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Which Is Greener: A New Building, Or An Old One?
Ethan Lindsey, Oregon Public Broadcastig (OPB)
… Van Huffel and Oberst say historic preservation should be a priority when spending billions in “green” stimulus money.
They say that old buildings are greener than new ones, even– new ones that wear the “green” label.
Mary Oberst: “Old buildings contain a lot of energy. It’s called embodied energy. So, when you build a building, of course, you have all the materials that go into the building. You have the energy required to make those materials, the energy required to bring them to the site, the energy required to put it all together. That’s embodied energy. If you tear down this building, you are dissipating all that energy – and you’re filling up the landfill! Not green, at all.”
Gary Van Huffel: “Plus, then you have to come up with new materials for the new building to replace the old one. And of course, there’s energy required to produce those materials and bring them here, and the energy to install and build the facility.”
But, there’s another side to the argument.
Just look to downtown Portland.
The city skyline is made up of brand-new towers, including many that developers point to as examples of “green” construction.
(23 March 2009)
In the Exurbs, the American Dream Is Up for Rent
Conor Dougherty, Wall Street Journal
… The Disciannos are among many exurban families losing their homes and their grip on the dream of home ownership. The exurbs were among the fastest growing counties during the boom — entire civilizations built around the idea of owning real estate. With home prices falling and unemployment rising, more people are renting — just as they had before the boom — and turning the community into a rental economy.
Renting is one of the few ways for people to stay in the area and keep landlords afloat. It can be good for the overall economy because it promotes mobility. When the economy turns downward, renters are more willing than owners to move to a region where jobs are more plentiful.
But that same mobility can make for less stable communities and lower property values. Some observers believe the growth of rental property is the first in a series of steps that will transform today’s exurbs into tomorrow’s low-income housing. These communities have a low tax base made up mostly of property and sales taxes, both of which are in decline. Lawrence Summers, economic adviser to President Barack Obama, has often explained it this way: “No one in the history of the world ever washed a rented car.”
What is happening on the urban fringe is similar to the urban decay that plagued cities after World War II,
(31 March 2009)
Concrete Is Remixed With Environment in Mind
Henry Fountain, New York Times
… Concrete may seem an unlikely material for scientific advances. At its most basic, a block of concrete is something like a fruitcake, but even more leaden and often just as unloved. The fruit in the mix is coarse aggregate, usually crushed rock. Fine aggregate, usually sand, is a major component as well. Add water and something to help bind it all together — eggs in a fruitcake, Portland cement in concrete — mix well, pour into a form and let sit for decades.
Let a lot of it sit. Every year, about a cubic yard of concrete is produced for each of the six-billion-plus people on the planet.
… Hoover Dam used more than three million. And the Three Gorges project in China contains more than a yard for every man, woman and child in Canada, population 33 million.
All that concrete may seem the same. And the basic product did remain relatively unchanged since the invention of Portland cement in the early 1800s. (The ancient Romans made concrete, too, but from volcanic ash.) Producers have always tinkered with the mix to find the right proportions of concrete’s basic ingredients, but the recipe never varied much.
Now the experimentation is more elaborate, designed to tailor the concrete to the need. Increasingly, that need includes the environment. Aesthetic considerations aside, concrete is environmentally ugly. The manufacturing of Portland cement is responsible for about 5 percent of human-caused emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
“The new twist over the last 10 years has been to try to avoid materials that generate CO2,” said Kevin A. MacDonald, vice president for engineering services of the Cemstone Products Company, the concrete supplier for the I-35W bridge.
(30 March 2009)
