City of Cupertino, CA Cupertino Green, 12 Apr 2018

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Sustainability Speaker Series 2018: NASA Ames Sustainability Base

Description

Dr. Rosalind Grymes, Director the the NASA Ames Partnerships Office, speaks about the intention behind the design and construction of Sustainability Base, an award winning and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum 50,000 sq. ft. facility, which was completed in 2011 at NASA Ames Research Center. Recorded April 12, 2018 at the Cupertino Community Hall. (1 hr. 25 min.)

A

A

Hello, everybody thank you for coming. My name is gary latch on the cupertino.

A

Sustainability, commission, it's my pleasure this evening to introduce to.

A

You dr. rosalyn grimes. She is a director in nasa ames.

A

Partnership office and leads nasa partnership participation than planetary.

A

Sustainability partnerships: I assumed that planetary is earth so far so far,.

A

Rose received her doctorate in cancer, biology from stanford university and.

A

Began her career in nasa as a research scientist.

A

She was executive director of the nasa astrobiology institute during its.

A

Formation and from 2000 to 2008 founding director of the advanced studies.

A

Laboratories, a partnership between nasa and the university of california, nasa.

A

Recognized her intent report, entrepreneurial accomplishments with.

A

Medals for outstanding leadership and exceptional service in 2016, she was.

A

Recognized among federal employees with the presidential sustainability hero.

A

Award, I wonder if they're still giving that out, they are not the last time this.

A

Award would I want to say the last time this award was presented.

A

Oh they're saving money by not giving that award out anyway. Let me interest.

A

You dr. rosalind.

B

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to come and speak with. You is a cupertino.

B

Resident, I know that cupertino is interested in development and in the.

B

Consequences of development and that cupertino has desires, concerns.

B

Challenges in public buildings, as well as commercial and residential buildings,.

B

As a homeowner, I assume that many of you are interested in changes that you might.

B

Make in your own construction or in the way that you utilize energy and of.

B

Course the city is interested in thinking about all those issues in its in its own buildings and facilities. So what I have brought to talk with you.

B

About tonight is specifically a facility called sustainability base, which was.

B

Constructed at nasa ames from 2009 to I think, 2009 to 2011. It took a little bit.

B

Over a year to complete construction and move in and I'll be telling you about.

B

The facility and about some of the choices that we made at the time in.

B

Terms of design, we wanted it to be very forward-leaning design. It was this. The.

B

First facility that we had constructed at nasa ames in over 20 years at that.

B

Time and also our desire to incorporate nasa technologies into the building were.

B

Wherever it made sense wherever possible- and we also plan for this facility to be.

B

A living laboratory so that we would continue to try out new technologies in.

B

The building and be an honest broker for reporting what worked and what didn't.

B

Work- and so I'm also very happy to share all of that with you.

B

Transparently, today, but not knowing specifically what each one of you is.

B

Going to be interested in I'll first give you a general introduction to the.

B

Facility and some of its some of its building systems and then I think.

B

Probably in exchange a q&a where I can go more deeply into some of those.

B

Choices that you might be more interested in is something I can.

B

Undertake so, first of all, I want to introduce you to nasa in silicon valley.

B

People are generally interested in nasa. Not everybody in the bay area recognizes.

B

That you have a nasa facility, so the national aeronautics and space.

B

Administration has its headquarters in washington dc. We have ten field centers.

B

Across the united states and the field centers at, for example, kennedy space.

B

Center in johnson space center are nationally more well-known than ames.

B

Research center, but ames is one of the older nasa facilities.

B

It was established believe this year or next year is its 80th year. So.

B

Approximately let's say 79 80 years ago, but it was originally an aeronautics.

B

Facility nasa ames here on the west coast and nasa langley in langley.

B

Virginia were the two aeronautics centers that were established before the.

B

Second, world war, but when aircraft were increasingly recognized as an instrument.

B

Of surveillance and could be an instrument of force, it could be an.

B

Instrument of war and the united states wanted to ensure that it was at the.

B

Forefront of that technology, both for commercial and civil uses, but also for.

B

For military uses and then in 1958, when the national, aeronautics and space.

B

Administration was formed by an act of congress. Ames and langley were.

B

Incorporated into that organization, and that's how we became aeronautics and.

B

Space exploration, so it's a civilian agency charged with both aeronautics.

B

Research as well as exploring space and that charter to explore space, extends to.

B

The near-earth space around our planet, and so that leads to nasa's focal.

B

Missions in earth sciences, earth sciences and what, for some period of.

B

Time we were calling mission to planet earth, I'm not sure, if they're using that term anymore, but it's a good one. So it explains our interest in understanding.

B

Our planet and the evolution of processes on on our planet, so that's.

B

Just a little bit about nasa about our facility, some of these slides.

B

Are kind of general, so I'll tell you a little bit about the the process that we.

B

Undertook in choosing how to go about this nasa's a little bit unusual in comparison to other federal agencies.

B

Most of the us government federal agencies acquire their their their.

B

Locations, whether their courthouses or office, buildings or warehouses or.

B

Whatever, through the gsa, the general services administration.

B

So the gsa undertakes to develop the contracts for construction for design or.

B

They find buildings and then they arranged to rent spaces in them. For.

B

Federal entities- nasa is one of the few. I don't know if it's the only it's the.

B

Only one I've ever come across, but I may just have not been exposed to it, but.

B

Nasa has the authority from congress to manage its own facilities and a lot of.

B

That is due to the fact that an acid does really unusual things. We launch.

B

Rockets we test rockets, and so many of the nasa locations are in relatively.

B

Unpopulated areas to keep some of those hazards away from the population, but at.

B

The same time being in an uninhabited area, uninhabited by people doesn't mean.

B

That you're in an area devoid of flora and fauna, so in fact, there's quite a bit.

B

Of expertise in the agency in managing environmental hazards to make sure that.

B

Areas like the like the pristine areas around kennedy space center, where there.

B

Are manatees and you know many different species of birds and swamp conditions.

B

And and maintaining those in the face of the kind of hazards that are potentially.

B

Put it put into the environment as a result of nasa operations is a very.

B

Strong focus within the agency and the same thing is true: at stennis space.

B

Center, which is just north of new orleans, where there's also a very large.

B

Wooded area with barge ways and canals so that they can bring in heavy.

B

Equipment but nasa is very, very very cautious of, but we also have a.

B

Tremendous amount of oversight from agencies that are concerned with the.

B

Quality of the environment and how we impact it. So we manage our own.

B

Facilities, but we also manage our facilities within federal budgets, so.

B

Many of the buildings at ames and many of the field centers are well beyond.

B

Their predicted useful lives they're more than 30 40 years old, and so that's.

B

Definitely a challenge for the agency to manage older buildings and undertake the.

B

Work necessary to replace them with newer facilities, so sustainability base.

B

Was part of a competition within the agency there was some funds available to.

B

Do construction or we call them cfs construction of facilities, funds because.

B

Of course, we do everything by acronym you'll have to raise your hand or wave.

B

At me, if I use an acronym that you don't know so we were going to compete for.

B

These funds- and it was called a renovation by replacement exercise, so we.

B

Would propose to headquarters what we're going to tear down that's old, expensive, wasteful choose up a lot of energy and instead what we were.

B

Going to replace that with and our proposal to headquarters was one of the.

B

Proposals that was accepted, and so we were awarded the the funds to do that.

B

Construction and I've actually forgotten the exact number, but it was on the order.

B

Of 25 or 27 million it was in there, it was under 30. I was over 25 and the first.

B

Design that was done for this facility was presented to our senior management.

B

At ames and it looked very much like a number of other buildings at ames and so.

B

You know it had that consistency of design look but the reason it looked.

B

Consistent was that the last building we had put up was 20 years ago, so it looked.

B

Like a 1980s building and one of our senior managers, steve's or netzer, who.

B

Was the assistant director for research and technology who, coincidentally,.

B

Retired, I think a couple of weeks ago, but his celebration was today: I'm.

B

Looking at bob corny in the audience, because, actually I know a number of you.

