Inspiring Person
Kevin Surace
By Veronica Hume & Diana Chen
In 2002, a friend of Kevin Surace asked him to join his polymer company. Hearing about customers who wanted more energy efficient buildings—operating buildings is about 40% of our energy consumption—led him to focus on energy and R&D. The company eventually became Serious Materials, where Surace is the CEO.
Growing up, his biggest inspiration was his dad, who was an executive at GE. Back in middle school, Surace’s favorite subjects were science and electronics. His love for electronics continued in high school, and he majored in electrical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Besides dry wall, he also decided Serious Materials should focus on making energy efficient windows. He got into the window business when he bought a window company in February 2005. To measure the energy efficiency, one would measure the resistance heat flow. A single window usually has an r value of 1, while walls are insulated so that the r values range from 10 to 15. Serious Materials now makes windows with an r value of 11. Using suspended film, the company can make windows with multiple chambers that reduce the convection heat flow, which keeps the r value very high.
Surace has worked on many interesting projects throughout his career. One such project was working on the first wireless data communication device. Another included building virtual assistants for OnStar that understood what you said and had thousands of responses. One of Serious Material’s notable projects is the Empire State Building project. The Empire State Building already had dual pane windows, but Serious Material’s windows were four times better. The Empire State Building has 6514 windows, and more energy efficient windows would save them $410,000 a year. Serious Materials reprocessed all the windows at their processing plant on the fifth floor overnight, reused all the glass, and replaced the windows. The dry wall insulating the fifth floor soundproofed the operation.
During the interview, Surace also spoke about passive solar, which can also be defined as a zero energy building. An example of passive solar is a house using sunlight for energy without using energy-consuming cooling and heating systems. Passive solar houses use the sun in the winter to heat the house and are built so that the houses absorb minimal heat during the summer. This can be done with external blinds, or technologies such as electro chromate, which allows the homeowner to electronically reject heat in the summer and take heat in during the winter.
Skills that he has found useful in his field are good business judgment, engineering skills, especially in the mechanical, plant, industrial, and material science fields, and a solid knowledge of chemistry.
Surace’s vision for the future in terms of green tech is that “green tech is really going to encompass every product.” Green tech will become a part of life, especially for housing and industries. According to Surace, because we need to make a bigger impact than just recycling, a lot of green tech today focuses on energy usage to reduce the carbon footprint.
For those interested in green tech, Surace feels that there is an abundance of opportunities for many engineering fields. For instance, people in material science can focus on solar, processes for dry wall, plants, and factories. People in electronics can focus on system issues with solar, converters, and wiring. Software can also play a role in saving energy.
In his spare time, he is a music director and plays the drums.
Blog Bits: Geothermal Energy
By Veronica Hume
Geothermal energy involves using the heat from the earth as an energy source. Because it is a renewable form of energy, companies, such as AltaRock Energy, have focused on developing the technology to more fully explore geothermal energy’s potential. A 2007 study conducted by MIT concluded that EGS (engineered geothermal systems) can meet 10% of electricity needs within the next 50 years. Susan Petty, one of AltaRock Energy’s founders and the current President and Chief Technology Officer, will be a panelist at SDForum Tech Women’s Redefining Green on July 29th.
Blog Bits: Green Architecture
By: Diana Chen
As we are looking towards a greener future, many of us are probably wondering how we can contribute by make our own homes a bit greener. Sustainable architecture, used to build sustainable homes, seeks to reduce the negative impact of buildings and homes on the environment by increasing the efficiency and moderate the use of materials, space, and energy required. A few examples of sustainable building materials would include panels made from paper, clay, cork, wood fibre plates, stone, rock, bamboo, and fiber glass. Most green buildings tend to use high efficiency windows and insulation in the walls, floors, and ceilings to reduce energy use.
One popular and simple way to save energy is by installing and using solar panels. On average, solar panels range anywhere from 4% to 28% in efficiency. Another less used, but equally effective way to save energy is by using wind turbines. These turbines usually begin producing energy when winds reach 6-10mph. This is also known as the “cut-in speed”. Turbines reach their rated output at around 28-35mph, aka the “rated wind speed”. Small rooftop turbines can generate 10%-25% of the electricty required to run a household.
Now architects are looking towards passive solar. Passive solar architecture is when builders place windows, walls, porches, and trees strategically to keep the house cool during the summer and allow the most sunlight in during the winter.
To learn more about the green field, come join us on Thursday, July 29th for our Redefining Green panel. There you will be able to hear many professionals in the field give their views on the many new advancements in this rapidly expanding field. Hope to see you there.
SDForum Tech Titans of Tomorrow: Teens Plugged In 2010
On April 23, 2010, Microsoft hosted SDForum’s “Tech Titans of Tomorrow: Teens Plugged In 2010″ event. The theme of this year’s event focused on how teens stayed informed through social media and what they were doing to be socially responsible, such as going green. Throughout the day, representatives from various corporations spoke, high schoolers and recent college graduates presented their “Teen Success Story,” and attendees listened to two panels, one featuring college students while the other featured high school students. Teens also pitched their ideas and received feedback from experienced investors and entrepreneurs.
Veronica Hume and Diana Chen discussed the GirlsforTech website on the high school panel, moderated by Alison van Diggelen. Read about the panel on the Fresh Dialogues blog.
To read more about the event, look at photos, or watch video clips from the event, visit SDForum’s page.
