In spite of the constraints, many engineering firms are designing innovation systems similar to some of the following that our firm has done.

In a Massachusetts school we used exhaust air from the school for melting snow on roads and sidewalks at no cost in energy.

For the Star Supermarket chain, the rejected heat from commercial refrigeration was used for space heating with no additional fuel input needed, and engineers are using chilled air spill from open refrigerated cases for store air conditioning. For the Sailors' Snug Harbor project on Staten Island, our studies indicated that a total energy plant could be amortized in eight years, and it was incorporated on our design along with a thermo-wheel for heat recovery.

In two Connecticut schools we designed special heat exchangers in exhaust air ducts to preheat the incoming outside air. While these systems saved energy, the costs of the special heat exchangers could not be amortized in a reasonable period of time, and the idea was dropped.

In the Charles Center Towers in Baltimore, designed by Conklin & Rossant, we utilized the condensate from the air conditioning units for heating domestic hot water and for cooling tower makeup, condensate which would have otherwise gone to the sewer.

In North Carolina two "Phytotrons" utilized the heat from remotely located ballasts of the lighting system from high intensity, illuminated environmental chambers for heating fresh air.

At present we are designing two water-to-air heat pump systems for high-rise buildings in Baltimore and Kansas City.

At the University of California at Irvine, the heat-of-light system design will save its additional first cost through energy savings in a matter of four years.

At the University of California at San Diego we were authorized to design a water reclamation system from the sewage system to provide cooling tower makeup and irrigation in dry southern California.

In an 18-month study which we performed for the Veterans Administration for existing hospital buildings, the cost savings using heat exchangers, odor absorption devices in place of excessive outdoor air and proper filter selection were considerable.

Total energy systems designed for the Mental Hygiene Fund at Fresh Creek, Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and a Kansas City meatpacking plant all showed considerable energy savings and, fortunately, pay-back periods short enough to make them attractive to the client.

Constraints against conservation

The systems mentioned above and others elsewhere through the country can whittle away at the 29% of the national energy consumption in residential and commercial buildings. Again, let me repeat that the impetus for the design of the innovative energy conservation systems has been dollars-not energy conservation. What are some of the constraints that mitigate against design for energy conservation without regard to costs?

1. There are no clients. Nobody, but nobody, yet is interested enough to have a building designed to save energy it if does not produce a rather quick return on the investment. The client looks at first costs first, operating costs second, but not low energy consumption without low owning and operating costs. The laws restricting pollution are not sufficiently influential in affecting design of low energy consumption systems.

2. We do not have a comprehensive energy model which permits a rapid analysis of total energy sources, losses, effects on resources and pollution, and contingencies affecting other features of society, including employment.

3. There is far too little expended on research and development utilizing existing technologies. We have seen that off-the-shelf hardware can be used to effect savings, but we have not examined in sufficient detail all the ways and all of the consequences of using the systems which we now have. While we still need additional basic research for materials, methods and systems, our biggest immediate payback can be from applied research using existing technologies.

4. There is not sufficient interface between the commercial application of materials and systems and the space/military programs which have resulted from billions of dollars of research.

5. There is too little understanding on the part of all of us-professionals, students, consumers-of the relationship between the production and use of energy and pollution, the environment and problems which surface remote from their source.

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6. There are no incentives for design of environmental energy conservation systems as such. That is not to say that architects and engineers are not acting as true professionals-they are-but as in medicine, a good doctor practices cures rather than preventive medicine unless there are financial incentives to do so.

7. The new-community program so far has involved mostly low density building and subdivisions. There is no urban land-use policy, resources policy, or housing policy which would produce new, innovative systems.

8. The corporate tax structure gives credits for operating costs but not for energy conservation.

9. Certain union restrictions perpetuate inefficient practices and use of materials as well as wasting manpower.

10. Unrealistic building codes also perpetrate inefficient practices and do not require energy conservation.

Code limits urged for energy

In spite of this long and discouraging list of constraints, there are measures which are being undertaken and can be expanded. Before discussing some of them, I would like to make a plea for building codes which would limit the amount of energy each type of building in each geographical area that could be used. It would force owners and designers to establish priorities and would stimulate better design in order to meet "the most within the allowable energy limitation." A space craft is allowed 3 kw for all life-support systems-why not buildings? The FHA limits the Btu heat loss for residences which they will finance. It is only a step further to limit all energy. There are those who say that this is not a proper matter for codes. However, codes are to protect our health, safety, and welfare, and I think there is sufficient documentation that excessive uses of energy result in pollution and the deterioration of the environment, adversely affecting the health, welfare and safety of our citizens.

