Green Housing Takes Root in Oregon

baldinux writes "I was reading an article in the Portland Tribune which showcased the City of Portland's noteworthy 'Rose House' (1.8mb PDF) project, part of the Office of Sustainable Development and Oregon Department of Energy's plan to encourage sustainable, energy-producing, environmentally-friendly housing for the future, a plan which is gaining national and international attention. The Rose House, at only 800 square feet (approx. 244 sq. meters), is equipped with solar panels and incorporates technologies that recapture lost heat and energy during normal appliance operation, such as ventilation. During peak hours -- when power is at highest demand -- the Rose House could produce surplus energy, feeding kilowatt hours back to the power grid, and `rolling back' the meter -- the power authority's way of purchasing the surplus energy and lessening the burden on comparatively 'dirty' power plants. The article suggests that homes like this could see net power bills as low as $0 per year. The environmental benefits of a lessened burden on centralized, often fossil fuel or nuclear, power generation plants would be considerable."

Comments

800 SF?

[DAldredge]

"The total construction cost of the house was $117,000, or $146 per square foot.
The cost was roughly 15 percent more than a conventional house of the same size, but savings in utilities should make up that difference over time"

That is way off, in the area of Texas I am in you can build a new home for about 70-90 per square foot . Plus it is way small if you plan to have a family.

Re:800 SF?

[Enlarge Your Penis]

Trailers cost that much nowadays?

Re:800 SF?

[Kiryat Malachi]

That's because land in Texas is relatively cheap. The real point was the ~15% premium; essentially, in Texas such a home should cost in the 95-120 range, I would bet (depends on relative percentage cost for land, materials, and labor).

800 sq ft is a decent sized one bedroom apartment, or a fairly small two bedroom.

Re:800 SF?

[DAldredge]

The price per SQ I quoted didn't include the land because I do not think the price quoted in the article include the cost of land.

Hell, if it was only 15% more they could get very low interest loans from the power company to help pay for the extra. AEP/TXU provides such loans to redo AC with lower energy units and to install heat pumps.

I bet you they are comparing the cost of this home to the cost of a new home, new land and new utility connections. It is in their best interests to play with the numbers so it looks better on paper. Helps with getting more funding/grants.

(This may be rambling as I am tired)

Re:800 SF?

[DAldredge]

No. The market price in most areas of Texas is 5,000 for a work needed used trailer (about 700-900 sf) to 30,000 for a new trailer (about 1300-1700 sq).

Land is extra as is the required underground shelter to help protect against tornados.

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Housing cost depends a lot on the local climate. If you live on Hawaii you don't need tripple glass windows...

Re:800 SF?

[wine_slob]

Are they talking about Texas...?

Building costs vary from state to state, county to county and even city to city. Portland, being Oregon's major city, may have higher building costs than the rest of the state, and quite possibly higher than where you are in Texas.

800 sq feet isn't huge, but is plenty of space for an individual or couple without kids and not planning any straight away. At $117k, the mortgage would be close to average rent with lower bills and, unlike rent, payments would be building equity. Sounds like a nice little place to me...

Re:800 SF?

[DAldredge]

Look at the tech going into this house, it can not be built for only a 15% cost increase.

They are playing with the numbers, enron style accounting is the only way I know of to make these numbers work.

Re:800 SF?

[dasunt]

That is way off, in the area of Texas I am in you can build a new home for about 70-90 per square foot . Plus [800 sq ft] is way small if you plan to have a family.

It may be small, but it isn't too small. I grew up in a house of roughly 1200 sq ft (excluding basement) with four other siblings. My wife grew up in a house of roughly 800 sq ft with two other siblings.

As long as children share bedrooms, and you forgo the formal dining room, family room, media room, and den, it is doable. Why spend money on rooms you aren't going to use? A living room works just as well as media room/family room. A dining room can be formal or informal. Bedrooms are for quiet study and sleeping, they don't need to be the size of aircraft hangers.

As for the housing costs, locations differ. For example, in Texas, where you are at, I'm guessing 2x4 construction is the norm. In Minnesota, where I am at, 2x6 construction is mandated by building code. In Texas, I'm guessing you can get by with a small crawlspace, or slab-on-grade. In Minnesota, the frost line is so deep that by the time you get below it, its trivial to add a basement. Etc, etc.

Re:800 SF?

[smallfeet]

You don't need to run AC in Hawaii? But I agree about location, this house would not be as effective in Seatle or Florida.

Re:800 SF?

[flacco]

Why spend money on rooms you aren't going to use?

what he said.

we bought a 2600sf house on 4 acres for myself, my wife, and three pets. probably about 1/4 to 1/3 of it is essentially unused space - she spends most of her time in the 8x22 sun room on the south side, and i spend most of mine in the 12x21 office on the north side. there are a couple rooms that we don't step foot in for weeks. every time i walk by them, the mortgage payment figure slides around before my eyes. quickly followed by the climate control expense.

if i had it to do over again, i would go smaller, more energy-efficient, and put the savings toward more land, (even) more privacy, closer to the ocean, or just plain more leisure time; but this was our first house, and we wanted a "nice" place and didn't really give as much thought to the day-to-day practicalities involved.

my current daydream is to get together with a few other people/couples and go in on a fully self-sustaining vacation house on the shore somewhere. this would allow us to buy land more cheaply (inaccessible, unserviced by utilities, etc), and put the money toward a nice waterfront view and privacy.

the house mentioned in the article doesn't quite fit the bill, since it's designed to be hooked up to the grid and contribute energy back at some times, and draw energy off it during others; but the technologies used would be applicable to a self-sustaining house as well. and any experimentation that drives the initial price of these technologies down is very welcome.

Re:800 SF?

[Pieroxy]

Well, we're not really sure about the surface. It is either 800 sq feet, and 74 sq meter, or 244 sq meter and then a huge 2626 sq feet.

See Here for conversions.

Re:800 SF?

[BJH]

Yeah. Where'd they get that wierd conversion from? Even 10 seconds with Google would have given them the right answer.

Re:800 SF?

[Chemical Boy]

You make good points, but even in MN it still only costs around $100/sqft for a frame house. I wonder if the cost per sqft was increased by the loss of construction efficiency by building such a small house.

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

--- You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt.

--- Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of damp gravel, work a twenty-hour day at the mill for tuppence a month, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

--- Well, of course, we 'ad it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and lick the road clean with our tongue. We 'ad two bits of cold gravel, and worked a twenty-four hour day at the mill for six or seventy-four years, and when we got home, our dad would slash it to us with a bread knife.

--- Right. I had to get up at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our mother and father would kill us and dance on our graves singing Halleluja.

--- Aye, and you try telling young people of today that. And they won't believe you.

--- Aye, they won't!

Re:800 SF?

[root_42]

> Plus it is way small if you plan to have a family.

Man, you americans sometimes seem so weird. Sorry, for saying this, but here in Germany, a house with 240 square meters is more than average. A lot of families WITH children live in flats of 60-70 square meters or houses around 120-140 square meters. 240 square meters would be considered luxurious. I guess the US are really just bigger than Europe... :)

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a house in Texas last year. Some years before this, I worked designing houses up in Colorado.

You're right. The building conditions are very different. Texas does use a slab-on-grade method. There are no cellars around here. The cost of digging the hole is just too high, and since there's really no frost line, unnecessary. Helps bring the cost down, and for this area it's perfectly reasonable.

Unfortunately, you're also correct about the 2x4 construction. None of the major builders around here use anything but 2x4 on the exterior. This, to me, was ludicrous. The extra insulation you can get in a 2x6 exterior wall would be just as helpful down here as it was up in the Rockies. Even worse are the roofs. We normally used 2x12s in the area of Colorado I was in (hellacious snow loads), and you'd be simply amazed at how much insulation you can put in that. Given that the biggest problem down here is heat, putting on thick roofs with heavy insulation would go a long way towards reducing the single biggest energy expense: air conditioning. But you can't get anyone to do it that way unless you've got the kind of money it takes to build a McMansion.
BTW, if you do have that kind of money, take it to an independant architect or draftsman and get a real house instead...

Anyway, the house I purchased is about 1500 sq ft. I know people here are complaining that 800 is big enough, but hey, this is Texas. There's lots of land. This is the smallest I felt I could go and still keep something very important. Resale value. Do I need three bedrooms? No, but if there aren't three bedrooms then I'll never be able to sell the house later. That's just how the housing market is here.

Re:800 SF?

[dbooster]

I am always amazed at how spoiled our society has become. It's always bigger bigger bigger. In the past 50 years, the average home size in America has doubled. Your typical baby boom family grew up in homes not too far from that size - and they typically had 4+ kids. Yet today it's "way small" for a family.

At this rate, in 20 years we will all be living in homes the size of mansions and consider them normal, even small.

Re:800 SF?

[Julian352]

800 ft^2 is nowhere close to 240 m^2.

Looking at google:
240 (m^2) = 2 583.3385 ft^2
120 (m^2) = 1 291.66925 ft^2
While the story's house is:
800 (ft^2) = 74.322432 m^2

And as many have pointed out, the average house they've lived in is about 1200 sq. ft. Thus average person doesn't live in a house that's MUCH bigger. However, if you go into the affluent neighborhoods where people have more money than sense, you will find fairly huge houses.

Re:800 SF?

[nomadic]

But the downside is you have to live in Texas.

Re:800 SF?

[ThisIsNotKendall]

shore living and waterfront view are mutally exclusive with privacy.

Re:800 SF?

[jdray]

I went through the home this weekend, and yes, it's small; about the size of the first one-bedroom apartment my wife and I had. The (two) bedrooms aren't very large, but they're big enough. The house is constructed on the back of a large lot. The people occupying the house are recent retirees, and either their son or daughter (I forget which) owns the home on the front of the property. They encouraged their parents to build a home on the property and move in BEFORE they were old and debilitated, which seemed to make sense to me.

Slashdotters will be happy to know that the "spare bedroom" has been converted to a home office, and is well stocked with computer gear. These folks aren't dottering old people, they're very active. No, the house doesn't have a formal dining room, a media room, an acre-sized kitchen or any of the other appointments common in the million-dollar, Street of Dreams homes on your average home tour, but it is comfortably sized for a retired couple who want to live life.

Home construction prices in Portland seem to run somewhere over $100 per square foot, but when you get down to smaller sizes, the price per square foot goes up, because you still have to have a kitchen and bathroom, no matter how large or numerous your rooms are.

Re:800 SF?

[knitting fool]

Sarah Susanka has written several books about living in small houses. She emphasizes building rooms that will be used on a daily basis, and eliminating the formal rooms like you mention. She has a website here.

Re:800 SF?

[jdray]

You might reconsider your requirement for being fully disconnected from the electric grid. Unless you're pretty well guaranteed full sun all year, you're going to have some days where your power draw is greater than your production. The banks of batteries required to run a house for a couple days without having input (or very little) would be huge and expensive. Furthermore, on days that you're producing an excess of electricity, you can sell it back into the grid if you're attached, but not if you aren't. How nice would it be to be getting a check from the power company instead of a bill?

Re:800 SF?

[jdray]

The less square feet you have, the higher the cost per square foot. That pretty much goes for anywhere you build.

Re:800 SF?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I guess the US are really just bigger than Europe... :)

Nah, we just have more space.

Re:800 SF?

[Retric]

There are lots of places where the cost of connecting to the grid are greater than the cost of a generator every 10-20 years for the next 50 years.

Think ISLAND'S.

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too small for what?! For most of our history, and in most of the world today, people live in dwellings this size or smaller. The point of a green house is to minimize impact on the environment. Building one of those McMansions that are all the rage with the fuzzy-minded and status conscious is assuredly NOT a way to help the environment. We need to re-think our priorities. Why is it that many of the same people who have given us iBooks and Centrino laptops that can outprocess a room full of old "big iron" want to move in the other direction with housing?

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

800 square feet != 244 square metres
800 square feet = 74.322432 square metres

Re:800 SF?

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* What you said.

800 sq ft for a family of 5 (like one nimrod said) is too little. Sure it can be done, and it is also possible to train white tigers to perform and not rip out ones thro...never mind that now.

But yeah, my house is going on 3000 ft sq and there is my wife & me and a kid. She bought it before we married, and it was for the lot as much as anything (before the tornado there were lots of mature trees).

3000 is nuts. The master bedroom is far too big (and barely works because it is so poorly laid out). In AL I pay more for heating in the winter than my uncle with a similar sized house in northern MN, a LOT more.

I'd rather have 1800 ft^2 that was well laid out. Heh, and the 4 acres you have (I have 0.75)

Initial Cost

[riotstarter]

One of the reasons many people I know aren't getting things like solar panels installed is that the initial cost is too high.

Re:Initial Cost

[Veridium]

You know what the real shocker is? The installation cost. It costs as much as the hardware in my area. We're going to do it, but we have to refinance our house in order to afford it. Fricking ouch.

Re:Initial Cost

[AaronGTurner]

An alternative to solar panels is solar heating, in which water is pumped into solar heated areas. It is less efficient but lower tech (essentially plumbing) and can be cheaper, depending on how much plumbers charge in your area. Essentially you use the solar heating to provide hot water for your house (people like hot water even in summer!) and thus reduce utility costs to heat it. In theory the hot water can be used for other tasks as well, but again at the cost of efficiency, but then the cost of the total solution tends to go back up to the cost of solar panels again. One of the nice things about solar heating is that there isn't a requirement for heavy metals and the like, although if the demand for copper pipes increased dramatically that might be a problem in itself!

At the moment, though, solar heating or panels are expensive for home owners. You can reduce energy use from the grid more cost effectively with other techniques (insulation, shading windows, more efficient boilers, or even just servicing your boiler) at the moment until volume sales reduces solar panel costs.

Some governments (e.g. Germany) have provided tax incentives to install solar solutions, or required that new government buildings include solar solutions where possible. The latter makes a lot of sense as the cost of solar panels on a new office block is a comparatively small proportion of the total cost, but stimulates the demand for solar panels, hopefully then bringing new production onstream.

Another area that people sometimes neglect when working out how much energy they use is watering their garden. Using tap water means using water that has been purified to human drinking standards, with quite a lot of energy input. Collecting rainwater run off from your house and storing it to water your garden directly saves energy. Given the downpours in the UK in August stopping run off going into your garden and flooding it (we had to bail our sunken patio out!) is helpful too! Mind you, since we had 6 inches of rain in 24 hours (I'd left a glass out in the garden) you'd need a huge water butt to cope!

Re:Initial Cost

[BJH]

Really? How much? We were quoted around $US20,000 equivalent (in Japan), inclusive of hardware and installation costs.

Re:Initial Cost

[Paulrothrock]

I'm going to start having to keep this story in a text file...

My dad built two earth-sheltered passive solar homes, which were about 1200 sq ft and cost next to nothing. They didn't have solar panels, but they did have a large greenhouse and a solar water pre-heater. It was basically a box made of foil-backed insulation that had a black 55-gallon drum in it. This was hooked up between the water supply and the hot water heater. When it was sunny out, it preheated the water and saved energy. Since it was an electric water heater, the $50 of materials paid for themselves the first year. No major installation costs, no big expensive solar panels, and a very rugged design.

Re:Initial Cost

[LetterJ]

But that's kind of the problem he's talking about. While I'd love to have a more green approach to energy, my current energy costs (for both electricity and natural gas) runs just under $1800 a year and I live where it stays below freezing for 4+ months of the year. I run window air conditioners keeping the house at 68F during the summer. My house is over 100 years old and has snow on the roof for those 4+ months, which would mean that I'd still have to have "normal" energy solutions for nearly half of the year. The roof isn't particularly well insulated (I have ice dams every winter) and my costs are still that low.

The price you quote would take me over 10 years to recoup and, when I bought my house 4 years ago, would have constituted 25% of my home's value. That does make it an expensive solution.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be looking at it anyway, but to call it anything other than expensive and logistically difficult is to have one's head in the sand.

Re:Initial Cost

[Cat_Byte]

I considered the same thing but couldn't get an answer to an important question I had for the people selling it. Can it survive the occasional baseball/grapefruit sized hailstorms we sometimes get in TX? Another thing was I figured if I added all of the green energy stuff to my home owners insurance that the added premium would probably offset the savings. I have lots of plans on how to make a home more energy efficient. I would love to do it someday. I even did a simple modification to my 2 story house that lowered my electric bills quite a bit. I ran an air duct down to the bottom floor from upstairs into the AC unit. During the winter it would suck the coldest air off the bottom floor right into the unit and blow heat out from the ceiling on the bottom floor. Just closing that off in the summer time kept it blowing cold air upstairs & trickling down through the house. It helped quite a bit.

