Global warming pact set for 2009 after US backs down

Saturday, December 15, 2007

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) - A drama-filled 190-nation conference on Saturday set a 2009 deadline for a landmark pact to fight global warming after an isolated United States backed down on last-ditch objections.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the so-called Bali Roadmap as a "pivotal first step" towards a new agreement for tackling the peril of climate change, after he had appealed to delegates to show flexibility.

Following gruelling all-night talks the conference launched a process to negotiate a new treaty that will take effect when the UN Kyoto Protocol's commitments expire in 2012.

The deal comes after a year of stark warnings from Nobel-winning scientists, who say that millions of people will be at risk of hunger, homelessness and disease by 2100 if temperatures keep rising at current rates.

The United States, the only major industrial nation to reject the Kyoto treaty, reached a compromise with the European Union (EU) to avoid mentioning any figures as a target for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement instead only makes an indirect reference to scientists' warnings that the world must sharply cut back emissions to prevent what could be a catastrophic rise in temperatures.

But on an unscheduled 13th day of talks, the United States said it would not accept the statement as it wanted developing countries such as fast-growing China to make tougher commitments.

Senior US negotiator Paula Dobriansky said she had heard "many strong statements from many major developing country leaders on a greater role in helping to address urgently this global problem."

It "doesn't seem it's going to be reflected in our outcome here in the declaration," she said, telling the conference that the United States would reject the draft.

Dobriansky was loudly booed by other delegations. A US environmental activist representing Papua New Guinea said on the floor to rousing cheers: "If you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way."

After repeated verbal lashings, Dobriansky again took the microphone and said that Washington would "go forward and join consensus," to the cheers of the conference.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush's climate policy, said he was ready to ask through his mobile telephone for Chancellor Angela Merkel to intervene with the White House.

"I had already typed the SMS after Dobriansky's first statement but then I was able to cancel it," Gabriel said.

"In the end, nobody wanted to have a failure," including the United States, Gabriel said. "We have achieved more than we could have expected previously, but it is less than what is needed to meet the urgency of the problem."

The agreement came after extraordinary scenes in which the head of the United Nations jetted in to make a last-ditch appeal, the UN's exhausted climate chief nearly broke down in tears and chairman Indonesia apologised abjectly for a disastrous procedural mix-up.

"The Bali Roadmap that has been agreed is a pivotal first step toward an agreement that can address the threat of climate change, the defining challenge of our time," a statement from the UN chief said.

Alden Meyer of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists welcomed the deal.

"What we witnessed today was an incredible drama," he said "I've been following these negotiations for 20 years and I've never seen anything like it."

Hans Verolme of conservation group WWF accused the world of bowing to US pressure and removing a scientific punch needed to fight global warming.

But he also said the Bali talks would inspire environmentalists and activist nations for climate-change negotiations until the end of President George W. Bush's mandate in January 2009.

"We have learned a historic lesson. If you expose to the world the dealings of the United States, they will ultimately back down," he said.

As activists speculated on whether the US U-turn was premeditated, US delegates said they believed from the reaction to their initial statement that developed countries would be serious about climate change.

"There is no question that we have opened a new phase in moving forward together," said senior White House aide James Connaughton. "The time had come to start a new chapter."

Bush has argued that the Kyoto Protocol is unfair as it does not require fast-growing emerging economies such as China, the second largest emitter after the United States, to meet targeted emissions curbs.

In a bid to break the deadlock, the proposed document ditched European calls for an "ambition" of the rich world to cut its emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

And there was no mention of a target of halving global levels of greenhouse gases by 2050 -- a goal that scientists say is essential to limiting the warming to around two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071215/wl_asia_afp/unclimatewarming_071215103717

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Posted by Kaks at 9:33 AM 0 comments  

Another inconvenient truth.



40% don't give a damn.

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Posted by Kaks at 8:51 AM 0 comments  

Technical Paper presented at ACRECONF 2007, Delhi, Hourly Load Calculation Analysis Programme for Indian Cities

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Hourly Load Calculation Analysis Programme for Indian Cities

Vikram Murthy and Rajeev Kakkar, ISHRAE Mumbai Chapter

Rajeev Kakkar is a Technical Consultant (HVAC) by profession, a graduate from I.I.T Kharagpur, and has over 30 years of experience in the field. He is also the webmaster for http://www.hvacindia.com, the Technical advisor for the "Hourly Load Calculation Programme" sponsored by ISHRAE, and faculty for IIE, the "ISHRAE Institute Of Excellence" training programme series conducted by ISHRAE Mumbai Chapter.

