GreenBuild 2009, part III

Here are a few final impressions from GreenBuild 2009:

I talked with a number of exhibitors in the expo hall from engineering firms doing campus sustainability plans to automatic lighting control manufacturers to steel industry representatives to manufacturers of electrical systems that go in 150m(!) high wind turbines. One of the most compelling was the International Dark-Sky Association. Their mission is to combat light pollution through the use of efficient lighting that illuminates only the ground, rather than ground and sky. They reason that much current outdoor lighting wastes massive amounts of energy and can be harmful to humans and animals. It also makes it pretty hard to enjoy the night sky in most populated areas. It is a simple idea that should be promulgated. Please spread the word…

The Earth at Night

One highlight of GreenBuild 2009 for me was a gathering of Coast Guard attendees organized by Captain John Hickey (sustainability leader in the CG, mentioned earlier in this post). Coasties from Providence, Rhode Island to Juneau, Alaska, many of whom were civil engineers, came together to get acquainted and exchange ideas. There have been some great CG sustainability accomplishments (see the post referenced above), including LEED buildings, and so it was nice meet some of the folks behind them.

In all, it was quite an interesting conference. The size alone (28,000 attendees) makes a statement on how far green building has progressed. Thanks to LCDR Corinna Fleischmann and LT Brian Maggi for inviting me to join them on this trip and for the support from CG headquarters. Please note the opinions expressed here and throughout this blog are my own and are not to be construed as representing those of the US Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, or U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

GreenBuild 2009, part II

One of the most effective presentations I saw at GreenBuild 2009 was about Life Cycle Assessment by Adam Cone. LCA measures the energy and environmental impacts of a product from cradle to grave. After recounting some interesting history of LCA (which he traced back to Coke in 1969), Cone gave an overview of the methodology. Then he used two different LCA tools (EcoCalculator and BEES) to measure expected CO2 emissions from the concrete used in a very simple toy model of a building. Not only were the results different, they were vastly different. The discrepancies were caused by the differing assumptions each made (things like spacing of the beams). The point was quite compelling – using these tools without carefully considering their assumptions can lead to misleading results. True LCA requires a great deal of work.

LCA programs consist of databases and models. For instance, a given material will have a value for how much CO2 is emitted in its production. And given some basic information for something like a building, such as material and dimensions, a simple model will predict how much of the material is required. Again, the models make implicit assumptions that often can only be determined by reading the documentation, if then. LCA and Carbon Footprint software would seem to have considerable overlap. LCA can focus on a specific material and all of its energy and environmental impacts. Carbon footprinting can measure across an entire system, such as a supply chain, but will focus on CO2 emissions. A little searching turned up this related post on lamarguerite about carbon calculator inconsistencies.

I have not looked at these tools closely yet myself, but I would not be surprised to hear that they are already being coupled to O.R.-type decision tools. Sticking with Cone’s simple building example, CO2 emissions can be an objective to minimize, or a constraint level to stay beneath, while the decision variables can be the type of concrete to use, aspects of the building design, the size, etc. So decision-problem-solving capability could be linked to LCA models and data, and in fairly complex ways. This would seem to be a huge growth area.

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Another GreenBuild 09 session on LEED applied to restaurants was probably the most puzzling of the ones I attended. It featured speakers from McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Brands (Dunkin’ Donuts), and Chipotle. Having been in the restaurants of all three, I had a rough idea on where each stood with respect to sustainability. Of the three, sustainability seemed to be a core value for Chipotle, which has a slogan “food with integrity” that impacts health, environment, energy, and animal welfare. The Dunkin’ speaker admitted that they “lag behind” in their sustainability efforts. (See this Greenopia review of Dunkin’.) McDonald’s case is perhaps more complex. The company has an extensive corporate social responsibility (CSR) site detailing their achievements. Inhabitant reviewed some of their efforts and challenges here, while the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) has recently called on McDonald’s to improve animal welfare standards.

The session was mostly about each company’s experiences at building LEED certified restaurants. If I recall correctly, Dunkin’ builit one, McDonald’s two, and Chipotle two. Chipotle’s speaker said they hope to incorporate sustainability ideas from the LEED buildings in all of their restaurants. The representative from McDonald’s stated that they must figure out how to lower the costs if they are to expand the scope.

