Monday, August 23, 2021

Zero Net Energy - August 23, 2021

 Zero emissions drive would grow U.S. economy - Report shows meeting Paris climate goals would add trillions of dollars in economic growth

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/03/zero-emissions-drive-would-grow-u-s-economy/
https://energyinnovation.org/publication/a-1-5-celsius-pathway-to-climate-leadership-for-the-united-states/

Zero net energy, waste, and water development in Albany, NY
http://garrisonarchitects.com/projects/the-seventy-six
https://www.treehugger.com/triple-net-zero-development-albany-5118512

NC net zero home
https://inhabitat.com/no-waste-no-carbon-no-wonder-this-net-zero-home-breaks-the-mold/
https://www.acsarchitect.com/baboolal-residence

Carbon neutral, net energy positive ecodistrict for Lille, France
https://vincent.callebaut.org/object/210126_archiborescence/archiborescence/projects
https://inhabitat.com/vincent-callebaut-envisions-a-carbon-neutral-district-for-france/

Toranomon-Azabudai Project - an urban village for Tokyo focusing on “green” and “wellness"
https://inhabitat.com/the-toranomon-azabudai-project-puts-health-before-business/

Positive net energy for Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
https://inhabitat.com/phipps-conservatory-and-botanical-gardens-leeds-the-way-in-green-design/

Tesla Energy, Brookfield, & Dacra Are Developing A Large-Scale Sustainable Neighborhood In Austin, Texas
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/09/tesla-energy-brookfield-dacra-are-developing-a-large-scale-sustainable-neighborhood-in-austin-texas/
Editorial Comment:  Anybody remember the 1979 Solar Community in Davis, CA (http://schadavis.org)?

Cantilever House - zero net energy design for India
https://www.zeroenergydesignlab.com/cantileverhouse
https://inhabitat.com/the-cantilever-house-combats-a-hot-climate-with-sustainable-design/
Editorial Comment:  Finally some work on zero net energy designs for cooling as well as heating.  ZED Lab looks interesting as well.  They’ve been working since 2009.

Hot Heart - artifical islands to supply heat to Helsinki and support a tropical forest
https://inhabitat.com/a-tropical-forest-will-soon-grow-in-helsinki-and-provide-all-the-citys-heat/

Greenhouses for extreme climates
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2021/7/19/this-company-builds-greenhouses-in-some-of-the-worlds-most-extreme-climates

Austin, TX’s Whisper Valley "a net-zero capable community, and every home has a geothermal HVAC (it’s a very unique* geothermal system – it’s the first of its kind and the largest in the world)”
https://whispervalleyaustin.com
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/28/idea-for-tesla-energy-look-at-austins-whisper-valley-for-your-next-solar-neighborhood/
Editorial Comment:  My old English teacher, Mr Neilsen, would want me to remind people that “unique” means “one of a kind” which is difficult to modify.  There’s no such thing as “very one of a kind.”

Toyota’s Woven City - a programmable city and a test bed for a hydrogen energy system (?)
https://www.woven-city.global

Monday, August 16, 2021

The Carbon Coin

 from Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Page 294: They [a consortium of all the big central banks, with open access for more central banks to join] would issue together a single new currency, coordinated through the BIS [Bank for International Settlements]: one coin per ton of carbon-dioxide-equivalent sequestered from the atmosphere, either by not burning what would have been burned in the ordinary course of things, or by pulling it back out of the air. They promised to establish a floor in the value of this carbon coin, which exposed them to great danger from speculators trying to scare money out of the plan; and they foretold a rise in the value of the currency over the coming decades. By doing these things they made this investment a sure thing, assuming civilization itself survived.


Page 295: In fact, at the end of the agreement they all lent some fiat money of the ordinary kind, pooled into a fund administered through the BIS, which would be enough to pay for this new bureaucracy of verification that would have to be created to certify that carbon was rally being sequestered. This was a bureaucracy so vast no single bank could afford it, nor of course the ministry, not even close. It was almost a full employment plan all by itself.


Here are some programs that exist now which point in that direction:

Global Carbon Reward (https://globalcarbonreward.org/) is looking for a central bank to trade and manage a "carbon currency,” their “Global Carbon Rewards,” for a demonstration project.  "The central bank will need permission from their regulators to establish a temporary swap line for buying the carbon currency during the demonstrations…”


Regrow (https://www.regrow.ag/mrv) does “Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV)... to ensure data is transparent and reliable” in terms of carbon sequestration, among other things.


There are other models at other scales and I believe Ralph Borsodi’s “Constant,” an inflation proof local currency, could be adapted to carbon: 

https://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com/2009/03/borsodi-constant-inflation-free.html


Many more alternative currencies, even carbon coin possibilities, in Barbara Brandt’s Whole Life Economics (1996, New Society Publishers).