Re:Initial Cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the downpours in the UK in August stopping run off going into your garden and flooding it (we had to bail our sunken patio out!) is helpful too! Mind you, since we had 6 inches of rain in 24 hours (I'd left a glass out in the garden) you'd need a huge water butt to cope!

Indeed, but for a new house water storage ( ferro-concrete, etc.) can be cheaply designed in.

Indeed retro-fitting is not that expensive.

Re:Initial Cost

[BJH]

Er... I wasn't saying that solar is an economical solution, I was asking him how much it cost where he is.
I was told I'd never be able to recoup the cost of a solar installation, so I gave up on it. $20,000 pays a lot of electricity bills.

Re:Initial Cost

[WOV]

Yes, actually, it probably can - get a major manufacturer's panels (Sharp, Shell, BP, Kyocera,) and that front glass will be tempered (viz. even stronger than windshield glass - it's a good chunk of the cost of modules anymore) I've seen people hit it with baseball bats, and some of the big mfgs. will even throw that into the warranty (check individual catalogs.)

You should also check the flexible shingles at Uni-Solar; they're nonbrittle and would probably take a hit even better.

Re:Initial Cost

[ericspinder]

If your house is over 100 years old and only costs $1800 /year to heat and cool, you must have had the HVAC upgraded (probally including duct work), and massive amounts of insulation, how much did that cost? Well if not you then some previous owner.

Personally I wouldn't suggest that you rip apart a 100 yo attic for a solar array (and for people like me who have other issues), but most [if not all] power plants take more than 10 years to recoup the initial investment. However, even if I could put up solar panels, I would hold off a couple of years, because I believe that the price will fall, to at least half the current prices.

Re:Initial Cost

[LetterJ]

The furnace was replaced in 2000, at a cost of about $5000, but the duct work dates from the mid 70's as does the only insulation that was done. It's a 1 1/2 story and the roof/ceiling are one and the same for most of the roof, which leaves not much insulation there and causes ice dams in the winter.

I do cover my windows in the winter (with the 3M plastic sheeting) and the siding is slate. I also don't keep it much warmer than about 68F-70F.

Also, window air conditioners are much more efficient than people give them credit for and my electric bill barely goes up with 2 window AC units running to keep it below 68F in my main living area and closer to 58F in my sleeping area at night pretty much all summer.

Re:Initial Cost

[El]

Another area that people sometimes neglect when working out how much energy they use is watering their garden. This is especially true here in Portland, Oregon. Our monthly water bill is based not just on how much water we consume, but how much rainfall there is, on the theory that all the downspouts get dumped into the one sewer system. So we pay to get rid of rainwater, then pay again to pump water from the reservior back to water our lawns!!! Plus, because they were so short-sighted that they only put in a single sewer system with all the storm drains connected to it, every time there is a heavy rain they have to dump untreated sewage directly into the rivers!

What we need is separate rainwater, greywater, and black water systems. I should be able to store the water from the downspouts and from my upstairs showers/baths and use that water for irrigation. Unfortunately, that is not how the houses are designed, and it is probably even against building codes to do so. (Interestingly, in the Bahamas all the houses do have cisterns for storing rainwater, as fresh water is in very short supply.)

Re:Initial Cost

[chris_mahan]

Baseball-sized texas hail will make nice holes in car windshields. I personllay saw this in Texas (Fort Worth, 1991). And not just 1, six cars in just our apartment complex.

Re:Initial Cost

[Veridium]

I tried to dig up the exact quote but I couldn't find it, so this is a rough estimate from memory. The system we looked at was ~14,000 for the hardware. The state will reimburse us about half, but this is after we've paid for it, and it takes months. Then the installation was another $12,000.

The thing that got me was they lure you in with some headline like "Complete system for 7,500!". Then you call the sales guy for a quote, find out you have to cough up 14,000 for the hardware, and then another $12,000 for the installation. It was just a shock, given the hook "complete system for 7500!" then you find out, no, try $20,000 after rebates, and $28,000 up front. Ouch.

Re:Initial Cost

[Veridium]

Where I live, we would recoup the cost in something like 5-10 years. I live in a desert and have a good sized house(with seperate buildings on the property) and a total of 3 AC units. And where I live, the value of your house goes up about dollar for dollar with a solar system installed. Well, according to a realtor I talked to.

But still, I don't have that kind of money lying around. So, we wait till we refinance.

Re:Initial Cost

[payslee]

You should look into getting some rainbarrels. They are cheap, easy to find in Portland, and usually have wheels on the bottom so that you can roll them away from the downspout and put an empty one in place, if you want more storage. It is also possible, although a beaurocratic hassle, to get cisterns approved for household water supply. They are making huge investments to separate the sewer systems, but every little bit helps.

A really good website that chronicles one Portland couple's adventures in sustainable housing is http://users/easystreet.com/ersson. It details how they converted their house to use water from a roof system, including for drinking water. It also shows a small house they built along the lines of the one in the article - almost closed cycle for energy and water. It's got lots of technical details and cool examples.

Re:Initial Cost

[Moofie]

What do you do when it's substantially below freezing, and cloudy, and you've got a 55 gal barrel of ice?

Thermal engineering is not trivial. That's why it's expensive.

Re:Initial Cost

[Paulrothrock]

The drum was inside the greenhouse, so it didn't ever get below freezing. Not only were the back wall and floor of the greenhouse made of concrete (which helped to store the heat of the sun to radiate it into the house at night), but my dad also put heat in the greenhouse so my mom's tomatoes, peppers and spices didn't get too cold.

Oh, and even with electric heat we only spent $300 per year for heat and hot water. We supplimented the electric heat with a woodstove that ran off of fast-growing birch trees in the backyard, so it was a closed-carbon cycle.

So we have cheap heat, cheap hot water, and fresh veggies all year round.

The idea that environmentalism means shivering in the dark or handing over huge sum of money ignores our most important asset: Brains.

Re:Initial Cost

[Moofie]

Cool...sounds like a good system.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Eunuchswear]

Oh dear. Isn't it sad that it's impossible to correct a post without making an equaly silly looking error.

You mean 800 sq ft = 74 m2.

P.S. Google? Just use units(1).

Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Doomsdaisy]

Portland relies on hydro power rather than dirty power. Isn't it odd that a region that sells its excess kilowatts to other regions is one of the few places in the US where green housing is seriously considered?

Why don't the regions of the US that rely heavily on coal or nucler power have the same impitus for cleaner alternatives?

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Koohoolinn]

Maybe it's because in those regions politicians are funded by the fossil energy lobby?

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[dustmote]

I don't know about the energy programs in Oregon, but alternative architecture is alive and well there.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[dabigpaybackski]

"Portland relies on hydro power rather than dirty power." That depends upon your definition of "dirty." Personally, I find pureed salmon disgusting.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Hinhule]

Could be that exporting the kilowatts gives them a better price for them than selling them at home.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[kahei]

These are breasts; this is source code.
Why do you have a problem with those two things belonging to one person?

Because that person can't count.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[G-funk]

These are breasts; this is source code. Why do you have a problem with those two things belonging to one person?

Love, this is slashdot, we've all got breasts.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[sleepingsquirrel]

Since I lived there for six years, I find it odd for another reason. Portland is cloud covered for most of the year (especially when you need it most, in the winter). Probably not the most econimical location for an expensive solar panels installation.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[pete-classic]

Won't somebody please think of the fish?

-Peter

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself fat boy.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[DrCode]

True. But our local utility, PGE, is owned by Enron, and their power-trading over the last few years has caused electricity rates to nearly double.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Colonel Panic]

Portland relies on hydro power rather than dirty power. Isn't it odd that a region that sells its excess kilowatts to other regions is one of the few places in the US where green housing is seriously considered?

Sure, we have a lot of hydro power available in Oregon & Washington, however, in recent years our power bills have nearly doubled because of 'deregulation'. What 'deregulation' means for us here is that we now have to pay market rates for electricity because all of our hydro power is now put on the open market. (perhaps good for other areas of the country, bad for us - the NorthWest was screwed by deregulation) What that means is that we used to have cheap power here (because of hydro), but now we're paying almost the same as most other metropolitan areas in the US. My power bill went from about $50/month about five years ago to $100/month now. (oh, and Enron buying our local power company [PGE] didn't help).

The other factor to consider with hydro is that it harms migrating salmon, so there are times of the year when the dams have to be either shut down or running with less turbines. Also, there probably will not be anymore hydro development in the Northwest due to environmental concerns so we need to find ways to accomodate a growing population - conservation is a big part of this.

Add to this the fact that Portland is one of the most environmentally-aware communities you'll find anywhere in the US. People tend to bike and take public transportation a lot more than in other areas of the country.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Portland. Oregon. Our dams do not make enough power for Oregon, we buy electricity from an oil plant from a near-by state.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[pilgrim23]

Portland OR is a rather kooky town. You would need to experience it for a while to believe the insanity that passes for reasoned thought here. This is quite typical of the ideas floating through the sandlewood incense smoke and love beads the has-been hippies in politics here, and touchie feelie encounter group huggers that populate the place promote.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Reene]

If you're talking about Oregon, we do :) At least in some parts of the state. Especially the Salmon. I remember being in 8th grade and taking trips with my science class making regular trips to local streams and creeks (I live in Florence) to perform tests on the water and keep the area clean for the fish. We even took trips to traps now and then to help out the folks working there. I know mine wasn't the only school that did it either. Let no one tell you that Oregonians are not ecologically-sound people.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[baldinux]

Actually, it's quite the opposite. My power authority is Pacific Power (http://www.pacificpower.net), which covers most of the mid to lower Willamette Valley. I recently moved into the area, and I was shocked: the standard energy package pie chart showed that 60-80% of the power would come from ``dirty'' sources.

I agree: we have the Bonneville Power Administration that could generate enough hydro-power to run most of the western states. However, with deregulation, much of that hydropower is being -sold- to markets where the base price is higher: ie CALIFORNIA. As a result, Oregonians, even with the BPA in our collective back yard, are not reaping the environmental benefits of having the BPA: California is.

Re:Odd Place, if you think of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have actually been to this place and had a full tour... meaning a 1/2 Km walk through a forrest looking at the buildings in various satges of being completed (and I mean that in a good way).

He sometimes gives a slideshow presentation, absolutely great stuff.

Two (green) thumbs up!

[Muad]

This effort is noteworthy. If the construction costs are marginally higher than standard, it should be possible for the governemt to step in with incentives and pick up the tab of the difference. This kind of housing would save indirectly on other costs (power plant construction, pollution, etc) and could therefore qualify as a win-win situation.

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[morganjharvey]

If the construction costs are marginally higher than standard, it should be possible for the governemt to step in with incentives and pick up the tab of the difference.

"Should" is the keyword in that sentence. As sad as it is, I really don't see the government, at least not with current policy/spending/etc., creating any sort of incentive here. I mean, if you could theoretically be able to have a power bill of $0, that's not exactly energy(company) friendly.

Just calling it as I see it...

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[hazem]

Right, but even if you're a net-$0 customer, that power they buy from you is power they are selling to someone else (or not having to pay to produce). As long as they're able to sell it to others for more than they pay you (plus costs), then you're still profitable.

The economics change, of course, if a majority of the people employ systems like this. At that point, though the energy you sell back is worth less because so many more people are producing it as well.

I realize this article is about Portland, but its state, Oregon, offers tax incentives for certain energy efficiency improvements:
Oregon Residential Energy Tax Credit Program

Tax credits are available for the following categories:
appliances
fuel cells
HVAC
Solar
Water Heaters
Wind
Vehicles

"The maximum amount of tax credits a resident may receive per year is $1,000 for appliances including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The maximum amount of tax credits a resident may receive per year is $1,500 for renewable energy equipment such as solar and wind systems. "

If you're smart, you can probably plan part of yoru purchases in December of one year and the rest in Jan of the next. Or possibly spread your project over a few years to maximize the tax break.

Plus, these improvements amount to capital investments in your property which should reduce any taxes incurred from selling a house (though, I think the capital gains tax was eliminated for the owner's residence).

And, such investments done on rental properties will count as costs and will, while reducing your profit, will also reduce the tax on your profit, which could be as high as 40%.

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[hazem]

This link from the DOE shows various incentives in different states:

Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy

That includes Federal Incentives

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[RKBA]

"I really don't see the government, at least not with current policy/spending/etc., creating any sort of incentive here."

The State of California will reimburse homeowners who install wind or photovoltaic power approximately 45% of the cost of the system.

In my case, the City of Glendale, California, paid 50% ($21,000) of the total $42,000 cost of having a 4 KW photovoltaic array installed on my roof. What I heard is that they were required to do so by the California Public Utilities Commission. My photovoltaic system is a so-called "net-metered" system that feeds power back into the grid whenever the sun is shining and the system is producing more power than I'm consuming. It provides for almost half of my power usage. During most days my electric meter actually does run backwards.

Since then, I've had "blow-in" insulation installed in the exterior walls of my home (it's an old house and didn't have any insulation in the walls at all!). The odd thing is that although the insulation only cost $1,200 to install, it cut my power bills (most of which are for electric air conditioning during the summer) almost in half - about the same as the photovoltaic system did! I estimate that my electric bills for next year will only be about 25% of what I used to pay.

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[antiMStroll]

"...could therefore qualify as a win-win situation."

For municipal governments and contractors anyway. More residents per square foot, higher tax yield. Smaller houses, more sale units per square foot of land development. I'm willing to bet municipal politicians and land developers won't be partaking in the joys of social responsibility in 800 sq.ft. housing.

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[Anonymous Coward]

The economics change, of course, if a majority of the people employ systems like this. At that point, though the energy you sell back is worth less because so many more people are producing it as well.

If energy costs decrease and your usage stays roughly the same, you will still have a net increase in disposable income regardless energy profiteering.:P

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[shadow_slicer]

"The economics change, of course, if a majority of the people employ systems like this. At that point, though the energy you sell back is worth less because so many more people are producing it as well."

But if they're just rolling back the meter (i.e. buying power from you at the same rate they would have charged you) then it won't make a difference.

Re:Two (green) thumbs up!

[hazem]

I wonder if you need to have a special meter to sell electricity back. Maybe it would give you a different rate on outgoing electricity than incoming?

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently someone in power hasn't realized that "asthma" is an environmental problem.

too bad it's our brothers and sisters who suffer because of their lack of interest in this issue.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[bhima]

I am wondering how it is you went from units of area to units of volume?

Everything green...

[Infinityis]

"I'm hearing a lot more interest from buyers who have called up and said they want the greenest house in Portland," Heslam said. "For a growing group of people, rather than having the fanciest house on their street, they'd rather impress their friends by having the greenest house on their street."

It seems more and more that people define their "greenness" as part of their social status. I mean, from hybrid cars to these energy efficient homes, it seems like people have transitioned to environment friendly ways not so much to be friendly to the environment, but rather for others to see.

I suppose part of it shows the philanthropic side of a person, taking care of the poor, defenseless environment that everyone abuses. Part of me wonders, if it were cheap enough for everyone to do, would the wealthy still do it, or would they simply indulge in the excess which they can easily afford?

Re:Everything green...

[ElvenMonkey]

It could be interesting to see the results of such a social move. I can percieve that generally, unless there is a major social move on the viewpoint, it would be just a 'fad' amongst the wealthy / high-society. To make it last beyond that would almost require it to be socially unacceptable on a large scale rather than just 'un-cool', to have a house that is not ecologically friendly. Until the technology comes down in price a little thats unlikely to happen. As soon as you start to see solar panels and the like dropping into the price range of the average wage holder, eco-friendly houses are unlikely to be made. The EU currently offers a very nice subsidy for having solar panels fitted, provided you use authorised builders (so as to avoid the cowboy builders cheating the government), but even with the subsidy its still quite an expense and it'll take quite a few years to make the money back in savings from the initial purchase. As pathetic as it really does seem (though I'm as big a culprit as anyone else), the green drive only goes for us so far as it doesn't affect the wallet. A lot of us will stand and say "oh yes, we're eco-friendly" and "why doesn't the government do more towards the environment", but when it affects our wallets we sort-of back away. Many of us could probably afford to put up a panel or two on our houses, but we balk at the cost, ignoring the green benefits.

Re:Everything green...

[wine_slob]

My house was built in 1900. There is no insulation in the walls, none under the floors and only about R12 in the attic. I spent the day at the hardware store looking into insulation options and crawling around under my house with a staple gun.

I plan to spend about $300 to bring our attic up to R42+ (they say 45% of heat loss is through the attic). Does that make me a green snob?

Being environmentally conscious/friendly isn't about being hip and it doesn't require spending a fortune. It's pretty easy, really.

If it does come down to social status for some, I'd rather have green homes and hybrids than monster mansions and Hummers, or even big houses and Dodge Rams...

Re:Everything green...

