Green-Building(绿色建筑).doc

On Chinas Current Obstacles in the Development Process of Green BuildingsWanghu Sun1,a 1School of Architecture, XianUniversity of Architecture and Technology, Xian, 710055, Chinaa 811725992Keywords: Green Building, Energy-Saving, High and New Technology, People Oriented. Abstract. This article proposes the major issues of our countrys current green building development, that is lacking the social basis, weak policy implementation, the dependence on high technology, complex system structure, shifting of the responsibility of resources crisis, or being unworthy of the name; high economic cost, lacking of market acceptance; ignoring the people-oriented, the lack of characteristic content. Only properly having solved these issues, can we eliminate obstacles to the development of green building.IntroductionGreen building is a building “in its entire life cycle of buildings, to maximize conservation of resources (energy, land, water and materials), protect the environment, reduce pollution, provide people with healthy, appropriate and efficient use of space, and in harmony with nature”1. From the perspective of global sustainable development, green building represents the development direction of the 21st century. Today, 50 years after the concept of green building was proposed, although there is experts appeal and governments initiative, it is still difficult to see it in reality, only some conceptual and exemplary green buildings or just a concept of commercial speculation came to birth. This is really a thought-provoking phenomenon. And I think there are problems as follows:Lacking the Social Basis and Weak Policy ImplementationIf the promotion of domestic green building being not good is due to the economic reason, then the green buildings in other advanced countries are also very few. It does not prevail widely as the modernism, post-modernism and the structuralism architecture in their times. This indicated that the green building obviously lacks the social identity. Whether in developed or developing countries, to develop green building should first solve the problem of awareness, enlarge the extent of ecological environment education and establish a set of new values and code of conducts on the basis of sustainable development. Empty Talking and Lack of Effective Action. Objectively speaking, green building is mostly talked in the academic papers. At present, a variety of journals, magazines and collection of essays are flooded with lots of articles on green building. Leaving alone the existence of many papers referring to each other, extracting, or even the possibility of plagiarism, studies which are really creative and feasible are also rare. This shows that even in academia there is also a lack of deep understanding of green building and theory which can be put into practice.If the Upper Beam is not Straight, the Lower Ones will Go Aslant. Solely from the perspective of the implementation of building energy efficiency, government offices and public buildings are the worst aspects of energy savings. Statistical data shows that the total area of large public buildings is less than 4% of the total area of urban construction, but their total energy consumption accounted for 22% of the total power consumption in cities and towns. The power consumption per unit area of large public buildings is around 70 300 degrees, 10 to 20 times of that of residential buildings. Changjiang Commercial Daily reported on June 14, 2008: “Hubei Province published the audit results of 20 government office buildings energy consumption, including the Provincial Department of Construction, Department of Communications, Development of Reform Commission. The average power consumption per square meter per year is 80 degrees, 3 to 4 times of residential buildings”, “The energy consumption of the office buildings of Hubei Provincial Communications Department, the Provincial Department of Agriculture, Trade and Industry Bureau and the Provincial Development and Reform Commission is the highest and is at 100 Degrees per Square Meters every year”. “But the average power consumption of the residences in Hubei province is about 20-30 degrees per square meter 2. Even more serious is that many government buildings waste and extravagant and the per capita floor area is very high. Thus the energy waste caused by these buildings is more horrifying. Examples like above are too numerous to mention. The Upper classes of society have the function of guidance and demonstration to the lower. If the upper classes do not treat the problem with proper attitude, how can they play the role of demonstration?Non-compliance with Regulations. Although governments are aware of the importance of sustainable development, many countries have issued policy guidance, and even mandatory codes and standards, but in view of various factors, the implementation of policies related is not in place totally.From the1980s, China began to establish the appropriate energy efficiency standards for the civil buildings. In recent years, around vigorously developing an energy-saving, ground-saving and eco-friendly construction and building a resource saving and environment friendly society, taking comprehensive action in terms of the planning, standards, policy, technology and other aspect, it has been approved the release such as “Design Standard for Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings”, “Acceptance Standard Of Energy-Saving Construction Quality” and so on. So far, energy-saving standard system of civil construction has been formed in our country, extending to various climate zones across the country of residence and