Brainstorming energy and design issues May 20, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Arizona State University, Collaboration, Design, Economy, Education, Energy & Climate, Events, sustainability.Tags: PSI, Think Tank
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So we’re into the second day of the workshop on design-meets-engineering for improving built environments, and the group has moved into the brainstorming mode. I just snuck into the control room and got this picture.
What you see is the collaborative Think Tank exercise, where each participant gets to come up with ideas and solutions –this takes place anonymously as each one interacts with the group via a wireless laptop. The ideas are immediately displayed on one of the seven screens.
Today’s topics are “integrating areas of scholarship discipline with feasibility study” and “energy conservation in the context of the community.”
Where a decision-lab meets learning space May 18, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Design, Education, Networking.Tags: decision-lab, Deirdre Hahn, Educause, George Basile, Kip Hodges, Yushim Kim
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What does an intelligent use of information technology look like?
We are proud to have been featured by Educause, for how we employ technology toward a creative learning environment. Educause is a non-profit association, with a highly resourceful web site that features research initiatives, networking and learning opportunities in similar creative learning spaces.
Check the video submission here, which is also now on YouTube.
As Dr. Deirdre Hahn explains:
“we offer something more here than what students can get in a traditional classroom.We have an interactive, experiential, very dynamic environment…it’s a safe space that shuts off external distractions.”
Another look at Obama’s commencement speech May 15, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Arizona State University, Design, Education, Events.Tags: Obama, Wordle
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If you loved yesterday’s post about what Obama’s speech looked like, here’s another version.
This time I ran the speech through Wordle. The word cloud generated is a permanent map here, too.
Green infrastructure sandbox gets crowded, fast March 19, 2009
Posted by decisionlab1 in Design, Economy, Energy & Climate, Watchlist.add a comment
It’s interesting to see how fast Green Infrastructure has moved in to be front and center in the national agenda. A Wikipedia entry for it is still considered ’start class’ –meaning it is ‘an article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources.’
Of the 787.2 billion Economic Stimulus package, $71 billion is targeted at energy and environmental initiatives; $20 billion is for green tax incentives. Which explains the surge of interest in these areas:
- The EPA has listed a ‘catalog of training opportunities‘
- IBM is getting into the infrastructure sandbox, intending to offer services to include water, traffic and power grids even health care and finance.
- NPR reported that every $1 billion the federal government commits to roads, bridges etc helps to support some 35,000 jobs.
- NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is holding a 3-day course in June to teach students how to apply GIS tools, methodologies, and analyses using a Green Infrastructure’ approach
- AT&T is partnering with SmartSync, to provide smart metering
- The Department of Energy’s web site has a section devoted to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. It lists financial opportunities for business, industry, and universities, inventors, states and tribes…
Whether you call it green infrastructure or clean tech there is plenty of design and planning at stake. Before any solar, hydo-thermal or transportation system is put into place, cities and counties need expertise to plan and manage these projects. We’ve got plenty of it here at ASU and the Decision Theater.
SkySong, ASUs icon of innovation February 25, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Arizona State University, Collaboration, Design.Tags: Arizona, SkySong
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There are many ways to describe SkySong at ASU: a high-tech innovation center, a hub for global technology-focused businesses, the entrepreneurship arm of a research university…
As they add the finishing touches to the iconic sail-like shade structure, you’ll probably hear people describe it structurally, before going into a functional description. Tenants at SkySong get direct access to ongoing research.
When some of us from the Decision Theater met at SkySong recently, what stood out was the open spaces inside the building –intentionally designed to foster collaboration.
Check out Mike Padgett’s article in Arizona Notebook which has more of these great photographs
Two ways of promoting the smart grid February 10, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Design, Energy & Climate, sustainability.Tags: ecomagination, GE, scarecrow
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In an attempt to own the term ’smart grid’ GE has added an interactive grid to its ‘eco-magination’ microsite that lets people look at the different dimensions of energy.
As microsites go it’s a neat way to describe the implications of demand and supply in the smart grid –seen as a three-dimensional concept of alternative energy, meters and emissions.
But GE also took to running a more expensive message during the Super Bowl. The 30-second ‘Scarecrow’ commercial uses the well known scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.
GE folks say that the concept of the Smart Grid technology is so complex, it needed to be boiled down to the basic: “Our energy grid needs to be updated, and GE has the technology to modernize it.” I do not buy that advertising argument –which is another way of defending why we dumb things down all the time. Of course, when forcing a message through an advertising funnel like the Super Bowl, that has some validity. But dumbing down the smart grid?
In a related news item, Google today announced that it is also diving into the smart grid business.
