One of the first things visitors see inside the new Energy & Nature Center at Jones Beach State Park, an hour east of New York, is a model of the 330-foot-long building, including the solar panels and geothermal wells that, together, are meant to make it operationally “net zero.” Wall text behind the model describes a number of energy-saving features.
Disappointingly, there is no text about the energy used to create the building in the first place—its so-called “embodied energy.” But an exhibition in one of the center’s galleries, about the carbon footprint of a typical house, addresses that important subject. It may be the first time most visitors have heard of embodied energy, and it’s something the center’s director and chief curator, Jeanne Haffner, pushed for.
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