#Off Grid Solar Cambridge | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jcmarchi · 1 year ago

Text

Solar Device Makes Clean Water and Clean Fuel at the Same Time - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/solar-device-makes-clean-water-and-clean-fuel-at-the-same-time-technology-org/

Solar Device Makes Clean Water and Clean Fuel at the Same Time - Technology Org

A floating, solar-powered device that can turn contaminated water or seawater into clean hydrogen fuel and purified water, anywhere in the world, has been developed by researchers.

Device for making solar fuels on the River Cam near the Bridge of Sighs. Image credit: Chanon Pornrungroj/Cambridge University

The device, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, could be useful in resource-limited or off-grid environments, since it works with any open water source and does not require any outside power.

It takes its inspiration from photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. However, unlike earlier versions of the ‘artificial leaf’, which could produce green hydrogen fuel from clean water sources, this new device operates from polluted or seawater sources and can produce clean drinking water at the same time.

Tests of the device showed it was able to produce clean water from highly polluted water, seawater, and even from the River Cam in central Cambridge. The results are reported in the journal Nature Water.

“Bringing together solar fuels production and water purification in a single device is tricky,” said Dr Chanon Pornrungroj from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the paper’s co-lead author.

“Solar-driven water splitting, where water molecules are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, need to start with totally pure water because any contaminants can poison the catalyst or cause unwanted chemical side-reactions.”

“In remote or developing regions, where clean water is relatively scarce and the infrastructure necessary for water purification is not readily available, water splitting is extremely difficult,” said co-lead author Ariffin Mohamad Annuar.

“A device that could work using contaminated water could solve two problems at once: it could split water to make clean fuel, and it could make clean drinking water.”

Pornrungroj and Mohamad Annuar, who are both members of Professor Erwin Reisner’s research group, came up with a design that did just that. They deposited a photocatalyst on a nanostructured carbon mesh that is a good absorber of both light and heat, generating the water vapour used by the photocatalyst to create hydrogen.

The porous carbon mesh, treated to repel water, served both to help the photocatalyst float and to keep it away from the water below, so that contaminants do not interfere with its functionality.

In addition, the new device uses more of the Sun’s energy. “The light-driven process for making solar fuels only uses a small portion of the solar spectrum – there’s a whole lot of the spectrum that goes unused,” said Mohamad Annuar.

The team used a white, UV-absorbing layer on top of the floating device for hydrogen production via water splitting. The rest of the light in the solar spectrum is transmitted to the bottom of the device, which vaporises the water.

“This way, we’re making better use of the light – we get the vapour for hydrogen production, and the rest is water vapour,” said Pornrungroj. “This way, we’re truly mimicking a real leaf, since we’ve now been able to incorporate the process of transpiration.”

A device that can make clean fuel and clean water at once using solar power alone could help address the energy and the water crises facing so many parts of the world. For example, the indoor air pollution caused by cooking with ‘dirty’ fuels, such as kerosene, is responsible for more than three million deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.

Cooking with green hydrogen instead could help reduce that number significantly. And 1.8 billion people worldwide still lack safe drinking water at home.

“It’s such a simple design as well: in just a few steps, we can build a device that works well on water from a wide variety of sources,” said Mohamad Annuar.

“It’s so tolerant of pollutants, and the floating design allows the substrate to work in very cloudy or muddy water,” said Pornrungroj. “It’s a highly versatile system.”

“Our device is still a proof of principle, but these are the sorts of solutions we will need if we’re going to develop a truly circular economy and sustainable future,” said Reisner, who led the research. “The climate crisis and issues around pollution and health are closely related, and developing an approach that could help address both would be a game-changer for so many people.”

Source: Cambridge University

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

1 note · View note

sciencespies · 5 years ago

Text

The Push for Tidal Power Faces Its Biggest Challenge Yet

https://sciencespies.com/nature/the-push-for-tidal-power-faces-its-biggest-challenge-yet/

The Push for Tidal Power Faces Its Biggest Challenge Yet

It’s a glorious autumn morning on Brier Island, Nova Scotia, with birdsong in the air and the sun glinting off the rips of Grand Passage. Weathered clapboard and shingled houses line the island’s two principal streets, and chubby workboats—built for lobstering, mostly—jam the protected harbor, where wharves loom more than 20 feet above low tide.

Grand Passage appears almost empty on this day, except for the car ferry yo-yoing back and forth between Brier Island and Long Island, its two 400-horsepower engines roaring. But as I come around a bend, I spy a sleek yellow-and-white vessel, not half a mile from shore, pinned smack in the middle of the notoriously swift current. Though the craft has three narrow hulls, and what look like four giant propellers, it’s not a boat. It is a power plant capable of producing nearly 280 kilowatts of carbon-free electricity.

I hurry down to the harbor to meet Jason Hayman and Jason Clarkson, who work for Sustainable Marine Energy (SME), the Scotland-based company that developed this nifty device. We board their workboat, SMEagol, named after the deranged Hobbit, and head out into the current. I ask Hayman about the trimaran’s name—Plat-I, or “plat-eye.”

The view off Cape Split, Scots Bay, in the heart of the Bay of Fundy.

(Greta Rybus)

“We’re engineers,” he says, laughing. “‘Plat’ stands for platform, and ‘I’ is for inshore, meaning the device will be moored in sheltered island sites or coastal passages.” (The Plat-I’s predecessor was the Plat-0, for “offshore,” but the development team preferred to pronounce it like the Greek philosopher.)

We tie up to the Plat, then pick our way, clinging to a skinny lifeline, across its 88-foot-long crossbeam—a metal catwalk. “When there’s a little bit of a swell it can really mess with your head,” Hayman says.

Along the craft’s stern are four rotors, two barely visible in the water and two pivoted, for inspection purposes, toward the sky. At the Plat-I’s slender bow, stout cables tether the craft, through a mooring turret, to the seabed, allowing it to pivot on the tide, generating energy on both ebb and flow. “We survived the 140-kilometer winds of Hurricane Dorian,” Hayman says, in a tone suggesting that outcome wasn’t guaranteed.

The ebb and flow of the sea in the Bay of Fundy shapes the landscape, leaving mud flats on the shores of the Minas Basin at low tide.

(Greta Rybus)

Crowded into a shipping container perched on the Plat’s center hull, we gaze at video monitors that show the underwater rotors, and Hayman opens three steel cabinets to reveal inverters, transformers and other electronics gear that, using a computer program the team calls its “secret sauce,” processes the water-generated electrical current to match the 60-hertz heartbeat of the local power grid. Apparently, any fool can produce electricity; making it usable is another matter entirely.

Sometime this summer, Hayman plans to flip a switch that will send juice generated by the device into the Digby Neck grid, displacing a chunk of the coal that provides about half of Nova Scotia’s energy. At that moment this unprepossessing rig, which from a distance looks like a dismasted trimaran awaiting restoration, will become the only operational floating tidal energy plant in North America.

Tidal energy is one of the greatest untapped renewable sources on the planet. In the United States, with thousands of miles of coastline, developing just 5 percent of tidal energy’s “identified technical resource potential,” says the Department of Energy, would generate 12.5 terawatts per year. That’s enough to power slightly more than 1.1 million typical U.S. homes. But if tidal power evolves the way wind has, that number will likely rise. Over the decades, better designs have allowed wind turbines to generate, economically, in ever less-windy places. Tidal turbines, too, could eventually be placed in ever less-speedy currents. The market, says Levi Kilcher, of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “will end up being much larger than we’ve identified so far.”

Renewable. Nonpolluting. It works in the dark, unlike solar power. And in a calm, unlike wind power. SME’s floating tidal power station is gearing up to go online in Nova Scotia.

The Plat-I may seem like a tiny part of this energy revolution, an obscure project in a remote spot, but it may be just what the future requires: a simple and replicable energy source, tailored to the local environment, with batteries or other energy-storage systems to keep the power flowing during slack tides. After all, around 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in counties along the coast, and tidal devices could also be used in rivers.

Before Hayman’s company can start churning out Plat replicants, though, he must first overcome a monstrous challenge: operating his technology 140 miles to the northeast, in the funnel-shaped Bay of Fundy, which has the world’s largest tidal range—54 feet. Through the bay passes, twice daily, more than four times the estimated combined flow of every river on earth. That huge mass of water can move at more than ten miles an hour and has the potential to generate 50,000 megawatts, which is by some estimates enough to power 15 million homes. The Bay of Fundy is the ultimate test for any ocean-energy entrepreneur, and for a century inventors have been experimenting in its treacherous waters. But the bay is littered with disasters.

* * *

Hayman, 43, came to tidal power in the roundabout way of a sailor. Born in New Zealand to a mother who owned a travel agency and a father who researched dairy cow genetics, Hayman started messing around with boats early: In the summertime, his parents parked him at a local sailing club. He left college as a freshman when his uncle asked him to deliver a sailboat partway up the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. “After that I was hooked,” Hayman says.

A bold approach to generating clean electricity faces the ultimate test –the greatest tide on earth.

