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March 15, 2023. Beverly, MA.
Installation of a test well to determine existing geothermal groundwater conditions for the Beverly Library’s new Geothermal HVAC system. The City of Beverly has launched a project to decarbonize Beverly’s main library and improve building performance, air quality, and service to community members as a cooling center in the summer. After 30 years, the current HVAC equipment has reached the end of its useful life and is in need of replacement. The condensing unit serving one of the Roof-Top Units (RTUs) providing ~40% of the cooling for the library has already failed. In mid March this one test well was drilled to confirm the existing geothermal groundwater conditions. The project is expected to be completed in Summer 2024. Using a phased construction approach, the library expects to remain operational during construction. In 2021, the City ran a study to understand and compare HVAC replacement options. The City evaluated the cost and performance of replacing the existing system with similar equipment, as well as alternative options such as air-source heat pumps and ground-source heat pumps. The City found that a ground-source heat pump system, or a geothermal system, was the best option to reduce the most energy use and eliminate on-site fossil fuel use by removing gas-fired equipment. Geothermal technology makes it possible to heat and cool the library using the Earth’s naturally stable below-ground temperature–a renewable energy source. In Resilient Together, the City’s climate action plan, the City committed to leading by example through adoption of smart, clean, net zero technology in existing and new municipal buildings. Buildings are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and this project is expected to remove gas entirely (21,000 therms to zero) and reduce HVAC electricity usage. This helps the City meet its goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.
© 2023 Marilyn Humphries
In this farewell lecture, Jonathan Samet—outgoing director of the USC Institute for Global Health—addressed the changing paradigm of evidenced-based decision-making. Science advances knowledge, chiseling at areas of ignorance and reducing uncertainties, which may slow evidence-based decision-making. With regard to environmental pollution, for example, great progress has been made as research has documented the damage done to human and ecosystem system health by man’s activities, motivating action and guiding interventions. However, over recent decades, the paradigm of evidence-based decision-making has been increasingly threatened as powerful stakeholders, with seemingly threatened interests, have undermined scientific evidence by creating doubt and even offering personal and collective beliefs as an equivalent basis for decision-making. The strategy of doubt creation can be traced to actions of the tobacco industry initiated as the evidence mounted showing that smoking causes cancer and other diseases; the same tactics have spread, particularly around environmental pollutants. More challenging is the emergence of outright dismissal of evidence and its replacement by belief, whether consistent with or counter to what is known.