Monday, November 05, 2007

Improving rooftop conversations


Bill Clinton, an important voice in the next US election, is talking about new energy initiatives being a smart new base for the US economy.

Clinton has a knack for mobilizing real passion for this kind of thing. But Clinton, as his presidency shows, is a pragmatist. The tottering of the US economy can be directly linked to US dependency on disposable resource usage. It is common sense that practical alternatives form the basis of a national energy policy.

On Friday I visited a client, tile manufacturer Interstyle. Up above the factory floor is 100,000 square feet of roofing. See that blue thing on the left? It's a settling tank for post industrial water.









Combined with rain water from the roof, this water is stored in the pale blue water tank shown below. The water from the tank is used as a coolant in Interstyle's glaze process. At the end of the pipe, purified water is settled out and added to the pale blue tank once again.

The entire system was installed this year. The ROI is less than two years.I've called this kind of technology deployment as something to do with "basic goodness." Interstyle's VP of Product Development is more practical. He describes it as "common sense."


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