B

From my for my participation on some of the my and my husband's participation on.

B

The cupertino commission's, but also bob's very familiar with this building.

B

And often does tours of it for it, so he knows steve really well so steve's or.

B

Nisour looked at those plans and said you're not serious with the.

B

First chunk of money that we've had- and this is such an unusual opportunity and.

B

You're actually proposing to design something you could have built 20 years.

B

Ago, that's just not good enough and steve's. Colleagues generally said.

B

Well, that's great steve, but you know over to you we're not going back to the.

B

Drawing board on this and soon thereafter, steve ran into william.

B

Mcdonough, coincidentally, at a meeting at johnson honestly, I can't tell you why.

B

Bill was there or what the what the meeting was about, but they got to.

B

Talking and mcdonough was willing to be a consulting design architect on on a.

B

New approach to the project, so the result of what we have today is part of.

B

Mcdonoughs philosophy of native to place design the architects of record, where.

B

Aecom and the builders who were swinton so using mcdonoughs design principles.

B

This very different kind of structure was envisioned that would incorporate.

B

Sustainability principles that would use materials that were too the most for the.

B

Most part generated from the local environment, so there wasn't a lot of.

B

Shipping back and forth the construction site was professionally managed to the.

B

Hazards that were generated from demolitions and constructions were.

B

Minimized the building was designed to allow natural lighting to use energy.

B

Carefully to generate energy on site to recycle water and reuse water, so there.

B

Were a number of things that arose out of bill? Mcdonoughs involvement in the.

B

Project for all of these purposes- and you see now a few pictures of the.

B

Facility to kind of get some familiarity. It's a fifty thousand square foot.

B

Building it's it's its offices, it's in two semicircular wings, one in front of.

B

The other two half-moons and it's just two storeys. So it's a relatively small.

B

Facility mcdonoughs philosophy is native to place and one of the reasons why this.

B

Resonated with nasa is in nasa's lingo in our dictionary native to place using.

B

The materials that are available locally, we.

B

Call in situ resource utilization is ru and that's an acronym that we use a lot.

B

So the latin in situ in-place resource utilization is built into plans for.

B

Exploring the moon and mars it's it's! It recognizes from nasa's perspective that.

B

When we're involved in space exploration and in envisioning workable facilities,.

B

And habitats for humans, distant from the earth every pound that's launched is.

B

Extremely expensive and water is particularly heavy and so.

B

We're always of the mindset in our technology development and in designing.

B

Our plans for space exploration for planetary exploration for human.

B

Exploration to do in situ resource utilization to the greatest extent.

B

Possible to use materials that are at the locations we wish to go to and live.

B

In and work in and explore and particularly recycle, we want to recycle.

B

Water, so that we don't have to launch it all from earth, but we can either recover.

B

It in on-site in situ, or that we can reuse it from the first from the first.

B

Amounts that we bring along with us and, of course, we're always interested in energy generation and particularly in using solar energy. So many of the.

B

Elements of sustainable design and sustainable operations are just.

B

Fundamental to the way nasa thinks about its mission, its technology, development.

B

And its goals, so here you see some of the features of the facility and its.

B

Design and how it accomplishes its goals in terms of day lighting, it has very.

B

Tall banks of windows from some of the initial modeling showed that we wouldn't.

B

Need to use the artificial lights, the overhead lights in the building more.

B

Than I think it was 30 days a year now, of course, human beings have the behavior.

B

Of walking into a space and flipping a switch, it's just a natural thing that.

B

We're accustomed to doing, and that certainly happens in the building, no.

B

Question but it's not necessary in order to function even to function well and if.

B

You can get people into a different habet. They will often find that they.

B

Haven't turned the lights on and they haven't been uncomfortable in their work.

B

Environment until say on a winter's day, maybe three or four in the afternoon and.

B

Then you'll begin to notice it's a little dim and somebody will turn on a.

B

Light so it's there's a lot of human human behavior. A lot of occupant.

B

Interaction, that's essential to making these kinds of facilities operate.

B

According to the design principles, in some of the meetings that I've been to.

B

The the measurements post, construction during occupation or surveys of the.

B

Occupants indicate that most of the buildings that are designed with these.

B

Kinds of sustainable principles that I'm talking about actually operate well below their predicted, the design parameters and the.

B

Reason, for that is mostly how the occupants interact with the building.

B

Many times there are offices which have floor-to-ceiling glass walls and people.

B

Decide for a variety of reasons, many of which they deserve to be acknowledged.

B

For they might design to paper them over they're, not really trying to defeat your.

B

Sustainability goals, but they find in their kind of work that they require a.

B

Level of privacy or prefer a level of privacy and the floor-to-ceiling glass.

B

Walls, don't do it for them, so it's a very important consideration both when.

B

You're designing a facility to address the needs of the occupants and when.

B

You're planning to move in people to a facility that they understand how the.

B

Building is designed to operate and then kind of concur with going along with.

B

Those plans we also have automated windows, so the top bank of windows on.

B

Both the first in the second floor are automated they're, controlled by a.

B

Computer and, for example, the computer might be set based on external thermal.

B

Thermal thermometer readings that, when the external temperature is 80 degrees,.

B

You automatically open the windows because you can allow fresh air to come.

B

In from the outside and equilibrate with the inside temperature, and you can.

B

Choose that setting to be you know whatever you and the occupants agree on.

B

You know it could be 76 78 whatever, and we did that for a while. So interesting.

B

Interesting fact- and this is sort of an illustration of some of the things that.

B

Have to tell you that we can go into more deeply for those who were.

B

Interested when the windows were first installed, they had gears on either side.

B

Of a long window, you can sort of see in the image that these are rectangular.

B

Windows they're not huge like to say they're, maybe one foot by two feet.

B

Roughly something like that, and they had activation arms on either end and when.

B

The window opened, a screw, would turn, and that would push an armature and that.

B

Would open the window and even during construction, we recognized that in all.

B

Of these windows- and there are hundreds of them throughout the building, if the.

B

Screws at either end become a little bit offset. Then the whole window begins to.

B

Torque and that begins to strip the screw and the metal on the screw and.

B

Then the torquing is just going to get worse and worse, so you would have.

B

Thought that the manufacturer would have figured that out in their own laboratory.

B

When they designed these windows to sell them and did some you know, internal.

B

Testing I can't comment on that only that we discovered it as we were in the.

B

Process of construction, so they went back and retrofitted all the windows.

B

With a single, larger armature that could manage the weight of the whole thing, but.

B

It didn't have the problem of that. You inherently had a few had two screws so.

B

That was a solution, but when we completed construction and people began.

B

To live in the building- and this was around november- I think of I want to say.

B

2010 I moved into the building november december of that year and we actually.

B

Had an opening ceremony in april so as time went on through march april may and.

B

The temperatures got warmer and we began to use this program and have the windows.

B

Open automatically the first time they the first time I can recall they, they.

B

Opened all over the building on a basis of this temperature setting, it sounded.

B

Like a 747 was landing on the roof, it was so loud, it was frightening and it.

B

Was a scent that I had never heard before so you you do sort of get used to.

B

It over time, but it's never a pleasant experience and it happened sometime in.

B

The afternoon on a summers day, but never at the same time every day. So after.

B

About a year's worth of interaction with that, we we.

B

Shut down the system of the amount I mean it uses a little bit of energy to.

B

Open the windows right, so you are spending some energy and the amount of.

B

Energy that we're being saved as a result of using that particular design.

B

Option was just not worth the the downside of the you know, negative.

B

Reports and the disruption so very relatively few buildings have this kind.

B

Of have this kind of feature we were approached by the university of colorado.

B

At one point whose it was probably the architecture department, it might have.

B

Been designed in sustainability or something they were doing, some international studies and this kind of building, with both automated windows and.

B

Manually operated windows because the lower bank of all these windows is.

B

Manually operated, there's called a mixed mode building and.

B

They were seeking locations like ours to do some testing in mixed mode buildings.

B

So I gather that it's not all that common, but a couple of years after a.

B

Sustainability base was completed. I did read about a leed platinum building. It's.

