Building to LEED II: A higher standard

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published October 22, 2010

In the seven years since the Board of Trustees adopted the current LEED standard to target a level silver certification on all new construction and renovation projects, the University has registered 27 projects with U.S. Green Building Council for certification. Despite the seemingly large number of registered projects, Duke is not yet getting the full benefit of its LEED commitment.

While “generally” resulting in better buildings from a maintenance and utilities perspective, John Noonan, associate vice president for facilities, informed me in an e-mail that “as we audited past LEED projects, we found a lot of emphasis placed on scoring points, and perhaps less so on focusing the points in areas that impact energy.” Specifically, according to a 2009 study of 20 LEED registered projects on campus, conducted by Nicholas School Masters student Amy Dao, Duke was only awarded an average 28 percent of the total number of energy points, while getting over 50 percent of the available LEED points in all other categories.

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Building to LEED

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published October 8, 2010

I work in a building on campus. He’s a mean dude. He swallows me whole to a quiet place in his bowels, then hums and belches air in my face all day. He can’t decide if it should be hot or cold, though in the interior, it’s usually cold. Sometimes the heater is on, even though it’s summer.

My building has a neighbor, and she is clean and bright, full of daylight, with signs pointing toward the recycling bins and motion sensors on the lights.

I don’t work in a LEED building. But the building next door is a LEED Silver certified building. It has a plaque.

LEED distinguishes more than just old versus new, plaque versus no plaque. So, what is LEED? And what does a silver building have that mine doesn’t?

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Back To Bikes

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published September 24, 2010

Last week the City of Durham issued a press release announcing its recognition as a bicycle friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists. Durham was awarded a bronze-level recognition, the lowest of four levels recognized by LoAB. Chapel Hill also received a bronze-level recognition. Close by Carrboro bested both college towns, achieving a silver rating. Several other North Carolina cities also received awards.

This publication picked up on the story this week, and Tuesday’s edition of Towerview magazine had a one-page spread on just how hip the bicycle commuting trend is for the fall. In true magazine style, the short blurb was accompanied by a shopping list to aid interested trend-followers in getting in on the act.

I hope bicycling is more than a fall trend, but I also applaud all of the publicity this healthy and fun form of transportation is getting!

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Authors Note: Friday truly was all about bikes, at least in the backpages of The Chronicle. In addition to the article abstracted above, two additional columnists also addressed the issue of bikes on Duke’s Campus in Friday’s issue. You can link to the editorial board’s comments here and Professor Thomas Sporn’s comments here.

Water World

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published September 10, 2010

Welp, Earl was a dud, but we sure could’ve used the rain.

All that sunshine and hot weather that was inescapable the last two weeks have been hanging around most of the summer while many students were off saving the world and being interns. Too much sunshine hardly seems like a bad thing until a lack of rain equals drought.

And I hate to say it, but we are experiencing a low-level drought.

Surprised? You probably shouldn’t be.

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Bull City Connected

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published August 27, 2010

There’s some buzz around a bus. It’s in the newspapers. On TV. Even has a new hit single from ages past:

The wheels on the bus go round and round,

round and round, round and round,

The wheels on the bus go round and round,

All the way downtown!

You think it sounds childish? Already been done? Alright, but before you skip to the next column, let me back up a minute.

There is a new bus, introduced just two weeks ago. It’s yellow, but also orange, and no, it’s not taking you to kindergarten.

Here are the facts: It’s called the Bull City Connector. It has a website: www.bullcityconnector.org. It runs every 15 minutes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and every 20 minutes from 6 p.m. till midnight during the week (on Saturdays, the bus runs on 20 minute intervals). The route starts at the Duke Hospital then moseys over to Main Street via Erwin Road before continuing all the way to Golden Belt, passing through town favorites like Brightleaf Square, American Tobacco District and City Center.

The best part: it’s free!

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Going green at home

By Liz Bloomhardt

Published July 1, 2010

Since this is the send home edition of The Chronicle, it seems appropriate for the ‘green devil’ column to go home, too.

Most of the year I use this space to explore ways in which Duke is making progress toward its climate neutrality goal. Using the University’s Climate Action Plan as a road map, I’ve covered issues relating to energy, transportation and carbon offsets.

Why does it make sense to focus on what happens off campus? Of the four end-use consumption sectors measured by the Annual Energy Review 2008: Energy Consumption, a report published by the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, transportation and residential energy use make up the second and third largest sectors in the U.S. respectively. So what Duke thinks about and does on campus, you can think about and do at home too.

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Constructing the Death Star... er, I mean... Ecomposter

Constructing the Ecomposter was not a lot like death, despite the warnings.

It came in a box.

The box came from China.

There were lots of pieces in the box, and they went together one by one. First there was one half...

Then there were two.

Two World Cup games after it started, the Death Star... er... Ecomposter, was ready to fill.

What's going in? From left to right, wood ashes (a "brown"), directions (not going in, but useful), a weekend's worth of vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and eggshells (the "greens"), and fallen leaves (another "brown").

The idea here is to mix greens and browns in a 1:1 ratio to start, then to keep a happy moisture level thereafter. Load, then spin, daily. And, keep adding until full. Then let finish.

I will admit that it does not look delicious or nutritious right now. It looks like a mold pile waiting to happen, and it's likely to get gross before it's finished. But, provided this whole natural process works as advertised, once it's done, my plants are going to love this stuff!