WEBVTT - Net-Zero Energy Skyscrapers: A Tall Order 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:06.720 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:19.440 forward Thinking. Welcome to forward Thinking. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.200 Lauren Vocalbon, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we wanted 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.680 to talk a bit about really energy efficient buildings, Buildings 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:31.440 that are so energy efficient that they actually don't either 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.320 they do not draw any energy from the power grid 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.080 at all, zero net zero, or they maybe they draw 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.000 energy from the power grid, but they also put energy 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.160 back in still being net zero, or they're just very 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.760 very low energy so they draw a little bit from 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.120 the grid but not a lot, or they're even energy positive, 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.880 which means they just feed energy back into the power grid. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.840 And uh, we wanted to talk about what it takes 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.360 to make a building do that, and what it would 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.600 take to make a really big building do that, because 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.720 it's one thing to design a residential home that can 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:13.840 be uh net zero energy uh compliant, Right, That's that's 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.000 one thing. But to design a skyscraper that can do it, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.119 that has a completely different set of challenges that get 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.720 much more complex. And so we wanted to kind of 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.199 talk about this whole idea and why we should even 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.160 consider it in the first place. Uh. So, really, the 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.759 net zero thing is is pretty self explanatory. I mean, 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.120 you could at least imagine one in theory, you could 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.639 imagine that. Let's say that you have a farmhouse that's 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.039 on a essentially a plane, right, and you get lots 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.440 of sunlight generally speaking, throughout the year, and you also 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.120 have some you know, you have some good winds that 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.960 go through the area. So maybe with wind turbines and 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.200 solar panels and with a very good design of your house, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.000 you might collect this on light appropriately at different times 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.720 the day. Right, And we'll get into all of that 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.960 in a minute. Uh, that sort of stuff might allow 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.720 you to be self sufficient. In fact, you could theoretically 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.440 have a building that's so self sufficient it doesn't even 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.639 connect to a power grid and off the grid. Yes, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.320 you're off the grid. Uh granted you're you're still being 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:23.320 tracked because someone's always looking for you. Just kidding, just kidding. Well, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.760 so we we've heard of houses like this. At your house, 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.560 it it has a nuclear reactor inside, or it has whatever, 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.520 it hasnsters running in wheels, whatever it is that makes 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.520 this house self sufficient. But you mentioned bigger buildings. Have 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:45.960 we ever heard of a truly truly energy self sufficient, 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.320 a net zero high rise, the large kind of building 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.480 you'd see in a city. There's, Um, there's supposedly some 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:59.600 I say supposedly because it's it's difficult to to actually confirm. Well, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.919 let supposed a right. So so there's there's a building 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:08.160 called the Pearl River Tower in guang Sho, China, and uh, 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.320 and this tower is seventy one stories tall, So I 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.799 think that that counts a skyscraper. Seventy one stories tall? 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.560 Does that count of skyscraper? I believe you would think 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.359 that it would have to. I mean that it's it's 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.520 at least a high rise. Yes, at the least it's 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.720 at seventy stories I think, I think, I'm I'm willing 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.040 to call it a skyscraper. Of course, I live in Atlanta, 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.880 where a seventy story building would be enormous. In fact, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.880 we only have a couple that reached that high. UM anyway, 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.160 it's it's it's like the the fourth largest or fourth 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.040 tallest building in Guangzho and the some somewhere in the 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.400 twenties for all of China. UM it's two point three 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.480 million square feet of space, and it's an office building. 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.000 So there's no residential in here as far as I 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.800 can tell. It's all offices. Uh, and it was, it's 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.440 it's supposedly net zero. I say supposedly because I don't 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.440 I haven't checked it out personally. Well, yeah, I don't 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.960 have any way of specifically going there and seeing it 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.800 and making sure that in fact, and the numbers on it. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.160 You know, the engineers have have an interest in making 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.719 it sound as good as possible. Of course, Well, we 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.520 don't want to cast out, but they're fine, upstanding citizens. 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:26.200 But well, they do have an interest, right, right, The 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.360 point being that we cannot confirm, right, We can only 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.080 take in the data that is available from the people 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.960 who built the thing. And and there's no way that 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.240 you can say that that's unbiased. I mean, by by 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.600 its very nature it's biased. It may still be correct, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.760 but it is biased. Right. But wait a second here, 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.880 So a seventy plus story building that doesn't use any 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.599 more energy than it makes? How is that possible? All right? Now, 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.279 assuming that in fact that claim is true, here's how 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:57.719 they did it. First of all, it was it was 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:03.840 designed by by two American architects, Gordon Gill and Adrian D. Smith. Actually, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.440 I'm assuming they are American. I know that they designed 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:11.240 it in Chicago. Uh. The the building itself was completed 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:16.320 in late early and Uh. The way that they generate 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.520 energy is through several different methods. They use something called 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:27.320 uh passive solar power. Actually they call it sunlight harvesting. 