On January 11 at the American Institute of Architects headquarters in Washington, Vice President Al Gore announced the Administration’s wide-ranging Livability Agenda. This is a high-priority, multifaceted effort to reduce sprawl, to minimize the time we spend in traffic, and generally to make our communities... Read more

For the first time ever,

net imports of petroleum into the United States have exceeded 50% in a single year. According to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, net petroleum imports by the U.S. in 1998 averaged 50.6%, up from the previous record of 49.9% in 1997 and significantly higher than... Read more

According to the

Los Angeles Times, a storage tank exploded on February 26 at the

SEGS II solar power plant in Barstow, California. The 900,000-gallon (3.4 million l) tank held Therminol, a hydraulic fluid that is used as a heat-transfer fluid, and was still burning four hours after the explosion. Heated to 850°F (450°C) by... Read more

1⁄2 to 1 gallon (2 to 4 liters) per flush, with remarkably few problems, and no change in the dynamics of the... Read more

Laurence Doxsey is leaving his position as Sustainability Officer for the City of Austin to take a Community Builder fellowship with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in San Antonio. Doxsey was a leader and key spokesperson for Austin’s groundbreaking Green Builder Program from its inception. Along with his... Read more

This February the Center for Resourceful Building Technology in Missoula, Montana, long a leader in promoting green building practices, merged with the National Center for Appropriate Technology, headquartered in Butte, Montana. CRBT has become a project of NCAT, joining a wide family of NCAT projects that promote... Read more

Your February feature on paints (“Paint the Room Green,”

Vol. 8, No. 2) certainly made an impression. While we welcome scrutiny, I must point out some overlooked facts.

It’s not clear in Table 2’s “Alternative Paints” section that LIVOS paints are in fact natural, defined by Webster as “existing in or... Read more

The American Institute of Architects/Portland is accepting entries for the

1999 Architecture + Energy Awards: Building Excellence in the Northwest, open to completed major renovations or new commercial buildings in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Awards are based on energy performance, treatment of... Read more

Vol. 8, No. 1), you trace the average size of single-family housing from approximately 1,100 ft2 (102 m2) in the 1940s–1950s to an average of 2,150 ft2 (200 m2) today. Over the past 10 years, the concept of Cohousing—the creation of small communities of... Read more

The

American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has created a new Subcommittee on Sustainability within Committee E-6 on Performance of Buildings. Goals of the new subcommittee E06-71 are to stimulate knowledge, research, and standards on the environmental performance and sustainability of individual buildings or systems, building... Read more

(APC) of Lacey, Washington announced on February 26 its acquisition of

Ascension Technology, Inc., headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. APC, a subsidiary of Idaho Power, is a leading photovoltaic (PV) systems provider. Ascension Technology, founded in 1987, is a leading developer of balance-of-system... Read more

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs has just launched a $3.9 million

Renewable Energy Resources Program to provide rebates of up to $5,000 for solar thermal energy and PV systems, and cost-sharing grants for eligible larger projects. Contact the Bureau of Energy and Recycling at 217/785-2800.

Anniversaries have a way of kindling deeper reflection and thought than we generally muster. So this month finds many of us thinking about the partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that occurred 20 years ago and about the Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred 10... Read more

An important strategy for protecting prime agricultural land, open space, and woodlands against the forces of sprawl is to build within existing urban areas and on previously disturbed sites. Unfortunately, many such sites suffer the scars of heavy use in a time when environmental controls were unknown or unheeded. Their soil and groundwater... Read more

A new housing complex in Portland, Oregon’s emerging River District exemplifies many of the best features of urban redevelopment. Pearl Court is a reclaimed brownfield site with energy-efficient construction, pedestrian access to mass transit, and affordable housing in a single 199-unit... Read more

Following States Industries in 1997 (the first manufacturer to offer certified hardwood plywood—see... Read more

by Ann Edminster and Sami Yassa, 1998. Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 W. 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211; 212/727-2700, www.nrdc.org. Paperback, 112 pages, $15 + $3 shipping

Too often forest conservation activists promote the use of non-wood construction systems without... Read more

Buchloe dactyloides), but there have been few off-the-shelf options for more northern, less sunny regions. The Prairie Nursery Corporation of Westfield, Wisconsin introduced the No Mow mix of fescue... Read more