The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

timsox6 said:
In the past I've heard that a lot of people take more pride in getting EnergyStar certified, that LEED is not the best system. Is this still true?
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The problem with LEED is that it doesn't support key sustainable design techniques for every project. It is instead an a la carte checklist of pick what you want and accrue points. You can actually get a point for having "please consider the environment before printing this email" in your employee's email signatures.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Matthew said:
Here's the main problem with LEED: http://southwest.construction.com/s...stainablelibraryfitswithindesertlandscape.asp

you can qualify for LEED by building some nonsense out in the middle of nowhere that you have to drive for miles to reach, not to mention bringing the grid out there.
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Not to derail, but that's my beef with the zet-zero lunacy in Cambridge. Every building that could have been transit accessible in Cambridge (but not energy-leed-star-net-whatever) that is instead built in Waltham is massively counterproductive to efficiency and sustainability. These certifications need to take in the bigger picture - work and home evenvirontments shape people's lifestyles and ultimately their energy consumption even when away from the certified building in question.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Damn, I only have 8 months left of being an emerging professional. Better enjoy it while I can. Or, at least finish emerging.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Czervik.Construction said:
I think all this LEED stuff is stupid. I live in a LEED Gold building in NYC. We have solar panels, a composting system, etc. Whatevs.

Here is an interesting article about the Durst Fetner group that until now has built a lot of their buildings to LEED specs, in fact they were the first to have a LEED Platinum buiilding - One Bryant Park. They have decided that LEED has too many limitations - that the energy analysis focuses on the cost of energy whereas DF wants to focus on carbon use.

http://www.durstfetner.com/company-profile/newsroom/?news=59
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It's all mental self-pleasuring ... in the long term {20 years+} no-one will remember or care about: LEED, Carbon Neutral, etc.

Since you are based in NYC and reference buildings there -- don't forget the CitiCorp Center [now 601 Lexington Avenue]

The distinctive slanting roof was both an architectural joke [Google mono-pitched roofs and the Bauhaus] and also ostensibly solar related [previous era of such silliness when Jimma was Presydunt]

from wiki [QUOTE}The roof of Citigroup Center slopes at a 45-degree angle because it was originally intended to contain solar panels to provide energy. However, this idea was eventually dropped because the positioning of the angled roof meant that the solar panels would not face the sun directly.[/QUOTE]
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

^ Do you slip your climate pet theories into all of your posts these days?
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

^ Do you slip your climate pet theories into all of your posts these days?
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Only when he's not slipping in other d-grade talk radio fodder.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

He (Whighlander) also happens to be correct, as time will prove.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Cool tidbits. I can see that building from my apartment. I will now imagine that thing covered in solar panels. Our building's roof is covered with them. I always wonder if they are actually operational or if it makes a dent in the electricity used by the building.


whighlander said:
It's all mental self-pleasuring ... in the long term {20 years+} no-one will remember or care about: LEED, Carbon Neutral, etc.

Since you are based in NYC and reference buildings there -- don't forget the CitiCorp Center [now 601 Lexington Avenue]

The distinctive slanting roof was both an architectural joke [Google mono-pitched roofs and the Bauhaus] and also ostensibly solar related [previous era of such silliness when Jimma was Presydunt]

from wiki [QUOTE}The roof of Citigroup Center slopes at a 45-degree angle because it was originally intended to contain solar panels to provide energy. However, this idea was eventually dropped because the positioning of the angled roof meant that the solar panels would not face the sun directly.
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[/QUOTE]
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Wonderful, now we can have traffic exiting the garage clogging up Causeway Street. I was really hoping that this would be an entrance only.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

I think it needed to be two-way because the current portal to the garage is being blown up during the construction of the Nashua Street building (whenever that happens).
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Czervik.Construction said:
Cool tidbits. I can see that building from my apartment. I will now imagine that thing covered in solar panels. Our building's roof is covered with them. I always wonder if they are actually operational or if it makes a dent in the electricity used by the building.
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Czerv -- you can do the calculation yourself:

Solar Irradiance ==== 1360 W/m^2 at the outside of the the atmosphere looking directly at the sun