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:29.720 That's how they refer to it and there on their website. 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.480 But they also use wind turbines. They have two large 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:37.520 sections of the building where it's designed to channel wind 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.360 through these sections and wind turbines are in them. So 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.680 it's like like a jet engine for your building kind of. Yeah, 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.640 if you were to look at the building face on, 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.000 you would see that there were two levels within this building. 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.560 So it's like the buildings in three big sections, right. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.800 So you see floors where obviously office space exists, and 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.200 there's a chunk floors, and then there's this weird level, 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.640 and then there's another chunk of floors and the weird level, 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.160 and then the third chunk of floors. Those two weird 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.200 levels are actually the wind turbine levels, and they're channeling 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.040 the wind through. So if you the other thing is, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:09.640 if you were to look at the building in profile, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.120 the the the the the outward facing walls would look 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.560 kind of curved from floor to floor because it's actually 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.000 channeling the wind through those turbines. Um they also had 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.720 photo voltaic cells also known as solar panels, and they 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.040 use stuff like a raised floor ventilation and radiant heating 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.560 and cooling ceilings to help control the temperature inside the 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.039 building to reduce the need for using energy to to 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:43.479 run the HVAC system. So that's how this building supposedly operates. 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.720 It also makes it really uh easy to get all 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.800 that sunlight because from the pictures I saw, it's the 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.000 only really tall building in its area, there aren't any 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.640 other neighboring skyscrapers butting up against this thing, right, which 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.160 has to make it immenseally easier to to a catch 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.880 that wind and betch the sunlight. Right. Harvesting the sunlight 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.240 is a lot easier when you don't have another normous 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.640 building casting a shadow on you. So that's that's generally 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.440 how it's done, and of course that's uh kind of 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:17.000 how all net zero buildings work in some to some extent. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.360 There there's an effort of actual energy production as well 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.760 as energy conservation that's going on, so well, let's look 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.480 at some of those features individually and see what they take. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.920 And now, I imagine everybody's heard of solar panels and 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.600 wind turbines. Probably a lot of people aren't familiar with 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.559 passive solar, right, yes, So, so like a solar panel 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.000 would be an active solar system because you're actually actively 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.400 grabbing that solar energy and converting it into electricity. What 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.640 is passive solar? Passive solar is uh it's a design issue. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.200 It's hard to just added onto a building the way 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.400 you might be able to. So take your average skyscraper 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.400 that already exists, all right, you could stick solar panels 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:06.320 all over it if that's a feasible upgrade. The passive 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.120 solar is a design issue from the ground floor, and 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.640 it means that essentially the building is constructed in a 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.760 way to make perfect use of natural sunlight. Um And 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.480 a lot of this just comes down to heating and cooling. Uh. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.280 I looked up the U. S Department of Energy says 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:31.440 that the average home's utility bill in America, fifty four 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.120 per cent of that is just heating and cooling. Heating 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.640 and cooling is a huge amount of the power we 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.360 use in our buildings and infrastructure because we like to 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.320 be comfortable, right, Um, But like I like my I 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.320 like my building cave cold, right well, you know, so 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.120 we can you know, wave our hands at that. But 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:52.800 I don't know, I don't know if I could sit 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.440 in an office sweaty and like get my work I have, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.000 I don't. I don't recommend it. It's yeah, it's it's definitely, 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.640 you know. So we we like to be comfortable. We 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.839 keep our buildings at a nice temperature. Um. But this 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.840 is really really costly if you're constantly pumping in cold air, 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.400 pumping in hot air in order to do it. Passive 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.600 solar design allows you to do this with natural angles 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:18.320 of light from the sun. So what it has to 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.600 do with is um how you orient the building. For 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.560 one thing, the building is built in such a way 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.440 with the passage of the sun in different seasons in mind. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:34.040 So it's built with side facing windows that are designed 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:39.319 to allow sunlight in in the winter to naturally heat 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.600 all the rooms, and designed so as to block the 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.000 sun in the summer. And this is because the sun 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.360 itself passes in a different arc depending upon the season, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.080 because the tilt of the earth. Keeping in mind, of course, 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:53.920 we're talking about rotation of the earth and untilt of 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.600 the earth, not the actual passage of the sun. But 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.320 it doesn't important point. It does mean, however, or that 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.200 you know, there are times, like you've probably noticed this, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.120 where there's certain times the year where at a particular 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.640 time of day, sunlight just streams in through a window 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.959 and blinds you, and you just you can't get anything done, 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.480 so they have to move to some other part of 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.920 the play house or or close a blind or something 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.000 like that. But other parts of the year, during that 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.040 same time of day, everything's fine. You don't have sunlight 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.440 coming in through that window. Same sort of thing, except 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.320 you're designing an entire building around that so that in 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.800 the winter, the sunlight comes in, it hits surfaces. They're 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.480 designed to absorb as much heat as possible and radiate 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.280 that heat out throughout the day, so that way on 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.760 during the winter months when it's cooler, the sunlight's actually 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.440 warming the interior of your house, and it's staying warm 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.400 longer than it would if it were made out of 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.800 some other material. So the material itself has to be 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.000 good at at absorbing that energy and then radiating it 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:58.200 out over time. Another issue is just simple insulation. Sure, 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.920 anybody who who if you've own to home or anything 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.800 like that, you know that installation makes a huge difference 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.120 in your energy costs, right, yeah, yeah, you know it's 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.679 all the glass panels, the floor to ceiling kind of 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.400 glass panels that we have on our current building actually 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.000 that we're sitting in right now are gorgeous. But how 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.880 energy efficient are they? Right? I don't know. They probably 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.480 lose a lot of heat. You definitely want your building 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.040 to be weather tight. That's kind of the way that 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.760 that it's industry talks about it, and that will allow 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.760 you to save a lot on your energy bills. So 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.240 that's a lot of these things we're talking about are 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.360 things that that, at least to some extent, existing buildings 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.960 can do. But you, like you were saying, Joe, you 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.440 can't take full advantage of it unless you're planning it 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.400 from the very beginning. And it's harder to rotate a 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.839 building after we've already set it up. Yeah, we put 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.680 it up on stilts. Sadly, it's not not quite like 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.720 some city where you just you know, pick this up 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.440 and move it over here. Um. Yeah. And also the 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.200 it's easier to do on a smaller scale than on 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.120 a large scale like a like a skyscraper, especially if 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.199 you're talking about the dense urban population where you've got 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.440 lots of skyscrapers together, that might mean that you don't 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.000 get even if you were to build it from the 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.960 ground up, you might not get full sunlight all day 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.160 long because of the way the other buildings are. You 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:17.800 might only be able to have you know, one of 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:19.760 these and every you know, three or four city blocks 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.640 or something for them all to be as efficient as possible. Right, Well, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.520 you mentioned the Pearl River Tower. You said it was 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.640 the only building around that according to the pictures I've seen, Yeah, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.920 there are no other skyscrapers that are immediately adjacent to it, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.880 so it doesn't it looks like it gets the full 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.080 benefit of sunlight from where it is right now. So 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.400 that would automatically kind of cut back on some of 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:47.240 the advantages if you couldn't build it close to other buildings. 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.920 And another challenge that we can think about UM with 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.280 with net zero or at least low energy skyscrapers or 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.360 high rises is um you've got to offset those costs 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.360 you you do incur, right, so you can use passive 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.160 solar to control your climate. But you still gotta turn 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.920 on the toaster and you know, run you plug in 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.520 your laptop and stuff like that. Where does that energy come? Right? So, 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.800 so you need to have some sort of energy Uh, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.360 creation like generator is what you need. You need some 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.600 form of generation to create the electricity you need for 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.560 the to run the stuff in your building. So if 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.160 even if you don't have a fusion reactor in your building, right, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.280 you're going to have Yeah, if you if you do 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.800 have a fusion reactor in your building, please let us 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.679 know because I would love to see that, but chances 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.040 are you don't. So how do you generate that electricity? 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.760 And uh, and really you're talking one of the other goals. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:42.120 We didn't really mention it, but one of the other 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.280 goals for a net zero energy building is also to 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.840 reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, which means that you know, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.920 you can't just fill up generators full of gasoline and 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.680 crank them up and use that as the way to 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.840 generate electricity. You need to find a way to generate it. 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.079 That's that's clean and so uh, the that's where the 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.640 photo voltaic cells and the wind turbines come into play, uh, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.000 to to harness the natural energies as much as possible. 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.240 But again, when you're talking about a building that's challenging, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:12.960 right right, there's only so much you can do with 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.000 wind turbines. And and study in two thousand nine found 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:21.160 that by far, wind turbines are more efficient, uh costwise 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:25.600 than than photovoltaics for doing this kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.200 they compared for for a mixed use community of about people. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.560 This was a study done by the Pacific Northwest National 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.600 lab UM. They compared five different scenarios for this, and 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.880 they found that that even in even in a city 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.720 like Phoenix that has a relatively low amount of wind 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.800 in a relatively high amount of sunlight, that um that yeah, 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.800 wind farm would win. And and also you know, Joe 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:49.880 you were pointing out earlier when we were talking before 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.320 the podcast that uh that it really depends upon the 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.600 ratio between the sides of the building that faced the 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.280 sun and the top of the building. All right, well, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.160 I mean both of these things, whether it's wind or solar, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.560 they need some sort of freedom of access, right Like 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.160 especially solar needs a direct access to the sunline. Wind 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.640 I'd imagine. I actually don't know, and this would be 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.520 interesting to find out, But do you get more uh 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.280 wind if there's less other skyscraper around you, or if 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.880 you're within a city skyline? Is that cut down on 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.359 your access to it? Actually just depends upon the geography, 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.480 because you can you can have what becomes a wind 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.120 tunnel depending But there are certain parts of Atlanta, by 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.440 the way, this is incredibly obvious. You might you might 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.120 walk down one street and you think that's a nice breeze. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.200 You walk between the buildings on Peachtree Street near the 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.640 Fox Theater, and then suddenly you are folding on for 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.160 dear life. Oh yeah, sometimes I'm driving home and I 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.400 think I'm gonna sucked up in a cyclone and my 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.400 car shakes, right, and then there's the ruby slippers that 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.280 you wear all the time. It explains a lot, Joe. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:56.720 But but the point being that, yes, I mean the 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.320 idea that that even if you were to coat the 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.680 entire side of a building with some form of solar panel, 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.880 and you know, they've talked about films that could be 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.440 used to coat different services that could act as a 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.120 photovoltaic cl Let's say that we get to that point 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.480 where we can do that, you still are limited by 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.840 the fact that that side of the building is only 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.120 going to be exposed to the sun during part of 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.400 the day, right, so part of the day it's going 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.080 to have a lot of sunlight hitting it. The top 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:25.760 of the building is going to have sunlight hitting it 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.520 for most of the day. But if if you've built 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.880 a very tall but relatively skinny building in the in 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.000 the sense that when you get to the roof you 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.000 only have a small percentage of the square footage of 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.440 the roof is only a tiny fraction of what the 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.400 sides are. That's not an efficient way to generate energy. 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.320 The taller you go, you're increasing the ratio of your 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.840 energy needs to your ability to harvest solar energy exactly. 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.440 And you know, and tall buildings like you know, the 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.640 the HVAC system that we're talking about. Let's let's assuming that, 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.680 of course, the passive solar approach is not completely eliminate 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.680 the HVAC requirements. And really, and if we're talking about 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.199 a realistic skyscraper, I can't imagine a scenario where passive 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.200 soldier takes care of all of that. Then you could 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.120 force it to people. People are just gonna have to 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.800 to shiver and sweat depending upon the time of year, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.560 or in Atlanta, depending upon the day, since we seem 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.359 to be going through winter, summer, and spring simultaneously this 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:32.800 year this week. So in that case, you know, you're 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.080 talking about the more floors you have, the greater the 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.359 amount of energy you need to maintain the climate as well. 