B

About the same size, a sustainability base, but instead of being on a large.

B

Footprint like ours, it's very, very tall. It's in an awkward space. I think it's in.

B

Seattle and they have windows like this, and I you know, I wondered when they put.

B

Those in what their experience of the sound when they open and close them is.

B

There also some in in national renewable energy, lab the nrel labs in golden.

B

Colorado and we went out there and looked at their facility which predated.

B

Ours when we were thinking about ours, I can't tell you why they, the issue with.

B

The windows didn't come up. I do know that after we we discovered our noise.

B

Issue that we certainly contacted them and said our windows are just horrible.

B

What did you do with yours, and apparently they retrofitted all of their.

B

Windows with a wrap that it's a noise baffling rap that they put around the.

B

Armatures on all the windows, but we didn't have the money to do that, so we just turned our system off but anyway, so in multiple places, that's been problematic, not something I would so that's kind of an example of one of.

B

The principles we have photovoltaic panels, this didn't actually fit within.

B

Our design cost the amount of money that we got from headquarters, the but it but.

B

The state of california participates in and a power power purchase plans and.

B

There is a special aspect of that for the federal government facilities, so we.

B

Embarked on that, where pg&e comes to your facility- and it tells you what you.

B

Could do in order to save energy and water, and in our case they looked at the.

B

Whole campus, not just this building, they looked at the whole campus and there.

B

Were a lot of things we could do replacing not toilet fixtures and.

B

Faucets and things like that, and including installing solar panels on.

B

Sustainability base, which we wanted to do anyway, so by partnering with pg&e, we.

B

Were able to take advantage of a program whereby pg&e purchases, the the panels.

B

And you continue to the nasa ames continues to pay a standard amount of.

B

Its energy bills, but over the next five years after those improvements, are made.

B

Gradually, what your your monthly payments are doing or paying down the.

B

Capital cost of these items, and so eventually you own them and it's a way.

B

Of getting past the original capital purchase prices, so that was an.

B

Interesting option for us, we also have- and I don't have a slide on this, but we.

B

Also have a bloom box, a bloom energy, solid oxide fuel cell, which is also on.

B

Site, but also was not part of the construction cost funds that we got from.

B

Nasa headquarters that generates co2, so it's not greenhouse gas neutral. It uses.

B

Natural gas and it does produce co2. Some of the advantages of the solid oxide.

B

Fuel cell are that it has a higher efficiency in generating generating.

B

Electricity as a result of the chemical combustion of the natural gas and the.

B

Solid oxide fuel cells and you're generating that power.

B

On site, so you don't lose the quantity of electricity of energy that would just.

B

Be lost in the transmission lines by importing the electricity from another.

B

Location, so there are advantages to the solid oxide fuel cell, and this is an.

B

Example of the bloom energy box, of one of the areas in which we incorporated.

B

Nasa technology, I kind of described how he incorporated some of nasa's mindset.

B

Would the in situ resource utilization with this native to place design concept.

B

But in addition, in terms of technology, the the solid oxide fuel cell technology.

B

Which is patent, which is the basis of bloom energy's business model, was one of.

B

The founders of that one of the developers was dr. sweet. Our initials k.

B

R, so kr sridhar was a nasa ames, employee and developed the solid oxide fuel.

B

Technology as part of the work that he was doing to consider energy generation.

B

For habitats and workspaces for a martian exploration, for example, and so.

B

He recognized that the technology had other applications and at the time there.

B

Were some interruptions of funding to the project that he was working on? That.

B

Had to do with mars exploration, and so he left nasa and was one of the founders.

B

Of bloom energy, for in the early years, bloom energy had its offices in the nasa.

B

Research park, which is an area that nasa ames inherited when the moffett federal.

B

Airfield was turned over to us following the navy moffett naval air station.

B

Enclosure late 70s early- no, it was later than that was probably might have been.

B

The 90s that then the navy left moffett field. So then some of the spaces.

B

External to the ames research center that are now under our management. We.

B

Have a nasa research park in bloom energy head offices there, so we have a.

B

Partnership with bloom, energy and part of the contract when we installed the.

B

Solid oxide fuel cell they had already been in business they'd already been.

B

Selling solid oxide fuel cells call it generation, 1 or fuel cell 1.0. The one.

B

That we have at sustainability based is the very first model of generation 2.0. So there was some genuine genuine novelty and.

B

Generation 2.0 was rated to produce more energy than the first boxes and we were.

B

In a partnership we still are with bloom energy to monitor its operation, so one.

B

Of the things that we've noticed in the 2.0 bloom energy fuel cells is that they.

B

They decrement, they lose efficiency. Pretty rapidly you, you can notice it.

B

Over a period of months, I believe that it's supposed to make 200 kv 24/7, but we.

B

Notice in the readouts from the machine, I don't recall that I've ever seen it.

B

Making 200 I've seen it making, maybe one like 195, and then it quickly goes down.

B

To 185 180, but we're in a contract with bloom energy and they come out and.

B

Maintain it and what what they would pay us, what they would pay us in return for.

B

The amount of energy it doesn't produce. We then kind of bundle and turn around.

B

And pay them back in the maintenance, so we're essentially have been getting the maintenance free. It turns out to be a pretty good relationship. You had a.

B

C

No, it generates constantly and produces electricity constantly, and we don't.

B

Power, the building directly off the fuel cell, nor off the solar panels, the solar.

B

Panels do have a direct connection into the building because it was new construction and we could do that. But nasa headquarters preferred that all.

B

That energy generation be tied into the ames grid so rather than create a bullet.

B

Point you know for a sales pamphlet that says that we only do this in one.

B

Location that we're powering the whole building off of these things. It's it's a.

B

Mission risk, if any of these, if any of these fuel cells or solar panels or.

B

Something fail, then, that building would be without energy, and there just wasn't.

B

Any reason to do that you know we're not isolated we're not in some rural area. We.

B

Could easily attach everything to the grid. Thank you.

C

The facility is grid tied to pg&e right, so you're, generating and running and.

C

Running your meters backwards, selling it back to pg&e. No, because we're we're a.

B

Federal facility in federal land, p g, as I understand it, and I may have some of.

B

These details wrong, but pg&e is the local provider. You know they run all the.

B

Lines, we actually buy our power from the western area power authority wafaa, so we.

B

Pay a negotiated federal rate and wapa power is almost exclusively.

B

Hydroelectric power, but pg&e is the delivery mechanism because they own all.

B

Of the the lines in that area, so we're we're not selling power back to pgm. We.

B

Are in fact using it all on-site and and bringing in more, but on paper you know.

B

You can't say where the electron came from, but on paper we're buying our power.

B

Consumption from wafaa thank you and the solar panel strings that we're on the.

C

Previous slide, are they one inverter for many panels, or do you have micro.

C

Inverters one for each panel, there's not one for each panel, but I recall there.

B

Being more than one inverter, so I think they come together and when I last.

B

Remember being up there, I think there were two: do you remember about? Are there two inverters or is there one there's at least two yeah.

B

I think there's not dozens, but there are at least two. I think that's how they.

B

Don't have it yeah. That might be why there are two yeah, because there are two.

B

Ways to to buildings- and we also looked at in case anybody- is interested. We.

B

Looked at the benefits of cleaning the solar panels, we looked also at an.

B

Academic research study with carnegie mellon university that wanted to look at.

B

Some automated washer arms on the solar panels to see what's the cost-benefit.

B

Analysis between the technology that you would have to install to periodically.

B

Clean your solar panels to maintain them at peak efficiency versus just letting.

B

Them lose efficiency and measure how much of a loss there is. So if anybody's.

B

Thinking about the balance between getting your your solar panels, washed.

B

Versus just leaving them dirty, we have some insights on that too. Sorry, no, we.

B

Haven't had and watch, we looked at some published technical papers and it turns.

B

Out that although the panel's get dirty and they do get old and they they lose.

B

Some efficiency, the amount that they lose and the amount of dollars that you.

B

Can assign to that particularly sorry, particularly in our case buying our.

B

Power from wafaa it was very inexpensive, and so this is where you get into the.

