Environmental Innovations to Give You Hope

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Recyclable Housing

 A typical house is built with materials designed to last a lifetime. Yet many are torn down after two or three decades—a throwaway approach that environmentalists have long fought. Now a handful of green thinkers are wondering whether it’s time to embrace our nomadic natures and build homes that are designed not to last.

The idea is already creeping into the green building industry. It’s long been possible to build homes in a factory, which is more efficient than conventional construction. Today these modular structures, with smarter designs, can be disassembled and reused or recycled, a key quality in what’s known as cradle-to-cradle design, popularized by architect William McDonough.

To illustrate how sophisticated this concept is becoming, TreeHugger.com (June 5, 2008) points to a modular prototype designed by Oakland-based Michelle Kaufmann Designs for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry that uses half as much energy as a standard new construction.

Even more radical: biodegradable products that simply melt away on the compost pile when they’re no longer useful.

According to TriplePundit.com (June 10, 2008), architects and furniture designers already are experimenting with “biopolymers” such as corn-based plastics that break down with virtually no pollution. While they’re far from a panacea, these high-tech degradables, combined with traditional building methods that use natural materials like earth and straw, could help shrink the footprint of the average American abode.

The Energy Internet

If you hear the phrase “energy intelligence” being bandied about, don’t worry: It’s not a new IQ standard that deems SUV drivers below average or bicyclists geniuses. The term refers to a system that manages power generation and use in a more efficient, responsive manner—“the energy equivalent of the Internet,” as Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn describe it in Earth: The Sequel (Norton, 2008). This web would draw electricity from where it is abundant and send it to where it is needed, reducing the demand for new power plants and offering more flexibility for incorporating renewable sources like wind and sun.

Forward-thinking investors are already all over the concept, with venture capitalists sinking more than $434 million into energy intelligence in 2007, write Krupp and Horn. One company, Virginia-based GridPoint, has developed a device—a refrigerator-sized “smart battery” that utilities can install in customers’ basements—that has been called “TiVo for electricity.” The battery stores and releases energy based on various factors, including cost and demand, which saves the user money by avoiding the power peaks that can tax the power grid.

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