Renewables 2.0
As with the burgeoning resilience industry, the renewable materials
industry is trying to define itself relative to older notions of
sustainability and newer benchmarks for progress. To that point,
organizers of the Renewable Energy World Conference & Expo (Dec.
9–11) in Orlando have divided their energy tracks by size, application,
and region to cover large-scale renewables, distributed generation, and
renewables in the global marketplace. Learn more at renewableenergyworld-events.com.
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot
There are practical challenges to designing for thermal efficiency.
There are also a number of upstream decisions that can impact
performance long after the building is completed—a focus of the 2014
International Conference on Thermal Engineering this year (Oct. 27–28)
in Barcelona. Learn more at waset.org.
Critical Moment
Reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions: two noble
goals that may ultimately become historic I-told-you-so’s. What is the
AEC industry really doing about them? Join ASHRAE and the American
University of Beirut for the International Conference on Efficient
Building Design in Beirut to learn more about advanced research in
future proofing the way we build and renovate. Learn more at ashrae.org.
Market Forces
If you’ve been to architecture school in the last two
decades (as a student or an instructor), you’ve grappled with community
resilience, design representation, history, structural loads, and other
curricular areas—all couched by energy efficiency, quality of life,
social equity, and thermal performance. The economic argument for
sustainability, however, still needs to be made—the topic of the
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
conference and expo next month in Portland, Ore. Learn more at conference.aashe.org.
White Light
Photovoltaic (PV) panels are making small gains more rapidly in Europe
than anywhere, the continent boasting 69 percent of the world’s total PV
cumulative capacity. What accounts for that success? And why does the
U.S.—with more than twice the sunlight duration hours of the European
Union countries combined—lag so far behind? Find out at the 29th
European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Expo (Sept. 22–26) in
Amsterdam. Learn more at photovoltaic-conference.com.
