FOOTPRINTS

[William R. Alschuler]

I wonder if anyone has done or tried to do fairly rigorous carbon and water footprints for their theater? This would mean collecting info on operating energy and water per time period, say per year, and also the embodied footprints which involve the supply chains for the construction of the building or theater space, sets, lights, etc., and also any disposal footprints.

I will be teaching a course at CalArts this fall called Green Science in which I will try to get students to do footprints for their own practice, which will almost certainly include theater students. The school needs to do its baseline consumption data, which will answer the first of the two points made above, if I can get it done. It has been like pushing an elephant up hill....

Some thoughts: Do you recycle flats, fasteners or other materials? Do you think about modularizing rigid set materials for easy reuse? Using fabrics instead? I hope to compare footprints of a square foot of painted ply to a square foot of painted fabric in the near future. Do you do day performances in a black box space, and use directed daylight to illuminate the stage and sets? (Daguerre, who later invented one of the 2 first photoprocesses first became famous and made a fortune in the early 1800s for inventing the "Diorama," a black box theater special effect in which he charged the public to see very realistic day and night paintings of a scene on a scrim first illuminated from the front for day, then fading over to the back for night, using skylights and mirrors to redirect the light. There were no live actors.)

There must be lots of ideas out there....

[Strike it Green]

Check out The Arcola Theatre in London., this is London 1st Green Theatre. They use hydogen cells for power. They even have a Sustainability Manager provided by a Grant.

[Ian Garrett]

Hey Bill,

We've been working on this in the school of theater for a couple of years now. I don't know if you were aware of the sustainability seminar Leslie Tamaribuchi and I have been leaving on thursday this last year. I know we weren't able to find a time for you to come to our sustainable theatre course when we were doing that. We've also started a position of "Sustainability Dramaturg" to move forward with documentation. Also, Michael darling is very very interested in the issues of sustainability and has been very open to these ideas.

I've also been talking to Nancy Uscher in regards to her hopes to create a sustainability cluster as a pilot for the clustering concept the provost's office is pushing forward these ideas into that realm. Have you spoken to her or visa versa about it? Leslie and I were about to got through the catlogue this next month to try and identify this cluster.

Are you around this summer? I've been talking at conferences for the last month, mainly on the importance of documentation as the first step, and I think since we're both at calarts there is no reason not to chat :).

Did I see you at rising tide in March?

[Ian Garrett]

and to add to that actually, the CSPA is planning on launching the first phase (exploratory) of our certification/documentation standard in the beginning of 2010... depending on if anything is happening with copenhagen in december. We'd love to have you involved.

[William R. Alschuler]

Thank you Ionnie for the lead. I will check it out.

Ian, I was aware of the seminar, but the times did not quite work out. Thinking head, my Green Science class will run on tuesday, 4-6. Also, I am next time on campus starting tuesday the 30th (week after next), leaving the following thursday afternoon. Any chance of a meeting with you, Michael, Leslie, Nancy(?) and ?? about the cluster idea?

I have been working for about 4 years in "spare" time to get the utility info in a form that can be analyzed, removing weather as an influence, looking at our rate structures, etc. I have been working with Karen Williams to imbed the data onto the school's software system in her "spare" time, on the theory that that would be best as it would allow the work to go on independent of me, but she never has much time. Two summers ago I lost patience and started to enter data in an Excel spreadsheet, but ran out of gas at summer's end before finishing up to that date. I suppose that could be revived, especially if I got some help with data entry. I just talked to the new head of the network about this and he forbade me, almost took my head off, when I asked for some release time for her. So I have little hope at this point for my original scheme.

[William R. Alschuler]

I lifted the following from a website (http://www.whitelight.ltd.uk/news/?n=1110) in follow up to Ionnie's suggestion about the Arcola Theater (see my comments below):

"The first show to be powered by the fuel cell, Simple8's The Living Unknown Soldier, produced by Strawberry Vale, may well be London's premier ecologically sustainable show; the environmental impact of all aspects of the production have been minimised, including set construction, marketing, company travel and show lighting. The production's environmental footprint will be evaluated by leading sustainability advisers Global Action Plan and the lessons learned published for the benefit of other practitioners.

The lighting for the show has a peak power consumption of 4.5kW, up to 60% less than comparable lighting installations. This is made possible though extensive use of LED lighting, provided by leading lighting supplier White Light, and careful use of high efficiency tungsten lamps provided by ETC, maker of the popular energy saving Source Four luminaire.

In addition Arcola's bar/cafe has been upgraded to an eco-bar serving organic and fair-trade refreshments, illuminated by a low energy LED lighting system supplied by leading manufacturer PixelRange. The lighting for the entire cafe/bar now consumes under 500 watts, a saving of 60%, with the added benefit of providing near infinite flexibility in light level and colour for perfect daytime operation as well as for cafe/bar performances.

