Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're exploring how innovation can power the AI revolution while protecting our planet. You're watching now Media tv.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and this is the show where we discuss the realities and the challenges of powering an abundant energy future.
When people talk about AI's energy demand, they usually point to chips, grids and megawatts. But there's a huge lever hiding in plain sight the building itself, especially the envelope that separates compute from the outside world.
Joining me today is Nicholas Bagatelles. He is the president of Net Zero Envelope and a longtime builder and entrepreneur in high performance facades.
He's led exterior envelope and design build work for decades and founded multiple facade related businesses including Bagatellos Architectural Glass Systems, a vertically integrated unitized glazing enterprise.
Nick, welcome to Abundant Energy.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: Hey, thanks Todd. It's good to be here.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Let's start where most AI conversations don't. The walls, glass and thermal decisions that quietly determine how much power a facility needs every single hour.
AI infrastructure is energy intensive, not only because of servers, but because of every watt of compute becomes heat that must be managed.
The building envelope influences cooling loads, airflow, strategy, resilience, and even how quickly data centers can be delivered at scale.
This segment frames the envelope as a first order driver of total site energy and a practical pathway to carbon negative outcomes.
Nick, when you hear AI is draining the grid, what do you think most people misunderstand about what buildings contribute to the load?
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Well, we know that data centers pull a lot of electricity, right? And that's used for the most part cooling and obviously powering the equipment.
But I think what people aren't aware of is the massive energy load that is put on buildings by the envelope and specifically fenestration. So if you look at the overall energy usage in North America, buildings are about 40% of complete consumption and 30% of the energy that is put into our environment actually goes out the window.
So when you look at energy performance and the amount of energy that's needed in the US and North American grid, a lot of it's just going out the window.
So in a data center, we've got a little bit of a different situation because we don't need windows in a data center because the bots don't really care about seeing outside. In their view, when I think of the pool of electricity from data centers, I really think of the whole North American energy grid and the pressure that those data centers put on the grid today and will in the future.
So if you build a super efficient wall with no windows for a data center, then you're doing everything that you can do. If you're going to reduce the effect of the data centers on the overall consumption of electricity in North America, I think you have to look at building more energy efficient buildings.
So as we scale grid and with that scale, the electricity that we need to run those facilities, we have to think about how can we offset that increased demand.
And that means putting energy and thought and design into more efficient buildings overall. So since windows are 30% of the energy use in North America, or buildings are 40% of the energy used in North America and 30% of that goes out the window, if we can improve the window performance by 10, 20, 50%, then we could potentially offset all of the additional load needed for data centers. So I think it's a, it's a holistic overall view versus just the very specific things for envelope on a data center.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: So in plain terms, how does a high performance envelope change the physics of a commercial building in terms of temperature stability, heat gain loss and cooling demand?
[00:05:17] Speaker C: So the idea is you have a building that's contained, right? And if you have like a cave and you have a five foot wall, it doesn't take much to heat up that building or keep the building cool.
But when you add the windows to a building, which is necessary for people to be in the building, you add elements like the potential for water penetration, air penetration, you've got humidity issues and you've got solar gain on the building. So those are the drivers for a commercial office building or a residential multi tenant tower. So all of those elements go into the performance that we achieve on a building.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Okay, you've said there's been a major opportunity in fenestration performance.
Can you tell us first of all what exactly that means and secondly, what's actually changed in the last couple of decades that makes net zero envelopes more achievable?
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Now, we've had good innovation over the last 75 years in the window and glass industry. You know, everyone knows double pane glass.
And the first double pane glass was invented and produced in the 1950s. But it wasn't until the 1970s until that solution became cost effective and the manufacturing capacities made the product price competitive.
The next step was in the late 1990s when low E glass was not invented, but the process to manufacture it efficiently became available in North America and in Europe.
And at that point, a product called low E glass, which is a silver metallic that is vacuum deposited Onto a piece of glass was introduced with new strategies for manufacturing.