The Carbon Coin According to The Ministry for the Future (more quotes):

https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-carbon-coin-according-to-ministry.html


Previously:  How Do You Pay for the Green New Deal:  The Cost of Fuelhttp://solarray.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-do-you-pay-for-green-new-deal-cost.html

Monday, August 02, 2021

To Catch the Sun: DIY Solar Handbook

To Catch the Sun (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lonnyg/to-catch-the-sun) is a book of inspiring stories of communities coming together to harness their own solar energy, with the nitty-gritty details so you can do it too!


Learn how to design and build a photovoltaic system for engagements like:

A small home in a financially rich country

A few homes in a financially poor country

School rooms and community spaces 

Zombie-apocalypse equipment

Laptop and cellphone chargers 

A tiny home or #vanlife 

Glamping and backpacking equipment 

Emergency supply, e.g., powering an oxygen machine during power outages

Isolated loads like electric gates, pumps, greenhouse fans, backup generators, and telecommunications equipment


You had me at "Zombie-apocalypse equipment" (and I wonder why none of the zombie shows I've seen take renewables seriously - it's all motor vehicles and dirty clothes).  


Then again, I believe that Solar IS Civil Defense (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/3/30/317777/-)


Saturday, May 29, 2021

A Speech from Her Speeches Greta Thunberg Never Made

I recently read No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference  by Greta Thunberg (NY: Penguin Books, 2018, 2019  ISBN 9780143133568), a slim book of her speeches since she started her Friday School Strike, "that idea was inspired by the Parkland students, who had refused to go to school after the school shootings.  [More on Parkland at https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/7/1877501/-Parkland-When-the-Targets-Talk-Back]

"And sometimes NOT doing things - like just sitting down outside the parliament - speaks much louder than doing things.  Just like a whisper sometimes is louder than shouting."

As usual, I flagged passages as I read and then copied them over to my computer when I was finished.  Then I thought about how to share what I learned from this remarkable young woman, finally deciding that my collection of notes from her words could make one coherent speech.

What follows is my cut-up of her book to present what I believe are her core concepts.  All the words are hers joined together with ellipses (...) and my own commentary in brackets ([ ]).


We want you to follow the Paris Agreement and the IPCC reports. We don’t have any other manifestos or demands - you unite behind the science, that is our demand... 

Right there (page 108, chapter 2, in the latest [as of July 2019] SR15 IPCC report) it says that if we are to have a 67% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5ºC, we had, on 1 January 2018, 420 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide left in our CO2 budget. And of course that number is much lower today. We emit about 42 gigatonnes of CO2 every year. At current emissions levels, that remaining budget is gone within roughly 8.5 years. [3.5 gigatonnes per month, 0.80769 gigatonnes per week, 0.115 gigatonnes per day] And now that figure is already down to less than 360 gigatonnes [in 2019, the May 2021 figure is 276 gigatonnes and falling according to https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/clock/carbon_clock.htm]...

But perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate crisis is that we have to “lower” our emissions. Because that is far from enough. Our emissions have to stop if we are to stay below 1.5-2ºC of warming. The “lowering of emissions” is of course necessary, but it is only the beginning of a fast process that must lead to a stop within a couple of decades, or less. And by “stop” I mean net zero [Greta and others are strongly interrogating the idea of "net zero" as accounting tricks have been used in some current "net zero" claims] - and then quickly on to negative figures. That rules out most of today’s politics... 

And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. And we cannot make “deals” with physics... 

The fact that we are speaking of “lowering” instead of “stopping” emissions is perhaps the greatest force behind the continuing business-as-usual... 

If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2ºC limit, then it means a minimum of 80% reduction [in greenhouse gases] by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So, it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal... 

If the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions... 

We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity... 

To do your best is no longer good enough. We must all do the seemingly impossible. [Be realistic, demand the impossible - a Che Guevara quote used as graffiti on the walls of Paris in 1968 and by Prof Donald Sadoway of MIT, the developer of the Ambri flow battery and a way to decarbonize steel production, to inspire his students]...

We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases. We should no longer only ask: “Have we got enough money to go through with this?” but also: “Have we got enough of the carbon budget to spare to go through with this?” That should and must become the centre of our new currency... 

In Sweden, we live our lives as if we had the resources of 4.2 planets. Our individual carbon footprint is one of the worst in the world. This means that Sweden steals 3.2 years of natural resources from future generations every year: Those of us who are part of these future generations would like Sweden to stop doing that. Right now... 

Now we probably don’t even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once. [The sky WAS the limit and now it’s striking back.]... 

Many people say that we don’t have any solutions to the climate crisis. And they are right. Because how could we? How do you “solve” the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced? How do you “solve” a war? How do you “solve” going to the moon for the first time? How do you “solve” inventing new inventions?... 

“That’s still not an answer,” you say. Then we start talking about a circular economy and rewilding nature [or geotherapy, see http://solarray.blogspot.com/2021/04/geotherapy-not-geoengineering-please.html for more] and the need for a just transition. Then you don’t understand what we are talking about... 

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling. [Sacred]... 

And yes, a transformed world will include lots of benefits. But you have to understand. This is not primarily an opportunity to create new green jobs, new businesses or green economic growth. This is above all an emergency, and not just any emergency. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. This is not something you can like on Facebook... 

