April 18, 2008

RFIDs offer another step toward sustainability

Construction Corner

Korky Koroluk

It’s been more than two years since I first wrote about RFIDs and possible uses for them in construction.

RFIDs are Radio Frequency Identification Tags, tiny chips that can contain simple information for identification purposes, or really tiny battery-powered transmitters so the information they’ve collected can be sent to a data-gathering system.

They can be used to track shipments of all sorts of products or materials, manage inventories, to monitor locations of tools and equipment, and now, to monitor the internal temperature of curing concrete.

A recent article I read outlined the use of RFIDs to monitor concrete curing in the Freedom Tower, the massive project being built where the World Trade Center’s twin towers stood until 9/11.

These tags are supplied by an Austrian firm, Identec Solutions AG. They are battery-powered so they can transmit information through up to 20 feet of concrete.

Every time a wall or floor slab is poured, workers toss in an RFID tag, and about 20,000 of the little gizmos will be used before construction of the tower surrounding structures is completed.

A walk-through by someone carrying a hand-held collection device will be able to read all the temperatures so engineers can say whether the concrete is sufficiently cured to carry a load.

It’s a really good illustration of how two technologies — RFIDs and wireless communication — can be combined for the benefit of a construction project, and I hope we’ll see more such applications.

Looking back from what’s happening now to what one wrote about months or years before is one of the pleasures of writing about technological innovation.

For example, also last August, I wrote about breakthroughs in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems. Then, earlier this month there was word that this utility-scale technology is being built or planned in the Spain, North Africa, Peru, Chile, Germany and the U.S. Southwest.

This is technology that uses parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy, instead of the conventional flat solar cells. Power can be delivered through the day when demand is usually highest. But CSPs can be equipped with thermal storage capacity so they can supply off-peak power long after the sun goes down.

When I wrote about using road surfaces as solar collectors, with the sub-surface acting as an energy storage area, there were doubters. But the system worked so well in England that several more are planned. Also on the drawing board is a system using a shopping-mall parking lot as a solar collector to supply heat to a surrounding residential area.

Now Holland is building a new highway that uses the technology, and there is word that Belgium and Germany will soon follow suit.

In fact, people have pretty well stopped complaining that alternative energy will never be able to fill more than a few niches in the global energy market.

Now, says a new report from the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), renewable energy generating capacity has doubled since 2004 to 240 gigawatts and accounting for 2.4 million jobs, as more than 65 countries boost renewable energy capacity.

I know that 240 gigawatts isn’t a lot when one considers global demand, but it is enough that Chris Flavin, president of Worldwatch, a Washington-based environmental think-tank, believes that renewable energy is poised to make a significant contribution to meeting energy needs.

So every time you hear yet more evidence that global climate change threatens to send the world to hell in a handbasket, remember that for every such report, there are dozens of others about small endeavours in many areas, all helping to improve things in their own small way.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.

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