North America's largest solar plant, covering 140 acres, is located near Las Vegas (Photo courtesy of the Nellis Air Force Base)
Environmental groups have pushed for decades to get the federal government solidly behind solar energy. Shawn Allee reports some of them don’t like the government’s most recent effort to promote it:
Transcript
Environmental groups have pushed for decades to get the federal government solidly behind solar energy. Shawn Allee reports some of them don’t like the government’s most recent effort to promote it:
The Federal Bureau of Land Management developed 24 “solar energy study areas” in Western states.
The idea is to identify federal land that might be be good for solar power plants.
Some environmentalists scoured maps of these solar study areas and got concerned.
Jeffrey Morgan is with Tahquitz Sierra Club in California.
Morgan says a solar plant can take up hundreds of acres, and construction could disturb desert tortoise and cactus habitat.
“They have no concept the desert is a vital, living place with a vast diversity of species, unspoiled landscapes and many, many other things. They they just see it as a waste-land. That’s just not true – it’s not a waste-land.”
The Bureau of Land Management says the “solar energy study areas” are just that – they’re for study – and the government would not let solar energy developers disturb critical wildlife habitat.
When schools run out of room, they often have to put students in portable buildings (Source: Motown31 at Wikimedia Commons)
When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:
Transcript
When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:
I’ve actually taught a class in one of those temporary, portable classrooms. It was in the early morning at a community college.
Students would walk in droopy-eyed. My job was to keep them engaged and awake.
Not an easy task – the room was either too hot or too cold. And the ventilation system made weird noises.
But, some experts say portables don’t have to be that way. They can be the kind of room that educators actually prefer.
Michelle Gould is a teacher and parent at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. And she teaches in a new kind of portable classroom.
“The air is very clean in here. It smells like the outside. It doesn’t smell like air conditioning or heating. The lighting is very good for not working under natural light. It seems like you’re outside. And it makes a big difference tutoring kids.”
Tutor: “Did you write your last name, Will? No? Very good, nice spacing. Close your books and put your pencil down.”
(sound of kids playing outdoors)
The Carroll School’s main building is a brick mansion from the early 1900s.
It is stately, elegant. The portable next to it is not. It’s boxy, and has a flat, white roof. Kind of ugly.
But, when you walk in to the portable you feel a change. It’s comfortable!
Cliff Cort is president of Triumph Modular, the firm that leases the country’s first green portable classroom.
“This is a vestibule, we think is a necessary ingredient to almost all buildings, because it controls the weather from the outside to the inside.”
Vestibules aren’t typically found in modular classrooms. Neither is the paperless drywall that eliminates mold, or the sensors that “learn” the best way to control the heating.
“If the teacher tends to come in early on Mondays, the building will begin to learn her habits, and then turn on the heating or A-C just before she gets here. And if they start to take off half a day on Wednesdays, the building would start to learn that no one is here in the afternoons, and then they can shut down. So it helps manage the use of the HVAC system.”
Cort points to the domed skylights known as sun tunnels, which bring in daylight.
“But they don’t bring it in a way that’s too harsh. As you can see, this is screened a bit. So it’s diffused light.”
Triumph Modular is just one of the companies making these more environmentally friendly modular classrooms.
Tom Hardiman is director of the Modular Building Institute, a trade association for dealers and manufacturers of commercial modular buildings.
“Improved acoustics. Improved daylighting. There are countless studies out there that show that it does improve the learning environment.”
Hardiman says many of the old-style portable classrooms end up being used for 20 or 30 years. The problem is they weren’t meant to.
But higher-end portables, like the one in Lincoln, Massachusetts, are built to last.
And, because of the modular construction, they’re greener.
“We typically produce much less construction waste material than site-built construction. Because our factories buy in bulk, they can resuse smaller pieces of material. If you’ve been on a construction site, you’ve seen dumpster after dumpster of two-by-fours and drywall and siding sticking out of the dumpster. There’s just not that much waste with modular construction.”
Hardiman says that green portables are the wave of the future.
They’re not the cheapest solution. But Hardiman says they do provide the best learning spaces on campus.