public building energy efficiency design. However, on August 31, 2005, Minister of Construction Wang Guangtao guest CCTV “Dialogue” section, he announced a few figures which are not satisfied to the hundreds of millions of viewers: the findings of the field survey that the Ministry of Construction invest 17 provinces, cities about residential building energy efficiency from 2000 to 2004 shows, in the cold northern region, accounted for 90.08% buildings designed according to energy-saving standard, but only 30.61% are constructed according to that standards; in the middle of hot summer and cold winter zone, design and construction of the two values were 19.98% and 14.36%; in the southern region of hot summer and warm winter zone, the two values are 11.2%. Climatic regions across the country on average, 58.53 percent projects designed according to the standard of energy-saving; only 23.25% projects constructed according to energy-saving standards. From this, to the building energy efficiency, the design has been greatly reduced, while the discount in the construction has been even more serious. This strongly suggests the current energy policy has been boycotted in terms of the design, construction, supervision, construction, and even local governments have in this discount.It is clear that, as the building energy efficiency standards system has been basically formed and rules-based, energy efficiency which is an aspect of green building is difficult to be carried out. How can we expect the implementation of other non-rules-based and idealized Ecological strategies?Dependence on High Technology and Complex System ConstructureThe current ecological performance of green building is mainly reflected in terms of energy saving，while energy saving is mainly reflected in less consumption of non-renewable resources and making full use of renewable resources. In reducing energy consumption, many green buildings have adopted new high-performance insulation materials and complex thermal insulation structure of measures, which are strict with materials and construction. At the same time, to take advantage of solar and other renewable energy sources, many high-tech equipments had to be used. Indeed, in order to achieve a desired result, many complex, specialized automatic control technique, information technique and digital technique has also been used.However, the building is a product of large number , moreover， such products can not completed thoroughly in the factory, the construction must be conducted in the field, which is not the same as developing Shenzhou 7 spacecraft and the cost can not be disregarded. Low energy model building of Tsinghua University, as a model of such projects, can still be named adopting 80% of the worlds energy-saving technologies and products, ” while its unthinkable for popular building products to achieve this step. As for the techniques used in this building, over-advanced new technologies, new materials and new equipment, even if it is designed, is too difficult to be applied by most of the architects, or too difficult to guarantee the quality of the project by current level of construction. Even in years of enforcement of building insulation, as the technology is not mature enough, or structures are too complex, or construction costs are too high, and it is often omitted when the building section or the construction unit modify the design in the construction phase, which is the so-called yin-yang(double-track) drawing phenomenon. As the data that the proportion was 58.53% and23.25% for design and construction according to the national energy efficiency standards we introduced before, it is no doubt that double-track drawing phenomenon is very common.It is not only beset with difficulties in engineering practice, in theory, shortcomings exist in most current green building measures. According to the principles of systems theory, complex structure is bound to affect the stability of system performance, and many subsystems, such as water supply system, circulatory system, control systems are powered by electricity. Once the power supply meet a problem, the entire building will be paralyzed. In other words, the more complex system the structure of, the more difficult the performance of the green building is to be guaranteed.Shifting the Resources Crisis, or Do not Deserve the NameI remember a few years ago, a ship carrying nuclear scrap was refused to enter all the ports it passing by, because it was discovered that it transfer nuclear scrap to other country for burying. In fact, when sustainable development slogan was heard around the world, the secret crisis passed is still abound. For example, Chinas logging ban does reduce the domestic timber production, but deforestation increase in other countries in Southeast Asia. At midnight in New Years Day in 2000, Zero project of pollution control in Taihu Lake incident is a typical crisis shift. In late 1990s, in big cities around Taihu Lake, the industrial projects of “serious pollution source no longer existed. But most of these industrial projects have not disappeared, but just moved to the towns far away from urban centers. The water system of these towns was imported to the Taihu Lake, eventually led to the pollution of Taihu Lake.In the construction industry, the crisis shift includes shifting the energy crisis, material crisis and other resources crisis.In real life, we often see some buildings, in the name of saving water, make water treatment with extensive use of pumps and other equipments, to exchange the power resources for water, and ultimately to produce some intermediate water. Those with good technique, bring some