And at that point, the price went from $3 per square foot for the low E coatings to as low as $0.17 per square foot. So that product, which blocked solar gain, was introduced in around 1999. And by 2014, that product pretty much revolutionized glass and glazing. And every building in North America and Europe now uses a lowy product. And what that did is it reduced the solar gain onto a building, and that's a radiant solar gain.
So the place that we have not had a solution for the last 25 years is in the R value or the resistance to heat flow. And today a wall on a well fitted out commercial or residential building has a wall that's about an R20.
So a resistance of heat flow of 20.
The glass has an R2 value. So double pane glass, which is about one inch, has an R20 or an R2 value and the walls are 20. There's a product that is scaling today at the similar stage that low E glass was in the year 2000.
And it takes glass from an R2 and 1 inch to R20 and 3,8 of an inch.
So the same change that we were able to achieve in that low emissivity and solar heat gain coefficient. So radiant heat is now available in transparent insulation glass that is an R20 value. So we have the potential now with this new technology, the third generation of glass efficiency that will allow us to have windows that are as efficient as walls. And if you look at buildings are 40% of energy and 30% of that goes out the window. You're talking 12% of all energy consumed in North America is going out through those bad windows. And we're improving the glass by sevenfold, which means we can dramatically reduce the energy that's leaving through the skin of a building. So it's a little bit of a long description, but that's the technology that, that I see changing the built environment over the next decade. And it took 14 years for the last technology to fully integrate as the standard. And I think this technology, vacuum insulating glass, will do the same thing, but a little bit faster. I think everybody knows that we're innovating faster and adopting things faster than we did 20, 50, 100 years ago. You know, the data centers are a good example. We're moving fast because this innovation will dramatically help efficiencies in business.
And just like vacuum, glass will help efficiencies in building energy usage.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: So for developers trying to build fast, where's the Misconception that energy efficient always means slower or more expensive. And where do you see efficiency accelerating timelines?
[00:11:16] Speaker C: So efficiency, when I think of a data center is about how fast you can get that building built right.
The energy efficiency is going to be controlled, especially with the envelope. If you've got a thick, well insulated wall, there's a lot of solutions to facilitate that. So when I think of efficiency in this area, it's prefabrication and prefabricating. An aluminum and glass curtain wall creates a building that comes together faster, is safer to build, and allows us to design efficiencies into the wall that probably could not be done with a field erection.
The same is happening in data centers. If you look at a data center now, you clear the land, pour the concrete and you build those walls very rapidly with standard products.
A lot of those are prefabricated. But the key element that these data centers require come as the H300 Nvidia computers, the racking system, the H Vac and electrical equipment. All of that is coming prefabricated. And people have talked about prefabrication in the built environment and it's still 1 or 2% of all construction data centers are about 80% prefabricated.
So where I see data centers making a difference is they're leading that prefabrication, renovation or revolution that we need.
And because they need to be done fast, because they need to be very efficient buildings, they are being prefabricated. And there are 20 giant general contractors who are training daily with thousands of people to prefabricate that prefabrication in the data center. Build out will then move into high rise residential the I 4.0 economy for manufacturing. So I see data centers leading the revolution of prefab. That has been talked about a lot, but I've seen almost none of it happen.
So I think that's where we're going to see a real increase in efficiency. It's how we build those buildings.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Thank you, Nick. I appreciate that.
Coming up next, we're going to discuss how to design a net zero envelope for the AI era facilities and why glass and steel may be one of the fastest climate winds hiding in plain sight. This is Todd Thomas and you're watching Abundant Energy.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy on Abundant Energy. We explore the hidden energy demands of the AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from biomass innovation to power positive data centers, we're mapping the blueprint for a carbon negative future. Abundant Energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: Lets dive deeper.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Hello, you're watching Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas. If you want more abundant energy and the full NOW Media TV lineup live or on demand, download the Free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS for non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. Do you prefer audio? Catch the podcast version anytime at www.nowmedia.tv.
welcome back Nick. It's in this segment we are going to get practical what does a net zero envelope actually mean? When the building is supporting always on compute and when every design decision affects cooling resistance and speed to scale.
