了解大学物理学教授的“宇宙热死亡”是查理·科普兰(Charlie Copeland)在过去的半个世纪中担任节能的机械工程师的原因之一。

“At age 20 or so, I thought, ‘Whoa, so that’s the end of the universe?’” recalls the president and CEO of New York City-based engineering consultant Goldman Copeland Associates PC in sharing his thoughts on learning about the 19th-century theory by William Thomson, the First Baron Kelvin, of absolute-zero fame. It hypothesizes that when energy equalizes everywhere, stars will die and almost all matter will decay.

不断思考最大的图片有限公司peland embarked on a career in which he tackles issues of renewable energy, sustainability and conservation, with solutions that aim to be the least complex and easiest on the client’s wallet. From designing one of New York City’s first solar water heaters for a project that launched the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) to leading development of a 2018 geothermal prescreening tool for all 850,000 city lots, Copeland’s contributions have earned him ENR New York’s 2019 Legacy Award.

The engineer grew up in the College Point section of Queens and elsewhere in the city. Money was tight, with his mother eventually moving the family to a grandmother’s house in Westchester County, where Copeland attended school in the highly rated Ardsley district. Teachers and classmates encouraged him to take advanced academic courses, and a friend convinced him to attend an inexpensive Missouri college. Eventually, Copeland made his way back to the city and earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at City College of New York.

“My success is his success, and I never felt any different.”

– Eric Mitchell, Principal and Director of Mechanical Engineering, Goldman Copeland

刚起步的工程师通过工作之夜和夏天为自己提供了支持。谷轮(Copeland)通过在阿肯色州的天然气管道上悬挂式通行权,并为爱荷华州80号州际公路上的混凝土形式销钉,以及其他工作。这些演出和一笔小贷款资助了他的教育。

谷轮说:“现在大学收取的收费是不可能的,”同情年轻人对大学学费成本的担忧。新利18备用官网登录当与他在高盛厂商的一些员工交谈时,首席执行官对他人的同情很明显。

“My success is his success, and I never felt any different,” says Eric Mitchell, principal and director of mechanical engineering, who nominated Copeland for the Legacy Award.

“He loves teaching people, he loves helping people advance their careers and continue their education,” adds principal Dan Colombini. “You can tell one of the things he takes pride in is seeing engineers grow. We all owe him the world.”

高盛能源服务总监特里斯坦·施瓦茨曼(Tristan Schwartzman)在高中教授数学后,于2012年在该公司开始。凭借英语文学学位,他和谷轮“谈论了[小说家]菲利普·罗斯(Philip Roth)的书约20分钟,然后他给了我这份工作。”当他加入该公司时,施瓦茨曼说,谷轮“将为我腾出空间,将部门推向我想去的任何方向。他给了我发展自己的机会。”

The Legacy Award winner’s first job, meanwhile, was at Jaros Baum & Bolles. In 1970, he joined the start-up that became Goldman Copeland. The second line on his CV jumps out: “Designed one of New York City’s earliest multifamily residential solar collector domestic hot water systems at 519 East 11th St. The property subsequently installed a windmill to generate electricity, which became the standard for generation grid regulations.” The situation was actually much more colorful.

他回忆说:“第十一街完全放弃了躺在人行道上的汽车,人们将零件出售并出售。”“许多纽约的状况都非常糟糕……它有一个'汗水股权计划',如​​果您愿意将其放入工作来修复它,那么您可以在这样的废弃建筑物中获得一栋被废弃的建筑物的公寓。”

The “semi-hippies” he says took over the building asked him in 1975 to design a system to heat water using solar energy collectors. At the time, the rules of how many solar collectors were needed per gallon of water “were completely in the favor of the solar collector makers,” but Copeland figured out a way to use fewer such devices.

With the use of solar power and a windmill that the building’s homesteaders put up, there was enough energy to plug electricity back into Con Edison’s grid —and the utility sued. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark represented the residents, and the case led to the 1978 PURPA law that allows non-utility generators to produce power for use by customers attached to a utility’s grid, encouraging development of alternative energy.

Copeland’s conservation-minded engineering continued apace. Later in the 1970s, he traveled the country inspecting Veteran’s Administration hospitals to help them reduce energy consumption. In 1988, he managed engineering for the New York City Energy Conservation Capital program, the largest municipal energy conservation of its kind in the U.S., in which he studied some 500 buildings owned by the city and trained 20 consultants on how to perform energy audits.

