Off To GreenBuild To Hear Al Gore, Find Green Gizmos and Goodies
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11.10.09
TreeHugger will be at Greenbuild in Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow to hear Al Gore give the keynote address. He will have a tough act to follow after last year's Van Jones' barnburner. The expo is also pretty spectacular, with a lot of green gizmos and gadgets, but also some simple, effective green building products. Some of the highlights of last year's Greenbuild:
Agriboard Structural Insulated Panels
My favourite product in the show was one of the simplest: Agriboard structural insulated panels, made of wheat and straw. I wrote then:
Best of show? With all that wonderful high-tech stuff beckoning? Perhaps it is a bit of an over-statement, but here is a product that is effective, fast, is made in Kansas out of an agricultural waste product and can even claim to be carbon negative.
Durisol, the Green Insulated Concrete Form
There was an entire row of exhibitors showing various incarnations of insulated concrete forms (ICFs) with their styrofoam walls and their plastic ties that are filled with concrete and then labelled green. Then there is Durisol, that has been around for half a century. it is made of wood chips and a bit of portland cement, 78% recycled materials, is noncombustible and is the original insulated concrete form. So why is it always ignored?
What's So Special about Yolo Paint?
"We are selling more than just paint. We buy alternative power, provide transportation via biodiesel for our employees, we are trying to run a different kind of business."
You can see it in the faces and hear it in the voices of the employees in the booth, it is more than just paint.
Charge Your Electric Car in Ten Minutes
They may have crushed all of the EV1 electric cars, but they didn't crush the technology; it lives on at Aerovironment, used primarily in industrial vehicles and forklifts.
Gray Water Goes Under the Counter
Christine called the AQUS Watersaver:
"the epitomy of American ingenuity. Bothered from a young age by the tragic waste of water flowing down the sink drain, Mark Sanders repeatedly dreamed of a system to collect that water and reuse it."
More in our Greenbuild Roundup
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