Archive for empire state building
Welcome back for another edition of green news of the week featuring a few interesting stories impacting the environment across the globe. This weeks’ highlights: Google’s energy impact, Al Gore’s Climate Crisis Reality Project, Empire State Building retrofits earn LEED-Gold certification, Tokelau Pacific islands execute sustainable solutions with solar and coconut renewable energy alternatives, CDP reports on large corporation low carbon progress, and how wind turbines work. Click on the link to read the full article.
The Story Behind Google’s Huge Appetite for Energy. Believe it or not, Google does a lot to offset their significant energy consumption. Gmail is apparently 80 times less carbon-intensive than other email services, because of the efficiencies at Google’s data centers. According to the big picture definition at Google Green: “At Google, we’ve worked hard to minimize the environmental impact of our services. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month, our servers use less energy per user than leaving a light on for 3 hours. If you add in our renewable energy and offsets, our footprint is zero. And we continue to find new ways to reduce our impact even further.”
Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project. “24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.” Starts at 8pm EST on September 14, 2011 and continuing for 24 hours – you can watch it online here.
Empire State Building’s Green Transformation Earns LEED-Gold. Built 80 years ago, the legendary Empire State Building has implemented a green retrofit and refurbishing earning them LEED-Gold certification on Tuesday from the U.S. Green Building council. They expect to reduce energy costs by $4.4 million annually and cut carbon emissions by 105,000 metric tons over the next 15 years.
Pacific Islands to be Powered 100% by Coconuts, Sun. The tiny South Pacific islands of Tokelau are scheduled to become 100% sustainably powered with renewable energy. 93% of the island’s energy requirements will be derived from solar powered installations and the balance will come from something they have in abundance, coconut oil from coconuts. Experts estimate that 600 meters of solar panels in combination with a few hundred coconuts will supply sufficient clean energy to power the island.
CDP Global 500 Report 2011. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) endeavoured to collect information from the Global 500 companies, requesting that they measure and report what climate change means for their business. With the mission of ‘accelerating low carbon growth’, the results are revealing with over 74% of the Global 500 committing to emission reduction targets.
What is a Wind Turbine and How Does it Work? This article does a great job of explaining wind turbines and how they work. The kinetic power of the wind provides a clean, renewable energy alternative to fossil fuels.
Check in next week for more green news stories from around the world.
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Empire State Building will celebrate green certification in 2013
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It’s one of the most iconic buildings in New York City if not the world, but I didn’t realize until this week that the Empire State Building in Manhattan is undergoing a complete refit to make it as energy-efficient as a modern construction and the benchmark against which other large and older buildings should be measured. The proud old skyscraper certainly ranks high in both categories being completed in 1931 it celebrates its 80th anniversary next year. Standing at 381 meters (1,250 ft) tall it’s the tallest building outside of Chicago in the US and contains more than 2.5 million square feet of office/hotel/residential space. The retrofit will take over four years to complete and is now 18 months into the process with the goal remaining of completion of the final eighth stage by 2013. Buildings as large as the Empire State can result in an almost incomprehensible reduction in energy use and the plan is for the skyscraper to become a showcase design upon completion which can be transferred to many other older structures.
The estimated energy savings when the task is finished will run at approximately 38%, whereas improvements to post 1945 constructions typically sees savings of between 10 to 20%. The costs associated with the retrofit are estimated to run at over $13 million however building owners estimate that the improvements will have paid for themselves within five years of completion. As you would imagine with a structure this large the project itself is gigantic in scope and will involve numerous changes to the Art Deco era colossus. Window replacement alone will provide more than 10% of the overall energy savings and experts say that improved glass can shave up to 33% off of the peak cooling costs during the summer months. In all more than 6,500 dual pane, double hung windows are being manufactured on site which constitute more than 26,000 individual panes of glass. In one of the most aesthetic and green campaigns in history, the original design of the windows will not be changed and the visual impact is often completely unnoticed even by those who work in the building. The window replacement has been taking place overnight with workers typically returning the next day without being aware of the giant retrofit.