We already have all the facts and [some of the] solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Solar Public Service Announcements

The first solar video I produced was for the Urban Solar Energy Association [USEA] back in the early 1980s. One of the 10 second public service announcements was “A south-facing window is already a solar collector. Learn how to use it.” with the contact information for USEA. Another was “A south-facing porch can become a solar greenhouse. Learn how to build one.” We got a few hundred dollars in a grant from a group that was refusing to pay war taxes to make 3 inch tape copies and I took them around to the TV stations. Even saw the spot, once, late at night, I think on Channel Five.

The next round of solar videos was a set of 30 second spots I did with a graphic designer, Ed Hill, for the successor organization, Boston Area Sustainable Energy Association in the 1990s when I was doing a lot of public access TV, including videotaping and cablecasting the monthly talks that BASEA hosted. There is still a lot of information to be mined from that archive but it is just gathering dust in a storage area in my house in the form of VHS and 3/4 inch tape.

My favorite of that second series was the one on solar history which showed photographs of local solar buildings since the 1940s and back a few thousand years to the solar techniques of Greek houses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIGS5LSjlnk).

Unfortunately, when I took these solar PSAs to the local TV stations they had no time available. Only one local UHF station (remember UHF?), Channel 56, took a copy but I’m not sure that it ever made air.

Since then I’ve made some of my own short Youtube videos on simple solar principles as I have always believed that you can teach the basics of practical solar energy, at least for emergency/survival electricity and heat, in a half hour or less.

Recently, I compiled a playlist on Youtube of all my simple solar stuff at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_NN__fS5pM&list=PLkauPyDTdD2A9t4w-ZVMytJS8MpE2dB7N

Some of the products mentioned are no longer available but I believe the basic solar information is still good.

Saturday, April 03, 2021

Geotherapy Not Geoengineering, Please

 Geotherapy not geoengineering, please.

“Geotherapy refers to the process of restoring the earth’s health by strengthening natural biogeochemical and physiological mechanisms that regulate the earth’s planetary life support systems and control global temperature, sea level, atmospheric composition, soil fertility, food, and fresh water supplies.”
Source: Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/geotherapy-thomas-goreau-ronal-larson-joanna-campe/e/10.1201/b13788

Geoengineering “is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming” and “the most prominent subcategories of climate engineering are solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering

Geotherapy is based on working with existing natural systems and starts local, adapting to the different biomes in which a geotherapeutic technique works. Geoengineering tends to be global from the get go and the “engineering” is emphasized much more than the “geo,” at least so far. Geotherapy is systems solutions, working within ecological boundaries. Geoengineering is engineering, tools based, and usually mechanistic.

The resources I used to learn about geotherapy are
Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/geotherapy-thomas-goreau-ronal-larson-joanna-campe/e/10.1201/b13788k

Proceedings of the recent conferences organized by Biodiversity for a Livable Climate on a wide variety of geotherapeutic solutions
https://bio4climate.org/conferences/

John Todd’s history of his lifetime building healthy and healing ecologies, Healing Earth: An Ecologist’s Journey of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship
https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/healing-earth/

According to the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-biggest-challenge-lack-of-imagination-the-scientists-turning-the-desert-green), John Todd is working with a Dutch company, the Weathermakers (http://theweathermakers.nl), developing a plan to make the Sinai Desert green. They are using John’s “eco machines,” greenhouses with an extremely biodiverse environment reflecting “the aggregate experience of life on Earth over the last 3.5bn years.” They will distill salt water while growing plants, fish, and animals, all powered by the sun. “The idea is that you may have 100 of these structures,” says John Todd. “And they’re spending five years in one site and then they’re moved, so these little ecologies are left behind.”

One proof of such a regreening the desert concept is a permaculture experiment near the Dead Sea over a decade ago
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2007/06/you-can-fix-all-worlds-problems-in.html

Another is Wadi Attir (http://www.sustainabilitylabs.org/wadiattir/home/) in the Negev Desert, a Bedouin sustainable farm.

The Weathermakers are also following the successful methods Li Rui developed in regreening the loess plateau of northern China in the 1990s, collaboratoring with John D Liu who documented the process for TV and film and is now associated with the Ecosystem Restoration Camps (https://ecosystemrestorationcamps.org), part of a growing group of environmental restoration and regeneration projects now launched around the world.

Just as focusing on cities drove climate politics from Copenhagen to the Paris agreement, I believe ecovillage restoration will drive practical climate solutions using geotherapy, which works at every scale from a flower pot on a window sill to thousands of hectares of land, in the next few years. 