So we are moving from concept to execution performance metrics like U value, shgc, air tightness, daylight versus heat gain envelopment, I'm sorry, envelope commissioning and how envelope decisions interact with cooling architectures. The AIM connect envelope design to a carbon negative blueprint without hand waving.
When you say net zero envelope, what are the non negotiable performance targets you're chasing? Is it air leakage?
U values, Thermal breaks, moisture control?
What do you view as the, as the non negotiables?
[00:16:35] Speaker C: You know like we talked about earlier, the efficiency of a building is determined by the requirements and need and like we said, the bots don't need views. So it's easy to create a cost effective energy efficient solution for, for data centers and there's, there's a lot of possible solutions. You could do insulated concrete in certain regions, having insulated metal panels that are replicative and prefabricated is an excellent solution. So there are multiple ways of getting there for data centers. But I'm, I'm going to speak a little bit to the fenestration industry and buildings that are out there consuming the brunt of the electricity, which are residential like single home or multi tenant buildings and commercial office buildings. So when you think of those buildings you need to balance, you've had to balance the energy efficiency of the building with the comfort and needs of the people inside the building.
The data centers have a limited number of people so we have less concerns, we have a lot more constrained set of requirements and with a data center you need to just maintain a steady temperature and make sure there's no water penetration, obviously with leakage and air.
But humidity is really important in those buildings. So maintaining the right temperature and humidity is key in those buildings.
And with existing tools and products, we can do that. So when you look to the just the built environment, having, you know, windows in a building is important for comfort and, and really the health of individuals. So when I look at a building, I want to make sure during the design that we've met the requirements of the owner and the tenant to what they're going to see and how they feel in the building. So that comes down to obviously you don't want water and you don't want air penetration. If you get those two, then you've got huge liability problems with the building. So those have to be the first two. But that those requirements are set and very achievable. The next step is getting reducing the conductance and reducing the solar heat gain. So you want to let light into a building, but you want to reduce the glare and the heat. So the low E technology has allowed for probably 70% of that heat gain to be eliminated from the building because of these vacuum deposition coatings. With Loewy, the conductance is a problem because the glass until now has been very conductive and then the framing systems that are used.
Aluminum is a very conductive material. So as we move forward over the next decade, integrating things like vacuum insulating glass and low conductivity materials are going to be really important for envelopes.
Wood is a good non conductor.
And there are multiple new products that are structural as well as have low conductivity that are being produced, but not quite at scale. So everyone knows vinyl windows and no one likes, necessarily likes a plastic window, but they perform well.
Over the next decade, material science will produce and we have the products today, but create efficient ways of producing structural materials that are manufactured using things like, you know, cellulose in wood and organic materials to create much more efficient and less conductive materials for windows, for walls and for different types of construction. So today using steel and aluminum is very efficient because of their structural qualities. And the fact that there's massive manufacturing that was created for other industries that allows you to use it in the, in the built environment.
But over the next decade, I think with, with material science, which is being driven by AI and the ability to think of, create and do experiments that had to be done in laboratories before, you can dramatically increase the rate of testing these materials so that before where it might take two weeks to do A test with a ceramic, we can do 12 AI model test, get the best result, and then test test 12 different samples around that. And what we found is especially in the lead up to creating vacuum insulating glass, we were able to create ceramics that had different temperature variables that allowed us to manufacture more rapidly, about 12 times the rate of what we could produce new materials in the past.
So the, the industry has moved slowly in the past, but I think getting the proof points to the industry is going to happen a lot faster, which will create innovation in fenestrations.
Excellent.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: So Nick, can you walk us through glazing like you would a developer? How do the glazing choices really translate into real world cooling and heating energy efficiency?
[00:23:21] Speaker C: So today in the state of California, which is where I owned a large glazing company, we followed title 24 and title 24 was the first energy codes that were mandated in the US and they've sort of been the driver across the country to energy efficiency.
