| The 2005 International Builders' Show—held in Orlanda, Florida, by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)—concluded on Sunday after exposing builders to the latest in energy efficiency for the home, including three showcases for energy efficiency technologies: the Not So Big Showhouse, the New American Home, and the PATH Tutorial Townhouses. The 2,900-square-foot Not So Big Showhouse was conceived by architect Sarah Susanka, whose best-selling book "The Not So Big House" introduced a "build better, not bigger" approach to home design. Three of DOE's Building America teams collaborated on the Susanka-designed house using a "building as a system" approach to design, specify, and plan the construction of the home. The walls are made of structural insulated panels (SIPS), which feature a core of foam insulation sandwiched between two oriented strand boards. The tightly sealed building envelope is combined with state-of-the-art cooling and ventilation, and the home also features a solar electric system and a solar hot water system with a tankless water heater as a backup. See the Not So Big Showhouse Web site and the press release from Steven Winter Associates, Inc. (PDF 126 KB). Download Acrobat Reader.  |  The New American Home will use 47 percent less energy for heating and cooling than a traditionally constructed house of a similar size in the same climate.
Credit: NAHB | In contrast to the Not So Big Showhouse, NAHB's New American Home, a two-story Mediterranean design, measures 9,036 square feet. To keep it from being a natural gas guzzler, the Integrated Building and Construction Solutions (IBACOS) Consortium, in partnership with DOE's Building America Program, provided design and engineering support to ensure maximum energy efficiency. The home will be Energy Star rated and will use 47 percent less energy for heating and cooling and 64 percent less energy for water heating than a traditionally constructed house of a similar size in the same climate. Homeowners will be able to control lights and window shades from anywhere in the house. See the NAHB press release, and for additional information, see the Building America brochure (PDF 1.1 MB), the International Builder's Show Web site, and the IBACOS Web site. Last but not least, the Partnership for Advanced Technology in Housing (PATH) built its two-unit PATH Tutorial Townhouses at the International Builder's Show. The modular townhouses feature such technologies as high-efficiency heat pumps; tankless water heaters; and Energy Star-rated insulation levels, windows, doors, lighting, appliances, and electronic devices. See the PATH announcement. Twenty-four home builders were recognized at last week's International Builder's Show for their efforts to make homes more energy efficient. The Energy Value Housing Awards went to builders in ten states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The winners built homes using energy-efficient practices such as pre-construction energy analysis, climate-specific selection of equipment and systems, and innovative air sealing and duct practices. The builders' homes also feature high levels of insulation, fluorescent lighting, high-efficiency heating and cooling, and solar hot water heating systems. Winners also built homes that earned outstanding scores from the Home Energy Rating System. The Builder of the Year award went to John Wesley Miller of Tucson, Arizona, who has been a leader in energy-efficient green building, building many solar homes and one "zero energy" home. The Energy Value Housing Award program is managed by the NAHB Research Center, and operated in partnership with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. See the NAHB Research Center press release and the Energy Value Housing Award Web page. The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) opened to the public on Saturday, and while the major U.S. automakers are focusing on hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, Volvo took a different route, unveiling a sports car powered entirely with lithium-ion batteries. The 3CC concept car features an 80-kilowatt motor that delivers up to 107 horsepower. The carbon-fiber body is mounted on a steel space frame and composite floor panels, giving the lightweight vehicle the ability to leap to 60 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds. Although the size of a two-seater, the unique ducktail design creates room for a third seat in the back, while the batteries are sandwiched into the floor panels. Volvo claims the 3CC could travel 180 miles on one charge under ideal driving conditions. See the January 10th press release by choosing the appropriate language under the "Public Entrance" heading of the Volvo Media Web site, and for more information on the 3CC, see Volvo's "Detroit Auto Show 2005" and "Concept Lab" Web sites. For buyers not willing to wait for the 3CC concept car to become reality, Monaco-based Venturi unveiled its commercially available electric-powered sports car at the Los Angeles Auto Show in early January. The Venturi Fetish draws on a lithium-ion battery to power a 180-kilowatt motor, equivalent to a 300-horsepower