[16K Ram Pack]

There's one big benefit if the wealthy do it, even if they are showing off - it will undoubtedly bring down the price for the rest. There's a name for such people in marketing - "early adopters". They are people who get in there with technology and pay for the R&D for the rest. They are the people who don't look at CPU prices and consider bang for buck. They want the best RIGHT NOW.

One thing with prices is that goods are sold based on people partly looking at number of units anticipated.

The more people buying, the more people there will be producing and selling solar panels. Out of this will fall companies producing newer, cheaper and more efficient solar panels. I don't know what the manufacturing process is, but I imagine that production levels are not that massive. If volumes go up, you'll end up with a Toyota or Nissan of solar panels, producing them at high efficiency, employing more automation.

Think about something like LCD screens and the price 3 years ago vs now.

Re:Everything green...

[imsabbel]

You know what? I like that kind of "philanthrophic behabiour" much better than the normal "my SUV weights more than your truck" kind of expressing their coolness.

Re:Everything green...

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't considering one important factor. Being green impresses women!

Re:Everything green...

[katorga]

"The greenest house in Portland"

What a joke. The greatest agent of environment destruction is the concentration of the population in unsustainable urban areas. (I unclude suburban sprawl in this) Urban areas are by definition consumers of resources at a ravenous pace with almost zero return to the environment.

Second, the environmental cost of producing the components of the "green" house has to be taken into account. It may be greater than the house will ever return. The same goes for cars. The industrial infrastructure to produce cars is worse than the cars themselves. On those lines a hybrid/hydrogen vehicle is just as damaging as a gasoline vehicle.

If you want to save the environment, MOVE OUT OF CITIES AND STOP BEING A CONSUMER!

Re:Everything green...

[Anonymous Coward]

$300 + a lot of hot, sweaty, knee-breaking work, especially since you probably don't have a vapor barrier and thus will have to pull up the old stuff. My house also had the ceiling up against wall studs so I had to seal all the cracks between the drywall and 2x4's in the attic. NO fun. You'll be able to feel like Kermit after putting in your own insulation.

Just don't get me started on the crappy windows in my house. Ugh.

Re:Everything green...

[Moofie]

As a new resident of Portland, I've been interested to learn about this region's sustainable development efforts. (Specifically, Portland has them)

Moving out of cities and getting off the grid is simply not sustainable for a useful number of people, so decreasing the footprint of urban areas is an important idea. I'm glad Portland is leading that group. (Note: this house is a tiny tiny tiny part of that effort. It's been going on here for better than 20 years.)

Re:Everything green...

[Moofie]

So, what about the hideously nasty chemicals and the incredible amounts of energy that are required to produce solar panels?

Current PV cells are not the solution. They're dirty and expensive (in terms of electricity) to manufacture. One source that I've been unable to locate again actually said that the PV cells use more energy to manufacture than they will produce over their lifetime.

That's bad. That's false economy, and bad environmentalism.

Re:Everything green...

[indros13]

That's why the Toyota Prius is selling much faster than the hybrid Honda Civic. The former is hybrid-only...if you have a Prius, you are Green. The latter can be both, so you can't be as conspicuous a Green.

Re:Everything green...

[Oligonicella]

A good investment, when you can do it, is to wrap the house (inside and out) with a vapor barrior. The reduction in draft makes it seem warmer. Very cost effective if you're already stripping rooms or redoing the siding, etc.

Re:Everything green...

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but unfortunately it mostly impresses smelly, hairy women.

Size matters!

[pedestrian crossing]

I think the interesting thing here is that they went for a house that is much smaller than the average American house.

Compared to Europeans, Americans live in -huge- houses, which have to be heated/cooled/cleaned, etc.

A smaller house is cheaper to run and takes a heck of a lot fewer resources than a big house.

Re:Size matters!

[dasunt]

Compared to Europeans, Americans live in -huge- houses, which have to be heated/cooled/cleaned, etc.

But if we had smaller houses, we'd have to get rid of some of the junk we never use!

Re:Size matters!

[AaronGTurner]

You can have a large but efficient house, over and above the things that are common to all house construction, large and small (insulation, etc).

For example, open plan houses require more energy input as to be comfortable you have to heat or cool a large area. Separate rooms means that you can have a cold kitchen in winter if you are only going to be spending 5 minutes in their putting milk on your cornflakes. Also you can subdivide large living areas with temporary partitions and open them up when you have large gatherings, and so on.

Also the surface area of the house is important. A small bungalow can end up being less energy efficient than a larger 2 storey house.

Re:Size matters!

[Analogy Man]

With a bigger house I can have more STUFF. Then of course I need a bigger SUV to haul my STUFF around. Then I stuff my ever expanding ass in my BIG chair and watch my BIG TV.

The American way...ain't it beautiful?

Re:Size matters!

[cruachan]

Yes, but the build quality of american housing is generally pretty awful. Most would never even get a look in with european planning requlations.

Re:Size matters!

[Paulrothrock]

My dad works with a federal agency building low-cost housing in rural areas. A similar government official came to visit one year and balked at the fact that we make roofs that only last 20 years! He said people in England wouldn't buy a house without at least a 50 year-guaranteed slate roof.

Re:Size matters!

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. It is a retired couple living on their children's lot.

This knee-jerk bashing of America gets a little tiring.

Re:Size matters!

[Koatdus]

Compared to Europeans, Americans live in -huge- houses, which have to be heated/cooled/cleaned, etc. A smaller house is cheaper to run and takes a heck of a lot fewer resources than a big house.

But try raising a few kids in your smaller house. My wife and I bought a 900 square foot house about 10 years ago. Then we started having kids. We have since added on 2 bedrooms, a dining room, and a second bathroom, and doubled the size of the house. We are currently trying to figure out a way to squeeze in a two car garage out front.

Re:Size matters!

[Oligonicella]

"...people in England wouldn't buy a house without at least a 50 year-guaranteed slate roof."

Perhaps, but they're also paying for that every-so-much-more support structure underneath. I reroofed my house myself (new struts and all) for $5000. In twenty years, I'll have to repair it. Big deal.

Re:Size matters!

[Moofie]

If a 50 year slate roof costs more than 2.5x as expensive as a 20 year roof, it's not a good deal.

Slate is incredibly costly.

Re:Size matters!

[MonkeyCookie]

In addition, European houses generally have those wall heaters in every room, so you just turn the heaters on in the rooms that are being used, close the doors, and leave the unused portion of the house unheated.

I rather liked that when I was living in Europe. In the U.S. (at least in California), you either heat the whole house or not at all.

Greenhousing? that means something different here

[dj42]

Where I come from, "greenhousing" is the term used when you get a bunch of people in a car, roll up the windows and smoke ridiculous amounts of pot, filling the inside with smoke.

Okay. So where's the News?

[mx.2000]

What's new about this stuff?

I've seen "passive" houses being built for years (in Europe).

Maybe 6 years ago this would have been kind of innovative. But in the year 2004? C'mon!

Re:Okay. So where's the News?

[ElvenMonkey]

Come on.. this is the USA being talked about here, you know, the same one that signed the Kyoto agreement and promptly pulled out of it not wanting to harm the economy, that even doubted that global warming was real despite of the evidence to the contrary, eventually catching up with the rest of us, and is the biggest producer of pollution in the world, bar none (The US contains 4% of the world's population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions.)

The concept of looking out for the environment like this is news for them.

Re:Okay. So where's the News?

[Paulrothrock]

Only in Europe? I was born and lived the first five years of my life in a passive solar house.

And I'm planning on building my own one day.

Re:Okay. So where's the News?

[Oligonicella]

I notice all your cites are the BBC, that ever-so-antiAmerican organization. By the way, follow the development of environmental recovery and friendly technologies, and you find yourself right back here most of the time.

Re:Okay. So where's the News?

[ElvenMonkey]

Admittedly used the majority of BBC sources, but primarily for two reasons: 1) Not linked to the government, and are publicly funded so their viewpoints are normally rather unbiased, and solidly based on fact 2) I just happened to be browsing the bbc news site at the time and used its search engine. I'll dig up a lot more sources if you so desire, across a wide spectrum of sites. Regardless of how citizens of the USA view the country, their politicians have done a very good job of convincing a good proportion of the world that the americans put economy well before ecology. That the US is the biggest global polluter, per capita, doesn't do much to counter thta viewpoint.

greenest house is now mine !

[phreakv6]

I have now got the greenest house having painted it with an RGB of #00FF00.

Re:greenest house is now mine !

[bheerssen]

Hmm... unless your house is a monitor or some other light source, you would need RYB and the code would be #00FFFF.

Unless, by green, you really mean yellow.

Rolling back the meter ?.

[Gopal.V]

From the little EE knowledge I have (I'm a CS Major , but the girls were mostly in EE, so ..) , I don't think rolling back the meter's a possible option. Power grids supply voltage at high voltages and use transformers to step it down to reduce transmission losses. Sending current the wrong way doesn't seem to be a valid option to be noticeable (yeah, maybe a bewoulf cluster of these might *snicker*) .

What is more likely is to have a neighbourhood power distribution inside your local transformer loop and feed the it from your production via the same plug. That too might confuse the shock protection circuit breakers which apparently measure current levels between the two wires to make sure no equipment is earthing the power. Also the power man's in for a shock when he finds that there are 200 power sources he has to disconnect to pull a new line off the main cable . Technical difficulties in implementing this are too high , or we'd already be generating our own electricity. (btw, my desk lamp is powered by a solar panel and a rechargeable battery and that's only because my city scheduled a half-hour power cut daily).

Feed the power grid back is a pipe dream at least in the Indian power situation. But oregon might be different after all .... If you need me I'll be in my backyward feeding the power grid with my cold fusion powered giant hamster wheel.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[alwayslurking]

You install solar panels in Long Island and LIPA will buy power off you.

random link from google

Suggests those technical problems aren't insurmountable

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Chagrin]

This is not at all infeasible and is done quite frequently. It's not very economical though as the power company will only pay back at wholesale rates.

Yes, the power man would be in for a shock if the loads weren't properly handled. The power company will require that a cut-off switch (to cut output when the power goes out) be installed for any grid-tie setups.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[StateOfTheUnion]

Actually, last I checked (which was several years ago), the power companies in the US are required to buy generated power from independent generators. Normally, if the generator is a net consumer, the generating party is given a credit for the power generated against the power consumed. The net effect is that one "rolls back the meter" in terms of billing.

As I said before, it has been a long time since I've looked into this . . . it is entirely possible laws may have changed considering the deregulation of the US electric power industry.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[wowbagger]

In order to roll the meter back, all that is necessary is for the current to "run backwards".

However, in order to do this *safely* you must:

a) Take the DC from the panels and convert it to AC .
b) Make sure that AC is in phase with the utility.
c) Make sure that if the utility power goes away, so does your AC onto the mains.

This is what makes feeding power back onto the line complicated - you cannot just hook your panels up to the mains.

It used to be hard to do this, especially for a naturally DC source like solar. Wind generators could use an induction generator, where the generator's field windings are energised from the power company, which gives you the synchronization, but also means that if the winds drop down, your generator becomes a motor and your wind generator becomes a fan - AND if the power company goes down, so do you.

With modern switching power supplies, it is much easier to take a DC panel, boost it to 300VDC, then chop that into 220VAC and feed it back onto the lines while monitoring the lines to insure that the power company is still there. However, it still takes pretty meaty transistors to do the switching - and that adds monitary cost and reduces efficiency.

However, IF you buy the gear do to so, the power companies are REQUIRED to buy power back from you, exactly for the reason of encouraging people to feed the grid.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Umrick]

It's very real (buyback/rollback) and required by law in most states, although they don't necessarily have to give you cash if you exceed, and most cap credits.

It's not so simple as plugging into a socket though. You need a unit that takes your power (usually DC from the source) and matches the phase to the supply source.

A grid-tied system is generally much cheaper than an off-grid solution, as there's no need for batteries. Of course, you lose power when the grid does unless you install batteries and a service disconnect...

Plenty of sources out there on this very thing.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Vexar]

A half-hour power cut daily sounds like California a couple years ago to me, sure you're in India?

Aside from the comments about how solar cells produce about as much energy as was used in their production, is it me, or are solar cells made of really nasty, noxious chemicals? Alloys with heavy metals and all. It can't all be soy-based and recycled aluminium cans! Those roof-based water heaters are miserable. I remember them at a campsite once. Every time a cloud would pass over, the water would get cold; I guess they were not well-insulated!

Someone explain to me why the green crowd considers nuclear energy to be dirty; the radwaste is designed to be used in stepper reactors, and what is left over can be dumped in the nearest volcano or subduction zone. Sure, we don't have stepper reactors, but still their design exists. I know we have innovations since the TRIGA design.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Anonymous Coward]

This depends on the state. Some states require the power company to buy back at retail reates, and still others require the power company to buy back at peak rates, if you feed the grid at peak demand hours.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Crashman_pnc]

Rolling back an Electric meter is something that has been around for a while. The term used is "Net Metering". Most electric meters on the back of your homes will run backwards if you flip them upside down. Most newer meters (Ones with Digital displays) will count up no matter witch way the juice is flowing as a tempering countermeasue. If you've got a deal with the Power Co. to do net metering they will install a special meter.

Goggle: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U TF-8&q=electric+Net+metering&btnG=Search

One thing for anyone that is interested in green power generation and selling it back to the grid is that someplaces (North Corolina I know for sure) do not allow for Net metering due to regulations. Although that is not sure a bad thing, you can have a dual meter setup, one measuring power in and the other power out. If you are generating the right type of green power you may be able to sell it at a higher price per KWH then you buy it.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they were not well-insulated!

Well you can't have it both ways, can you?!

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[WOV]

Check the national labsfor a peer-reviewed study of the energy payback of solar panels - roughly, 500% at minimum.

As for the materials solar panels are made of, they're 95%+ n and p - doped silicon; those (thin film, mostly) that are, e.g. cadmium / tellurium, have less than 1/1000 the heavy metal concentration per kilowatt seen in, e.g. NiCad batteries, and they last for 25+ years, vs. those, which are thrown away into municipal landfills (at best) much more quickly.

"Someone explain to me why the green crowd considers nuclear energy to be dirty when we can just put the waste into nonexistent reactors." That's a pretty easy one, though in all honesty, I'd like to see us step up use of some pebble-bed reactors in order to really yank down our CO2 output, and find somewhere responsible to hold that waste for a couple hundred years - you don't get free energy.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[WOV]

Here's hopefully a clarification of all the below, from someone who works on net metering and interconnection a solid number of hours per week...

Equipment for interconnection and backfeed into the grid are governed by UL and, more relevantly, IEEE standards. (742 and 1547, respectively.)

These have fairly elaborate specifications for, as you said, not hitting the ground protection equipment, going into non-export mode (within a certain number of milliseconds) if the grid trips off, or if the current frequency or reactive power or a variety of other things vary outside certain parameters. Most utilities also require you to have an external, lockable disconnect (for instance, for if linemen are working outside your house on a segemnt of line that's still giving you good enough power that the inverter hasn't tripped you off. (they sensibly treat power lines the same way you treat working on guns - be 100% sure it's unloaded, and then be 100% sure you treat it as though it's loaded.)

These technical standards are fairly well established by the community of power engineers to be more than sufficiently safe, and we're seeing progress in their implementation: the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, for instance, has issued a model standard for their use.

However, it's far from uniform nationwide; utilities are used to implementing their own idiosyncratic rules for every part of their grid, and this (testing and retesting the same inverters in enery state, making them programmable to comply with Podunk Utility Co's individual requirements, etc.,) has become a major cost obstacle for the use of what's termed "distributed generation."

It does vary from state to state and utility to utility; while they *are* required under the Public Utility Holding Company Act or the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (don't remember which it is) to buy your power back from you, that's only at wholesale (ca. 2 cents per kWH,) whereas if you're truly net metering (and single-meter, spin-it-backwards net metering is something literally thousands of solar and small wind users legally do every day), you can get 7 - 14 cents. An easy way to check all of these, state by state, is the DSIRE website.

As for the solar energy payback timeand toxicity,which I'm frustratingly sure someone will bring up in this thread, those are essentially canards that "seem right" to those who haven't really looked into it but maybe heard it ten years ago, but don't hold up to empirical scrutiny.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[ThisIsNotKendall]

Where I come from the girls were mostly business and psychology majors. You also did a good job of demonstrating just how limited your EE knowledge is. Good job.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[brer_rabbit]

In Soviet Russia solar panels buy you!

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just know this is a troll.... but here goes. Electricity is not like a water main, if you cut it off in the middle of one direction, it does not spray at you from the other. Electricity requires a circuit.

Re:Rolling back the meter ?.

