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Conceptual Understanding: Efficient energy use is an important consideration for designers in today’s society.
Conceptual Understanding: Energy conservation and efficient energy use are pivotal in our impact on the environment.
Conceptual Understanding: A designer’s goal is to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products or services using newer technologies or creative implementation of systems to reduce usage. For example, driving less is an example of energy conservation, while driving the same amount but with a higher mileage car is energy efficient.
Embodied energy: The total energy required to produce a product.
Materials – Energy used to extract the raw materials and process them into useable building products available at the gate of the factory (“Cradle to Gate”)
Transport – Energy used to transport the building materials from the factory gate to the manufacturing site/assembly plant
Assembly – Energy used to construct and create the building
Transport – Energy used to transport the building materials to stores/customers/consumers/etc
Installation/Disassembly
Recurring – Energy used to maintain and replace certain product elements over the entire lifespan of the building
Demolition and Recycling – Energy used to demolish and recycle the building and feed the resultant materials back into the building materials “food chain”.
Distributing energy: The method with which energy is transported from a source to where it is used.
National and international grid systems: An electrical supply distribution network that can be national or international. International grids allow electricity generated in one country to be used in another.
Traditional method of distributing energy. An electrical grid is an interconnected network for delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers. It consists of generating stations that produce electrical power, high-voltage transmission lines that carry power from distant sources to demand centers, and distribution lines that connect individual customers.
Local combined heat and power (CHP): CHP plants that generate heat and power for a local community - the plant is close enough to the community so that the heat generated can be dispersed through the community efficiently.
Combined heat and power (CHP) is an efficient and clean approach to generating electric power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source.
CHP is used either to replace or supplement conventional separate heat and power. Instead of purchasing electricity from the local utility and burning fuel in an on-site furnace or boiler to produce thermal energy, an industrial or commercial facility can use CHP to provide both energy services in one energy-efficient step.
Systems for individual energy generation: To enable the ability of an individual to use devices needing small amounts of energy to run low-energy products systems such as micro-generation have to be considered.
This includes the small-scale generation of heat and electric power by individuals, small businesses and communities (often in remote locations) to meet their own needs, as alternatives or supplements to traditional centralized grid-connected power.
Although this may be motivated by practical considerations, such as unreliable grid power or long distance from the electrical grid, the term is mainly used currently for environmentally conscious approaches that aspire to zero or low-carbon footprints or cost reduction. This includes solar power, wind turbines and other dynamo systems.
Quantification and mitigation of carbon emissions
Quantification and mitigation of carbon emissions is an ongoing process which is much disputed in the scientific world.
It is a process to try and establish where and how much carbon is being produced globally, establishing a carbon footprint.
Quantification of carbon emissions: Measuring
Record carbon emissions
Discover how much is being produced
Discover who/ where it is produced
Track your carbon footprint
Defining numerically the carbon emissions generated by a particular
Mitigation of carbon emissions: Reducing
Humans intervention in the reduction of carbon emissions
These contribute to global warming
Resulting in melting polar caps, rising seas, desertification,
provide ‘Sinks’ that can reabsorb carbon emissions (‘Sinks’ are forests, vegetation or soils)
Portable power supply: Batteries
A battery is a device consisting of two or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy.
Batteries and other electronic components (capacitors, chips, etc) have had a great impact on the portability of electronic products and, as new technologies are developed, they can become more efficient and smaller.
Batteries are made from important resources and chemicals, including lead, cadmium, zinc, lithium and mercury which can have their own issues with ethical extraction of material and disposal in landfills
Safe disposal of batteries:
Each battery placed in the bright red recycling box will be taken apart and many of the materials will be recovered and used to make new batteries or something else. If you put your batteries into a rubbish bin they will be taken to landfill sites and the resources lost.
Recycling batteries is essential as it keeps them out of landfill, where heavy metals may leak into the ground when the battery casing corrodes, causing soil and water pollution.
If batteries are incinerated with household waste, the heavy metals in them may cause air pollution.
Here are the main batteries used.
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