(Greta Rybus)

He worked on boats all over the world, including Antarctica. He developed and built racing boats in the Bahamas, where he also converted America’s Cup yachts to racing charters and operated a ferry business. But he realized that if he didn’t want to spend his entire life sanding fiberglass and humping sails up and down decks, he needed a college degree. At age 25, Hayman went ashore in England to study naval architecture at Newcastle University, then earned a master’s in engineering for sustainable development at the University of Cambridge. Soon he was working on floating production tankers, designing heavy-lifting equipment for the oil and gas industry, and doing marine salvage.

“Things that float need a naval architect,” Hayman says. One calls in a naval architect to safely lower large objects to the seabed, and to lift foundered vessels without breaking them up, he explains. In 2011, Hayman found himself in a helicopter speeding over the Borneo rainforest. He’d been dispatched to the region to extract a cargo ship grounded off Samarinda. A horrifying glimpse out the helicopter window changed the course of his life. “I saw thousands of acres of bulldozed tropical rainforest, and I asked the pilot what was going on,” Hayman recalls. “He said they’d been extracting coal from the area for five years. And I thought, Wow, that’s so much destruction in such a short amount of time.” Coal filled the hold of the ship he was about to rescue.

Wouldn’t it be better, he thought, to generate carbon-free energy from the movement of the sea than to dig it from the earth? One could avoid both the dangerous transport of fossil fuels and the outsize environmental impacts of extracting as well as burning them. “People are fixated on greenhouse gas emissions,” Hayman says, referring to the back end of a linear process. “But they are unaware of what it takes to generate energy up front.” After resurrecting the ship in Borneo, Hayman devoted himself to generating power from tides.

In the tidal flats between Greenwich and Port Williams, Nova Scotia, the tides have 40-foot ranges.

(Greta Rybus)

Most of us understand, on a basic level, that tides rise and fall in response to the Moon and the Sun’s gravitational pull on the oceans. But the nuances of tides are fantastically complex, and they remain slightly mysterious even to the learned. Tidal idiosyncrasies abound: Some places, like the Gulf of Mexico, see one high tide a day, instead of the more usual two, while others see four. As Jonathan White notes in his excellent Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, astronomers know exactly how celestial bodies affect tides, but what actually happens to water down here on earth “is unimaginably messy. Scientists are still working it out.”

All told, some 400 different variables are involved in creating the tides, but you don’t have to account for each and every one to appreciate that harnessing energy from this perpetual motion machine is an extremely good idea. The resource is clean, inexhaustible and, to an extent that even solar and wind are not, highly predictable.

Humans have derived power from the ocean for more than a millennium, trapping high tides in mill ponds behind dams, then releasing the flow at low tide through sluiceways directed at the paddles of waterwheels. The motion generated enough force to turn grinding stones or other mechanical devices. The first tidal mill in North America was built in 1607, in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, some 60 miles from Grand Passage. Tidal mills were common throughout the province and the eastern U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it was in the 20th century that the Bay of Fundy became tidal engineering’s crucible of experimentation.

* * *

In 1915, Ralph Clarkson, an engineering professor at Nova Scotia’s Acadia University, prototyped a tidal-power generator with four pumps, powered by a horizontal waterwheel, that lifted water 335 feet into two tanks atop the Cape Split headland. The stored water ran down a tube to a conventional hydroelectric turbine at the base of the cliffs. The scheme attracted investors, but in 1920 a fire destroyed all of Clarkson’s equipment. The project never recovered.

Not long after that, Dexter Cooper, a hydraulic engineer in Maine, drew up plans for three dams, spanning a total of more than 7,000 feet, that would trap high tides in Passamaquoddy Bay, creating an upper pool that spread over 100 square miles. Upon release into the lower pool of Cobscook Bay, which covered another 41 square miles, the water would generate 345,000 kilowatts of power. With the encouragement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cooper’s summertime neighbor on Campobello Island, and over the objections of fishermen, who feared that turbines would turn the bay to bouillabaisse, the Public Works Administration in 1935 began building two dams, plus worker housing, near Eastport, Maine. But further studies revealed there wasn’t enough local demand for the power after all, and steam and conventional hydropower plants could generate electricity far more cheaply. By 1936 the project ground to a halt. It revived, zombielike, for another look under Dwight D. Eisenhower, and again under John F. Kennedy. Every study reached the same conclusion: DOA.

In 1980, Nova Scotia Power began to convert a causeway spanning the tidal Annapolis River into North America’s first grid-connected tidal dam, or barrage. A hybrid of ancient tidal mill and modern hydroelectric plant, the barrage featured a four-bladed turbine 25 feet in diameter. On an outgoing tide, the device generated up to 20 megawatts. It operated for 35 years—but not without controversy. The barrage blocked fish migration and killed some salmon and mackerel, trapped marine mammals, interfered with nutrient and sediment flows, and contributed to erosion. In January 2019, a mechanical problem shuttered the Annapolis tidal barrage, succeeding where decades of environmental opposition had failed.

* * *

When Sustainable Marine Energy first formed, in Scotland in 2012, it focused on providing power at utility scale, often defined as delivering at least a megawatt into the existing grid. “That was the big prize,” Hayman says. But when Britain decreased its subsidies for tidal power, SME began looking for other markets. “Our ‘aha’ moment was realizing that no one had done a simple thing well,” Hayman continues. “There were hundreds of island communities running on imported diesel” that were blessed with sheltered coastal sites, high tides and fast currents. Appropriately scaled tidal power, he figured, could help them kick their expensive fossil fuel habit, reduce the environmental risk of fuel spills and make them more resilient in the face of extreme events, like tsunamis or hurricanes.

Researchers conduct studies on the ocean’s tidal power at the Aquatron Laboratory at Dalhousie University.

(Greta Rybus)

The on-land energy transfer station at the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) lab in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.

(Greta Rybus)

SME first tested the Plat-I in western Scotland’s Connel Sound, then eventually shipped the parts to Nova Scotia, which supported tidal energy projects. The company chose Grand Passage for its New World debut because the channel’s bathymetry is known, the water runs fast and clear, and the site is easily accessed. But Brier Island, population 168, also aligns with Hayman’s broader aim of servicing remote islands and other coastal areas. “The Faroe Islands are a prime candidate for floating tidal,” Hayman says aboard SMEagol. “The Philippines have great currents, British Columbia’s Discovery Passage, the Channel Islands, villages in Indonesia and Korea…” Hayman’s mental globe-spinning may seem grandiose. But wind and solar power also seemed fringy and, to many, a little absurd just two generations ago. Now those technologies are downright mainstream, providing almost a tenth of U.S. power, at competitive prices, and growing fast.

In Grand Passage, SME has demonstrated that a floating platform has major advantages over tidal power’s other main design option—a turbine anchored to the seafloor. Platforms are far cheaper to build and install than bottom-mounted devices (and remove, should things go wrong). And a technician can perform routine maintenance on a platform-mounted turbine during slack tide. “A visit from a lobster boat will do,” Hayman says. Attending to devices on the sea bottom, in comparison, may require a submersible vehicle or a heavy barge with a lifting rig.

With my eye on the yellow fairings that smooth the flow rushing past the Plat-I’s tri-bladed rotors, I ask Hayman if his multimillion-dollar equipment might be in harm’s way. No, he says: Dangerously high currents, ice chunks and debris kick the turbines up and out of the water. And because SME designed the rotors to swing up independently, maintenance can be performed without taking the whole device offline, so it continues to generate revenue.

(Guilbert Gates)

Proponents of in-stream tidal—that is, with turbines located in the water column, not embedded in dams—claim marine mammals and fin fish can easily avoid the blades because nothing impedes the animals’ passage. During a 2017 pilot study that introduced striped bass to a spinning turbine in a circular tank at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, fish appeared to avoid the blades, even with the current moving at 3.9 knots. These results “will inform real-world scenarios,” says Sue Molloy, who conducted the study, “and some tests that are done with wild-caught fish will translate very well.”

A study of SeaGen, the world’s first large-scale tidal-stream generator, which operated commercially between 2008 and 2016 in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough, suggested that seals avoid moving rotors. In a multiyear pilot study of three riverbed-mounted tidal turbines in New York City’s East River—a demonstration project run by Verdant Power—researchers found no evidence of harm to fish.

Environmental monitoring in Grand Passage, Hayman says, has yielded no evidence that marine animals, save jellyfish, touched Plat’s turbines. Still, as one so often hears when discussing potential environmental impacts, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.

The Plat-I generator, with one turbine lifted out of the water, floats in Grand Passage, a channel with a swift tide stream.

(Greta Rybus)

Monitoring the environment around turbines is difficult and expensive. “It’s a highly dynamic environment with lots of turbulence and sediment in the water that hinders visibility,” Anna Redden, a marine ecologist at Acadia University’s Tidal Energy Institute, told me when we met in her office. Air bubbles interfere with acoustic signal detection, as do the engines of seafaring vessels and the whir and blip of other monitoring equipment. Because lights could attract or repel marine life, cameras can record only in daylight hours. Tidal platforms are designed to work in strong currents, but sensors are not. “We’re using off-the-shelf technology that isn’t designed for washing machines.”

I asked Redden what science did know about marine life and turbines. “Nothing for sure,” she said. “And we won’t know if these turbines kill fish until the device is in the water” for a significant amount of time. She paused, then said with a note of tristesse, “There is never zero impact. But what level of impact will we find acceptable?”