Vikram Murthy graduated from IIT Kanpur in Electrical enginering in 1975 . He is Director of Univac Environment Systems Private Limited and Trustee of Tropical Airconditioning and Refrigeration Institute , a recognised Training Centre, for Technicians and Engineers. He has 33 years of diverse experience in leading HVAC Contracting Companies , is active professionally and socially , serving ISHRAE as the President of the Mumbai Chapter for 2007 - 2008 and The Rotary Club of Bombay Film City since 1992.


Abstract:

The ability to make sensible decisions regarding the HVAC design with respect to environment and economics is of utmost importance. Air-conditioning load calculations in India have been carried out using single day peak load manual calculations. The commercially available tools for load calculations are either too simple to be used for professional work (low-end packages) or too expensive with long and difficult learning curves. In a recently concluded research project, ISHRAE and ASHRAE India Chapter have developed a database of the hourly values of climatic parameters. The next step obviously was to develop an Hourly Load Calculation Programme.

Key words: hourly load calculation programme; HLCP; cooling loads; EnergyPlus; ECBC; building energy simulation; hourly weather data


Preamble:

Considering the fact that there is an urgent requirement of a validated HVAC sizing programme which uses BIS Design Day Standards and also provides hourly outputs using the heat balance equations found in EnergyPlus (and as adapted from BLAST), the development of HLCP as an ISHRAE project has been timely. The ability to make sensible and well-based decisions regarding not only the prediction of energy consumption in a building during the conceptual and design stage, but also to be able to finally size the HVAC system, both with respect to environment and economics, is of utmost importance.


Current Methodologies:

Currently, HVAC sizing loads is carried out mainly by manual and spreadsheet methods based on the de-facto standard of calculating instantaneous heat gains using methods developed by Carrier, and based on tabulated empirical ETDs (Effective Temperature Differences) for fenestration, walls and roofs, apart from a myriad of programmes developed by individuals, which have not really been validated. The current methodology also adopts use of design day weather data based on simultaneous peak occurrences of DB temperature and WB temperature, and whose validity and source is not known and has been lost in antiquity.


Weather Data:

In 1999 the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), http://www.teriin.org/ developed a set of hourly Indian weather data sets for 52 stations from measured sequences of climatic data from 1981 to 1992 based on the concept of "coincident" temperatures in line with and in the format as published in the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals, 1997. With the availability of WeDCo hourly and DesignDay weather data, and with the virtually simultaneous availability of a stable version of the EnergyPlus simulation engine, an opportunity arose to create a cooling load programme using WeDCo weather data as an input to EnergyPlus.

As EnergyPlus is more of a "black box" with a shell for input, which is more suitable for research rather than day-today sizing calculations, it was logical to propose and deliver a HVAC sizing programme with a GUI to serve the needs of the community in India.


Interfaces and tools:

The commercially available tools so far for energy analysis and load calculations were either too simple to be used for professional work (low-end packages) or too expensive with long and difficult learning curves (high-end packages).


HLCP, hourly Load Calculation Programme:

HLCP is simplified zone-by-zone method for calculation of HVAC cooling loads for sizing of equipment specifically for Commercial buildings, based only on numerical inputs. HLCP uses the "Purchased Air" system type in EnergyPlus which is itself implemented based on the ASHRAE cooling sizing method and the cooling design load calculations are carried out using the standard ASHRAE Heat Balance method. That solves the issue of validation. HLCP is not just a graphical user interface for the EnergyPlus simulation engine; rather, it's an interface to calculate hourly loads. Post-processing of the data also takes care of the hourly latent loads. The user interface has been kept free of icons, with tabs and buttons in plain English, so that even the average HVAC engineer is able to use HLCP after a few trail runs. The interface has been designed as a tabbed wizard, again for ease of use, without unnecessary clutter of providing options which may really not be relevant for an HVAC sizing exercise.

HLCP can do what manual or spreadsheet HVAC sizing programmes cannot. That puts HLCP right in the path of the ECBC. In all likelihood, energy simulation interfaces built over EnergyPlus, such as DesignBuilder will be prominently used for compliance with the ECB code, during the Feasibility and Site Planning phase, and the Outline Design Phase of the building. During this stage, it would be necessary for the building to comply with the ECB code, and at this stage the Architect would have a much greater say than the HVAC designer. As the building design moves to the Scheme Design and from there to the Detailed Design, it is the HVAC engineer who will most likely call the shots.


