Green Construction

California will soon be home to the world’s two largest solar towers through an ambitious project known as The Palen Solar Electrical Generating System. The United States Department of Interior states that the country was to add 1.1 GW to its clean energy capacity. California has estimated to have a third of their power derived from renewable sources by the year 2030. The new $2.6 billion solar project will be a joint development between Abengoa, a technology solutions provider for sustainable development and BrightSource Energy, a thermal technology company. Albengoa will build the plants as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor and will lead the operation and maintenance of the plants once online while BrightSource will provide the solar field technology and plant design. The two towers will be constructed on Federal land in a Department of Interior Solar Energy  Zone, Riverside County California. Each Palen Solar tower will stand 750 feet tall, allowing...

So far we are well acquainted with various green construction practices with regards to vegetated roof gardens and walls which help in stabilization of the indoor environmental quality as well as absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Various buildings have been developed with living walls, such as the mossy office buildings in Amiens, France and Sao Paulo furniture showroom . However, some of these measures can put various structural stresses on the building facades and are also difficult to maintain to quite an extent. Therefore, the researchers from the Barcelona’s Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) have developed a concept of merging the vegetation with structural support through production of biological concrete i.e. constructing a living façade with lichens, mosses and other living organisms. According to the researchers, this concrete captures rainwater which will create a favorable environment for the growth of organisms on the surface. (Above: S imul...