Fossil fuels can be looked at as Mother Nature's savings account. For a period of time, sunlight that fell on earth was incompletely "spent" leaving some stored in the form of hydrocarbons. We learned how to burn these compounds for heat (just like we did with wood, peat and dung) and eventually we learned how to convert their stored energy into mechanical force. Recently we've learned how to convert them into plastics and chemical fertilizers.
Basically, we found the passbook to this savings account and in our naivete we went on a spending spree. We've been spending coal on a massive scale for 200 years, oil on an even worse scale for a century. In the 1970s folks started thinking about oil as a finite resource, one we could conceivably run out of. We failed to actually do much though, and we failed to realize that the waste products of this spending spree could drown us (sort of like the way yeast drowns in its own waste [Etoh] at a concentration of around 14% - great for us, not so much for the yeast).
We've been able to wrest food from the soil on a truly miraculous scale, by using oil to push tractors, and by using fertilizers made from natural gas. We've been able to build up the world population from 1.5 billion to 6 billion souls. But this has been made possible only by raiding this savings account.
Living off your savings is not sustainable. Spending more than you make is not sustainable (yes, I realize that in a society, some folks can get away with just that, but they are, by definition, parasites, and a society can afford only so many parasites). We can only live off Mother Nature's savings for so long.
I guess that this perspective makes me an economic conservative. I believe in balance because I do not see any long range alternative. None. Ever. Inputs and outputs must eventually balance. All of our inputs here come directly or indirectly from the sun (although an argument can be made for nuclear [pronounced new-klee-are] fuels being the "savings account" of a former star and therefore not to be included in this balance sheet). Solar energy is direct, using sunlight to grow oilseed and processing the oilseed into biodiesel is indirect, but the parent energy is still solar.
We don't have deficit spending as an option. Money is a fiction that exists as "valuable" only because we all agree that it does. Energy is real: it either exists or it doesn't, it has finite quantity. There is no fuel to "borrow" against an expected better future.
What we do have is a miracle of history, and an opportunity that is very, very short. If we solve our energy supply problems in a totally sustainable way while we still have a mechanical infrastructure we can continue, probably not in the style to which we have become accustomed, but at least continue in a civilized and reasonably comfortable manner. If we blow it and let individual greed (the problem of the commons) rule our decision making, and this opportunity slips away, we are doomed. (Whoa, Dude, Doomed?)
The middle ages, referred to as "the Dark ages" for a reason, follwed the Roman Empire, yet its citizens knew very little of advanced Roman technologies. They lost the ability to accomplish a number of things once common. I only mention this to prove that it can and does happen. We need advanced materails technology to pull off a conversion to sustainable solar harvesting.
We need top take advantage of the understandings that we have earned. We need the materials technology that we've recently developed. I, as an individual, can go back to burning wood to stay warm and raisning my food and fuel on my small acreage. 6 billion of us can't all do that.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Winter in the Earthship (not quite)
We didn't make it into the building this fall. Between Ruth's cancer and Liam's death we fell short, both emotionally and practically, on a number of key projects. We both took new jobs and that has been a (mostly positive, but still "mixed") blessing. Up here, even a 7 hour a day job sets you on the road in the dark and gets you home in the dark in December. This winter has been exceptionally cold too, at least compared to the last six or seven, with December temperatures often falling below zero (f) and staying for days. We expect some of this in January but this year we got two months of bitter cold instead of one.
The up side is that we got to test the thermal mass of the building without any added input*. Despite several days and many nights well below zero (f) the temperature in the building has never dipped below 24 (f). I sat down there one day, -28 (f) outside, 27 inside, realizing that I had almost 50 degrees difference. Then I noticed that the sliding glass door (which will open into the greenhouse when the greenhouse is built) hasn't been finished or even sealed.
The old (1904) house has a fuel oil (diesel for those in warm climates) furnace that is only about 15 years old. While I deeply hate buring fossil fuel for heat that is what we've got and I don't see a practical conversion at this time. Between the price of the oil and the periodic and untraceable breakdowns with this furnace I am even more adamant about not spending another winter in this house.
The house was built for a coal furnace (the "coal room" is still intact in the basement - I use it as a sandblast booth). The original occupants expected to wear thermal underware all winter, to bundle in sox, sweaters, and several layers of clothing, and to add mittens, boots and coats to go outside. They used copious numbers of quilts at night. Someone had to get up a couple hours before everyone else and make a fire, heat water (thaw, if frozen), etc.
Our expectations are quite different now. Unrealistic, I think, or at least unsustainable. We will, I suspect, slowly switch over to electric heat, but much of this will be generated by burning coal. The coal industry advertises that we have 250 years worth of coal now, but if that is 250 years at current usage, and our usage will quintuple as we switch away from oil to coal, we are looking at 100 years or less, all the while adding a staggering amount of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Our jersey gets a little pissy when the barn is -15 (f) and milking become a trial for both of us. In seeing that the temperature in the sheltered building stays so close to freezing without anybody breathing in there it occurs to us that an earth-sheltered barn would be a pretty good idea. I'm also spending a lot of electricity keeping water liquid for the livestock, and, if respiration would be enough to keep the interior at 33 (f) or above I wouldn't need a water heater at all.