ECBC and HLCP:

On 27th May 2007, The Bureau of Energy Efficiency, India, BEE, released the Energy Conservation Building Codes ECBC, for Commercial Buildings. One of the clauses in the ECBC (apart from the clauses which specify the U values for walls, roofs and fenestrations), is that "The equipment capacities for the standard design shall be sized proportionally to the capacities in the proposed design based on sizing runs; i.e., the ratio between the capacities used in the annual simulations and the capacities determined by the sizing runs shall be the same for both the proposed design and standard design. Unmet load hours for the proposed design shall not differ from unmet load hours for the standard design by more than 50 hours."


Conclusion:

This really means that it would be a wise step to compare the energy simulation loads with the design loads in parallel, as the building design moves from the feasibility and site planning stage to the detailed design stage, so as to ensure that this requirement of the ECBC is met without any ambiguity. The use of a building energy simulation programme in conjunction with HLCP, using the same weather data and the same simulation engine, in this case, EnergyPlus, would ensure compliance.

Further Information on HLCP can be found at: http://hvacindia.com/hlcp/


References:

[1] ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals 1997

[2] Proceedings of the 23rd National Renewable Energy Convention, pp. 284-289,
edited by R L Sawhney, D Buddhi, and R P Gautam. Indore: Devi Ahilya
Vishwavidyalaya.
Extract: http://static.teriin.org/division/eetdiv/reta/docs/abs12.htm

[3] Review of Inside Design Conditions in Air Conditioned Spaces, by N. S. Hukmani, The
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Journal, January 2004.
http://www.hvacindia.com/journals_20042005/2004jan/article05.html

[4] Weather Data & Design Conditions For India,
booklet published by ISHRAE and AIC

[5] InputOutputReference.pdf, 2007
EnergyPlus documentation.

[6] Carrier Systems Design Manual

[7] Weather data - ISHRAE
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/cfm/weather_data3.cfm/
region=2_asiawmo_region_2/country=IND/cname=India


[8] EnergyPlus: The Merger of BLAST and DOE-2, 1998 - Dru Crawley
http://eetd.lbl.gov/newsletter/CBS_NL/nl18/energyplus.html

[9] What outside Design Conditions should I use in calculating a heat load?

[10] ECBC 2007
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The Great Indian Building Simulation Race

Key sentence:

"Run it again"

End of Post
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The Eagle...has landed!!

Saturday, December 1, 2007



Or maybe, HLCP has landed on the Eagle!

"Indian Interface to EnergyPlus: HLCP Hourly Load Calculation Program HLCP (Hourly Load Calculation Programme) is a graphical user interface for design-day and hourly load calculations for Indian cities, meant to be used with the EnergyPlus simulation engine. HLCP is a for-purchase program. For details, please go to http://www.hvacindia.com/hlcp/ "

http://gundog.lbl.gov/dirun/28nov.pdf

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WINDOW and THERM (for thermal performance of fenestration)




WINDOW 5.2 is a publicly available computer program for calculating total window thermal performance indices (i.e. U-values, solar heat gain coefficients, shading coefficients, and visible transmittances). WINDOW 5.2 provides a versatile heat transfer analysis method consistent with the updated rating procedure developed by the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) that is consistent with the ISO 15099 standard. The program can be used to design and develop new products, to assist educators in teaching heat transfer through windows, and to help public officials in developing building energy codes.

http://windows.lbl.gov/software/window/window.html

THERM is a module of the WINDOW+5 program under development by LBNL. WINDOW+5 is the next generation of the WINDOW software series and is being developed for the Microsoft Windows™ operating environment. THERM's results can be used with WINDOW's center-of-glass optical and thermal models to determine total window product U-factors and Solar Heat Gain Coefficients.