B

The difference between choices that you make because they are optimal.

B

Forward-Leaning designs versus choices that you make because they're economical.

B

So in our case, washing the solar panels or installing complicated but beautiful.

B

Robotic ways of cleaning the solar panels wasn't worth it. So certainly the.

B

Power the pals today and make less energy than they made when they were first installed. But it's not worth doing much about it and most of the published.

B

Papers that I found when we were first researching this back in 2012 show that.

B

The panel's get sufficiently cleaned by rainfall, so you know once a year you get.

B

A little bit of natural cleaning, depending on how much rainfall you get.

B

And all in all, as an economic proposition, it's pretty good.

B

So we also have some water recycling in the facility, and this is also a nasa.

B

System at the time, two thousand nine ten when we were getting permits, it wasn't.

B

It wasn't allowed locally, and I possibly anywhere in california might have been.

B

Allowed in la I'm not sure, but it wasn't typical to do water recycling on-site.

B

But this is another technology, as I mentioned, for space exploration and.

B

Supporting humans in space that nasa ames specifically works on water.

B

Recycling on the space station, the system that is used to recycle water so.

B

That the astronauts have a fully enclosed loop and the coffee that they.

B

Drink today and the urine that they express as a result is the coffee that.

B

They drink tomorrow. So that's a system that was designed at nasa ames and we.

B

Wanted to incorporate that system into our facility. So in order to do that, we.

B

Dual plumbed the building, so there are two separate plumbing systems that allow.

B

Us to harvest the water from showers and sinks, not from toilets we're not doing.

B

Black water, which is how we term water that's been contaminated with human.

B

Waste but grey water, so water with a little.

B

Soap, suds from from washing hands and from showers.

B

So that's treated separately. It's sustainability base through a system.

B

That is derived from our design principle. That's used on space station.

B

And that has been used in a number of other locations and again that's.

B

Something that I can tell you more about, if anybody's interested, but but for now.

B

I'll move on the the landscaping is designed to use as little water as.

B

Possible we also the federal land that we are stewards of sits on top of a.

B

Superfund plume, most of that is a result of the semiconductor industry in the.

B

Valley, that's moving towards the bay, so it's moving under our land, but it didn't.

B

Originate on our land, some of it's a result of the degreasing activities on.

B

The airfield that the navy was responsible for before they moved out, but now that we're the federal landlords we respond for remediating that so there is a location in. I think it's in sunnyvale.

B

It's at the conjunction of moffitt, ellis and wisman streets, where there is a.

B

Pumping facility where the superfund plume water is pumped out of the.

B

Groundwater and run through activated carbon and back about ten years ago or a.

B

Little bit longer before sustainability base, we, we are overseen by sure some.

B

California, agencies, and also by the epa in terms of how we're treating that.

B

Water and after it was pumped out of the ground and cleaned, we paid a permitting.

B

Fee to discharge that clean water into the san francisco bay, because actually.

B

Even though it's clean, you don't want to be putting fresh water in the bay, it's a.

B

Saline environment, so when we constructed sustainability base, we use.

B

That opportunity to run a dedicated line from that water treatment facility to.

B

Our campus, so that we can use it for landscaping and it's used for.

B

Landscaping its sustainability base, because that clean, fresh water is not.

B

Potable but it is a better solution than discharging it into the bay and it's a.

B

Better solution than using potable water for our landscaping needs. So that's.

B

Another way that we decided to save water, when we when we undertook the.

B

Construction and we have emphasized the reuse of materials inside I mentioned.

B

That we got the money for this construction by a renovation by replacement competition. So in the in the upper image you see that our lobby areas.

B

Are reusing the 1-inch tongue-and-groove white oak flooring that was salvaged.

B

From the demolition of a underutilized and out-of-date 14-foot wind tunnel,.

B

Facility, which is what was torn down as part of our renovation, by replacement.

B

And it's really beautiful and we're very proud of reusing that the internal.

B

Furnishings are designed to allow daylight to penetrate. We did a special.

B

Procurement, putting out our requirements for the furnishings inside the building.

B

We have sit-stand desks because we wanted to.

B

Have standard furnishings throughout but of course, people come in different shapes and sizes and have different preferences for how they work. So these.

B

Desks will will accommodate you're sitting there, la comédie you're standing.

B

Or anywhere in between they're electric they're electrically.

B

Operated and there are also economic chairs, some of which are make use of.

B

Recycled materials and others are recyclable because they remember.

B

Somebody demonstrating this to me once with us with simple household tools: they.

B

Come apart into piles of textiles plastics metals, and so it facilitates.

B

You recycling those at end-of-life now some of the things that we've done with.

B

The building is a living laboratory and these I'll try to go quickly through.

B

Because there's a lot of complicated technology here, which you may or may not.

B

Be interested in some of the research that we do at nasa. Ames is in advanced.

B

Computing in technology, development systems, health management, software.

B

Controls autonomy, data mining, so one of our approaches to the building is to use.

B

Its facilities to advance our own software that could be used on aircraft.

B

On space, exploring vehicles and habitats on other planets for doing systems.

B

Health management, the the building has gosh. I haven't done this for a while, but.

B

I think it's about 2000 sensor points, something like that. Those sensor points.

B

Some of which are actually individual locations that gather a temperature.

B

Reading or a co2 reading or a humidity reading, and some of them are places.

B

Where those readings come together and are collected, and that too is a point so.

B

About 1/2 of the 2,000 points about a thousand of the points are actual.

B

Locations in the building, where some physical piece of information is being.

B

Gathered and about a thousand of the points or some other place, where those.

B

Information points are being combined and and fed into a computer.

B

The the anticipation of all of that information completely changed our.

B

Approach to facilities, engineering on campus, our facilities, engineers had to.

B

Upgrade and update their central location because most of our buildings.

B

Might have 50 sensor points if they had any, but sustainability base was going to.

B

Have thousands so we had to consider how we were going to deal with that influx.

B

Of information, it was also the time when, although we had t1 ethernet, you know.

B

Large data exchange, ethernet lines coming to ames and available to ames.

B

Our buildings were not typically utilizing those they were communicating.

B

With our facilities, engineers over phone lines, and so that was a that was also an.

B

Opportunity to you know, uproot the phone line kind of system and make sure that.

B

There was t1 coming to all of our buildings, so there are a lot of changes to the campus that happened as a result of sustainability base. So some of our.

B

Researchers are using the information, that's derived from from the building to.

B

Work through their own research, same thing with data mining, we're looking at.

B

The information coming from the building to mine, the data to teach computer.

B

Algorithms, how to find anomalies from what the building is reporting in in the.

B

Combination of of all the sensors that are that are reading out real-time.

B

Information, the gray water recycling system is also an opportunity for data.

B

Mining, so it also has many points of its process that are that are monitored and.

B

I can tell you more about this if you like, it's also been used in research.

B

Work with the with the army, in fact, it was offline from the building.

B

Immediately after construction was complete because the army was so.

B

Interested in it that they wanted us to do a research project for them. But in.

B

Order to dedicate the space to them, we had to disconnect it from the building.

B

So that took a little while, but you know we're a or a national team player our.

B

Goal for the building in in the future are kind of predictive, forward-looking.

B

Goal is to you, the the data mining used, the system's.

B

Health management to do intelligent, integrated control and there are a.

B

Number of companies like large large building management companies. Siemens is.

B

Certainly, one of them that are also doing research along these lines and a.

B

Number of them have come and sought to partner with us. So how do we partner? I.

B

Mentioned in the national aeronautics and space act of 1958- and it has this.

B

Language in it that gives nasa this unusual authority, in addition to the.

B

Authority to manage our own locations now congress gave us the authority to.

B

Not only do procurements to do you know large scale, buys of the products and.

B

Services that we need or to do grants, which is where we seek academic and.

B

Nonprofit partners, who want to do basic research, in addition to procurements and.

B

Grants we have this other transactional authority, which, of course, we call ota so.

B

The other transactional authority allows us to enter into agreements cooperative.

B

Agreements or others that can be with any, as it says, person firm association.

