what is missing tells the real story

I came across this article in Fortune, which as always only reports an angle if it has a distinctly American angle.

The article is about building "Zero Energy Buildings" using novel technologies and improved efficiencies. Sounds like it could be a perfect vehicle for raising the profile of emerging and disruptive technologies. Ummm no, the editors of Fortune actually saw it as an opportunity to showcase the success of American enterprise in China (just to remind their American readership that the China-US relationship is not just a one way street).

The article talks about how an American architect has been UNsuccessful - repeat not successful - in turning a 71 storey office building in Guangzhou in China into a ZEB but nonetheless how clever he has been.

Okay what is missing from the story?

I suggest you imagine laying all the glass curtains covering that 71 storey building out on the ground, take 40% of the area covered and convert that section of glass into DYE's photovoltaic cells. Hmmm do you reckon that at even 6% efficiency in solar conversion the American architect and the American magazine would be bragging about ALMOST building a ZEB?

I don dink so....rather they would be bragging about how the glass curtains ensure that the building puts out more energy than it receives. And that my friends is why Dyesol technologies will shift the paradigm: it will allow architects to design buildings that actually achieve "the holy grail of modern architecture".

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/22/technology/zeb_pearl_river.fortune/index.htm

Tas and Brendan - hang in there chaps, don't get suspended, we have an important conversation going on here. If you want to see a discussion that meets hc's high standards of no hype and no conjecture I suggest you check out the ICN threads: hundreds of posts generated by a two page ASX announcement and hardly a one moderated.