THERM is a state-of-the-art, Microsoft Windows™-based computer program developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for use by building component manufacturers, engineers, educators, students, architects, and others interested in heat transfer. Using THERM, you can model two-dimensional heat-transfer effects in building components such as windows, walls, foundations, roofs, and doors; appliances; and other products where thermal bridges are of concern.

http://windows.lbl.gov/software/therm/therm.html
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Posted by Kaks at 2:06 PM 0 comments  

EnergyPlus Software Named "Best Invention of the Year" by Time Magazine

Friday, November 30, 2007

Time Magazine has named the San Francisco Federal Building one of its 2007 "Best Inventions of the Year" winners in the architecture category. Its citation noted that the building is "really a machine for delivering sunlight and fresh air to the people who work there." EnergyPlus was used to model the building's energy efficiency features. End of Post Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 6:26 PM 0 comments  

The Pioneer of Energy Simulation. "Gint" Mitalas

Thursday, November 29, 2007

We have all heard of Willis Haviland Carrier as the engineer and inventor, and who is known as the man who invented modern air conditioning. At the age of 25, he devised his first important invention, a system to control heat and humidity for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn, and was eventually made the head of the Buffalo Forge subsidiary named Carrier Air Conditioning Company in his honor.

Not many may have heard of Gintautas “Gint” Povilas Mitalas.


Photo courtesy IBPSANews

Gint was born in Lithuania in April 1928. In 1953 he went to the University of Toronto to study mechanical engineering, graduating with a BASc in 1957 and an MSc in 1959. Gint joined the staff of the National Research Council of Canada in 1959 to work in the Division of Building Research, where he was part of a small group that was exploring ways to improve the accuracy of the calculation of heat transfer through walls. In the early 1960s he used an analog computer to simulate the heat flow through walls and roofs. Later he shifted his effort to using digital computers for calculating heat gain through walls and roofs. This led to the Response Factor approach, and finally to the Z -Transfer Function method that was adopted by ASHRAE. He became a member of ASHRAE in 1966.

Gint presented two papers at the highly successful “First international symposium on the use of computers for environmental engineering related to buildings” that was held in Washington, DC in 1970.

IBPSA makes awards for outstanding work in the building performance simulation field. It was first awarded in 1991 to Gint Mitalas for his outstanding service and lifetime accomplishments in building simulation.

He passed away in Ottawa, Canada on 13 May 2005.

Gint shall be remembered for his pioneering work on energy simulation which has lead to the current revolution in whole building energy simulation software.
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EnergyPlus, SketchUp, Google Earth, India and China

With the release of EnergyPlus 2.1, there's been a very interesting announcement in connection with Google SketchUp and the weather data convertor, which now produces KML output for Google Earth.

A beta version of building simulation within SketchUp is planned n the next few weeks. In the first release in early 2008, users will be able to draw their building, paint the surfaces with thermophysical properties, select default building type information, schedules, and HVAC systems, and simulate the energy performance of their building — all within SketchUp.

WeatherConverter now produces KML output (for Google Earth) of latitude, longitude, elevation, and a few climate statistics for locations in a list processing run.

Several other interfaces are under development—including two from China and India. These are likely to be announced shortly on; http://www.energyplus.gov/ep_interfaces.html

EnergyPlus V 2.1 is now available at no cost from the EnergyPlus web site http://www.energyplus.gov
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Google Expands Into Alternative Energy

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

As part of a project announced Tuesday, the Internet search leader and its philanthropic arm will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a quest to lower the cost of producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun.

If Google realizes its goal, the cost of solar power should fall by 25 to 50 percent, co-founder Larry Page said in an interview.

"If we achieve these goals, we are going to be in the (electricity) business in a very big way," Page said. "We should be able to make a lot of money from this."

http://www.tech2.com/india/news/general/google-expands-into-alternative-energy/
22785/0?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email

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EnergyPlus "Most Wanted" and HLCP "Young Turks"!

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Posted by Kaks at 12:14 PM 0 comments  

Just give me a day or two more!!

Thursday, November 22, 2007







Update:

It is done!!

