Nominal 2x4 and 2x6 TimberStrand studs are now available in both standard and custom lengths.

TimberStrand was introduced in 1992... Read more

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.

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

Expanding on its four-year-old carpet testing program (see

EBN

Vol. 3, No. 6), the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) has launched a similar program to test emissions from carpet adhesives. Initiated on March 31, 1996, the new program will test samples of participating product lines quarterly. Products that meet program guidelines... Read more

by Guy Sternberg and Jim Wilson. Chapters Publishing, Ltd., Shelburne, Vermont, 1995. 288 pages; paperback $24.95.

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

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

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

William McDonough Architects, of Charlottesville, Virginia was awarded a contract for design of a new environmental studies building at Oberlin College with extensive green design goals.

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

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.

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

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.

Builders and designers committed to energy- and resource-efficient construction strategies have long struggled with building codes that mandate conventional practice, even when alternatives might be more sensible. A new addition to the Lake County, Illinois building code offers one solution to this problem—in a complete, take-it-or-leave-it... Read more

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

It was discovered in 1914 in Sweden that adding aluminum powder to cement, lime, water, and finely ground sand caused the mixture to expand dramatically. The Swedes allowed this “foamed” concrete to harden in a mold, and then they cured it in a pressurized steam chamber—an

autoclave.

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

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

Motorists in Germany can now save on their auto insurance rates if they use public transportation. As reported in the February 23rd issue of

Global Environmental Change Report the German insurance company Rheinland (Neuss) has begun offering a 10% discount for policyowners who hold annual passes for the national railway system or for a... Read more