* * *

There are tides in tidal power development. Flows correspond with spikes in the price of oil, investor interest and government subsidies that help tidal power compete with wind and solar, which are cheaper. The recent burst of activity in Nova Scotia was sparked by the global climate emergency and Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. (Nova Scotia has already reduced emissions 31 percent, thanks in part to its own wind turbines and to renewable energy imported from Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Quebec.)

But interest in tidal power also ebbs, such as when heralded projects fail. In 2009, Nova Scotia Power partnered with the Dublin-based company OpenHydro to lower a six-story-high, 400-ton circular turbine into Minas Passage. Within days, the current ripped the device apart. In glass-half-full mode, engineers acknowledged they’d underestimated the tide’s force. The company tried again seven years later, with an 1,100-ton model. It generated two megawatts until the company extracted the device for repair and upgrades, seven months into the experiment. In 2018, another turbine was lowered into the passage. But within days, OpenHydro’s investors pulled out, and the company filed for bankruptcy. The turbine rests on the seafloor to this day.

The Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), an international test site for tidal-energy development in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, occupies a glassy building overlooking Minas Passage. Researchers estimate that the waterway’s fast-moving tidal currents could generate 2,500 megawatts—enough to power all of Nova Scotia, home to nearly a million people—and displace up to nine million tons of greenhouse gases. One of the great advantages of tidal power is the density of the kinetic energy itself; a solar-energy project in Morocco that produces 580 megawatts covers as much ground as roughly 3,500 football fields.

Established in 2008 and mostly government-funded, FORCE is the manifestation of Nova Scotia’s tidal dreams; it’s a generator of tidal-energy research and an operations center for companies testing gear and monitoring sea life. But arguably its most important asset lies underwater, where five so-called berths, each just shy of eight acres, await tidal-turbine tenants. Among those expected to plug into FORCE’s submarine cables, which connect to a nearby electrical substation, is SME.

The dramatic tidal range of the Bay of Fundy is plain in Hall’s Harbour, from the high tide mark on the seawall to the fishing boat resting aground at low tide.

(Greta Rybus)

The village of Westport, on Brier Island, Nova Scotia, has a population of fewer than 200 residents. It is reached by boat or the ferry from Long Island.

(Greta Rybus)

Jason Clarkson had likened the Plat-I to a small turboprop plane. The project that SME hopes to launch in Minas Passage later this year will be more like an Airbus: three platforms, each hosting six turbines. Combined, they will generate 1.26 megawatts. The new venture, a partnership between SME and a Canadian company called Minas Tidal, will be called the “Pempa’q In-Stream Tidal Energy Project.” The word pempa’q means “rising tide” in the local Mi’kmaq language.

From FORCE’s backyard, I scan the silt-rich waters of the passage and focus my binoculars on Cape Split, rising sharply to the southwest. I recall that Nova Scotia had, in an age of ecological innocence (the 1980s), actively considered spanning this waterway with an five-mile-long barrage stuffed with 128 turbines. In comparison, three floating platforms wouldn’t be terribly intrusive. But what about more?

Local fishermen “aren’t worried about one turbine. They are worried about arrays of 300,” Anna Redden, who sits on the board of FORCE, had told me. SME wasn’t the only company prospecting in these currents: FORCE had other tenants moving in, and successful projects always hanker to scale up. “With every doubling of cumulative capacity,” Hayman had told me, “cost to consumers drops by 15 to 20 percent. Pricewise, tidal is where offshore wind was 15 years ago, and solar 10.” If all went well with his three-platform array, he aimed to increase it to 21 and produce almost nine megawatts.

Unlike wind turbines, which have converged on a nearly universal design, tidal turbines still come in many shapes and sizes. Axes of tidal turbines can be vertical or horizontal; the devices resemble tabletop fans, Archimedean screws, the helical blades of push lawn mowers and even wind turbines. (But because water is “approximately 838 times” denser than air, a naval architect can and will tell you, tidal blades can be much smaller than wind blades.) Some turbines operate near the seafloor, others in the middle of the water column or just below the surface. As with any immature technology, projects seem to dip their toes in the water, then retreat for tweaks, a major overhaul, a fresh infusion of cash, or a final journey to the scrap heap.

Down at Brier, the nimble little Plat-I was inching toward the finish line, having avoided so many of those pitfalls. “SME is a success story because they proved they can coexist with fishers, recreational boaters and the ecosystem,” says Terry Thibodeau, the coordinator for renewable energy and climate change at the Municipality of the District of Digby. “They figured out how to moor and pivot their device, and they’ve tested for years.”

If SME’s next generation power plant succeeds in the maw of Minas, one could imagine the company towing parti-colored trimarans to islands and remote coastal sites around the world, fulfilling a particularly satisfying vision of energy independence—one that is hyperlocal, low impact and renewable so long as the Moon continues to circle the Earth.

We won’t know for some time if Hayman will triumph in the Bay of Fundy, but I found myself rooting for this plucky company and its pragmatic leader, who were helping push the world toward a historic moment. In Industrial Age Britain, coal power put water wheels out of business. Now water wheels might help do the same to coal.

#Nature

2 notes · View notes

judchuks1 · 5 years ago

Text

World Bank, CCAF report enlightens on off-grid solar electricity financing options

The World Bank Group and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) have published a joint report that examines a wide range of financing solutions for delivering Off Grid Solar (OGS) electricity to more than 840 million people still living without access to reliable power.

The report, Funding the Sun – New Paradigms for Financing Off-Grid Solar Companies, explores an array of…

View On WordPress

#Business

0 notes

abujaihs-blog · 6 years ago

Text

American Institute Of Architects Announces The Best Housing Designs Of 2019

The American Institute of Architects recently bestowed a series of awards to the winners of 12 exceptional residential designs. AIA's Housing Awards program, now in its 19th year, was established to celebrate the best in housing design for new construction, renovations and restorations. Awards were given in the following categories: one- and two-family custom residences, one- and two-family production homes, multifamily housing and specialized housing. This year’s recipients were selected by a five-member jury that evaluated projects for demonstrating design excellence. The jury evaluates whether designs are sustainable, affordable, durable, innovative, socially impactful, meeting client needs and addressing the natural and built environment. Here are the 2019 Housing Awards recipients and jury comments: Category 1: One- and Two-Family Custom Residences

BATES MASI + ARCHITECTS Georgica Cove, East Hampton, New York | Bates Masi + Architects: Each structure of Georgica Cove has an independent mechanical system allowing it to be shut down when unoccupied.

This allows the livability of the house to expand and contract whether the owners are alone, hosting dinner guests or have a full house of overnight guests.

JAMES BRITTAIN Mirror Point, Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia | MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects: Mirror Point is expressed as an elevated, 80-foot long extruded fish shed, supported by a steel aedicule and a board formed concrete entry core. The building is precisely sited using existing topography to maximize Southern passive solar energy and views to the lake. Tropical Cyclone Fani Hits The Indian Coast

ERIN FEINBLATT Off-the-Grid Guesthouse, Central Coast, California | Anacapa Architecture and Willson Design: The rooftop is planted with native grasses, and the house is made of sustainable building materials such as steel, concrete and glass. The home is completely self-sufficient and includes its own sewage treatment as well as an on-site water supply and a rooftop photovoltaic system to meet all energy needs. Category 2: One- and Two-Family Production Homes

JOHNSEN SCHMALING ARCHITECTS Oak Park Housing, Sacramento, California | Johnsen Schmaling Architects: Oak Park Housing is a compact infill development on a long-vacant lot in Sacramento’s Oak Park district. Designed as prototypical single-family homes around an ambitiously stringent construction budget to position the homes at the lower end of the market spectrum, the interior had to be organized in compact volumes with uncompromising spatial efficiency, avoiding any gratuitous square footage that would balloon the unit size without tangible functional or experiential benefits.

SAM OBERTER Tiny Tower, Philadelphia | Interface Studio Architects: Tiny Tower places a 1,250-square-foot home on a 12-by-29-foot lot, whose similarly scaled neighbors are currently used as single-car parking and rear yards for the adjacent houses. Although it measures only 38 feet in height, Tiny Tower is organized like a full-scale skyscraper. Category 3: Multifamily Housing

Bigwin Island Club Cabins, Baysville, Canada | MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects: Although formally dramatic, the cabins employ standard construction techniques, including typical gang nail trusses for the roof. This strategy, one of drawing upon local knowledge and expertise to reinterpret the vernacular, results in unique buildings that can capitalize on the economy of their construction. This is locavore architecture that is made of local materials and construction methods.

Bill Sorro Community, San Francisco | Kennerly Architecture & Planning: Bill Sorro Community provides an ambitious combination of energy efficiency, air-quality, storm-water management and grey-water re-use. The sustainable aspects reduce ongoing costs, which makes funds available for other uses.

DAMIANOS PHOTOGRAPHY Jefferson Park Apartments, Cambridge, Massachusetts | Abacus Architects + Planners: Residents are supported by a physical environment that provides privacy, a sense of community, connections to nature, places to play and gather, and a sense of joy.

