Energy Newsbriefs
Articles for June 6, 2011
ENERGY NEWSBRIEFS is a weekly current awareness service provided by the WSU Extension Energy Program Library and written by Angela Santamaria, WSU Energy Library Manager, to assist users in tracking developments in the energy field. To view past issues or to subscribe to receive an email notification of the publication of a new issue, go to the Energy Newsbriefs home.
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BUILDINGS ? HEALTH CARE FACILITIES
"Going Green While Improving Environment of Care" was co-authored by Phillip Benz, Director of Plant Engineering and Environmental Services, Passavant Area Hospital, and Laura Rygielski Preston, Vice President, Healthcare Market, Trane; the article appeared in the March/April 2011 issue of Sustainable Facility. Hospitals can save energy, increase the safety and comfort of both patients and staff, and improve patient outcomes by choosing sustainable options whenever possible. Energy reductions are money savers and they reduce emissions, as well. An ESCO (energy services company) can be of help in identifying where to cut and where to make other kinds of changes. The article uses a case study ? the experience of Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois ? to illustrate these points.
ENERGY EFFICIENT COMPUTING
The Open Compute Project (completed in 2011) approaches energy efficient computing with an emphasis on efficient (and freely shared) hardware. "Hacking Conventional Computing Infrastructure" is an article on the home page explaining the route taken by Open Compute Project developers; scroll about halfway down the web page to see an Energy Efficiency section. The video at the top of the home page explains the project well, with an emphasis on the various ways that energy has been saved including reductions in embodied energy.
"Cutting Data Center Energy As Easy As Containing Cooling," is a short, but informative, article by Katie Fehrenbacher, posted on May 4, 2011, in earth2tech on the gigaom website. There are, it seems, always opportunities to make significant energy reductions without significant costs. This article is about such opportunities or "low-hanging fruit." Sometimes the energy savings are easy to achieve because a new idea or new technology makes it easy. Separating data center air from data center cooling with panels is an example of a new idea, and it has been working very effectively for Verizon.
POLICY
"Playing Nicely with Others," by Nadav Malin, Executive Editor, GreenSource, appeared in the March/April issue of that journal. This article describes the Portland, Oregon, experiment with EcoDistricts, where activities, including rainwater collection and district energy development, at the neighborhood level. Five neighborhoods or districts have been identified, three in the urban core and two others. The article goes into detail about how the districts are identified, how residents of each district are charged with developing a governance structure, and more.
RECYCLING
"Tapping Organics To Reach Recycling Goal," by staff, was carried in the April 2011 issue of BioCycle. A state-mandated goal of recycling 50% of public and private sector waste has caused a good part of the urgency to develop recycling plans in Minnesota. This article highlights the organics composting program in Hennepin County (home to Minneapolis), which aims to achieve the goal by 2013. The article provides some background information and an in-depth description of how the program works.
RESIDENTIAL EFFICIENCY STRATEGIES
EnergySavers.gov: Stay Cool, Save Money is a website, revised (and re-named) seasonally, from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office of the U.S. Department of Energy. The site is now offering many tips for energy savings for the warmer months.
STREETS
"Sustainable Streets," by Katharine Logan, was published in the March+April 2011 issue of GreenSource. It describes a view of sustainability that could be ? and, in some cases, already is ? incorporated into the thoroughfares of our country. They are called "complete streets" because they safely accommodate foot-, bicycle-, bus-, auto-, and truck-traffic.
THERMAL TECHNOLOGIES
The following four articles were published in the April 2011 issue of Industrial Heating:
- "The Ellingham Diagram: How to Use it in Heat-Treat-Process Atmosphere Troubleshooting" was written by Michael J. Stempo, Air Liquide International U.S. LP. The author discusses the oxide plot that chemist Thomas Ellingham incorporated in his diagram. How to calculate and plot the diagram is covered, but the focus of the author is on educating the reader on how to use the diagram in heat treating.
- "Insulating Firebrick ? Maximizing Energy Savings Through Product Selection" was co-authored by Ermanno Magni and Massimiliano Marchetti, both of Morgan Thermal Ceramics Italiana s.r.l. (Casalpusterlengo, Italy); and Andy Wynn, Morgan Thermal Ceramics UK Ltd (Bromborough, UK). This article shows how to choose the right type of insulating firebrick (IFB) for different applications. Four major ways to manufacture IFBs are identified. Each result in bricks of differing qualities which determine which work is best suited to it.
- "Keeping it Cool with Heat Treatment," by staff, gives a short history of how food has been kept cold. Often overlooked in modern refrigeration is the number of parts that have to be heat-treated to ensure the delivery of constant cold temperatures in a box that is relatively damage-proof. The author focuses on hinges.
- "Practical Applications of Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics to Heat Treatment" was written by Paul Mason, Thermo-Calc Software Inc. It describes how the metallurgist is assisted in predicting the point in heat treating at which a given microstructure will be induced to make a desired change.
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