Here are some upcoming events which offer ways to participate in the action:
Smart Village Summit (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrduGgpz8pG9WyihU6tdCcuuq1F20NY6hn), powered by Future Thinkers and RegenVillages.
This monthly virtual summit is for people interested in the many aspects of Smart Villages and ProtoB communities. We’ll be joined by experienced guests to discuss earth regeneration, permaculture, community building, governance, education, social dynamics, funding, economics, organization and leadership, affordable housing, natural building, information sharing, innovation, technology and other important subjects.
March 31, 2021 04:00 PM GMT (Vancouver)
April 28, 2021 04:00 PM GMT (Vancouver)
May 26, 2021 04:00 PM GMT (Vancouver)

Global Just Recovery Gathering (https://justrecoverygathering.org), April 9 to 11, is a three-day online event featuring interactive workshops, cultural sessions, and hands-on trainings. The events will include appearances by Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai, Naomi Klein, Brianna Fruean and others. Build your skills, strengthen relationships, and hear from a powerful line-up of climate leaders, artists, and musicians in every corner of the world.

The GEN Ecovillage Summit – Living Solutions for a Regenerative World (https://summit2021.ecovillage.org) will take place from April 9-15, 2021 and will showcase how ecovillages contribute to the mitigation of climate crisis and function as resilient communities of practise bringing concrete solutions and actions for earth restoration, economic revival, social regeneration and cultural celebration.

Recently, L Hunter Lovins said that reputable scientists believe we could return to 280 ppm CO2, pre-industrial levels, in 30-60 years IF we used holistic grazing practices on the existing grasslands of the world (https://www.cambridgeforum.org/?p=7205). Now, think about how quickly we could draw down atmospheric carbon IF we added marine ecosystems, which can sequester much more carbon (15 -20 times) more rapidly than terrestrial ecosystems, to the mix all while rapidly reducing our emissions to zero.

We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities, when we think in terms of geotherapy, not geoengineering, please.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Zero Net Energy - March 24, 2021

 Making a wooden solar insolation visualization

https://youtu.be/PvcvY4ToFaQ
https://www.makingdatatangible.com/solar/ - program to help you make your own
https://pysolar.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ - a collection of Python libraries for simulating the irradiation of any point on earth by the sun
Editorial Comment:  possibly a useful tool for those thinking about solar in relation to zero net energy

District heating in Sweden
https://www.ecowatch.com/sweden-renewable-energy-homes-2647776925.html

World’s largest PassivHaus-certified office building 
https://handelarchitects.com/project/winthrop-center
https://inhabitat.com/this-will-be-the-worlds-largest-passive-house-certified-office-building/

Saudi Arabia to build a zero emissions city
https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-to-build-a-zero-emissions-city/a-56189240

Sustainable Housing Ownership Project, Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation
https://thundervalley.org/program-guide/sustainble-home-owenership-project

Gothenburg, Sweden is developing the world’s first large-scale zero-emissions city zone
https://news.cision.com/business-region-goteborg/r/gothenburg-green-city-zone-leads-the-way-towards-zero-emissions-transportation-in-the-near-future,c3266333
https://inhabitat.com/gothenburg-sweden-develops-worlds-first-zero-emissions-zone/
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/19/gothenburg-partners-with-volvo-to-create-a-climate-neutral-city/
https://www.greengothenburg.se

Ohlone College - 185,000-square-foot net zero energy development
https://inhabitat.com/new-ohlone-college-buildings-target-net-zero-energy-consumption/
https://www.cannondesign.com/our-work/work/ohlone-community-college-district-academic-core-buildings/
http://aba-arch.com/Portfolio/education/Ohlone-CORE

UK prefab low energy homes coming to scale?  An estimated 30,000 in the pipeline
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/06/eco-homes-become-hot-property-in-uks-zero-carbon-paradigm-shift
Leeds Climate Innovation District
https://citu.co.uk

Deep Energy Retrofit for Triple Deckers
https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/03/12/triple-decker-deep-energy-retrofit

Oregon State University goes for net zero in new building
http://www.srgpartnership.com/work/edward-j-ray-hall
https://inhabitat.com/oregon-state-university-building-on-a-reclaimed-mine-targets-net-zero-energy/

ML King Open/Cambridge Street Upper School in Cambridge, MA achieves net zero emissions
https://www.arrowstreet.com/portfolio/king-open-cambridge-upper-street-schools-community-complex/
https://rawnarch.com/kingopen
https://inhabitat.com/award-winning-school-and-community-complex-achieves-net-zero-emissions/

Net zero home development with 3D printed components
https://www.treehugger.com/community-3d-printed-net-zero-homes-california-5116947

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Solar Decathlon Webinars

"The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is a collegiate competition, comprising 10 contests, that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy."

It’s been going on since 2002 and has produced hundreds of model houses built by student teams from all over the world.  This year they are doing a webinar series as well.  Should be lots and lots of good information here which will be especially useful now that Governor Baker has vetoed the Climate Roadmap bill.

Democracy is do it yourself and I guess so is energy and climate policy.