[Vexar]

Thank you for the information on solar panels, I do appreciate it. As I recall, silicon wafers use some pretty fierce chemistry to produce and purify, and that was not listed there, just the energy involved. What is irresponsible about dropping the waste into an open lava pit? Or a subduction zone? Or doping it into glass and putting it in stainless steel cases inside sheds inside salt mines?

In Minnesota, we don't see that 1800 KwH of sunlight, nor do we see the sun, and our home energy consumption is easily 4x as high in the winter when everything outside is dead or migrating to survive. They want to use windmills out here, and stick them in the middle of the cornfields. I think, largely, that can be a good idea, but I understand they are a hazard to birds. I think as long as they don't kill raptors and perching birds, I'm fine with the occasional Canada Goose and umpteenth crow. The rotting carcass of a dead goose or crow would do good for the soil in the corn fields.

Re:Solar Electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the odds of getting everything round the wrong way like that?! You are Backwards-Man!

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Anonymous Coward]

just did a google search if you enter 800sq ft you get 74.322432 m2. If you enter 800sq ft meters you get m3.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[aLe-ph-1(sh)]

800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3, not 244 (you need to divide by 9, not 3...) google omnipitam est. -- Alter so, basically they need a good swedish designer to come in and tear down some walls? ...Cheaper materials through Meson-Quark Model of the Nucleus> Antenna for Visible Light

The future...

[here4fun]

I doubt many people would want to live in 800 square foot houses if given a choice. Most people who make money like to build big gigantic houses. Some even like to go into well established neighborhoods, buy an older smaller house, tear it down, and build their McMansion.

I think the real problem humanity will face is over population. The world is staying the same size, but there are more people. How much longer can people keep cutting down trees, without replacing them, until the price of lumber gets so high that only a small amount of people will be able to afford it. I remember when I was in highschool, the population of the USA was 250 million, and in the papers a few weeks ago it referenced the population at 300 million. If that is correct, we grew by 50 million people in the past 15 years. What will happen in the next 50 years? Is it possible we will pass the half a billion mark? Will we become the next India?

What people should think about is economics. The world is becomming a divided place. Even in the USA. I remember reading an article in school which showed that the top 1% of people in the USA owned 10% of the wealth around the time of the revolution. Today 1% of the USA owns more than 40% of all the wealth. The papers also had an article that Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay. That means buisness will be able to force people to work more hours, without the detterant of paying time_and_a_half. Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it? But before anyone decides to jump on the democratic bandwagon, they are not that much better. Both the republican and democratic party are subject to the same rules of the game, the same need to raise moeny and bow to the lobbists. We need a new breed of politicians, but to get them, we need to pay attention and not vote the way we pick what fast food resturan to eat lunch at.

While solar panels might sound cool, it is like a band-aid on a wound to the neck. I don't know what the anwser is. We can't stop people from having kids. We can try and conserve natural resources, but eventually the number of people will be more than the planet can support.

What scares me is the fear that 90% of the population will be pushed into slave like conditions, while the richest 10% live relativly well, even in the worst of conditions. They will hire some of the poor, train them as police or military, and protect the "public peace". Think of India, where even with the poverty, a small percentage of the people live luxeriously, and the rest are controlled by a somewhat corrupt police force and politicians. The rest live on the streat and the have's walk past them, sometimes looking at the have-nots as human garbage, but most of the time trying not to make eye contact.

Re:The future...

[hazem]

The best solution is to educate the world. Educated people tend to have more options and fewer babies.

The last I heard, Italy has negative native population growth and its overall population growth is only positive when immigration is taken into account. And while the US has positive native population growth, a great deal of the overall growh is also from immigration.

It probably has to do with more guys getting educated and becoming computer geeks. Their chance of reproducing then drops precipitously because they spend all their time on slashdot.

Re:The future...

[AaronGTurner]

" I doubt many people would want to live in 800 square foot houses if given a choice."

It's about the standard size for the 'Universal' house design in the UK in the interwar period, and also about the size of typical terraced houses from the 1880-1914 period too. Our house dates from 1962 and has smaller base plan than houses build in 1918-39, but has been extended to about 1000 square feet.

Re:The future...

[mcrbids]

We can't stop people from having kids. We can try and conserve natural resources, but eventually the number of people will be more than the planet can support.

Over-population is not quite the problem you think it is. In the United States, pop growth has slowed to a crawl, and most of our growth is due to immigration.

Developed countries the world over have slow (and declining) birthrates. Heck, Italy is trying to encourage their population to reproduce - they are suffering from net population decrease!

World population, based on current trends, is due to stabilize around 2075 at around 9 million people.

There are a number of reasons for this. Affluent people tend to have fewer kids, merely because they are a hassle. In the more impoverished nations, existing infrastructure is failing to provide for current needs, let alone future growth. For example, one of the largest mass poisonings ever in human history is taking place in Asia because of arsenic-laced drinking water.

<RANT>

What truly amazes me is the sheer number of people who don't google whatever they're talking about before they say it. The volume of uninformed, stupid comments on the Internet that can be corrected with 10 minutes of googling and quick research is mind-boggling.

People with access to this kind of information should not be making the stupid comments they are. That they do, anyway, and don't get flogged on the streets is a mere testament to the fact that humanity does not yet value intelligence and critical thinking over stupidity.

I daresay we are entering a new era of humanity - the era of the informed but ignorant idiot. The information is there - cheap, easily available. Tools that our ancestors would have killed for - and we use it to pass along mundane drivel because "we feel" or "we think" rather than actually use that tool to anywhere near its true potential.

Sad. TV is used for network television and advertising, instead of mass education and information. News shows on TV are remarkably shallow and uninformative. The best bet are the "nature" shows, which are nice but curiously designed towards complacency.

We are in the middle of a mass extinction event brought about, no doubt, by people who chcose not to be informed, and make decisions based on ego and inadequate information.

We need to pay attention, people!

</RANT

Re:The future...

[StateOfTheUnion]

In the case of an unbalanced few rich versus many poor in a democratic country, it is in the best interest of the rich to manipulate the poor to continue to vote for politicians that will preserve the status quo. This is perhaps mjost easily visible in rich democratic European countries such as the UK, Spain and the Netherlands that still have royal families that are subsidized by the governments. These are some of the richest families in the world, but they continue to be subsized through state provided security, state provided royal palaces, state provided transportation, etc. Why don't these people in these democratic countries vote for politicians to abolish these policies? Because through careful marketing and public showmanship, these royal families have managed to convince the public that preserving the royal family subsidies is in the best interest of the country.

On a wider scale, the rich in the US have convinced the middle/poorer classes that universal health care, caps on perscription drug prices, and meaningful national housing subsidies for the working poor are not in their best interests of the public.

If the public in democratic countries would get together as a voting block, they could easily change these problems by voting for politicians that would address these issues. . . but they don't. Until this changes, don't expect the status quo to change.

Re:The future...

[llansamlet]

How much longer can people keep cutting down trees, without replacing them, until the price of lumber gets so high that only a small amount of people will be able to afford it.

I believe most of the wood we use here in Europe comes from sustainable sources. We are even being encouraged to use more wood as it's claimed that there is a net growth in forests due to replanting. So the more we use, the more they plant. I hope that there is some limit though, as I assume managed forests are dense and are basically dead as far as an ego systems go.

I think the real problem humanity will face is over population. The world is staying the same size, but there are more people.

Not here in Europe. We are going to need to increase population either by immigration or birth rate, else we are going to be stuck in our old age with nobody of working age to look after us.

Looking at disparate use of resources would be a good start. US has 5% of world's population, but uses 25% of oil resources. If the entire world woke up and started claiming the same proportion of world resources that we in the west use, we'd need 6 other earth planets to fulfil this demand!

Trouble is that large countries (China, India) are beginning to wake up (thanks in part to us poking them with the globalisation stick as we think we can make money off them). We probably don't know what monster we've awoken.

What scares me is the fear that 90% of the population will be pushed into slave like conditions, while the richest 10% live relatively well, even in the worst of conditions.

This is just an effect of capitalism isn't it? The 10% have to be doing well so that it gives the 90% some incentive to work harder. We're not going to be solving that one in the near future.

Re:The future...

[Azghoul]

You need to chill out a bit and enjoy your life more.

We're not overpopulating the world. It appears we'll max out by 2050 and then the population will start pulling back a bit.

As for "cutting down trees without replacing them", you're just plain wrong there man. In the US, there are more trees now than there were a hundred, or even 200 years ago.

Everything gets better as technology increases. We need less and less land to produce food for everyone.

So what we SHOULD do is push everywhere else in the world to increase their education and technology. Then the lower classes there will (just like we did 50, 75 years ago) realize they're getting jobbed and will step up and demand better conditions.

How best to do that? Investment in local economies.

Re:The future...

[drooling-dog]

Most people who make money like to build big gigantic houses.

People think that consumption on ever larger scales is going to make them feel happy and fulfilled, and when it doesn't, the solution is always more consumption. We're trained this way from birth, and our economy is based on it.

I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal several years ago about people who hit it big (or semi-big) during the dotcom bubble and immediately bought or built big, palatial houses with everything but the moat. It turned out that many of these people never felt comfortable in their new spreads. They were too big, too expensive (in time as well as money) to furnish and maintain, and left the inhabitants feeling isolated and like they were rattling around inside an overly large box.

Knowing what your real needs are: priceless.

Re:The future...

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it?

America transformed from single-income households to double-income, and nobody really complained about it. (Disclaimer: It IS a big problem.) Now, forcing those double incomes to work longer hours is probably going to become acceptable to continue affording the "good life" -- homes at least 50% overpriced, cars 100% overpriced, lots of snazzy plastic shit for the kids, everybody's got a $30/mo cellphone, private schooling, lots of credit cards ... you get the idea.

America is drowning in affluence. And we are working about 60 hours per week in real terms (either 2 incomes, or 1 overworked single person on heavy overtime) to afford all of it.

So ... enjoy! You wanted it, America, and you've got it.

In contrast, a reserved couple in 800-sq-ft home that's dirt cheap to run will finally know the American Dream, outside of this destructive rat race. I've been working on that myself; I live modestly and consume little. My careful usage of natural gas from last year alone has saved me $150. I've rejected all that culture of "get on a service and get raped per minute/cu-ft/kwh/etc.".

Re:The future...

[Shihar]

Over population is certainly NOT the problem. Over population is something that is easily solved with technology. The world has no shortage of space. There is plenty of places left to put more humans comfortably. Take a drive in Canada or even through the US and you will see that a lack of space is not the problem. Space might be tight around city centers, but true land to put people is no problem. The US could comfortably fit a billion people. If you are not being nationalistic, you could easily fit half the world population in the US and Canada without bumping elbows. Even if all land area was used up, there is still the simple fact that a full 2/3 of the world is untouched in the form of the oceans, and there is nearly unlimited space to build up and down.

Actual space to put people is not the problem. Food is not a problem. The US could grow all the world's food by itself. Starvation is not a resource problem. The world has more then enough resources to feed every person alive. The problem is politics. The only reason why people starve is because of politics. If people are starving, you can be sure that they are doing so for a political reason. In Somalia it was because control over food supplies is what gave warlords their power. In North Korea it is because the rest of the world reject their political system and the political system they do have is inhumanly inefficient. Whatever the case, it is always politics why people starve in this day and age.

Even if politics were not the issue, technology is more then capable of solving problems of arability. If you think that a new green revolution in terms of food production is not on its way, you are deluding yourself. The capacity to grow food on this planet will always go well beyond our needs for the foreseeable future.

Finally, you have the matter of resources and energy. Again, energy is a political problem, or at worst, a matter for technology to solve. The sun and the earth's core put out more then enough energy for any society we can possibly conceive of. Hell, atomic forces alone put out more then enough energy for everyone. The only problem is that we fail to have the technology to harness these resources. If you think within the next 100 years we don't find a cure to our energy problems, then you must be taking a very grim stance on technological innovation. Other resources are all just a matter of recycling and exploring untapped areas of the earth (like the few thousands miles of stuff below our feet). Humans do very little destruction of atoms. The building blocks to reclaim all that we use is there. It is just a matter of improved technology to reclaim what we have already used.

Humanity, at least in modern times, is not self sustaining with stagnant technology. The industrial revolution was not something humanity could have maintained forever without a complete collapse in society. If it had lasted for a thousand or two thousand years we might very well have wiped out a large hunk of our population. The point is that as destructive as we were during the industrial revolution technology eventually put an end to it. The doomsday that people feared the industrial revolution was going to bring about never came. The same is true for today. Certainly we can't keep doing what we are doing for another thousand years, but then again, I don't think humanity intends to.

Re:The future...

[WOV]

Apparently, though, Italy views that population decline as a real problem - Italy and France are both examining re-upping an old WWII policy of giving medals and other recognition to new mothers. = )

Re:The future...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I remember when I was in highschool, the population of the USA was 250 million, and in the papers a few weeks ago it referenced the population at 300 million. If that is correct, we grew by 50 million people in the past 15 years. What will happen in the next 50 years?

More immigration? Most of our population growth is due to people coming here from other countries. If it wasn't for that, we might face the same problems as europe, where most countries are deflating.

Re:The future...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

As for "cutting down trees without replacing them", you're just plain wrong there man. In the US, there are more trees now than there were a hundred, or even 200 years ago.

Well, there are two problems with that: first, we are cutting down forests and replacing them with tree farms. That would be fine if we then maintained it as a farm (I don't know whether we are). The other problem is that, over in south america, they're chewing through the rain forest at a crazy pace, doing slash and burn to raise cattle. I suppose the solution there is to set up a group to buy the land and steward it.

Re:The future...

[zummit]

How World Population and Consumption Trends
May Affect Global Changes in the 21st Century

Aspen Global Change Institutes's Fourth Annual Walter Orr Roberts Memorial Public Lecture Series
July 22, 1993

http://home.earthlink.net/~swfry/lec1.html

Re:The future...

[Azghoul]

Exactly: Private ownership is key. If the Sierra Club wants all the trees to be left alone for perpetuity, they should buy some.

And we aren't necessarily replacing all trees with tree farms. We are using less and less land for farming, and more "goes wild" every year.

We're still way ahead. Living in DC, I get a little 'down' now and then watching the sprawl expand. But drive an hour south and there's no sign of urban sprawl at all.

Re:The future...

[Entropy Unleashed]

"World population, based on current trends, is due to stabilize around 2075 at around 9 million people."

Joining Heaven's Gate was a 1997 trend, not a current one.

Re:The future...

[TVC15]

>Apparently, though, Italy views that population decline as a real problem - Italy and France are both examining re-upping an old WWII policy of giving medals and other recognition to new mothers. = )

Wow a medal! If that isn't incentive for 9 months of pregnancy, labor, sleepless nights for 18 years... I don't know what is.

Re:The future...

[wattersa]

You're complaining about human nature which isn't going to change. Your best bet is to continue safe in the knowledge that you're one of the true elite-- a capable, self-driven person who can find the information and put it to practical use. You are the kind of person who would survive in the event of a mass extinction while MTV-raised brats whine about not being able to find food and do nothing, and then they die. I too would prefer to live like Mad Max than not at all. There's a lot of bitterness from those of us who have seen the future, but unfortunately the "hell in a handbasket" theory is difficult to persuade people with. Make them feel it in the wallet and you'll succeed, otherwise I suggest you brush up on your knife fighting ability.

Re:The future...

[bob_jenkins]

I'm thinking of buying a 1200 sq ft house in an established area, tearing it down, and building a 6000 sq ft house in its place. Most of that square footage would be underground, but still. I'd have flat roofs for decks or gardens or water heating on top, not really to be green, but just because with a 60'x90' lot and a 50'x60' house, where else would I put the back yard? Trial floor plans here. I'd tear down an old house and build a new because there are no vacant lots left in Silicon Valley.

My current 1400 sq ft townhouse (3 adults 3 small children, really 900 sq ft you can walk on) is cramped. People sleep in the living room. There's more stuff than storage. There's no space for a workshop or a kid-free home office. Reading a newspaper is challenging. I can imagine moving into an 800 sq ft house, but I'd probably have to give up my computer and guitar to do it.

What's the disadvantage to having a large house other than heating? Making houses tiny is a much more intrusive way to address heating costs than using insulation, solar water heating, and glazed windows.

Re:The future...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice rant. BTW, did you mean 9 BILLION rather than 9 MILLION people? It's amazing to me how many people don't proof-read.

Re:The future...

[geekboy2k]

Well, part of what you said is already happening. My father is in the construction industry and has said over the past year or so lumber products have tripled or quadrupled in price. I would imagine that is caused partially by the massive increase in new housing in the nation (intrest rates were the lowest in 40-50 years, so people are building) as well as changing environmental/forest management policies.

Re:The future...

