sustainability : In The News

BusinessWeek gets to know Audrey Zibelman, founder of Viridity Energy, the Philadelphia startup that is making software to help large facilities manage their energy.

Viridity installs software that works with a building’s energy systems to monitor and control heating and cooling, appliances, generators, and more. The software constantly checks the variables that affect how much a facility pays for energy. This includes the price of electricity, which for wholesale buyers like factories can change every few minutes. The software also takes into account weather forecasts, which could cause price spikes, and how much it costs a building to produce its own energy. Viridity then tweaks electricity use to minimize costs. At Drexel University in Philadelphia, a Viridity client, the software knows that certain rooms are better insulated than others. When electricity prices rise, it automatically reduces heat in the law library, where the books trap a lot of warmth. Drexel could make money during those hours by selling electricity from its diesel generators to the grid.

Original source: BusinessWeek
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Drexel University materials scientists Alexander Moseson and Michel Barsoum have created a low-tech, low-energy cement they hope will reduce carbon output as developing countries build more sidewalks, roads and housing.

Potential demand for lower-carbon building materials has sparked a race to replace Portland cement featuring a handful of manufacturers and scientists. Some claim to sequester carbon within the cement itself. Others use alternative fuels. Still others tap unconventional feedstocks, such as magnesium silicate, that require lower kiln temperatures.

Moseson and Barsoum are trying the latter, mixing recycled iron slag or fly ash with readily available limestone. "We literally used a bag of garden lime from Home Depot," Moseson said. Instead of a coal-fired kiln, they use a bucket with a spoon at room temperature.

Original source: Daily Climate
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A couple months ago we wrote about honoring Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Yorktown, a community on the verge of rebound, and now the American Planning Association has awarded a 2012 National Planning Award for Yorktown's recently completed community-driven master plan Yorktown 2015: A Blueprint for Sustainability and Survival.

"Yorktown 2015 capitalized on the energy and creativity of Yorktown’s residents by engaging them and using their input to create an action plan," said Marie L. York, FAICP, APA Board Director and 2012 Awards Jury Co-Chair. "Despite the small size of the community, participation was overwhelming, with more than 260 Yorktown residents participating in surveys, meetings, and groups to help shape this plan."

In addition to robust traditional community outreach and engagement components, Yorktown 2015 participation was enabled through a more innovative method. Interface Studio, conceptualized, designed, and fabricated a storytelling booth--the Yorktown Chatter Box--that invited community members to step inside and speak into a soup can telephone [actually a functional audio recording device] to tell stories about their memories of Yorktown, share their hopes for the future of the neighborhood, and describe the characteristics of the neighborhood they feel would be most important to preserve.

Original source: American Planning Association, PA-Southeast Blog
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BEAR Oceanics, a Collegeville-based technology and research company, hopes to make inexpensive, algae-based biodiesel fuel for transportation by harnessing ocean winds and sunshine, reports MSNBC.

The robotic farms would turn algae sludge into 5 gallons of biofuel per day with a sped-up version of the geological process that created Earth's fossil fuels -- all without the risks of drilling for oil or fracking for natural gas.

"At this point, you've turned biomass into a biofuel, and you haven't used any chemicals, so that you don't have a toxic waste stream," said Rudy Behrens, an engineer at BEAR Oceanics. "We can do this on a large scale without disrupting the food chain or creating a hazard."

Original source: MSNBC
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The Lenfest Plaza designed by David A. Rubin of local firm OLIN created a true campus for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, reports Metropolis Magazine and Dexigner:

(from Dexigner)
In creating an institutional plaza for public enjoyment, performance and exhibition within the dense historic and cultural district of Center City Philadelphia, Rubin has designed an environment that many people can now experience: the administration, faculty and students of the Academy; guests of the new restaurant to be situated within the plaza; museum goers and art lovers; Philadelphians, and visitors to the City. In order to accommodate all of these potential visitors within a former narrow streetscape a design that allowed for social gathering but is also reflective of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' prominence within our nation's art history and the cultural corridor of Museum Mile was required.

Original source; Dexigner
Read the full story in Metropolis Magazine and in Dexigner.

Mark Highland and Organic Mechanics, operating in the tiny Chester County borough of Modena, are achieving success by shaking up the huge specialty soils market.

Founded in 2006, Organic Mechanics is now profitable and will pay off one of its first low-interest business loans this year. The seven-employee firm, which started with just one product, now sells nine different SKUs on the East Coast and in the Midwest at independent garden centers and Whole Foods Markets.

Instead of peat, Organic Mechanics' mixes contain compost, which Highland says requires less watering and is reusable for a second season, another green aspect attractive to serious gardeners.

Original source: Entrepreneur
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Greenbang reports on the United States Green Building Council's the potential savings that greener schools could provide, including the School District of Philadelphia's recent successes.

Extended to every new school built and every existing school that’s renovated, improved efficiency could save $20 billion in energy costs alone over the next 10 years.

