NSC members Geri and Donald McLauchlan (left) with RMI's Greg Franta and Denver Museum of Nature and Science's Dave Noel (far right)
Standing under the complete skeleton of a fin whale suspended form the ceiling of Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science, museum facility manager Elaine Harkins points out a bricked in window. Originally, this room was designed with daylighting. A later renovation closed off the light.
“We are always struggling with a tension between our sustainability objectives and needs of our collection,” she explains. Thirty-eight members of RMI’s National Solutions Council (NSC) members peer up at the former windows as they follow Elaine and the staff of RMI’s Built Environment Team on the tour of the museum, ignoring exhibits and collections, instead focusing on the building itself and its systems.
The tour is part of the RMI NSC weekend, where NSC members accompany RMI’s three research and consulting teams -- the Built Environment Team (BET), Mobility and Vehicle Efficiency an the Energy and Resources teams -- on tours and engage with staff about RMI’s current and future projects and strategies.
This is RMI’s annual chance to tap into the considerable and diverse expertise of the NSC members.
T Walley Williams, for example, is an NSC member who constructs and sells artificial limbs, but considers himself an “everythingologist.”
Another member, Stephanie Hunt, works to address environmental issues, such as clean water, for the 3 billion people on earth living in poverty.
Also on the tour, Woody Beardsley, President of the Hybrid Energy Group, made it possible for Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science to obtain its solar array.
The 100,000-watt rooftop installation is arguably the highlight of the tour. Dave Noel, the museum’s VP of Technology, says the payback for the array would have been 119 years, an unreasonably long-term investment. Rather than purchasing the array, the museum buys power back from Hybrid Energy.
Following the building tour, James Brew, a Principal Architect with BET, explains the connection to the century-old museum. “We obviously use a lot of science on the Built Environment Team and we look to nature for inspiration, for example on things such as natural ventilation," he says.
The museum is also interesting to BET because of the team’s focus on existing buildings.
“The payback is two to two and half years for energy retrofits, “ Brew says, adding, “We believe there is a heck of a lot of opportunity for existing buildings.”
Senior VP and head of BET, Greg Franta, shared highlights from two LEED platinum building’s RMI has worked on, Nevada's Desert Living Center and the Eielson Visitor's Center, in Alaska's Denali National Park.
“Energy and water are big in both,” Franta says.
On a larger scale, Brew discussed regenerative city blocks, asking how cities are gong to feed themselves in the future when there is only 40-50 years of farmable soil left in the U.S.?
His answer: vertical farming.
“Of course food is linked to water and water is linked to energy and carbon,” Brew says.
John Simpson, BET’s Director of Operations, then took cities to another level and discussed a project in Tianjin, China, known as the Ecocity.
Explaining BET’s work on this planned sustainable city project, Simpson says, “Our goal is to push them everywhere. To incorporate the best of what we can do, to be a success story for China.”
On an even broader level, Cher Seruto talked to NSC members about BET initiatives to drive strategic change. One initiative, Cooling the Warming, provides a roadmap for attacking climate change through the built environment, information BET will make accessible to the public through a book.
Another initiative underway and evolving is GreenFoot a software tool for measuring an ecological footprint by using the carrying capacity model.
With the continued support of NSC members in the coming year, these initiatives will evolve and be shared widely.
As final food for thought, and bringing the members back around to an immediate concern, NSC member Mike Curzan finished up the day with a presentation on how efficiency creates greater opportunities for home ownership for middle-income workers.
