By Kris Ubben

A growing demand for environmental solutions worldwide has sparked businesses to find innovative and creative solutions to address energy conservation. Here, Business Watch looks at several key North Dakota businesses that have taken the initiative to implement or sustain an eco-friendly outcome.

Scully Design Build

When it comes to building, one family is taking advantage of an inexpensive and abundant form of energy—straw.

Scully Design Build is a family business owned by Jon and Teresa Scully based in Williston, specializing in building residential and commercial homes with a focus on straw bale construction and decorative concrete buildings. Some of the energy efficient methods Scully Design Build uses include insulated concrete forms, reclaimed lumber and passive solar design.

Why straw? It’s a renewable resource in North Dakota and is a good thermal insulator in addition to sound attenuation properties, and it withstands moisture and does not attract pests, according to the company’s Web site. And straw has 100 times less embodied energy than other conventional materials, such as fiberglass, he added.

The homes are built through a steel structure, adding straw bales in the walls for insulation According to Scully, there are straw bale buildings all over the United States, primarily in the southwest. This type of building has been going strong for about 30 years, although it has its difficulties – like measuring up to international building codes. But Scully’s steel structure design passes all existing codes, he said, allowing the company to go anywhere and build with his existing system.

“The homes are so energy efficient and a stronger and betterbuilt home,” said Scully. The builder also uses passive solar design in the homes, which refers to the layout of windows. When a house faces the right direction, light and sunlight can heat interior surfaces through thermal conductors. With the right amount of sun in the right amount of places, people can increase the energy efficiency of their home up to 50 percent.

“There are simple ways to think about laying out a house, whether it’s putting fewer windows on one side of the house or turning the house a little to decrease energy costs,” said Scully. “The nice thing about green building is that it helps create a market for it and get people thinking outside the box.” Scully Design also builds energy effi cient heating and cooling systems, installing geothermal heat pumps to heat and cool the home, and supply it with hot water. By using in-ground source heating, the ground is always a constant 52 to 55 degrees, which will save money in the long-term.

Open Road Honda

Open Road Honda’s garbage pickup used to overfl ow. Now, it’s dumped twice a month compared to twice a week seven years ago.

Business and Marketing Manager Annette Behm-Caldwell, said Open Road Honda has significantly increased the amount of materials they recycle these days. The business itself is working hard to go green, managing its energy, staying efficient and reducing its waste.

“Some of it has been spearheaded by Honda, but some has been local too,” Behm-Caldwell said. When items such as ATV’s and power equipment arrive from the corporate office of Honda, they come in reconstructable crates. Crates are kept at Open Road Honda and then are returned to a warehouse in Ohio where new ones are sent back out.

When Open Road Honda fi rst started in 2002, everything came in crates that were made out of cardboard, aluminum or steel, which were all thrown away.

“Between the crates and the cardboard, it’s amazing how much less garbage we create than seven years ago,” said Behm-Caldwell.

In the service department, all tires they replace are picked up by Waste Management and recycled. Oil is taken out of a holding tank and recycled to make asphalt for road construction. They recycle metal from crash units to auto shop body parts. Nothing in the back shop gets thrown away, including batteries, Behm-Caldwell said.

Internally, the business recycles paper from the back shop, along with ink cartridges, and cans and bottles from the break room. To save energy, they use geothermal heat, which Behm- Caldwell said caused their gas bill to drop dramatically. To conserve on electricity, they power down the computers at night and the neon sign and showroom lights are turned off.

“Honda’s been environmentally friendly even before it was the norm. They came out with these programs to save energy and to be more of a good corporate consumer,” said Behm-Caldwell.

Steep Me: A Cup of Tea

As only a five-month old business, Steep Me a Cup of Tea is already “in the green of things.” As suppliers of private organic label teas from Sri Lanka, China and Japan, owners Jerry and Terisina Hintz have a number of eco-friendly solutions.

Steep Me uses eco-friendly fabric bags to use instead of plastic and plan to sell them in the future. They compost tea leaves, as well as cups, straws, lids and wraps made from corn. Eco-friendly bags are instantly compostable as well.

The business has done the energy basics, too, like replacing their lights with ones that will have the most electrical usage with the least amount of power, and a low mercury level so it won’t be a danger to the landfi ll. All of their receipt paper is recycled along with tissues and bags. The only items that are not yet environmentally friendly are the soap and sanitizer containers, which suppliers are trying to change.

Steep Me encourages customers to bring in their own travel mugs and presses to fi ll, too, rounding out the recycling attitude and educating their customers at the same time.

SolarBee, Inc.

Because an enormous amount of energy is spent on water, SolarBee, Inc., based in Dickinson, calls itself the leader in the world for improving water in reservoirs. Their product, a SolarBee, utilizes solar energy instead of chemicals to clean water.

The company originally began as Pump System, Inc. in 1978 by co-founders Joe Bleth and Willard Tormaschy. The circulators have improved water quality in 14 countries and almost all of the U.S.; they have 13 offices in the US and an international sales office in Fargo.

SolarBee is a floating platform with a solar-powered reservoir circulator. It incorporates patented ‘near-laminar radial flow’ technology that provides long-distance circulation (LDC) to improve water quality.

The company installs circulators in areas such as municipalities, refineries, power plants and oilfields to save energy. They are applied in drinking water, estuaries, wastewater, freshwater, industrial reservoirs, and storm water.

“Each lake and each body of water has different chemistry including hydraulics, thermodynamics and biology; all of these sciences come together in a reservoir,” Bleth said.

The government is their biggest customer, as sales are driven by the need to comply with regulations about water that someone will drink or be discharged into water.

Although many circulators are for government use, the internet has played a major role in helping companies world-wide to go green. Several thousand circulators have been deployed in companies worldwide, and many found SolarBee on the internet.

“It’s interesting to see how the internet allows you, in a remote area like North Dakota, to develop a new green industry and work with people all over the world to develop it,” said Bleth.

The circulators range in cost from $12,000 to $60,000. There are six main sizes weighing 300 to 1,000 pounds and 18 of these models fit three different markets (potable, waste and lakes). They are installed permanently, run 24 hours a day and guaranteed to last 25 years. A company might have one circulator for an acre or one for 40 acres, all depending upon the application being used.

Dickinson, Medora and Hazen are all cities in North Dakota addressing water quality with the installation of SolarBees, although its biggest business base is in California.

“The development hasn’t gone by which state is the sunniest; it’s gone by which state has the highest power cost,” said Bleth.

SolarBee has spread nationwide, to places like Las Vegas and San Francisco; it may just be a future solution to more cities and their water sources around the world.