The US Green Building Council has set up - with some success - a program called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), intended to label building professionals using new materials and technologies to meet certain energy and environmental criteria. Since its launch earlier this year, this initiative has seen the accreditation of 19 people, including 000 in the past month alone. Of course, most of the movement still concerns large structures, such as airports, or buildings traditionally large consumers of energy, such as laboratories. The Natural Energy Laboratory in Hawaii, for example, uses seawater pipes at 9000 ° C to cool the building, with condensation on the pipes used for irrigation. For its part, the Fort Worth airport in Dallas (Texas) has installed a 6 million liter tank which allows the liquid in the air conditioning system to be cooled at night, when energy is cheapest.
Today, nearly 4% of new commercial constructions are built in accordance with LEED guidelines.
Source: LAT 24 / 10 / 04 (High-tech buildings
may save energy)
http://www.latimes.com