Licence to chill

It wasn’t a lengthy presentation that kicked off this year’s ASHRAE winter meeting, held at the Adam’s Mark hotel in Dallas, Texas in January. Instead, delegates were greeted with an impressive rap video, titled “Licensed to chill” – probably not quite what the audience of mainly middle-aged members was expecting. But it was very effective and in keeping with the upbeat theme of the meeting: “Get energised in Dallas”. The rap video is intended to encourage more young people to enter the services engineering profession: view it yourself at www.ashrae.org/students/page/950

The video certainly seemed to strike a chord with Jeff Littleton, ASHRAE’s executive vice president, who carried the theme into the start of his report.

Keynote speaker Diana Nyad, who holds the world record for the longest swim (102.5 miles), gave a motivational presentation that was, as to be expected, also impressively energetic. Her inspirational tales brought the crowd to its feet, and set the scene for a meeting at which one message came through clear and strong: ASHRAE members need to be courageous. They have to make drastic changes in their design methods so that environmental harm is minimised – even where this means going against what was considered best practice in the past.

The AHR Expo, held in the massive Dallas Convention Centre, ran alongside the meeting. More than 28,000 people attended this three-day show, involving eight acres of exhibits covering every part of the HVAC spectrum.

For the first time, some ASHRAE conference technical sessions were held at the AHR Expo, in an attempt to encourage the participation of a wider group of practitioners. It appeared to work: almost a quarter of the 900 people attending the seminars were there primarily to visit the expo rather than the conference. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt here for the UK?

ASHRAE is investing big bucks to encourage teenagers to take up engineering and to participate in the society’s activities. There were several dedicated, well-attended sessions aimed at the younger engineer, which were organised by the Young Engineers in ASHRAE (YEA) group. According to one of the student chapter presidents, Bruno Lee from Concordia University, Canada, such events are effective. He described a 100% increase in membership (to 90 members) in his student chapter following a campaign that drew on the strong programme of ASHRAE student activities.

CIBSE ASHRAE Group Graduate prizewinner Michael Norton, who was visiting the ASHRAE meeting as part of his prize, enthused about the way young members were being actively encouraged not only at student level, but also through a whole raft of dedicated YEA events.

Dennis Dimick gave one of the keynote presentations to a packed lecture hall. As the National Geographic’s picture editor specialising in stories about the environment, he provided stunning evidence of the consequences of climate change through pictures that ranged from the rising sea levels in the Indian subcontinent to retreating glaciers in Glacier National Park, Montana.

He covered stark facts such as how 50% of US power plants are coal-fired, showing photos of the open-cast coal extraction in Virginia that continues to obliterate the landscape. The enthusiastic attendance at this session reflected the huge interest expressed in climate change at the event: all climate- and energy-related sessions were standing-room only.

Meanwhile, the bestseller in the bookshop was the ASHRAE Green Guide – which sold out in one day with new supplies being shipped in to refill the shelves. This regionalised guide gives practical design targets for all participants in the whole building process – from client to operator.

The possibility of a collaboration between ASHRAE and the retailer Walmart was clearly at the forefront of ASHRAE president Terry Townsend’s mind, as he made several references to it throughout the event. Walmart has 75 million m2 of store space around the world and wants to reduce its energy use to 50% of that required by ASHRAE’s Energy Standard 90.1 by 2010. This is an incredibly ambitious programme, and an exciting prospect for ASHRAE: the multinational is reportedly spending $500 million a year on sustainability-related projects.

Walmart had already given energy data sets for its stores to ASHRAE, and CIBSE’s past president Graeme Manly also pledged his support for this initiative. Manly said he hoped that the examples of good practice by UK retailers would feed into the project, citing the success of airtightness measures in UK retail sheds.

Areas of work that CIBSE and ASHRAE can cooperate on were highlighted during the meeting by CIBSE’s director of research Hywel Davies. It was acknowledged that that future projects will be less driven by the small percentage of new buildings constructed each year (cited as 3% of buildings in the US ), and more with the remaining base of ageing stock.

ASHRAE is already scoping out a design guide for the improvement of existing buildings, and CIBSE has similar new guidance documents planned.

Following months of discussion, a key member mutual recognition agreement was finally completed at the meeting between CIBSE and ASHRAE. Members of one organisation wishing to join the other will now find it significantly easier. Expect more details to be released soon.