Category Archives: Sustainability

Okay. I am a mechanical engineer and had two suffer through four semesters of Thermodynamics and so couldn’t resist that trendy word of the mechanical age: Entropy. All of thermodynamics can be summed up with three propositions: You can’t win. … Continue reading →

Nowhere is material science so necessary as in the Sweet Division 16- electrical. Dominated by copper and aluminum we discover elemental properties as we harness these metals to conduct electricity. Copper is more expensive these days (it wasn’t always so, … Continue reading →

Walking up to a set of buildings with “mechanical issues” is not terribly uncommon. First of all we need to know what the mechanical systems that cause the most problems are, and what common sense lacunae created them. Lacunae are … Continue reading →

You wouldn’t want to build a home in a place where there was never any rain: life is sustained by water. Life giver that it is, it is also the most pervasive destroyer of building materials with the able assistance … Continue reading →

The good news is that we have the brains and creativity to solve our energy, shelter, food, and water challenges in the 21st century. It’s really quite simple, in all areas the Trifecta is Conserve, Combine, and Create. How does … Continue reading →

The problem with common sense is that it isn’t common any more. What used to make sense in New England is applied to new homes or buildings in Florida. The reason we used to have “regional architecture” was that the … Continue reading →

I have had numerous conversations with young turks recently minted with LEED credentials and they enthusiastically say how “we are going to save the planet”. Guess what? The planet is just fine, we need to worry about the species. Homo … Continue reading →