Resilient Home 411: Strategies to Weather and Recover from Natural Disasters
Thursday, January 21, 2021, 1–2 p.m. E.T.
RSVP at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1486122315339351051

Zero Energy Ready Homes: New and Growing Fast
Wednesday, February 17, 2021, 1–2 p.m. E.T.
RSVP at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2818488515646035216

The Future of Solar: A Tour of Cutting-Edge Solar Research with the U.S. Department of Energy
Wednesday, March 17, 2021, 1–2 p.m. E.T.
RSVP at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1202756178629245968

Solar Decathlon Build Challenge Team House Tour
Wednesday, April 28, 2021, 1–2 p.m. E.T.
RSVP at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2467358377853890320

More at https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/11/register-today-for-resilient-home-411-next-solar-decathlon-virtual-session/

Friday, December 25, 2020

Zero Net Energy - December 25, 2020

 "Second + Delaware is the largest Passive House building in the world, which means that it uses 80-90% less energy than conventional buildings”

Opening in October in Kansas City, Missouri
https://www.secondanddelaware.com
https://inhabitat.com/worlds-largest-passive-house-building-to-open-in-kansas-city/

A blog about living in a self-designed shipping container tiny house which is completely self-sufficient in Australia
https://tinyhousesustainablelivingaustralia.com

40 hectare “regenerative city” plan for Bergen, Norway
https://www.tredjenatur.dk/en/portfolio/regenerative-city/
https://inhabitat.com/third-nature-imagines-a-zero-emission-regenerative-city-district-in-bergen/

How Oslo plans to become a zero emissions city by 2030
https://www.fastcompany.com/90552168/this-is-what-a-zero-emissions-city-looks-like

Net Zero energy McDonald's
http://www.r-barc.com/fast-company-new-mcdonalds-solar-powered/
https://inhabitat.com/disney-world-mcdonalds-to-be-first-net-zero-fast-food-restaurant/

Snøhetta’s Powerhouse Telemark will use 70% less energy than a conventional building of similar size and will produce more energy than it will require over its entire lifespan, including the energy used in construction and even during its eventual demolition in decades to come
https://snohetta.com/projects/523-powerhouse-telemark-a-sustainable-model-for-the-future-of-workspaces
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/03/powerhouse-telemark-by-snohetta-produces-more-energy-than-it-consumes/
https://inhabitat.com/snohetta-completes-breeam-excellent-net-positive-energy-office/

In January, 2019 this list included
Trondheim, Norway’s net energy positive building, Powerhouse Brattørkaia, "will generate more energy in its operational phase than it consumes through the production of buiding materials, construction, operation, and disposal of the building” or Snøhetta strikes again
https://www.powerhouse.no/en/prosjekter/powerhouse-brattorkaia/
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-energy-positive-building-powerhouse-snohetta/577918/

Editorial Comment:  Snøhetta is the standard for zero net energy, net zero energy design and construction, at least in my opinion.

Plan for UK’s first carbon neutral “urban quarter” 
https://inhabitat.com/sunderlands-riverfront-to-house-uks-first-carbon-neutral-community/

The Green Gateway, a zero-emission, highly sustainable multimodal hub, is the winner for the 2020 Fentress Global Challenge (FGC), an annual global student design competition
https://fentressglobalchallenge.com/news/2020/airport-of-the-future-global-student-design-competition-2020-winners-announced
https://inhabitat.com/zero-emission-airport-concept-wins-2020-fentress-global-challenge/

Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota with net-zero energy design
https://hga.com/projects/westwood-hills-nature-center/
https://inhabitat.com/this-nature-center-proves-zero-energy-is-possible-even-in-wintry-minnesota/

Net energy positive hotel for Bornholm Island, Denmark
https://inhabitat.com/3xn-unveils-denmarks-first-climate-positive-hotel-for-bornholm-island/
https://www.greensolutionhouse.dk/en/
Editorial Comment:  Bornholm Island was the test-bed for the EU’s Grid 2.0 project to determine how to mesh renewables with the existing grid and speed the renewable transition:  http://www.eu-ecogrid.net
More on Bornholm and other near net zero island projects at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2017/09/crowd-funding-emergency-solar-electric.html

Redesigning Bellinzona, Switzerland through an “'eMergetic evaluation' concept that considers the entire building lifecycle to minimize the city’s carbon footprint. The proposal also includes planned energy policy objectives with zero-emission targets, renewable energy systems and environmental monitoring."
https://www.tamassociati.org/2020/10/22/tamassociati-takes-part-in-redesigning-the-future-of-bellinzona-switzerland/
https://inhabitat.com/tamassociati-envisions-a-zero-emissions-future-proof-urban-development/

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Planning the Energy Transition

 Over the past couple of weeks I’ve run across what might be a few really useful reports on the energy transition.


The Lancet is doing an annual climate countdown report to monitor our progress.  Here is this year’s edition: https://www.lancetcountdown.org/2020-report/


That should give us some idea of where we are and this particular finding jumped out

"Indicator 4.2.5: net value of fossil fuel subsidies and carbon prices—headline finding: 58 of the 75 countries reviewed were operating with a net negative carbon price in 2017.  The resulting net loss of revenue was, in many cases, equivalent to substantial proportions of the national health budget...


