- New 20-acre Revel Entertainment Group complex will be ‘the world’s
       greenest casino resort,’ says iCrete CEO Juan Carlos Terroba.
- Atlantic County Concrete is pouring advanced iCrete mixes that will help
   the Revel Casino Resort and others meet LEED certification standards.
   - Tishman Construction is managing the building of this Atlantic City
   entertainment complex, designed by internationally renowned architect
         Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA, principal of Arquitectonica.

    LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ — iCrete(R), LLC, a company that is
revolutionizing the construction industry with its concrete mix design
technology system, has delivered some of the world’s most advanced and
environmentally friendly concrete mix designs for the construction of Revel
Casino Resort, Atlantic City’s newest entertainment venue.

    (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080819/LATU515)

    (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080729/LATU051LOGO)

    iCrete is part of a team constructing the new casino resort which
includes Revel Entertainment Group, one of the world’s newest gaming and
entertainment developers; Atlantic County Concrete, owned and operated by
Nancy Armienti, the highest ranking woman in the New Jersey concrete
industry; and Tishman Construction, one of the world’s most renowned and
active construction management firms.

    “Revel Entertainment CEO Kevin DeSanctis and his team are building the
world’s greenest casino resort and certainly one of the most beautiful,”
said iCrete CEO Juan Carlos Terroba. “iCrete is proud to play a featured
role on the resort construction team, part of a broad effort by
environmentally-conscious executives pursing LEED certification in the U.S.
and abroad.”

    “Meeting the LEED certification standards of the U.S. Green Building
Council has become a principal objective for the designers and builders of
large public projects and infrastructure in New Jersey and across the
country,” said Nancy Armienti, president of Atlantic County Concrete, which
has selected and poured a variety of iCrete mixes on projects in New
Jersey.

    Added Armienti: “iCrete’s technology has allowed us to fully optimize
the use of resources for the Revel site, reduce the carbon footprint of the
construction effort, and help Revel meet its LEED goals. We are pleased to
be able to offer in Atlantic City unique concrete mixes like those from
iCrete that support the LEED process.”

    Revel Casino Resort is the largest project yet in New Jersey to pour
mixes using iCrete’s technology. Internationally renowned Miami architect
Bernardo Fort-Brescia, founder of the award-winning Arquitectonica firm,
has designed the striking casino complex, open to the beach and the sea.

    Freedom Tower in New York, which is rising 130 miles northeast of
Atlantic City on the site of the former World Trade Center in lower
Manhattan, was the first major application in the Northeastern United
States using iCrete concrete mixes. During the design phase of Freedom
Tower, the building’s engineers required concrete used in construction of
the project to achieve a record-breaking 14,000 pounds per square inch
(PSI) of compressive strength.

    Since the first pour at Freedom Tower in October 2007, iCrete mixes
have been used at more than 30 construction locations in the Greater New
York tri-state area alone and is now being poured by Atlantic County
Concrete at the Revel Casino Resort site. Revel anticipates that the
20-acre development, which includes a luxury hotel, a world-class casino, a
5,000-seat state-of-the-art theater, and other amenities, will be completed
in 2010.

    Added iCrete CEO Terroba: “We have now entered into agreements with
producers and builders in major international cities to test and evaluate
iCrete custom mix designs for some of the most significant and prestigious
buildings and infrastructure projects in the world. The
Arquitectonica-designed Revel Casino Resort is an important and respected
milestone in that international expansion.”

To paraphrase the late Barry Goldwater, the theme of Monday (Oct. 23) night’s FOX Fall Party might has well have been “Glitz in defense of the environment is no vice, but environmentalism in the absence of alcohol is no virtue.”

At FOX’s semi-annual bash (part of why we love the network is because they love to throw fiestas) good intentions and good booze flowed in equal measure.

Held at Hollywood’s Boulevard3 club, the gala had an Eco-Casino theme. That meant that FOX talent and random assembled friends, loved ones and press were given chips to play poker, blackjack and other games. The chips were redeemable for all sorts of FOX paraphernalia pilloried from the studio store — what star of House wouldn’t love a House t-shirt, hat and sponsored rectal thermometer? — while the proceeds were split between Habitat for Humanity and the Nature Conservancy. As of the time this writer left — with at least an hour to spare — the two charities had taken in more than $18,000 with a lot more to come.

Because of the network’s strange late-August start and baseball hiatus, these Fall parties often have a bittersweet edge. At last year’s party, the entire cast of Kitchen Confidential showed up despite the fact that the comedy had already been pulled from FOX schedule. This year’s best bet for a similar fate is Happy Hour, which notched perfect cast attendance, with all of the actors enjoying themselves like you’d expect the cast of a show called Happy Hour to do.