To recognize US schools that have made an effort to become more efficient, the USGBC and United Technologies Corp., the founding sponsor of the council’s Center for Green Schools, have awarded its first-ever Best of Green Schools list. The 2011 winners in each category include:

Original source: Greenbang
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Drexel University researcher Dr. Yury Gogotsi believes figuring out why cell phone and laptop batteries die prematurely will help create a sustainable energy grid, reports Nanowerk.

"A dramatic expansion of research in the area of electrochemical energy storage has occurred over the past due to an ever increasing variety of handheld electronic devices that we all use," Gogotsi said. "This has expanded use of electrical energy in transportation, and the need to store renewable energy efficiently at the grid level. This process has been accompanied by the chase for glory with the arrival of new materials and technologies that leads to unrealistic expectations for batteries and supercapacitors and may hurt the entire energy storage field."

The main type of energy storage device addressed in the article is the supercapacitor. Supercapacators, which are built from relatively inexpensive natural materials such as carbon, aluminum and polymers, are found in devices, ranging from mobile phones and laptop batteries to trams, buses and solar cells.

Original source: Nanowerk
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A University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine study found that converting vacant lots into small parks or community green spaces can reduce crime in distressed neighborhoods, reports The Atlantic.

Vacant lot greening was associated with significant reductions in gun assaults across all four sections of Philadelphia in the study and with significant reductions in vandalism in one section. Greening was also associated with the reporting of significantly less stress in one of the sections of the city and with more exercise in another. Cholesterol numbers were lower to a statistically significant degree for the greened areas across all four city sections.

Original source: The Atlantic
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The Fairmount Park Art Association makes USA Today's list for America's must-see sculpture gardens.

This group started in 1872 to integrate sculpture into the city, and is the main reason Philadelphia is now said to have more public art than any other city. Visitors can download MP3s or use a cellphone for tours of the city's extensive sculpture collection, which is overseen by the association. You'll find a concentration of art in Fairmont Park, a 9,200-acre urban oasis.

Original source: USA Today
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Fishtown scultpure artist Jennie Shanker's work to create ceramics using clay from the Marcellus Shale region gets some love from New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin.

On her shale blog, Shanker builds links to useful background on the gas issue around the edges of her posts without ramming a particular view down one’s throat. Here’s a video snippet she shot while exploring shale outcroppings by the roadside.

Original source: New York Times
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Metropolis Magazine tells the story of industrial designer Andrew Dahlgren, his Philadelphia company ADMK and how he is helping revolutionize textile manufacturing and labor.

"Ultimately, what we are talking about is a new way of living," says Dahlgren. Pattern files can be digitally conveyed to satellite knitters in their homes who may, in turn, use the knitting machines to provide for themselves beyond their contracted production.

Dahlgren takes the long view, pointing out that "Stradivarius was still innovating violin making in his 80s, can we as a culture accept, as a way of living, making things?" Dignity, pride, and identity in workmanship seem like quaint yet timeless building blocks for reviving an industry that once boasted some 60,000 employees in Philadelphia and competed globally long before “globalization” was ever coined.

Original source: Metropolis
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Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter called for U.S. mayors to help create change at the national level when it comes to issues of sustainability, reports Smart Planet, at the United Nations Environmental Programme's Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative Symposium at the University of Pennsylvania last week.

The panel also included former Toronto mayor David Miller, Sao Paulo municipal secretary Elton Santa Fé Zacarias and Madrid housing agency representative Catalina de Miguel Garcia. It was moderated by former Nashville mayor Bill Purcell.

“I want to encourage all of my fellow mayors in the United States and around the world: everyone should set a goal to be the number one green city,” Nutter said. “If we strive for this goal, everyone will win.”

The key is “infusing” such policies in all departments and at all levels of city government.

Original source: Smart Planet
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Earth Techling takes a closer look at Drexel University's vertical wall of living plants inside the new Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building, the largest such wall in North America.

Scientists and students at the university are currently studying the biowall and the plant and microbe communities responsible for its air filtration properties to get a better understanding of how the whole thing works. Dr. Michael Waring, an assistant professor in the university’s College of Engineering who specializes in indoor environmental engineering, will focus on the chemical and physical aspects of the living wall, while two biology faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Jacob Russell and Dr. Shivanthi Anandan, will focus on the wall’s biological functions.

Original source: Earth Techling
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A Wyndmoor-based project raked in more than $5.7 million from the USDA to research stink bug management, reports American Agriculturist.

Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, Pa., $322,202: Improve long-term viability of the fresh U.S.-grown mushroom industry by marketing mushrooms as an excellent source of Vitamin D.

USDA Agricultural Research Service, Wyndmoor, Pa., $5,739,966: Develop economically and environmentally sustainable pest management practices for the brown marmorated stink bug.

In making the announcement, USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said "Specialty crops producers in the United States – as with all of American agriculture – are seeing sales surge both domestically and abroad as consumers search for high quality, 'Grown in America' fruits, vegetables and tree nuts."

Original source: American Agriculturist
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