B

Corporation, it can be international and national, it can be academic, it can be.

B

Nonprofit, it could be commercial, so this is a very broad opportunity that nasa.

B

Has almost uniquely in the federal government to enter into cooperative.

B

Partnerships and we call these space act agreements because they're in an.

B

Agreement and it's a legal instrument, but they are they're open to us because.

B

Of the space act, and so that's why we call them space act agreements. We have.

B

Space act agreements with a number of emerging companies. One of them is.

B

Verdigris technologies, it's a local small business and they have installed.

B

Some of their controllers and sustainability base they're deriving.

B

Data from a real facility which helps them improve their product and learn how.

B

It works and we are getting the benefit of their cutting-edge, developing.

B

Technology in terms of predicting our energy management and our energy use.

B

Autodesk is another, autodesk is a very large company and I'm sure many of you.

B

Have heard of it, leader in leader in industry, cad/cam design and 3d design, they had a project for an inter.

B

Interactive building information model that they envisioned going from the.

B

Architect stage, all the way through to the constructor to the construction bid.

B

Stage to the construction implementation stage to the as-built delivered a.

B

Customer stage to the operation by facility engineer stage with using the.

B

Same model in the same software, and since our building was so new, we were.

B

Able to collaborate with them on that project and metric systems is another.

B

Local small business, it's looking at plug load management and we've partnered.

B

With them, we received a number of awards. The most recent one was last year from.

B

The california green technology summit, green building, leadership award and.

B

That's really my signal to to stop and take questions from the audience. I have.

B

Some other slides about things that we do at ames, but that's really kind of the.

B

Top level of how the building operates, and I get really excited and.

B

Enthusiastic about it, so I could just go on forever.

A

Thank you for your presentation. I know one of the buildings at stanford. It was.

A

Either engineering or environmental sciences took a similar goal. I wonder if.

A

You're familiar with that building and you can compare and contrast your so.

B

There are a lot of buildings of stanford and increasingly buildings at stanford.

B

That are trying to do this. You might be talking about what why ii, I think.

B

Yeah, I'm not familiar with it recently, but I know during the period of like.

B

2009 10 11 12, we had a, we had a group. What did we call it with some guiding it.

B

Was a building information modeling workshop group? We actually had a number.

B

Of companies and universities that were interested in the concept of building.

B

Information modeling now autodesk turned out to be a space act agreement an.

B

Actual partnership that that we concluded as a result of this. But for a.

B

Long time we had a group of folks, mostly from the us, I can't recall if there were.

B

Any internationals that would meet about quarterly and we would discuss the.

B

General field of building information, modeling and the conduct and progress of.

B

Sustainability base and the stanford folks were key members of that and in.

B

Fact we had some of our later meetings of that building information, modeling.

B

Bim workshop at stanford, and that was where I learned.

B

An interesting tidbit that the departments that were going to live in.

B

That building, I can't remember all of the names of those precisely, but they.

B

Were design and architecture and sustainability and technology kinds of.

B

And they were really excited, even though they had to move out temporarily of.

B

Wherever they had been working so that it could be demolished and rebuilt as y2e, they were really exciting excited to see the finished product because they.

B

Were planning on like 2,000 sensors so that they can really precisely control.

B

The heating and their lighting and their energy use, it would be a great teaching.

B

Tool for students well sometime when they were not in the building during the.

B

Design and construction phase the university.

B

And the construction management hits some financial problems and they needed.

B

To reduce some costs and some scope of the project, and so the architects and.

B

The construction company, you know, looked at the plan and I said you know: mm.

B

Censors who needs that that's kind of crazy, that's really expensive! Why don't.

B

We save some money there and so, as the story goes like I say, I'm only getting.

B

At second hand, but as the story goes when they finally move back into it, they.

B

Didn't have nearly the access for either the information or the control points.

B

That they had anticipated- and I remember a number of meetings that we had in.

B

There, where there were really you, know trivial problems about not being able to.

B

Control this light or having the room be too hot and you couldn't adjust it and.

B

Everything- and it was really frustrating because it was the same kind of problems.

B

That you would have in a building that was, you know, 10 15, 20 years older, that.

B

They truly anticipated. They would never have to deal with again. So you know.

B

Another lesson of and another something similar to what we learned it at at ames.

B

If you can award a contract that is design-bid-build.

B

That is the best way to do things, because you can hold your build element.

B

To your construction elements to the design and tie the the finances and the.

B

Costs all the way along the lifecycle. We didn't do that. So that's a lesson.

B

Learned, we had a design and then the bid build came following the design from.

B

Different companies nrel, I think, did it all together. Design.

B

Bid build all together and I don't know how stanford did it, but you know it's.

B

One of those places where information gets lost between the design and the.

B

Intent and the actual building and construction when changes get made.

B

Outside of your control,.

D

Thank you for the presentation, so you are using a ground source heat pump. Do.

D

You have any data regarding the performance of that how efficient what.

D

The average cop and that kind of stuff, so I I don't have that in slides, like a.

B

Chart of what the efficiency is, but thank you for mentioning that I I know I.

B

Passed through that slide, that's an example of one of the elements of the.

B

Building that we're really really happy with it also has you know one of these.

B

Interesting stories that it's, I think there's about, I mean there's more than.

B

Half a kilometer of 2-inch pvc between the building and the ground, the ground.

B

Source field we did surveying of the nearby field where we were going to.

B

Install all of that piping for for the ground source water, and I should point.

B

Out that we're not using ground water, what we're doing is running lengths of.

B

Pipe through the subsurface soil and using the constant temperature of the.

B

Subsurface soil to condition the temperature of the water using again.

B

These in-situ principles, so then we bring the water into the building at a.

B

Standard constant temperature that we can rely on and then we heat it up.

B

Marginally, to run through radiators to warm the building, and we chill it.

B

Marginally, to run through ceiling panels that will cool the building, so the the.

B

Ground source system has, I think, it's a hundred. We dug a hundred holes might be.

B

200 there they're paired, so it goes up and down and then it moves across and.

B

Goes up and down and I think that they're about 400 feet, but initially our.

B

Plan was to have them deeper than that and we had surveyed the area and it.

B

Looked like that would work. The first couple of holes that were drilled were.

B

Fine, but pretty early, it was like the sixth hole or something they hit a.

B

Geyser so they had broken through geological formation of.

B

Schist and they got to some free groundwater and it wasn't our goal to.

B

Harvest, groundwater, and so they did a quick replanting for how they were going.

B

To deal with this field and they increased the number of holes, but.

B

Decrease the depth of the holes in order to get the the whole length that they.

B

Needed to condition the water, but it's been a very reliable system. It makes the.

B

Building a very comfortable building, it's really quiet, you don't have the.

B

Sound of forced air, you don't have dust and allergy problems, which also makes it.

B

Easier to generally keep the building clean and it's just it's very.

B

Comfortable I've also heard in the last couple of years under operation the the.

B

Room, the building has the reputation of running cold and I haven't heard anybody.

B

Give a precise explanation of why it runs cold, but it does tend to be cooler.

B

Rather than warmer, more often than not, which is different than we had.

B

Anticipated the energy models actually indicated that, with the passive cooling.

B

We were doing there was no air-conditioning, it's not entirely true.

B

There's one room that has air conditioning because it's a conference room and the passive cooling was rated not to be able to maintain that.

B

Temperature, when you had like a hundred people in the room, so there is one room.

B

That has a dedicated air conditioner. The rest of the building is all passive and.

B

It looked like if we had a run of days like four or five days in a row with a.

B

Hundred degrees, temperature outside or more that passive cooling wasn't going.

B

To be able to make the building comfortable and our plan, for that was just let people go home and work from home, but in fact, we've never encountered.

B

That and, as you know, we've had a number of occasions where we've had a string of.

B

Days of a hundred degrees and then more than one string and we've never found.

B

That building to be uncomfortable, so that's really really nice.

B

Well, I can put you in touch with somebody who can find out that data if.

B

What I just don't know it have you looked at the new apple campus, they.