"This indicator calculates net, economy- wide average carbon prices and associated net carbon revenue to government. The calculations are based on the value of overall fossil fuel subsidies, the revenue from carbon pricing mechanisms, and the total CO2 emissions of the economy. Data on fossil fuel subsidies are calculated on the basis of analysis from the IEA and OECD.  Together, these sources cover 75 countries and account for around 92% of global CO2 emissions. Carbon prices and revenues are derived from data in the World Bank Carbon Pricing Dashboard (https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/) [Corporate Carbon Accounting Market https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/30/the-corporate-carbon-accounting-market/ may also be useful here]


"Of the 75 countries, 61 (81%) countries in 2016 and 58 (77%) countries in 2017 had net negative carbon prices, and only 14 (19%) countries in 2016 and 17 (23%) countries in 2017 had a price higher than zero, a result of substantial subsidies for fossil fuel production and consumption (figure 25). The median net carbon revenue was negative, a pay-out of $0·66 billion (IQR –0·04 to –3·48), with some countries providing net fossil fuel subsidies in the tens of billions of dollars each year. In many cases, these subsidies were equivalent to substantial proportions of the national health budget—more than 100% in eight of the 75 countries in 2017.  Of the 38 countries that had formal carbon pricing mechanisms in place in 2017, 21 still had net negative carbon prices.”


An historical perspective is available with an interactive diagram of the Energy Transitions in U.S. History, 1800–2019 (https://us-sankey.rcc.uchicago.edu), extremely fine work which maps the transitions from biomass to coal to oil to gas to nuclear to renewables.  The supporting paper is at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54dcfad0e4b0eaff5e0068bf/t/5fbeba6ffa04221c71019ccc/1606335091993/Suits_Matteson_Moyer_2020_Energy_Transitions.pdf


McKinsey has just released a report on How the EU Could Achieve Zero Emissions at Net Zero Cost (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/how-the-european-union-could-achieve-net-zero-emissions-at-net-zero-cost#) and there are two new studies for the USA:


Net-Zero America:  Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts

https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf331/files/2020-12/Princeton_NZA_Interim_Report_15_Dec_2020_FINAL.pdf

https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/research/2020/big-affordable-effort-needed-america-reach-net-zero-emissions-2050-princeton-study


and two US renewable energy policy scenaria, administrative action alone doubling renewables by 2030 and 50% renewables by 2030, from Wood Mackenzie (https://www.woodmac.com/our-expertise/focus/Power--Renewables/us-renewable-energy-policy-scenario-analysis/).


The Sierra Club also has a paper on how they are approaching "Climate Resilience, Carbon Dioxide Removal, and Geoengineering Policy”

https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/2020-Sierra-Club-Climate-Resilience-Policy.pdf

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Toward Net Zero Energy: Tiny Houses on Up

The Laney College Carpentry Department in Oakland, California built a net zero tiny house, the Wedge, in 2016 for the SMUD Net Zero Tiny House Competition

https:/youtu.be/PyxJQynaC_c


That tiny house is for sale for
$55,000
https:
tinyhouselistings.com/listings/oakland-ca-12-matthew-wolpe


Laney College carpenters are currently building two other prototypes tiny houses, the Pocket House, for the unhoused and homeless in Oakland
https:
laney.edu/carpentry/tiny-houses/pocket-house


The Northern Nomad is another net zero tiny home designed and built by a group of students from Carleton University in Canada as this video from 2019 shows:
Northern Nomad Tiny House 
https:/youtu.be/gbz35FLg9L4
http://www.thenorthernnomad.ca/


Reading Design Guidelines for a Net Zero Tiny House (https:tinyhousedesign.com/design-guidelines-for-a-net-zero-tiny-house) and Guide to Off-Grid Tiny Houses (https://gosun.co/blogs/news/guide-to-an-off-grid-tiny-house), the core idea seems to be energy efficiency first, last, and always:  the less energy you use the easier it becomes to supply it with renewables onsite.


That core idea of energy efficiency applies to all houses, not just tiny houses.



Sunday, August 09, 2020

Zero Net Energy - August 9, 2020

 Santa Monica civic building will produce net positive energy and going for full Living Building challenge certification

https://fisherpartners.net/projects/city-of-santa-monica-city-services-building/
https://inhabitat.com/new-santa-monica-city-services-building-will-produce-more-energy-than-it-uses/

An affordable Passive House development that’s “aggressively green"
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/15/999376/the-passive-house-thats-aggressively-green/

A ski chalet in Utah which will be a net-positive energy building, generating 364% more power than it needs
https://tomwiscombe.com/THE-DARK-CHALET
https://archpaper.com/2020/04/tom-wiscombe-architecture-dark-chalet-utah/#gallery-0-slide-0
https://inhabitat.com/dark-chalet-in-utah-will-generate-over-350-more-energy-than-it-needs/

Link City - proposed self-sustainable city-forest, using an urban operating system with an AI (Artificial Intelligence)
https://www.lucacurci.com/portfolio/the-link-city.html
https://inhabitat.com/luca-curci-architects-designs-a-zero-energy-smart-city-of-the-future/

