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Concentrating people into high-density living arrangements is a central premise of the “smart growth” movement. But the nature of these high density communities is what separates the truly smart developments from the merely smart.

Green buildings are designed, essentially, to require no more energy and water inputs than they are able to generate using on-site systems. A green building is also designed, of course, to use non-toxic, sustainable materials, and to recycle or 100% treat all of its waste. But green buildings may also be awe-inspiring feats of architecture, and fantastic spaces for humans to work, live, and congregate.

Image: Montana State Univ.

A mesmerizing example of such a green building showed up in the December 2006 issue of The Atlantic magazine, in a detailed illustration that consumes nearly the entire space of a two-page advertisement. This ad, placed by United Technologies, and accompanied by the phrase “Imagine that. You can do well in the world without hurting it,” there is a cross-sectional illustration of building perhaps ten stories in height that is “the first zero net energy building.”

On parts of the roof and on sections of passive solar sunshades are arrays of photovoltaics that are totally integrated into the surfaces.

Designed to operate inside ducts with barely visible intakes, high-tech wind-turbines also operate, silently, to generate additional electricity. Ultra high energy-efficient elevators speed people and cargo throughout the levels. Underground is a cistern, to collect all of the building’s runoff from rainfall. Rooftops are covered in turf including plants and ponds, with a water reclamation system integrated into the landscaping.

Between cantilevered beams of steel and composite, this large green building has floor-to-ceiling “electro-chromic” windows that automatically increase their tint depending on the degree of sunlight. These windows may also be photovoltaic. Various levels of the building have extra-high ceilings, as high as twenty feet. Workspaces and residences are placed throughout the building, and a giant central atrium ensures ample air circulation throughout the building.

Along with rainwater cisterns that can either draw from or supply municipal pipes, beneath the building are parking areas and utility areas including electrical storage units that use fuel cells or batteries. The climate and energy functions of the building are completely automated, and controllable from anywhere in the world using a cell phone.

Sunlight provides energy, rain provides water, nothing pollutes, there is no “urban heat island” effect, and people live in enjoyable and inspiring spaces in very high proximity to each other. Green buildings make humanity’s footprint smaller on the earth, and they can also make the life within the print a better life than ever.

In our last post, “Dams & Greenhouse Gas,” we took the International Rivers Network to task for putting out a study that claimed dams are a “significant global source of greenhouse gasses.” Because if you dug into the underlying facts, the estimated contribution greenhouse gasses make to total anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a whopping .7% (seven-tenths of one percent).

There are many problems with dams, and greenhouse gas emissions (itself a topic not beyond debate) are not one of them. For a serious discussion of the problems with dams, we turn to the Property and Environment Research Center, who recently published an essay by James Workman entitled “Deadbeat Dams.” Workman is succinct and comprehensive in his descriptions of why dams have outlived their usefulness: “antiquated dams have a lot going against them: seismic shifts shake them from below; compound water pressures scour them from behind; sediment fills reservoirs; evaporation drinks more than people; and invasive species choke intake and out flow.” Let’s not forget all those salmon…

Not only does Workman explain that most dams have a useful life and afterwards can cause more harm than good, he presents a practical way to get rid of obsolete dams: “businesses seek out credits generated by third-party projects for environmental services in advance of their proposed development—and pay handsomely for them…the average obsolete dam may be worth far more broken up than left intact; the sum of its removed parts are worth more than the integrated whole. Busting the dam could release a net gain in legitimate, measurable economic value, which can be brought to market and sold to willing buyers.”

Workman estimates there are 79,000 dams in the United States, and that 85% of these dams are no longer providing economic benefits. Meanwhile there are developers throughout the USA who are trying to provide new industrial, commercial and residential facilities for a country whose population just topped 300 million and grows by over 3 million per year. All of them are required to mitigate whatever land and habitat their developments encroach upon, usually by ratios well beyond one-to-one.

Another noteworthy point regarding dams is the value of an alternative to mega-dams, which is to build small check dams. These dams catch seasonal flows and divert the water to temporary basins where they refill aquifiers. This is a terrific way to recharge the water tables, particularly in areas where wells for crop irrigation have drawn underground water reserves to dangerously low levels. Here are some references, including links to reports on communities in India who have successfully built check dams:

Check Dams in Utility canyon running into Bay of Bengal

Check Dams and Sustainable LivelyhoodsCheck Dam through Shramdan

For more about water issues in India, read our feature “India’s Water Future.”

