Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

SITUMBRA LLC is focused on cutting edge research and development and is forming its business around manufacturing a high performance window facade system.Buildings are large consumers of energy, using 48% of all our energy needs and windows typically account for about 30% of overall building heating and cooling loads.Unlike existing window systems that are based [...]

Back in May of 2009 we published a post suggesting that the DOE’s backing of Solyndra would be an uphill battle towards commercial viability.  Since then a number of economic factors have conspired to turn that battle into loss in the first round when Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month. The first thing [...]

This paper investigates the effect of eco-labeling on rental rates, sale prices and occupancy rates. The consensus emerging from previous studies appears to be that investors in and occupiers of eco-labeled buildings obtain a bundle of benefits related to lower operating costs, reputation benefits and productivity higher. In this study, a hedonic model is used [...]

Schneider’s goals for its headquarters were straightforward. The average electricity consumption of an office building in Paris is 400 kilowatt-hours per square meter per year. The European Union has directed that all buildings reduce consumption to 50 kilowatt-hours per square meter per year by 2030. Le Hive was meant to demonstrate that the path toward [...]

Design and operation of complex systems for combined cooling, heating and power generation (CCHP) are always a matter of matching performance and demand characteristics of a thermal system set to supply electrical, cooling and heating loads, according to specific usage demands. Equipment selection and operation require the characterization of power, heating and cooling load demands, [...]

In this paper, five types of solar cooling systems were involved in a comparative study for subtropical city, which is commonly featured with long hot and humid summer. The solar cooling systems included the solar electric compression refrigeration, solar mechanical compression refrigeration, solar absorption refrigeration, solar adsorption refrigeration and solar solid desiccant cooling. Component-based simulation [...]

The scientists found that replacing traditional roofing materials in an urban area the size of Detroit, with a population of about one-million, with green would be equivalent to eliminating a year’s worth of carbon dioxide emitted by 10,000 mid-sized SUVs and trucks. Their study, the first of its kind to examine the ability of green [...]