5 predictions for smarter buildings in 2012in the United states, buildings make up 70 percent of all energy use,
Rethinking how buildings use energy is an essential issue of our time, and many have taken on the challenge of retrofitting energy hogs--to save money,
to make cities more efficient, and to help the planet. Smart buildings can help people translate the mass amounts of data that our buildings generate,
(and mend) our energy use. Today, the smart buildings market is estimated to be around $30 billion globally
and the need for more energy efficient buildings is still slowly making its way into planning and development agendas.
and analyzes power consumption. With the carbon matching system in place in this neighborhood, traffic patterns can be broken down,
and how much energy they are using in the form of a summary at the end of each month. Smart meters, one of the key parts of a smart building, allow building owners
and residents to instead get a real time view into their energy usage. This creates a lot more transparency,
Seeing the energy or water we use per task, then will help drive a transformation in energy efficiency.
Taking a cross-section of a building's consumption will be very helpful for larger structures and campuses. Analytics will point directly to behavior that can be changed,
as well as recommend temperatures that save energy, and show instantly when something needs to be fixed. IBM â¢s campus in Rochester, Minnesota has implemented this system of transparency.
so far cutting energy use by eight percent. Prediction 3: The proliferation of an Internet of things.
More energy options for buildings Bartlett predicts that in the near future, as we develop more low carbon energy sources,
building owners will be able to go to what he calls the energy cafe and select different kinds of energy to use--rather than a building being forced to use just one thing.
The cafe just means that there will be a number of different energy sources available over the grid.
With smart meters, not only can building operators get an idea of how much and what kind of energy they are using,
buildings in the future can choose, and change, the energy they use according to their specific needs. This method was implemented on IBM's campus, following a new sustainability mandate.
I think that it is said really cool Bartlett, because depending on your own needs and how much you want to be a part of this,
it puts people in control instead of having to take what is provided. Prediction 5: Real estate finance teams will become corporations'smarter buildings teams In the next few years,
so transparency will likely place pressure on the corporation to make aggressive changes to their energy use.
Smart building initiatives will help them listen to how their buildings are wasting energy and money,
to help 4, 000 buildings meet Mayor Bloomberg's energy efficiency goals. The technology implemented here is going to help him get transparency
Currently, the cost of energy use in New york city municipal buildings is more than $800 million per year,
which will undoubtedly push people to use the new methods of looking at energy consumption. Adoption of smart meters
but it also requires a utility that is willing to buy back the energy that you don't use.
as energy costs are higher in these areas --but its good to pave the way and show some leadership.
Compare that to cleantech--you know how painful it was to have energy utility companies take renewable energy seriously.
Water is 30 years behind the energy utility. The last thing you want to be innovative about is water.
The trigger that has worked best in California is the relationship of water and energy. Water is a mass--it must be stored.
There is a true energy cost anytime you try to move water. And an infrastructure cost.
And it's occasionally addicted to energy. New york and Pennsylvania are sitting on an enormous reserve of natural gas, the Marcellus Shale.
Investors are hearing a lot of pitches about medical devices and energy products these days, and then they see this,
And since technology is much more energy efficient, we think there's a great opportunity to capitalize on this new green rush.
Currently, much of energy intensive light used to grow cannabis is wasted instead of being absorbed since plants can only photosynthesize so much of it.
Mass. that uses a process called pyrolysis to turn waste into energy. The company hopes the plant will help reduce its carbon footprint and boost its use of renewable energy;
as a side benefit, it's also making the U s. banknote--a k a. Â the greenback--even greener.
How did Crane get involved with renewable energy sources? DC: Crane and Co. is a paper company,
Here in Berkshire County, we're certainly among the top three energy users from the Western  Massachusetts  Electric company.
 Currently, we have the benefit of a trash-to-energy plant established a few decades ago.
if we can come up with a renewable energy solution for our operations, but the caveat is we're not in the energy business,
and we don't want to be. We just want to be able to purchase renewable energy. A number of years ago we started looking pretty seriously at biomass.
We need a lot of energy and we need it on-demand. When we start up a 400-horsepower motor in the middle of the night,
you can't use solar panels for that. I'm keenly interested in renewable energy. We started looking around
and came across a group of folks that we had known from a former energy project.
They had started a company called Reenergy over in Albany N y..That company had gained the rights to the technology where you can take an organic feedstock and turn it into liquid fuel.
We have demand for both thermal energy as well as electricity. This fuel can be used to drive generators, much more efficient than the steam process.
We're taking our energy dollars and instead of purchasing electricity generated outside our state from fossil fuels,
but from a dollar standpoint, the volatility for energy today is a real strain for us.
We're also looking at reviving a smaller hydroelectric plant that will generate more energy.
We're looking for multiple ways to solve the energy question and move toward a sustainable supply.
On top of that, we get a major portion of our thermal energy from a plant nearby, but that same plant takes care of the solid waste from the Berkshire County area.
When someone steps up to the plate against us, they'll need to show their product and their renewable energy.
Now replacing the energy that goes into producing it? Well, geez, it's going to be one of the greenest products at the company.
but it takes more energy to produce--you have to do mining to get the materials.
Often, where the energy resource is is far away from where you want to consume that resource. Â Shipping is done always on a per volume basis. Â Think of this as packaging for the industry.
That's according to U s. Department of energy secretary Steven Chu, who said this morning that innovation has changed the world in remarkable ways
We need innovation in energy he said. Innovation in energy is going to be a second industrial revolution.