[Moofie]

This is just an effect of capitalism isn't it? The 10% have to be doing well so that it gives the 90% some incentive to work harder. We're not going to be solving that one in the near future.

No. Enron is not the epitome of capitalism. Small business is the epitome of capitalism. Small business also drives the US economy, which also drives the economy of most of the planet.

Re:The future...

[Eccles]

In the US, there are more trees now than there were a hundred, or even 200 years ago.

That's because we added Alaska and numerous other states in the intervening time. Sorry, but that statement is effectively a lie.

Re:The future...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you expert opinion is... what? That all of those species are NOT going extinct? Do you think they are all fine, or they will suddenly rebound when the world population 'stabilizes' at 1 and 1/2 times the world population now?

Think about that for a moment, 1.5 times as many people means even less habitat, less space, less food for EVERYTHING ELSE or do you have a link to show me that shows this is not so?

"Over-population" does not mean a permanently increasing number, it means TOO MANY PEOPLE whether at a 'stable' number or a still increasing number. All the species that have gone extinct and all the rest that are going extinct now seems to show pretty clearly that the earth IS overpopulated.

hippie heating!

[Deanalator]

The building that I live in at Portland State University is a "green rated" building. Besides all the recirculated heat etc, it also uses collected rain water to do things like flush the pottys.

One of the advantages I guess to living in a state with dirt cheap electricity and *way* too much water :-/

Re:hippie heating!

[AaronGTurner]

" I doubt many people would want to live in 800 square foot houses if given a choice."

Do you have any links for this specifically, as I don't see the need to flush toilets with water you could drink. Saying this our cats insist on drinking toilet water preferentially to fresh water in their water dish for some reason, but then they might like rain water more as they also seem to think rain water from a muddy puddle is especially delicious.

Re:hippie heating!

[acd294]

Holy Crap! You live in Epler? I lived there all of last year. Gonna move into a two bedroom this year though. I was in 219 if you are interested.

You know if the new Broadway Building is a Green Building as well?

Re:hippie heating!

[climbing_monkey]

I'm not quite sure if you were responding to the quote above or the post about the house on the PSU campus so i'll just assume you were responding to the house.

In PDX you might as well flush toilets with the water you could be drinking if it comes from the rain seeing as on winter it rained gosh, 17 days in a row something like that. None the less, it rains constently in Portland most of the time and the rain is suprisingly clean, not as clean as the water we (I use to live in Portland for 17 years but just moved in June...so I still talk like I'm over there sometimes) get from Bull Run which is the cleanest water in the nation, but none the less it's pretty clean.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Infinityis]

Well, if you're gonna get technical, you gotta go all the way...the carat symbol is what happens when you type an uppercase 6 800 sq. ft. = 74 m^2

Clean power needs natural resources...

[Gopal.V]

> Portland relies on hydro power rather than dirty power

Hydro power is sometimes more disruptive than nuclear power - you never hear nuclear power causing an earthquake do you ? .

> Why don't the regions of the US that rely heavily on coal or nucler power have the same impitus for cleaner alternatives ?.

Solar panels, Wind power and tidal power plants need a few natural resources which aren't easily transportable. (or think about solar panels in a hailstorm ?).

The best use of solar panels I've ever seen was for AirConditioning ... if the sun's not out, the air's cool anyway and if it is solar power kicks in . Don't know if it'll work for a bigger scale , unless we have spray on solar panels for those BIG tinted windows.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Technician]

The best use of solar panels I've ever seen was for AirConditioning ... if the sun's not out, the air's cool anyway and if it is solar power kicks in . Don't know if it'll work for a bigger scale , unless we have spray on solar panels for those BIG tinted windows.


For the simple answer to cost of instal is check the power requirement for a simple AC unit. Remember they don't like power sags. Now price a solar system big enough to run the AC. Also price the storage battery or co-gen setup to keep it running when a puffy cloud passes by.

For most people, the required expense to run a high power draw device is beyond a home solar instalation. Most solar instalations are for hot water, and enough electric to run a few small energy effecient appliances. Don't expect to run a regular all electric home of just solar. Expect to use an alternate power source for things like the hot water, heating, cooling and clothes dryer. They won't be solar electric.

Another place to check is your monthly electric bill. Our home of 6 in the summer runs about 35 KWH/day. This is about an order of magnetude above a typical home photo-voltaic instalation. Very deep cuts in electric use are in order to even consider moving off grid. I simply don't have enough money or roof space to supply my current electric demand. Things like the dishwasher, electric dryer, AC, electric heat, and un-effecient refrigeration (fridge and freezer) would have to be replaced.

A high effeciency fridge is a serious chunk of change. I've looked into them.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[ajs318]

The reason why conventional air conditioning units {and refrigerators -- a fridge is just a cupboard with its own air-con venting into the kitchen} are sensitive to voltage drops, is the kind of motor they use to drive the compressor; a capacitively-started induction motor. The idea is that once the motor has started, a time delay relay disconnects the starter winding. This time delay relay typically uses a simple bimetallic strip and heater coil arrangement; in pre-semiconductor times, this was about the only way to do it, and it just kind of stuck. At first, the strip is touching a contact which sends current through the capacitor and starter winding; as it heats up, it bends away from the contact and cuts the power to the starter winding, so only the main winding is powered. If you don't use the starter winding then the motor will sit still (unless you spin the armature by some external means).

The problem is that at low voltages, the heater doesn't get hot enough to open the bi-metallic switch. The starter winding stays connected all the time and the motor draws about double the power it should ..... and gets hotter than it should. Now, if the delay relay were mounted in good thermal contact with the motor, then it would be helped to operate by the excess heat building up in there; but that huge hefty chunk of a motor would slow down the resetting action. This means next time the refrigerator's thermostat is calling for cooling, the motor won't start because the delay relay is now in the "run" position. So the motor just gets hotter and hotter. And he fridge certainly isn't getting any cooler, so the thermostat won't open in a hurry. It has actually been known for fridges to fail castastrophically under low-voltage conditions!

(As an aside, I know that an electronic delay relay could be built that would do the same job, but using a simple R-C delay circuit coupled to a conventional electromagnetic relay, for about 50p in bulk. Maybe modern fridges do actually use this kind of thing instead.)

If you wanted to build an air conditioner that was really immune to supply fluctuations, the obvious choice would be a DC brushless motor. You could run it from mains via a switch mode supply -- they're cheap as chips nowadays -- or straight from DC. Brushless motors are quite tolerant of voltage variations anyway, as long as you can get enough whack to shift the spindle and not so much as to damage the transistors in the drive circuit. And it would also be an idea to give a refrigerator a chimney of its own, so as to dispose of the hot air it produces directly rather than relying on your home's aircon to shift it. If you added a nice big air relief opening, the draught thus created should help to cool the kitchen. In winter, you could divert the fridge flue into an upstairs room (you don't want to get it back anywhere near the fridge). With an aircon, you probably could do something sensible with the meltwater from the ice that builds up on the evaporator, too.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Technician]

The idea is that once the motor has started, a time delay relay disconnects the starter winding. This time delay relay typically uses a simple bimetallic strip and heater coil arrangement; in pre-semiconductor times, this was about the only way to do it, and it just kind of stuck.

Nice try.. Now for the facts. An induction motor has a synchronous speed. It's realated to line frequency. A 2 pole motor has a synchronous speed of 3600 RPM on 60 cycle power. Due to something called slip, it runs slightly below synchronous speed. A two pole induction motor speed is usualy rated at about 2-5% less than the synchronous speed at the rated load. Changing the line voltage does not change the speed much. At a fixed speed and fixed load, the power requirement remains fixed. Lower the voltage and the current goes up. Your theory was the current dropped and that kicked in the start winding. WRONG. Low voltage may keep the motor from reaching speed and trip the overloads. Drop the voltage and the current goes up.. I squared/R losses increase. This is why in brownout situations motors overheat, not run cool. This increasing current at reduced voltages is why a heavy air conditioning load tends to compound a brownout situation.

Try it. Plug a small freezer into a variac and monitor the current with a clamp ampmeter while reducing the voltage.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[ajs318]

I think you misread what I was talking about. What you say makes sense in its own right, but it doesn't have anything to do with what I said.

Unless you pull some stunts, a single phase induction motor will never start from rest, because the only thing magnetising the armature is the induced current due to the difference in rotational speeds between the armature itself and the "revolving field" (which, with just one set of windings, is more like a collapsing and expanding field). One solution is to use a "shade" (a single or double shorted turn of thick copper wire) on one pole piece to deliberately distort the magnetic field, and so give the armature an initial kick; but this makes the motor inefficient and so isn't practical for anything bigger than a few watts. Another, which doesn't introduce so many losses, is to use a second stator winding with pole pieces at 90 degrees to the first, and energise this with current 90 degrees out of phase with the first winding. Now you really do have a true revolving field -- and as a bonus, you have twice the magnetism available, which gives you extra torque (which you typically need at starting anyway). But, due to the fact that the electrical phase shift (due to the capacitor) is not exactly equal to the mechanical phase shift (due to the offset windings), this will introduce losses. Fortunately, once the motor is running, you can switch off one of the windings and it will carry on rotating.

In a manual-start application, it is easy to have a switch with "stop", "run" and "start" positions and spring-loaded so it will go from "start" to "run" when released. But in a thermostatically controlled application, you need a device to automatically apply power to the starter winding just for long enough that the motor catches, then disconnect it. Traditionally that device is a thermal relay (heater and bi-metallic strip). The heater is connected in parallel with the running winding. When cold, the bi-metallic strip is touching a contact that completes the circuit through the capacitor and starter winding. As the strip heats up, it bends away from the contact and disconnects the starter winding. However, if it is not getting hot enough to bend (due to low voltage; recall that P = E ** 2 / R, so a drop of 10% voltage means 20% less power), then it will stay connected. This means the starter winding will stay in circuit and the motor will overheat.

A thermal relay introduces a loss of its own, of course; but it's typically only a watt or so. If this is less than the loss due to having the motor run in split-phase mode full time, and less than the loss due to using shaded poles, it's still a saving.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[ChrisMaple]

I've never heard of thermal delays for motors before. I have heard of centrifugal switches to shut off the start winding. Is this not practical?

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[ajs318]

A centrifugal switch does actually sound like a better way of doing it ..... unless there are other problems ..... You could emulate it perfectly, electronically, by having positional feedback, but it'd cost more than a simple delay switch.

I think DC brushless is still overall the best way to do it, though. (And you need positional feedback, which you get from Hall-effect or optical sensors, so you know the motor is going round). Especially polyphase -- which can even run without a permanent magnet, since the armature is always lining up between lines of flux. But then, I'm biased ..... I just like DC brushless motors!

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[cayenne8]

"The best use of solar panels I've ever seen was for AirConditioning ... if the sun's not out, the air's cool anyway and if it is solar power kicks in ."

Dunno where you live...but, during the summer (and our summer pretty much runs May-Oct down here)...you can easily have mid-upper 90's, with 90%+ humidity on a cloudy day.

No way to survive that w/o A/C. I'm in New Orleans...and it is too jungle hot down here for a large part of the year to go with sunny day based A/C

:-)

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[El]

nd it would also be an idea to give a refrigerator a chimney of its own, so as to dispose of the hot air it produces directly rather than relying on your home's aircon to shift it. Why not just put the coils outside?

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Moofie]

Because it's hot out there.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Gooba42]

Or wrap them around a water heater?

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Engineer-Poet]

A centrifugal switch does actually sound like a better way of doing it .....

That's why so many single-phase capacitor-start motors use them (you are parading your ignorance around).

If you are going to pay for inverters anyway, it may well be cheaper to use a 3-phase induction motor with variable-frequency drive; you lose some efficiency in the slip but the armature is much cheaper than permanent magnets. Such motors have essentially replaced DC servomotors.

Re:Clean power needs natural resources...

[Technician]

The heater is connected in parallel with the running winding.

Not on any of the motors I have serviced. The ones I have serviced use either a thermal or magnetic start contactor. They are connected in series with the run winding. High stall current engauges the start winding on a magnetic starter, and a thermal one has the start winding on for a time delay. Neither system uses line voltage for operation of the heat or magnetic element. It uses the series current to the run winding. The thermal design is usualy a dual stage. The first click kicks off the start winding. The second only trips if the motor overheats or does not start due to being stalled. The second stage disconnects the entire motor for thermal burnout protection. This is the one you hear if a fridge is accidently unplugged while running and plugged right back in. The high system pressure on the compressor may prevent the compressor from restarting and will thermally trip off. After a couple retries when the pressure has bled down, the compressor will again restart and run normally.

Without this protection, either the main breaker will trip due to the overload, or the compressor will fry itself. Start current is typicaly 5X the run current.

Cost of the Solar Cells?

[DAldredge]

I am not fully up on solar cell tech so these numbers may be wrong but it appears that a solar cell setup costs between $5000 - $7000 per KWH. This being a 3.3 KW setup would place the cost of the solar cells alone at 15,000 - 21,000.

I just do not see how they can build the house for what they are saying they can. I also do not understand why they had to get a 15,000 grant to build a home that costs nothing to heat/cool.

Re:Cost of the Solar Cells?

[the_twisted_pair]

Actually, try checking-out allowances from your local power company. In many States your service providers offer 30-50% buy-down i.e. generous rebates on completed installations. And they have to buy your surplus power :-)

Check out www.homepower.com, they're pretty good on thi ssort of thing.

Re:Cost of the Solar Cells?

[WOV]

$5 - 7 / W (installed) would be pretty low for residential; figure, honestly, more like $6.50 - $8. But twisted pair is right; you can frequently get half or more off - I recommend DSIREfor a good list.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[hazem]

It's because we Portlanders are so full of hot air... we'll make any flat surface we're standing on seem to take on 3 dimensions.

Social Engineering

[pedestrian crossing]

I doubt many people would want to live in 800 square foot houses if given a choice. Most people who make money like to build big gigantic houses. Some even like to go into well established neighborhoods, buy an older smaller house, tear it down, and build their McMansion.

I think the real problem humanity will face is over population.

The problem isn't so much overpopulation. The problem is that a small segment of the world's population has acquired a taste for a lifestyle that uses a disproportionate amount of resources.

People need to start choosing to live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

The real change will require social engineering on a massive scale.

Imagine if it was considered patriotic (instead of crazy/granola) to use fewer/alternate resources!

Re:Social Engineering

[hazem]

Imagine if it was considered patriotic (instead of crazy/granola) to use fewer/alternate resources!

Yeah... that in a country, where after getting attacked, the President tells people to "go shopping".

Re:Social Engineering

[dabigpaybackski]

"Imagine if it was considered patriotic (instead of crazy/granola) to use fewer/alternate resources!" Think back a ways. During World War II, there were shortages and rationing brought on by the war effort. Propaganda messages instructed the public to avoid unnecessary car trips, and everybody with a back yard had a "victory garden." Now, if you could get people to do this shit without needing a war to do it...

Re:Social Engineering

[prefect42]

Hell, I chose to buy a house close enough to work that I walk in every morning. A small car would be a big step in the wrong direction ;)

Re:Social Engineering

[dajak]

The problem isn't so much overpopulation. The problem is that a small segment of the world's population has acquired a taste for a lifestyle that uses a disproportionate amount of resources.

People need to start choosing to live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

The population density of the United States now is roughly similar to a conservative estimate of peak population density of Celtic Belgium in pre-Roman times. In those days import of resources was negligable, and the yield of agriculture was probably roughly 1:3. Theoretically, the US population should be able to survive on subsistence agriculture with prehistoric techniques. Of course the geographic features of the US are different (subtract much of Alaska and mountain ranges), but the US does not appear to have an overpopulation problem from a subsistence point of view. It must therefore be a lifestyle issue.

If houses are smaller, you spend less money, time, and/or resources in heating, maintaining, and cleaning your house. If the neighbours houses are also small and there are less than 1.5 parking spaces (monumental waste of space in the US) per inhabitant in the country you can walk to the shops instead of driving there.

75m^2 is not impossibly small for a new 3 to 4 bedroom house in in the more expensive areas of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 105m^2 is a typical size for a new 3 bedroom house (built on 80m^2 land, max. 60% covered with the house, and selling in the range $250.000-400.000 depending on location) in the west of the Netherlands.

Re:Social Engineering

[bstarrfield]

I have to disagree with you. Overpopulation is the greatest danger we face. Simply, even if we (the Western nations) cut our consumption by 50%, it makes no difference in even the short run. Then entire West (US, Canada, Europe, Oceania, Japan) is only about 10% of the world population - and as a percantage has actually been falling for decades.

Look at the math - if the world population stabilizes at 9 billion, those resources relinquished by the West will simply be consumed by the growing third-world population.

