Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 11/02/2007
This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here.
Titles here, abstracts below:
- Evaluating the benefits and costs of increased water-use efficiency in commercial buildings
- Missouri University researchers go nano, natural and green
- Investigation into chemical plant explosion, fire begins
- A study of 201s and tombstoning in Pb-free systems
- Sustainable procurement of wood and paper-based products: an introduction
- Even occasional use of spray cleaners may cause asthma in adults
- Immigrant workers get Viet AID for jobs
- Power companies turn on the greenwash
- The dirty dozen in cosmetics
- Greencontractors.us [website]
1. Evaluating the benefits and costs of increased water-use efficiency in commercial buildings
Author: Groves, David G.; Fischbach, Jordan; Hickey, Scot
Source: RAND Corporation, 2007
Abstract: Water is a critical input to commercial buildings, yet the amount of water required to meet the uses in a typical commercial building is highly variable. Water use depends on the technology employed in water-using devices, system maintenance, and intensity of building use. The cost of water used in commercial buildings can be substantial, and commercial building owners and managers face increasing operation costs in regions where water is scarce and the costs of energy used to heat water are on the rise. Commercial building owners have many options for improving the water-use efficiency of their buildings. They can increase efficiency by replacing or retrofitting water-using devices before scheduled remodels. They can also purchase more efficient models when updating restrooms and other water-using systems. Not all efficiency investments will make financial sense to a building owner. A key decision facing owners is whether and how much to invest in new technologies, retrofits, or repairs to improve water efficiency.
This report presents an analytical framework and describes a spreadsheet-based tool to help commercial building owners make reasoned judgments about various water-efficiency investment options. The framework considers the costs that are typically incurred when improving efficiency and seeks to include all tangible financial benefits. Specifically, it considers the avoided water, wastewater, and energy costs realized through increased water efficiency, and it allows the user to specify tiered utility rates that can have a significant impact on investment decisions. As future water savings from efficiency investments cannot always be forecast with certainty, the model includes an innovative scenario-analysis capability to consider variable increases in utility prices (a key uncertainty affecting the financial performance of water efficiency). Although the costs and water savings of efficiency devices may also be uncertain, the framework described here assumes that these characteristics are known with certainty.
Link: http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2007/RAND_TR461.pdf
2. Missouri University researchers go nano, natural and green
Source: Research at MU, November 1, 2007
Abstract: In 2002, U.S. farmers harvested 2.7 billion bushels of soybeans. Last year in Missouri, farmers harvested 194 million bushels of soybeans worth about $1.2 billion. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia is turning those soybeans into gold, with nothing more than a little water. MU researchers Kattesh Katti, Kannan Raghuraman, and Kavita Katti led a team of scientists that have discovered how to make gold nanoparticles using gold salts, soybeans and water. No other chemicals are used in the process, which means this new process could have major environmental implications for the future. "Typically, a producer must use a variety of synthetic or man-made chemicals to produce gold nanoparticles," said Katti. "In addition, to make the chemicals necessary for production, you need to have other artificial chemicals produced, creating an even larger, negative environmental impact. Our new process only takes what nature has made available to us and uses that to produce a technology that has already proven to have far-reaching impacts in technology and medicine."
Gold nanoparticles are tiny pieces of gold, so small that they cannot be seen by the naked eye. Researchers believe that gold nanoparticles will be used in cancer detection and treatment and in the production of "smart" electronic devices in the computer and telecommunications industry. While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, researchers have been worried about the environmental impact of the global nanotechnological revolution.
Link: http://research.missouri.edu/news/stories/071031_nano.htm
3. Investigation into chemical plant explosion, fire begins
Source: Associated Press, October 31, 2007
Abstract: Flames continued to smolder Tuesday at a chemical distribution center northeast of Des Moines, a day after a fire led to huge explosions and towering clouds of black smoke.
Officials at Barton Solvents hired private contractors to douse the remaining fires and begin cleanup at the site. They’ll take over from numerous fire agencies that were able to control the blaze overnight after being driven back because of the fire’s intensity.
