ASHRAE CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Iconic: New York’s yellow cabs battle against inclement conditions created by winter storm Janus, below. And above, delegates listen intently to the conference presentations
JANUS’ UNWELCOME APPEARANCE
Humanity ‘ASHRAE was not founded to promote the welfare of engineers, but to serve humanity. What we do may sometimes seem mundane, but it actually makes our civilisation possible.’ He urged delegates to think of all the things that would not occur without climate control. While the focus of previous meetings
has been on energy conservation, there was a noticeable shift towards indoor air quality (IAQ) in New York. The Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Alliance – an international initiative aimed at fostering co- operation across a range of professions – had its first meeting during the conference. Bahnfleth said the ‘bar had been set too
low’ on IAQ. ‘There has been an enormous amount spent on energy conservation and outdoor air pollution – but almost nothing on IAQ. He added that there had never been a concerted effort to get the government to focus on the issue. ‘As far as politicians are concerned, it
seems that air ceases to exist the moment it enters a building,’ he told CIBSE Journal. ‘There is no IAQ legislation pending, or
www.cibsejournal.com
even planned – or has ever been planned. As a result, the only measurement is what is acceptable, which means it is OK if no-one is getting ill and if people are not unhappy.’ The industry had ‘taken half of the energy
out of buildings,’ partly through ASHRAE’s 90.1 Standard for energy efficiency, but ‘we
are still doing more or less the same things about IAQ’, said Bahnfleth. ‘We need to take what we already know and turn that into best practice and professional standards.’ The availability of cheap energy in the
shape of shale gas has also moved the goalposts for the building engineering community in the US. Bahnfleth said shale gas was being used by some as a ‘convenient excuse for reducing emphasis on energy conservation’, and it did have a role to play in helping the US move away from ‘dirtier fuels like coal… but it should not undercut efforts to develop renewables’. CIBSE president George Adams gave a number of presentations during the event. He said shale gas would have its time and ‘will play a role in helping us move away from more environmentally damaging fuels’.
The Polar Vortex was up to its tricks again during the meeting and winter storm Janus swept in to deposit 10 inches of snow on the city. The frigid weather that pushed the temperature as low as -13ºC decided to take hold just as the AHR Expo, which runs in tandem with the ASHRAE meeting, was opening. ‘We were obviously very concerned when the weather forecast predicted there would be a snowstorm on opening day and Arctic cold the last two days of the show,’ said Clay Stevens, president of International Exposition Company, which produces and manages the AHR Expo. However, more than 61,000 people drawn from 130 countries visited the Javits Centre to see products displayed by 1,900 exhibitors – record numbers. Nonetheless, Stevens felt the numbers would have been even more satisfying if Janus had stayed away.
March 2014 CIBSE Journal 21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80