engine. Thanks in part to a carbon-fiber body mounted on a carbon-aluminum honeycomb, the 2,425-pound car races to 60 miles per hour in under 4.5 seconds. It has a top speed of about 105 miles per hour and can run at least 155 miles between charges. The Venturi Fetish is sold in Monaco, Europe, Japan, and California, and potential buyers should hurry, but check their credit ratings first: Reserved to a very limited number of buyers, the Fetish is handmade at a starting price of 450,000 Euros, or about $588,500. See the Fetish specifications and sales details on the Venturi Web site. For those looking for something a little slower and a lot cheaper, DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has recently completed testing of four Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) from Global Electric Motorcars, LLC, a DaimlerChrysler company. The NEVs, designed for streets with speed limits up to 35 miles per hour, achieved ranges of up to 44 miles at fuel costs of less than 2 cents per mile. See the INEEL press release and the data from INEEL's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity. Ford Motor Company announced last week that the State of Florida will be the first customer for its hydrogen-powered E-450 buses, debuting in 2006. Eight of the buses will be based in central Florida, where the state is establishing a "hydrogen highway." The buses burn hydrogen in V-10 internal combustion engines and are equipped with a high-pressure hydrogen fuel tank with an expected range of 150 miles. The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport also plans to purchase the hydrogen-powered buses next year. See the Ford press release. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Governor Jeb Bush launched "H2 Florida"—a statewide initiative to accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen technologies—in July 2003. H2 Florida partners the State of Florida and with industry, governments, and academia to showcase hydrogen technologies and stimulate consumer interest in the technologies. See the Florida DEP press release and the H2 Florida Web site. Prototypes of Ford's hydrogen-fueled buses are shuttling media around Detroit during the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), which is now underway, but visitors are more likely to notice BMW's futuristic prototype, the H2R, which is now on display in the NAIAS exhibit hall. In September, the prototype set nine international records for hydrogen-powered vehicles in one day, including sustained speed of more than 180 miles per hour over a mile-long stretch. See BMW's press releases on the NAIAS and the records set by the H2R, and for more information, visit the BMW H2R Web page. Plans for the construction of a 10-megawatt geothermal power plant in Idaho gained ground early this month when Idaho Power Company agreed to buy power from the proposed facility. U.S. Geothermal Inc. announced on January 5th that it has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Idaho Power. The company's Raft River Geothermal Power Plant, to be located 10 miles east of Almo in southern Idaho, is scheduled to begin producing power in mid-2006. See the U.S. Geothermal press release (PDF 88 KB) and the Raft River project description. Download Acrobat Reader. New research at the University of Toronto (U of T) promises to yield new ways to capture the sun's infrared radiation, a part of the solar spectrum that's not captured by today's low-cost flexible thin-film solar cells. Using particles of semiconductor only 6 nanometers in size, the U of T team created a suspension of the particles in a solvent, much like paint, and then applied it to a surface to dry. The particles are so small that quantum effects determine the wavelength of light that they absorb, causing them to absorb infrared radiation, the invisible heat radiation given off by warm objects. The key to success was combining these particles—sometimes called "quantum dots"—with a solvent that would cause them to evenly disperse across the surface of a material. According to one reviewer of the work, the finding has the potential of eventually allowing flexible solar devices to boost their efficiency significantly, capturing 30 percent of the sun's energy. Today's flexible solar cells consist of a thin film of semiconductor material deposited on a flexible plastic substrate. See the U of T press release. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are working to boost the efficiency of a new type of flexible solar cell, the organic solar cell, in which the inexpensive, flexible material that forms the cell is also able to capture the sun's energy and convert it into electricity. The Georgia Tech researchers built their solar cells by combining pentacene—a 22-carbon molecule in which the carbon atoms form five rings linked together in a chain—with C-60, a large soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecule also called Buckminsterfullerine, or "buckyballs." The resulting organic solar cells were able to convert 3.4 percent of the sun's energy into electricity. See the Georgia Tech press release. |
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