This is an issue where our political correctness could damn well prove suicidal. Third world countries, anxious to have a massive and cheap labor pool, care little about controlling their populations and instead point out (correctly) that the West is destroying the enviornment. Yet their population growth is just as dangerous a threat to the world, perhaps more.

I've wondered what would happen if we did cut our consumption down to the level of, say, India, if we did equalize global consumption. Would we just have a vast, impoverished world waiting for famine?

The West needs to use resources wisely, and the third wold must accept that outbreeding the West is not the key to economic success if we are to have any hope for the future of humanity.

Re:Social Engineering

[tialaramex]

"Look at the math - if the world population stabilizes at 9 billion, those resources relinquished by the West will simply be consumed by the growing third-world population."

So what?

A lot of crazy people have been running around saying that we're consuming too much of everything, as a species. They've been saying it for about a century now, and it isn't getting any more true. They point at charts (which show hilarious things like an assumption of no net energy input to the planet, ah hahahah) and they hold committee meetings and occasionally they write miserable books. They anthropomorphise an entire planet (Hello Gaia theory) in order to support their demand for arbitrary lifestyle changes which would make them feel comfortable.

I'm not interested in preventing hippies from drinking rainwater, living in cardboard houses, recycling plastic bottles or whatever else they want to do. I am interested in preserving my rather comfortable and wholely sustainable lifestyle despite the hippies, and thus I don't like to see them press their agenda as the "only sustainable way forward" regardless of whether it's printed on recycled paper. This planet is quite capable of feeding 10 billion people take-out Indian food in aluminium containers for longer than all recorded history, and even letting them all drive home with it, and eat it in air conditioned comfort.

Re:Social Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't so much overpopulation. The problem is that a small segment of the world's population has acquired a taste for a lifestyle that uses a disproportionate amount of resources.

People need to start choosing to live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

Yeah, most people in the world live in homes that are little more than a bedroom with mats in it. I'd like to be environmently friendly, but it would be on my terms not those.

Re:Social Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that socialist/communistic "social engineering" shit. I have every damn right to use whatever resources I pay for.

Waste heat to electricity.

[Mortiss]

To further increase eco-friendliness of this house they should also consider equipping it with materials that convert waste heat directly to electricity.

http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/art icle.jsp?rp=1&id=mg18324635.100(Subscription required)

Although the technology is still in its early stages , it looks promising enaugh to reduce energy waste in households.

Re:Waste heat to electricity.

[AaronGTurner]

One thing to do is compost. We compost as much as we can (we need a second compost bin now, though, as we don't use the compost quickly enough).

One issue we have with the result of compost (a very lush soil) is that we can only really put in household waste and grass clippings as garden waste often contains weed seeds. If anyone knows of a way to either kill off those weed seeds, or a use to put weed seed containing composted waste to I'd been keen to hear about it.

Re:Waste heat to electricity.

[adamdeprince]

Google for hot composting.

Re:Waste heat to electricity.

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing to do is compost.

What, you don't pocket-mulch?

Passive heating = the HURD of architecture

[firefarter]

My gf told me that passive heating in houses is being offered for years and years. The technology is there - it just won't catch on.
Why? Because, for one, you can't even open a window to let fresh air in - it would disrupt the heat cycle. Oh - and that people don't feel comfortable with styrofoam walls. And that the kitchens are usually in the middle and have no ceiling, etc...

Re:Passive heating = the HURD of architecture

[DrCode]

Hmm... Our Portland house has 'passive heating' of a kind, in that we have large, unobstructed south-facing windows. The result is that we don't have to heat much in winter (except for the rare times when it's snowing).

Summer, though, is a problem.

Re:Passive heating = the HURD of architecture

[Zoxed]

I guess you have not done much research on this!!

I and my family live in a 128m2 passivly heated flat in Germany. It is in a block of 39 other flats. We have no heating system just good insulation, draught proofing and large triple glazed windows. They is a piped ventilation system (NOT air conditioning) with a heat exchanger to recover a lot of the heat from the outgoing air. We can open the windows, but usally do not need to as fresh air is constently supplied. The kitchen looks out of large windows on to the central courtyard. The kitchen has a ceiling :-)

Last winter the inside temperature never dropped before 19 degrees inside.

It is a revelation in comfort: especially as I spent the last 15 years in draughty 100 year old houses.

And building cost wise there is not much in it: you spend extra on insulation and good windows but you save on not fitting a boiler and raditors !!

http://home.arcor.de/zoxed/wohnsinn.html

Regards, Simon

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are converting this: 800 m*ft^2 to m^3

About chopsticks

[jandersen]

Yes this is absolutely true. Before that time the Chinese would eat by slamming their face down in the bowl and sucking rice and gravy through their nostrils.

The Endless Possibilities

[phobos13013]

We could go on all day about how easy (for a few bucks extra initial) it would be to make our living structures more environmentally friendly. We are demanding the corporations who make our products to clean up so it is only fair that we do the same. Actually its imperative. For those who think an 800 sq ft home isnt large enough for a family of five or whatever, perhaps you need to realize that jus because you have the ability to build 10,000 sq ft homes and drive 5 metric ton cars (yes we all saw the Hummer replacement marketed on TV & the internet this week) doesnt mean we SHOULD!

There are endless techniques that we can integrate into new homes, many of which should be REQUIRED, including solar panels which are yes very expensive now and not very efficient in energy producing terms, but what about new designs for homes including bigger windows and skylights using low emissivity glass. There have been advancements in new heating technologies like using heat tapped from the Earth's Core, and using renewed and recylced building materials. We have the tech, lets put it to use!

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[AaronGTurner]

There's a house in Denmark that is actually energy positive (it is a net exporter of energy) although I doubt that a house of its design is actually practical for mass production.

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I don't think the "Hummer replacement" you cited was intended for regular use. It looks like it's target audience is for people who tow or need a very sturdy vehicle (which pickup trucks nowdays are not) - think farming or construction. Of course I could be wrong, and that would be... pretty pathetic.

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[Ignignot]

The suggestion that people should be required to buy active power production (like solar panels, etc.) Is simply ridiculous and would never fly in the united states. What can happen is for regulations to require better energy effeciency. Better refrigerators, better cars, better tv's and monitors, better windows, better insulation, and better furnaces. It is a simple fact that when you do things big they tend to be more effecient - the bigger the power plant, the more effecient the power production is. Forcing everyone to do it small is not the way to encourage energy effeciency. It is simply green rhetoric getting out of control - lots and lots of small power generators are nowhere near as effecient as a couple big ones. Personally if I ever build a house I'll go all out on the passive energy efficiency, as long as it is economical. But I'm not about to install solar panels when they aren't even energy producers over their entire lifetime, and I'm not sticking a windmill on top of my house either.

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[Julian352]

Hummer H1 was never designed for regular use. That never stopped the SUV crowd at looking at that military vehicle as a coolness factor. Once it started to become an item of interest for people, someone had to come out with the "consumer" version. I'm sure the SUV crowd will feel "safer" within that new monstrosity than in their current SUV.

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[maxpublic]

There are endless techniques that we can integrate into new homes, many of which should be REQUIRED

Where the hell do all you wannabe tin-pot dictators come from? Here you are, advocating the use of force to inflict your personal views on the rest of the nation, without any regard whatsoever of the concept of freedom and personal choice. You do it without a second thought.

If you want to live in that sort of country, there are plenty of dictatorships all over the world. Choose one and move there.

But if you want your ideas to catch on, you'll have to convince people that they're good ones. Ones that they'll CHOOSE to employ and not be FORCED to employ. That's part and parcel of a free country - suck it up and deal with.

Max

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

Family of 5 in an 800 sq ft home? Seems unrealistic to me.

Hmmm, let me guess: Your chance of having a family of > 1 is 1/x as x approaches infinity.

Re:The Endless Possibilities

[Moofie]

I've got a better idea. Before starting to require things willy nilly, let's go ahead and figure out which of these miracle technologies actually work properly with pilot programs, OK? That way we can avoid disasters like gasoline additives that are more harmful to the environment than gasoline pollution.

Re:live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

[zmollusc]

This will solve the overpopulation problem how? Well, maybe when the houses are smaller in volume than the people who are crammed into them.

Hello America

[Noizemonger]

Tis is ridiculous. We had that kind of houses for YEARS in europe, at least in germany. And its not a niche-market around here but mainstream. Due to the fact that energy and heating costs are very high in germany a lot of people consider a "low-energy-house" or even a "zero-energy-House". But im happy to see that america finally found out about some enviromentally sound ideas from last century. Whats next cleaner air? Less fuel? Kyoto?

Re:Hello America

[BJH]

Same in Japan. Almost every construction company offers "low-energy/high-efficiency" housing here.

Re:Hello America

[Anonymous Coward]

As you might expect, even in Europe only new houses are low energy houses. There are significant differences between housing in Europe and the USA. European houses are built to last longer, so the turnaround time for new technologies is longer as well. Air conditioning is much less common in Europe, mostly due to the milder climate. The AC energy cost is a significant expense which Europeans simply don't need to consider.

Re:Hello America

[Anonymous Coward]

European houses are built to last longer, so the turnaround time for new technologies is longer as well.

Europe has lots of homes that are older than 200 years. I'll bet you that the Europeans came that they are environmentaly friendly because they didn't have electricity and modern plumbing installed.

Re:Hello America

[katorga]

"We had that kind of houses for YEARS in europe, at least in germany." My mom lives in Germany. I have seen the result of "years" of green housing....very very high prices for very little space with long waiting lists an nasty pollution. Again, the G8 are consumer driven economies that are organized to support the mass industrial production of Stuff to be consumed. All the "green" houses, cars and whatnot don't change that as they all require the same environmentally damaging industrial infrastructure to operate. Even if the entire world shifted to a "green" economy based on knowledge work..the production of one computer is the result of a massively damaging chain of industrial production. In fact /. had a story a year or so ago documenting the environmental costs of computer production.

Re:live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

[pedestrian crossing]

I disagree that overpopulation is the problem, at least in the medium term. I think the problem is overconsumption, especially by Americans, and that is the issue addressed by the original article.

Takes Root

[Sinus0idal]

Thought this was about hacking a greenhouse for a minute... back to my coffee...

Staggered Stud Construction

[jonbrewer]

I'd be interested to hear comments on staggered stud construction. I had not heard of the technique until I RTFA. Google finds:

http://www.mnpower.com/energyhome/technology/she ll .html

"Staggered stud construction eliminates the thermal bridging of wall studs and allows space for a high density blown cellulose insulation giving the walls and R-Value of 30. Wall studs are placed at 24" on-center with a single top plate. The roof trusses are lined up directly over the wall studs."

Does anyone do this? Do carpenters / framers anywhere know how to do this the right way?

Re:Staggered Stud Construction

[the_twisted_pair]

Very common, but usually used for acoustic reasons - the minimum of bridging kills flanking transmission. Figure on ~80% more expense though -you're doubling the number of studs and construction time, though prob. using smaller timber sizes.

Re:Staggered Stud Construction

[AnotherSteve]

That's what they use between units in a row of condos or townhomes. Instead of running the insulation up and down between the studs, you weave it in and out along the wall. Keeps the noise down. So, yeah, your larger builders would have experience with it.

Solar power and storage technology

[Zog The Undeniable]

One of the big problems with mains electric power is that it can't easily be stored. This means that wind/wave/solar power all need backup fossil or nuclear capacity for when it's not windy or sunny. Batteries are bulky (look in the basement of your data center), contain nasty chemicals, are expensive and have a short life. Maybe the answer is a few more schemes like Dinorwig? This was originally conceived as a means of responding instantly to spikes in demand, but fundamentally it's a clever way of storing excess power from the grid and releasing it later. How much would it cost to hollow out a few of the Rocky Mountains?

Re:Solar power and storage technology

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine had an interesting idea about storing small amount of irregular locally produced power (small wind turbines, solar cells etc)

He suggested using it electrolyse water into Hydrogen and oxygen which could either be burned to produce heat and water (or even hot water :) or could be used to run a fuel cell. The only problem would be safe storage of gaseous hydrogen (the oxygen could release and normal air used later).

How green are photovoltaics?

[martinde]

I like the idea of distributed solar power generation for a variety of reasons. I think it's one of the only ways that (once installed) has minimal environmental impact, assuming that you're going to build a house in "that spot" either way.
To build fields of solar arrays or mirrors in the desert wrecks the desert, and then you have to deal with transmission line losses which are significant. Same problems with wind, geothermal, hydro, and tidal power - you wreck the environment you install them in to some degree and then you pay transmission line inefficiencies.

And often in these articles they don't talk about the cost of photovoltaics, either. They are semiconductors, which take larges amounts of energy to produce, and require some really nasty chemicals to process as well. So for every house you build with a photovoltaic roof, you've got to deal with those issues, which means it's going to take some time before you net any power or positive environmental impact.

There was an article in Discover Magazine last year about a company who was making a solar power generator based on a Stirling engine and they were claiming some impressive efficiencies. Manufacturing these was an issue of machining which can be made pretty clean - I thought that this was a cool idea. (I'd link to it but I'm in lynx right now and don't feel like googling it - sorry!)

Also you've got the issue of what to do at night. Of course hooking to the grid takes care of that right now but it means that you're relying on "dirty" power at night, and once enough people switch to this model then that would be all the dirty power was there for. Of course, it's sunny somewhere all of the time but then you've got transmission line issues. Putting batteries in your basement is an option, but most of those technologies are nasty too - lots of heavy metals to deal with. "My" solution for that - flywheel storage... I don't know if anyone is seriously working on that one though.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[Technician]

There was an article in Discover Magazine last year about a company who was making a solar power generator based on a Stirling engine and they were claiming some impressive efficiencies

I keep seeing these claims again and again. The thing I can't help but wonder, is why if these are so effecient, is why there isn't one under the hood? Even the green cars such as the Honda Insite and Toyota Prius use internal combustion engines. I keep thinking there is a reason we don't see sterling engines in transportation.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[martinde]

> The thing I can't help but wonder, is why if these are so effecient, is why there isn't one under the hood?

Well, you still need heat to run it. Internal combustion engines have become very clean and the issues with manufacturing them are very well understood, too. And to the best of my knowledge, noone has ever built stirling engines of significant size at production quantities. Even if you made it gasoline powered (using the same infrastructure we currently have) you'd have to prove it was reliable to get any consumer buy-in. It would take some serious resources for an existing, successful company to do it.

It looks like the company that was talking about this has backed off of the technology for now, although it does say they're still working on the idea.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[Jesrad]

The thing I can't help but wonder, is why if these are so effecient, is why there isn't one under the hood?

That's because of low power-to-weight ratio, because they take time to start up, and because they run at a constant, low RPM.

They are used a lot as power generators, on boats for example.

But that could change some day. There is this company that tries to manufacture and market an aviation Stirling engine. And I'm working on a very low weight, variable-RPM Stirling engine based on this concept of an improved rotating internal combustion engine.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[WOV]

EI has gone to concentrating PV - lets them leave something outside on the roof for ten years + without worrying about maintenance or moving parts, which eat up the Stirling's cost advantages very quickly. They have a great little engine, though, I think they'll finagle it into something else before too long.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[ChrisMaple]

To build fields of solar arrays or mirrors in the desert wrecks the desert,

You're joking, right? It's called a desert because it's deserted of anything of value. Adding solar arrays improves the area.

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[martinde]

> You're joking, right?

Ummm, I wasn't joking. There is are ecologies in deserts that can be wrecked. Here is an alternate definition for "desert", FWIW.

I'm not huge environmentalist myself, but I can see how changing the face of a desert would be politically difficult at best. Any time you take a pristine area and build on it there will be some outcry.

And if you look in a place like Phoenix where irrigation has increased the daytime humidity, you can see that there can be profound human impact on these areas. Whether it's worth it or not has to be decided on a case by case basis in my mind.

But why do it if you don't have to? That was my point. Plus you get the added bonus of reducing transmission line losses and "free" electricity if it's on your house...

Re:How green are photovoltaics?

[kongjie]

That's the same kind of thinking that had marshes around the entire nation backfilled for roads, malls, housing etc. A marsh was seen as a valueless wasteland. Now many realize that marshes are relief valves during flooding, create vast areas for wildlife, etc.

A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[hklygre]

You have big feet.

If one foot is 30.48 cm, that makes one square foot 929.03 cm^2, which again makes one m^2 approx. 10.76 ft^2, which again makes 800 ft^2 approx 74.3 m^2. Which is quite a bit less than 244 m^2.

Re:A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass... 929.03 cm^2 is ONE TENTH of a square meter. One square meter is 100cm x 100cm = 10000 cm^2.