That same year, Copeland began the 15-year program to upgrade the mechanical and electrical systems in Grand Central Terminal, which included disconnecting the steam service between the terminal and nearby buildings that were heated this way, installing sprinkler and smoke exhaust systems and bringing air conditioning to areas such as the main concourse that did not have it.

“We had a rule that one person was not allowed to walk through tunnels by themselves,” he says. “There were a lot of drugs, a lot of strange people”—including someone who had a mattress, wood planks and clothes in one of the empty vertical columns that Copeland and his team eventually used for the new lower level kitchen exhaust system.

“现在对我来说最重要的是文明的未来。”

– Charlie Copeland, President and CEO, Goldman Copeland Associates

Entering the new millennium, Copeland upped his game. In 2004, he designed the first NYC office building built with a complete underfloor air system, for the Scholastic Books headquarters at 557 Broadway. The next year he created a similar system, using pew footrests at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, preserving the historic interior architecture. Other architecture-preserving projects have been the Alexander Hamilton Customs House, the Eldridge Street Synagogue and the Morgan Library.

The firm has also upgraded systems at various Broadway theaters, including the Schubert, Hudson, Roundabout, Dance Theater of Harlem and Playwrights Horizon. “I used to go to a lot of theater … it’s a little harder for me to stay out that late now and go to work in the morning,” he says.

In 2015, Copeland received a patent for a steam demand automatic control design that he did for Con Ed that helps high-rise office buildings reduce their peak winter demands. Three years later, he was principal in charge of developing the geothermal prescreening tool, at the request of the NYC Dept. of Design and Construction.

Copeland and his firm worked with a structural geological engineer and others to place data into the tool, look at ground surfaces to see what could prevent a construction team from going underground and develop engineering specific to the size of a plot and what kind of structure could be built on it. The tool looks at 25 types of buildings to determine the amount of energy required.

“Given lot sizes in New York, there are limited candidates to do geothermal. Some could do part-geothermal,” the engineer explains. “A lot of sites are good for a hybrid system, but that typically wouldn’t be any high-rise buildings. One- or two-family homes in Queens are a good application, or small apartment complexes.”

该工具激发了纽约市以外的兴趣,该公司签订了为威彻斯特县创建类似产品的合同。科普兰说,大学校园和农场将是很好的应用。

2019年,谷轮回到了他的发电根源。他监督了Penn South South Assolabry Housing Complex的冷却器厂和冷却塔基础设施升级,该综合体生产自己的电力并脱离电网。

Copeland has been instrumental in promoting sustainability, but his approach has been tempered by practicality rather than a need to create high end, complex solutions. And clients appreciate it.

“What’s different about Charlie is that he encourages his clients to think more creatively about solutions. It’s not always the obvious solution that’s the right one,” says Dan Egan, co-president of the New York Energy Consumers Council and senior vice president of sustainability and utilities at Vornado Realty Trust, which is a longtime client of Goldman Copeland.

“He very much values existing infrastructure that’s unique to New York City, like district steam and figures out how to modernize it to meet today’s expectations,” Egan says. “He cared about sustainability long before sustainability was a buzzword. He cares about things working well, working efficiently and saving money for his clients— this comes from carbon savings, which also has environmental benefit.”

According to Vornado’s ESG Report, the company has spent more than $12 million on energy efficiency capital projects and earned a 27% rate of return.

“我们正在推动信封提高效率。我们并没有推动信封添加精美的小工具想法,这些想法将比他们的价值多或在五年内消失更多。” Schwartzman解释说,他的老板的方法。

展望未来,谷轮渴望帮助客户遵守有关清洁能源和建筑物的城市法规,例如新的绿色交易或当地法律97,该法律规定了大型商业建筑,以达到2024年的碳排放限制。

“A lot of buildings we’ve looked at can get by now until 2024. But after that, many are going to be in trouble,” Copeland says. The firm has “been getting a lot of calls” from building owners worried about the law as well as about tenants’ concerns. It makes a big difference if it’s a new tenant such as a multinational bank “who doesn’t want to be seen as wasting energy,” the engineers says. “Some tenants won’t move into buildings that aren’t reasonably efficient.”

对于八岁的祖父柯普兰来说,这不仅仅是金钱或法律问题。无论是通过转换旧机械系统还是更有效地生产电力,这是有助于减少全球变暖的行业。“最终,如果我们可以用太阳能和风能发电,那就太好了,但这是20至30年。我们需要一种中级技术,”他说。“现在对我来说最重要的是文明的未来。”