To set the stage of this essay I would ask each reader to think back to a time in their life when they were asked “what do I want to do when I grow up?” This simple but powerful question has been recurrent for centuries with varying answers, to the demise…
Mapping Local Resources Helps San Jose Battle Food Insecurity
Food security is a growing social and economic challenge that knows no political boundaries. Even in the United States, an astonishing 18 million households…
Smarter Driving Key to Sustainable Transportation Planning
In the popular mind, smarter, greener, and more sustainable transportation is generally equated with mega-projects like high speed rail, light rail, long…
Achieving Model-Based Design for the Smart Grid
Smart Meters and SCADA Contribute a Big Data Perspective Smart meters and intelligent electronic devices provide granular data about the state of the utility network in near real-time. The availability of such data is in no small part what is making the smart…
Sewer Heat Recovery Provides Low-Cost Recycled Energy
In every urban area, heat that humans have generated to shower, wash clothes, cook, and so on flows underground — in the sewers, making them very warm. Today, sewers represent the largest source of heat leakage in buildings. Even toilet water, which is at…
A Tidal Shift in Water Network Management
Water consumption worldwide is on the steepest of hockey stick curves—since 1950, annual consumption has tripled, and in 2006 passed 4,300 km3… that’s about 30% of the available supply of renewable water. Water consumption is expanding considerably faster…
Transgranular Perspiration is Not Sandy Sweat: New Discoveries in Ceramic Tiles at smartgeometry 2012
Since the early 2000s, the smartgeometry conferences have been held in venues as august and varied as San Francisco, London, Barcelona, and Copenhagen. At first glance, Troy, New York—this year's location—seems a little out of place in that lineup, but…
