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Scotiabank Looks to Reward Eco Companies

- Adam Clare

Banks have a horrible reputation because of their inability to predict economic behaviour, this was highlighted by the ongoing economic claptrap that started roughly seven years ago. Canadian banks have also received a tarnished reputation because of their ongoing unethical investments in the Alberta tar sands. Perhaps as a reaction to this, Scotiabank launched an awards program in 2010.

Their EcoLiving Awards is focused on bringing attention and finances to companies that are improving the efficiency of households. This can range from better windows to new technology systems. You can nominate a company at their website, so if you know a Canadian company that makes the world a little more sustainable on the home front you should nominate them.

“The Scotiabank EcoLiving Awards showcase outstanding leaders in home energy efficiency. If you have a great idea or solution, we want to hear from you,” said Kaz Flinn, Scotiabank’s Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility. “We know that Canadian homeowners are likely to consider making their home more energy efficient or environmentally friendly with renovations. These awards bring forward new and innovative ideas.”

The Scotiabank EcoLiving Awards recognize winners in three categories:

  1. Business Leadership ($50,000) – a business or individual who is leading the way in home energy efficiency products, services or solutions. Focused primarily on executing a proven idea or program.
  2. Innovators ($15,000) – a business or individual demonstrating innovation in home energy efficient products, services and solutions. Focused on introducing exciting new ideas for products or programs.
  3. Student Leadership ($10,000) – a full-time college or university student who demonstrates promise for the future of home energy conservation.

Find out more at their website.

Homeowners Can Earn Cash From Solar Roofs

- Adam Clare

Energy is still delivered via large power stations which can fail and leave entire regions without electricity. The future requires a more distributed energy grid that is a combination of large and small electricity generators, doing so will ensure electricity is not so heavily impacted by a rise in the cost of single fuel source.

Light provides us with infinitely free energy, all we need is a way to capture it and year-over-year it’s getting easier to do so. Combing solar power and a distributed power grid opens up new opportunities and an enterprising company from always cloudy Vancouver have stepped up.

Gridbid will turn a homeowner’s roof into a power source and provide an ongoing revenue for the owner while making our energy source a little better.

Gridbid, allows homeowners to auction the solar installation rights to their roofs online. The company says solar installers can save as much as 80% of what they normally spend to find roof-top space, while the average residential utility bill drops between 10 and 35%.
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He and his partners knew getting into solar was next. Proving the importance of engaging in customer discovery conversations, they talked to over 150 different people in the solar market to identify the key problems. The problems were roof acquisition and financing for projects. Thomas shared what’s driving him and his team, “we are going to learn faster than anyone, and ultimately build a very large solar auction and financing platform that will make going solar painless for any person, or organization who owns a roof.”

Read more here.

Heat Your Home By Hosting the Internet

- Adam Clare

As the internet continues its growth it consumes more and more electricity because larger server and data centres are required. Microsoft has come up with a brilliant idea to allow ‘the backbone’ of the internet to continue to grow while helping heat houses and providing a faster internet.

Microsoft has released a research paper that suggests that small data centers be put in people’s home and heat those homes using excess heat from the servers.

The research paper comes at a time where internet properties like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are building huge data centers housing thousands of servers that simply pump their hot exhaust into the frigid air of Oregon, or other chilly states. There have been a few prototype data centers that use their waste heat to warm the houses in local towns, but Microsoft’s Data Furnaces take this idea to the next step: instead of building mega data centers that are efficient in terms of scale, Data Furnaces are micro data centers that are housed in the basements of regular homes and offices. These Data Furnaces, which would consist of 40 to 400 CPUs (between 1 and 10 racks), would be ducted directly into the building’s heating system, providing free heat and hot water.

The genius of this idea is that Data Furnaces would be provided by companies that already maintain big cloud presences. In exchange for providing power to the rack, home and office owners will get free heat and hot water — and as an added bonus, these cloud service providers would get a fleet of mini urban data centers that can provide ultra-low-latency services to nearby web surfers. Of course the electricity cost would be substantial — especially in residential areas — but even so, the research paper estimates that, all things considered, between $280 and $324 can be saved per year, out of the $400 it costs to keep a server powered and connected in a standard data center. From the inverse point of view, heating accounts for 6% of the total US energy consumption — and by piggybacking on just half of that energy, the IT industry could double in size without increasing its power footprint.

The main problem with Data Furnaces, of course, is physical security. Data centers are generally secure installations with very restricted access — which is fair enough, when you consider the volume and sensitivity of the data stored by companies like Facebook and Google. The Microsoft Research paper points out that sensor networks can warn administrators if physical security is breached, and whole-scale encryption of the data on the servers would ameliorate many other issues. The other issue is server management — home owners won’t want bearded techies knocking on their door every time a server needs a reboot — but for the most part, almost everything can now be managed remotely.

Read the rest of the article at Extreme Tech.

Soy Habitats for Humanity

- Adam Clare

A company built a house to show off soy products and other environmentally friendly building techniques for the modern home and they have chosen to donate their model home to Habitat for Humanity.

The Soy House was built to showcase environmentally friendly, soy-based products used in home construction. It includes products such as spray foam insulation, soy board cabinets, soy-based adhesives, low-VOC paint, carpet backing, bathroom fixtures and foam for mattresses and furniture.

Dale Petrie, director of Strategic Development and Innovation, Grain Farmers of Ontario, says his group staged an exhibit of 101 uses for soy in December 2008 at the Toronto Stock Exchange and decided to showcase an entire home at the Royal. Because there would not have been time to construct a home from scratch, the province’s soy farmers approached modular builder Quality Homes Inc., which agreed to build the house in its factory and ship it to the fair.

“We don’t mind taking on a challenge like this at all,” says Howard Sher, executive vice-president of Quality Homes.

“And we weren’t concerned about the quality of the soy products at all. We are using the soy rigid insulation in our homes now.”

“But after the fair, the next step was, what are we going to do with this house?” says Petrie. The decision was made to offer it to a Habitat Canada affiliate.

Read the rest of the article.

Thanks Kathryn!

Car Free Cities are Always an Option

- Adam Clare

Today I’ll cut right to the chase: car free cities are thriving in Europe. Awesome.

A quarter of households in Britain – more in the larger cities, and a majority in some inner cities – live without a car. Imagine how quality of life would improve for cyclists and everyone else if traffic were removed from areas where people could practically choose to live without cars. Does this sound unrealistic, utopian? Did you know many European cities are already doing it?

Vauban in Germany is one of the largest car-free neighbourhoods in Europe, home to more than 5,000 people. If you live in the district, you are required to confirm once a year that you do not own a car – or, if you do own one, you must buy a space in a multi-storey car park on the edge of the district. One space was initially provided for every two households, but car ownership has fallen over time, and many of these spaces are now empty.

Vehicles are allowed down the residential streets at walking pace to pick up and deliver, but not to park. In practice, vehicles are rarely seen moving here. It has been taken over by kids as young as four or five, playing, skating and unicycling without direct supervision. The adults, too, tend to socialise outdoors far more than they would on conventional streets open to traffic (behaviour that’s echoed in the UK, too).

Read the full article at the Guardian.

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