227 comments on DrumBeat: August 14, 2006
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Show without comments | PDF version
227 comments on DrumBeat: August 14, 2006
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Unique Times -- and the Future
- Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? - Part I
- Carbon Capture and Storage
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- The Bullroarer - Friday 27th November 2009
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“Pessimism of the Intellect; Optimism of the Will.”
—Antonio Gramsci
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
What concerns me about "innovations" is that they are directed toward maintaining the status quo, i.e., a growth oriented, consumer society. I'm certainly not a Luddite (I put in my first PV and solar water systems over 20 years ago) but reducing consumption of consumer goods and significant energy conservation will likely do more than all the spiffy, technological stuff in the pipeline.
Further, it seems to me, that the additional complexity of new technologies will only create new problems that will then require additional solutions.
It is typically argued that these innovations will buy time to allow a transition to some new paradigm. I could be wrong but my gut feeling says it isn't going to happen.
Todd
"I can't see how any technological innovation is going to overcome the consequences of an exponentially growing world population and the demand for natural resources that brings."
Maybe because you are assuming that 'innovation' presupposes that it's whole purpose is to continue and expand the status quo. Every time an 'Alternative Car' discussion comes up, someone jumps in with the accusation that this is meant to fully perpetuate the way our 'Car Culture' works today. It's not. It will be what it can be. But we will still use wheels, carts, cars and trucks of one sort or another, on one kind of roadway or another. Is that our car culture, or an evolved creature that has its roots in the 'Route 66' universe? (initially wrote "Route 666".. oooh! demonic!_)
I don't think the population will be able to keep growing, and the Chinese or those in China Grove will also be making different Auto choices tomorrow than they do today, just as their town councils will be pinching pennies on which Potholes they can afford to patch.. That doesn't mean we won't be innovating all over the place. I don't buy the false promises of these Oil Alternatives, either. I don't expect the innovations that will help us to be 'miracles'.. just smart. I think 'RibbonFilm' solar panels look like a smart innovation (Evergreen Solar), etc. Science and Invention aren't the enemy.. just the misapplication of them..
There will be an increase in famine and disease deaths, wars will become more frequent, some countries will institute one-child policies, but many people will simply say "There is no way I'm bringing a baby into this $&!%storm." There will be massive pressure on holdout nations to liberalize abortion access and promote contraceptive use, but also increased resistance to that trend from religious radicals of all denominations. I suspect that starvation will drop fertility rates in poor nations fairly drastically, and pandemics like AIDS will punch holes in the reproductive segments of their populations.
Mother Nature is really good at multi-tasking.
A poor person having a kid essentially dooms that kid to an ever-worsening 1970s energy crisis. College is no guarentee. What do you study? Religion actually in this case is promoting starvation and other suffering by opposing contraception and abortion.
For an ecologist's perspective on why this is so, and why we are well and truly in the box, read William Catton's 1982 book "Overshoot". It powerfully reoriented my thinking on this crisis.
P.S. The Limits to Growth gave modern society a lifespan of about 100 years starting from its own publication, so we're talking about a collapse near 2070, not one that was supposed to have happened already.
Who knows?
All I can do is try to have my family with whatever awareness I can about population growth (or decline), survivability, etc. Nature will do the heavy lifting on this one. We can try to communicate our concerns with each other, ask our communities and societies to make smart choices, but always beware the rule of unintended consequences.
We put our trust in the universe and have had one child, and mostly due to our ages are happy to leave it there. There is a lot of indirect (and some direct) pressure to 'not do that to her', give her siblings, etc.. to which we're happy to gracefully decline them all.
What we can do is innovate, which means come up with new ways of doing things. It doesn't mean 'continued system growth', or 'go shopping'.. it means look at how things are, and make some choices about what is likely to be a smart direction. Once you've started that new way, you keep looking at it, and decide if you need to correct course, or even go the other way entirely. You have to be aware and limber (even at our ages), you probably have to dive in sometimes, and duck out at others.
Talk about 'DieOff' is boring to me. If the available-energy-times-population doesn't equal the world's 'carrying capacity', the numbers will have to go down. Whether that means horrible wars, or pop's don't recover after natural disasters, or infant mortality.. it's just fairly maudlin to get too immersed in that. I think it's fear talking, and 'Fear is the mind killer, the little death..', as Frank Herbert said..
