Green Energy and Infrastructure

Securing a Sustainable Future

Jacqueline A. Stagner, David S-K. Ting, Jacqueline A. Stagner, David S-K. Ting

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367559496
• eBook ISBN: 9781000196726
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology

C. S. Lewis rightly instructed, "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts." This book aims to achieve this task by pushing the frontiers of scholarship for securing a sustainable future through green energy and infrastructure. This encompasses the notion that what we create is in harmony and integration with both the spatial and temporal domains.

Through numerous practical examples and illustrations, this book examines a comprehensive review of the latest science on indoor environmental health, energy requirements for buildings, and the "greening" of infrastructure. Also, it provides a discussion on the underlying properties of biomass and its influence on furthering energy conversion technologies. Energy storage is essential for driving the integration of renewable energy, and different storage approaches are discussed in terms of power balancing, grid stability, and reliability.

Features:

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• Focuses on the importance of coupling green energy with green infrastructure

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• Provides an unbiased update of the state-of-the-art of sustainability science

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• Discusses utilizing sustainable building materials for simultaneous improvement in energy, economic, and environmental bottom lines for industry

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• Illuminates practical steps that need to be undertaken to achieve a greener infrastructure

Green Energy and Infrastructure: Securing a Sustainable Future is appropriate for researchers, students, and decision-makers seeking the latest, practical information on environmental sustainability.

1 Energy for Buildings

Practices, Policies, and Prospects

G. T. Reader

University of Windsor

CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction: Background and Driving Forces

1.1.1 Urbanization and Sustainability

1.2 Climate and Building Energy Services

1.3 Uses and Sources of Building Energy

1.3.1 Heating, Cooling, and Climate Zones

1.3.2 Increasing Demand for Cooling

1.3.3 Cooking

1.3.3.1 Cooking with Polluting Fuels

1.3.4 Lighting

1.3.5 Elevators

1.3.6 Energy Source Transition

1.4 Energy Efficiency

1.4.1 The Role of Building Materials

1.5 Energy Poverty and Security

1.6 Concluding Remarks—Building Energy in a Changing World

References

1.1 Introduction: Background and Driving Forces

As the global human population continues to increase, so too does its consumption of energy. The ability to provide and supply increasing amounts of affordable and clean energy is fast becoming one of the major political and technologically challenges of the 21st century. These challenges will only intensify as the global population, over the next 81 years, could be between 22% and 65% higher than it is now. Such rises are realistic according to the latest United Nations (UN) Population Division report (2019), in which it is projected that the population will grow to 10.9 billion by 2100, within a range as low as 9.4 or as high as 12.7 billion.

A major user of energy is the buildings and construction sectors, whether commercial or residential. Although the energy used in buildings as a sector does not attract as much media attention as the other categorized energy-usage sectors, it is proportionally just as significant, if not more so, than the transportation and industrial sectors. According to the 2018 United Nations Environmental Programme (UN EP)—International Energy Agency (IEA) report, the building construction and operation sector accounted for, 36% of global final energy use and nearly 40% of energy related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2017 (UNEP 2018). These percentages include the manufacture of materials and products for construction, which are not always included by other agencies under the “building” sector category. Consequently, there can be some published variations from one national or international agency to another depending on the precise definitions used to describe the building sector and its sub-components. Regardless of these usually minor differences, there is no doubt that building-related energy consumption is a significant proportion of the global energy use, and while the IEA data perhaps paints a slightly exaggerated picture, most of the literature indicates that one-third of global energy is used in building services.

The energy consumed in buildings is used for a variety of human needs and wants. The main uses, since humans first learned how to harness, control, and start fire, being heating (space and water), cooking, and lighting. More recently, energy has been used for space and food cooling, manifest in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems, respectively, and for powering a multitude of electrical equipment such as computers, communications (radio, television, telephones), labor-saving devices, and appliances. In addition, in the commercial sector, energy is also required for machines and services such as sewage (wastewater) treatment.

The amount and type of Building energy demand varies by geographical location, national, regional, and local, the inherent prevailing weather and climate, occupant behavior, and the underlying wealth of the populace. How wealthy a country is, based on measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Income (GNI), or Purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita, has a marked impact on energy use in general, and particularly Building energy (Lafrance and Schembri 2002, 27–33). Nevertheless, even in some rich, developed countries, there are those in the population who can ill-afford Building energy services and so experience living conditions termed or defined as energy poverty (Enbridge 2019). Some countries and their constituent parts, states, provinces, and so on, rely on imported energy. Depending upon the proportion of imported-to-indigenous energies, a nation’s energy security could be severely impacted by an interruption, temporary or long term, of the imported supplies.

But what exactly is energy security? There are several definitions provided in the open literature, but the one promoted by the IEA, namely that energy security is the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price, has much to recommend it when discussing global energy issues (IEA accessed 2019). For example, over the next two decades, it has been forecast that in the developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region, energy growth demand will account for ⅔ of global growth, and that much of this demand will have to be met by energy imports into these countries (IEA report June 2019). Subsequently, energy crises, akin to the 20th-century oil crises which economically distressed many western countries, could have similar impacts in many parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Energy self-sufficiency could overcome such socio-economic risks within the 2020–2040 timeframe and most likely for many decades beyond; targeted efforts to improve energy efficiency appear to offer some hope of countering rising energy security concerns.