The fire began Monday afternoon in a warehouse where ethyl acetate was being transferred from an exterior storage tank to a portable tank on the loading dock, said Barton president David Casten. The chemical is used in adhesives, ink, enamel and paint, he said.
Link: http://www.timesrepublican.com/Central%20Iowa/articles.asp?articleID=14507
4. A study of 201s and tombstoning in Pb-free systems
Author: Neathway, Paul; Butterfield, Andrew; Chu, Quyen; Tokotch, Nick; Haddick, Robert; Peallat, Jean-Marc; Shea, Chrys; Chouta, Prashant
Source: Circuits Assembly, October 2007
Abstract: The mechanics of tombstoning are based on molten solder wetting forces, component mass and geometry. If solder paste under one termination melts and starts wetting to the termination before the other side does, the wetting action force can pull that component up on its end. Typically, the smaller and lighter the component is, the more susceptible it is to tombstoning.
Factors in tombstoning can be classified into two main categories: design-related (pad design; pad definition, mask or metal; thermal balance between pads; unfilled microvias in the pads) and process-related factors (numerous, and often difficult to quantify). Many DoEs have been performed and published on the topic, often focusing on best practices for design and assembly.
Most 0201 assembly processes were optimized prior to the transition to Pb-free processing. Increasing production of Pb-free products and the associated tighter process windows now dictate a reassessment of the key parameters that can affect tombstone formation.
Conditions varied in this phase of the experiment were component type, padstack, paste volume, paste offset, placement offset, reflow profile and reflow atmosphere. The largest contributor to defect generation was the combination of 0.1 mm (0.004") paste offsets in the X direction and concurrent 0.1 mm placement offsets in X and Y directions. In descending order of influence, the next three major factors were component type, orientation, and reflow atmosphere.
Of the top four factors, two cannot be controlled by the assembler. Component type and orientation are characteristics of the circuit design that are not likely to be changed. The reflow atmosphere may or may not be controllable, as the availability of nitrogen is limited by geographic location and cost sensitivity of the end product. The most predominant factor, however – the print and placement offsets – are almost completely controllable at the assembly level. The impact of removing mechanical slop from the assembly process brought the overall defect rates from 11,823 to 2,513 ppm, or from 7,845 ppm to 156 ppm excluding the solder ball count.
Both offset conditions can be addressed with ordinary process control methods. Machine repeatability can be measured through capability studies; positional accuracy can be addressed by calibration, and stencils/placement programs can be scaled to compensate for PWB positional inaccuracies. It is an accepted notion that process control improves yield performance, and that as feature sizes get smaller, controlling key parameters becomes increasingly important. The dramatic effect of the simulated “sloppy” print/place process on all defect modes demonstrates the need for process controls.
Of the three paste types, the no-clean tin-lead produced the least amount of overall defects, followed by no-clean Pb-free and water-washable Pb-free. Under controlled print and placement conditions, both no-clean pastes produced defect levels of less than 100 ppm, regardless of atmosphere, profile, or padstack.
Of the four pad stacks, the largest produced the least defects, with the mid-sized pads running a close second. The smallest pad showed over four times as many defects as the largest or mid-sized pads.
Link: http://circuitsassembly.com/cms/content/view/5449/95/
5. Sustainable procurement of wood and paper-based products: an introduction
Source: World Resources Institute (WRI); and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), 2007
Abstract: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute have partnered to publish Sustainable Procurement of Wood and Paper-based Products: An Introduction to assist purchasing managers by:
_ Identifying the central issues around sustainable procurement of wood and paperbased
products;
_ Providing a general overview on these issues;
_ Providing an overview of some of the tools, initiatives, programs and labels, and other resources that have emerged to assist sustainable procurement.
This guide is for business executives who are significant users and purchasers of pulp, paper, packaging, timber and wood-based products, and that do not have “in house” forests and forestry expertise.