E

Supposedly, have a lot of innovations, and especially in heating and cooling, I can.

B

See it from from my backyard, but other than that I haven't been over there. I.

B

Know iii, don't know what I don't know what they're doing for the for the.

B

Heating and cooling didn't do unit know what technologies are using. I know.

E

They're using a lot of outside air from because I say the climate here is.

E

Perfect 75% of the time, yeah yeah, that's true and that's another reason why this.

B

Kind of design- and we've shared this with our we've shared this many times in.

B

Public presentations, but especially with our federal partners and the the design.

B

Plans and everything that we have is is open in public, because many of these.

B

Things work so well that we wanted to encourage other people who were you know.

B

Considering new construction to use some of these techniques in this area, as you.

B

Say the outside air temperature is very permissive for for doing a lot of in.

B

Situ resource utilization using the natural temperature outside instead of.

B

Artificially, cooling and heating your location use the fact that you work in a.

B

Comfortable mediterranean environment, we do that a lot in the building. It's we.

B

Draw in fresh air overnight there's a standard protocol. It provides some.

B

Cooling, the fresh some of the fresh air is trapped in there's like a plenum like.

B

All of our floors are like, like the elevated stage here, and they have it's.

B

Not as high as this it has, I think, a foot between the concrete the poured.

B

Concrete slab and the actual floor that you're walking on and that traps cool.

B

Air when cool air is brought in overnight, so that provides you a little bit of cooling from underneath as well as fresh air, and we also, as I said, we.

B

Have manual windows and no longer automated windows, but manual windows and.

B

It's a negative pressure building, so every time somebody opens a door or.

B

Window that sucks air in so that's another way that we get more fresh air.

F

My question: thank you again. This was so informative. My question is, I know you.

F

Had mentioned 27 million dollars, but if we wanted to do that in our own home.

F

Like I know, people have done this, but is there any way to make it even like for.

F

Other people for other companies and other builders to follow the same thing.

F

As there are you doing any studies on how to make it progressively cheaper so.

B

We wouldn't typically do a study like that right because we're we're nasa. We.

B

Just studies about air content, space exploration, but I've been asked the.

B

Question a lot about how expensive it was, especially five six years ago to.

B

Incorporate all of these technologies and it's complicated to do that kind of.

B

Economic assessment, partly as we were talking about electricity since we buy.

B

Our electricity from wapa and we get a special rate for federal agencies, which.

B

Are have combined all of their buying power. You know, I will probably miss.

B

Speak but the the price that we were paying the last time I looked a couple.

B

Of years ago, was about a third of what most places were paying for commercial.

B

Rates and maybe a quarter of residential rates or something like that, so we were.

B

Already getting a really good deal. So if the argument that we were making at the.

B

Time to our nasa headquarters about why we should invest in solar panels or why.

B

We should invest in a solid oxide fuel cell if she made it solely on an.

B

Economic basis, you actually couldn't sell that, because the power we were.

B

Getting locally was so cheap and you couldn't even entirely make it on a.

B

Sustainability greenhouse gas basis, because the wapa power is predominantly.

B

Hydroelectric, so it was really leaning on our role as a a forward, leaning.

B

Research and technology organization that was part of what made those choices.

B

Appropriate, although in the case of the solar panels, as I mentioned, we worked.

B

With pg&e and we got a good deal on how we were buying and so and with bloom.

B

Energy, we're partnering with them; they in is with as nasa technology to begin.

B

With so there were all these kinds of reasons of why we did it. We also looked.

B

At the argument or the economic analysis of the the money that we were initially.

B

Given to build a 50,000 square, foot building was whatever.

B

We proposed and nasa headquarters said: that's a reasonable, fair market rate for.

B

Building a building of that scale at 2009, as I mentioned, the first design.

B

That was done was completely scrapped. I don't know actually offhand how much.

B

That cost, but I know that when it was done and presented and we decided and.

B

I'll give steve zorn answer a shout out again today, because it was his.

B

Retirement party, when steve said that's just not good enough headquarters, said good on you, but you're not getting a dollar more.

B

So, in fact, sustainability based on everything that went into it, was done.

B

For less than headquarters initially gave us because they didn't top us back.

B

Up again after we decided to go for a different design, so this building with.

B

All of its features was no more expensive than the 1980s building that.

B

The initial design called for which would have been nowhere near as sexy as this and frankly, I don't know where they would have spent that money or why it was why that building was that expensive and maybe in some areas it's in like.

B

Remediation of some of the stuff that they were doing as construction practices, but if, instead, you do your construction carefully, targeting getting.

B

Leed platinum rating, which we did and some of the points that are associated.

B

With getting leadership in environmental and engineering design is that I always.

B

Get the acronym wrong from the us green building council. So some of the points.

B

That you can earn towards lead. I have to do with how you manage your site and.

B

Where you get your materials, so if you do that carefully and if you source your.

B

Materials locally that maybe some of how it was actually cheaper to do it. That.

B

Way- and I have one final question: are you doing another iteration of the.

F

Sustainability base like a martian base or something well, so the the reason that.

B

Sustainability base got that name. Is that 2009 in july, when the contract for.

B

Sustainability base construction was signed was the anniversary of the.

B

Establishment, the 40th anniversary of the establishment of tranquility base on.

B

The moon, and so our internal message, tagline, was nasa, was responsible for the.

B

Most advanced habitat off the planet in 1969 humans live.

B

In tranquillity base- and so we wanted this to be the counterpart, the most.

B

Advanced sustainable building on earth as of 2009, and so we gave it the name.

B

Sustainability base, in fact, when, when the renovation, by replacement.

B

Competition was held in started, probably 2007-2008. The results were known as you.

B

May realize thinking on your presidential history that was prior to.

B

President obama's term and this facility was initially called the collaborative.

B

Support facility, even though shout out to steve their.

B

Answer again, steve had a really strong personal commitment and he wanted to.

B

Make that a really strong nasa commitment to making a sustainable building, he felt I felt this is one of the reasons why I got involved in this.

B

Project and resonated so strongly with steve it's my feeling that nasa is.

B

Uniquely the federal agency that is charged with thinking about exploring.

B

Space and understanding, whether we're alone and how life originated here and.

B

Whether life may exist somewhere else and whatever the answer is, if we are.

B

Alone then, we have a unique responsibility to be stewards for this.

B

Place if this is the only place that there is life, if we're not alone, then it.

B

Would be good to be proud of what we've done in this place? Should we ever meet.

B

Any of those other life-forms or be able to communicate with them more likely.

B

Communicate with me anyway, so that makes nasa unique and internationally on the.

B

Planet nasa is by far the best funded organization that does exploration there.

B

Are certainly others and we partner with them, but none of them come near the.

B

Funding that nasa gets, and also with our assets, airborne assets, satellite assets.

B

We're looking at the planet and how our own planet is, is evolving and changing.

B

So we understand this, you know we gather the data and we have our own in-house.

B

Scientists who we're looking at the data we know what's happening to the planet and all of those things taken together, along with.

B

Mission to develop technology really uniquely places us that when we have an.

B

Opportunity to step out and do something that's right in our new construction. We.

B

Need to do that so steve and I always really resonated on that. So we always.

B

Wanted to think of it a sustainability base and we always wanted sustainable.

B

Design forward-leaning design living laboratory designed to be front and.

B

Center in that, but nasa headquarters was not of a mind with us. There part of the.

B

Executive branch and the only way of proposing this to to them was just to.

B

Call it the vanilla collaborative support facility, the economics and the.

B

Reason we won, the competition was because we were tearing down the 14-foot trans subsonic, wind sun, wind tunnel, and this is what we were gonna build and.

B

That's how we got it for the first several years, even during the obama.

B

Administration to headquarters, we had to call it the collaborative support.

B

Facility locally, we called it sustainability base. We weren't able to.

B

Come out and take it out of the closet and call it sustainability base until.

B

The last four years, and now it's just the name, has stuck but honestly as as.

B

Gary mentioned about the federal sustainability award, that's not being.

B

Given anymore and once again, the executive branch has very much changed.

