ECONOMY

Open-source eco-construction

Although more and more widespread in our wealthy countries, eco-construction is still absent from developing nations. But maybe not for much longer: a humanitarian project named OS House aims to accelerate the development of this type of construction in the poorest countries on the basis of the goodwill of architects and professionals in the sector.

Very widely adopted in the area of information technology, open source is a collaboration methodology that consists of setting up a project (a website or software design project, for example) to which skilled volunteers generously contribute their time. This voluntary contribution model is the concept that the creators of the OS House project have chosen. Their idea? To develop eco-construction in the poorest countries by setting up projects supported by the skills, knowledge and goodwill of the network's members. Through OS House, specialists will volunteer their services at eco-construction sites in Asia, Africa and South America. According to the project's founders, OS House will operate according to eight fundamental principles that will guarantee sustainable standards. These include cradle-to-cradle design (minimising the environmental impact of the house, from construction to recycling once the house reaches the end of its life) and minimising energy consumption.

http://www.os-house.org

Monitoring consumption in real time

Software has become an essential means of monitoring a household's energy consumption. The famous search engine Google is now adding its own contribution with Google PowerMeter, an application it will provide to Internet users free of charge.

Everyone can agree on one thing when it comes to the rational use of energy: there is no point initiating awareness-raising campaigns on energy saving if the consumer has no idea how much he consumes every day. Despite the information given in instruction manuals for electrical equiment (ovens, fridges etc.), the details of how much energy domestic devices consume do not really speak to their users. Neither does the energy bill sent out quarterly or at the end of the year. To make consumers truly aware of how their electricity consumption is evolving, and help them identify where the biggest savings can be made, politicians and energy companies have been talking over the last few months about transforming traditional electricity networks into intelligent electricity networks. Much mention has also been made of intelligent meters in homes. To ensure the information provided by these new devices can be interpreted, all that remained was to develop the software interface that would present the results in a readable form. This is the thinking behind Google PowerMeter, the new application provided to consumers free of charge by Google.

http://www.google.org/powermeter/index.html