Name: HLCP - Hourly Load Calculation Programme
Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY)
22/11/2007
Time of Birth (24Hrs Format)
4:39:0
Place of Birth
Mumbai,Maharashtra,India
Latitude (Degree/min/(North/South))
018/58/N
Longitude (Degree/min/(East/West))
072/50/E
Time Zone
5.5
DST Correction
0
Moon sign: Pisces

And I'll be ready to ship HLCP!! The last bug has been captured, the screens are clean, the colours are bright again, and the software is well obfuscated. :)End of Post Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 8:23 AM 0 comments  

How costs of sustainable Energy Development can be cut in half

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Ellen Brown, November 5th, 2007

Excerpt:
"During the recent bank credit crisis in August 2007, the central banks of the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan collectively extended a $315 billion credit line to commercial banks. This credit was created out of nothing – something central banks assume the right to do as "lenders of last resort" – and the sums advanced were huge.6 For comparative purposes, a mere $188 billion would have been enough to repair all of the 74,000 U.S. bridges known to be defective, preventing another disaster like that in Minnesota in July 2007. The Carbon Trust, a well-known UK company dedicated to cutting carbon emissions, is responsible for reducing emissions by nearly 2 million tons per year on a 2007 budget of only £115.9 million (about $240 million U.S.). If central banks can create hundreds of billions of dollars to save floundering private banks, governments can create comparable credits to adapt to climate change, an even more pressing problem."

Read more

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/energy-costs.php Read more on this article...

EnergyPlus GUI demo

A short demo of a GUI for EnergyPlus developed by Gurneet Singh.

http://cbs.iiit.net/resume/2002batch/gurneet/cad/demo/EnergyGSdemo.html

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Posted by Kaks at 9:58 AM 0 comments  

HLCP, Hourly Load Calculation Programme Help file


Update: The final HLCP Help file dated 20th November 2007 has been uploaded to www.hvacindia.com/hlcp/


Finally, a detailed 74 page Help file in pdf format (1.6 mB) uploaded for download to:

http://hvacindia.com/hlcp/

Screen animations coming soon. First copies of HLCP, the Hourly Load Calculation Programme (using the EnergyPlus engine), developed by ISHRAE to be shipped on Teusday, the 20th of November 2007. End of Post Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 9:19 AM 0 comments  

The deceit behind global warming

Monday, November 5, 2007

By Christopher Booker and Richard North

"Mann's hockey stick was just what the IPCC wanted. When its 2001 report came out it was given pride of place at the top of page 1. The Mediaeval Warming, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century Little Cooling, when CO2 had already been rising, all had been wiped away.

But then a growing number of academics began to raise doubts about Mann and his graph. This culminated in 2003 with a devastating study by two Canadians showing how Mann had not only ignored most of the evidence before him but had used an algorithm that would produce a hockey stick graph whatever evidence was fed into the computer. When this was removed, the graph re-emerged just as it had looked before, showing the Middle Ages as hotter than today.

It is hard to recall any scientific thesis ever being so comprehensively discredited as the "hockey stick". Yet the global warming juggernaut rolled on regardless, now led by the European Union. In 2004, thanks to a highly dubious deal between the EU and Putin's Russia, stage four of the story began when the Kyoto treaty was finally ratified."

"If global warming does turn out to have been a scare like all the others, it will certainly represent as great a collective flight from reality as history has ever recorded. The evidence of the next 10 years will be very interesting." End of Post

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eaclimate104.xml

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Posted by Kaks at 7:27 AM 0 comments  

Blondes and global warming

Saturday, November 3, 2007



Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with that expensive double-pane energy efficient kind, and then today, I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He was complaining that the work had been completed a whole year ago and I still hadn't paid for them. Hellloooo,...........just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid. So, I told him just what his fast talking sales guy had told me last year, that in ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves! Helllooooo? It's been a year! I told him. There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally just hung up. He never called back. Guess I won that stupid argument. I bet he felt like an idiot. End of Post Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 5:26 AM 0 comments  

India: be the party pooper

Friday, October 26, 2007




India: be the party pooper (Editorial)
By Sunita Narain

US President George Bush played host to a party of the top polluters of
the world called to discuss climate change. He exhorted his guests that
the world needed to act and called for a "new approach" to reduce
emissions. But if you think that he has changed his mind about the
science which has established the reality and urgency of climate change,
think again. Or if you think he has changed his position that his
country will not take on commitments to cut emissions because the
American lifestyle is not open to negotiation, think yet again and again.



The Bush meeting was strategic: first, it was an attempt (and a
successful one) to club the rich countries, who have been old and big
polluters, with the emerging countries-China and India. The meeting was
to remove the difference between the two categories-those who need to
make deep cuts in their emissions and those who need the space to grow.
If the Indians (and the Chinese) were looking for a place at this high
table of polluters, they certainly got their wish.

There is nothing new about Bush's position on climate change. In fact, I
would go so far as to say that there is nothing different about his
position from that of the previous Democratic government led by Bill
Clinton and Al Gore.