Park Avenue Green - affordable passive house apartment building in the South Bronx, the largest passive house development in North America
http://www.cplusga.com/works/park-avenue-green-2/
https://inhabitat.com/passive-house-certified-development-offers-affordable-housing-in-south-bronx/

Wellesley College Global Flora greenhouse "exceeds the Net Zero Water & Energy requirements of the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most rigorous certification of sustainable construction."
http://www.kvarch.net/projects/133
https://inhabitat.com/wellesleys-global-flora-greenhouse-can-generate-all-of-its-own-energy/

Energy neutral school in Utrecht
https://inhabitat.com/energy-neutral-school-in-utrecht-enhances-biodiversity/
http://e-v-a.net/?fluxus_portfolio=so-fier

AI to identify energy wasting homes
https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/07/wattscale-is-an-open-source-ai-tool-that-identifies-energy-wasting-homes/
WattScale https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.01382.pdf
Watthome, an earlier version:  http://www.ecs.umass.edu/~irwin/watthome.pdf 

Arctic Nordic Alpine  - Exhibation on Snøhetta’s work including Hotel Svart in Svartisen, the Arctic World Archive Visitor Center in Svalbard Island, and the Museum Quarter in Bolzano
https://www.aedes-arc.de/cms/aedes/de/programm?id=19520291
https://www.fastcompany.com/90524716/how-the-worlds-most-remote-buildings-can-help-us-adapt-to-climate-change
hat tip to Heath Row’s Media Diet: http://tinyurl.com/joinmediadiet

Orford Mews - energy-positive, carbon positive, zero construction waste nine-unit development planned for London
https://studioanyo.com/work/orford-mews/
https://inhabitat.com/zero-waste-orford-mews-to-bring-energy-positive-homes-to-east-london/

Moonstone House - test bed for energy efficiency started in 2002 is still evolving
https://themoonstoneproject.co.uk
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/30/fully-charged-tours-the-net-zero-energy-moonstone-house/

Self-sufficient skyscraper proposed for NYC
https://www.lissoniandpartners.com/en/architecture/competitions/americas/completed/skylines-new-york/1289
https://inhabitat.com/self-sufficient-garden-city-skyscraper-proposed-for-nyc/

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

COVID19 and Energy: What McKinsey Thinks

On Tuesday, April 28, I attended an online seminar on Energy and COVID19 organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group (https://www.huceg.org/) with Scott S. Nyquist and Luciano Di Fiori both of the consulting firm McKinsey and Company. I’ve heard Scott Nyquist speak on energy a few times over the years, usually at MIT, and have found him to be informative even though our perspectives are very different.

The COVID19 scenaria McKinsey is examining now include
Virus contained — based upon China’s 6-8 week shutdown  
Vaccine — 12 – 18 months away plus the time it takes to innoculate the world population (at least another 12 – 18 months), similar to the expectation author Laurie Garrett reported to Frank Bruni in the NYTimes over the last few days
Waves — there will almost certainly be a second wave of COVID19 and possibly multiple waves until we have a vaccine.

In terms of energy, liquid fuels demand will take 2 — 4 years to recover; gasoline use is estimated to decrease 60% under lockdown; natural gas is down 5-10%. There will be excess supply and dropping prices which means that fracking will become even less economic (a conclusion I draw which Nyquist and Di Fiori did not offer). Global oil products demand will be down 6.7 -13.0 million barrels per day pushing refinery levels and margins to historically low levels and LNG [liquid natural gas] may take 5-7 years to come back to stable prices, lower with occasional flare ups of higher prices as things equalize. McKinsey expects no long-term consequences to demand, but is monitoring for changes. I don’t agree with McKinsey about no long-term changes in demand.  

Electric power demand is down 3-5% and peak load down by 18-24%. Electricity peak times and amounts have changed due to more people staying at home, primarily from increased air conditioning.

The airline business is down to 20% of its former business and will take a long time to come back. Cruise lines are in an even worse position with worse projections for the future.

GDP growth is going to be negative for about 2 years and then come back but to 2019 levels, at best.  

There may be a very cautious consumer culture, as after the Depression, coming out of the pandemic. The frugality imposed by the Great Depression affected all the generations that lived through it for decades afterwards.
Economic growth may be much slower after this. Companies will be less likely to hold debt and become very cash conscious.  

Nyquist believes that governments will be much better prepared for the next pandemic but “we have to pay for this” and government debt will be much higher. I do not have as much confidence as Nyquist does in the future preparations of any government in the USA but will be happy to be proved wrong.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Zero Net Energy - March 23, 2020

Sheridan Small Homes - affordable net zero single family homes in Providence, RI designed by architects and students from RI School of Design
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/23/public-private-partnership-building-net-zero-homes-for-low-income-families-in-rhode-island/

Dutch Railways adult swing set for generating power
https://id310.nl/en/play-for-power-ns/

Net zero community planned for Hamburg, Germany
https://www.saota.com/project/neulander-quarree/
https://inhabitat.com/net-zero-community-planned-for-hamburg-will-rely-on-geothermal-and-solar-energy/

