A Passive House certification is one of the highest available for energy-efficient homes. And this residence hall in Belfast, Maine demonstrates that, “space heating costs for TerraHaus are less than $300 per year ($30 per student), a big improvement from the two poorly insulated housing units it replaced, each with an annual space heating cost …
Continue reading “The first high performance – ultra energy-efficient – residence hall”
A home profiled in Wired has six very interesting zero-carbon elements, but it’s the last two that fascinate me – thick walls and ultra-efficient windows. Thick walls mean “two 8-inch-thick concrete layers that protect the interior from outside temperature fluctuations. On hot days, the concrete absorbs and retains heat, keeping rooms cool; at night it slowly …
Continue reading “Moving towards 100% thermal insulation for homes”
Our homes were never designed for energy efficiency. So what happens when designers, architects, and engineers approach the problem? From the European Solar Decathlon: “The house generates twice as much energy in Hungarian conditions and three times as much in Madrid as the house itself spends,” the Odooproject team states. “This amount is able to …
Continue reading “European Solar Decathlon – Solar home creates twice the energy it uses”
Massive galaxy cluster spawns more than 700 stars a year A newly discovered cluster of galaxies, more than 5 billion light years from Earth…is among the most massive clusters of galaxies in the universe, and produces X-rays at a rate faster than any other known cluster. It also creates new stars at an “unmatched” pace of more …