While plans are still being finalized, we will start digging for an earthsheltered barn this spring. The second floor, a hay loft basically, may well be a greenhouse, we'll see.
This last summer my boss put in a commercial heat pump system of a style that is becoming popular out here. A 10' deep by 5' wide trench is dug through the yard and PEX pipe is coiled at the bottom of the trench with the ends run through the basement wall. His application uses several seperate runs of PEX. A water/glycol mix is pumped through the tubing picking up heat in the winter and leaving heat in the summer. A heat compressor/evaporator unit in the house strips calories and heats air that is blown through the existing duct system. He got a true test this last month and figure that in the subzero weather he has been spending about $8 per day to heat his large, old farmhouse.
*Caveat: Almost no added input... Marna brought us a little cast iron box stove that we installed at Thanksgiving and I have set a fire in it maybe six times since. We'll sit by the fire and talk about the house for a couple of hours and let it go out. The stove serves as radiant heat but does not heat the air very much, at least it hasn't in the short times we've run it. I assume that the calories are being stored in the nearby concrete. I have been playing with a 12v computer fan for forced outside air but have not drilled the box yet for a permanent connection to the stove. I'm looking for a cast iron toilet flange as the 4" drain pipe will fit the 4" flexible venting tube perfectly and can be bolted to the side of the box stove. The fan, a little underpowered, runs off a car battery that is charged by a 15wt solar panel. The panel sits on the roof and is covered with snow occasionally, but nothing is running off it right now besides the fan.
FYI:
http://www.blackhawk-studios.org/earthship/
This link is much more eaisily updated and is likely to have more current information. Google has, well, issues with security. I feel for them, I really do, but it makes uploading to this site much more difficult than uploading to my own.
The up side is that we got to test the thermal mass of the building without any added input*. Despite several days and many nights well below zero (f) the temperature in the building has never dipped below 24 (f). I sat down there one day, -28 (f) outside, 27 inside, realizing that I had almost 50 degrees difference. Then I noticed that the sliding glass door (which will open into the greenhouse when the greenhouse is built) hasn't been finished or even sealed.
The old (1904) house has a fuel oil (diesel for those in warm climates) furnace that is only about 15 years old. While I deeply hate buring fossil fuel for heat that is what we've got and I don't see a practical conversion at this time. Between the price of the oil and the periodic and untraceable breakdowns with this furnace I am even more adamant about not spending another winter in this house.
The house was built for a coal furnace (the "coal room" is still intact in the basement - I use it as a sandblast booth). The original occupants expected to wear thermal underware all winter, to bundle in sox, sweaters, and several layers of clothing, and to add mittens, boots and coats to go outside. They used copious numbers of quilts at night. Someone had to get up a couple hours before everyone else and make a fire, heat water (thaw, if frozen), etc.
Our expectations are quite different now. Unrealistic, I think, or at least unsustainable. We will, I suspect, slowly switch over to electric heat, but much of this will be generated by burning coal. The coal industry advertises that we have 250 years worth of coal now, but if that is 250 years at current usage, and our usage will quintuple as we switch away from oil to coal, we are looking at 100 years or less, all the while adding a staggering amount of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Our jersey gets a little pissy when the barn is -15 (f) and milking become a trial for both of us. In seeing that the temperature in the sheltered building stays so close to freezing without anybody breathing in there it occurs to us that an earth-sheltered barn would be a pretty good idea. I'm also spending a lot of electricity keeping water liquid for the livestock, and, if respiration would be enough to keep the interior at 33 (f) or above I wouldn't need a water heater at all.
While plans are still being finalized, we will start digging for an earthsheltered barn this spring. The second floor, a hay loft basically, may well be a greenhouse, we'll see.
This last summer my boss put in a commercial heat pump system of a style that is becoming popular out here. A 10' deep by 5' wide trench is dug through the yard and PEX pipe is coiled at the bottom of the trench with the ends run through the basement wall. His application uses several seperate runs of PEX. A water/glycol mix is pumped through the tubing picking up heat in the winter and leaving heat in the summer. A heat compressor/evaporator unit in the house strips calories and heats air that is blown through the existing duct system. He got a true test this last month and figure that in the subzero weather he has been spending about $8 per day to heat his large, old farmhouse.
*Caveat: Almost no added input... Marna brought us a little cast iron box stove that we installed at Thanksgiving and I have set a fire in it maybe six times since. We'll sit by the fire and talk about the house for a couple of hours and let it go out. The stove serves as radiant heat but does not heat the air very much, at least it hasn't in the short times we've run it. I assume that the calories are being stored in the nearby concrete. I have been playing with a 12v computer fan for forced outside air but have not drilled the box yet for a permanent connection to the stove. I'm looking for a cast iron toilet flange as the 4" drain pipe will fit the 4" flexible venting tube perfectly and can be bolted to the side of the box stove. The fan, a little underpowered, runs off a car battery that is charged by a 15wt solar panel. The panel sits on the roof and is covered with snow occasionally, but nothing is running off it right now besides the fan.
FYI:
http://www.blackhawk-studios.org/earthship/
This link is much more eaisily updated and is likely to have more current information. Google has, well, issues with security. I feel for them, I really do, but it makes uploading to this site much more difficult than uploading to my own.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)