1.1.1 Urbanization and Sustainability

In terms of future energy challenges for buildings, there are other key elements that need to be tackled such as, urbanization and sustainability. Urbanization, i.e., the movement of the population from rural to urban areas (cities), is a relatively new phenomenon within human history, whose modern origins can be traced to the industrial age and which has accelerated since the mid-20th century. This is illustrated in Figure 1.1 adapted from the article by Ritchie and Roser (2019). According to the UN’s (2019, World Urbanization) latest revision to the World Urbanization Prospects, 56% of today’s global population live in urban areas compared to just over 29% seven decades ago, and the proportion is expected to rise to 68% by 2050. This increase has obvious ramifications for buildings, not least of which is the so-called Heat Island impact whereby, depending upon the time of day, urban areas air temperatures can be between 1°C and 12°C higher than the surrounding rural areas, especially in summer seasons (US EPA 2019). This effect usually leads to increasing energy demands and, in some cases, increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Consequently, improving Building energy efficiency is not only an intuitive pathway for the Asia-Pacific region but also globally.

FIGURE 1.1 Total urban and rural population, given as estimates to 2016 and UN Projections to 2050. (Author redrawn from original of H. Ritchie and M. Roser. 2019. Published online at OurWorldInData.org.)

As the population increases throughout the century and the proven reserves, especially involving oil deposits, of the currently dominant fossil fuel energy sources decrease, significant transitions to other forms of energy will be required to be included in the global energy mix. For permanent effect, these other forms should be sustainable, which requires them to also be renewable (Reader 2019). Moreover, sustainability will need to apply not only to energy sources and energy conversion devices but also to the buildings themselves. But what is building sustainability? The term Green building is usually used interchangeably with sustainable building, but different organizations, regional, and national governments have differing definitions and interpretations of exactly what constitutes a green or sustainable building. The definition promoted by Green Building Canada, which is fairly typical states, Green building is a resource-efficient method of construction that produces healthier buildings which have less impact on the environment and cost less to maintain. This sustainable approach to construction accounts for a building’s entire life cycle (Green Building Canada 2019). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had proposed a similar definition, but with the arrival of a new Federal Administration, the definitions and explanations were archived as of 2017 (US EPA 2016).

Nevertheless, there are several non-governmental or quasi-government organizations in the United States, Canada, and worldwide, who are involved in certifying Green or Sustainable buildings using the constantly evolving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system since its origins three decades ago.¹ More recently, there is an increasing trend to advocate for and specify Net Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB) whereby, over a period of say a year, the building infrastructure generates more electricity than it consumes (Torcellini et al. 2006, 12). On a global basis, this could be a challenging concept, particularly since over a billion people, at least 11% of the current world population, do not have access to electricity (World Bank 2019). A concomitant trend is the intent to develop Zero-Carbon buildings, which means that no form of carbonaceous fuel should be used to directly or indirectly provide energy services to a building or, presumably, any carbon dioxide generated by the energy consumed by the building, must be sequestrated and eventually stored (Canada Green Building Council 2017). Another building concept is the voluntary Passive House or the Adamson–Feist Passivhaus standard whose aim is to reduce the ecological footprint of residential buildings through energy efficiency improvements (The Passive House Institute 2019). Since the founding of the Passive House Institute (PHI) in 1996, the Passivhaus standard has also been used for new and retrofitted residential buildings as well as some commercial and local government buildings. The use of the PHI standard originally started in Germany and Austria but has expanded to many other countries including the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and the United States, the latter having its own version of the Passive House standard—PHIUS+ (The UK Passive House Organization 2019; Passive House Institute US 2019).

All the factors involved in the provision and operation of Building energy services, i.e., energy poverty and security, urbanization and sustainability, Net Zero Energy, zero carbon, and Passivhaus, have a modern backdrop of the deep concerns embedded in the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The UNFCC is an international environmental treaty which became effective over 25 years ago in March 1994 and evolved into the 2015 Paris Agreement, described as, a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Editors
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 Energy for Buildings: Practices, Policies, and Prospects
• Chapter 2 Green Design Effectiveness for a Mini Automotive-Repair Facility
• Chapter 3 Green Hospitals and Sustainability: Case of Companion House of a Research Hospital
• Chapter 4 Indoor Environment and Well-Being: The Case of Academic Workplace in Historic Building
• Chapter 5 Properties and Conversion Technologies of Biomass
• Chapter 6 Wind Resource Forecasting Error in Flat and Complex Terrains
• Chapter 7 Wind Power Forecasting via Deep Learning Methods
• Chapter 8 Green Energy: Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Tidal Storage
• Chapter 9 New Energy Mining: Compressed Air Energy Storage in Abandoned Mines
• Chapter 10 Hydrostatically Compensated Energy Storage Technology
• Chapter 11 Bioconstruction and Harmonic Complexity of Biomimicry Organisms
• Chapter 12 Back to the Basics: Return to the Origin, Gaudí and Nature
• Chapter 13 Triple Bottom Line Analysis, Methodology, and Its Implementation
• Index