Showing posts with label alternative energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternative energy. Show all posts

Thursday, March 11, 2010

I feel like I've seen this documentary before, but perhaps I'm imagining things. In any case, the other day I watched the Discovery Channel documentary Impossible City, which demonstrates Dubai's tremendous growth.

The first building showcased was the Burj Khalifa, a.k.a the Burj Dubai. It's currently the worlds tallest building. It's about 1,000 feet taller than the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). It's nearly twice as tall as the Empire State Building. It towers over everything around it. It's intense.


Just about everything in Dubai is over the top. One of the experts in the documentary described it as Las Vegas on steroids. The prime minister has the final say, and he wants impressive buildings, and so architects flock to the city.

Part of what I saw made me cringe. Really, any kind of "I must expand" mentality makes me cringe. But, the buildings in this documentary did command respect. And really, if more people were living in 3,000 foot towers. In fact, if the Burj Khalifa had been built horizontally instead of vertically, it would cover nearly 115 acres. The foundation is 80,000 sq. ft. according to burjdubaiskyscraper.com. So, they've gained nearly 60 vertical acres per horizontal acre. Impressive.

But, of course, all of this building means they have to be resourceful. How do you supply water and electricity to this massive skyscrapers (at this point I think they're skypiercers more than they're skyscrapers)?

The Dynamic Tower is an interesting way to deal with these problems and it's another proposed building project in Dubai. Each of its 80 floors can move independently of the others and the bottommost floors are pre-programmed to to move such that they harness the maximum amount of sun possible.


Also, between each floor is a horizontal wind turbine. The building will literally produce all of its own electricity using renewable sources. And, just imagine if your indoor garden to move to harness the maximum amount of sun. This thing could be a vertical farm on steroids.

Additionally Dubai, being in the desert, has to concern itself with cooling these skypiercers.


This tower, the O-14, has the answer. The strange, holey, structure forces hot air to move quickly up the sides of the tower, cooling the interior passively.

Well, I suppose if we're going to build this is a way to do it. Better up than out. And, if buildings can provide all of their own electricity and provide passive heating and cooling, that's a step in the right direction. Hey, the Burj Khalifa tower even collects its own water (a "significant amount") by condensing it from the hot and humid air. We'll just have to see how the human race does over the next decade or so...

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Tuesday, March 02, 2010

First, a special thanks to Richard Reames, whose e-mail address I noticed on my subscriber list. I mentioned his work in arborsculpture in a recent post, and that means people are actually reading what I write and exploring the links I post. And that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Haha.

But the real subject of this post, as promised in my last post, is making your home more energy efficient, thus saving money and the planet in one fell swoop. One of the first steps you can take is to perform an energy audit. An energy audit tells you useful information about the energy efficiency of your home, but the actual information you get depends on the type of audit you get and who does it.

Here in Oregon there's a nonprofit known as The Energy Trust of Oregon. I've fallen in love with the work that this organization does to spur on green development. For starters, they offer three different types of energy audits, two of which are free. The first is an online calculator for Oregon residents which provides energy saving tips and your carbon footprint based on your location, utility bills, etc. This isn't a bad way to start since it only takes 10 minutes or so to complete. Even more useful, however, is their home energy review service, which is still free. In this case someone actually comes to your house to inspect it. This is a visual inspection of common energy-suckers, including insulation levels in your attic and crawlspace, your heating system, your windows, your ventilation, any moisture problems, and old appliances. With this information the advisor will advise you (naturally) on the best steps you can take to make your home more energy efficient, and provide you with a list of local cash incentives and federal tax breaks for the projects in question. Also, if you haven't already switched to compact fluorescent bulbs, high-efficiency showerheads, and faucet aerators, these will be provided for free with your consultation. A great deal.

Following this free consultation, your advisor might suggest the third type of energy audit, which isn't free. This involves high-tech equipment like infrared sensors to measure the flow of hot air in and out of your home, etc. This kind of testing can provide very accurate information about your specific problem areas, and can even give you pretty precise information regarding how much money you'll actually be saving on your utility bills once the suggested projects are completed. Again, this would include a list of cash incentives and tax breaks that are available for your different projects.