This is nothing more than recent history repeating itself. It is
predictable and it is dangerous for the climate and for our common future.

What Bush did should not surprise us. The US has been steadfast: it will
take action (whatever that means) only when it includes all big
polluters, including China and India.

I remember clearly the events in Kyoto in 1997, when the emissions
treaty was being finalised to set legally binding targets on
industrialized countries. That week all the stops were pulled out. The
phones buzzed between the White House and the prime minister's office.

The US made it clear that it wanted "meaningful participation" from
India and China. Its intransigence meant that all other governments
(those of the European Union to Japan) had to work hard to play
matchmaker to get the Chinese and Indians to bend so the US could sign
up to the treaty.

But what the Indian government did by accepting the Bush party invite
now should surprise us. I do accept that its position also remained
steadfast at the recent meeting. It did inform its host that the world
needed to act on the basis of historical contributions to the stock of
greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. And that India's per capita
emissions are negligible compared to those of the flatulent US or the
developed European countries. But believe me when I say this is nothing
other than posturing: rhetoric without any substance.

The fact is that we have agreed tacitly to join the membership of the
polluters-only club. In this way we have blurred (if not altogether
removed) the distinction-followed in all global agreements-between
countries which need to take action first and those who need the
ecological space to grow. But this is just one part of a much bigger
problem.

We have also asserted our right to development without insisting that
the US should take on deep and obligatory emission targets, for all our
sake. We have agreed to this ultimate marriage of convenience-not to ask
the us to commit so that we can get off the hook. We will all take on
"aspirational" targets, Bush said at the meeting. Let us understand this.

This is the ultimate and deadly bribe to seduce India and China: we will
not allow the Europeans and others to push us into legally binding
targets. This way is better: voluntary commitments and no targets.

Just think. This is a way in which we will all go to hell together. The
fact is that the world needs to act. It needs to act decisively and
urgently. We can already see the repercussions of a mere 0.7°c increase
in global temperatures in terms of melting glaciers and extreme weather
and rain events. Just think what it will be like when the world sees, on
average, an increase of 1.5°c, which is now inevitable because of the
stock of emissions already in the atmosphere, or 2°c, which is the best
we can get if we are responsible. The Bush way is disastrous. It must
not be acceptable.

But we are hypocrites. We laid the foundation stone for this Bush
conclave when we agreed to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean
Development and Climate, which was launched by the US administration
just under two years ago. This partnership had just one aim: to break
the multilateral processes built around legally binding commitments by
proving that voluntary action agreed by the major polluting nations
would be effective. Many meetings down the line, the partnership has led
to nothing concrete on the ground. But then who cares?

But we have to care. Climate is too serious a business to be made a joke
out of, as is done by the US president and his administration. We need
to explain to the rich world why it needs to act decisively and cut its
emissions and how it needs to change its lifestyle. We need to show how
we can participate meaningfully in a strategy to avoid future emissions.

We also need to say how this can be done through providing emission
rights for all; effective technology transfer and hard funds to pay for
transition into low-carbon growth options.

We must make it clear that we are not unwilling and reluctant partners
in this climate endgame. We are players and we are serious. Bush's party
is not ours to enjoy.

Read editorial online >>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/cover_nl.asp?mode=2

To comment, write to >> editor[AT]downtoearth[DOT]org[DOT]in

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Posted by Kaks at 10:47 PM 0 comments  

Simupedia - A wiki about building simulation

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The goal of Simupedia is to provide qualified information about building simulation to different stakeholders of the built environment, with focus on energy consumption, thermal comfort, room airflow, daylighting and environmental impact. Based on practise in design of real buildings Simupedia shows that building simulations - as a new, innovative approach in the planning process - are superior to the standard way of planning. End of Post. Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 8:55 AM 0 comments  

A Getting Started Tutorial for EnergyPlus

Dr. Vishal Garg of the International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderbad, India, has created an EnergyPlus tutorial aimed at architects and engineers who are familiar with the basic concepts of energy simulation and HVAC systems. The tutorial out-lines the procedures for modeling a small room using EnergyPlus, including instruction on how to run the simulation, and how to interpret the output files. The output presents both heating and cooling energy consumption so the user may experiment with size, orientation, material properties, location, etc., and compare heating/cooling energy usage. End of Post. Read more on this article...

Posted by Kaks at 8:51 AM 0 comments