Trussville, Alabama Mayor Gene Melton may not be a staunch environmentalist - take a look at his car - but he still thinks greenspace is important in his city (Photo by Gigi Douban)
David Dobbs, Trussville's high school environmental science teacher, takes his students out behind the school to check on the river. (Photo by Gigi Douban)
For many small town mayors, growth is all good. After all, more houses means more tax revenue, more retail, more jobs. One Alabama mayor agrees, but he also recognizes green space is an amenity worth keeping. And for that, the timing couldn’t be better. Gigi Douban reports:
Transcript
For many small town mayors, growth is all good. After all, more houses means more tax revenue, more retail, more jobs. One Alabama mayor agrees, but he also recognizes green space is an amenity worth keeping. And for that, the timing couldn’t be better. Gigi Douban reports:
Here at the grand opening of a subdivision in Trussville, Alabama, a few dozen families gather outside the sales office for the usual ribbon cutting with giant scissors.
(sound of applause and cheers)
Soon, everyone heads down to the Cahaba River. The river literally will be in the backyard of these houses once they’re built. On the river, they’re having a rubber duck race.
(announcement of duck race)
It’s gimmicky, but these days developers will do just about anything to attract potential buyers.
Another developer had approached Trussville about building homes along the Cahaba River, but then the housing market took a nose dive. The developer wanted out.
Trussville Mayor Gene Melton says the city would have been crazy not to buy the land.
“This property was probably going to sell for $35,000 or $40,000 an acre. We got to the point where we were able to acquire this for $4,500 an acre.”
The city could have turned it into an industrial park or zoned it for retail. But instead, they’ll turn it into a greenway. It’ll connect to nearby parks with the river as the centerpiece.
Now, the mayor of Trussville is not a staunch environmentalist, by any measure. He tools around the city in a gas guzzling SUV. He’s pro-development. But, he says, the same way a city needs development, it needs greenspace, too.
“Have you ever flown in to a big city like Atlanta or Los Angeles and for miles and miles all you see is rooftops? Well that’s how not to build a city.”
The Cahaba River watershed stretches through Alabama’s most populous county. Recently, heavy development along the Cahaba has polluted the water. It’s endangered habitats not just here, but downstream. Trussville is very near the headwaters, so what happens there affects the entire river.
Randall Haddock is thrilled about the new greenspace. He’ a field director with the Cahaba River Society, a conservation group. Haddock says the Cahaba River is among the most biologically diverse in the country.
“It turns out that Alabama has more fish species, more snails, more crayfish, more turtles, freshwater snails more than any other state in the US. So when it comes to things that live in rivers, we’re at the top of the list by a long way.”
(sound of people walking near river)
Haddock says all along the Cahaba, he’s seen plenty of examples of how not to build near the river.
He says this greenspace is an example of how easy it is to minimize impact. Keeping grass on the ground not only means a cleaner river, but it might help reduce flooding.
“When you make so many hard surfaces, the water runs off real fast and gets into the river real quick. And you’ve increased the volume of water and the only response that a river can make is to get bigger.”
The bank erodes, the water is polluted and soon, you start to see species diminish.
(sound of high school students)
David Dobbs is the city’s high school environmental science teacher. He takes his students out behind the school to check on the river. The result: a clean bill of health.
“All the little bugs, they end up being food for the fish, and the more they are of the good ones that are here, that means there’s more food for the fish, so therefore there’s more fish, it’s a very healthy part of the river.”
Trussville, like many small towns, still says without growth, there’d be no city. But now they know, that growth has to protect one of its top amenities – the river.
LEED buildings get points for green things like bike racks and good energy use, but it doesn’t actually enforce energy efficiency (Photo by Lester Graham)
The biggest energy users in America are not cars and trucks – they’re buildings. Buildings use about 40% of the nation’s energy. In 2000, the US Green Building Council introduced a program that certifies “green” buildings. It’s called LEED. That stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A new version of the LEED standards is being released today, April 27. But Samara Freemark reports some critics see serious flaws in the LEED program:
Transcript
The biggest energy users in America are not cars and trucks – they’re buildings. Buildings use about 40% of the nation’s energy. In 2000, the US Green Building Council introduced a program that certifies “green” buildings. It’s called LEED. That stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A new version of the LEED standards is being released today, April 27. But Samara Freemark reports some critics see serious flaws in the LEED program:
Before LEED came around in 2000, developers didn’t really spend a lot of time worrying about whether their buildings were green. They were designing and constructing buildings they could market. Green just wasn’t a priority.
“It was always the last thing on the agenda for the staff meeting, because nobody really understood what success looked like.”
Brendan Owens is a LEED spokesman. He says the people who came up with LEED wanted to change the culture of building in America. Make building ‘green’ marketable.
