How fish overcame the tragedy of the commons
The tragedy of the commons occurs when individuals acting in their own interest cause widespread harm. It can take the form of overuse of common resources, or of air- or […]
Case Studies
Sustainability is good engineering
Engineering has always been about the wise use of resources. Traditionally, the profession focused on resources in the microeconomic sense. That is, the economic interests of the owner, employer, or […]
Saint Regis Tower
At 101 stories, the Saint Regis Tower in Chicago is the world’s tallest building by a woman architect, Jeanne Gang. Previous blogs have discussed the work of women architects—both contemporary […]
Deep water cooling
Keeping interior spaces cool in summer is much less energy- and carbon efficient than heating them in winter. For this reason, most of the CALGreen provisions for making buildings energy […]
Hedonistic sustainability: sustainability can be fun
In the Middle Ages, alchemists sought in vain to turn base metals into gold. Now all that remains of alchemy is some laboratory equipment. But imaginative urban planning offers a […]
Low-activity waste at Hanford site
The National Academy of Sciences has published our committee’s final report, in which we address the public comments on our previous reports and the study overall. Our committee provided oversight […]
Specifications for high-performance concrete
When I was a graduate student in the 1980s, papers about high-performance concrete nearly always started out by explaining that “high performance” means more than high strength. Then they went […]
I-91 Brattleboro Bridge relied on MacDonald’s expertise
Beton’s Kevin MacDonald designed the concrete mixture proportions and performed thermal control modeling for the I-91 Brattleboro Bridge in Vermont. The bridge took First Place in the Infrastructure Division of […]
Agricultural concrete can be durable
Agricultural concrete must be durable because farm animals generate wastes that are acidic and contain sulfates, chlorides, and other salts. Between the animal wastes and the cleaning that keeps the […]
Engineering student project helps Hmong farmers
Members of the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA) got a preview of their new Brussels sprouts harvester last week. HAFA is a cooperative that owns 150 acres near Rosemount, MN. […]