GLOSSARY
A
Alternative Energy
AFUE – if you use heating in your home or office, AFUE is the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency measurement that counts the percentage of fuel that actually get delivered to heat a building. Every furnace now soldin the U.S. must have an AFUE of 78%. High-efficiency furnaces have an AFUE of 90 or higher.
Air Quality
Alternative Building Blocks – a building material that insullates buildings from extreme heat and cold that are stacked to produce energy efficient buildings and may be cement blocks with recycled polystyrene (Perform Wall)or a recycled wood-fiber cement block (Faswall).
Attic Fan
Awnings
B
Biodynamic Gardening
Bio-diesel provides a clean, sustainable opportunity alternative to petroleum-based diesel. Biodiesel is derived from renewable resources such as vegetable oils, animal fats, or algae oils. It can be used as a pure fuel or blended with petroleum-based diesel (e.g., B5, B10, B20, B100). Blends of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel (B20) can generally be used in unmodified diesel engines.
Biodiesel has many advantages:
Biodiesel is environmentally-friendly
It contains no sulfur or aromatics, resulting in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter
Reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by ~75% compared to petroleum diesel
Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have successfully completed the U.S. EPA-required Tier I and Tier II health effects testing under the Clean Air Act
BioFuels – Algae, Algae produces vegetable oil that can be extracted/processed to make a renewable biocrude feedstock suitable to be refined into a variety of products, including biodiesel and other biofuels.
Body Work
BYOB -Bring Your Own Bag
C
Carbon Footprint
Carbon Offsets
Clean Energy – is energy created from renewable sources with a lower environmental impact than fossil (oil) or non-renewable (coal, plutonium) fuels.
CO2 The warming of our global climate has launched a massive international research effort to observe, understand, and predict climate change. Many scientists now believe that emissions of greenhouse gases may be a significant contributor to global climate change. If left unchecked, accelerating greenhouse gas emissions during this century may lead to even more dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate. Mitigation strategies, especially surrounding the human contribution to CO2 emissions, have therefore become a focus of intensive research and a principal goal of international and governmental environmental policies.
Community Gardens
Compact Flourescent Lights or Lamps (CFLs) – light bulbs that are many times more efficienct than incadescent bulbs,which can be replaced in most applications. (The small amount of non-renewable materials, i.e. mercury, in the bulbs, has a combined lower environmental impact than that caused by the coal/oil/nuclear waste caused when using incandescent bulbs.)
Compost
Composting Toilet
Cool Roof – is any roof made to reflect sunlight tominimize temperature and therefore reduce interior cooling costs.
CSA – Community Supported Agriculture
D
Daylighting – uses natural light in many different ways in a building and decreases reliance on electricity by using windows, relfective window coverings, skylights, and solar tubes.
Dehydrator
DIY – Do It Yourself
Dual Flush Toilet – have two different settings, usually 0.8 gallons for liquid removal and 1.6 gallons for full-flush solids removal. Older toilets use up to 5 gallons a flush. On average, dual flush use about 2,500 gallons a year, compared to even a low-flush 1.6 gallon unit that uses about 4,500 gallons a year.
E
Earth Sheltered Design – home or building built partially or completely below ground either by digging into existing ground or covering over part of the structure. Increases energy efficiency by regulating temperatures passively and reduces environmental impacts.
Ecological Footprint
Energy Efficiency
Energy Meter
Eco-Village
Electric Cars – The number of all-electric vehicles available to U.S. consumers remains limited. Chevy is developing a $40,000 4-passenger Volt that claims it will have a 340 mile driving range betweenplug-in charges, with claims of 230 mpg when driven at residential a rea speeds. The Tesla Roadster, a high-end sports car with a range of 224 miles, is perhaps the best known. But its $100,000-plus price tag keeps it out of reach of all but the wealthiest drivers.
Embodied Energy – the energy necessary to make a product and/or already existing in a product’s content.
Energy Star – a government-backed standard for energy efficienct products that is moving towards using independent lab testing to measure a product’s energy use. Strict standards for efficiency are used to determine which products receive an Energy Star approval. Be sure to convert the annual energy use cost calculations on the Energy Star stickers using your local per kilowatt hour costs (often over $.30 kwh in Hawaii while the national stickers are often using costs measured at less than $.10 per kwh).
F
Fair Trade
Farmer’s Market
FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council which certifies what it deems as sustainably harvested forest and wood products including lumber, furniture woods and paper. They have the most impartiable ratings in the wood products industry.
G
Geothermal Energy is the heat stored beneath the earth’s surface in the form of hot liquid, dry steam or hot dry rock and taps the heat that lies beneath the earth’s surface in several ways. Geothermal reservoirs of hot water and steam generate electricity for direct applications, including aquaculture, crop drying, and district heating. Geothermal can also use the constant temperature that exists at very shallow depths for heating and cooling buildings with the energy-efficiency technology of ground-source heat pumps.
Ghost Loads
Gleening
Global Warming The warming of our global climate has launched a massive international research effort to observe, understand, and predict climate change. Many scientists now believe that emissions of greenhouse gases may be a significant contributor to global climate change. If left unchecked, accelerating greenhouse gas emissions during this century may lead to even more dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate. Mitigation strategies, especially surrounding the human contribution to CO2 emissions, have therefore become a focus of intensive research and a principal goal of international and governmental environmental policies.