When you're canoeing rapids, the advice I got was to watch the water's flow, the path you need to take.. NOT the rocks you are worried about running into, since that fearful attention, while in the holiest intention towards personal security, is the surest way to draw yourself INTO those pitfalls. Canoeing rapids is Constant Innovation, Course Corrections, Maneuvers, Interaction with a moving field..
It makes me a bit schitzo, trying to remember what I'm really shooting for. Rapids aren't exactly cut-and-dried, either, so I'll hold with the analogy. Things don't move just as you expect them to, and there are signs to read (or misread) about rocks beneath the surface, as well. Maybe there are a few paths down ahead, and you have to still pick one (ethanol?, nuclear?) What lies further down that route, however?
I believe in simplicity, even if it's rare that my combustible brain usually actually achieves it, I'm trying to get to that side of the proverbial- (and now pretty annoyingly pat) Stream. I believe we are tool makers, and not to shun our tools, but to be very clear about which ones are able to do the job, which ones are too dangerous or just too complicated to depend on completely..
When I told my wife that this $600- 130 watt panel was, yes, about two lightbulbs worth of power, and that, just when the sun shines, she did seem a little shocked. It's hard to appreciate that this trickle of power will keep coming in for a few decades in all likelihood, and quite possibly during a few times or increasing times when you won't be counting those watts against a utility price of .08/kilowatthour. During any extended outage, this power could save lives, keep a fridge and foodsupply going, and be invaluable. At other times, this can/will be offsetting what is likely to be a rising-cost and possibly less reliable distant source of power.
Anyway, trying to feed and bed a 3-year old, so my thoughts are not likely to keep a kayak together tonight.
Bob Fiske
Excellent!
Where do you see "the path [we] need to take", please?
As far as the above was concerned, the 'Rocks' were the attentions on the dangers of 'DieOff' itself, of whatever Chaos threatens us if this indeed does 'Go Bad'.. ask someone in Baghdad, it may already be bad. I accept that there are Rocks and Dangers looming all about.
The 'Flow', then, is the actions I need to follow (and not get disheartened/distracted from doing) to establish/ envision what looks like a tenable life 'after the rapids'.. Food Security, Water Supply, Energy, Social Cohesion, Emergency Preparedness.. both for me, family and my closest (in this case) 60,000 or so neighbors... reduce wasteful expenditures in money, energy, materials, time-used..
-- As I was typing this, a solar panel arrived at my doorstep (no joke), which I bought from hard-won bucks from a lucky summer job. I kind of want a new camera for my business, to improve the jobs I can take.. in either case, it's one form of income or another. --
..
It's like that Eleanor Roosevelt quote from above.. 'It takes as much energy to plan as to dream'
I think many of the paths are pretty clear, but they are unspectacular, and anathema to our expectations of MiddleClass American Life (apologies to those not wearing such shoes).. Simplify, Cut Back, Rethink, Reconnect within your community, Stop the TV-babble (as much as possible), Diversify your dependencies and Produce more/Consume Less.
A lot of these 'feel wrong', but might still be right, you're just contradicting the norms, and by doing so are automatically 'judging' those neighbors you want to make sure you are connected to.. no saying there aren't a lot of conflicts and difficulties in reinventing/rediscovering what makes up 'the good life', what is essential, and what is fluff/addiction/distraction..
"Did you really think you could kill time and not injure eternity?" Thoreau
Lovely image.
Unfortunately, whereas the "water's flow" and the "rocks" are perfectly visible to us in a river, the future is opaque.
Not visible. There is nothing to guide us but guesswork.
And contradictory claims by multiple "experts."
I may have already done this in the reply to Dan UR, but I'm trying to find the right way of saying this..
I guess it depends on what you are willing to call 'innovations'.. some get more complex, some resimplify.. the whole process to me seems to be a continual shifting out and back, at least as it happens when I am designing and implementing 'solutions'.. There have been passive solar homes throughout the ages, but as we started reigniting that idea in the 1970s, it was an innovation from the existing 'Line it up with the street and put windows everywhere' mode of architecture. I am playing with innovating the roofing and siding materials into a more modular, long-term system that can function in a few specialised ways, Ventilation/Evaporation, Photosynthesis, Heat Collection.. etc. It adds either complexity to your siding, or adds more functionality to your Heating/Cooling/Power system, depending on which side you're looking at.