Re:A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

that can't be right, mainly due to the fact that there is 10 000 cm^2 in 1m^2, so how u get 800ft^2 = 74.3m^2 is beyond me,

Re:A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[Solder Fumes]

How does that make him a dumbass? 800 / 10 is 80, so it comes out right. Even my trusty TI-85 says that 800 ft^2->m^2 = 74.322432.

Re:A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[HeghmoH]

Why go through all that trouble when you can just ask Google?

(By the way, it does agree with you.)

Re:A square foot is _how_ big, exactly?

[Asterisk]

It looks like they were converting from linear meters to linear feet in the article. 800 ft does equal 244 m. But it's square measure, so your values are correct.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Eunuchswear]

Technical?

You think a units error is "technical"?

And what exactly are "metres xor 2"?

800 sq. ft. = 74m**2.

FORTRAN FOREVER.

(I tried to put &#178; or &sup2; in my post, but slashcode zaps it).

learn - solutions are all there

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe overpopulation can stop when convincing the people that having one child is enough(...). This works fine in North American and European countries.

Giving development aid and producing overpopulation in return is not a good idea.

Elektricity is only half part - oil/gas for heating the other.

There are so many working solutions for replacing most amount of dirty engergy production on hand and well tested and documented already.

How long until we suffer from not applying these?

Look for cross flow heat exchanger, minergie, wind energy, heat pump, thermowell and of course solar power.

Re:Solar Electricity

[AaronGTurner]

" I think I've read somewhere that solar panels cost more in energy to create than they ever produce. Is this correct? " No. Current solar panels generally recover the initial investment in 3 to 5 years (depends on how much sun they get, obviously) and last for about 20. They do degrade a bit in performance towards the end of their lives, but will typically provide 3 to 4 times the initial energy investment during their lifetime.

I don't get this.

[BJH]

I've been looking into building a home here in Japan, and the only thing that turned up in the article that isn't offered by most construction companies/builders here is the staggered studs. The rest of it (roof insulation, foundation insulation, well-insulated windows, single heating/cooling system for the whole house, 3.3KW solar panel) is pretty much standard, or if it's not standard, it's available as a unexceptional option.

Is the US really that far behind in construction techniques?

Re:I don't get this.

[bhima]

Yes!They build disposable houses in the US, I've been there & seen it.

Re:I don't get this.

[Quikah]

No, everything is pretty standard in the US also except the solar panels.

The general idea is that the house was designed with the goal of 0 net energy use.

Doesn't work like that.

[Gordonjcp]

There is a lot of sophisticated switching and matching equipment. There's a bit more to it than simply winding up your genny and watching the meter run the other way.

Stupid

[N8F8]

If you build any house less than 2000 SQ. FT. these days you wouldn't find a buyer. This is where the greenies allways miss the mark. Build the same house with modern amentities (including elbow room) and you may get someone to listen.

Hell, just publish easy steps for the new homebuilder and people will listen. I'm 2/3 the way into building a new house. Months ago I tried to have Slashdot run a "Ask Slashdot" on this very issue. It was rejected , of course.

Here is what I actually did: thermal barrier in the attic, manifold water system, insulated all interior walls, install only one waterheater, cathedral ceilings, return-air ductign in all major rooms and high SEER air conditioning system. Wish I could have found other (affordable) ways to save energy.

Re:Stupid

[BJH]

Hang on a moment - you've got a single air-conditioning system for the entire house and insulation in the internal walls?

Can you control your air conditioner on a per-room basis? If not, the internal wall insulation is a waste.

Re:Stupid

[BenjyD]

Just how big a house do people expect in the US? 800 square feet is a two floor house 20' on a side, right?

My current place (UK, suburbs of Cambridge, so hardly 'inner-city') I consider large for the two of us living here and is two floors, approx 15' x 26' (~780 sq. ft). It would be fine for a small family (one kid/dog etc).

Re:Stupid

[hattig]

I believe that most new starter homes in the UK are between 600 and 1000 sq. ft. and are probably expected to be good for at least a couple and one child.

There is so little space in the UK for a growing population, which leads to smaller living spaces. Quite why new houses in the UK don't have cellars these days is beyond me, they sound like a sensible way to gain another 300 sq. ft. of utility / games / etc space for the mere price of having to dig a hole before laying the foundations.

For your information, my house which is around 800 sq. ft. and detached is probably currently worth around £160k, or nearly $300k. It is cheap for the area. To be honest it is large enough actually, I only use the bedroom to sleep in and store my clothes for example. It is a squeeze though sometimes, it would be nice to have a larger house, but I don't need a larger house!

Re:Stupid

[hattig]

Please don't be in Bar Hill! It'd be amusing for the parent poster to get a reply from two different people in the same village, heh.

But yes, my ~800 sq. ft house is big enough for a small family. It is just that we don't have a games room, or a family room, or a "den" ... I would like a separate room for amenities though, I hate having the washing machine in the kitchen.

Re:Stupid

[BenjyD]

No, off Newmarket Rd near the airport. Considering my last place was a 350-400 sq ft place in central london, this feels like a palace to me.

Re:Stupid

[Zak3056]

If you build any house less than 2000 SQ. FT. these days you wouldn't find a buyer.

Nice blanket statement you've got there. Like everything else in real estate, it comes down to location--maybe the above is true where you live, but most homes around here (Greene County, Tennessee) including new construction are significantly smaller than 2000sqft. My house is 2650sqft (oddly enough, given that it was built 85 years ago) and dwarfs just about everything else in the neighborhood, including the new homes.

Now, OTOH, if you go 30 miles east of here to Johnson City, where they're building lots of half million dollar homes for doctors, then your statement is somewhat more true--though they're still building and selling 1500sqft cape cods, too.

Re:Stupid

[justins]

If you build any house less than 2000 SQ. FT. these days you wouldn't find a buyer.

That's certainly not true in California, land of the tiny houses. Which is a happy coincidence since that's one place where this kind of conservation might have some popular interest, too.

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, even in Texas, the land of pointlessly giant houses, the wife and I are finding our current 1800 sq.ft. house too big to clean/cool/maintain so we are moving to a smaller home.

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I just moved from a big (1800 SF) house to a smaller (950 SF) house. I really like the smaller amount of cleaning that needs to be done. And, of course, the smaller heating bills.

Re:Stupid

[dodongo]

Well, here's an RTFA troll... ;)

The article does say that this is an "accessory" living area, which means it will be attached to a larger domicile -- and this "accessory" status played a role in the design of the home because of development code.

In other words, it's not a house. So the fact that it's 2000 ft^2 doesn't matter.

And furthermore, I have to agree with others in this thread. My current apartment, sans my roomies' bedrooms, is ~~ 800 ft ^2. I still have a modest bath, a decent kitchen, and a W/D, as well as generous living space. The tradeoff for this is, of course, that I don't have a 400 ft^2 bedroom. I only do a few things in my bedroom anyway, and I sure don't need 400 ft^2 for it. :)

I'm really quite comfortable in 800 ft^2 of space -- I think the key is that it just needs to be designed efficiently.

Re:Stupid

[the_twisted_pair]

You might want to check out the price of digging holes in the UK by the time you include the landfill tax that applies to such spoil. Also, a cellar is effectively another storey (of retaining wall no less) to build, which delays the developer's programme. Everybody hates groundworks - too prone to weather-reklated delay and nasty finds - and the sooner he can get out of the ground and offsite, the better his margins - he's borrowing the money to build,and wants payback ASAP. IOW, sure you can have a cellar; just don't expect it fer free in a new-build.

Housing Developers' margins are far and away the healthiest in UK construction - they aim for a inimu of 20% vs a general contractor's 7-12%

Re:Stupid

[GI Jones]

The average amount of dead space between each stud in a standard wall is something like 3 cubic feet of space. If you cool the wall, you will end up cooling that space. By insulating the interior walls, you are not trying to keep from cooling anything beyond the wall, you are preventing cooling of the many cubic feet of space between the walls. Do the math on your dwelling and find out how much unusable space you are cooling and heating.

Each regular void in your wall is approx. 96" x 15.5" x 3.5" Using regular 2 x 4 construction, studs are places 16" apart on center. Assuming 8' studs and the fact that a 2x4 is actually 1.5 x 3.5 ... you do the numbers. You'll have to check my math... I was a MIS major, not a CS ;)

Just my $.02,

Re:Stupid

[BJH]

*Shrug*

When I asked my builder about insulating the interior walls, he basically said don't bother.

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Weather related delay of groundworks? Developers in Canada dig holes in the ground in the middle of winter when there's snow falling (Canada has one of the fastest average build times anywhere despite (or perhaps because of) the winter). 'Nasty' (I assume you mean archaeological) finds is a bit of a different story but the landfill tax could be avoided, presumably, by raising the grade of the entire development site depending on the quality of what comes out.

Re:Stupid

[the_twisted_pair]

Building in frozen ground is fine. Building in unpredictably-wet climes, with unpredicatable days below freezing, certainly isn't. Canada, like most of the civilised world, often uses lightwieght construction and prefab elements; homebuyers in the UK have an unhealthy obsession with bricks-and-mortar...

Nasty finds can be geological as well as archaeological - the UK has some pretty amazing (and locally-varying) geology, and a 3000yr+ history of mining. Bottle mines turning up unannounced? Yep, catches everyone out. BTW a bottle mine is named for its cross-section- basically , someone found an expensive mineral resource locally, and dug out as much as possible. Creates a subsidence hazard 3-400 years later, with nothing to mark the spot because the hole at ground level is 1-person-size, and long since back filled...

As for using spoil across the site - yep, hats the obvious solution, but UK housing developers aren't that creative...

You're quite right about what to do with spoil, but you have to think like housing developer (cheeeeeeap!)

Re:Stupid

[cdn-programmer]

We have an 1800 sq ft "solar" home here in Calgary. Look up "Ostrawski" via google. His first name is "jorg".

The home is very practical and very livable.

He is available as a consultant and were I building a place I would send him a retainer. I think access to his expericances will really pay off.

The home he built is insulated to R50 in the walls and R70 in the Ceiling. He is not connected to the gas nor to the city water/sewer. He is connected to the electrical grid.

In the winter he does need some suplimental heat which is provided by a fireplace. He says he burns less than 1/2 cord per year.

Good luck with your project.

Re:Stupid

[/dev/trash]

Depends. Do you have kids? Pets? How small of a house should we go?

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

This 'bigger is better' syndrome is a symptom of the marketing brainwash that is responsible for making North Americans the most wasteful people on the planet. It applies to many items when comparing American versus European or Japanese, like houses, cars, appliances, etc. American companies prefer to just sell 'more' or 'bigger', because it is cheaper and easier for them than to improve quality and efficiency. With widespread and long-term organized marketing, consumers buy into this drivel, and start to imagine that they are getting a bargain. Perhaps in the short term, but it is not a bargain in the long term, and definitely not a bargain when you factor in social and environmental factors. It doesn't cost much more to make a better car, or build a better house. But given what has happened to the American automobile and electronics industries, I think people are waking up slowly, and are starting to demand quality, instead of only quantity.

How many times must it be said?

[EmagGeek]

The energy cost of creating a photovoltaic cell far surpasses the energy extracted from that cell over its lifetime.

No, this is not a conservation of energy argument (everyone knows the energy doesn't come from the cell itself, so it's not an issue of putting energy in and getting that same energy out).
It's the simple fact that it takes a lot of energy to grow a photovoltaic cell. You can get energy from a cell for about 30-40 years, but even over that long period of time, you still won't get out as much energy as was expended to create it...

Re:How many times must it be said?

[sasenfus]

It shouldn't be said any longer. This was true in the early days of photovoltaics (PV), but the technology has been steadily improving. It is no longer true (a little like saying "integrated circuits will never become commercially viable for home users"). These days, PV recovers its costs in 3-5 years, in most residential applications, and then keeps working well for another 15 at least. And getting better all the time.

Re:live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

[guet]

Population growth is neither inexorable, nor a worry in the developed world. The population of Europe and to a lesser extent the US is projected to fall over the next century, as families have less children. The population of these countries is rising more due to immigration than the birth rate, thus they're absorbing some of the growth elsewhere.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3560433.stm
http://esa.un.org/unpp/

The problem is developing countries just now, which will hopefully even out as they become more prosperous and it is no longer financially advantageous to have large families.

square feet and square meters

[sciuro]

in case any non-americans are wondering why the size of the apartments is "only 244 square meters", 800 square feet is in fact about 75 square meters.

converting areas is different from converting lengths... tsk tsk.

-duncan

Re:Solar Electricity

[kahei]

Both the facts above are correct, in Opposites World, the wacky world where everything is frack-to-bont!

In the real world, they're rubbish, but you knew that you wicked lil' troll you :)

Re:How many times must it be said? bullshit call

[wes33]

sigh ... where's your data from; I call bullshit on the basis of this:

1. Do solar cells produce more energy than is used during their manufacture?
Yes. The amount of time it takes for a technology to produce more energy than was used in their manufacture is called the energy payback time. Solar cells have an energy payback time ranging from a few months to 6 years, depending on the type of materials, the type of solar cell and where it is used. Solar cells have warranties well in excess of these numbers, typically 20 years. The origin of the popular myth that solar cells do not produce enough energy in their lifetime to recover the energy in making them is unknown, as every published study has shown that solar cells produce more energy in their lifetime than the energy used in production.

I wonder if /. should have a rule: no fact claims without reasonable references (I guess it might get pretty "thin" here though)

What are they joking

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent the first 17 years of my life in Oregon. They get maybe 90+-20 sunny days a year. How are they going to feed the power grid with solar panels when the place is covered in clouds, fog or some combination of the 2 most the year? What a joke.
Oh yeah even when it was sunny about 75% of the ground is shaded from the darn trees. LOL

Re:Solar Electricity

[the_twisted_pair]

Another consideration that governs energy payback is surface temeperature. If you use panels, mount them well clear of the roof finish / substrate below for convective cooling. Photovoltaic activity drops off markedly with high panel temps, increasing payback time.

Note most panels are rated at 25degC surface temperature, but under standard illumination, and depending on ambient temps, will typically be running at 55-65degC. That's one reason it's difficult to achieve rated output.

Finally, the panels don;t die after 25years - they wil continue producing electricity until physically destroyed, but the amount tails off on an exponential curve. 25-35years is usu. given as alifetime, becasue at that point rated output is expected to have have dimished 20-25% (depends on rating method)

Anyway, beyond payback, all that power is FREE.

Let's do the math....

[Ancient_Hacker]

Is it asking too much that SlashDot do a teeensy bit of math before endorsing this idea? Let's do some rough math: 15% of 115,000 is close to $17K. Assume a 5% mortgage, that's $862 more you have to pay during the first year. For that much, you could buy about 100 Megawatt-hrs of power. The solar system apparently generates "up to 3.5KW" of power, let's say optimistically that's 1KW average, assuming things happen there like clouds, night, angled sun, DC/AC conversion inefficiencies. That's 8.7 megawatt hrs. The solar power costs about TWELVE TIMES AS MUCH as utility power. Assuming you don't use all of that kilowatt (hard to believe, that's less than it takes to run a moderate sized AC), and you sell the "excess" to the power company, and they pay you their cost of generation, you're getting back LESS THAN A TWENTIETH OF WHAT THE POWER COSTS YOU TO GENERATE. And oh, if there were a LOT of these solar-powered houses, we'd have to build MORE GAS-BURNING peak-load generating plants, to handle the load the solar cells shrug off during cloudy weather, nighttime, storms... Holy bleepin deity, can't anybody do a little math anymore?

Re:Let's do the math....

[Ancient_Hacker]

OH, I forgot, most places won't loan you money for 30 yrs on something like solar cells, which will probably die within half that time, so you would have to pay about double the interest rate for the $17K. And it may be hard to get any kind of mortgage on a house that is so unusual with questionable market value. So your house may end up costing MUCH MUCH more due to the extra interest costs. And I forgot to add the cost of maintenance and eventual replacement, which makes the whole concept even sillier.

Re:Let's do the math....

[Anonymous Coward]

speaking of calculators, where do you live that electricity is less than a cent per kilowatt-hour? $862 should be about enough for 10 MWh

Re:Let's do the math....

[WOV]

1. Every major manufacturer warrantees their panels for 20 - 25 years, with an expected life substantially longer.

2. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as major national banks, will include this in a mortgage or home equity loan.

3. Not so unusual. The equivalent of 1/10 of new home starts in Japan, and several thousand new homes every year in the US (mostly CA, NJ, Long Island so far, with more state markets expected to explode this year.)

do the math, homey

[poptones]

I didn't look at the pdf to see if it uses a heat closet, but the fact is most of that "high tech" ain't expensive at all - heat storage, for example, is just well insulated water jugs. PVC pipe ain't that expensive, neither is foam or styrene insulation. You can store hundreds of thousands of BTUs in a solar closet that only takes up a few square feet of floor space. Combine that with a roof collector and a fifty dollar pump and you have all the heat you need for water and heat - and you can use the space to dry clothes, no electric dryer needed. That's the equivalent of three conventional appliances occupying about the same amount of floor space as one in a conventional house - and it's not much more expensive to construct than buying a regular old water heater.