So when I look at a project, the first thing that we do is you need to meet the required standards in the municipality.
So first of all, we want to build a wall that meets those energy efficiency standards. Right. And that is going to drive the system. So that's going to drive the framing system and that's going to drive the actual glass that goes into the building.
With that, you've got an architect and a tenant who are going to have specific requirements for the building.
So getting as much natural light into the building without glare and heat is really important.
So today standards say that if you do 40% window to wall ratios, you do not have to do an energy efficiency report on the wall system. Right. Because you can just build a building that's going to create efficiencies that meet the standards in the country if you go 30% window to wall. But most buildings today are built with 50, 70, even 90% window to wall.
And when you do that, you create in inefficiencies in the energy and it becomes difficult to meet the codes. So the key is balancing comfort and esthetics for the tenant with energy efficiency. So what I look at today is what are the requirements and then how do we take the step past the requirements to add comfort and desirability to the tenant. So it's one thing to have a building that creates the comfort that a tenant is going to want to live in or work in, but if you can increase that comfort, you're going to attract more tenants, better tenants and more revenue and higher leases. Right.
So the goal is always to create a better performing window, not just energy wise but in comfort. And today what I do is I look at what the owner, the tenant want and then I guide the owner and the design build team to the best products that are possible.
Ten years ago, getting better than 50% window to wall value was extremely difficult and impossible in many climates. Today with a product like these low E products with products that can actually shift their transparency so electrochromic that change their chromic or light transmittance with electrical impulses to change the transmittance and low E glass we can have a wall that can shift from blacked out with no solar gain to 60, 70% of light transmittance and eliminate any of their the heat gaining radiation.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: That's really. We can do amazing. Sorry. That's amazing development.
And in our next section we're going to talk about carbon isn't only operational, we're talking embodied carbon. New materials and innovations that could turn the building skin itself into a climate asset. This is Todd Thomas and you're watching Abundant Energy.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy. On abundant energy, we explore the hidden energy demands of the AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from biomass innovation to power positive data centers, we're mapping the blueprint for a carbon negative future.
Abundant Energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv.
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Let's dive deeper.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Hello and welcome back. We've talked operational energy. Now we talk the carbon you spend before a facility ever goes live. AI infrastructure is scaling fast which means materials and construction choices today can lock in emissions for decades. We're going to explore embodied carbon in curtain wall systems. Material selection of aluminum glass coating sealants, circularity and innovation.
Nick, your work in Neckvir envelope and thinking and patentable concepts around carbon reducing curtain wall structures are really industry leading for people hearing embodied carbon and thinking it's abstract. Where does it show up in most facade systems? Aluminum glass production, transport or waste.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: In the fenestration, it's aluminum. If you look at a building, the structure which is concrete or steel is generally about 75 to 80% of the embodied carbon in the building is in the structure.
So there's products like mass timber construction that uses sustainable timber and you can dramatically reduce the structural embodied carbon. And if you do that, you bring the carbon down dramatically of a building.
If you do that and you take the next highest embodied carbon in the building is the fenestration, which is about between 15 and 20% of the overall embodied carbon. And the aluminum is about 81% of that embodied carbon.
So in a fenestration and then the wind and then the glass itself is about 15%.
So if you're able to take the aluminum frame and do a timber based like a glue laminated frame with mass timber that's using sustainably harvested plantation wood, you can reduce that embodied carbon in the window by about 80%. And if you use a product like vacuum insulating glass, vacuum glass is two lights of glass and instead of two lights of quarter inch glass, you use two lights of 3, 16 glass glass. And instead of an aluminum spacer and a desiccant, you fuse the glass to glass with a ceramic and you pull a vacuum.
So the vacuum insulating glass reduces embodied carbon in the glass itself by about 25%. So a vacuum insulating glass window with a timber frame can reduce the embodied carbon on the second most heavily embodied carbon product on a building, which is the window. And you can reduce the window embodied carbon by about 90%.
So the path is there.