And they realized that to do that, they’d have to define what a green building looked like.
So they created a checklist. Install solar panels and you get points. Bike racks: more points. Get a green roof – somewhere you can grow plants — add some points.
Enough points and the developer gets a LEED certification. Certified buildings get a plaque. Developers get the PR boost that comes from building green. The public gets a more sustainable building. That’s the idea, anyway.
The program really caught on. More than 10,000 projects are currently going through the LEED process. And universities, municipalities, even the federal government are writing the standards into their own codes.
But critics say the system might be spreading too fast.
“The people who are writing the LEED Standards are in effect writing our country’s most important laws.”
That’s Henry Gifford. He’s a building engineer in NYC. He’s also one of LEED’s most outspoken critics.
Gifford says it’s possible to earn LEED certification – and cash in on the PR benefits of being green – without actually fixing a building’s biggest environmental problem.
“The 3 most important things to make a building environmentally friendly, are energy use, energy use, energy use. All the other things in the LEED checklist, which I think are wisely chosen and very important, they pale in comparison to the energy use.”
The LEED checklist does give points for good energy use- a lot of them, actually. But it doesn’t enforce energy efficiency.
Instead, developers win points by predicting their buildings will perform well. Developers do have to submit energy use data once their building is up and running. But if the building turns out not to save any energy? Brendan Owens says…
“What we do, is we notify the building that they’re not performing up to their potential.”
But no one’s coming around to unscrew that accreditation plaque. The building gets to keeps its certification.
On average LEED buildings seem to do better than others on energy use. But there are plenty of LEED-certified buildings that do use more energy than comparable non-certified ones.
Gifford says that’s unacceptable. No energy hogs, no matter how many bike racks or green roofs they have – should be allowed to call themselves green.
“It’s a scandal to have any underperforming building win or retain a rating for being green. I’m sorry. Every building labeled as green should have very good energy performance. Until we get there, we’re making believe.”
LEED doesn’t claim that certified buildings are perfect. Instead, Brendan Owens says the standard is meant to provide a holistic measure of greenness.
“I’ve heard LEED certified buildings described as sustainable. And there are a few, but the lions share of those projects haven’t achieved it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rating system is flawed. It just means that people are misunderstanding what it’s about.”
In other words, people are reading more into certification than they should. Critics like Henry Gifford worry that will lead to complacency when it comes to truly greening buildings.
One company created a website that acts as kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)
In the middle of a recession that’s
crippling the construction field,
there’s at least one sector of
industry that’s doing pretty well.
That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces
of old buildings and using them in
new ones. Advocates say used materials
could save developers a heap of money.
Samara Freemark has the
story of one re-use company that’s both
green and in the black:
Transcript
In the middle of a recession that’s
crippling the construction field,
there’s at least one sector of
industry that’s doing pretty well.
That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces
of old buildings and using them in
new ones. Advocates say used materials
could save developers a heap of money.
Samara Freemark has the
story of one re-use company that’s both
green and in the black:
You’ve probably heard what’s going on in the construction industry
these days.
(news montage of housing crisis)
But in middle of all that bad news, there might be one bright spot.
“We’ve actually been expanding quite a bit. I guess it’s one of the
only times I’ve heard
of where that’s the case.”
That’s architect Brad Hardin.
He got interested in reusing building materials pretty early in his career.
He likes the way
the old stuff looked. And he likes the idea of saving resources. And
he’s also kind of
horrified by the tens of millions of tons of construction waste that get
tossed into landfills
every year.
But actually getting his hands on used materials, so that he could reuse
them- that turned
out to be a real pain in the butt.
“You know you’ll be literally going out to someone’s yard and getting
rained on, or
sorting through someone’s basement– it was kind of a hit and miss
process.”
A big part of the problem was simple logistics. Imagine you’re knocking
down an old
house to build a new one. You’d like to sell off whatever pieces of the
old building you
can. But how do you find someone to buy all that stuff? Where do you store
it while you
look for a buyer? And how do you ship the materials?
Harry Giles is a professor of green architecture at the University of
Michigan.
He says most developers don’t want to bother with all that hassle. In the
end, they usually
just end up bulldozing everything. Giles says that’s because there’s no
real secondhand
market for used construction materials- not like there is in a lot of other
industries.
“If you take the car industry, a lot of it is geared around the reuse of
materials. Not just
taking the car and crushing it, but taking it apart and finding useful
components on it.”
