According to Science@Berkeley Lab Magazine, if all goes well, when the Summer Olympics opens in Beijing in 2008 visitors will see a new, green Olympic athletes' center built expressly for this international event. The state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly building is being planned now with technical consultation from a group of U.S. energy-efficient building experts led by Joe Huang, of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD).

The Chinese Olympic Committee intends to build a near-zero-energy-use building that incorporates advanced technologies such as efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, daylighting to reduce the use of electric lights, internal and external shades and energy-efficient windows to reduce solar heat gain, and solar photovoltaic panels to generate some of the electricity the building will need.

During the Games the 3,000-square-meter building (more than 32,000 square feet) will be a reception center and gathering place for athletes. After the Games are over, the athletes' village will become a high-end apartment development, and the reception center will become a kindergarten school. The design uses only curved walls and the architectural engineering department of Tsinghua University has proposed an innovative HVAC system that combines ground-source heat pumps, radiant floors, and desiccant cooling with active solar regeneration, as well as a seasonal thermal-storage system.

As the world's second-largest economy and energy consumer after the U.S., there's good reason for China to care about energy efficiency. Most of the electric power fueling China's rapid economic growth is produced by coal-burning plants. In the next 10 years, China could surpass the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions. But continued cooperation between the U.S. and China in energy-efficient building design and technology holds much promise for reducing emissions, with benefit to the economies of both nations.