Many tools, projects, initiatives and labels have emerged over the past few years to aid sustainable procurement; those new to the subject may find this proliferation of advice confusing. This guide highlights and characterizes, for the first time, a selected number of resources, and it provides a comprehensive overview of the issues central to sustainable procurement.
Link: http://pdf.wri.org/gfw_sustainableprocurementguide_intro.pdf
6. Even occasional use of spray cleaners may cause asthma in adults
Source: ScienceDaily, October 14, 2007
Abstract: Using household cleaning sprays and air fresheners as little as once a week can raise the risk of developing asthma in adults, say researchers in Europe. Such products have been associated with increased asthma rates in cleaning professionals, but a similar effect in nonprofessional users has never before been shown. "Frequent use of household cleaning sprays may be an important risk factor for adult asthma," wrote lead author Jan-Paul Zock, Ph.D., of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology at the Municipal Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona, Spain. The investigators used baseline data from the first phase of the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS I), one of the world's largest epidemiologic studies of airway disease, and interviews conducted in the follow-up phase, ECRHS II. Altogether, the study included more than 3,500 subjects across 22 centers in 10 European countries. Subjects were assessed for current asthma, current wheeze, physician-diagnosed asthma and allergy at follow-up, which took place an average of nine years after their first assessment. They were also asked to report the number of times per week they used cleaning products.
Two-thirds of the study population who reported doing the bulk of cleaning were women, about six percent of whom had asthma at the time of follow-up. Fewer than ten percent of them were full-time homemakers.
The risk of developing asthma increased with frequency of cleaning and number of different sprays used, but on average was about thirty to fifty percent higher in people regularly exposed to cleaning sprays than in others. The researchers found that cleaning sprays, especially air fresheners, furniture cleaners and glass-cleaners, had a particularly strong effect.
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071012080132.htm
7. Immigrant workers get Viet AID for jobs
Source: UML eNews, November 2007
Abstract: It has been three years now since the first of two house fires, in Somerville and Hull, claimed the lives of three Vietnamese immigrants and left three others badly burned. All the men were floor finishers; all were the victims of explosions that detonated the flammable solvent they were using at the time — a flammable “lacquer sealer” marketed almost exclusively to the Vietnamese immigrant community.
It seemed likely to happen again. Floor finishing, at least since the 1980s, has been a huge draw for Vietnamese immigrants. It offers decent wages — $60 to $80 a day — to workers who are often not fluent in English. Few of them, according to one spokeswoman at the time, could afford to be concerned about the risks.
“That is not a big priority to them,” Huong Nguyen, a member of Dorchester’s Vietnamese-American Initiative for Development (Viet AID), told the Boston Globe not long after the accidents. “They are close to the chemicals, which are flammable and produce noxious smells — but this is not something they think about. They are trying to earn a living. Their [only] concern is, ‘This is a lucrative business for us.’ ”
But the inevitable has not happened. There have been no more floor-finishing deaths in Massachusetts. Several distributors have agreed to stop stocking flammable sealants; another has provided training. A pending state law, likely to see passage this year, would require finishers to be trained and registered before they could work in the industry; another would ban the sale of flammable sealants. The Vietnamese community in general is more aware, and more respectful, of the risks.
All this — and more, it is hoped — has been the outcome of a shared initiative in which the University has been a leading player. It began with a study by UMass Lowell Work Environment Prof. Lenore Azaroff, coauthored by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, by Viet AID, and by the non-profit New Ecology Inc., that took shape even before the accidents that claimed the workers’ lives.
“Fire is a constant threat in a work setting that combines highly flammable solvent, large quantities of airborne wood dust, electrical equipment, heat and friction inside old homes,” wrote Azaroff and her coauthors at the time. “Immigrant workers, who perform a large quantity of this work, are at special risk.”
