With claims that the 11 million fridges sold annually in the US could be made 50% more efficient, the judges of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Clean Energy Prize obviously saw the potential in such technology. Such that they awarded the students first prize, which came with a cheque for $200,000. That will now no doubt help them as they launch a start-up company, Husk Insulation, to commercialise their product.

Husk Insulation will manufacture a special type of high-performance insulation called a vacuum insulated panel (VIP). VIPs take advantage of the insulating effects of a vacuum to produce significantly higher R-values (the standard for measuring thermal insulative effectiveness) than conventional insulation. VIPs are rigid panels comprised of a core material and a foil laminate membrane. The vacuum inside a VIP greatly reduces the conduction and convection of heat. While the R-values of conventional insulation are generally 4-8 per inch, VIPs have R-values between 30-50 per inch.

Although VIPs have been around for more than 20 years, they have not taken off in the mass market because they are generally not cost competitive with conventional insulation. Typical core materials (precipitated silica, superfine fibreglass, etc.) are simply too expensive even though products using VIPs need far less insulation material by volume.

Husk uses a proven & proprietary process to convert rice husk ash (RHA) into the core material for our vacuum panels. RHA is the by-product of agriculture and energy production and millions of tons of RHA are land filled annually. As a result, Husk expects to dramatically reduce the cost of VIPs, making them cost competitive in the mass market.

The founders of Husk Insulation figure it will take them about 18 months to bring the rice husk insulation to the fridge market. For which they calculate $425,000 USD will be required. Once they’ve captured the refrigeration industry, they have their sights set on the housing and transportation markets.

Original article: Warren McLaren. 14 May 2009. Treehugger. Read more…

GE says that 600 of the new locomotives can do the work of about 800 older ones. That switch would lead to fuel savings of about 260 million litres per year, equivalent to taking about 115,000 cars off the road. GE is putting a lot of money into better train technologies. Last week it announced it would put $100 million into a new battery factory in New York. The factory, which GE is seeking stimulus funding to help build, will make sodium batteries aimed at, among other things, powering its upcoming line of hybrid locomotives.

Railroads are already about three times more fuel efficient than trucks for freight hauling, according to railroad company CSX. That efficiency has led some to consider railroads as a “clean” form of transportation as they stand today. But trains also present a host of potential efficiency gains, like capturing the energy used in slowing them down through regenerative braking, much as Toyota’s Prius hybrids capture braking energy. The energy used in braking a 207-ton locomotive over the course of a year is equivalent to the power used by about 160 homes. Replacing all the pre-2001 locomotives in the country with GE hybrids that use regenerative braking would lead to emissions reductions equivalent of taking a third of America’s cars off the road, GE claims.

Original article: Jeff St. John. Greentechmedia. 18 May 2009. Read more…

The Empire State Building Retrofit Project is a partnership between the owners, Johnson Controls as the preferred energy service company, Jones Lang LaSalle as the project manager, Rocky Mountain Institute as the peer reviewer and sustainability experts and the Clinton Climate Initiative as a resource and advisor.

The $20 million project will reduce energy consumption by more than 40%, achieve annual energy savings of $4,4 million and save 100,000 metric tons of carbon over 15 years. The work will include a layer of film added to each of the 102-storey building’s 6,500 windows, insulation behind radiators and improved lighting, ventilation and air conditioning. People working in the building will be able to use the internet to monitor how much energy is being used, and where.

A special website, esbsustainability.com, has been created to showcase the tools and processes that resulted from the project, and includes a video, interactive model, and information on best practices for future building retrofits.

Read more…

See a short video clip on the process here…