By the time that you get to the surface of the earth with no clouds and such the peak is about 800 W / m^2 -- however, unless you are tracking the sun that is only about local noon =/- 3 hours in the vicinity of the summer solstice -- say about June - August

This time of the year even when its not cloudy, raining or snowing -- Fagggataboutit

Now you need to convert that solar light into electricity -- use a quite achievable in the lab but questionable in the field efficiency of 20%

So to be quite generous a fixed array will produce about 200 W / m^2 for about 6 hours per day during the months of June, July and August

Now compare the area of the top of the Millennium Tower to the floor area of the building and the typical power consumption per sq meter

As a reference the Telecom Hotel [ racks of servers and switches] that occupies a big chunk of sq ft inside the Macy's Building across the street supports in excess of 200W/ft^2 or about 2kW/m^2 power consumption

Sorry -- Solar is not going to make much of a dent in urban areas in the Northeast
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Any dent is a good thing, and adding them to roofs (if affordable) would be great throughout the area.

However, a much better energy saver would be to use solar thermal collectors for producing hot water in buildings.

While your lab numbers for PV's is very low (labs are producing solar cells well in excess of 40% efficiency) the commercially viable PV's are much closer to the 20% you quote. Solar thermal collectors are much more efficient, with evacuated tubes achieving between 75%-90% efficiencies at times. They can produce so much hot water at times, that heat dumps are necessary. Due to these efficiencies and the less constant needs for hot water, these can take up significantly less space than PV's. Also, by combining the two technologies and using the PV's to power the required circulating pumps, I have seen buildings with 100% of their domestic hot water needs being taken care of during the day, before the electrical service has even been switched on.

I see heating hot water as an even better use for these, as that is at least a constant use.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Yeah, solar is only going to be part of the solution. But, better to be a dubiously effective energy producing part of a non-carbon solution than have no solution at all.
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

SeamusMcFly said:
Any dent is a good thing, and adding them to roofs (if affordable) would be great throughout the area.

However, a much better energy saver would be to use solar thermal collectors for producing hot water in buildings.

While your lab numbers for PV's is very low (labs are producing solar cells well in excess of 40% efficiency) the commercially viable PV's are much closer to the 20% you quote. Solar thermal collectors are much more efficient, with evacuated tubes achieving between 75%-90% efficiencies at times. They can produce so much hot water at times, that heat dumps are necessary. Due to these efficiencies and the less constant needs for hot water, these can take up significantly less space than PV's. Also, by combining the two technologies and using the PV's to power the required circulating pumps, I have seen buildings with 100% of their domestic hot water needs being taken care of during the day, before the electrical service has even been switched on.

I see heating hot water as an even better use for these, as that is at least a constant use.
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Sheamus there are labs and then there are labs

40% numbers are heroic demonstrations where money is no object and are very close to theoretical maxima

20% is on the hairy edge of commecial production at a reasonable cost

Once again -- given ultimate possible efficiencies and ideal usable solar irradiance -- there are technical two factors -- that given all other things being optimum -- determine the success or failure of a solar PV installation:

1) ratio of floor area to collector area
2) energy consumption per unit floor area

Then there is the economic equation of Life cycle cost of solar installation compared to life cycle cost of alternative

So if you like flat roof single story buildings with mostly empty space most of the time such as Big exhibition hall -- solar might be viable -- particularly in a place like Phoenix or Las Vegas

On the other hand if you want a slim tall tower with a lot of floor area devoted to energy intensive uses in a northern climate frequently cloudy -- say Boston -- not worth bothering unless money is no object

Direct space heating and heat-cycle based cooling using solar thermal collectors are however another matter with different economics -- and there are other possible combinations that need to be reviewed

Just remember that solar is no panacea and shouldn't be thought of as such unless the economics are properly evaluated otherwise there is the risk of "Soviet Siberian Hydropower" -- until the Soviets adopted a cost for renting rubles -- they saw hydro as a panacea for all the Siberian power needs -- this was despite the fact that often the city in question was sitting on huge deposits of fuels and despite the fact that the hydropower was many hundreds of km away from the point of use
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Solar isn't efficient and cheap enough yet. My gut tells me it's close to being an economically viable product; I hope it gets just as popular as smart phones!!!!!!
 
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