But Azaroff’s Work Environment wasn’t the only UMasss Lowell engine driving the initiative. With the flammability (or low flash-point) of the sealants being the critical issue to the workers, the University’s Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) got involved: lab-testing the sealants, recommending safer alternatives, and finally — through a $12,000 grant, followed by a second-year grant for $15,000 — enabling the training and public awareness that would both reverse the trend toward unsafe sealants and address the workers’ economic concerns.
Link: http://www.uml.edu/Media/eNews/
In%20Dorchester,%20a%20Step%20Toward%20Safer%20Lives.html
8. Power companies turn on the greenwash
Source: University of Michigan News Service, October 4, 2007
Abstract: Many companies that say they are reducing greenhouse gases are actually increasing emissions, says a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
"The problem is not that companies are lying but rather that they are taking advantage of lax and inconsistent reporting rules," said Thomas Lyon, professor of business economics and natural resources and director of the U-M's Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. "Until these reporting loopholes are closed, the registry runs the risk of merely being a greenwashing tool for companies worried about their image."
The registry to which Lyon refers is the U.S. Department of Energy's voluntary program to report reductions of greenhouse gases—a registry created in accordance with section 1605b of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Greenwash is the dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image.
A new study by Lyon and U-M doctoral student Eun-Hee Kim shows that about 60 percent of companies that voluntarily participate in the Department of Energy program show increases in greenhouse gas emissions rather than decreases.
Surprisingly, the researchers found that nonparticipating companies tend to have decreased emissions over time, relative to a 1995 baseline.
Link: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6087
9. The dirty dozen in cosmetics
Author: Zandonella, Catherine
Source: The GreenGuide, October/November 2007
Abstract: Beauty is only skin deep, but the products we use to attain it contain chemicals that may penetrate far deeper. The average adult uses nine personal care products a day, with roughly 120 chemicals spread among them, many of which are incompletely tested for toxicity.
Below we've listed 12 chemicals that are best avoided. A single exposure to any of them is unlikely to cause harm, but daily exposure over a lifetime may add up. When shopping, be prepared to spend some time reading labels; even brands that advertise themselves as "natural" or "botanical" have been known to include some of these
Link: http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/122/dirtydozen
10. Greencontractors.us [website]
Source: Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), 2007
Abstract: This website will serve the needs of those who design, build, renovate and maintain the mechanical systems of high performance buildings. In addition, we will provide resources on this site for contractors who are evolving our nation’s energy infrastructure toward clean technologies. The site is structured around six basic questions:
Why go green? Change takes commitment based on an understanding of the big picture. Get the facts and figures here.
Who are the people, companies and organizations shaping this new green mechanical world? Whether you are an MCAA, MSCA or PCA member or are part of an MCAA student chapter, you can find the resources and educational programs that will help you add to your capabilities here.
What are green building and alternative energy project opportunities for the mechanical industry? What is the LEED Rating System for high performance green buildings and who implements it? This section will be the home of our Project Portfolio featuring projects of our contractor and manufacturer members, so let us know about your projects so they can be added to the database.
How can your company become an industry-leading green contractor? Here are the resources on the business side of going green. A main feature is our Contractors’ Guide to LEED —- a mechanical construction-specific guide to the LEED for New Construction rating system developed by MCAA. Being a green contractor is more than building a green project – the construction process can be somewhat different. Another new resource in this section is our greenWiki -- an interactive feature that allows contractors to add and annotate articles on green-related topics, including their experiences with the LEED Rating System in practice. This section will also be home to the MCAA’s Manufacturer/Supplier Council members' Product Showcase, which will alert members to new green products as they become available.
Where is the green marketplace now? Here’s a statistical overview of the projects built and underway. Look here for links to federal, state and local mandates and initiatives.
When will the green marketplace take off? This section brings you information about the drivers of growth for green mechanical construction. Here we also take a look at advocacy efforts that can aid the growth of this market.
Link: http://greencontractors.us/
You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly interested in monitoring, and who else should see Greenlist. An online search of the TURI Library catalog can be done at http://slk060.liberty3.net/turi for greater topic coverage.
This page updated Friday November 02 2007