benefits (especially the environmental benefits), but some techniques are so unreasonable that just turn the price of tofu into meat, which is a typical resources crisis shift. In order to save electricity of air-conditioning in summer, some buildings use water fall to cool the glass curtain wall. Though it has a decent cooling performance, visual landscape is effective, but the water resource cost is very high.In order to achieve the so-called meeting the climate, some buildings introduced rafts, literally opened a big door and window openings. From the viewpoint of the thermal engineering, exterior doors and windows are the weakest point of heat exchange. Although this improved the ventilation, it increased the cooling and heating energy consumption.In the use of the material, there is an increase in the crisis. For example, some multi-layer aluminum foil structure is used to the external wall insulation. Although the insulation effect of this structure is great, we should not ignore the wasted resources and the resulting hazards in the aluminum manufacturing process.In applications of technique, many high-techs itself has the characteristics of high energy consumption, its application to the building, is not only a pretext of publicity and speculation, but also an increase of the buildings energy consumption. Nowadays, in green building, there are not only some general essential electrical equipments, but also institutions incorporated with many automatic control. It is an additional power consumption to the building.It should be laid particular emphasis on that the thermal power is not an economical, environmentally friendly energy. The thermal power is generated by coal-fired, with an average need of consuming 334g of standard coal per kilowatt-hour (2008 data released SERC). The unit of electric energy is the kilowatt hours which equal to a kilowatt3.6 million joules. Standard coal is also known as coal equivalent, which can produce 29.27 MJ of heat (low) of any amount of fuel equivalent to 1kg of standard coal. Then:1 kWh = 3,600,000 joules334g standard coal = 29270000 0.334 = 9776180 (J)3600000 / 9776180=36.82%It is clear that energy conversion efficiency is only 36.82% or so by transfer coal into electricity. If you include energy loss in the process of transmission, (usually about 10%, 36.82% 90% = 33%) effective use of energy to end-users will be even less. However, because most people do not see the power plant smokestacks in the countryside from the city, they believe that power is very clean; some of the boiler will be forced to change into the electric boiler. On the surface, the city reduces the pollution, but in fact, the pollution of the atmosphere environment increases.We have Only one earth, and should brake the act of crisis shift together worldwide.High Economic Costs and Lack of Market AcceptanceChina has issued implementation opinion and a series of documents to strengthen the special fund management and strengthen project management to promote renewable energy development in architectural application. These documents include: The Opinion of Renewable Energy Promotion in Construction Applications from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Construction (Jianke 2006 No. 213), Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Construction, On the Issue of The Notice of Special Architecture Applications of Renewable Energy Fund Management(Caijian 2006 No. 460), Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Construction, On Strengthening the Demonstration Management of Renewable Energy Application (Caijian 2007 38) and so on. Meanwhile, the state should make guidance and propaganda from the five systems of application module: laws and regulations, technical standards, technical support, capacity building. Facing so many positive factors, the market still do not appreciate it. Theoretically, if we unlimitedly exaggerate the appliance of solar energy, then a building, a city, or even a country do not need traditional energy such as coal, oil, natural gas. A building can use solar energy to heat water, then heating with hot water, it can also use monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic glass to generate electricity and store electricity for lighting and various equipment. However, once flour is more expensive than bread, bread would not exist. This means that once the construction costs are too high, this kind of building has no reason to exist. At present, construction techniques and material technology is far behind developed countries, which is one reason that led to the far backward of green building development to developed countries. Therefore, the development of feasible green building technologies is very urgent.In addition, because our countrys real estate market is dominated by the developers, most developers do not want to reduce the profit to build green houses, and even the exterior walls are fooling with “double-track drawing”. This is really needed to be solved from the institutional and legal aspects.Ignoring the People-Oriented and Lack of Unique Feature and IntentionAt present, the green building mostly set saving resources and reducing emissions as the center content. Although creating healthy, comfortable and safe living environment from the concept to practice, this is not the main content. Emphasizing too much on energy conservation and even blindly ignore the care for people, its more like to ignoring the people-oriented, ignoring the base of the building and the environment. As a result, many green building is more like a standard industrial products, whether the public likes it or not, accept it or not, it just