Green Energy News | March 26, 2000

March 26, 2000 – Vol.4 No.52

ENERGIES... week of March 26, 2000

ENERGY/COST EFFICIENT BUILDINGS. At minimal additional cost, new buildings can become energy efficient while being comfortable places to live or work. Thoughtful design, a little technology and the desire to build them are the main ingredients needed for green buildings.

The U.S. Green Buildings Council has recognized the Johnson Controls Brengel Technology Center, in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin as one of the nation’s first Green Buildings designated under the Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) (tm) rating system.

Energy efficient features for the $16.9 million, 130,000 square foot Technology Center include: light colored concrete surfaces and roofing materials to reduce air conditioning loads, daylight to provide 10% of the building’s potential energy needs, a building automation system to monitor and manage mechanical and electrical systems, location of the facility near bus lines to encourage the use of mass transit, showers for bicyclists, individual controls to adjust temperature, lighting and air flow in each room, and a roof mounted weather station to forecast the building’s energy needs.

The LEED rating system includes the cost effectiveness energy efficient design and technologies. Visit Johnson Controls at http://www.jci.com/ , the U.S. Green Buildings Council at http://www.usgbc.org/ .

SWEET ENERGY. DynaMotive Technologies has completed its first production run of BioOil made from sugar cane bagass - the solid, pulp material remaining after the extraction of juice from cane. BioOil is considered by the company to be a low emission replacement for diesel fuel. Since it is derived from renewable waste, it is greenhouse gas neutral.

World-wide sugar production for 1999 was 134 million tons. Bagass waste was 375 million tons, which is typically burned. Processing 100 tons of dry bagass per day would produce 4.8 million U.S gallons of BioOil each year according to DynaMotive. Ordinarily DynaMotive’s BioOil process converts forest and agricultural waste into the fuel. Visit DynaMotive at http://www.dynamotive.com/ .

STEP-BY-STEP. The U.S. Coast Guard facility housed in the John F. Williams Building in downtown Boston, Massachusetts now has a 37 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system for its new roof. PowerGuard (tm) solar roofing tiles from PowerLight provide all the daylight electrical needs for two floors of the nine story building.

Peoples Energy of Chicago has installed a natural gas fueled Capstone Model 330 MicroTurbine (tm) in a White Hen Pantry convenience store in Bensenville, Illinois. The 30 kilowatt turbine generator will run in parallel with the store’s grid connection, but be able to operate independently as a back-up power supply. This is Peoples first foray into the emerging market for distributed power generation.

In the town of Swaffham, Norfolk, U.K. residents are so happy with their one wind turbine they want another. The current Swaffham turbine, an Enercon E-66, has an attached viewing platform 65 meters above ground level and is a tourist attraction. Aside from the civic pride in the turbine, residents want all their power to come from this renewable source.

Visit Capstone at http://www.capstoneturbine.com/ , Enercon at http://www.enercon.de/, Peoples Energy at http://www.PeoplesEnergy.com/ , and PowerLight at http://www.powerlight.com/