Greener Buildings

Five national plumbing trade, manufacturing, product and standards groups have agreed to join forces to research and develop water efficient plumbing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the agreement among the Alliance for Water Efficiency, International Code Council, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, the Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors Association and the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute.

The five groups signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday.

The roof and grounds of the Visitor Center near the Grand Canyon's South Rim will soon host some 84 solar panels that will help power the building frequented by an estimated 4.5 million sightseers a year.

The solar energy system is expected to supply about 18 kilowatts of electricity, enough to offset 30 percent of the power used at the center, according to the utility APS.

With 4.5 million visitors a year, the Grand Canyon is a prime spot for solar power education, says APS.

The energy company said funding of the panels and their installation was made possible by APS custom

Island Press, the Trust for Architectural Easements and the U.S. Green Building Council are launching a series of talks featuring experts on architecture, preservation, planning, finance, real estate and related fields who'll focus on the importance of adaptive re-use to green the built environment.

The series on "Sustainability and Historic Preservation" begins Monday evening, Jan. 12, with a panel discussion that is free and open to the public at the SEIU Conference Center in Washington, D.C.

A Massachusetts firm says its new device called the Vegawatt can help restaurants save money by converting used vegetable oil from fryers into fuel to produce electricity and hot water.

The Owl Power Company of Boylston, Mass., hopes its Vegawatt (pronounced with a soft "g," like word vegetable) will become the next big thing among restaurants and other businesses with commercial or industrial kitchens that use fryers.

President and CEO James Peret, the founder of Owl Power Company, engineered and developed the Vegawatt after batting around the idea of using waste oil at its source

Ball Memorial Hospital will plant a 30,000-square-foot green roof on its new $87 million extension called South Tower.

The roof, expected to be installed in spring, will be the second in Muncie. The first, installed in September, sits atop an arm of an arbor flanking the main building of the Minnetrista Cultural Center.

A contractor has not yet been selected for hospital project, but the new roof is expected to help reduce the hospital's energy expenses for the tower by 10 to 15 percent and has a projected cost of $400,000 to $550,000 dollars, according to The Star Press.

Environmental and energy groups, including the association that represents almost 70 percent of the country's utilities, are urging swift passage of a stimulus package that includes provisions for energy efficiency programs that they say would help jumpstart an economic recovery through the creation of green jobs.

The groups made groups made their pitch to Congress before year's end as talks accelerated about the stimulus package being crafted by the incoming administration.

Xcel Energy, Colorado's largest utility company, has mapped out an ambitious energy efficiency plan for 2009 that the firm says would save an amount of power equivalent to that generated by a new unit at a coal-fired plant.

The utility company spent $20 million in 2008 on energy efficiency. It expects to spend $63 million this year and $80 million in 2010 on programs that are geared to reducing energy demands by business and residential customers.

The drive to create communities that balance environmental, economic and social responsibilities through planned development is growing as shown by projects in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee.

In Dallas, the Urban Re:Vision project and others convened a design charrette earlier this month as part of a campaign to create what organizers say will be the first fully sustainable, urban square block in the U.S.

Kennecott Land's Daybreak Corporate Center in South Jordan, Utah, attained a LEED Platinum rating, Citi obtained LEED Gold status for office space in Chicago and Pizza Fusion opened its 16th restaurant built to LEED standards.

The developments this month marked some of the more prominent accomplishments involving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards, better known as LEED, that are maintained by the U.S. Green Building Council of Washington, D.C.

The 175,000-square-foot Daybreak Corporate Center is the first LEED Platinum building in Utah.

Professional and aspiring architects, product developers and other innovators are invited to submit entries to the third annual Lifecycle Building Challenge, a competition that seeks the best designs for structures and products that minimize waste, cut greenhouse gas emissions and maximize reuse of materials.

Lifecycle Building Challenge 3 is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, American Institute of Architects, West Coast Green, the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, StopWaste.Org, and WasteCap Wisconsin.