[GSBN] Embodied/embedded energy figures
Bruce King
bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org
Sun Oct 23 19:30:52 UTC 2011
Great discussion Chris, David, Tom, and thanks to you all. It's a bit
stunning that apparently no one or university has taken on building
and maintaining a database for the industry.
I have one other point to add to the many good ones already made,
which is the "time value" of carbon emissions as I first heard
articulated by architect Larry Strain.
Climate disruption seems to be happening faster than anyone expected,
making it all the more urgent to have impact right now, rather than
over the 30 or 50 or 100 year life span of a building. If the
embodied energy or carbon emissions of the average commercial building
is equivalent to 5 -- 7 years of emissions, then reducing the energy
of construction (materials + process + transportation) should be a
HUGE design target, not an afterthought. That large initial belch of
carbon emissions during construction has impact forevermore, whereas
the savings from high insulation such as from straw bale walls will
not be felt (by society and the power companies) for a long time.
Even we on this list who design and build with bales and other low-
energy low-impact technologies must acknowledge that many of our
projects are rural homes that require lots of cars and trucks driving
great distances. Blood is on our hands, too, though I can't imagine a
better (and practicable) scenario by which the straw bale/natural
building revival could play out in the modern world. Brings to mind
an offshoot of the BANANA principle: Build Absolutely Nothing
Anywhere Near Anybody.
Anyway, I'd love to see more of the energy, passion and genius of this
group be applied to improving urban building and remodeling, where
most of humanity is and foreseeably will be. And I say that painfully
aware that very promising technologies like HemCrete, BaleHaus, and
StakBlock languish for lack of capital. I think we should all write
firm but polite letters to Goldman Sachs urging them to take CEO Lloyd
Blankfein's upcoming zillion-dollar bonus and distribute it to the
members of GSBN. I'm sure Lloyd would agree.
with head ever in the clouds, I am thy cheerful servant,
Bruce King, PE
Director of EBNet
Ecological Building Network
the art and science of building well
bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org
PO Box 6397
San Rafael, CA 94903 USA
(415) 987-7271
follow us on Twitter: @EBNetwork
blog: http://bruceking.posterous.com/
On Oct 17, 2011, at 7:33 AM, David Eisenberg wrote:
> I'd like to chime in with appreciation of the discussion here and to
> echo Jim and Tom's observations but to also say that in my
> experience - as a long time proponent of the importance of embodied
> energy here in the US, that it was the energy efficiency folks who
> dismissed the importance of embodied energy continually until the
> last few years, not those of us involved in greening the built
> environment. Their argument was that if you compared operating and
> embodied energy, you would see that embodied energy was
> insignificant. My argument was that we were talking about a
> significant number dwarfed by a huge number, but the size of the
> embodied energy did not mean that the embodied energy was not
> important, just that it was made to look insignificant by the size
> of the operating energy. They often used percentages to compare the
> two and I would say, okay using that method, what is the percentage
> of embodied energy when operating energy is zero? And how much have
> you increased the embodied energy in order to get to net-zero? My
> view is that that is the bigger issue...we're typically using much
> higher embodied energy materials and systems in most of these
> buildings to get to low operating energy performance - which
> amplifies the problem. And the global warming potential also
> typically goes way up.
>
> The other aspect of this is the assumption that we will have the
> affordable and available energy to continue to build energy
> intensive buildings the way we're been doing it. A tenuous
> assumption at best. Regardless, it would be great to have more
> research and better documentation for the spectrum of natural
> building materials and systems.
>
> Thanks for the great dialogue.
>
> David Eisenberg
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 2:53 AM, Jim Carfrae <jim.carfrae at plymouth.ac.uk
> > wrote:
> I would agree with Tom that we are losing sight of the importance of
> embodied energy.
>
> If you compare a well built SB house to the equivalent Passiv Haus
> they can both reduce their energy in use to a similar level.
> But looking at their total energy dept over 60 years, the Passiv
> Haus (built with conventional materials) will have a higher energy
> dept, with up to 40% of its dept tied up in the fabric of the
> building.
>
> The more you reduce energy in use, the greater the proportion of
> your energy dept over time will be in the materials you use.