You know, like a salvage yard.
And that was the problem Brad Hardin wanted to solve – how to create a
secondhand
market for spare building parts. He figured that if he could do that,
reusing building
materials could actually end up profitable.
So last year he started a company called Planet ReUse. The company’s
website acts as
kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials. Buyers and
sellers can find each
other on the ‘net.
And Planet ReUse tests all material to make sure it’s up to code. That
way the buyer
doesn’t end up with, say, eight tons of rotten planking. And Planet ReUse
arranges all the
shipping- trying to hook up sellers to nearby buyers. That saves money and
fuel.
By removing those basic barriers, Hardin says his buyers save about 20%
compared to
buying new. And Planet ReUse still makes a profit.
And it’s also a start to reducing those millions of tons of landfill
waste.
So, what kind of stuff does he sell on the site?
“How much time do you have? Steel, flooring…”
It turns out there’s money in just about everything you can salvage from
a building.
Harry Giles says that cash is the key to cutting down waste.
“If people see that it’s a lucrative business to actually salvage
materials, that will drive it
much faster than concern for the environment.”
And it’s not just buildings. Remember President Obama’s inauguration
stage? Well, that
got torn down, and Planet ReUse is trying to get the pieces to New Orleans.
They’ll be
used to rebuild houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
It’s just one more way for Planet ReUse to prove that you can do good, be
green, and
make a little money too.
Jack Spicer of Preservation Chicago is on a campaign
to save the venerable 'wood frame window,' like these
on his Chicago home. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:
Transcript
Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:
If you think century-old windows have to be rickety and leaky, Jack
Spicer would like you to come to his place.
He’s eager to show off windows on his Chicago two-flat, built in 1908.
“So, here’s an example of the way an old-fashioned wood window
looks from the outside a hundred years later. These windows are
longer-lasting and obviously better looking than any replacement window you
can find.”
It’s no surprise Spicer makes this pitch.
He’s with a group called Preservation Chicago, and he’s on a campaign
to save wood-frame windows from the onslaught of vinyl and aluminum-framed
replacements.
Spicer’s losing ground, even in his own neighborhood.
“This apartment building replaced their windows. The next building
replaced all their windows. If you look across the street at this huge
courtyard building, there’re about 48 units in there. Those windows were
fine, and those windows are now trashed. They went into a dumpster and are
now in a landfill somewhere.”
But if old wood-framed windows are so great, why do so many US homeowners
replace them?
“Somebody told them it would save them money if you put in brand-new
replacement windows. Everybody’s taught that – you read about it, you
see the ads. All the replacement window (companies) tell you, if you’re
American and you love your children, you’ll replace your windows. Well,
we’re getting over that now, I hope.”
Spicer insists replacing your windows is not an environmental slam dunk.
He says if old wood-frame windows are properly sealed and have storm
windows, they’ll hold heat almost as well as replacements.
I ask Spicer for numbers on this, and he sends me to Mike Jackson, with
Illinois’ Historic Preservation Agency.
“Several years ago, Vermont as a state did a study and they looked
at repairing windows, adding storm windows, replacing windows, and what it
really came down to was, how leaky are your windows? If they were
reasonably tight, there wasn’t a lot of savings to replacing your windows
at all.”
Jackson says a new furnace or insulation are better pay-offs, and
replacement windows often last just a few decades.
“We’re throwing away items that lasted for a hundred years with
simple technologies and replacing them with more complex things with
shorter life spans. In our line, the reason they call them replacement
windows is because you have to keep replacing them.”
Well, people in the replacement window industry don’t take kindly to
this.
One rep told me the short life span of replacement windows is overblown –
high quality ones last longer.
And he told me, if energy prices rise in the future, replacement windows
become more competitive.
So, is it worth replacing old, wooden windows?
“There’re many factors and that’s why it’s, in our opinion,
not so clear-cut.”
Christian Kohler studies window technology at the Lawrence-Berkeley
National Laboratory.
He says replacement windows are better on energy, but it could take decades
to get a good payback and by that time, you might need to replace them
again.
Anyway, Kohler says there’s an alternative.
If your wood windows are in good condition, you can add storm windows that
have what’s called a “low – E” coating.
The coating helps retain heat.
“It’s applied to glass and it’s virtually invisible. It
doesn’t have a color or anything.”