It's just about making people aware of that and getting these products to scan.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: So as you talk about performance improvements in fenestration, how do you separate green marketing, green washing from real measurable carbon reduction?
[00:32:11] Speaker C: That's been my on my mind since I started looking at sustainability 20 years ago.
ROI, return on investment is everything. So creating a super energy efficient product has zero value unless you can move that product into the the value stream of, you know, the construction segment. So like I said, Louis glass was $2.75 per square foot in 1999 by 20 by 2004 the manufacturing cost was down to 17 cents and the product was selling for 50 to 70 cents in the market. And that allowed for mass adoption. Vacuum insulating glass today is about $25 and double pane glass is about $15.
There will be price parity, but only after the manufacturing is built out.
And in the meantime you have to create efficiencies on the ROI that will allow the product to be put into service. And here's an example. A unitized curtain wall is about $100 per square foot.
The glass, the double pane, low E glass is about $15 per square foot.
So if you increase that to $25 per square foot, you're looking at about a, you know, 75%, 80% increase in the cost of the glass, but only a 15% cost in the overall fenestration system.
So that difference in price can be pretty much eliminated by the correct H vac system and reduction of load that that increased performance will cost. And then over the next three to five years, you will pay for any increased cost of this new sustainable product with reduced energy costs. So that, that's the key. It's, it's return on investment is the driver that creates energy good energy efficient products.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Excellent.
So Nick, you have work that's tied to carbon reducing curtain wall structure concepts.
What problem is that innovation trying to solve in real builds?
[00:34:50] Speaker C: So one of the solutions that I've come up with is using a mass timber glue laminated frame with a very small sash type aluminum face that provides all of the waterproofing logic for the system.
So I've got a wood framed system that reduces embodied carbon, dramatically reduces conduction, and then adding vacuum insulating glass with a low E coating. I've dramatically now reduced the carbon footprint as well as created efficiencies for, for the building.
And that allows for buildings to be designed with less H Vac and dramatic, dramatically more efficient systems. And you couple that with the prefabrication of timber and the prefabrication of buildings, you create the possibility of having pre designed, very efficient buildings that can meet the comfort levels that people require and dramatically reduce the energy consumption in the built environment in North America.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: So Nick, if I'm not mistaken, the window behind you right now, isn't that an example of one of your wood frame innovations?
[00:36:29] Speaker C: Yeah, this is one of the first test installations that we did. And this product behind me has a timber frame small aluminum sash that integrates all of the waterproofing logic and guts and then a vacuum insulating piece of glass.
And you can tell the difference in the, in a vig because it makes a lot higher pitched ping sound versus the sound thud that you get with a normal piece of glass.
What we've done is create a vacuum between the two pieces of glass with tiny pillars that maintain the distance. And because the glass is separated by that tiny mount, we're able to pull a vacuum which leaves 0 molecules to conduct the heat. And since there's no airspace, we have no convection. So the glass itself is not touching and there is zero molecules. So conduction cannot happen through this piece of glass. This is an early stage product that's R8. The newest products are R20. And if you combine two lights of glass, these vacuum insulated lights of glass in a unit, you can have an R30 wall.
And that just opens up so many possibilities in what a building looks like from the outside and how the building performs from the inside. So we're on the precipice of some incredible design, aesthetic and performance changes in building.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: So what do you see as really the next frontier?
Dynamic facades, smarter coatings, integrated shading, new sealant chemistry, or something totally different?
[00:38:24] Speaker C: I think the biggest change is going to come through prefabrication and that kind of takes us back to the data center. The data centers, because there is so much construction and so much focus and so much money being poured into it. It is creating this model for efficient prefabrication so all of these systems can create an efficient wall. It's how do you get that wall into the field and erected cost effectively?
You know, if you take like I said, a curtain wall is $100 per square foot. About $50 of that is the design engineering. Building it and moving it to site as you increase those efficiencies and prefabrication, that's where we're going to see reduction in cost for construction.