Vertical City, a proposal for urban development through a series of modular, zero-energy skyscrapers anchored to the ocean floor
https://www.lucacurci.com/portfolio/vertical-cities-zero-energy-city-building.html
https://inhabitat.com/luca-curci-architects-proposes-a-self-sustainable-vertical-city-of-the-future/

Unisphere, one of the largest net zero energy commercial buildings in the world
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/31/a-peak-inside-the-unisphere-one-of-the-worlds-largest-net-zero-buildings/

Park Avenue Green - the largest passive house development in the USA, 154 low income housing units, 46 of which are for formerly homeless tenants
http://www.cplusga.com/works/park-avenue-green-2/
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/01/the-largest-passive-house-in-north-america-154-low-income-housing-units-46-for-formerly-homeless/

Net positive 47,000-square-foot building living building opens at Georgia Tech
https://livingbuilding.gatech.edu/kendeda-building-innovative-sustainable-design
https://inhabitat.com/kendeda-a-net-positive-living-building-opens-at-georgia-tech/

Prefab homes that require "84% less energy per square foot to operate than a conventional stick built home” making net zero energy eminently achievable
They can be ordered with solar power and a battery back-up
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/20/new-prefab-homes-never-need-to-be-connected-to-the-grid/
https://www.curbed.com/2020/2/14/21135428/prefab-homes-self-powered-dvele
https://www.dvele.com

Canada’s first net-zero carbon, mass timber college building
http://www.dialogdesign.ca/open-dialog/centennial-college-announces-canadas-first-zero-carbon-mass-timber-building/
https://inhabitat.com/canadas-first-net-zero-carbon-mass-timber-college-building-to-rise-in-toronto/

Green Concept House - a zero-waste, 100% self-sustaining home, including growing food
https://www.archdaily.com/934277/green-house-yang-design
https://inhabitat.com/a-zero-waste-self-sustaining-home-of-the-future/

"Edwina Benner Plaza is among the first affordable housing projects in the nation to have zero operating emissions.”  It has 66 apartments in Sunnyvale, CA
https://www.dbarchitect.com/project_detail/202/Edwina%20Benner%20Plaza.html
https://inhabitat.com/new-affordable-housing-in-silicon-valley-boasts-net-zero-emissions/

Vertical Oasis - concept for a green solar-powered skyscraper
https://faab.pl/en/vertical-oasis/
https://inhabitat.com/architects-envision-a-green-solar-powered-skyscraper/

Tuesday, March 03, 2020

Simple Solar Education

Back in the early 1980s I made some 15 second PSAs for the Urban Solar Energy Association [USEA] that were actually shown a couple of times late at night on the local TV stations.

In the early 1990s, I made another set of 30 second PSAs for the Boston Area Solar Energy Association, the successor organization to USEA, but none of them were broadcast as local TV stations all had their own approved non-profits to soak up public interest broadcast time requirements by then.  Or so I was told.  At the same time, I was producing the monthly lectures of the Solar Association and putting them on local cable access.

In the last decade or two I’ve put my share of solar video online at Youtube.  You can see them at http://youtube.com/user/gmoke

So I’ve been dabbling in solar video for a long time.   But not for a long time.  These are relics of what I’ve thought and done with simple solar throughout my life.

The presentation may be amateurish at best but I believe the majority of the information and ideas is accurate although I may have made some mistakes in the details here and there.

May these be of use.

One Square Foot of Sunlight  https://youtu.be/LICMvQCOnkg 
come from the early 1990s and were the 30 second PSAs I was trying to get local TV to broadcast.

Simple Solar Principles  https://youtu.be/6_NN__fS5pM

Solar Is Civil Defense  https://youtu.be/u0mjqjgZ64E
Cell Phone Solar  https://youtu.be/ybxbJ53X4kY
Minimum Solar Light  https://youtu.be/m56Lu2o9Wfc
Homefront Advantage - WWII posters   https://youtu.be/FIlQJg1kSvk
A South-facing Window Is Already a Solar Collector  https://youtu.be/FdGAdEq242M
Solar Windowbox Air Heater  https://youtu.be/lTOe2OYSPlw
Insulating Roller Shade  https://youtu.be/jEh9Bq4qQB8
Old Solar:  1980 Barnraised Aolar Air Heater  https://youtu.be/N8SEwJkEwoc
Old Solar:  1990 Boston Area Solar House Tour  https://youtu.be/NkOkFmq6doI

I believe you can provide people with the essential concepts of practical solar energy within a very short period of time and can even present it as a series of short segments like these Youtube videos

Simple Solar parts 1 - 8
is my one attempt at trying to assemble a curriculum that leads from one possibility to another.
At a skill share.  Whatever happened to those?

Providential Experimentation   https://youtu.be/wC-uqy2qJH0
Worms, worms, worms  https://youtu.be/iMe9ssId0Bk
expands the concept beyond direct solar energy into secondary sources and regenerative systems leading to full geotherapy.

Simply Questions  https://youtu.be/ehKgs_rFhF8
is an attempt to visualize that system in terms of basic logistics