The IdaTech ElectraGen fuel cell system has been supplied by London Hydrogen Partnership with additional funding from the UK Department for Culture Media & Sport, Arts Council England, the London Borough of Hackney and the Mayor of London's Greening London Theatre Initiative. Hydrogen for the fuel cell has been supplied by BOC gases.

This project is part of Arcola Theatre's extensive sustainability-related activities - under the banner of Arcola Energy, spearheaded by Dr Ben Todd, the theatre's Executive Director, who also works as a consultant in the fuel cell industry. He said:

"The arts have a crucial role to play in elucidating and motivating the changes in lifestyle necessary to deliver an equitable future for all humankind. Through Arcola Energy, Arcola Theatre is demonstrating that bold changes can be made and that making them offers exciting opportunities for new creative partnerships."

I think the fuel cell is a decent demo, and will bring a fair amount of publicity and awareness, though as a Green step I think it is not so significant. Much more significant were the relamping steps described that lowered the energy budget of the theater. The reason hydrogen powered fuel cells are currently not a wonderful thing, except as a technology demo and a zero pollution power source at the point of use, is that the hydrogen for them must be split from a larger molecule, usually water or methane. In either case this requires a bit more energy than you get from the hydrogen in the fuel cell, making this a net energy loser. Also, mains electricity these days is still almost all from fossil fuel, so the making of hydrogen generates a carbon and other footprints at the power plant. If the hydrogen is made using renewable energy then it will be a game-changer.

My apologies if this is all known to you.

[Ian Garrett]

No Worries, Arcola is a great example to put out there. We got a visit there when we were in london for a conference a little over a year ago. It's impressed, having my MFA in Lighting design, to see the constriction be placed on the power like that, I've long been a fan of the idea of energy budgets being added to production and part of the lighting budget along with rentals and expendables.

William R. Alschuler said:

I lifted the following from a website (http://www.whitelight.ltd.uk/news/?n=1110) in follow up to Ionnie's suggestion about the Arcola Theater (see my comments below):

"The first show to be powered by the fuel cell, Simple8's The Living Unknown Soldier, produced by Strawberry Vale, may well be London's premier ecologically sustainable show; the environmental impact of all aspects of the production have been minimised, including set construction, marketing, company travel and show lighting. The production's environmental footprint will be evaluated by leading sustainability advisers Global Action Plan and the lessons learned published for the benefit of other practitioners.

The lighting for the show has a peak power consumption of 4.5kW, up to 60% less than comparable lighting installations. This is made possible though extensive use of LED lighting, provided by leading lighting supplier White Light, and careful use of high efficiency tungsten lamps provided by ETC, maker of the popular energy saving Source Four luminaire.

In addition Arcola's bar/cafe has been upgraded to an eco-bar serving organic and fair-trade refreshments, illuminated by a low energy LED lighting system supplied by leading manufacturer PixelRange. The lighting for the entire cafe/bar now consumes under 500 watts, a saving of 60%, with the added benefit of providing near infinite flexibility in light level and colour for perfect daytime operation as well as for cafe/bar performances.

The IdaTech ElectraGen fuel cell system has been supplied by London Hydrogen Partnership with additional funding from the UK Department for Culture Media & Sport, Arts Council England, the London Borough of Hackney and the Mayor of London's Greening London Theatre Initiative. Hydrogen for the fuel cell has been supplied by BOC gases.

This project is part of Arcola Theatre's extensive sustainability-related activities - under the banner of Arcola Energy, spearheaded by Dr Ben Todd, the theatre's Executive Director, who also works as a consultant in the fuel cell industry. He said:

"The arts have a crucial role to play in elucidating and motivating the changes in lifestyle necessary to deliver an equitable future for all humankind. Through Arcola Energy, Arcola Theatre is demonstrating that bold changes can be made and that making them offers exciting opportunities for new creative partnerships."

I think the fuel cell is a decent demo, and will bring a fair amount of publicity and awareness, though as a Green step I think it is not so significant. Much more significant were the relamping steps described that lowered the energy budget of the theater. The reason hydrogen powered fuel cells are currently not a wonderful thing, except as a technology demo and a zero pollution power source at the point of use, is that the hydrogen for them must be split from a larger molecule, usually water or methane. In either case this requires a bit more energy than you get from the hydrogen in the fuel cell, making this a net energy loser. Also, mains electricity these days is still almost all from fossil fuel, so the making of hydrogen generates a carbon and other footprints at the power plant. If the hydrogen is made using renewable energy then it will be a game-changer.

My apologies if this is all known to you.