill by about 70 percent. 

Check out the video below to hear Lategan describe the Ram’s Horn in more detail.

Academic and Training Center

The Athletic Department’s Academic and Training Center includes a regulation-size basketball court, two half courts and two full-size side-by-side volleyball courts.  Nice. And state of the art.

But stepping into the 70-yard synthetic-turf indoor football field is when you realize this building is special.  And you really have to see it to fully appreciate just how big a space the football field is.  The indoor facility uses the same artificial turf that's on the field at CSU’s home stadium so the players can get used to practicing on the same turf they play on at home.  They call that home field advantage.

Equally impressive, although in a different way, is the study facility attached to the practice facility.  There’s a large seating area with enough tables and chairs to accommodate dozens of student athletes plus 30 computer work stations, with screens all easily visible to coaches and counselors whose offices look out into the study area through a large window that takes up half a wall.

The study facility’s designed to give student athletes an appealing place to study and make it easy for coaches and staff to keep track of what they’re doing.  It pays off.  The graduation rate among student athletes is higher than it is for the student body as a whole.

Check out the video below to hear Doug Max, associate athletic director and former track coach at CSU, describe the practice facility.

University Center for the Arts

CSU’s School of the Arts is housed in a fully renovated building that once was Fort Collins High School.  The building contains five venues for live theater and dance, three museums and galleries and numerous rehearsal spaces for the students.

I didn’t take any video of the building since this blog is about renewable energy.  But it’s an impressive space. The faculty and staff are enthusiastic about the building. And the music we heard during student rehearsals was incredible.

You can still tell the building once was a high school.  There is no question about where the principal’s office had been.  And it must be a delight to attend plays, concerts and recitals in the various venues scattered about the building.

Video Links

Deon Lategan describes some of the green features of CSU's Ram's Horn Dining Center:

Deon Lategan describes the waste pulpers at the Ram's Horn Dining Center.

Doug Max describes the indoor practice facility at CSU's Academic and Practice Center.