So I think that's, that's going to be the driver. Using AI tools, using automation in the factories, using robotic equipment. As those mature, our, our building stock will mature with it and the possibility of going into old buildings and renovating those with a product like vacuum insulating glass. Since it's thinner, you can install it into every old building in the country.
So there's, with the innovation comes a lot of innovative ways to fix problems and to create better solutions.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Nick. I really appreciate that. Coming up in our final segment, we're going to talk about how we scale this workforce, supply chain policy and the playbook for building an AI powered world without an emissions hangover. I'm Todd Thomas and you're watching Abundant Energy.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy. On abundant energy, we explore the hidden energy demands of the AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from Biomass innovation to power positive data centers. We're mapping the blueprint for a carbon negative future. Abundant Energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Hello, I'm Todd Thomas and you're watching Abundant Energy. Don't miss a second of Abundant Energy or any NOW Media TV Favorite streaming live and on demand whenever you want, grab the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS or listen to the podcast anytime at www.nowmedia.tv.
welcome back, Nick. For our final segment, we've connected the envelope to operational energy and embodied carbon. Now let's talk about scale. AI isn't slowing down. So the real question becomes can we build fast and build responsibly without shifting the burden onto communities and future generations?
We want to translate envelope innovation into deployment permitting constraints, interconnection delays, local community impact, manufacturing capacity, workforce training, commissioning standards, and what good looks like for the next 10 years if we're going to build thousands of facilities globally? What's the number one bottleneck you see on the envelope side? Materials, fabrication capacity, skilled installers, quality assurance, or something else?
[00:42:26] Speaker C: The envelopes for the buildings are not hard. The envelopes for data centers are simple. The problem is data centers suck up a lot of juice and buildings are super energy inefficient. So if we can reduce the energy usage in buildings across North America, we can offset or balance out those new requirements and needs for energy that data centers are putting on American communities.
And you know, an example is an old technology which is single pane glass. In North America, there's 14 billion square feet of single pane glass.
50% of the commercial buildings and about 60% of residential buildings still have single pane glass. The solution to solve that before was you tore out the frame and the window and put in a new frame and window, which meant displacing the tenant and creating horrible inefficiencies in the building, eliminated rent for months or years.
So with this thinner profile glass vacuum insert glass, you can slip that into the existing frames. So if you were just to replace all of the single pane glass in North America, which would increase people's comfort and their energy bills would drop, that would be responsible for 3% of all energy usage per year in North America. If you just change the single pane glass, data centers are only pulling about 1.5% and they're estimated to move to 3% of all energy use in North America. We could offset 100% of data center requirements by replacing the old shitty single pane windows in homes and offices in North America. That would add a massive amount of that.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: That is huge. That's. That's hard to imagine. That's amazing.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
I just reconfirmed the numbers this morning because I thought that's.
It's a very tangible thing that people can understand. And what I like about it is the data centers are going to create extra energy for those buildings and I think it will allow communities to maybe pull energy from that and create a lot more grid stability. But if we can reduce the energy consumption, this step towards massive increase in data will be easier. So I think they work hand in hand. You build a more efficient building, then you have less need for energy, which puts less pressure on the grid. So I think that's where the built in environment and the efficiency of buildings is really important. And it works both ways. It's new buildings and we need to go to the existing stock and make them efficient.
Just that. That example of single pane retrofit, I did a project in downtown la.
Hundred thousand square foot of glazing. They removed the tenant, we tore the skin off, we threw it away. We had to do remediation of toxins. It took three years. We built a new frame, put in the double pane glass, everybody's happy, the building is full. That cost $14 million. If vacuum insulating glass was available at that time, we would have left the tenants in place during the night. We would have removed individual pieces of glass, put the vacuum insulating glass in and the building would perform better than it performs today with a new frame, a new system and it would have only cost $9 million. So the ability to create efficiencies is here. And it's just the knowledge that it's possible and the desire and the need. So we've got the grid is going to be pushed. We need to improve our inventory of existing buildings.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: So if you were advising policymakers, what incentives or code changes would you suggest to speed adoption of net zero envelope practices?