This was a conference about sustainable building, yet sustainability has to be about an integrated approach that transcends buildings. In the fast-food restaurant model, it touches anything from packaging to coffee sourcing to animal welfare to the drive-through restaurant model, and more. This theme was barely mentioned during these restaurant presentations, and surprisingly not at all in the Q&A. Hopefully it will become more pervasive in the restaurant business and others over time.

coming up in Part III of this post: Dark skies, Coastie gathering, and more…

GreenBuild 2009, Part I

photo by Brian Maggi

Last week, thanks to some CGA civil engineering colleagues, I attended the 2009 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Phoenix. Greenbuild is run by the U.S. Green Building Council, the group responsible for LEED green building certification. It was an impressive event with over 28,000 attendees, dozens of educational sessions and hundreds of expo exhibitors. All aspects of building were covered from the green perspective: walls, floors, lighting, plumbing, HVAC, steel, stone, aluminum, wood, etc.

A couple of key themes emerged. First, during the design phase, greater emphasis is being placed on the future operations of a building. With increasing and uncertain fuel costs, concerns about global warming, indoor air quality, etc., more attention is being paid to how a building will function from the energy and environmental stand-point. And there is greater willingness to pay more up front to lessen operating and difficult-to-measure health costs.

Second, implementing LEED in existing buildings (the LEED-EB standard) has become increasingly important. This makes a lot of sense because the number of existing buildings in need of retrofit far exceeds the amount of new construction, and as was mentioned before here and elsewhere, new construction typically requires vastly greater amounts of energy and natural resources, even if it is green.

Along these lines, there was an interesting session entitled Transforming Cities: New Research and Growing Opportunities for the U.S. Green Retrofit Marketplace. Speakers included architects and commercial property managers. The session opened with mention of a McGraw Hill Construction study indicating strong interest in green building retrofits. According to the study, 5-9% of renovations were green in 2009, a number that is projected to increase. A large portion of the green renovations had to do with energy efficiency. And these resulted in good energy and water savings. In addition, brand name recognition as green has grown significantly over the past five years with names such as Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell, Trane, etc. showing up under building controls and HVAC. Subsequent parts of this session touted other large energy savings through green retrofitting. The 1930s-era Merchandise Mart building in Chicago was one of the examples.

A couple of sessions dealt with activities on university campuses. In the Cross-Campus Green session, Jordan Sager of Univ. of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) discussed a residential lighting retrofit at UCSB. The plan cost $150,000, which, based on the estimated energy savings, would require slightly more than a five year payback. Unfortunately policy prevented any project with a payback period beyond five years. But UCSB had also pledged to reduce emissions, and that might require the purchase of carbon offsets. So the avoided costs of offsets resulting from the lighting energy savings could be factored in. And this brought the payback period below five years allowing the project to proceed. It is just another example of the many ways of financing, or even simply making feasible, energy efficiency and other sustainability improvements.

UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Management came up during the talk. It is worth checking out; see, for instance, the page of Prof. Roland Geyer, who works in industrial ecology and operations management. Another academic institution discussed in a later session was Arizona State University (ASU). ASU has LEED buildings, 1.9 MW of solar power and counting, and a new Global Institute of Sustainability (for more on that, see the article “A Threat So Big, Academics Try Collaboration,” NY Times, 12/25/07.) ASU has a sustainable operations focus.

One thing that was very clear at GreenBuild is that operations are changing quickly. And with that comes many new challenges inviting the techniques of operations research. Take solar power as an example. A solar panel must be designed to maximize output subject to material, cost, environmental, and other constraints. Next the panels need to be installed to maximize exposure under constraints imposed by servicing needs, shadow patterns, electrical circuit considerations, etc. And then there is the financing of the entire project, which will depend on the expected lifetime of the panels, time-frame of the building owner, expected generation of the panels, electricity rates, public and third-party financing options, minimum payback period, etc. As these kinds of operations evolve, there is opportunity for the operations researcher to get involved. And the great thing about these changes is that most of them will have positive impacts on the planet.

coming up in Parts II and III of this post: LCA, LEED restaurants, Coastie gathering, and more…

Papers: mcdm, remanufacturing, wind, tidal power …

Some more recent papers on green O.R. and related topics:

Wind energy management with battery storage
by L Zhang and A Wirth
in Journal of the Operational Research Society, advance online publication 14 October 2009

Incentive and production decisions for remanufacturing operations
by Onur Kaya
in EJOR, Volume 201, Issue 2, 1 March 2010, Pages 442-453

