Setting the Standard: University of British Columbia Builds North America’s Greenest Building
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is constructing an outrageously sustainable building, which, when completed, will be “greenest” building in North America. This news is just the latest in a dearth of renewable energy and green announcements and accolades to come from Vancouver.
UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability will open in the summer of 2011, and will incorporate several cleantech functions. Some of these technologies include using solar power, and capturing waste heat emitted by the neighbouring Earth and Ocean Sciences building and then, with the help of heat pumps, using it to provide 300-megawatts of heat to both buildings. The heat capturing technology will reduce UBC’s carbon emissions by 50 tons alone. Finally, more carbon will be sequestered in the building’s wooden structure then was emitted during construction.
The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability will produce more energy than it consumes and will be greenhouse gas positive. Professor John Robinson, director of the Centre for Interactive Research, said the aim was to build the structure for the same price as conventional building, so there would be no excuse from the construction industry — the building cost C$37 million to construct.
Professor Robinson also stated that all new buildings should be built as a green and sustainable structures: “Any building that goes up that’s not sustainable will be a 100-year mistake because we will have missed an opportunity. Sure, it can be retrofitted but that is expensive and a waste.”
Source: Energy Boom
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