There's stuff in the pipeline that isn't just more snazzy, plastic 'Sharper Image' gadgetry.. I mean, boy, do I cringe with Weltshmertz when I see all the solar panels that are being pumped out of the RealGoods catalog to live for 6-8weeks in these cheezy Path Lights.. Useless! .. but think of all the mercury batteries that will never be produced, since the solar desk-calculator has become a standard form? Shouldn't take much more silicon to make a simple, solar PDA.. ahh! There I go, getting all 'Taintered' with complexity.. Dang!
Respectfully,
Bob Fiske
I obviously don't disagree with implementing efficiency improvements. FWIW, I designed and built passive solar houses 25 years ago. There really isn't any trick to it. I designed our current house during that period. However, I could only get 30% of the winter heat from solar without going to an active system; and a large one at that since the mountains of northern California where I live can often go for 1-2 weeks with significant insolation.
The problem with household energy efficiency is the large installed base - just like transportation. There are two factors that probably preclude real upgrading of efficieny beyond CFL's: First, cost. People are in hock up to their ears and do't have to bucks to renvoate. Second, and ultimately, people have to see life differently. By this I mean that they have to move away from consumption (and having babies) and come to see that life can be satisfying and rewarding without stuff.
I'm old enough to have lived when there was no TV, AC and all the things people demand now as standard issue. People mostly stayed home and talked on the porch. I'm still pretty much like that. I went to my first movie in 20 years to see An Inconvient Truth. We don't get TV, although we do watch videos and dvd's. We provide much of our food and all of our water and heat (firewood).
Todd
Let's start with the reality that I am out of date and there are newer books out there. But, still, even while newer materials are available, the design calcs are the same. With that caveat, here goes: The Passive Solar Energy Book (Expanded professional edition) by Edward Mazria, 1979, ISBN 0-87857-238-4. Not many pictures but provides data for heat loss/heat gain calculations. A good book. Design for a Limited Planet by Norma Skurka and Jon Naar, 1976, ISBN 0-345-27489-X. Little technical detail but lots of pictures on what others have done and a synopsis of the designs. Solar Houses by Louis Groop, 1978, ISBN 0-394-73543-9. Similar to the preceeding book. A Design and Construction Handbook for Energy-Saving Houses by Alex Wade, 1980, ISBN 0-87857-274-0. Lots of good information but doesn't provide you with the information you need to do heat gain/heat loss calculations.
One of the toughest things to deal with is thermal mass. None of these books really gets into it seriously and I can't find the one I'm thinking of. In any case, I hope this helps.
Todd
My first guess would be the more the merrier within the insulated climate shell as long as it is cheap. It will anyway be influenced by the furniture. Thick concrete floors and walls, brick and stone is good. Adding 5 or 10 cm to the ground slab and cast a load bearing internal wall that you are sure wont be moved in 15 cm concrete wont hurt anything.
If I ever build a house a lot of it will be made in thick concrete.
Using the mass for day-night cycle storage means that you will have a changing indoor temperature. And you can cut down on the heat input during daytime giving a need for good ways to keep excess sunlight out of your windows. But it is nice to have a house that wont freeze for days if whatever heating system you use quits when it is -10 C.
For active heat energy storage I would use a large water tank or two and input heat from one simple wood fired fireplace or larger boiler and perhaps a solar heater. It could also keep me with hot water for a week.
What's hard about thermal mass is to get the right periodicity of heat loss and heat gain based upon insolation. More is usually not better but so is too little.
Although there are a lot of systems that use water as the heat sink, it's usually easier and cheaper to used a collector and forced air circulation with the heat stored in a rock bin under the house. I once did design a heat system using water circulated through a wood heater. I never built it because we sold the property. Frankly, I wasn't impressed with the actual amount of heat versus the firewood required.
For concrete construction, a good starting point is The Portland Cement Association's Guide to Concrete Homebuilding Systems by Pieter Vanderwerf and Keith Munsell, 1995, ISBN 0-07-067020-X. It's available as a remainder from places like Edward Hamilton Bookseller.
