|
|
|
|
Environmental Building
06/25/2002
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton of the Weather Notebook. Today, as part of our weekly series on
global climate change, we visit a building in New Hampshire that is not only seeing
green but being green. Assistant producer Doug Sanborn reports.
From the outside, you can't see a whole lot. There's a shaded structure as big as a
football field with a dingy looking roof that slopes like a lean-to in the woods. But once
you go through the big wooden double doors, your world changes.
Suddenly, you're in Oz.
Sparkling sunlight pours through a 1500 foot wall of glass giving visitors a panoramic
view of downtown Concord, New Hampshire.
Property Manager Tom Osmer.
TO: We have three wings. And the oldest one, the one we're standing in now was built
in 1980. The Weeks Wing was built in 1990 and the new wing, the French Wing, just
opened last year in 2001. So, with one stop shopping you can see two decades and
three phases of environmental building for society style for society thinking.
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is a 10,000 member
conservation organization. Its "kind of thinking" has been applied to almost every
detail of its headquarters. The centralized boiler system operates on gas from
burning wood chips. The passive solar design of the building is complemented by 32
solar panels to keep the place comfortable and bright.
TO: The new building here, which uses 80% less thermal energy than a normal
building built to the energy code would, and 40% less electricity than a normal building
would, but it costs us the same per square foot to build as the average office space in
southern New Hampshire would cost."
Money is just one part of it. According to the Forest Society, in the new wing alone, the
building reduces CO2 emissions by 63,000 pounds every year, equivalent to 326
barrels of oil annually.
Our global climate change series is underwritten by the New England Science Center
Collaborative and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation. Thanks today to assistant producer
Doug Sanborn.
Today's Links
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests
http://www.spnhf.org
|
|