Kohler says if preservationists want to keep wood windows around on account
of their looks or long-term value, it still makes sense to crack down on
leaks and get good storm windows.
It doesn’t make sense to waste energy on account of beauty when you
don’t have to.
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Transcript
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Some cities and states have programs that work on making older buildings more energy efficient.
Now, progressive think tanks have joined unions and alternative energy groups to ask for a national program.
Bracken Hendricks is with the Center for American Progress. He says it’s critical for the federal government to help pay to make older structures more efficient.
“For a long time, we’ve made great inroads on improving the energy efficiency and the performance of new buildings with tools like green building standards. But we really haven’t had a way to go and systematically block by block retrofit and weatherize homes.”
Hendricks says the clean energy corps would help the umemployed find work in the building and construction trades.
The coalition backing the corps says the money for the program could come from the stimulus package or other upcoming legislation.
Artist Christopher Griffin, the owner of the house, uses a long
smooth bone to draw a picture after each swipe of the trowel
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
Sometimes cities can seem like drab, impersonal places. But every once in a
while, you see a building that stops you in your tracks. Karen Kelly tells a story about a house designed to do just that:
Transcript
Sometimes cities can seem like drab, impersonal places. But, every once in a
while, you see a building that stops you in your tracks. Karen Kelly tells a story
about a house designed to do just that:
(sound of construction and trucks)
When you first see it, you’re just not sure.
A two-story house is being covered with marks etched in concrete.
Is it intentional? Or just a layer of construction?
Then you see a large black figure on the west side of the house and realize- oh, it’s
a whale. Waves are etched in the concrete around it. Walk around the corner and
you see flocks of birds flying over roughly drawn buildings.
(sound of scraping)
And just past the birds, there are three men working silently on a platform. Two
are spreading layers of fresh concrete.
The third is artist Christopher Griffin, the owner of the house. He uses a long
smooth bone to draw a picture after each swipe of the trowel – and before the
concrete sets.
He says he has to work fast.
“They would scrape the mud on and I would be going around them, over top of
them, actually right behind their trowel and there’s no chance to stand back; there’s
no chance to second guess.”
Griffin has been a professional artist in Ottawa, Canada for almost twenty years.
Griffin’s motivation was simple: his house really needed a new exterior. But the
regular stuff that people put on their houses didn’t feel right to him.
Instead, he thought he’d try some drawings like he’d seen in a photo of mud huts in
Africa.
“It was irregular; it was organic; it wasn’t pristine; it wasn’t crisp; it wasn’t
heartless. And that sort of quality was something I was after.”
(sound of chatting and scraping)
But while Griffin had this vision of giant sunflowers and caribou, contractors had
no idea what he was talking about.
Several told him it couldn’t be done.
Dan Charette is part of a team that was willing to give it a try.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to bring our craftsmanship to a different level. There’s
a whole other creative level to what we do here with constructive behaviors, so it’s
really a lot of fun.”
For instance, the contractors suggested adding fly ash to the cement. It’s a
byproduct of burning coal and it also makes the cement more elastic.
Griffin liked that it was more environmentally friendly.
He also recycled building materials and added solar panels. But usually that’s not
what people see.
He says what really makes him feel good is when people just stop and stare.
“Absolute strangers stopping their cars, getting out and having a look. There’s a
teenage skateboarder who stopped and said, ‘Wow, awesome house.’”
Griffin says, in that way, his house has become a public space.
In fact, he argues everyone’s house is a public space.
And he suggests people think about what they want their house to say to someone
walking by.
James Abajian is an artist who lives in
Elgin, Illinois. His entire apartment is stuffed
with tools, paint, and works like this one. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Abajian has turned nearly
all of his apartment into studio space. Both the
dining room and living room hold artwork, both
finished and in progress. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Elgin is considering
several sites to turn into an artist colony, including
this building which currently houses Elgin's community
college. ArtSpace of Minnesota is helping Elgin develop
affordable artist housing in its downtown. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The stereotype of the
starving artist isn’t always true,
but, let’s face it, some artists
have a tough time finding affordable
places to both live and work. Shawn
Allee reports how one city’s
trying to solve this problem while
revitalizing its downtown:
Transcript
The stereotype of the
starving artist isn’t always true,
but, let’s face it, some artists
have a tough time finding affordable
places to both live and work. Shawn
Allee reports how one city’s
trying to solve this problem while
revitalizing its downtown:
The City of Elgin Illinois has a housing crisis – not so much for average residents, but for
some artists.
