Green buildings and flyash concrete -the commerce city, colorado project

Current "green building" guidelines establish a goal for locally sourced or manufactured materials, particularly for using recycled materials. This is a qualitative environmental goal, relating to the energy associated with the transportation of the product and not the energy of production, termed embodied energy. A quantitative environmental goal would require a life cycle analysis (LCA) to measure the embodied energy that would account for production, the insulating properties, and the ability to be again recycled over the effective life-time of the building. A quantitative environmental life cycle analysis of the primary construction materials in building construction would provide a definitive green building assessment. The Sustainable Youth Zone center (SYZ) project located in Commerce City, Colorado is a planned Zero Net Energy building for after school educational programs. Building material selection is evaluated based on current quantitative and qualitative green criteria including; Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). However, in an attempt to determine if the building will actually be green, a life-cycle analysis and cost (LCA/LCC) analysis was completed on concrete as the primary construction material considered. Fly ash is a by-product of coal burning power plants and can be substituted for a large portion of the Portland cement. High volume fly ash (HVFA) concrete was selected for analysis as fly ash is a recycled material, therefore reducing the impacts resulting from extraction and processing of new virgin materials. A "mini-mix" (MM) testing program was also conducted to evaluate HVFA mixes for additional full-scale testing.