In a 45-minute presentation at the  Stevens Institute of technology, Chu outlined several technological innovations in history that transformed the world
ENERGY Chu said he saw similarities to Ford's assembly line when he visited a Suntech solar plant in China.
Clean energy technologies can positively impact the environment the same way that automobiles did. Not that cars don't produce smog,
That's why the Department of energy asks itself: how can we accelerate the decline to achieve the elusive $1/watt price where clean technologies are price-competitive with fossil fuels?
if it doesn't fight to popularize clean energy technologies, too. Invented in America is not good enough,
The same ought to happen in energy. We can become us again, he said. We did in many other sectors.
We better become us again in the energy sector
Cloning vs. conservationsuppose you knew the rain forests would be destroyed totally in 20 years, no matter what.
DOE Dept of energy grants can support research and development, a pilot plant, a demonstration facility. Those programs have been out there,
The job the DOE has is sifting through applications. I do think in their first round that they made a few mistakes
energy security, rural community growth, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, food constraints, green jobs. Binetti outlined the advantages of cellulosic ethanol:
It has a higher energy density/content than ethanol, at 26 percent. Key to Dupont's gains in cellulosic ethanol:
The advantage of butanol is that its higher energy content means more of it can replace gasoline,
quantity, quality and the energy consumption related to it. From a quantity standpoint, we've reached a point globally where the demand for fresh water is exceeding the global supply.
take the energy cost out--about 50 percent of the cost of running a desal plant is energy
People underestimate the amount of energy that it takes to make and pump water. California's the highest--19 percent of their energy bill goes to that.
There are a lot of things you can do to reduce the amount of energy you consume. With this next wave of megacities being built,
there's a great opportunity to rethink how we do things. The smart grid and energy
there's a parallel, probably five to 10 years behind. There's a smart grid out there for water, somewhere.
It's been used for energy for a number of years but now it's been expanded for water.
Making sense of water consumption (Water Wednesday) The Energy star label has become an iconic way to help people identify the most energy-efficient electronics gadgets, appliances and other technologies.
the EPA believes that it has helped consumers save up to 125 billion gallons of water and more than $2 billion in water and energy bills.
Smartplanet turned to David Biello who has been writing about the environment and energy for nearly 15 years, most recently for Scientific American.
Extending modern energy to the billion or so people who are still burning wood or dung.
Eighty percent or more of our energy is still coming from fossil fuels. Eventually we need to go to zero or negative with our CO2 emissions.
But we need to remember the energy transitions in the past. Going from wood to coal took 200 years.
What about the government agency Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E? Â Are they working on useful solutions?
And what we require is cheap energy. They are working on things like better batteries to replace oil used in transportation.
(and compressing the air in the first place requires energy that may not necessarily be oegreen), so refinements will be needed before we could all be riding on air.
All that can be said of it is a set of equations that describe its probability of being given in a place with a given energy
getting rid of the extra energy by giving off a burst of light. Astonishingly, that light contains all the quantum information needed to reconstitute the atom.
Energy The Future: World energy demand will increase dramatically. Experts predict that energy demand will rise by 60%between 2002 and 2030
and will require about $568 billion in new investments every year. Developing nations growing hungrier for scarce oil supplies,
coupled with concern over the environment in developed nations, will signal the end of the oil era.
Petroleum alternatives now comprise about 17%of global energy use and are growing at just 30%per year.
By 2020, only 30%of global energy is likely to come from alternative energy sources. Futurist Fixes 1. Piezoelectrics.
Two students at MIT School of architecture are attempting to capture the untamed energy of urban crowds and convert it into a source of electric power.
Ambient energy i e. vibrations in the surrounding environment derived from the piezoelectric phenomenon could provide power for future nanoscale devices.
In the future, nanodevices could use zinc oxide nanowires that draw energy from vibrations such as from the flow of blood
Tidal-current turbines and tidal-stream turbines tapping the power of sea systems like the Gulf stream could provide energy for power-hungry states such as Florida.
Energy use in Florida will go up nearly 30%in the next decade as a result of growth. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University have received a $5 million grant to see how the Gulf stream,
The Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology at Florida Atlantic University The Issue: Hunger The earth population is projected to increase by 2. 5 billion people in the next four decades,
the main reason people eat is to replace the energy they expend walking around, breathing, living life, etc.
Like all creatures, we take energy stored in plant or animal matter. Freitas points out that the isotope gadolinium-148 could provide much of the fuel the body needs.
The gadolinium-powered robots would make sure that the person body was absorbing the energy safely and consistently.
which the body could convert to energy to eat a bit less. In the January-February 2010 issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, Freitas lays out his ideas for improving human health through nanotechnology. 2. Better Design.
With sections focusing on food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, energy and transportation, and education, oedesign for the Other 90%focused on problem solving for the vast majority of the world people who survive under the poverty level
Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care and food distribution.
and adjusts room temperatures accordingly to save energy. At the Nest offices in Palo alto, Calif.,there is a lot of talk of helping the planet,
whereas in the energy market you need 50,000 calories per person, Brabeck-Letmathe told BBC News in July. oeit takes about 4,
¢Built to harvest all of the water and energy from the site;¢¢Smaller and reconfigurable to the needs of the mobile workforce;
whether synthetic biology that utilizes plants for food, energy, and medicine might lead to an increase or loss of biodiversity.
This may well favor applications in existing industrial processes and commodity chains (energy, agriculture, aquaculture) and the operations of large business corporations.
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