The central drive connects directly into the surrounding neighborhood street grid, while the four courtyards provide a child- and community-friendly environment safely sheltered from traffic.

COREY GAFFER Lofts at Mayo Park, Rochester, Minnesota | Snow Kreilich Architects: The Lofts at Mayo Park has helped to improve the experience of a population critical to Rochester’s economy: medical patients traveling to the city for treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Beyond providing unique housing options, such as large bathrooms, full kitchens and flexible leases, tenants describe the interiors and connection to nature as calming.

DAVID SUNBERG/ESTO Pierhouse, Brooklyn, New York | Marvel Architects: Pierhouse condominium building performs as an extension of Brooklyn Bridge Park, a verdant backdrop recalling the high, sandy bank of pre-colonial Brooklyn Heights, screening urban noise while facilitating waterfront access. Category 4: Specialized Housing

BRUCE DAMONTE San Joaquin Villages, University of California, Santa Barbara | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, and Kevin Daly Architects: The overall site and individual residential unit designs needed to complement the predominantly Spanish-style architecture of the university and surrounding communities. The team satisfied this requirement by offering a modern interpretation of local architectural motifs such as tower elements, loggias and exterior stairs.

BRUCE T. MARTIN Skyline Residence Hall, Waltham, Massachusetts | William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.: The Skyline Residence Hall “C” shape opens to views of Boston. Because of this arrangement, views are democratized. All students have access to the view over the Quad, which would not have happened had the building been placed at the hillcrest instead of the open space. Source: Forbes Read the full article

0 notes

jacobhinkley · 6 years ago

Text

[promoted] Earning Bitcoin From the Sun

There are over 600 million Africans living without electricity despite an abundance of sunshine and hundreds of thousands of solar projects on the drawing board.

Now, Sun Exchange, a South Africa-based startup, has developed a solution to Africa’s solar electrification dilemma centered on the intersection of three fast-growing technologies: blockchain, crowd-sourcing and solar photovoltaics. Sun Exchange has combined and synergized these technologies seamlessly on its online platform, enabling people around the world to purchase solar panels that are then leased into projects in Africa to passively collect bitcoin from the leasing of the solar cells that provide clean and affordable electricity at no upfront cost to businesses and communities.

“I believe being able to harness energy from our star to be a basic human right,” said Abe Cambridge, Sun Exchange’s founder and CEO. “The Sun Exchange provides the tools for anyone on Earth to exercise that right. We are turning sunlight into a universal source of income. While most solar investment opportunities require a large minimum investment, with Sun Exchange you can buy into a solar project with increments of just $10 in bitcoin equivalent to start, and then increase the number of solar cells you own substantially over time if you like the platform and are happy with the returns.”

Ushering in an Era of Solar-Powered Money

Sun Exchange manages solar panel owners’ leases and the installation of the solar panels purchased through its platform onto the rooftops of either businesses or even whole community-scale rural micro-grids. As electricity from the solar panels is generated, used and paid for, bitcoin is deposited into the Sun Exchange user’s account as a continuous cryptocurrency income stream that the user can expect to enjoy for a couple of decades.

“The Sun Exchange started in 2015 as an Indiegogo project, and has since raised $1.6 million in seed money,” Cambridge explained. “We now have over 6,000 Sun Exchange members in 91 countries. Five solar plants are now being powered by our members’ solar panels and are paying out bitcoin income. And right now, Sun Exchange is inviting our members to buy solar panels to power a recycled plastics facility plant in Cape Town, which is one of the sunniest cities on the planet.”

Funding High-Impact, Off-Grid Projects

Sun Exchange locates projects where there is abundant sunlight, where smaller scale solar projects —sized a megawatt or less — are still commercially viable. The impact of such systems can be big, such as transforming remote villages into solar-powered communities that otherwise wouldn’t be able to meet the costs to install the requisite cells, but instead, through the Sun Exchange, are able to access clean and affordable solar power at no upfront cost. The core technology that makes this possible is Bitcoin, which is accelerating the growth of solar energy in Africa by providing the financial infrastructure that make possible projects that would otherwise never be built. Just as Africa leapfrogged telephone lines and went straight to cell phones, Bitcoin gives Africa instant access to a global financial market and communities can now skip fossil fuel utility grids and go straight to solar.

“Sun Exchange opens up high-impact, off-grid solar installations projects in emerging markets to anyone who wish to own solar panels in the sunniest places around the globe,” said Cambridge. “So not only are the solar panels going to produce more energy, and therefore have a greater environmental benefit, but these projects have a much bigger impact on individual lives and businesses than projects that simply provide extra electricity to an existing grid in a developed country.”

Businesses and small communities in emerging markets often lack the upfront capital to go solar. The reason why thousands of perfectly viable solar projects sit on the drawing board is due simply to a lack of access to funding. Prior to a project moving forward and before anything has been installed, Sun Exchange raises all of the capital required for the installation by pre-selling the solar panels that make up the project to its members. Once costs are covered, the array is purchased, installed and goes online within 60 days.

Unlocking Africa’s Solar Potential

“Growing low-cost clean energy in Africa is imperative for its development,” Cambridge said. “So what’s the barrier; why is Africa not going solar? We have the technology, the skills and the desire. What’s missing is the financial infrastructure.”

Africa is unbanked across most of the continent. But with the Sun Exchange, a $10 solar cell owned by anyone on Earth can be leased to someone in Africa for 20 years and that single solar cell could be owned by somebody in another region of the world where it might not make sense to install a solar panel.

“Our cryptocurrency-enabled system enables borderless solar ownership,” Cambridge said. “Anyone can own solar panels located in sun-drenched locations and earn an income from them.”

Sun Exchange makes transferring payments and value across borders cheap and easy. Using reserve banks and SWIFT comes with a huge cost of effort and cash value when using euros, USD or South African rand. Cryptocurrency breaks that barrier.

“We can now transact with the whole world while at the same time reducing the cost of ownership investment down to a single solar cell,” Cambridge explained. “I like to say that we are streaming monetized African sunshine around the world in real time, 24/7/365.”

A campaign to power a plastics recycling factory in Cape Town with solar electricity will be the largest Sun Exchange project to date. The Nioro Plastics 473kW solar array will power the recycling of used plastic bottles into new bottles. Anyone interested in generating a passive bitcoin income stream from the project can sign up here.

SUNEX Token Sale

Sun Exchange recently introduced SUNEX, its own digital rewards token, which can be earned to get discounts on the Sun Exchange marketplace and can be used to stake into a solar project insurance fund. The SUNEX Network Token is currently available for purchase through a public token sale event, which will run through July 31.

Note: Trading and investing in digital assets is speculative and can be high risk. Based on the shifting business and regulatory environment of such a new industry, this content should not be considered investment or legal advice.

This promoted article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

[promoted] Earning Bitcoin From the Sun published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

0 notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 6 years ago

Text

[promoted] Earning Bitcoin From the Sun

There are over 600 million Africans living without electricity despite an abundance of sunshine and hundreds of thousands of solar projects on the drawing board.

Ushering in an Era of Solar-Powered Money

Funding High-Impact, Off-Grid Projects

Unlocking Africa’s Solar Potential

“Our cryptocurrency-enabled system enables borderless solar ownership,” Cambridge said. “Anyone can own solar panels located in sun-drenched locations and earn an income from them.”

SUNEX Token Sale

This promoted article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2uOpsy7 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes

savetopnow · 7 years ago

Text

2018-03-29 12 TECH now

TECH

Ars Techica

Facebook will (soon) yank third-party ad data in the name of privacy

Network of fortified towns indicates Amazon was once heavily populated

Google’s Wear OS developer preview gets dark UI, lots of battery savings

Galaxy seems to lack dark matter, stumping astronomers

As one Windows major update nears completion, the other passes 90% uptake

Buzzfeed Tech

Facebook Must Decide Whether It Will Refurbish Its Facade Or Rebuild Its Service

Julian Assange Just Got His Internet Privileges Revoked

A Friendly Reminder That Instagram Uses All Your Facebook Data

Apple Wants Its New $329 iPad To Lure Students Away From Chromebooks

Google's Waymo Just Unveiled An Electric, Completely Self-Driving Jaguar

CNet

WannaCry ransomware reappears to strike Boeing - CNET

HiBy R3 is a $229 iPod alternative that's rocking Kickstarter - CNET

Instagram giveaway! Enter to win* the Pizza Hut's Pie Tops II - CNET

Mazda CX-3 improves just slightly for 2019 - Roadshow

Brave browser getting closer to Chrome -- including its extensions - CNET

Clean Technica

Saudi Arabia & Softbank Will Partner To Build World’s Largest Solar Power Plant

Renewable Energy & Smart Grid Suppliers Forum Helps Companies Expand Sales

Uber Had Secret Autonomous Testing Deal With Arizona Governor

Tesla Stock Crashes After Model X Fatality & Fire

Researchers Develop Bird Detection & Deterrent System For Wind Turbines

Hacker News

How to grow your traffic by 29% next month

Strikingly (YC W13) is hiring designers and devs in Shanghai

TensorFlow 1.7.0 released

Facebook Will Cut Off Access to Third Party Data for Ad Targeting

Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)

Mashable

Massive solar power project will be 100 times larger than any in the world

New Zealand's privacy commissioner is also done with Facebook

This Lorde tweet is an anthem for doing the least

The 'American Chopper' meme is perfect for when you have too many feelings

Surprise! That Cambridge Analytica data *still* hasn't been deleted.