Human Development Report 2006
Read the section on water harvesting; pages 195-197

Here we go again. The International Rivers Network, based in Berkeley, California, an organization with some incredibly great ideas, now reports that dams (and the reservoirs behind them) cause greenhouse gas emissions. Courtesy of the IRN, read “Fizzy Science: Loosening the Hydro Industry’s Grip on Reservoir Greenhouse Gas Emissions Research.” This report (click here for full report), of course, damns dams, and demonizes yet another industry – this time those evil people who build devices to store water for irrigation, control flooding, and generate electricity for terrible things like stoves.

Aswan High Dam

Before we go any further, let’s be clear about one thing; this is almost certainly less than meets the eye, and even if it isn’t so what? CO2 as a boogyman seems to have become the fulcrum upon which pivots all environmentalist logic and reason. But are we so sure CO2 emissions are bad? There is evidence to support theories that the more atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase, the less warming impact occurs per additional unit of CO2. This would mean our climate may have already seen the biggest effects of increasing CO2 emissions. For much more on this, read our “Global Warming” posts.

Remember when nuclear power plants were deemed to cause dangerous levels of CO2 emissions? This was determined based on the amount of CO2 that is emitted when pouring cement. Apparently nuclear power stations require prodigious amounts of cement. But shortly after this press release went out, gobbled up as usual by mainstream media, a perspicacious blogger named Tim Worstall penned a gleeful comparison wherein he demonstrated that more cement per megawatt is required when installing windmills than when installing nuclear power stations. Others were also chiming in. Thank you hive-mind. And hence nuclear power is again touted as alternative energy by many environmentalists.

Back to our new problem of dams and greenhouse gasses, taking a look at the facts indicates scant evidence for alarm. Hitting its stride, the IRN piece states as follows: “available evidence strongly suggests that reservoirs are a significant global source of greenhouse gases.” They back this up with the following footnote: “reservoirs worldwide release 1,000 million tons CO₂ annually (4% of CO₂ from other known anthropogenic sources).

Even if this statement is completely true, that 4% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from dams and reservoirs, so what? Does this mean the benefits of dams – irrigation, flood protection, and renewable electricity, are not worth putting out 4% of anthropogenic CO2? Per gigawatt-year (or quadrillion BTU’s), hydroelectric power would still be far more greenhouse gas efficient than, say, coal or natural gas.

That’s not the half of it, however. In the remainder of the same footnote, IRN discloses the following: “These estimates are based on a calculation of 1.5 million km² global reservoir area. This calculation is likely an overestimate. A more recent analysis estimates that reservoirs cover a global area of 260,000 km².”

This means IRN is saying the information they just gave you – that reservoirs cause 4% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions – is overestimated by a factor of 5.8 times! IRN’s revised estimate of global reservoir area isn’t 1,500,000 square kilometers, the figure they used to calculate their 1.0 million ton estimate of annual CO2 emissions from reservoirs. Rather IRN acknowledges the global reservoir area is more likely only 260,000 square kilometers, which equates to 176,000 tons of CO2 per year, or .7% (seven-tenths of one percent) of anthropogenic CO2 emissions per year.

Needless to say, if dams only emit .7% of anthropogenic CO2, which itself is only 3% of all CO2 global emissions (the rest come from mother nature), they are not a factor. To use the CO2 emissions of dams and reservoirs as a reason we must demolish them, and demonize the hydroelectric power industry to boot, is not useful information, it’s propaganda.

The International Rivers Network might instead have on their website the letter that one of their members, Peter Bosshard wrote to the New Yorker (published in their December 4th, 2006 issue). Instead of brandishing the CO2 demon to scare us into destroying existing dams, he advocates an alternative to construction of new dams. Listen to this great idea:

“The 2006 Human Development Report on water presents an alternative to large dams. It estimates that, with an initial investment of seven billion dollars, extending small check dams across India’s rain-fed farming areas could quintuple the value of the country’s monsoon crop from thirty-six billion dollars a year to a hundred and eighty billion. Such an approach would not only protect rivers and the groundwater table; it would also create jobs and give the poor the means to buy the food they produce.” More on this, if you please.