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All About Formaldehyde

A naturally occurring organic compound used in binders for composite wood products, among other things, formaldehyde can create serious health problems in those exposed to high concentrations.
Environmental Building News—August 1, 2008

Comparing Fuel Costs

One would think comparing the costs of different heating fuels would be simple, but figuring out the amount heat available in a given quantity of fuel—and the associated cost—can be tricky.
Environmental Building News—July 1, 2008

CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases

The family of greenhouse gases extends beyond CO2, with each gas contributing to global warming to some degree.
BuildingGreen.com—June 17, 2008

Life-Cycle Assessment: Tracing a Product's Impacts

Life-cycle assessment—accounting for all of the environmental impacts of a product from its manufacture to its disposal—is a simple concept, but using it to compare products in practice can be difficult.
Environmental Building News—June 1, 2008

Evaporative Coolers

As water evaporates, it absorbs heat. Direct and indirect evaporative coolers use this property to cool homes efficiently.
Environmental Building News—May 1, 2008

How the Sun's Path Can Inform Design

Designing a building with the sun in mind can help reduce both heating and cooling loads.
Environmental Building News—April 1, 2008

Shedding Light on Light Quality

Two terms commonly used to refer to light sources—color temperature and color rendering index—tell us about the quality of light, but can at times be counter-intuitive. Lights with a low color temperature, for example, actually feel "warmer" on the color spectrum.
Environmental Building News—March 1, 2008

Good Ozone, Bad Ozone

The same ozone that causes air quality problems near Earth's surface protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation high in the atmosphere. This protective ozone layer is thinning due to manufactured chemicals.
Environmental Building News—February 1, 2008

Solar Reflectance Index and Cool Roofs

Understanding reflectivity and emissivity of roofing materials is important to evaluating their effect on cooling loads and the urban heat island effect.
Environmental Building News—January 1, 2008

Energy Metrics: Btus, Watts, and Kilowatt-Hours

Mixing units of electric power with those of energy is a common mistake, but distiguishing kilowatts from kilowatt-hours is not that complicated, and is worth getting straight.
Environmental Building News—December 1, 2007
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Solar-Thermal News

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Energy Dashboards: Using Real-Time Feedback to Influence Behavior

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Free Energy Modeling in Google SketchUp

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