Did you know lithium is an element of growing importance due to its use in batteries used in cell phones, laptops, and...
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DYK: BIM is Leading the Future
Did you know that 45 percent of architecture firms use BIM?
Systems, Standards, Templates, Workflows & Modules
Music, mathematics, language, computer coding are all highly formulated and structured, yet at the same time,...
Ignorance is Not Bliss
At any given point in time there is a ratio of Knowledge, Resources, Skill-Sets and Customs (KRSC)...
Change is Tectonic
CHANGE IS TECTONIC The current group of blog posts are being written in a very uncertain environment. Testing has just...
DYK: Construction Industry’s Place in the Market
Did you know the construction industry has an average unlevered beta of about 1.33? This means that if the market itself is...
DYK: The Healthcare Budget
Did you know that the U.S. spends 3.5 trillion on healthcare per year? This is more than every other country and...
VICIOUS vs. VIRTUOUS CYCLES
VICIOUS VERSUS VIRTUOUS CYCLES I would argue that all of our activity, both in business and...
Back To The Future
Back to the Future A brief look backward into Building’s history and an even briefer glimpse into Building’s future A...
They Don’t Build Them Like They Used To
Growing up I would often hear the phrase “they don’t build them like they used to.” The saying implies that older buildings...
What Can We Learn From Other Industries?
One of the (few) benefits of Building’s late arrival to the innovation/disruption(I/D) party is the fact that we have the...
Does Technology Make Life Better?
I made my first big tech purchase in the early 1980’s. At the time, it felt like a rite of passage, like getting your first...
The Thrill of Victory (Winning) and the Agony of Defeat (Losing)
If you ever played on a seesaw in your younger years, you know that it helps to have a partner of approximately equal...
Money, Money, Money!!
One evening in 1983, I was drinking beers with a friend and discussing how I was going to turn my current carpentry work...
Expressways, Expectations, Happiness
Expressway Syndrome Do any of you remember living through the creation of a new expressway? In the Chicago...
Good Questions Can Answer Themselves
Eureka! Have you ever found yourself driving down the highway obsessing over a seemingly impossible problem Then, all of a...
DYK: Land Use -The Magic .6% Percent
Did you know that photovoltaic (semiconductors that convert sunlight to electricity) would just need to cover 0.6% of U.S....
DYK: Pipes and More Pipes
Did you know water systems maintain more than 2 million miles of distribution mains? In 2000, nearly 80% of systems were...
DYK: Water Costs More Than Waste
Did you know that U.S. water systems need to invest $472.6 billion over the next 20 years to continue providing clean safe...
DYK: How Much Water Do We Use?
Did you know in 2015, total U.S. water use was approximately 322 billion gallons per day where California and Texas...
DYK: Where Does Your Water Come From?
Where Does Your Water Come From? Approximately 87% of the U.S. population relied on public water supply in 2015; the...
DYK: Renewable Energy Needs Critical Elements
Did you know silicon, tellurium, and indium are necessary parts of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels?
DYK: What Makes Technology Click
Did you know rare earth elements are a group of 17 elements used in various products such as alloys, batteries, and...
DYK: Landfills What A Waster
Did you know in 2015, 52.5% of MSW generated in the U.S. was disposed of in 1,738 landfills? Imagine what it's like...
DYK: Garbage Can Cost You
Did you know the generation of MSW from private consumption in the U.S. is approximately $21.32 per pound or 47 lbs per...
DYK: Waste, Waste As Far As You Can See
Did you know total annual Municipal Solid Waste generation in the U.S. has increased by 73% since 1980, to the current...
DYK: Pumped Hydroelctric Storage
Did you know pumped hydroelectric storage systems generate electricity by pumping water from a low to a high reservoir,...
DYK: Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
DYK-Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) CAES captures and stores compressed air in an underground cavern. To create...
Good vs. Bad Just Makes No Cents
Team Building and Successful Decision Making Good vs. Bad Just Makes No Cents When I am sitting with friends, clients or...
Value and the 100 year old Oak Tree
Value and the 100 year old Oak Tree: What makes a building valuable? At first glance, this question may seem...
Work Self Worth
Technology, Work and Self Worth Some of the best, smartest and most self-confident people I know are in Building. This is...
DYK: Advanced Battery Energy Storage (ABES)
Did you know that ABES stores electrical energy in the form of chemical energy, which is then converted back into...
DYK: Flywheel Energy Storage (FES)
Did you know that in 2018, flywheels accounted for 0.058 GW of rated power in the U.S. and have efficiencies between...
Building Ain’t Brain Surgery
“It’s not brain surgery.” The saying implies that the activity in question is relatively simple in comparison with the...
DYK: How Do you Store Large Scale Energy?
Did you know that PHS and CAES are large-scale technologies capable of discharge times of tens of hours but are...
DYK: Delivered Powers Impact on Energy Storage?
Did you know 2.5% of delivered electric power in the U.S. is cycled through a storage facility. For comparison, 10% of...
DYK: More Energy Storage Needed
Did you know as of June 2018, the U.S. had over 25.2 GW of rated power in energy storage compared to 1,082 GW of total in...
DYK: Greenhouse Gas Emmissions- Which Energy Source Does It Best?
A geothermal power plant emits roughly 11 times less carbon dioxide (CO2) )per unit electricity that the average U.S. coal...
DYK: Geothermal Energy-What Is It?
Did you know Geothermal energy is derived from the natural heat of the earth. It exists in both high enthalpy (volcanoes,...
DYK: Almost as Efficient as Shaq’s Freethrows
Did you know that PV conversion efficiency is the percentage of incident solar energy that a PV converts to electricity....
DYK: Here Comes the Sun
Did you know on average, 1.05 x 105 terawatts (TW) of solar radiation reach the Earth’s surface, while global electricity...
DYK: Driving is a Waste of Time
Did you know that due to congestion in urban areas, an additional 6.9 billion hours of travel time and an extra 3.1 billion...
DYK: Cars vs Trains and Busses
Did you know that in 2015, 58.65 billion passenger-miles (PM) were traveled on public transit, and 3 trillion vehicle-miles...
DYK: People Like Cities
Did you know the rate of urbanization, i.e., the changing of land from forest or agricultural uses to suburban and urban...
DYK: Where Do People Live?
Did you know approximately 82% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950 and by 2050, 90% of the...
The New Order
When you look at the image that introduces this blog post, do you the think the modular structure of the present or the...
Just The Facts
IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF JOE FRIDAY: “Just the Facts Ma’am, Just the Facts” What are Data, Facts and...
Regulate Schmegulate
It was 1983, in Lincoln Park, and I was three months into my first Design/Build/Development project. My partner and I had...
The Irresistable Force Meets The Immovable Object
Technology, Innovation, Disruption (TID): It may sound strange to begin a post on technology by referencing my...
Technology: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Collaborative cloud-based platforms - key to transitioning building Today, all of us share a simultaneous sense of...