Motherboard

The DEA Says It Wants that New iPhone Unlocking Tool ‘GrayKey’

Ecuador Cut Off Julian Assange’s Internet For His Political Tirades on Twitter

If You’ve Met Aliens While on DMT, These Scientists Would Like to Hear From You

Apple's Position on Privacy Is Paying Off

'PC Building Simulator' Is Way More Fun Than Building a Real Computer

New York Times Technology

Dropbox Shares Leap in I.P.O., and Silicon Valley Smiles

BMW and Daimler, Once Rivals, Join Forces to Fend Off Silicon Valley

Executive Who Sold Self-Driving Truck Start-Up to Uber Departs

Tech Fix: Want to Purge Your Social Media Timelines? Can You Spare a Few Hours?

The Shift: Can Social Media Be Saved?

Recode

Facebook is cutting third-party data providers out of ad targeting to clean up its act

The co-founder of self-driving trucking startup Otto has left Uber

A top exec at GM’s self-driving car company Cruise is out after six months

Amazon, Tesla, Netflix, Facebook, Google and Twitter stocks dropped this week

Full transcript: Journalist and author Joanne Lipman on Recode Decode

Reddit Technology

From 2007-2010 Facebook allowed a website called ProfileEngine to scrape user data, allowing them to steal the details of over 400 million user profiles, all still accessible on their website.

What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs

Will MySpace ever lose its monopoly? (from 2007)

Revealed: Cambridge Analytica data on thousands of Facebook users still not deleted

Apple's Position on Privacy Is Paying Off - Silicon Valley is reeling with algorithmic and privacy-related controversies. Meanwhile, Apple is laughing.

Reuters Technology

Uber reaches settlement with family of autonomous vehicle victim

FANG stocks' bite has U.S. fund managers looking for alternatives

Boeing said detected limited intrusion of malware

Facebook cuts ties to data brokers in blow to targeted ads

HP Chief Operating Officer Jon Flaxman dies

Slashdot

New Deep-Learning Software Knows How To Make Desired Organic Molecules

Verizon Plans To Launch a Palm Smartphone Later This Year

Amazon Takes Fresh Stab At $16 Billion Housekeeping Industry

Boeing Hit By WannaCry Virus, Fears It Could Cripple Some Jet Production

Apple Trains Chicago Teachers To Put Coding In More Classrooms

TechCrunch

Facebook will cut off access to third party data for ad targeting

San Francisco will regulate electric scooter sharing

Festo’s latest bio-inspired creations are a robo-bat and rolling robo-spider

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang clarifies Uber is not using its Drive platform

The Las Vegas strip’s first legit esports arena just opened for business

The Next Web

Is intelligent content insights the secret sauce for engaging content?

Facebook severs relationship with third-party data brokers

Trump’s obsession with Amazon should worry you

Facebook test gives users a private comment option for public posts

Reverse engineering consciousness: Is the brain a quantum computer?

The Verge

Facebook will no longer allow third-party data for targeting ads

Westworld’s hosts just took over HBO to reveal a new trailer is coming tomorrow

Uber’s fatal self-driving crash: all the news and updates

Boeing production plant hit with WannaCry ransomware attack

Genesis’ Essentia is an electric GT with an awesomely retro-futuristic ‘bubble’ roof

WSJ Tech

Warning Sign: Tech Stocks Are Dominating Global Markets Like Never Before

Facebook Limiting Information Shared With Data Brokers

Apple Faces Multiple Lawsuits Over Slowed-Down iPhones

Uber's Head of Freight, Lior Ron, Leaves Company

What's on Your Mind? Bosses Are Using AI to Find Out

Wired

The Life Issue

‘The Sky Is Yours’ Combines Dragons and YouTube

The Uber Crash

The Universe Is Basically a Hippie’s Pipe Dream

Raise Your Glasses

#tech

0 notes

csrgood · 5 years ago

Text

Akamai Named SBER’s Outstanding Corporate Leader of 2019/ Intuit’s Sean Kinghorn Named SBER’s Outstanding Executive of 2019

Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. (SR Inc), the leader in outsourced Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) assistance, announced Akamai Technologies as the Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) Outstanding Corporate Leader of 2019 and Sean Kinghorn, Intuit’s Global Sustainability Leader as the SBER Outstanding Corporate Executive of 2019. SR Inc made that announcement at its fourth quarter Executive Symposium in Washington DC as it released proprietary Executive Guidance and Tools to Member-clients on “Charting a Profitable Path to Net Zero Emissions” based on Member-client Akamai Technologies, Bloomberg, Cisco and Intuit case studies.

For more than a decade SR Inc has assisted more than 75 Fortune 500 and growth companies on a multi-year basis in their move to more sustainable/ESG high-performance. Each year with each client SR Inc performs a detailed Management Diagnostic and comparison to peer enterprises. Intuit and Akamai Technologies have increasingly scored across all aspects of corporate sustainability/ESG as highest performing companies in SR Inc’s 20+ Member Group of global Information Communication Technology companies.

Akamai is a leading global content delivery network that provides edge security, web and mobile performance, and over-the-top media solutions. Its global platform spans nearly 270,000 servers in nearly 4,000 locations; 1,700 networks; in 137 countries. Despite a greater than 50% increase in network traffic over the past five years, Akamai’s energy and carbon usage has grown at only 1/10th of that rate. Renewable energy and network efficiency are the keys to this decoupling of business growth from energy consumption and carbon emissions. Akamai set 2020 goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 2015 levels by sourcing renewable energy for 50% of global network operations and to reduce network energy and scope 2 GHG intensity per unit traffic per year by 30%. Akamai also set a 2020 goal to process 100% of its electronic waste at e-Stewards certified facilities. As part of Akamai’s strategy to meet its goals and to positively affect communities, the following initiatives have been implemented:

Working with strategic partners such as Iron Mountain to provide data center users with renewable electricity. Akamai was a launch partner of Iron Mountain’s Green Power Pass in 2019, a data center focused renewable energy reporting solution, the first of its kind in the industry.

Procuring Power Purchase Agreements and Buyer Organized Aggregated Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPA) such as the Buyer Organized Aggregated VPPA in 2018 entered by Apple, Akamai, Etsy and Swiss Re for a 125-MW wind farm in Illinois and a 165-MW solar farm in Virginia.

Akamai’s new global headquarters, which opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in November 2019, prioritized sustainability in the design. The building’s core and shell were built to achieve LEED Gold v4 certification standards as defined by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Offering Public Leadership on renewables with a recent example at the Massachusetts State House in supporting the 100% Renewable Energy Act – which would transition the state to 100% renewable electricity by 2035.

“From the CEO to genius software architects, Akamai takes seriously their opportunity to make the internet more secure and sustainable across their nearly 4,000 data center locations globally. That leadership is exemplified in many aspects of their achievements – from their collaborative approach to secure a highly scalable model for supplier-provided RECs for their data centers while driving new renewable energy to building a new school with local property tax dollars that flow from their VPPA to help finance new wind energy in Texas” – David Osborn, SR Inc’s COO & Senior Advisor.

SR Inc recognized Sean Kinghorn in part for his leadership in helping Intuit, makers of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Mint, become a global leader in the movement to climate positive companies. Intuit has committed to reducing emissions 50X more than the 2018 emissions of its own operations in the next decade.

For six years Sean has led in developing and implementing Intuit’s sustainability strategy that has maximized financial savings and reduced emissions as Intuit and its global portfolio of mostly leased space has grown. Intuit set original 2015 goals to reduce its operational carbon footprint 50% by 2025, reduce its buildings’ carbon footprint 80% by 2025, and procure 100% renewable energy by 2030. Sean led the efforts to enable Intuit to surpass those goals for scopes 1 and 2 emissions, globally, five years early. Intuit’s bold new goal, announced during Climate Week in New York City, is to reduce carbon emissions 50 times greater than its own 2018 emissions footprint by 2030. To get there, Intuit will amplify its partnerships with SR Inc and with Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. The following initiatives are part of Intuit’s three-pronged strategy of boosting energy efficiency internally, investing in renewable energy, and buying verified strategy aligned carbon offsets:

Energy Efficiency program featuring green building standards and initiatives to address supply chain, business travel, data center, and commuting emissions.

Investing in renewables by committing to green tariffs and long-term on- and off-site renewable energy projects while operating a nearly 100% leased office portfolio.

Leading SR Inc’s Net Zero Consortium for Buyers in partnering with other Member-clients through Buyer Organized Aggregated Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) to procure for Intuit the Renewable Energy Credits created by 10 MW of Texas Wind that will enable Intuit to meet its 100% renewable energy goal 10 years early.

Intuit’s “Purely Green” initiative which enables customers, employees and business partners in Texas to buy wind energy at or below the price of traditional grid power.

Partnering with Project Drawdown to purchase carbon offsets for emissions Intuit is unable to eliminate to help power prosperity through projects across the world.