Overall, FOX did an excellent job recruiting talent for the cause. The full casts of Prison Break, Standoff, ‘Til Death and Justice made it out. A healthy percentage of Vanished (Gale Harold? Still dead. Sorry kids.), The Loop (including Phillip Baker Hall, who gave the Wheel of Charity a spirited spin) and House (sans the good doctor himself) made appearances, as did a spirited selection of new-ish faces (Autumn Reeser, Willa Holland, Chris Pratt and Michael Nouri) from The O.C.

I opted to observe rather than gamble, passing my $500 to colleague Rick Porter, who sat down at a Hold ‘Em table with Michael Nouri and promptly took Michael Nouri down with a flush. All spades, Dr. Roberts! But I kid. It’s all for our Earth.

Some other highlights:

Weirdest sight: Wentworth Miller with hair (do I sense a Very Special Episode of Prison Break where Michael gets plugs?) and Robert “T-Bag” Knepper joking around with David Boreanaz.

Second weirdest sight: It may have been entirely innocent and I’d never dare to gossip, but Family Guy creator/voice Seth MacFarlane seemingly macking on 20-year-old War at Home cutie Kaylee DeFer (pictured) was, indeed, weird.

Yet it’s the famous Las Vegas Strip that’s modeling eco-friendly practices.

In Nevada, plans are underway to build more than 100 million square feet of new construction to the standards of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

More than half of that involves casino-resort projects on and around the Las Vegas Strip, not including the 8.3 million square feet of the 7-month-old, $1.9 billion Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, which, in May, was designated the nation’s largest LEED-certified building.

The scale of the Vegas projects, as well as the promise of 40 million tourists a year using and learning from these buildings, has excited Brendan Owens, the council’s vice president for LEED certification.

“There’s only so many places where projects like these can happen,” he says. “Las Vegas can serve as a bellwether for mainstream companies and organizations that are not necessarily focused on the environment to say, ‘You know what? These guys are doing it, so can we.’ “

The projects gunning for LEED certifications include the $2.9 billion Fontainebleau Resort, the $1.9 billion tower addition to Caesars Palace, the $4.8 billion Echelon resort and the $9.2 billion, six-high-rise CityCenter complex. Some LEED-inspired innovations:

•Boyd Gaming’s Echelon, due to open in 2010, recycles building waste by using materials left over from the Stardust resort that was imploded to make way for it, such as part of the concrete used in its fountains.

•For CityCenter, opening next year, MGM Mirage built its own energy generator to provide a fifth of its own power and to use the excess heat generated to warm the water to be used for the 7,400 hotel rooms and condo units as well as the dozens of shops, restaurants and other amenities planned.

•Solar panels heat both the Palazzo’s pools and, in the summer, the water in guest rooms.

•Fontainebleau, opening next year, plans the “first paperless hotel room” by providing an iMac computer in each suite loaded with information normally found in in-room brochures.

Each of these projects is helped along by USGBC standards that allow the developers to separate their casinos from the rest of the resorts when going for LEED status, a controversial distinction that Owens defends. Including the casinos would almost certainly sink the attainment of LEED status because the USGBC frowns on smoking in public places, and no Las Vegas casino is smoke-free.

“The way I always look at the Palazzo, for example, is that the casino is 250,000 square feet and the rest of the project is 8 million square feet, so we needed to be able to recognize the achievement on the bulk of the project,” Owens says.

About three miles from the Strip, the state’s first LEED-certified Gold project is the $107 million Molasky Corporate Center, which, among other innovations, uses recycled denim for insulation. And LEED has given a new green-neighborhood designation, one of a handful awarded nationally, to the $6 billion, 61-acre Union Park development across from the Molasky center, which will include a $360 million performing-arts center, three hotels, a Frank Gehry-designed brain research center, several office buildings and thousands of residential units.

Both MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment, with a combined 28 casino properties in Nevada, have plans to re-evaluate older properties and have taken steps such as switching to compact fluorescent lighting and installing sensors to turn off air-conditioning units when people aren’t in their rooms.

Altruism isn’t the only motivation. Nevada law provides property tax rebates of 25% to 35% to builders whose projects are LEED-certified.

And many tourists are skeptical that these eco-friendly acts can alter the city’s image.

“You think Vegas, you just think of this huge international symbol of waste,” says Mark Vitter of Manchester, England. “I love Las Vegas, but its very existence is almost a crime against nature. No amount of conservation can replace what ought not be used in the first place.”

Environmental groups wish the resorts would do more to involve the millions of Vegas tourists in the act. The Sierra Club’s Nevada director, Lydia Ball, says recycle bins are scarce at the resorts and non-existent on outdoor sidewalks along the Strip.

MGM Mirage spokesman Gordon Absher says there’s a reason for that: It’s unsightly.

“Keep in mind that we are in the resort-hotel business, and the people come to stay with us to have a four-diamond experience,” Absher says. “As practical as they are, sometimes the big blue bin just doesn’t fit in with the décor. We do recycle, but we don’t need to ask our guests to do the work for us.”