>
> As Tom points out it depends on the source of figures you use, but
> using the Bath data a quick comparison of straw and expanded
> polystyrene is interesting:
>
> To achieve the U value of a typical SB wall (0.17 Wm2K) using
> polystyrene, you would need a thickness of 135mm.
> For each square metre of wall at the given thickness of each material:
> The straw has an embodied energy of 9.5 MJ
> The expanded polystyrene has an embodied energy of 419 MJ
>
> So a short and simplified answer to the question 'why use straw?'
> could be 'because the conventional equivalent has over 40 times the
> embodied energy!'
>
> This is a pretty gross generalisation, but is still food for thought!
>
> I presented a paper called 'The Leechwell Garden House' at the PLEA
> conference in Brussels this summer that discussed this issue. You
> can download a copy from my website, along with other SB related
> research:
> http://www.carfrae.com/downloads/index.html
>
> Thanks
>
> Jim
>
> J M J Carfrae PhD
> Environmental Building Group
> School of Architecture
> University of Plymouth
> Drake Circus
> Plymouth PL4 8AA
> UK
>
> jim.carfrae at plymouth.ac.uk<mailto:jim.carfrae at plymouth.ac.uk>
> 07880 551922
> 01803 862369
>
> On 17 Oct 2011, at 09:12, Tom Woolley wrote:
>
> Dear all
>
> Here is the link to the Bath database that Bruce couldn't find
>
> http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/sert/embodied/
>
> However Craig Jones who has done most of the work on this has now
> moved into the private sector and works for "Sustain"
> http://www.sustain.co.uk/
> Craig.Jones at sustain.co.uk<mailto:Craig.Jones at sustain.co.uk>
>
> While I think Craig and Geoff at Bath have done a great job on this,
> to keep the issue of embodied energy on the agenda,
> it worries me that the ICE database is treated with almost biblical
> respect in many refereed publications.
>
> Bath has never had proper funding for original research on ICE and
> so much of the data has been gathered from here there and everywhere.
> This means that the data provided by many commercial companies has
> not necessarily been independently verified
> Some of us would question figures given for the embodied energy of
> natural materials for instance.
>
> I would be interested to know where embodied energy figures on the
> agenda in other countries ( for something I am currently writing)
> In the UK, organisations like the AECB and the Passiv Haus people
> are pushing the argument at the moment that energy in use is the
> only thing that matters.
> I though we had got rid of this debate years ago but it has resurfaced
>
> While the greenies have been dismissing embodied energy , the
> commercial sector has embraced it recently, a strange reversal
> For instance see the work of Gareth Roberts at Sturgis on carbon
> profiling
> http://sturgiscarbonprofiling.com/?paged=3
> Its worth downloading their RICS Redefining Zero publication
> While it doesn't say anything about strawbales it does provide a
> very interesting methodology.
>
> We are launching the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products in
> Parliament on November 16th
> I have a one page leaflet about this but I think you cannot add
> attachments to these emails so if anyone would like this please sent
> an email to my personal address
> tom.woolley at btconnect.com<mailto:tom.woolley at btconnect.com>
>
> Tom
>
>
> On 14 Oct 2011, at 19:47, Bruce King wrote:
>
>
> The University of Bath (UK) has the best database I know of, but I
> can't find the link.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bruce King, PE
> Director of EBNet
> Ecological Building Network
> the art and science of building well
> bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org<mailto:bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org>
> PO Box 6397
> San Rafael, CA 94903 USA
> (415) 987-7271
> follow us on Twitter: @EBNetwork
> blog: http://bruceking.posterous.com/
>
> On Oct 14, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Chris Magwood wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm working on a research paper and I'm trying to find good,
> reliable information on embodied energy (or embedded energy) in
> building materials. I have some good papers from Australia and some
> stuff from CMHC, but I'd be glad to receive suggestions for other
> sources.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Chris
>
> --
> www.chrismagwood.ca<http://www.chrismagwood.ca/>
> www.endeavourcentre.org<http://www.endeavourcentre.org>
>
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> Tom Woolley
>
> Rachel Bevan Architects
> 80 Church Road
> Crossgar
> Downpatrick
> BT30 9HR
> tom.woolley at btconnect.com<mailto:tom.woolley at btconnect.com>
> 028 44 830988
> www.bevanarchitects.com<http://www.bevanarchitects.com>
>
>
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