Graywater – is wastewater produced from baths, kitchen sinks, washers, and bathroom sinks that is generally considered safe for reuse for non-potable uses such as irrigation. Capturing and resuing gray water can be valuable in water conservation and local building codes are learning to permit graywater systems.
Green Buildings
Green Roof – is a growing roof system that uses a specialized undercarriage forming a waterproof membrane to handle excess water removal. Various types of vegetation in a growing medium reduce the heat-island effect of a roof, especially in hot climates, and also offsets displaced vegetation caused by the building’s footprint.
Grid-Tied
H
Heat Island Effect – a density of built areas increases the environment’s temperature compared to surrounding, less developed areas; includes square footage that often requires either high cost energy services to support, or is an opportunity toimplement cool roof technologies.
Heat Recovery System – a mechanical device that captures waste heat from another system to use as a fuel that would otherwise come from an external, more costly, energy source. Used in home heating on a small scale up to large power generation scale turbines (HELCO is developing this for their diesel turbines in Kona which use a very crude, highly polluting oil as their initial energy source to create electricity for West Hawaii)
Holistic
Hybrid Cars – Electric/petroleum hybrids use a small internal combustion engine combined with a high-powered battery to boost fuel efficiency. Toyota’s Prius as an example – which starts at about $22,000 – gets 51 mpg in the city and 48 mpg on the highway.
Hydrogen Fuel
I
Independent Power Producers (Large) – Many utility companies buy power generated by unaffiliated companies and then deliver that power as electricity to t heir end users at their point of service (home, office etc). The IPPs may be generating power to sell to the utility using solar,wind, hydro, geo-thermal, coal, or nuclear. These power providers offer a more diversified power generation network and potentially offer a more secure power generation system as they operate independently and may not suffer simultaneous outages.
Independent Power Producers (Small) – In Germany, as in the State of Washington, there are examples of power grid utility systems that not only allow a small household producer to offset their own utility use and costs, but that encourage people to begin producing energy that they sell for a fair price to the community grid. This grid-tied system of net metering is creating a new generation of Small Independent Power Producers. Not only is there a record kept of the net metered point of production, when the system generates excess electricity beyond its own net metered amount, the customer can sell that excess to the utility. This excess power produced on individual roof tops is then shared with neighbors in a local power generation network. The income earned by selling excess power back to the utility takes place under customer-generated power agreements.
Indigenous Materials are produced in an area near to where construction or consumption is taking place. May include local natural materials such as rock, gravel, straw, mud, and wood, or may refer to products manurfactured locally. Reduces building costs, product transportation costs, and helps boost local economies.
Inputs
Integrative Medicine
K
Kitchen Garden
L
LEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – a program developed by the U.S. Green building Council as a systemfor rating new and existing commercial, institutional and residential buildings. It evaluates the overall environmental performance during the lifecycle of the building and provides a tangible methodology for analyzing the standards of a green building, including energy systems.
Life Cycle Analysis of a product is a look at all stages of its product fromdevelopment, materials, manufacturing to packing and delivery, use and disposal.
Locavores
Low Biocide – paint that does not containtoxic a dditives such asfungicide or pesticide and creates a healthier live/work environment.
Low-E – windows that have a low-emittance coating. The glass has microspoically thin, virtually invisible, metal or metallic oxide layers to reduce U-factor by repressing radiant heat flow in or out of the building.
Low and No VOC materials, paints and finishes contain little or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that outgas and lower air quality.
M
Mulch
Natural Foods
N
Native Plants
Net Metering
Off-Grid
O
One Hundred Mile Diet
Open Space
Organic Agriculture
Organic Fertilizers
Outgas – the emission offumesinto the air often caused by building materials containing harmful chemicals.
P
Passive Solar Design is an approach to siting and using low-tech methods that provide a building’s heating and cooling without the use of mechanical equipment. the orientation of the building, site selection, materials and design combine to allow the structure to block the sun or store heat as needed in its climate and seasons, as well as provide for air circulation and natural daylighting.
Permaculture
Permeable Paving -pavement that allows water to pass through into the ground to assist in maintaining the natural water table and soil conservation of a site. It also protects streams and waterways from runoffpollution and reduces the demand on storm drains.
Phantom Loads
Pollinators
Post-Consumer Recycling (PCR) – Content and materials that have been recovered after use, as opposed to being recovered frommanufacturing waste, which would be pre-consumer recycling.
Power Grid
Power Strips
Rain Collection
R
Raw Foods
Recycling
School Gardens
S
Shadegrown
Skylights
Slow Foods
Smart Meter
Soil Conservation
Solar Cooking
Solar Energy is a bigger field than merely photo-voltaic panels. Learn more at this link to Time Magazine.
Solar Hot Water
Solar Photovoltaics (PV) are solar cells that absorb sunlight and convert it directly into electricity. Solar cells are thin semi-conductor wafers typically made of silicon. PV’s aretypically seen as rigid solar panels, but are also available in other module forms such as roof shingles, patio roof tile covers, and flexible portable systems.
Sustainability
Sustainable Agriculture
R-value – this is a measurement ranging from1-60 that refers to the insulating ability of a material to resist heat flow and is affected by the insullation’s coverage, density, airflow near and trhough the material and the water presence within.
V
Vegan
Vegetarian
Victory Garden
View Plane
Water Conservation
W
Water quality
Wildlife Protection
Windmill
Wind Turbine
Xeriscape
X
Zero-mile
Z