I decided to write a bit on cogeneration…since this is a technology that can have a huge positive effect on the casino industry.  The ability to save 50% on energy with free hot and cold water after an 7-10 year ROI….pretty powerful.  If your organization is interested in finding out more, or moving forward with cogeneration….please email me eric@egmgreen.com to set up an appt.

Thermal power plants (including those that use fissile elements or burn coal, petroleum, or natural gas), and heat engines in general, do not convert all of their available energy into electricity. In most heat engines, a bit more than half is wasted as excess heat (see: Second law of thermodynamics). By capturing the excess heat, CHP uses heat that would be wasted in a conventional power plant, potentially reaching an efficiency of up to 89%, compared with 55%^[4] for the best conventional plants. This means that less fuel needs to be consumed to produce the same amount of useful energy. Also, less pollution is produced for a given economic benefit.

Some tri-cycle plants have utilized a combined cycle in which several thermodynamic cycles produced electricity, and then a heating system was used as a condenser of the power plant’s bottoming cycle. For example, the RU-25 MHD generator in Moscow heated a boiler for a conventional steam powerplant, whose condensate was then used for space heat. A more modern system might use a gas turbine powered by natural gas, whose exhaust powers a steam plant, whose condensate provides heat. Tri-cycle plants can have thermal efficiencies above 80%.

An exact match between the heat and electricity needs rarely exists. A CHP plant can either meet the need for heat (heat driven operation) or be run as a power plant with some use of its waste heat.

CHP is most efficient when the heat can be used on site or very close to it. Overall efficiency is reduced when the heat must be transported over longer distances. This requires heavily insulated pipes, which are expensive and inefficient; whereas electricity can be transmitted along a comparatively simple wire, and over much longer distances for the same energy loss.

A car engine becomes a CHP plant in winter, when the reject heat is useful for warming the interior of the vehicle. This example illustrates the point that deployment of CHP depends on heat uses in the vicinity of the heat engine.

Cogeneration plants are commonly found in district heating systems of big towns, hospitals, prisons, oil refineries, paper mills, wastewater treatment plants, thermal enhanced oil recovery wells and industrial plants with large heating needs.

Thermally enhanced oil recovery (TEOR) plants often produce a substantial amount of excess electricity. After generating electricity, these plants pump leftover steam into heavy oil wells so that the oil will flow more easily, increasing production. TEOR cogeneration plants in Kern County, California produce so much electricity that it cannot all be used locally and is transmitted to Los Angeles^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Types of plants

Topping cycle plants primarily produce electricity from a steam turbine. The exhausted steam is then condensed, and the low temperature heat released from this condensation is utilised for e.g. district heating.

Bottoming cycle plants produce high temperature heat for industrial processes, then a waste heat recovery boiler feeds an electrical plant. Bottoming cycle plants are only used when the industrial process requires very high temperatures, such as furnaces for glass and metal manufacturing, so they are less common.

Large cogeneration systems provide heating water and power for an industrial site or an entire town. Common CHP plant types are:

• Gas turbine CHP plants using the waste heat in the flue gas of gas turbines
• Combined cycle power plants adapted for CHP
• Steam turbine CHP plants that use the heating system as the steam condenser for the steam turbine.
• Molten-carbonate fuel cells have a hot exhaust, very suitable for heating.

Smaller cogeneration units may use a reciprocating engine or Stirling engine. The heat is removed from the exhaust and the radiator. These systems are popular in small sizes because small gas and diesel engines are less expensive than small gas- or oil-fired steam-electric plants.

Some cogeneration plants are fired by biomass ^[5], or industrial and municipal waste

Slot Machine Sustainability Standard Development

Updated July 25, 2008

Need for the Standard:                  Slot machines use a significant amount of electricity and materials so a standard that makes it easy to define the sustainability of a slot machine will make it easy for manufacturers to promote and sell more sustainable slot machines and for slot machine buyers to specify more sustainable slot machines when making purchases of slot machines.

Objectives of the Standard:           To provide a frame work for market driven increase in sustainability of slot machines. This includes energy use and emission reductions as well as the use of more sustainable materials in the manufacture of slot machines.

Participants in the Development of the Initial Draft Standard:

Eric Hansel - EGM Green, Dean McClain, Paul Magno - GLI, Michael Arny - Leonardo Academy

Contest to Kick Off the Development of the Standard

Goal of Contest:                           To kick off the use the Draft Sustainability Standard for Slot Machines.

Description of Contest:                  Slot machine manufacturers will be invited to compete for recognition as the greenest slot machine manufacturer using the Draft Sustainability Standard for Slot Machines as the sustainability achievement metric.

                                                        The First, Second and Third place slot machines will be recognized.

