Hard at Work in Dallas

As predicted, labeling did come up during yesterday’s meeting of the Fire-Rated Glazing Council (which met as part of the Glass Association of North America’s Fall Conference), but it was only one topic of many discussions. And what was most refreshing was being in the same room as the majority of individuals with whom I’d spoken for the article—and hearing the willingness to address the issue of labeling as a unified group. While the different perspectives were clearly evident in discussions, the discussion was open and the group seemed focused on finding a way to put this issue to rest once and for all. Of course, it helps that the alternative is letting the International Code Councils’ (ICC) Code Technology Committee make a recommendation to the ICC that would decide this issue for the glass industry. As Thom Zaremba commented on my way out of the room, the final chapter has yet to be written on this article - but hopefully it will be the glass industry representatives that are penning this chapter.

Last night concluded with a very well attended reception and gave everyone a chance to say hello, and gave me the chance to speak face-to-face with a couple of the folks whom I’ve had the pleasure of quoting in articles over the past year. Today I had a similar pleasure in that following his tremendous keynote address on the state of the glass industry, Apogee chairman and CEO Russ Huffer took some time out of his busy schedule for a one-on-one interview. He answered a number of questions I’ve been asking over the past couple of months for various articles, running the gamut from photovoltaics to coating advances to the rumors of a glass shortage.

One point that I thought was pretty interesting was that Russ touched base on one of the cutting-edge trends we’ve been tracking in USGlass, solar energy and building integrated photovoltaics. He stressed that while photovoltaics (PV) will be a big player in the glass industry for some time to come, there are significant challenges when it comes to integrating PV into vertical facades that are not likely to be solved in the near future. The difficulties lie in the fact that by installing solar cells on a vertical façade, there are only soaking up sun from one direction, limiting their usefulness throughout the day. In addition, he pointed out that thin film is “winning the day” with regard to costs, but is less efficient than other technologies in converting sunlight into usable electricity.

For the rest of the interview, well, you’ll just have to check out http://www.usgnn.com/ to see the interview for yourself!