B

Attitudes about the need for sustainable design and the value of sustainable.

B

Design so typically, I think now in our facilities managers talk about this. This.

B

Facility and other new ones that we want to build, they are again making the.

B

Economic argument they're making the argument about resource utilization and.

B

Energy stewardship, but it's not really about sustainability anymore. We have a.

B

New building, that's under construction, it's not going to believe platinum! I'm.

B

Not sure that we have the funding any longer to pay for leed certification.

B

When you get into leed, you have to pay for the certification and the review, but.

B

I understand it's being built to equivalent to leed gold standards, but I.

B

Don't think that they're going to seek certification, we also last year got our.

B

New master plan approved by headquarters we're required to update our master plan.

B

Every five years, so it's a rolling plan and our last due date for creating an.

B

Update was in 2017, again, steve was a leader of that and I was one of the.

B

People on the team, we recognized that we have a number of.

B

Physical vulnerabilities here, because we're on the edge of san francisco bay.

B

So we have climate change, we have sea level rise, we have storm water management, we also have the seismic challenges and we're in really prime.

B

Real estate for for for cost for expense for our location in silicon valley, but.

B

It also has significant challenges, and so it's our obligation as stewards of of.

B

The work that's done at nasa, as as as public servants as civil servants as.

B

Federal employees to consider what would happen if there was an earthquake, what.

B

Would happen if we lose land as a result of sea level rise, we're not able then to.

B

Maintain our mission and if we can't provide you, know our expertise and keep.

B

Our mission going: that's that's a that's mission, failure and that's something.

B

That federal agencies, you know, don't want to countenance so we're looking at.

B

That very very carefully. We've done quite a number of studies and.

B

Collaborated with a number of the the agencies and the municipalities around.

B

The bay with the respect to sea level rise and storm water management, water.

B

Recycling efforts- and we also, of course, because we have a significant work force.

B

We we're worried, like all of you, about traffic management and the cost of cost.

B

Of housing and good schools and and all of those kinds of things, so we looked at.

B

All of that, in our master plan and generally speaking, because I'm not aware.

B

Of any way of preventing the estimations of sea-level rise, we're generally moving.

B

Away from the edge of the bay and consolidating our facilities further.

B

Towards the 101 and the western end as its as it's possible to do so we're also.

B

Looking at buildings that are that are taller that have less of a footprint.

B

More and more pedestrian-friendly walkways and in in putting up these.

B

Larger buildings we're looking at designs that have some of the.

B

Similarities of openness that encourage collaboration and collaborative exchange.

B

As you have it sustainability base, we didn't even talk about the noise issue.

B

And that's a whole other thing in a in a big open facility.

G

So you kind of mentioned that it's not part of the mission to continue to.

G

Evolve but that doesn't gonna stop anybody who's involved with the project.

G

From not thinking about that, so I'm here is what kinds of things you know. If you.

G

Were to do you'd have the next the next step for the next generation. What kinds.

G

Of things are the most interesting, you know whole. You know you have a lot of.

G

Sensors internet of things has really kind of really changed the face of that.

G

Since, since the time when this was built, so I give maybe two answers to that- we.

B

Have continued to use the facility as a living lab and some of those partnerships that I mentioned with companies like ver degree and and metric.

B

And stuff like that new ones come up all the time, one that I don't even have a.

B

Slide on was with a company called view, so there's a company called view. The iew.

B

And they're located off of highway 237 because I've been over to their place.

B

They make electrodynamic windows, so they approached us and they wanted to install.

B

Their windows in our location and gather some data turns out that the windows.

B

That we have, which were state of the art at the time, they're double paned, are.

B

Gone filled glazed, so they were, they were the most energy-efficient windows.

B

That we could buy at that time, and it turns out that this company view uses.

B

Oms, you know over the over the market remarket, so I guess so. They start with.

B

The same window and then they apply an electrodynamic film, so electrodynamic.

B

Film darkens our lightens, the windows and some that can provide you with shade.

B

It controls heat gain into the into the interior of a building, so it can make.

B

Your it can be more energy-efficient and it can make it more comfortable for.

B

Occupants, well, we didn't have the funding to exchange out all of the windows. So, even though we were persuaded that the.

B

Technology is actually a little bit better. It does use a little bit of.

B

Electricity, but very very little once you change the state of the window, it's a very low wattage to to maintain that. So it's not very expensive.

B

In electricity- and it had some really cool features, but we couldn't afford it.

B

We we thought about doing a space act, agreement, partnership with them.

B

But when you're moving windows in and out of a building- and you have to.

B

Explain to the lawyers about why that's a partnership because surely they the.

B

Lawyers feel you ought to own your own windows. How do you partner with an.

B

External entity on on your windows seems like it's a fundamental element of your.

B

Facility that you ought to be constantly in control of so instead of doing a.

B

Space act, agreement partnership, there we work with view and we were able to come.

B

Up with a plan where, in one particular office, which was one that our initial.

B

Energy modeling showed was, it was in the corner of the building. That was going to get a lot of sunlight. That just didn't happen to be very many trees, and so, and the woman who was in that office was really uncomfortable. That office would.

B

Get hot there was, it was terrible with glare and you could put all the shades.

B

Down but then it was just dark, and so it definitely had a problem. So we thought.

B

This is ideal for the view window. It would be great if we could replace her.

B

Windows and so view gave us a bid for changing out all the windows. The.

B

Materials and the labor that was, I think, 99999 and we had a number of civil.

B

Servants have credit cards for making small purchases that have a thousand.

B

Dollar limit, so I thought okay, so we could buy the windows from you and the.

B

Contract said that our windows are going to go into storage at their location. If.

B

We ever want them back, we can get them back and they'll do it for us and their.

B

Windows are coming into our location and if they ever want them back, they can.

B

Come and take them back and give us our windows. If we don't want their windows, we give them that. So you know it was just good for everybody and it came in.

B

Under the price that we could do on a single credit card so and then happened.

B

About four years ago and the windows are still there and the woman in that office.

B

Loves it, you can darken the windows to its maximum extent and when you're.

B

Actually, in the room, it doesn't feel dark at all. It just somehow feels more.

B

Comfortable because you're limiting the heat that being gained into the office. So that's one of the areas where we're constantly.

B

Looking for new ways, another one was with a fiber-optic device that you can.

B

Either put on a roof or you can put out in a garden, you just want it in a place.

B

Where can get a lot of sunlight and it it has a very efficient and advanced.

B

Collector of of light, and then it efficiently, transmits those photons.

B

Through fiber-optic tubes- and you can lead that natural light into some other.

B

Interior places in the building, so we're always looking for new things like that.

B

That we can try and do and for creative ways of being able to appropriately.

B

Legally, financially accomplish it yeah, yeah and, of course, the data mining. The.

B

Other main element of what we're doing in the building with all of these.

B

Different systems and with all the information we get from the sensors is.

B

Using that to feed into our own software, that's looking at data mining and.

B

Prognostics prognostics is like predictive failure when you, when you.

B

Send something out like a space vehicle or you build a habitat on another planet.

B

You you want to be very, very, very cautious about failure. You have.

B

Redundant systems, but you also want to know when something's going to fail if.

B

There are no human beings involved. You still have an enormous investment, an.

B

Enormous expense, a big science payload a lot. You can learn that you want to learn.

B

So you're constantly monitoring, I mean everything works on energy you're.

B

Constantly monitoring how all your devices are operating, and particularly.

B

What your energy balance is, so, if something goes wrong with your battery.

B

And you know eventually it's going to you want to know that as soon as.

B

Possible, so you can then replan the remaining life of those scientific.

B

Instruments, so you get your most valuable readings while you still can.

B

And optimize the return from that mission. And, of course, if there are.

B

Humans, as you can imagine there be other, you know, elements of how you need to you.

B

Know manage those kinds of systems, so that's something that's really fundamental to the work that we do at ames and sustainability, based by virtue.

B

Of how the sensor networks are deployed and our partnerships with groups like.

B

Autodesk and verte agree gives us a lot of consolidated information that we can.

B

Then use to make our nasa systems for space exploration and aircraft and.

