The NAHB Research Center is seeking applications for the 1997 EnergyValue Housing Award, a national award for builders who integrate energy efficiency into the design, construction, and marketing of their new homes. Applications are due August 2, 1996, and winners will be announced at the 1997 NAHB Builders Show. For information, contact:... Read more

Initial construction work will focus on infrastructure, including roads and an innovative ecological wastewater... Read more

Advisory Board member Michael Nicklas received the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) highest award on April 22, for his contribution to ASES and to the field of solar energy. The 1996 Abbott Award is the first to go to a practitioner in the use of solar energy, rather than to a researcher. In his acceptance speech, Nicklas noted that... Read more

The March 1996 issue of

Energy Design Update reports that fire tests at a laboratory in California have demonstrated that spray-applied cellulose insulation can be a more effective fire stop than conventional wood firestops in a 2x4 wall. The testing was done as part of an effort to gain Uniform Building Code (UBC) approval for the... Read more

As always, your dossier on windows was very informative. Below are a few other points to look for.

by American Forests (P.O. Box 2000, Washington, DC 20013) and Home Builder Press of the National Association of Home Builders (1201 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005), 1995. 120 pages; paperback $12.

Electricity consumption from renewable energy sources is continuing to show strong growth in the United States. Wind energy has been growing the fastest, with consumption increasing 50% from 1990 to 1994 (from 0.024 to 0.036 quads), according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 1995

Renewable Energy Annual. The photovoltaics industry is... Read more

The field of practitioners and researchers dealing with issues of building and the environment has various factions. Many people have arrived at green building as an extension of their commitment to energy-efficient construction, while others are more focused on occupant health and well-being—the indoor environment. In recent years these... Read more

The President’s Council on Sustainable Development and President Clinton have selected 15 recipients of Presidential Honors Awards, exemplifying successful integration of economic viability, environmental integrity, and social well-being. Award winners in the building, design, and building products fields include:

Are our buildings making us sick? Yes, say an increasing number of indoor air quality specialists in government agencies, academia, and the emerging industry working to solve these problems. By some estimates, direct medical costs associated with IAQ problems in the United States are as high as $15 billion per year, with indirect costs of $60... Read more

Amoco/Enron Solar Power Development plans to build a four-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) generation plant in Hawaii in 1997 with a $1.14 million award from the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (UPVG). The facility will use thin-film PV cells made by Solarex, which since January 1995 has been a subsidiary of the partnership between Amoco and Enron. Upon... Read more

Tree Talk, Inc., PO Box 426, Burlington, Vermont 05402; 802/863-6789, 802/863-4344 (fax), wow@together.net (e-mail). CD-ROM Pro version: $99; CD-ROM standard version: $29.95; Compact (floppy disk) version: $19.95.

Woods of the World (WoW) in July 1994, it had lots of useful information but also lots of gaps, and... Read more

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, 55 Murray Street, Suite 330, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 4M3, Canada; 613/241-3600, 613/241-5750 (fax). Published bimonthly, 20 pages per issue, $79 per year (Canadian dollars in Canada, U.S. dollars in the U.S.), $59 for Green Building Information Council members.

Thank you for the review you gave WWPA’s

Eco-Profile of Lumber Produced in the Western United States: Life Cycle Inventory of WWPA Western Lumber. Your comments on the study were both thorough and fair.

Hemp,

Cannabis sativa, can be grown again in Germany with the recent lifting of a ban on hemp cultivation. Germany will join other European countries that cultivate hemp as a quality fiber source, which can reduce demand for forest products. A fiber-cement building block using hemp is already being produced in France. The states of... Read more

In a move that would appear to reinforce the National Association of Home Builders’ anti-environmental policies, the Association’s Committee on Energy was voted out of existence at the January 29 Board of Directors’ meeting. Ironically, the decision was made just a day after the First Annual Energy Value Housing Awards were presented, with the... Read more

40 pages; $8.00 postpaid from the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, P.O. Box 100, Missoula, MT 59806; 406/549-7678.

I read your lead article “Transportation Planning” in the January/February 1996 issue with great interest. A couple of years ago I and seven others entered and won the Grand Prize for a competition entitled “The Electric Vehicle and the American Community.” The programme was to imagine life in some date in the future when electric vehicles... Read more

A group of evangelical Christians is urging support of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to a January 31 article in

The New York Times. Dr. Calvin DeWitt, who helped found the Evangelical Environmental Network, said in the article that the Endangered Species Act is “the Noah’s Ark of our day” and that “Congress and special... Read more