[00:47:22] Speaker C: You can't increase code until the products can reach the code.
Windows have a code requirement in California of about R2.5 and walls are R20 to R30. Because you can build a thick wall with a lot of insulation and get to R30.
That's why the code pushes the upward limits of the R value. With glass you could not do it. Even with triple pane glass you could only get to an R4.
With this new product you can get to an R15.
Transparent insulated wall.
So I think code and specifiers need to know that the possibility is there. And then the manufacturers like Luxwall, who is a US manufacturer, who's also got relationships and with Saint Gobain in Europe, as products like that create the opportunity for people to design with better systems, then the code will follow the product. But like I said earlier, it's about roi. So as these products become cost effective, and they will over the next decade, there will be an opportunity for people who are designing buildings to step up their code because they want a more comfortable building and they're going to be willing to pay for it. But as that happens, the price points will drop for something like vacuum insulating glass. And as that happens, the code will change and we're going to have dramatically better buildings over the next decade. So that would be my hope, that people watch the technology evolve and create better systems so that we can create more stringent codes that are cost effective and provide good solutions.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: So in the spirit of powering the future, protecting the planet, what does a carbon negative AI campus look like in practice? When the building envelope is designed correctly from day one?
[00:49:44] Speaker C: I think we have very good energy efficiency, climate efficiency in a data center, I think that's very possible today.
I think the efficiencies in getting a building to zero carbon is about having on site production and then the efficiency of those Nvidia chips and the next generation of chips is going to be really important in creating a low energy or a net zero energy facility. My hope is that the people who are creating these chips and the companies that are now starting to do that in North America will create much more energy efficient products.
And as we do that, the efficiency of the chips is going to allow us to get towards net zero data centers. And my hope is that they increase the efficiency so, so fast that they've overbuilt the energy production for 2025. So by 2035, the same data center is producing enough electricity to move twice as many tokens. Right. And then there could potentially be overflow that could go into batteries and feed the communities around those, those data centers. That's, that's a vision that I have that I hope becomes a possibility.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: So if we fast forward 24 months, what breakthrough or industry industry shift would make you say, okay, now we can scale this, what do you need to see in the next 24 months?
[00:51:40] Speaker C: Well, I think in the data centers it's the move towards efficiency in these chips. Right. I know that the latest generation of chips are about 25% less energy consumptive than the last one. So I think we're going to keep moving in that direction. So I, I'm hopeful with that. When it comes to fenestration, I think the biggest step that we're going to see is vacuum insulating glass and the product is scaling. The first factory is built in North America about two years ago.
A large scalable factory which is 300,000 square feet that built, that will manufacture 20 million square foot of this product a year. That product, that factory is going online now.
Once we have two or three of those factories in North America or one or two of those factories in Europe, the product will scale and the price will drop. And I think that could create dramatically more efficient and more comfortable buildings going into the next decade. So I think the next 24 months on fenestration, it's scaling. Vacuum insulating glass is going to be a huge driver and I think with data centers it's the folks at Nvidia or their competitors creating more energy efficient systems that can use less electricity per token.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Thank you so much Nick. For our viewers that want to follow your work, where can they find you? Where can they follow your work?
[00:53:14] Speaker C: So I'm on LinkedIn so Nicholas Bagatellos on LinkedIn.
My email is Nickze Glass.
So if you've got fenestration questions, I'm working with Todd on some exceptional innovation in waste removal. So if you want to contact me through the folks at Woodchuck, I'm, I'm happy to talk to you about anything in regards to data center efficiency.
And you know, I think if, if you're looking for vacuum insulating glass, the, the only company that's producing product in, in North America is Luxwall and I think they would be happy to hear from you or if you're a designer or a builder and you want to create super efficient walls.
[00:54:10] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thanks for being our guest today. Nick. Really enjoyed the conversation. You have so much knowledge, it's unbelievable. Thank you so much. I am Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Thank you for watching Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Jo.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: Join us next week as we continue powering the future and protecting the planet. Only a naming TV.