B

And space habitats, more robust, more liable.

B

I think they want you to wait for the third microphone. I'm just curious for a.

H

Building like this, is it easy or difficult to make changes or expand, or.

B

Expand expand. It yeah, like our cell sale. Port, is elite certified, but if we ever.

H

Need expansion is it, does it get complicated? That's that's a really good.

B

Question and my my initial thought is that it's complicated.

B

But I'm trying to tease apart in my mind what part of it is complicated.

B

Inherently because of the building and what part of it is complicated, just.

B

Because it's a federal agency it as far as I think it's mostly complicated.

B

Because it's a federal agency and there's a lack of funds but no lack of.

B

Oversight or bureaucracy, the building internally, is inherently created and.

B

Designed to be fully reconfigurable inside your question makes me remember.

B

That, but I'm now thinking have we ever reconfigured it only. I think in the most.

B

Minor ways- and there has been some modification done inside now- I haven't.

B

Been over there recently, but I remember there the hearing that there was going.

B

To be so, the design allows for a lot of reconfiguration the the walls that are.

B

Present are there very few: there are only a few walled off offices around the.

B

Edges and most of it, as you see, is the just the waist height divisions and the.

B

Way the floor is elevated off. The concrete slab allows you to reroute.

B

Telephone and computer wires and things like that, and then you can just move.

B

Around your internal furnishings- and you only have a few walls that are around.

B

The edges and the walls are actually sort of walls with air quotes, because.

B

They don't go all the way up to the ceiling, which is another issue for sound.

B

Management, but it was designed that way for the homogenous.

B

Change of the air for the heating and the cooling, so it is a design feature.

B

That the walls don't partition certain places off from each other, and you still.

B

Get a circulation of the of the year to maintain temperature, so their design.

B

Choices like that all around the only expensive modification I recall, being.

B

Discussed was to do things like to to subvert the underlying design of the.

B

Building by creating some more private offices or adding you know additional.

B

Doors and things when another project wanted to move in there and the the.

B

Whole total open space didn't work for them, and you know honestly, I can't.

B

Remember whether in the end, they decided not to move in and not to spend or.

B

Whether they did move in and do the modifications, but the discussion kind of.

B

Answers your question: if we do, some modifications have been proposed, but.

B

They're, mostly against the design concept, that was the original design.

B

Concept, the original design concept is very flexible, but getting anything done.

B

In a federal building is pretty complicated.

I

It sounds like you: don't have to follow the standard procedure to get approval.

I

From planning department from the housing department for all your changes.

I

Even it's touching the utilities and everything you have to friedan. No, no. We.

B

Do we do we will always obey the local building codes? We interface with local.

B

Municipalities, we have to think about the california.

B

Secret requirements, where we're subject to california secret requirements, so we.

B

We are subject to most, if not all, of those things and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm.

B

Not an expert on that, but I know that we we pay a lot of attention to that and.

B

New projects go through all of those checkboxes for for internal kinds of.

B

Modifications like the question about how hard would it be to modify the.

B

Building, we also have a construction permit, review board and anytime. You want.

B

To install anything or make a modification to anything whether it's.

B

Sometimes they're individual modifications that a principal investigator or a researcher will want to do in his or her laboratory. For some.

B

Reason- and you know where those impact, the the infrastructure they have to be.

B

Proposed and advocated to the construction permit review board, which.

B

Meets every week I think, on tuesdays. I've done I've taken things to them before, but not in a while. So there are local control processes for all of that.

B

And we do interface with you know all of the external communities, as well as the.

B

State- it's just that for the the one that I mentioned, that we didn't follow.

B

Was locally recycling our own water at the time that wasn't typically allowed.

B

Maybe you could have gotten a waiver, but but again when you as I said, we didn't.

B

Have to were federal property, but all of that was completely contained, so you.

B

Know where it crosses boundaries and where water, pipes and electronics and.

B

Things like that cross off of our land onto someplace else. Of course, we always.

B

Have to comply with all of those requirements.

B

I see, so you still need to get all the permits to do those. Oh yeah, oh yeah. We.

B

Have a lot of permitting, and not only for the buildings, but also for.

B

The the air quality, the bay area, air quality board- I mentioned that we have.

B

Oversight for the water remediation for the superfund site, so there are a whole.

B

Variety of requirements that we have for for safety, occupational health and.

B

Safety, environment, energy, energy management and all the reporting.

B

Requirements that california has for locations that produce certain amounts.

B

Of greenhouse gases or operate certain diesel generators or things like that, we.

B

Have all of those same requirements also need to fit? Laying use? Is that right.

B

Well, it's it's federal land, so it's not like zoned, residential or zoned.

B

Commercial, it's just federal property. However, if we were to propose to do.

B

Something there that that would be substantially different than there would.

B

Be local communities that would have interest in that who would communicate.

B

Their interests in groups to their elected officials who would communicate.

B

Their interests to our representatives in the state legislature and in the.

B

National and they would communicate to the senators, and we would hear about it.

I

J

You spoke about data mining, so I presume you do some analysis on the collected.

J

Data, and is that typically used to you, know, modify characteristics to refine.

J

Things on a constant basis- let's say water utilization, great water,.

J

Utilization, things of that sort. So what what do you do with the collected data.

J

At the moment, it's a research project, it's not to my knowledge unless things.

B

Have chasen it's not the kind of thing that we have enough experience and.

B

Validity behind to be altering the the approach that our facilities.

B

Managers are taking, but it's a it's a research project that one hopes would.

B

Gradually generate sufficient data to be able to feed into the work that facility.

B

Managers do and even to be to be predictive to learn year-on-year.

B

If you have data from you know, multiple years about the change of the seasons.

B

And the change of the employee habits- and you know at certain times of the day.

B

Certain times of the year, when you're, using more or less energy, that you would.

B

Be able, then, to become predictive and condition the buildings so that, if, under.

B

Certain set of circumstances and it predicts the the models- predict that.

B

Those circumstances are going to happen tomorrow. The building gets a little hot.

B

Then you would want to actually pre cool the building on that date, so that you.

B

Don't get the hot spike, so we would use the data to do that. We haven't achieved.

B

That yet, but you're right, that's the kind of the kind of goal that we have s.

B

In a small example of that byrd agree, technologies has a device which is able.

B

To measure from a central circuit box, the energy draw from all the downstream.

B

Devices and to deconstruct the the signals from all those individual.

B

Devices based on its pattern of energy use, we have one installed in in one of.

B

Our locations and and we're partnering with them on the data in another.

B

Location in a hotel, they had one of these devices installed in a kitchen and.

B

It was reporting that a bank of dishwashers, one of them, was delivering.

B

Back unusual readings, anomalous, readings wrong readings, so the the dishwasher was.

B

Still functioning and dishes were still coming out and they looked clean, but the.

B

Dishwasher had changed in its profile of energy use and so the verdigris device.

B

Reported this and the facility manager investigated it, and it turned out this.

B

That the sterilization cycle on that dishwasher in a large hotel with.

B

Restaurants, everything wasn't working properly, so that was an example.

B

Where the installed box was able to reveal and predict to the managers that.

B

The dishwasher wasn't sterilizing properly and you can imagine that you.

B

Know this could have prevented a whole run of you know unknown. Why is everybody.

B

Getting sick and testing everything and testing all the food and testing all the surfaces and everything I'm like fine. But why is there videos like what was a dishwasher, so they were able to prevent that from happening by using the.

B

Information by data mining, just the the electrical energy signatures of the.

B

Devices that were that were plugged in downstream of the circuit box. So that's.

B

Some of the kind of thing that we're looking for the data mining. Thank you.

B

Would maybe come to time it's like 8 o'clock. I mean I'm happy to hang out for.

B

A little while and answer questions that you thought were too technical, the other.

B

People might not be interested in I'm happy to stay if you have any of those.

B

But it's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much for giving me the time to stand.

B

Up here, like it's kind of like a daydream that I have of you, know having.

B

A whole hour and a half to talk about nothing but the building. I love it. Thank.

H

You thank you very much.