Just became aware of a conference that may be of interest to those who care about microbiology of the built environment: The Second International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE).
From their website:
Energy and environment concerns have been ranked among the top problems facing society for the next 50 years, of which buildings are a major factor. This is because buildings use a significant portion of electricity and thermal energy, and the conversion of primary energy to electricity and thermal energy accounts for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Energy is used to maintain comfortable and healthy environments in buildings, although such environments are difficult to achieve. Indeed, reports of building related symptoms and health complaints have been increasing.
The first International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE) was held in Dalian, China in 2008, with about 400 participants. Building upon the success of the first conference, the 2012 conference aims to provide a platform for discussing energy and environmental issues and for initiating collaboration among building engineers, environmental scientists, architects, facility managers, and policy makers. The conference will provide a forum for discussion of the challenges and opportunities the international community faces, while enabling collaboration that encourages the participants from both developed and several of developing countries to work together to solve the world’s most critical problems.
COBEE 2012 will be held in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Located in the Front Range at the edge of the Rockies, Boulder is a vibrant and exciting city with access to hundreds of outdoor recreation activities, fantastic dining options, and an involved and passionate local community that is dedicated to the responsible and effective use of renewable energy and green building practices. Boulder location near millions of acres of National Forest and National Parkland, the world renowned National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), have secured Boulder as a vital hub for environmental and energy related activity in the United States. An average of 300 days of sunshine provide visitors to Boulder with plenty of opportunities to take advantage of miles of hiking and biking trails that are found in the city’s popular Open Space area. Nearby Denver offers visitors to Boulder access to even more fine dining, evening activities, and world-class museums and attractions…
Caution – There may be a few papers related to microbes, but the conference is not likely to include much focus on microbes. The previous (1st) conference in this series was populated by a lot of papers based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of air flow, energy, thermal conditions, and thermal comfort.