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.440 So again, the bigger you get, the higher your footprints 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.320 going or the deeper your footprints going to go. I 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.200 guess we could say if we're gonna use that metaphor 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:48.639 so that that makes it a challenge. Also does it 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.639 depend on I mean, you know, you you mentioned that 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.119 this this Chinese building was an office space. Is it 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.440 going to take a lot more energy cost for a community, 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.760 for for a living community. I would imagine that it 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.439 probably would, because if you're talking on office space, one 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.199 of the things you could do to help limit the 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.520 energy is you essentially say, you know, at X time, 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.400 this office building is essentially closed and you can still 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.640 be here, but with the lights right right, you may 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.960 not have electricity or heat or or or air conditioning, 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.320 but you could still be here. Whereas, of course, if 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.880 it's residential oxygen now I don't think it's gotten quite 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.879 that bad. But yeah, if you for residential, clearly you 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.760 would need to have access to all of those things. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.000 More people shower, I would say, at home than they 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.800 do in their offices. So well maybe you probably you 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.280 have obviously not seen the shower on this floor, um, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.320 or the shower at my home for that man, it's 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:50.040 a talent only shower. We have, you know, their benefits 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.560 to go with the job. But yeah, so there are 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.200 some challenges here. In fact, we cannot really say for 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.600 certain if if a high rise like a skyscraper could 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.480 really be a net zero energy building, if we're talking 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:04.480 about in the middle of an urban space, it would 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.520 be an incredible challenge. Um. Maybe we could find more 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.520 efficient ways to generate electricity through things like wind power 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.840 or solar power, and that would help, but you're still 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.200 talking about a huge energy need. Another thing we could 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.679 do is looking at energy conservation, so cutting down on 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.360 things like vampire power UH standby power. So essentially that's 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.919 when you know you have your computer turned off, but 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.280 it's plugged in and it's still pulling some power from 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.280 the UH from the building. If you were able to 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.240 eliminate that and have you know the switches where when 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.320 you turn the switch off, that's it. No more powers 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.399 going through there. That would help. Or or you know, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.360 the per capita water use in America something like six 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.920 hundred and sixty thousand gallons per per family per year, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.199 and that's that's an enormous amount. That's almost twice the 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.240 global average. So yeah, so so cutting down that would 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.280 help a great deal as well. So I think it 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.639 definitely would be a huge challenge and possibly even an 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.159 impossible one right now with today's technology. That that's not 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.800 to say that we would not someday find a way 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.600 to achieve this, but uh and and if any at 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.159 any rate, going through this would mean reducing our energy consumption, 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.080 which is a good thing. I mean, whether or not 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.760 we believe the claims about this building in China, we 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.000 do know that now we can create what are called 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.600 low energy building that you know, that's it's definitely feasible 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.800 to create a building that, though it might not completely 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:36.760 break even it uses very little. Even even less is 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.520 a pretty terrific amount when you go for a couple 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.040 of years. So and there are some buildings out there, 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.000 and they're usually smaller ones that you know, they take 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.080 some energy from the grid, but then they may generate 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.960 energy throughout parts of the year and actually sell energy 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.360 back to the grid. So ultimately, if you look at 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.960 you know, if you look at the receipt at the 0:20:58.040 --> 0:20:59.520 end of the year, you might say, oh, well, this 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.800 building ultimately breaks even even though during parts of the 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.959 year it has to consume energy from the grid. Um, 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.240 So there are those options as well. And of course, 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.520 maybe one day we'll reach a point where this won't 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.080 be as big a a priority. For instance, maybe if 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:21.720 we somehow crack that fusion problem, then in k yeah, 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:23.840 we've got an energy surplus at that point. And if 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.960 you have an energy surplus, then these considerations are no 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.560 longer really important. Now, I would stress that a lot 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.320 of the things that go into this this design process 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.280 are beneficial in other ways. Besides the fact that they 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.640 help cut down our energy consumption, they also cut down 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.480 on greenhouse gas emissions, which also then means that we 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.560 have less of an impact on on climate change. So 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.800 there are other reasons to pursue these technologies besides just 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.359 right right right. But I'm saying that even if we 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:01.440 get to the day where where fusion is completely possible, 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.840 which you know, I hope that day comes. I just 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.720 I just don't you know, I don't see it happening tomorrow, 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:09.720 but if it, if it happens, maybe ten years from 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.680 now or twenty years from now, I still think that 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:17.720