“I’m honored to be named an Outstanding Corporate Leader by SR Inc and it has been a privilege to advance Intuit’s leadership to a best-in-class climate positive strategy. As the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made clear, driving to a Net Zero Emissions should be the minimum goal of a responsible global company. Partnering with firms like SR Inc. and benefiting from the shared services of Renewable Energy Procurement Services (REPS) has been critical to help us drive Net Zero results with a cost advantage through a utility scale renewables that aggregates the demand of smaller firms. Together we can make an outstanding – and profitable – difference at growing scale for our company and for solutions for the planet.” – Sean Kinghorn, head of global sustainability at Intuit.

“It’s SR Inc’s great privilege to work with inspirational leaders at some of the best managed companies in the world; none is more impressive than Sean Kinghorn and none has provided more efficient leadership to both Intuit and to the corporate sustainability field globally than Sean as he helps customers, suppliers and peer enterprises understand they too can chart a strategic and profitable path to net zero emissions.” - SR Inc CEO & Founder, Jim Boyle.

About Akamai

Akamai secures and delivers digital experiences for the world’s largest companies. Akamai’s intelligent edge platform surrounds everything, from the enterprise to the cloud, so customers and their businesses can be fast, smart, and secure. Top brands globally rely on Akamai to help them realize competitive advantage through agile solutions that extend the power of their multi-cloud architectures. Akamai keeps decisions, apps and experiences closer to users than anyone — and attacks and threats far away. Akamai’s portfolio of edge security, web and mobile performance, enterprise access and video delivery solutions is supported by unmatched customer service, analytics and 24/7/365 monitoring. To learn why the world’s top brands trust Akamai, visit www.akamai.com, blogs.akamai.com, or @Akamai on Twitter.

About Intuit Inc

Intuit’s mission is to Power Prosperity Around the World. Our global products and platforms, including TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Turbo, are designed to empower consumers, self-employed and small businesses to improve their financial lives, finding them more money with the least amount of work, while giving them complete confidence in their actions and decisions. Our innovative ecosystem of financial management solutions serves approximately 50 million customers worldwide, unleashing the power of many for the prosperity of one. Please visit us for the latest news and in-depth information about Intuit and its brands and find us on social.

About Sustainability Roundtable Inc

Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. (SR Inc) is the leader in outsourced Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) assistance. SR Inc provides confidential, membership-based, Strategic Advisory & Support Services to help management teams set goals, drive progress, and report results internally and externally as they lead their organizations to greater sustainability. Customer, talent, investor, and regulator interest in more sustainable and healthy corporate operations increases every year. To help enterprises meet the expectations of these important stakeholders, SR Inc helps enterprises with industry specific ESG programs across all areas of corporate operations with a special focus on solution assessments, Sustainably Healthy Workplaces, as well as the procurement of on-site and off-site renewable energy and advanced energy systems. For information regarding Membership in SR Inc’s Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable service, please visit our website at www.sustainround.com or call us at 617-682-3630.

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/43374-Akamai-Named-SBER-s-Outstanding-Corporate-Leader-of-2019-Intuit-s-Sean-Kinghorn-Named-SBER-s-Outstanding-Executive-of-2019?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

0 notes

dorcasrempel · 5 years ago

Text

Zeroing in on decarbonization

To avoid the most destructive consequences of climate change, the world’s electric energy systems must stop producing carbon by 2050. It seems like an overwhelming technological, political, and economic challenge — but not to Nestor Sepulveda.

“My work has shown me that we do have the means to tackle the problem, and we can start now,” he says. “I am optimistic.”

Sepulveda’s research, first as a master’s student and now as a doctoral candidate in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), involves complex simulations that describe potential pathways to decarbonization. In work published last year in the journal Joule, Sepulveda and his co-authors made a powerful case for using a mix of renewable and “firm” electricity sources, such as nuclear energy, as the least costly, and most likely, route to a low- or no-carbon grid.

These insights, which flow from a unique computational framework blending optimization and data science, operations research, and policy methodologies, have attracted interest from The New York Times and The Economist, as well as from such notable players in the energy arena as Bill Gates. For Sepulveda, the attention could not come at a more vital moment.

“Right now, people are at extremes: on the one hand worrying that steps to address climate change might weaken the economy, and on the other advocating a Green New Deal to transform the economy that depends solely on solar, wind, and battery storage,” he says. “I think my data-based work can help bridge the gap and enable people to find a middle point where they can have a conversation.”

An optimization tool

The computational model Sepulveda is developing to generate this data, the centerpiece of his dissertation research, was sparked by classroom experiences at the start of his NSE master’s degree.

“In courses like Nuclear Technology and Society [22.16], which covered the benefits and risks of nuclear energy, I saw that some people believed the solution for climate change was definitely nuclear, while others said it was wind or solar,” he says. “I began wondering how to determine the value of different technologies.”

Recognizing that “absolutes exist in people’s minds, but not in reality,” Sepulveda sought to develop a tool that might yield an optimal solution to the decarbonization question. His inaugural effort in modeling focused on weighing the advantages of utilizing advanced nuclear reactor designs against exclusive use of existing light-water reactor technology in the decarbonization effort.

“I showed that in spite of their increased costs, advanced reactors proved more valuable to achieving the low-carbon transition than conventional reactor technology alone,” he says. This research formed the basis of Sepulveda’s master’s thesis in 2016, for a degree spanning NSE and the Technology and Policy Program. It also informed the MIT Energy Initiative’s report, “The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World.”

The right stuff

Sepulveda comes to the climate challenge armed with a lifelong commitment to service, an appetite for problem-solving, and grit. Born in Santiago, he enlisted in the Chilean navy, completing his high school and college education at the national naval academy.

“Chile has natural disasters every year, and the defense forces are the ones that jump in to help people, which I found really attractive,” he says. He opted for the most difficult academic specialty, electrical engineering, over combat and weaponry. Early in his career, the climate change issue struck him, he says, and for his senior project, he designed a ship powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

After he graduated, the Chilean navy rewarded his performance with major responsibilities in the fleet, including outfitting a $100 million amphibious ship intended for moving marines and for providing emergency relief services. But Sepulveda was anxious to focus fully on sustainable energy, and petitioned the navy to allow him to pursue a master’s at MIT in 2014.

It was while conducting research for this degree that Sepulveda confronted a life-altering health crisis: a heart defect that led to open-heart surgery. “People told me to take time off and wait another year to finish my degree,” he recalls. Instead, he decided to press on: “I was deep into ideas about decarbonization, which I found really fulfilling.”

After graduating in 2016, he returned to naval life in Chile, but “couldn’t stop thinking about the potential of informing energy policy around the world and making a long-lasting impact,” he says. “Every day, looking in the mirror, I saw the big scar on my chest that reminded me to do something bigger with my life, or at least try.”

Convinced that he could play a significant role in addressing the critical carbon problem if he continued his MIT education, Sepulveda successfully petitioned naval superiors to sanction his return to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Simulating the energy transition

Since resuming studies here in 2018, Sepulveda has wasted little time. He is focused on refining his modeling tool to play out the potential impacts and costs of increasingly complex energy technology scenarios on achieving deep decarbonization. This has meant rapidly acquiring knowledge in fields such as economics, math, and law.

“The navy gave me discipline, and MIT gave me flexibility of mind — how to look at problems from different angles,” he says.

With mentors and collaborators such as Associate Provost and Japan Steel Industry Professor Richard Lester and MIT Sloan School of Management professors Juan Pablo Vielma and Christopher Knittel, Sepulveda has been tweaking his models. His simulations, which can involve more than 1,000 scenarios, factor in existing and emerging technologies, uncertainties such as the possible emergence of fusion energy, and different regional constraints, to identify optimal investment strategies for low-carbon systems and to determine what pathways generate the most cost-effective solutions.

“The idea isn’t to say we need this many solar farms or nuclear plants, but to look at the trends and value the future impact of technologies for climate change, so we can focus money on those with the highest impact, and generate policies that push harder on those,” he says.

Sepulveda hopes his models won’t just lead the way to decarbonization, but do so in a way that minimizes social costs. “I come from a developing nation, where there are other problems like health care and education, so my goal is to achieve a pathway that leaves resources to address these other issues.”

As he refines his computations with the help of MIT’s massive computing clusters, Sepulveda has been building a life in the United States. He has found a vibrant Chilean community at MIT and discovered local opportunities for venturing out on the water, such as summer sailing on the Charles.

After graduation, he plans to leverage his modeling tool for the public benefit, through direct interactions with policy makers (U.S. congressional staffers have already begun to reach out to him), and with businesses looking to bend their strategies toward a zero-carbon future.

It is a future that weighs even more heavily on him these days: Sepulveda is expecting his first child. “Right now, we’re buying stuff for the baby, but my mind keeps going into algorithmic mode,” he says. “I’m so immersed in decarbonization that I sometimes dream about it.”

Zeroing in on decarbonization syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

0 notes

abigailswager · 5 years ago

Text

What Powers China's Crypto Mining Industry, and Is It Sustainable?

New Post has been published on https://dailybitcoinupdates.com/what-powers-chinas-crypto-mining-industry-and-is-it-sustainable/

What Powers China's Crypto Mining Industry, and Is It Sustainable?

