December, 2008

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder is reporting that Barack Obama may use a Supreme Court ruling to enact a plan to cap the emissions of carbon dioxide — a cap and trade plan. As we reported in the October issue of Building Operating Management, the...

It seems everyone is abuzz lately about the presidential transition. Who will President-elect Barack Obama pick to serve in his cabinet? Part of the reason for the interest is that the people Obama picks can serve as an early indicator as to which direction...

A change in global warming policy is coming. Regular readers of Building Operating Management know this isn't news. Our October cover story pointed out that both John McCain and Barack Obama had committed to solving global warming by enacting a plan...

As far as thermal storage systems go, this project near Sapporo, Japan may just take the cake. According to this article , the project is hoping to slash cooling costs for the airport by 30 percent by harvesting snow, storing it year-round with heat-insulating...

When good companies go green, they sometimes miss the mark. The latest evidence was in the Wall Street Journal . I opened a recent copy and noticed a full-page color add for a helicopter manufacturer. The exploded view ad touted improved features on the...

How Energy Efficient Does a Building Have to be Before it's Considered Green? That's one of the questions that came up during an interview on high-performance buildings in this month's issue of Building Operating Management . The truth is...

Every now and then I'm reminded that for all the noise made in the last few years on sustainability, the green building movement is barely into adolescence. Yes, the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program has found some healthy market acceptance...

When it comes to reliability in the data center, power isn't the problem. As one consultant told me at the 7x24 Exchange Spring Conference , power isn't the issue anymore. Data center operators really just need to point where the power needs to...

As I write this, it's 1:30 p.m. Do you know how secure your building is? If the recent poll posted on FacilitiesNet is any indication, you don't. According to the poll, only 38 percent of the buildings managed by respondents have had a security...

When I was younger, family members would often give me a call for advice when it was time to buy a new computer. The conversation was the same. There were so many different brands and so many different prices it was difficult for them to sort through...

When the three remaining Democrats gathered in Las Vegas to debate last night, it was a pretty tepid affair . But near the end of the two-hour debate came a brief skirmish that should be of interest to facility executives. The subject was energy policy...

Crude oil prices are on what feels like a relentless upward march. The subprime mortgage mess is threatening to spill into the broader economy. If it does, it will almost surely act as a brake on growth. One doesn't have to look hard to hear people...

It pays to be a facility manager. That's one of the conclusions of a new survey of facility managers, Profiles 2007 , conducted by Building Operating Management and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). Individuals with less than...

Cooling is a familiar problem to most facility executives who deal with data centers. Whether it's dealing with a hot spot caused by a server or simply keeping a data center running at a temperature that will keep servers operating reliably, cooling...

Energy consumption of data centers is clearly a problem. As a forthcoming article in Building Operating Management points out, the energy consumed by data centers has doubled since 2000. It's projected to double again by 2011, if the current trends...

I recently returned from the ASIS show and Las Vegas. Like many of the various trade shows editors attend, much show's focus was on the floor where manufacturers were displaying their latest pieces of security hardware. The sophistication of security...

When facility executives think of energy efficiency initiatives, one thought that quickly rises to the surface is capital spending. It's understandable. From a BAS to fluorescent lighting to chillers (to say nothing of computers and copiers) buildings...

Ban Porches and Ferraris from the road? It's an argument being floated across the pond in Europe, where environmentalists say that the threat of global climate change is making such vehicles a luxury the planet can no longer afford on account of their...

At more than 32,000 square feet, a four-story public restroom in China is not only in the running to become the world's largest bathrooom, but quite possibly also a facility executives' worst nightmare. The few details provided in the Associated...

On-site power generation is nothing new for facility executives. Many facility executives have backup generators on site, with a number of them using the using the generators to cut peak demand as a way to save on energy costs. And an increasing number...

I just returned from the NeoCon show in Chicago. As can be expected, sustainability/green was a major part of the buzz. I spoke to a representative from one company that had undertaken an initiative to make all of its showrooms certified by the U.S. Green...

It's the kind of story that sounds more like fiction than fact: For eight months, an 18-year-old student slept, took classes and ate among some 17,000 students for nearly eight months. Only she wasn't a student. And yet that's exactly what...

I recently returned from the American Institute of Architects National Convention and Expo in San Antonio. After spending a couple days at the show, one thing seems clear — building information modeling is coming. And soon. Of course the idea has...

Most facility executives would probably agree: preventing the kind of tragic shooting that occurred last month on the Virginia Tech campus when student Seung-*** Cho killed 32 members of the community is a very difficult task. While difficult, that doesn't...

It's easy to jump to conclusions after a tragedy like the shooting that occurred at Virginia Tech this week. According to a timeline on the college's Web site, an email was sent notifying students at 9:26 a.m., roughly two hours after police were...