When the project eventually ends the Empire State building will receive an Energy Star score of 90, signifying that it ranks within the top 10% of most efficient buildings in the US. Other renovations beyond the windows include replacing constant volume air handlers with variable units, retrofitting the chiller plant to reduce cooling loads, improvements of daylighting and energy-efficient lighting systems plus upgrades and modifications to air damper and radiator systems throughout the building. In less than three years time the Empire State will be the largest eco-friendly retrofit ever completed and a model that many hope will be followed not just in New York but in other cities with numerous large and older buildings. The New York example provides great impetus to make such changes, as the cities buildings of more than 50,000 ft.² consume more than 45% of the energy needed for buildings in the entire Big Apple. If the Empire State Building can become green then why not all older structures? Better still retrofitting existing buildings toward longer and more efficient lives also reduces the need for new building construction and material use.
Tags: construction of empire state building, empire state building, empire state building going green, empire state building retrofit, energy conservation through retrofit, energy consumption, energy efficiency, energy star rating, green construction, heating cooling green construction, height of empire state building, project to modernize empire state building, retrofit costsThe height of Eco-Friendly – World’s tallest buildings face new contender
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London's Post Office Tower
It all started with the church in the village where I grew up , it’s stone spire could be seen from a few miles away as it was the tallest building in our little town. As a youngster I was ridiculously impressed by tall and grand buildings, as a little kid when visiting London I was amazed at the twin spires of Westminster Abbey (69 M 225 FT) and the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral (112 M 366 FT), before then being transfixed by the tallest tower (at the time) in London – The Post Office Tower (now named the BT Tower standing at 188 M 617 FT). As a small boy that building seemed impossibly tall and so it remained until the first time I visited Paris on a school trip when I was about eight. It was there that I first saw the Eiffel Tower – not so much a building as a steel observation deck but certainly enough to thrill me and the tallest yet (not to mention very metric exactly 300.0M or 984 feet).
burj-khalifa in Dubai
My dad used to travel to the US and Canada on business a lot and when I was ten we were taken on a family trip which was really masquerading as a business trip but my tall building buzz saw new highs. We flew into JFK and I was lucky enough to visit and go to the top of the Empire State Building (381M) and The World Trade Centre (417M 1368 FT). At more than double the height of the Post Office Tower plus the incredible vastness of the building I remember just looking up in awe – and of course there were two of them! It seemed to my 10 year old brain that the trip was designed around my tall building hobby (it wasn’t) as we also visited Chicago which of course features the Sears Tower, the tallest in the world at the time (442M 1451 FT). My holy grail was visited and I had the photos to prove it.
As I grew older my interest in tall buildings waned, and although I ended up living in one and working in one for a short time I found other interests that replaced my early passion. I’ve paid marginal attention as the Sears Tower was trumped by new skyscrapers in Asia and wept (for reasons beyond the obvious) when the twin towers in New York came crashing down on that dark day in 2001. My interest was rekindled by the recent construction and opening of the new top tower in Dubai – the Burj Khalifa is a staggering height (828M 2717 FT). I can’t even conceive of a building being that tall and photographs and videos such as the one beneath make it seem computer generated against the desert background.
From an environmental perspective the newest buildings are also using more methods of green construction. Not just smaller buildings and homes are benefiting from new concepts of sustainable construction by skyscrapers around the world are also incorporating design ideas that consider more than height. There is now news of a potential tower being constructed later this decade in Miami, Florida that would not only been taller than the current pinnacle in Dubai but also potentially the one of the largest eco-friendly buildings ever built.
The proposed Miapolis
The proposed structure is the Miapolis, if it gets built the 975 meter high tower could potentially beat out Dubai’s Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest building if built. Designed by KOBI KARP, Miapolis would be more than just a building – it would be a vertical self-contained city. They utilize the most cutting-edge sustainable systems and practices within the design, it would be the largest LEED-certified structure at any rating level in the United States. The staggering 160-floor tower would contain entertainment and residential spaces within including an amusement park, observatory, restaurants, 2 million sq ft of shops, over 1000 apartments, 1 million sq ft of office space and a 792 room hotel. *(some elevators too I’m guessing)
Miapolis’ eco-credibility includes the use of 60% wind energy, a modular green roof, greenhouse gas management, water desalinization, storm and wastewater management, solid waste management and much more. Will it actually happen? There is a list of proposed super towers as long as my arm that never came to fruition – but to think that the tallest building in the world might also boast a very green core – that would be the height of eco-friendly.
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