The cryptocurrency mining industry continues to grow daily, supported by a continuous stream of new and more efficient hardware. China is at the forefront of the industry, but as environmental concerns loom, the sustainability of their success is coming into question.

Mining chip manufacturers, the most prolific of which are based in China, work tirelessly to develop ever-more-powerful processors. With each new iteration, these high-capacity chips require more and more energy to operate. Newer mining machines render old ones obsolete, resulting in an increasing flow of electrical waste, the majority of which goes unrecycled.

Where to mine?

Little doubt remains that proof-of-work blockchain networks, like Bitcoin, are environmentally unsustainable in their current state. Computer scientist Hal Finney — believed to be one of Bitcoin’s original developers — noted the potential problem of CO2 emissions resulting from widespread Bitcoin implementation back in 2009, but was unable to offer a solution before his death in 2014.

Nowadays, the Bitcoin network has an estimated annual electricity consumption of 73.12 TWh, equivalent to that of Austria or the amount of electricity required to power 6.7 million households in the United States. The annual carbon footprint this creates is almost 35,000 kilotonnes of CO2 — or 308 kilograms for each individual transaction.

As an illustration, 1 kg of uncompressed CO2 fills approximately two standard bathtubs, and Bitcoin completes 7 transactions per second on average — that’s over 4000 bathtubs worth of CO2 created every second by the Bitcoin network.

The 2nd Annual Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study released by Cambridge University estimates that only 28% of crypto mining energy comes from renewable sources (as of December 2018).

Since Chinese mining farms contribute to approximately 60 to 70% of this energy consumption (and resultant pollution), the country is a key talking point in any discussion regarding the sustainability of cryptocurrency mining.

What makes China so attractive for crypto mining?

Bitmain and Canaan Creative are the main mining chip manufacturers in China, with Bitmain producing 75% of all cryptocurrency mining hardware. As mining has become more expensive over time, Bitmain has launched the World Digital Mining Map to help mining firms around the world find the most affordable areas to operate. Canaan Creative recently filed for an IPO that will go ahead this month, aiming to get the company listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CAN. Similarly, Bitmain is also planning an IPO.

Related: Bitmain’s New IPO Attempt in Jeopardy as In-Fighting Goes Public

China’s affordable energy is the main reason the country has become a go-to destination for industrial-scale cryptocurrency mining facilities. Unfortunately, as the Cambridge report outlines, much of the country’s low-cost and affordable electricity still comes from coal power, making it one of the more environmentally unfriendly places to mine.

Improvements are being made, however, with the Chinese province of Sichuan being promoted for its cheap, environmentally friendly hydroelectric power. The heavy rainfall that the province usually receives helped it to produce 78.2 gigawatts of power last year — enough to power almost 65 million Chinese households. The excess power means Sichuan province can sell electricity for five times less than what major cities like Guangzhou and Beijing charge.

“Sichuan should study further about how the province’s cheap hydropower resources can attract digital currency-related businesses,” said former Securities Regulatory Commission vice-chair Jiang Yang, speaking at a meeting in Beijing last month.

Is crypto mining in China sustainable?

In April this year, the National Development and Reform Commission of China released a draft paper listing cryptocurrency mining as one of several potential activities to phase out due to a lack of regulation and environmental concerns.

As a result, major Chinese mining firms began looking abroad for countries that offered similarly affordable electricity, with industry leader Bitmain recently launching a 50MW Bitcoin mining farm in Texas, dubbed the largest in the world.

However, last week, the NDRC decided to remove crypto mining from the potential ban list following a call by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the country to embrace blockchain technology. The government made it clear that this does not indicate support for Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and trading in the country remains illegal.

While the news is undoubtedly a positive boost for the crypto mining industry, it alone does not promise a bright future. In order for miners to remain incentivized to keep mining, they don’t just need permission — they need profit. As the global climate crisis becomes an increasingly hot topic, pressure is being placed on China to reduce its carbon emissions and develop greener energy — energy which is often less affordable.

Can cryptocurrency mining in China remain profitable while also conforming to environmentally sustainable energy requirements?

Professor Klaus Hubacek, of the University of Maryland’s Geographical Sciences department, told Cointelegraph that profitability and environmentally sustainable energy use are mutually exclusive:

“No, it’s nowhere near sustainable. The energy mix is highly coal-dependent although that has improved somewhat over the last couple of years and is predicted to further decline from its peak in 2007 (80% of electricity was from coal) to currently about 2/3 being coal to predicted 40% in 2040 (which is still pretty high — e.g. comparable to the energy mix of Germany today; which is also pretty bad as some countries are entirely or close to renewable electricity.)”

The cost of mining Bitcoin

In Adam Hayes’ 2015 paper, “A Cost of Production Model for Bitcoin,” the author equates Bitcoin production to a competitive market, noting that miners will (in theory) “produce until their marginal costs equal their marginal product.” Electricity costs make up almost all of these marginal costs once the initial infrastructure and equipment have been paid off. Any change to the cost of electricity necessitates a reassessment of profitability.

Considering that Bitcoin’s hash rate has increased almost every year since its creation and electricity costs have remained largely unchanged, one can surmise that mining equipment is becoming increasingly more powerful and efficient.

However, this growth correlates with a stable cost of energy, and there is little evidence to suggest it can maintain profitability if energy costs increase significantly. In the event that energy becomes unavoidably more expensive, several factors can be changed to improve profitability.

Changing the Bitcoin algorithm

Various ways to improve efficiency by changing the core Bitcoin algorithm have been suggested in different forms over the years. If the number of transactions per second could be increased to a level closer to that of the Visa network’s 1700 TPS, then the required energy would drop considerably. On paper, if the time taken to generate a block can be reduced or the block size can be increased, then the network becomes more energy efficient.

However, despite much discussion regarding these changes and several attempts to implement an altered version of Bitcoin, nobody has managed to find an effective solution. This is mostly due to the nature of a decentralized peer-to-peer network, which takes a long time to relay new information to Bitcoin’s 10,000+ nodes around the world.

Improvements in solar and wind power

The costs associated with using renewable energy like solar and wind power have been decreasing steadily over the past decade. In early November this year, the Financial Times reported that these forms of renewable energy had “reached parity with average wholesale prices in California, China, and parts of Europe.” Furthermore, by the end of next year, renewable energy costs across most of western Europe are expected to fall below wholesale market prices.

China is the world’s largest market for solar farms, known as photovoltaic (PV) power plants, but experienced an 11% reduction in capital expenditure over the past six months due to last year’s cutback on public solar subsidies.

At the beginning of 2019, in a bid to improve its solar energy parity, the NDRC, in collaboration with the National Energy Agency, unveiled plans to drive investment into subsidy-free PV projects. In many cases, land use fees have been waived to incentivize development and grid operators have been ordered to prioritize dispatch for PV projects.

Despite its efforts, China still remains the world’s largest coal user and its imports increased by almost 10% this year, partially prompted by the ongoing China-U.S. trade war, which has forced China to investigate cheaper fuel prices abroad.

However, a report from the International Energy Agency predicts that solar and wind will be almost entirely responsible for a 50% increase in global renewable energy capacity by 2024. Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director at the IEA, said:

“Renewables are already the world’s second-largest source of electricity, but their deployment still needs to accelerate if we are to achieve long-term climate, air quality, and energy access goals.”

While significant steps are being made to reduce costs associated with solar and wind power, these cost reductions are slowing down while the cost of mining Bitcoin continues to increase. Professor Hubacek believes that, “further investment and policy support for decarbonization of the electricity sector and the overall economy” is required, including “an increase in energy efficiency and reduction of consumption (e.g. lifestyle changes).”

Bitcoin halvening

Mining Bitcoin could become less profitable after next year’s “halvening,” a predetermined event that occurs roughly every four years in order to manage inflation. Sometime around mid-May 2020, the block reward for mining Bitcoin will be automatically reduced from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC, decreasing the profits associated with mining.

Related: BTC Miners: No More Basement Rigs, Greater Profits to Come

Historically, these events have resulted in a drop in hashrate as small-scale miners shut down unprofitable operations, which, in turn, results in a reduction in mining difficulty that eventually draws back old and new miners alike. The system is specifically designed to financially self-regulate in this manner, but unfortunately, was never designed to self-regulate for energy efficiency.

Is there a future for the industry?

Sustainable or not, cryptocurrency is not going anywhere — whether governments like it or not. The Bitcoin network in particular presents a problem, because not only is it unsustainable, but it is now so big that it has become difficult to control or replace. However, so long as affordable electricity is available, mining of Bitcoin will continue unabated — whether in China or elsewhere.

Over the next few years, further pressure will be placed on governments and corporations to adhere to stricter environmental regulations, which will stretch their budgets to the limit. For Bitcoin to emerge unscathed, both mining equipment and energy sources in China will need to become greener and more efficient. Fortunately, these areas are beginning to show promise.