It’s not that they’re homeless, it’s just, well, to understand. It helps to meet an Elgin
artist.
“Come on in.”
“Are you James?”
“Yeah.”
This is James Abajian.
“Don’t really mind the house, I’ve been working on a couple of projects.”
When I get in, I’m dumbstruck.
Wood sculptures cover Abajian’s floor, and his dining room has stacks of paper and
canvas, and right where most apartments would have a TV, Abajian’s got an unfinished
drawing.
“It’s like a wine glass or a martini glass, and it’s on different angles.”
“Is it a charcoal drawing?”
“Yeah, it’s charcoal.”
Abajian started art eight years ago.
He says he’d like to make a living with it and rent a fancy studio, but he’s just not there
yet.
So, he lives where he works.
“My apartment is nothing but paintings and frames.”
“I think the major space that doesn’t have charcoal or something on it is your
couch.”
“Couch. That’s about it. Yeah.”
It can take a while for artists like Abajian to hone their craft, so, they make do with space
not meant for working.
It’s enough for the city of Elgin to step in and try to help at least some artists find better
quarters. Oh, and, by the way, the city thinks the solution might solve a problem it has,
too.
Ed Schock is Elgin’s mayor.
I find him downtown, outside a two-story brick building.
“So, where are we, Mayor?”
“We are looking at the Elgin Community College downtown campus building.”
Schock is considering whether this building might work as an artist colony – a place
where Elgin artists could afford to live and work.
“There are an unusual number of artists here who would like to continue to do their
art, but economic reality’s set in, one of the biggest one’s is housing. Plus, just
having 45-50 residents downtown is a big plus. One of our strategic goals is to
increase the number who reside in the downtown.”
Inside, Schock and I meet staffers from a non-profit group that’s helping Elgin develop
artist housing.
(sound of walking up stairs)
They’re with ArtSpace of Minnesota.
ArtSpace wants to see the building first-hand – they need to make sure it’s the best fit for
Elgin and the artists.
Wendy Holmes says lots of cities want artists to make older parts of town more attractive.
Holmes says it works for cities – but it doesn’t always work for artists in the long run.
“Artists have traditionally been displaced from their spaces because artists make
areas interesting and hip and desirable to move into and other people tend to move
in behind them. And those people can afford to pay higher rent therefore the artists
are usually forced out because their rents will be too high for the artists themselves
to afford.”
ArtSpace does something about that – it uses federal low-income housing credits, so rents
stay affordable, and struggling artists stick around.
Another staffer, Heidi Kurtze asks about public transit, grocery stores, and how much
light these windows get.
“You need natural light into your living space, but for artists in particular, natural
light is a critical piece for them to do the work they do.”
Kurtz takes this as seriously as a family buying a house – after all, this could be some
artists’ home for decades.
It could take two years for ArtSpace to finish its Elgin project.
Artists like James Abajain will have to make due until then.
Valcent's vertical farm has hundreds of clear plastic sheets holding pockets of plants. These hang from moving racks. (Photo courtesy of Valcent)
It takes a lot of land to grow
crops. There are concerns there won’t
be enough land to grow all the needed
food for the rapidly growing population.
That’s why some researchers and business
people are creating what they call
vertical farms. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
It takes a lot of land to grow
crops. There are concerns there won’t
be enough land to grow all the needed
food for the rapidly growing population.
That’s why some researchers and business
people are creating what they call
vertical farms. Julie Grant reports:
On the outside, it looks like a big green house. Inside,
there’s an overhead conveyer system.
It looks kind of like a dry cleaner. Hanging from the moving
racks are hundreds of clear plastic sheets. Each has rows of
pockets. In each pocket, there’s a vegetable plant.
The conveyor moves them around to make sure the plants
get enough light, nutrients and water.
Glen Kertz is president of Valcent Products, which is building
its first commercial-scale vertical farm in Alberta, Canada –
where it can be expensive to truck in fresh produce.
“A couple of hundred years ago, they couldn’t get fresh
lettuce in the dead of winter. But do they want it today?
Yes.”
Kertz and others think we could vertical farm in cities in
skyscrapers.
But Kurtz says the farm’s heat, lighting and conveyor system
all run on fossil fuels and he wants to switch to renewable
energy.
North America's largest solar plant, covering 140 acres, is located near Las Vegas (Photo courtesy of the Nellis Air Force Base)
