Decarbonizing Debate and staying cool

At Novotel Toronto, North York, in March we attended the Toronto Chapter ASHRAE sponsored Debate “Air Source Heat Pumps vs. Ground Source Heat Pumps as the best solution for decarbonizing buildings in the GTA”.  Now its July and I am ever thankful for the Carnot Cycle and the ability to do work to create a temperature difference.  There was no clear winner of the debate, but a lot of hilarity and enthusiastic ribbing of the opposing viewpoints.  Interesting how expressing opposition can bring people together.

Atria @ CAGBC Low Carbon Training Foundations

Part of our engineering team was off site Jan 18 to learn from a team of building professionals at the Canada Green Building Council Low Carbon training foundations seminar. CAGBC walked us through the path to Zero Carbon through five modules: Environmental, Social, and Governance (triple bottom line thinking); Integrated Design Process; Sources of Carbon; Embodied Carbon; and concluding with Zero-Carbon Transition Plans.    They managed to create a space for knowledge sharing as we also learned from fellow attendees.