The Potential of Tidal Power from the Bay of Fundy
by Justine M. McMillan and Megan J. Lickley
in SIAM Undergraduate Research Online (SIURO), published electronically July 11, 2008
link to the abstract (scroll); link to the paper (pdf–18MB)

Checking back with the multiple criteria decision making bibliography site (mentioned in this July 2007 post), I found some more interesting-sounding papers. Thanks to those folks for compiling that list. Here are a few, all from a special issue of Omega on multiple criteria decision making for engineering:

Evaluating the life cycle of a building: A multivariant and multiple criteria approach
by Nerija Banaitiene, Audrius Banaitis, Arturas Kaklauskas, and Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas
in Omega, 36(3):429 – 441, June 2008

The lean improvement of the chemical emissions of motor vehicles based on preference ranking: A PROMETHEE uncertainty analysis
by Malcolm J. Beynon and Peter Wells
in Omega, 36(3):384 – 394, June 2008

Multicriteria decision making applied to waste recycling in Brazil
by Carlos F. Simoes Gomes, Katia R.A. Nunes, Lucia Helena Xavier, Rosangela Cardoso, and Rogerio Valle
in Omega, 36(3):395 – 404, June 2008

A goal programming model for paper recycling system
by Rupesh Kumar Pati, Prem Vrat, and Pradeep Kumar
in Omega, 36(3):405 – 417, June 2008
This model was applied to a case in India.

Forestry and Wood Manufacturing Research Group

There is a Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) administered through the University of Washington. Focusing on forestry and wood manufacturing, the consortium consists of members from several universities and industry. Life-cycle assessment seems to be an important part of the methodology. The O.R. connection can be found in their objectives:

CORRIM’s research is focused on two objectives: 1) to develop a database and modeling system for environmental performance measurements associated with materials use and, 2) to respond to specific questions and issues related to environmental performance and the cost effectiveness of alternative management and technology strategies. This database and information source will enable decision-makers to make consistent comparisons and systematically characterize the options for improving environmental performance.

There is an interesting little piece here mentioning a CORRIM study favoring wood over concrete or steel for house framing.

MORS Power & Energy Meeting … Coast Guard Sustainability

The US-based Military Operations Research Society (MORS) will be holding a Power and Energy Special Meeting, November 30th to December 3rd, 2009 in Reston, Virginia. From the meeting website:

The P&E Special Meeting will focus on the requirements and metrics, science and technology, Modeling and Simulation (M&S), processes, and methodologies needed to address the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD’s) Energy Policy to consider operational energy risk from logistics demand and how to frame Energy Efficiency Key Performance Parameters. The P&E Special Meeting will also address the national security challenge of the combined criticality of operations reliant on stable energy sources and the vulnerability of the power grid and fuel distribution system.

So sustainability comes up in terms of energy efficiency but also as far as maintaining critical infrastructure. There was a NY Times article back in July on the US military’s efforts to reduce energy usage. Incidentally, it leads with a quote from Capt. John Hickey of the US Coast Guard, whom I heard speak to cadets at the Coast Guard Academy (where I teach) not long after. Capt. Hickey talked about several Coast Guard sustainability accomplishments at his base in Honolulu including reducing electricity usage by almost 15%, increasing day-lighting, adopting demand respone programs for ships in port, and greening the arms range (which usually includes switching to lead-free ammunition). He also described other Coast Guard sustainability efforts such as the 4 MW landfill gas generation plant at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, LED’s and solar panels on aids to navigation, and LEED buildings in North Carolina and Seattle. (See the update at the bottom of this post.) At the Academy, we are hoping to launch another OR sustainability capstone this spring. More to come…

Lastly, on a related note to the MORS conference, retired Navy Admiral Bobby R. Inman will be giving the keynote address entitled Examining Conflicting Objectives for Energy Independence and Climate Change at this year’s Winter Simulation Conference. The theme of the meeting is Energy Alternatives.

Update (10/30/09): Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen just recently posted “The Theme is Green — Coast Guard Activates Another Renewable Energy Facility” on his iCommandant blog. It highlights a new solar array at the Petaluma Training Center and mentions a number of additional Coast Guard sustainability measures.

The GreenGov Challenge

Earlier this month, President Obama signed an Executive Order on Federal Sustainability that extends a previous Executive Order (#13423, discussed near the bottom of this prior post). The new order sets goals for federal agencies in emissions, reduced fossil fuel usage, water management, etc.