Memo from Thomas Friedman: Let’s start designing ’systems’ February 9, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Design, Energy & Climate.add a comment
The ’systems approach’ that we keep talking up here at the Decision Theater may sound complex, but at its essence it is pretty simple: The world is one big system, a combination of all the big systems –biophysical, economic, social- and little ones. Making decisions for (or trying to fix) just one system is not logical or possible.
I came across the best explanation of this from a non-scientist, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer prize winner Thomas Friedman. In his latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, a core section (Chapter eight) is devoted to it, and why the US should take this approach. More on this later.
His most cogent explanation can be found in an earlier column where he relates this systemic approach to what Steve Jobs has done for music, combining three complex systems: the music generating system, a distribution and purchasing system and a listening system.
Likewise in his book, he pulls out another icon, the Toyota Prius that was designed not as a better product, but as a system solution.
If you don’t have a system, you don’t have a solution. If you hear a politician calling for ‘renewable energy,’ walk away. If you hear a politician calling for a ‘renewable energy system,’ listen up.”
The systems approach to any challenge forces you to look at how other systems are impacted by your decision, and how they in turn come back to inform your decision. Smart electrons and crop resilience and ice storms may not seem related, says Friedman, but they are!
Apple and Toyota get it. Haven’t others got the memo?
ASU: Ground zero for ’shovel-ready’ green projects February 5, 2009
Posted by Angelo in ASU: Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Collaboration, Design.Tags: Clean Energy Stimulus and Investment Assurance Act
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With so many eyes on the prize, a.k.a. the stimulus package, the new administration has its hands full mapping out which shovel-ready projects need to get started.
One bill proposed last week, the Clean Energy Stimulus and Investment Assurance Act (S320), if it is adopted, would give financial incentives to businesses and residential areas to pursue green roof installation. S320 has wide ranging proposals, including smart grid research, green collar job creation, and energy storage.
To get back to the roofs, ASU’s rooftop solar units are cropping up all over the area. As I drove around last week, I spotted solar panels being installed on parking garages. Like this one on Apache Boulevard, in Tempe, Arizona.
LEED-certified buildings are everywhere, and there are roof-top wind turbines. A comprehensive plan to consume less and recycle more on all four campuses is underway. Those are just the traditional approaches. Check what the BioDesign group is doing to generate electricity from waste! ASU just opened the world’s most comprehensive and sophisticated facility for testing and certification of solar energy equipment.
With or without legislature, the shovels are at work, here. The best part is, it all fits into our “Decision Theater 3.0” vision. Stay tuned!
Should buildings “talk?” January 24, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Design, Energy & Climate, People, Urban Growth, Visualization.add a comment
Would buildings one day communicate with you?
When I ask my colleague Dr. Robert Pahle about the ability to connect a database to a visualization of a city, his answer is “they don’t now, but they should!” If he has his way, they soon will.
He is currently using the City of Tempe model (a very popular 3D model we use here) and embedding it with rich data. Soon anyone would be able to pull up real-time information about a building and look at its footprint, he says –the carbon it generates, the energy it consumes, the number of occupants, the parking spots available in the underground garage etc.
We could take it further, and make that data available online, so you could have that data sent to your Blackberry via a text message –if it is that critical that you have it in near real-time.
We are at an early stage of interacting with our environments. Notice how energy ‘calculators’ are catching on.
- The Global Institute of Sustainability has a great one as part of the Campus Metabolism project.
- The University of British Columbia web site shows the real-time consumption and savings at the Vancouver campus –in terms of copy paper used, greenhouse gases saved etc.
- There are simple ones like this, and carbon footprint calculators, and green building calculators.
Armed with this granular knowledge of our local environments, you could use it to make better decisions, whether it is what school to enroll your child in, which organization to do business with, or which city to set up your factory in.
Will the story within the story make news? January 21, 2009
Posted by Angelo in Design, Energy & Climate, Media.Tags: ABC15 News, KNXV, Phoenix
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We just finished meeting with a news team from ABC15. The story is specifically about saving electricity, and what it means in the broader context of energy costs in the state.
But as anyone who visits the Decision Theater soon realizes, the story enlarges as you begin to connect the dots.
You cannot talk about energy without talking about technology (which computer serves as the master switch?) and building design (why are the windows facing the sun?), about climate factors and smart grids. Also the simple things (why do these light bulbs give out more heat than light?)
In other words, there’s always a larger story, or in this case, an embedded story waiting to be told.
Interestingly, Time magazine just ran a big feature on Energy Efficiency. Just in time for the major initiatives we could expect from the new Obama administration.
How else to think of this other than a major light bulb moment!