Todd
I mostly see it as a way to even out outdoor temperature swings lasting for several days of very hot or very cold weather.
didn't do it but it was a nice pipe dream
Yes, I used to build homes and condos like that, with various combinations of mass, in floor radiant heating, solar systems driving it. There is no optimum mass given the variety of life styles as far as I can tell. What matters far and away the most is the design temperature for the inhabited space, the zoning and how well regulated you want the temperature. Surfaces, reflectivity. If you can put up with 55-60 and warmer during day - wear long underwear and close off half the house it's pretty easy. What I wish I'd done with my house - build it more like an onion, with the core better separated from the half-heated or closed off spaces. Human beings are very sensitive to radiant temperatures, so a warm surface in an otherwise cold room can be very effective.
cfm in Gray, ME
I built a wood-framed 40' diameter dome (3/8ths dome) on a 3' riser wall (19'6" at the apex) in 1974. Here are a few problems with domes: There is a lot of unused volume if they are left even partly open which is really one of the main points of building a dome. Next, the only vertical walls are the ones that separate rooms. This makes it difficult to hang pictures, place bookcases, etc. Finally, it is difficult to get a decent R value even with sprayed on insulation. My house has an R-47 roof, R-20 walls and it's on an insulated slab. Plus, I'll tell you it gets old as hell dealing with an "out-of-plumb" structure with a lot of angles when we live in a plumb world of 4x8 plywood
I'd forget the dome and go with SIP (structural insulated panels)construction were I building again.
Todd.
They are 2x4 when they are cut from the log, but shrink as they dry. Then they are planed to smooth them, which further reduces their size.
Minor repairs can be problematic, with new lumber being undersized. And one needs to pre-drill holes before nailing in heart pine.
Let the house heat/cool as much as it wants when unoccupied. Then minimal energy to heat/cool back to comfortable when one comes home, with smaller sized equipement.
Thermal mass seems to be a negative for New Orleans summers, as an example.
No night cooling; 80F (28 C?) at dawn and then up from there on a day when it does not rain.
I even remember seeing a map of USA showing best-practise on a regional basis...
I'll try & see if I can dig it out...
Meanwhile, in UK building regs now require concrete house slabs to be insulated.
Insulate. Insulate as close to exterior as possible. Insulate as seamlessly as possible. Any structure that is doing big day/night temp swings is not insulated. When you are passively insulated the active components are less and less important, the energy inputs tiny.
Think cave. A well insulated structure behaves much like a cave.
Once the sun goes down, insulation works backwards and keeps your house a roasting oven, even after temperatures have fallen off outside. Which is why I would say an equally important aspect is probably adequate ventillation. You need a way to get all of that heat out of the house once it's heated up, which means you need a few windows. Or at least an interior design that lets you channel the heat out one side, while pushing cool air in from the other.
In a colder climate the opposite might be a problem, although if one relies on artificial heating, which is obviously a necessity in cool climates, then maybe ventillation is not as important. In a hot climate, though, unless you are going to rely completely on the AC, night cooling is pretty important in my opinion.
In a warmer climate, perhaps a very small window type a/c driven by PV panel (mine uses 600 watts). Rest of house could have tall ceilings, cross ventilation and ceiling fans.
In Coastal Maine, we're lucky to have a lot of Sun, so that PV electric and even solar heat should be well worthwhile in wintermonths, if done right. Heard about a greenhouser up here who did so well in Fall, Winter and Spring, that he let the gardens rest up in the summer, and took himself a vacation!
My family built a Passive Solar Saltbox house up in the White Mts in 1980, including a Finnish Fireplace (2hr burn kept the mass hot for 1-2days), and a 'cool tube', sort of a poor man's geothermal which allowed an earth temp-normaled air supply from underground to feed the house, all 12 months. Warm, 45 air in the winter, cool 45 air in the summer, always fresh with fair/moderate humidity.
How well did the house in the White Mountains work? I just moved to VT and am building a passive-solar timberframe saltbox and will have a masonry heater as the primary heat with a closed loop geothermal heat pump as a back-up so would be interested in hearing your perspective.
Liked the 'Cool Tube' a lot, as very simple, minimal downsides, as far as I know. (Look it up now, there's very little mention of it.. some reports of humidity build-up and mold in Humid, summer months.. ours was made from bottom-perfed 4" drain pipe, and sloped, so I don't think it was an issue.. but truly one to take care around, as this serves as the fresh-air supply. Another benefit as such, was that this would tend to keep the house from developing 'negative pressure', so any cracks/gaps would be less drawn to have icy or steamy indrafts. System does depend on generally very tight building, tho', so updrafts at the house peak pulled in the air through the cooltube.
email me and I'll tell you about other parts of the design, etc.. it'll be hard to backtrack here, if an afterthought hits me.
jetpig@earthlink.net
Bob