Government, industry and educational institutions must jointly provide funds and personnel for research and development for environmental and energy conservation systems. This research can best be carried on in practical measures involving real life projects. The development of new communities and revitalization of our cities using technology to solve our social problems must be sponsored by government in order to utilize the talents of people who are or will be trained in the environmental control field and to provide the fertile gound for research activities. In other words, we should learn while we build.

Then we need the energy model, which I previously described, before new legislation is passed. Ill-conceived legislation only hinders progress and inhibits worthwhile measures because of the reaction which sets in from failures.

Interestingly enough, some of the new styles and practices are only new to the present generation and often a repetition of history. Witness long hair and handlebar mustaches which the young generation today adopts as new and different from the establishment but which were discarded by my generation as "old hat" and belonging to my grandfather's time. So in architecture and engineering the "new" must embrace the "old."

To maximize energy conservation, we can go back to solar screening; shading with plants and trees; greater mass and double walls for thermal transmission control; orientation which only permits the sun's rays to penetrate buildings when it enhances environmental control; natural ventilation, earth cover and berms; the layout of streets and highways so that they do not become wind tunnels; and the juxtaposition of buildings which shade each other to reduce solar loads.

While embracing some of the familiar past, we also must move on to the design of new facilitites, such as environmental-industrial parks which can dispose of staggering amounts of solid wastes in a manner which will recover useable materials and utilize the heat and the refuse as a new energy source. The environmental-industrial park will provide new employment opportunities at the source of the raw materials. New hydraulic and pneumatic waste transport systems can provide a cleaner, more efficient method of moving the solid waste to the disposalrecovery park.

Architects and engineers must design new buildings which combine sewage disposal with pyrolysis and high temperature incineration waste disposal plants, each of the individual processes dependent upon the other with the sum total benefits of one plus one equalling more than two.

Total energy systems, now being designed and built for relatively small-scale projects, can be expanded to include major utility generation plants with the waste heat used for municipal central heating and cooling systems and even for greenhouses producing flowers and food in cold climates-and, in the bargain, reducing thermal pollution.

There is nothing to prevent us from designing mega-structures for college campuses and communities. Mega-structures conserve tremendous amounts of energy as compared to the same number of functions dispersed over many acres-megastructures which still permit light and air to "see" the occupants by means of courtyards, air wells, and skillful design. Let's not think that esthetics are incompatible with energy conservation. Wasteful buildings are ugly buildings.

We have no technological constraints for the design of more multi-use facilities with schools occupying the lower levels of residential apartment buildings or office buildings. Multi-use buildings can save energy through diversity of use and long hours of occupancy. New communities and major urban developments provide opportunities to combine many sub-energy systems so that the sum of energy consumed for each process is less than the total of each individual system. We now have the technology to build systems which can recycle water and sewage within individual buildings or complexes of buildings. Water consumption can be reduced as much as 75% in each building. The cumulative effect of such systems in buildings and major communities will tremendously reduce the water treatment plant requirements, the sewage treatment plant requirements, and each of their individual systems. Much energy is wasted because the control systems utilizing the sensing of temperature control in the rooms respond slowly. The space program has developed temperature control systems which sense physiological reactions so that the systems are truly responsive to personal needs.

Architects and engineers must design maintenance programs for the buildings and systems which they develop and must train operating personnel in their use. I believe it is conservative to say that 90 out of every 100 buildings are operating at less than 90% of their potential, due to poor maintenance. Without increasing capital costs, we can make much greater utilization of variable volume air conditioning systems, variable pumping systems, greater use of by-products for heating and power, and greater reduction in the use of outdoor air by other asepsis control devices-all of which will result in less energy consumption and lower operating costs.

And we can ask the manufacturers to help. Why is it so difficult to produce glass which has a high incidence of light transmission but with much greater resistance to terminal transmission, or cooling glass as well as heating glass? Why can't all air conditioning units perform on a par with the few better ones that use only one kw of electricity per ton of refrigeration instead of two?

I don't think that we will have to reduce our standard of living too much in order to have a better quality of life if we pursue the energy conservation measures which I have enumerated.

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