China is at the forefront of the burgeoning crypto mining industry, but as environmental concerns loom, its sustainability has come into questionRead More

#cointelegraph.com

0 notes

buynsellsolar-blog · 5 years ago

Text

HOMER Energy’s 2019 conference will focus on remote microgrid innovations

New Post published on http://roofnrays.com/homer-energys-2019-conference-will-focus-on-remote-microgrid-innovations/

HOMER Energy’s 2019 conference will focus on remote microgrid innovations

The 7th annual HOMER International Microgrid Conference will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts from October 7 to 9. Acknowledging the explosion in popularity of microgrids worldwide, the conference will explore the lessons that can be learned from pioneering microgrids in remote locations, and examine what insights can be applied to new grid-connected projects. In addition to domestic applications, leading microgrid innovators will present case studies from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Arctic, and illustrate the variety that is emerging in the roles that microgrids serve and the ways in which they are valued.

The conference attracts engineers, distributed energy developers, equipment manufacturers, policymakers, planners and government officials from diverse cultural and economic environments. Speakers will discuss combined heat and power projects, solar-plus-storage projects for utility cost control, microgrids for resilience, the ways in which microgrids are remaking Puerto Rico’s electric grid in the wake of Hurricane Maria, the role of microgrids in African economic development, and a variety of other topics covering microgrid regulation, finance and technology.

Keynote speakers include Maxine Ghavy, group senior VP and head of the Grid Edge Solutions Product Group at ABB, who will talk about “The Role of Microgrids at the Grid Edge: Global Best Practices;” John Exel, who leads the Global Facility on Mini-Grids at the World Bank; Dr. Dan Kammen, who chairs the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley; Peter Asmus, director of research at Navigant; and Dr. Peter Lilienthal, CEO of HOMER Energy, to mention a few.

“I believe that as many cities and large corporations consider building out distributed energy projects as microgrids, we have a lot of important lessons to learn from early adopters in harsh arctic environments and off-grid communities in the developing world,” said Dr. Peter Lilienthal, HOMER Energy co-founder and CEO. “As more diverse customers become interested in microgrids, we are seeing new value propositions emerge, such as demand charge reduction and resilience,” he added. “We always try to shed light on a broad range of microgrid projects at our conferences so very different people can learn from each other.”

The conference will feature two special events in addition to the main conference. On Sunday, October 6, there will be a tour of the advanced research microgrid at the Schneider Electric corporate headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts. On Wednesday, October 9, there will be a full day of training on the HOMER software. The HOMER trainings are certified for continuing education credits by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). The training will cover the fundamentals of designing and modeling off-grid and grid-tied microgrids — solar-plus-storage systems for example — using the HOMER software. Participants will learn how to size hybrid distributed energy systems and identify the most economically optimal designs.

Visit the conference website to learn more and to register.

News item from HOMER Energy

0 notes

caseinpoints · 6 years ago

Text

Greentown Labs chooses winners of cleantech challenge

Greentown Labs and Schneider Electric have selected the awardees for the first of its kind Greentown Labs Bold Ideas Challenge.

The Greentown Labs Bold Ideas Challenge is a 6-month accelerator program housed at Greentown Labs, in Somerville, Massachusetts, and focused on fast-tracking entrepreneurs with the mentors, team members, business and technical resources they need to launch successful ventures with direct support from Schneider Electric.

The Bold Ideas Challenge received 155 applications throughout the recruitment process, representing 29 countries and a wide variety of products, technologies, and business models. Submissions were evaluated based on the potential impact of the solution’s ability to increase efficiency, automation, and user experience while supporting society’s rapid transition to a distributed, digitized and decarbonized energy economy.

After a highly-competitive, multi-stage review process, the following companies were selected as awardees:

Gridspan Energy (Boston, MA): is pioneering a novel approach to electricity transmission to advance clean energy access and security for island electricity markets.

Singularity (Cambridge, MA): is building a distributed energy network that will transform the highly centralized power grid toward a distributed energy future.

Sunforge LLC (Somerville, MA): is developing novel, high-efficiency off-grid solar charge controllers.

Titan AES (Cambridge, MA): is developing and producing advanced battery management systems for lithium ion battery consumer electronics, automotive and storage markets.

All participants will receive the following awards:

$25,000 in non-dilutive grant funding;

Desk space at the Greentown Labs Global Center for Cleantech Innovation;

Acceptance into Greentown Launch, a 6-month acceleration program for startups at Greentown Labs; and

Exclusive access to the Greentown Labs and Schneider Electric networks.

Additionally, all awardees are eligible for partnership with and/or investment from Schneider Electric by the end of the program which will conclude in January 2019.

“Schneider Electric’s Business Incubation Initiative is excited to work closely with the Greentown Labs Bold Ideas Challenge participants to accelerate their businesses and develop fruitful partnerships that advance our mutual innovation goals,” said Heriberto Diarte, head of external innovation and corporate ventures, Schneider Electric.

“Greentown Labs is thrilled to welcome these innovative companies to the Greentown Labs Bold Ideas Challenge and we’re eager to see all the progress they’ll make during the 6-month program,” said Greentown Labs CEO, Dr. Emily Reichert. “Based on our successful Greentown Launch track record, we’re confident this program will result in great partnerships between Schneider Electric and the startups!”

The Bold Ideas Challenge will host a culminating event in early 2019 to celebrate the startups’ successful completion of the program and announce any partnerships or investments made as a result of the program. The event will take place at Greentown Labs’ Global Center for Cleantech Innovation, event date and registration page forthcoming; visit www.greentownlabs.com for more information.

News item from Greentown Labs

The post Greentown Labs chooses winners of cleantech challenge appeared first on Solar Power World.

0 notes

awesomeblockchain · 7 years ago

Link

The blockchain is set to take on a new role with off-grid solar developer The Sun Exchange, which aims to use the technology for insurance.

The South Africa-based startup said its Ethereum ERC20-based rewards currency, SUNEX, would be used to create a solar project insurance fund, or SPIF, to cover the cost of relocating PV plants to new sites if the original electricity offtakers defaulted on payments.

This is one area of risk that is not currently covered by traditional insurance products, said Abraham Cambridge, The Sun Exchange's founder and CEO.

The Sun Exchange acts as a crowdfunding platform for small- to medium-scale solar projects in developing countries, allowing investors worldwide to help fund plants with national currency or bitcoin payments.

Once built, the investors get a share of rental income over 20 years, paid in local currency or bitcoin.

The Sun Exchange has already pulled in funding for five projects, including an 18-kilowatt rooftop solar plant for a Cape Town-based nonprofit and a 60-kilowatt system for an elephant park in Knysna, on South Africa's south coast.

These and other projects are already insured against fire, damage and theft using traditional insurance products from a range of providers, said Cambridge.

But one risk that cannot be readily covered by commercial insurance products is what happens if a project recipient defaults on payments, he said.

Traditional insurance might cover loss of earnings of up to six months, but insurers would likely have little appetite to pay for the relocation of an entire plant to another offtaker.

The SPIF would aim to cover that risk by allowing investors to pay into a fund that could be used to cover the costs of plant relocation. This could amount to around 20 percent of the capital cost of a project, which typically might be in the region of $80,000 to $100,000.

Cambridge emphasized that the chances of payment default are low. The Sun Exchange carries out a six-point vetting process before agreeing to install a project and has not yet seen any bad debt.

Recipients would usually be relying on the solar plant for daily operations and so would have a strong motivation to keep up payments, said Cambridge.

And although there are no other crowdfunding schemes like The Sun Exchange for direct comparison, Cambridge cited anecdotal reports from off-grid financing bodies such as SunFunder that put payment defaults at less than 5 percent.

Contributions to the SPIF would be voluntary, subject to a one-year minimum commitment, and would be rewarded with up to a 20 percent return, paid in SUNEX tokens, Cambridge said.

The Sun Exchange is aiming to seed-fund the SPIF through part of the proceeds of a SUNEX token sale taking place this month. The money -will in turn be invested in U.S. Treasury bills and other short-term sovereign debt," said The Sun Exchange, in an explanatory white paper.

-This will create a dedicated collateral pool to protect solar cell owners against project defaults during their 20-year lease contract lifetimes," it states.

Investors should be able to add to the pot within six months, said Cambridge. Running SUNEX token transactions through blockchain-based smart contracts means The Sun Exchange would not have to worry about administration costs or computer hardware investments, he said.

-The smart contract allows for transparency and it's autonomous, so we don't need to manage it," he noted.

If the SPIF experiment goes well, The Sun Exchange might consider extending it to other types of insurance, Cambridge said, possibly eliminating the need for third-party insurers entirely.

Other companies, too, might want to consider similar schemes for risks that are too niche or too complex for traditional insurers to consider, he said.

At The Sun Exchange, up to 10 percent of the income generated from the company's solar plants goes toward insurance, he said. -That's a direct hit to the people leasing the solar panels, because their rental income is net of costs," said Cambridge.

-By putting this in place, we are improving our core product," he said. "Self-insuring, I feel, is the way forward, especially in the decentralized industry."

https://ift.tt/2jJxLpH

#Ingentium #Inc. - Today

0 notes

abujaihs-blog · 6 years ago

Text

American Institute Of Architects Announces The Best Housing Designs Of 2019

This allows the livability of the house to expand and contract whether the owners are alone, hosting dinner guests or have a full house of overnight guests.

The central drive connects directly into the surrounding neighborhood street grid, while the four courtyards provide a child- and community-friendly environment safely sheltered from traffic.

0 notes