Even if you aren't an Oregon resident, the Energy Trust website maintains a list of the federal tax breaks that are available for different types of projects. It's worth checking out.

Your best bet if you aren't an Oregon resident would probably be to search the internet for local energy auditors. Alternatively, your utility company might be able to provide you with useful information, or even do the audit themselves.

If you want even more information on energy saving technologies I recommend the textbook I had for one of my physics classes. It's called Energy and the Environment and it's super pricey. But, you get what you pay for. It delves into the science of fossil fuels, transportation, power plants, etc., as well as technologies for the home: solar panels, solar hot water heaters, electric water heaters, insulation, and more. It even covers super basic principles, like heating water by threading bottles onto a garden hose and, if I remember correctly, creating a solar-powered food dehydrator. It's a pretty well-rounded book. If you don't have that kind of money to throw around though, or you simply don't care about the science as long as it works, The Home Energy Diet was written by energy auditor Paul Scheckel, and appears to be a good fit.

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Monday, March 01, 2010

This is probably old news for most folks, but if you haven't heard, you can get free solar panels. Not "free" free, but essentially free.


The program is offered by SolarCity. The exact terms, as far as I can tell, are dependent on what state you live in. In Oregon, SolarCity offers a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that they call Pure Power. SolarCity installs the panels for free, and they collect all of the government tax breaks. They own the solar panels, and they do all of the necessary maintenance. Each month, you pay for the amount of electricity your system produced (presumably, if you produced more than you can use, you'd be able sell your excess to the power company). The amount you pay is equivalent to the amount charged by the local power company. Thus, they calculate that if I owned my place and were to go with the Pure Power program, my payment would be roughly $30 a month. Free installation, free maintenance, and a renewable source of energy for only $30 a month? And, since this is offsetting $30 worth of electricity from my current bill, I'd essentially be getting them for free. Sounds like a good deal to me.

These agreements last 10 years. At the end of the 10 years, you have several options. You can either buy the system from SolarCity (not sure on the actual cost for this route). Or, you can have them upgrade you to the newest solar technology for free, and sign you on for another 10 years.

I'm looking at possibly buying a small house after I graduate, assuming I have the work to pay for it. I've definitely been looking at cost effective ways that I'll be able to "green" it, both for the environment's sake, and for my wallet's.

I'll write soon about some of the other information I've found.

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Another topic that is of interest to me as a would-be homesteader is alternative energy. Many will say that plants, that store energy from the sun, are our greatest sources of renewable energy. After all, people burned wood as fuel long before the explosion of the oil market.

When one thinks of solar power, one's mind probably first turns to photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, which stores the suns energy as electricity in batteries for later use. Photovoltaics aside, however, there are still many ways of harnessing the sun for filtering water, heating water, drying food and passively heating one's home. A Trombe wall, for example, utilizes a south facing window--which will receive sunlight almost all day as the sun moves from east to west--and a thermal mass to trap heat during the daylight hours and then let it out at night to keep your house warm. Books that I've read that give a good break down of using solar energy both actively and passively include John Seymour's The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It and Robert Ristinen's Energy and the Environment. Other books I'm interested on reading on the topic of alternative energy include The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy: Achieving Energy Independence Through Solar, Wind, Biomass And Hydropower (Mother Earth News Wiser Living) and The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Energy Independence, Off-grid And Sustainable Living, which addresses people who live in rural areas and would like to provide all of their own energy.

In my particular location, I would probably have a wood stove for heating and cooking (as well as an earthen oven, which I'll cover in a different post), and then a combination of wind and solar would provide whatever electricity I still needed. Firstlook is a neat web app that estimates your wind and solar energy potentials, but there are professionals that can give you an assessment of your power need and potential. And in most places, if you have a surplus of electricity, you can sell it to the power company. Wind turbines are sold in kits for the real DIYer, or can also be installed by a local company, which is probably best for those of us that aren't electricians.

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