Sponsorship Opportunities:           Media Sponsor

o   Actively cover contest and standard development process

Levels of Sponsorship: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum:

·         Slot Machine Buyer Sponsors    

o     Commit to buying 100, 200, 300, 400 of winning slot machines

o     Financial contribution: $25,50, 75, 100 k

·         Slot Machine Manufacturer Sponsors   

o   Financial contribution: $25,50, 75, 100 k

·         Other Sponsors  

o  Financial contribution: $25, 50, 75, 100 k

About Leonardo Academy:   

Leonardo Academy is a charitable nonprofit (501c3) non-profit organization dedicated to advancing sustainability, so donation to support this project are charitable contribution. Leonardo Academy is dedicated to advancing sustainability and putting the power of the competitive market to work on improving the environment. Leonardo Academy is a Think and Do Tank that helps develop new approaches, methods, metrics and standards to advance sustainability and helps companies, organizations, families and individuals implement sustainability and document their achievements. Leonardo Academy is an ANSI Accredited Standard Developer. Leonardo Academy played a central role in the development of LEED for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) as a USGBC contractor working on LEED-EB from 2001 to the present, managing the LEED-EB pilot program and conducting all LEED-EB certification application reviews from or January 2002 to September 2007. Michael Arny, President of Leonardo Academy has worked on LEED-EB from the first development meeting in 2000 to the present. He was the Chair of the USGBC LEED^® for Existing Buildings Committee and a member of the LEED Steering Committee from 2001-2005. Leonardo Academy is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council & CERES.

I have been working for the past few months leading a team made up of some amazingly smart and incitefull people to develop an open source scale for slot machine sustainability.  Our ultimate goal is to shave 25% or more off of the energy bill associated with running slot machines.  The group is comprised of Paul Magno, VP and co-owner of Gaming Labs International….Dean McClain, a long time gaming industry professional with experience running a casino and a slot manufacturer……and finally Michael Arny, President of The Leonardo Academy( non-profit Green think and do tank).  Michael was also the chair for the USGBC’s LEED for Existing Buildings committee for 5 years.

The slot sustainability scale will be based on the LEED scales, so as to keep the scoring consistent with an allready accepted standard.   We will recruit both operators(casinos) and manufacturers as well as a media sponsor to follow the progress of the contest.

By sponsoring this contest, you are not only committing your company to sustainability at the point of sale, but you are also helping to introduce new revenue streams to the gaming industry.

I will be posting the rules and the sponsorship opportunities soon.  Please contact me with inquiries.

Have Fun!

e

Eco-Friendly Hotel in Manhatten

We have been working on something for quite a while and I would like to blog about it now.  The Eco-Poker Tour is the only Poker Tour to not only highlight the poker, but also the local natural wonders.  Each tournament will be played in a land based casino…with the Final Table taking place on location at one of the local natural wonders(ex..play in San Diego, and hold the Final Table on the beach in La Jolla).

The Eco-Poker Tour will show people how it is easy to take a family vacation with exciting things to do for all.  Casinos, and night life for the grown-ups….and Fun, inexpensive, outdoor activities for the entire family.  Whether you like horse back riding, white water rafting, scuba diving, sky-diving, hiking, or mountain climbing….The Eco-Poker Tour will show you where and how to find that fun.

Much more on The Eco-Poker Tour and some other cool Green initiatives throughout the casino industry.

Have Fun!

e

Just before I left Vegas last week, I had some drinks with a couple of buddies.  Jeff madsen, who finished in the top 100 of the Main Event….along with Dutch Boyd, Layne Flack, and the # 20 finisher Brandon Cantu.  We also hung out with a weathergirl and a traffic girl from the local NBC station.

Now Brandon should be psyched….he had an amazing year, and a million $ win earlier…..but when he showed up after busting out, he was just bummed out.  This is the sign of a true champion.  This guy just finished almost a week of grueling play, and no sleep…..and after busting out, all he wanted was to have finished in the final 9….always reaching for more and more.

This is a lesson that we can all take with us as we work, play, hang out with family.  No matter what, exellence!

Have fun!

e

egm_tourny-finalmsI just came back from Vegas, and wrapped up our booth at The WSOP.  As you already know, the table that we made for The WSOP, an Eco-Friendly tournament poker table, will be given to the WSOP Main Event Champion.  What most of you don’t know is that we also gave one signed by over 50 poker celebrities to The Queen of Hearts Foundation to be auctioned off at the 1st Poker Gives event.

We have also given everyone out there the opportunity to win the same table by entering at either www.executivegamingmonthly.com or at www.egmgreen.com.

You can also purchase one of these unique and Eco-Friendly casino tables by visiting www.egmgreen.com.  If you don’t see a design that you are into, just email me at eric@egmgreen.com and let me know what you want your Eco-Friendly table to look like.

Have fun,

Eric