Along with the Executive Order, the Whitehouse has launched the GreenGov Challenge in which federal employees submit sustainability ideas to be voted on by other federal employees. The top ideas are then passed on to key sustainability figures at each agency. Thousands of ideas have already been submitted. So far some popular ones are about telecommuting, motion-sensitive lighting, increased use of electronic documents over paper, and stopping the use of styrofoam in federal cafeterias. Check out the site for more. Being a federal employee, I made a few contributions. Click on the image below if you are interested. My luddite-leaning suggestion (rakes over leaf-blowers) is the least popular at 82 in favor, 60 against, as of today. (Thanks to Ashley C. for alerting me to the Challenge.)

Twitter

This blog now has a twitter account under the user name @or4green. The feed can be also found at the bottom of the greenOR.org main page (as long as Twitter’s servers are up). I will occasionally put brief items there, mostly related to this blog.

I tried following the recent INFORMS annual meeting remotely via twitter through the #informs09 hash tag. Sometimes people mentioned good talks they attended. But otherwise, there was not much to glean from these reports. Maybe it is the 140 character limit, or the newness of the media. We’ll see what happens at INFORMS 2010.

INFORMS 2009 and green O.R.

As you might expect, there is a lot of green O.R. content at the 2009 INFORMS annual meeting. Three of the plenaries touch on sustainability:

• Socially and Environmentally Responsible Supply Chains by Hau L. Lee (Stanford),
• Better Smarter Electricity Markets: Efficiently Capturing Wind, Rain and Fire by Richard P. O’Neill (FERC), and
• A Banquet of Consequences: Adventures in Climate Policy Modeling by John Sterman (MIT).

Sterman, known in part for his work at the intersection of system dynamics and nonlinear dynamics & chaos including key studies of the beer game, has recently turned his attention to climate modeling.

The INFORMS Energy & Natural Resources (ENRE) section has compiled a list of energy-related talks, available here (pdf). Those are likely not all sustainability-related, though some will be. A search of the conference program will yield talks on topics beyond energy and natural resources, such as closed loop supply chains, emissions regulation, green building, etc.

I am not at the meeting, but if you are, and would like to guest- or cross-post some impressions of the green O.R. you see there, let me know.

References: Wine, Urban Planning, Freight GHG’s

The energy and carbon intensity of wine distribution: A study of logistical options for delivering wine to consumers by Susan Cholette & Kumar Venkat in Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 17, Issue 16, November 2009, Pages 1401-1413. (pdf of the paper).
If you buy wine you might have noticed that some wineries have begun using plastic bottles to cut freight costs along with emissions. This paper takes a close look at the wine delivery supply chain from the energy-use and emissions perspective. The methodology is fairly straightforward and the scenarios considered seem to be well grounded in reality. One of the co-authors (Venkat) is from a company called CleanMetrics whose motto is “the science of measuring and improving sustainability”. CleanMetrics also has a blog entitled “Green Metrics, Clean Metrics“; carbon footprinting seems to be a frequent topic.

(Speaking of wine and O.R., there was a nice article in Interfaces a couple of years ago about using a mixed IP to match small wineries with distributors. The testimonial at the end from the small vintner was compelling. Also, there was a brief mention of using O.R. to optimize wine grape growing in a recent OR/MS Today rountable piece featuring (SE CT neighbor) Applied Math Inc.)

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A Mass Transportation Model for the Optimal Planning of an Urban Region, by Giuseppe Buttazzo and Filippo Santambrogio in SIAM Review, Volume 51, Issue 3, pp. 593-610 (2009).
What we would call the decision variables are probability measures describing how inhabitants and services are distributed. The objective is a cost function of the aforementioned variables with terms for transportation costs from residential to service areas, population density and service concentration. It is a fairly theoretical paper, with admittedly limited applicability. It was in the “SIGEST” section of the journal, which “highlights a recent paper from one of SIAM’s eleven specialized research journals, chosen on the basis of exceptional interest to the entire SIAM community and revised and condensed as needed for greater accessibility.”

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An integer programming model for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions in intermodal freight transport by Bauer, J., Bektas, T. and Crainic, T.G., in Journal of the Operational Research Society, advance online publication 23 September 2009; doi: 10.1057/jors.2009.102
A piece of the abstract:

Traditional planning methods for scheduling a service network usually focus on minimizing travel or time-related costs of transport. This paper breaks away from such an approach by first addressing the issue of incorporating environment-related costs (greenhouse gases, to be specific) into freight transportation planning…

So that is a different prioritization and definitely a reflection of the times. Computational results and a potential application are presented.