Technical Support Document: Development of the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Grocery Stores--50% Energy Savings

This report provides recommendations that architects, designers, contractors, developers, owners, and lessees of grocery store buildings can use to achieve whole-building energy savings of at least 50% over ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004

Technical Support Document: Development of the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Medium Box Retail -- 50% Energy Savings

This report provides recommendations that architects, designers, contractors, developers, owners, and lessees of medium box retail buildings can use to achieve whole-building energy savings of at least 50% over ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004. The recommendations are given by climate zone and address building envelope, fenestration, lighting systems, HVAC systems, building automation and controls, outside air treatment, service water heating, plug loads, and photovoltaic systems. The report presents several paths to 50% savings, which correspond to different levels of integrated design. These are recommendations only, and are not part of a code or standard. The recommendations are not exhaustive, but we do try to emphasize the benefits of integrated building design, that is, a design approach that analyzes a building as a whole system, rather than as a disconnected collection of individually engineered subsystems

Lancefield Swamp and the extinction of the Australian megafauna

Excavations into the Australian swamp of Lancefield show that a bone bed dated at 26,000 years ago contains perhaps 10,000 giant extinct animals. Associated artifacts suggest that humans were in the area, but the direct cause of death of the animals is, on present evidence, not explicable. Such a recent date for the classic megafauna shows that it was living together with humans for at least 7000 years in southeast Australia. This enduring association argues against a catastrophic and rapid overkill in the Australian Pleistocene