By the time you ditch the heater, air conditioner, water heater, dishwasher... how much money do you think that saves? The stove and fridge will be more expensive than "conventional" but the fridge is only maybe twice as expensive, the stove less than that.

My dream home isn't even this big - I've been working on plans for one roughly half this size, constructed on part of an old house trailer frame. I had an office in the back (now used as a storage shed) roughly 10x12 feet, 2x4 walls and one layer of fiberglass insulation - even when it was ten degrees outside I sometimes had to open the door to cool the place off because the heat from the computer and stereo would get the place so hot.

A developer here in Mississippi has been building tiny homes for years and has, pretty much by himself, converted a run down part of town into a fairly high rent community - there's a "church" (where my buddy used to live) and across from that what looks like a Beale Street hotel, and several other small homes. It looks almost like a toy model of New Orleans, and the houses are very practical. It's just a matter of accepting the paradigm - once you stop saying it can't be done, one quickly realizes just how practical it can be.

Re:do the math, homey

[wattersa]

where do I sign up for the trailer park at??? ;-)

Re:Solar Electricity

[zoeblade]

Try using online resources such as Wikipedia:

I think I've read somewhere that solar panels cost more in energy to create than they ever produce. Is this correct?

Although I can't find the exact answer to this rumour (thankfully other people have beaten me to it anyway, see the other replies to your post), there's a lot of interesting information about solar cells there.

I've also read that the Chinese were not responsible for chopsticks, although they were responsible for fortune cookies. Apparently chopsticks were invented just 200 years ago in San Francisco.

Chopsticks were developed about 3000 to 5000 years ago in China (the exact date is unknown).

Passive heating = way forward.

[the_twisted_pair]

Simply not true. Autarkic housing can be achieved simply, and the result need not look like a pudding. Their usual issue is actually overheating in spring and autmn seasons (low-angle sunlight comes in through windows, during seasons of near-minimum heating requirement).

Even 'regular' houses have no excuse not to be more efficient. Heat reclaimation units deal with pre-heating incoming air with the outgoing (hey, Wickes in the UK sell a packaged unit suitable for retrofit to an average UK house for less than 160quid last I checked; payback is 15-18months ). That also deals with odour, air moisture content etc. It's quite easy to get a 3-bed UK semi (say 100sq.m.) down below 1.2Kw design heatloss for a 19degC interior / -1degC exterior temp difference.

At which point, you might note, overheating can actually become an issue with typ. family (2 adults at 135W each @average activity, two kids at 100w each, modicum of household gizmos). Your only real losses are top-up heating overnight and domestic hotwater.

(yes I am an architect)

Re:Passive heating = way forward.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

It's quite easy to get a 3-bed UK semi (say 100sq.m.) down below 1.2Kw design heatloss for a 19degC interior / -1degC exterior temp difference.

Is that 1.2kW average load or kWH per day? By US standards that's rather small, but I have found that my tastes top out around 250sq.m + large garage

Re:Passive heating = way forward.

[the_twisted_pair]

That's 1.2Kw steady-state design heat loss, indicative of c.29KwH consumption per day on the coldest days for space heating only. Actual peak consumption will be higher, because no construction is perfect, there will be excess air infiltration etc. It also ignores the dynamic condition - what really happens whe the sun shines, gets covered, someone opens a window etc. Over a year though, totals are quite low, becuase peak heat / cooling is quite infrequent. That gets *really* interesting, and it's one area I keep a beady eye on. If you want to know more about predicting building energy useage, you could start with a search on 'BRE degree day method'. The accessible bible on the subject is Littler and Thomas on 'Design and Use of energy in Buildings'. An oldie but a goodie.

60% of heat loss in a typical house in the UK climate is *purely* down to ventilation, both wanted and unwanted - hence the plug for heat exchangers in grandparent post. Based on 1 air change per hour, two thirds of your heating/cooling bill is quite simply adapting incoming air to room temperature, because that energy is displaced outside by incoming air! Deal with draught-stripping, use a small plate-type heat exchanger, get that loss down to BTW, in the US the same principles will apply for heating,and for cooling. To effect a given change in room temperature uses one unit of energy to heat, but three to cool. Consider insulation, air-tightness and heat-exchange carefully!

Oh, /. tech content: CFD is going to be *real* big for commercial architecture, hint hint - make me a nice package that I can use like I use Excel after importing a CAD model, with output pretty enough to sell energy-saving to clients, and we'll be minted. I'm serious.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[tgma]

Fascinating. 1 cubic metre is roughly equivalent to 10 square feet?

Re:Greenhousing? that means something different he

[The_Mr_Flibble]

Hmm were I'm from the term greenhousing is where you fill you're attic with lots of plants. (the nice police officers told me about that one).

Hello Germany

[Zorgoth]

That's right Germany is so enviromentally friendly that people will gladly waste energy to make sure that they are doing things the green way. Where I live in Lower Saxony, we have to divide waste into 5+ bins. I had always wondered how it was economic to seperate plastic from metal (include products that have both plastic and metal components, thus rendering a magnet sorting method useless). Finally, when I had to go to the dump myself to apply for a pick up of branches, I discovered that some of the waste that I so laboriously seperated for recycling was being recombined with the restmul (general trash). The German system has some good things, but it is just as beset by special interest groups and legal oddities as the American one. Sure there are no toxic Texan with vested oil interests, but there are not very nice coal concerns that have managed to protect thier operation under a number of guises.

Re:Hello Germany

[Noizemonger]

I agree with you. I think most of the ecological efforts in germany are NOT mainly motivated by a sincere care for the enviroment but by a obsession for order and conservation wich is a sometimes useful but often frightening chracter trait in us germans. I know that my father does not sort his trash in 10(!) different trashcans because its so ecological, but because his deepseated belief in all things orderly, neat and efficient. Still: Low energy houses are a nice side effect (they combine two things the average german likes more than anything else: building houses and saving money).

800 sq ft. != 244 sq m

[garver]

800 sq ft == 74.32 sq m

In case some metric users think americans are crazy for calling a 2626 sq ft (244 sq m) house "too small".

Re:800 sq ft. != 244 sq m

[baldinux]

Sorry about that typo. I feel quite silly for having let that one fly by. It is most certainly 74 square meters. My apologies.

Is this simply a anecdotal pilot?

[StateOfTheUnion]

This is an interesting project, but until this becomes economically effective, can we really expect it to become mainstream?

The average size of a middle class newly constructed house seems to be 2000-2500 square feet in many areas of the US (this statement is anecdotal . . . based on what I've seen, but I think its a reasonable estimate). In the US, energy costs are cheap. And I assume that the $117,000 cost of construction cited in the article does not include the lot . . . the actual cost of a home like this in city suburbia may be more like $170,000 (or more, I assumed a $50k lot)

What does this pilot demonstrate? Not much . . . energy efficient/energy generating small homes have been demonstrated many times before. They've even become somewhat mainstream in some areas of Europe . . . Demonstrating that "it can be done" is reinventing the wheel. Mass producing a highly desirable house is the challenge.

This is no different than eletrics in the automobile industry . . . hybrids and electrics have been around for awhile; the key is creating a cost effective highly desirable product (like the Prius).

Re:Is this simply a anecdotal pilot?

[Anonymous Freak]

The article mentions that it's on Ainsworth street. This street runs through both rich and poor neighborhoods, so it's hard to gauge property cost. (Could be a $25,000 lot, could be a $250,000 lot.) It also mentions that it cost 15% more than an equivalent sized 'conventional' house. That is quite a chunk of change. (For example, 15% decided that my wife and I bought an 1800 sq. ft. 2 bedroom/1 bath rather than a 2300 sq. ft. 4 bedroom/2 bath.)

That said, I *did* pay about 15% extra to get a Hybrid over a 'conventional' car. (A 2004 Prius. As you mention, it was compelling enough to be worth it. The prior Prius was interesting, but not enough to warrant it over a cheapo Hyundai.)

transmission line losses?

[poptones]

You have those no matter that kind of plant you use. Nobody wants a coal or nuclear plant in their yard, hydroelectric requires... well, enough water to supply the power needed, and even gas plants tend to be in low rent districts. why are these transmission line losses suddenly so notable when the power comes from solar?

The solar field in california (bakersfield, I believe) uses high temperature collectors, molten brine, and a stirling engine to generate power, and so far as I know the best that's done is about 30%. You can get very nearly that right now from concentrated PV - a single cell a few inches on a side can supply as much power as a whole panel if it's made properly, the rest of the assembly is just mirror and a cooling manifold (which also provides a steady supply of heat for storage). This is present day tech - within the next decade there's serious talk of multilayer cells that can go as high as 60% efficiency in concentrated applications. That could mean a kW supplied by as little as 16 sq. in. of semiconductor material.

Re:transmission line losses?

[martinde]

> You have those no matter that kind of plant you use.

Right, my point is that distributed generation gets rid of the losses. If I generate my own electricity at my house then transmission line losses become a non-issue. (Especially if I can store excess energy during the day to use through the night.)

Re:transmission line losses?

[Big_Breaker]

These systems can also store the molten brine in vacuum bottle storage tanks to smooth the power generation. They can also be attached to natural gas pipelines/etc and run off fossil fuels in prolonged sunless periods.

The excess heat is difficult to make use of for now since these solar sites tend to be installed away from residential areas that could use the heat, but perhaps an industrial user? Cement needs a lot of heat to product.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he works at NASA

Solar dreams

[adl99]

I would have thought that solar power would have been a geek's dream - especially so for modders. A pure DC source would be wonderful for charging up those batteries (anyone tried charging their stuff from car batteries? You get a very solid charge - my phone seems to last for an extra couple of DAYS!) Then, there's the option of using the pure DC for your computers - chuck out your whiz-bang power supplies and just plug straight into your house's batteries - you don't have to convert from AC, so your saving on the conversion losses (reducing your bills even further) and you get cleaner power rails. You'd need a well-designed (probably pricey) supply. That's my dream, anyway. I also quite like the idea of those great big flywheels that you can embed in the ground under your house - although those would require conversion back from AC even if you use a DC motor, but still - good for power outages, hey? And an endless pool. And an e-type jag. And Kiera Knightley. OK, time to reign in the old imagination.

Re:Solar dreams

[Big_Breaker]

I'm not sure DC is even viable for in-home power distribution. The ohmic losses are too great. Quality power supllies are about 85% efficient. Comparing that to the additional ohmic losses of low voltage DC I bet you'd be hard pressed to find the advantage.

High voltage AC and switching transformers is a great way to get power from the source to your low voltage DC appliances.

I think you mean "taxpayers"

[goldspider]

"...it should be possible for the governemt to step in with incentives and pick up the tab of the difference."

First of all, the cost to install these systems is hardly marginal.

And I hate to have to tell you this, but the "government" doesn't pay for anything. Taxpayers do.

So explain to me why taxpayers should be compelled to pay so that somebody else can have a lower energy bill? If you're going to do that, why not save some money and simply send that person's energy bill right to the taxpayers?

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[Paulrothrock]

Who has an interest in decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels and coal-burning power plants? Taxpayers.

Who has an interest in increasing the size of the market for these products so economies of scale can lower their prices? Taxpayers.

Who has an interest in lowering electrical demand so the possibility of power shortages decreases? Taxpayers.

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[Stiletto]

You act as if "Taxpayers" is a big club of equal-minded people.

Who has an interest in decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels and coal-burning power plants? Taxpayers.

I have already decreased my own dependence on fossil fuels down to what I consider a reasonable level, at what I consider a reasonable cost. And anyone else can do this any time they want. Why should I be forced at gunpoint (which is what taxes are) to pay for someone else to enjoy a decreased demendence on fossil fuels?

Who has an interest in increasing the size of the market for these products so economies of scale can lower their prices? Taxpayers.

If they are decent products, they will sell themselves. Why do you want to take my money at gunpoint and artificially "increase the size" of some market?

Who has an interest in lowering electrical demand so the possibility of power shortages decreases? Taxpayers.

Anyone interested in lowering their electrical demand may already do it. Why take money from me at gunpoint so to force other people (at gunpoint) to lower their electrical demand?

Answer to all your questions: NOBODY WINS.

This has been your libertarian lesson for today. Thank you.

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[Paulrothrock]

I have already decreased my own dependence on fossil fuels down to what I consider a reasonable level, at what I consider a reasonable cost.

Then get out there to tell your legislators that you think it's too much. You have the freedom to do this, just like I have the freedom to do the opposite. The government isn't some big, faceless entity. We elect people who make policy (for the most part), so we can change this.

And the answer to my questions is: There is a collective good that is served by doing (some) uneconomical things. One of these is limiting our dependence on fossil fuels.

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[nomadic]

You know, one thing I've always wondered, why do libertarians, who just love guns so much, always complaining that the government has them?

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[Anonymous Coward]

>First of all, the cost to install these systems is hardly marginal.

Well, that's why I made my statement conditional =)

And I hate to have to tell you this, but the "government" doesn't pay for anything. Taxpayers do.

I see I got a Republican here =)

So explain to me why taxpayers should be compelled to pay so that somebody else can have a lower energy bill? If you're going to do that, why not save some money and simply send that person's energy bill right to the taxpayers?

Because by making it a costless preposition, the govenment can incentivate enough people to step into energy conservation to create the crucial mass necessary to have a viable market, the ultimate force of the Republican pantheon.

Yes, I am pulling your leg, but then again, you already knew the answer when you made the question, as you obviously do not want bloated Euro-style government, you must also understand where and when the size of a well-aimed, temporary government subsidy works, and where it does not. If you just give the money to the end-users to pay their energy bill, you just gave them 500$ (like Dubya did a couple of years ago) and left everything *structural* unchanged. You can instead decide that you will *conditionally* give them xxxx$ on the proviso that they do something useful for their community/country, which is making electricity that then the utility company can sell.

Yes, it is a win-win, except that that when enough people do it, the market price of electricity will go down, resulting in lowered profits for the utility companies, but then again as a Maket-aware person you certainly *like* the effects of market competition resulting in lower prices.... or are you Ken Brown waiting for Dick and Dubya to hand you over the energy sector so you can fund their campaigns ? =)

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[tabrnaker]

me me me me me! You ever go for a walk outside of that head of yours that you live in constantly?

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[goldspider]

"I see I got a Republican here =)"

Not quite. These days Republicans want my money as much as Democrats do.

"you must also understand where and when the size of a well-aimed, temporary government subsidy works, and where it does not."

I understand that there's no such thing as a "temporary government subsidy". When was the last time you heard of a government program being shut down because it was no longer needed?

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[ffsnjb]

We wouldn't have to carry them to defend ourselves from the government if the government didn't have any. We could then just carry to plink and hunt. Leave us the fuck alone.

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[nomadic]

But none of you guys have the guts to actually "defend" yourselves from the government.

Re:I think you mean "taxpayers"

[Anonymous Coward]

"me me me me me!"

That's funny, Libertarians aren't the ones out there asking for handouts from the government.

Won't stop dirty power plants

[Theseus192]

It is naive to think a house like this will reduce the need for power plants (hydro, dirty, nuclear, or other). Regulations require power companies to buy surplus power from private producers, all well and good. But regulations also require the power company to have enough capacity to provide for the needs of the grid. The owner of a small windmill or mini-hydro dam is not contractually obligated to produce power at any particular time; he can sell power, or not, according to his whim. This means the power company cannot rely on independent micro-plants as part of their obligation to meet consumer demand. Even if every house in the country were "green" like this, power companies would still need the same number of power plants to meet the demand in case Joe Homeowner decided to buy power rather than sell it on a given day.

It's true that an energy-producing house will save fuel, but it won't reduce the need for power plants themselves unless the regulations are changed to make small producers have the same obligations as utility companies.

I learned this from power engineers during a physics club tour of a hydroelectric plant, back when I was in college. I doubt the regulatory environment has changed since then.

Re:Won't stop dirty power plants

[fuzzybunny]

You're absolutely correct. However, I would assume that power operators would be amenable to the ideas of lowering the output on "dirty" plants according to the availability of power on the grid from other sources, like a bunch of self-sufficient power freeholds.

If you're not burning fuel to produce power, you're emitting fewer greenhouse gases or barrels full of radioactive crap, even if you do have to have plants prepared to pick up the slack at all times.

Re:Won't stop dirty power plants

[Asterisk]

But the main point here is to reduce the fuel demand and pollution from power generation, not to eliminate power plants entirely. The lowered fuel usage does effect these benefits.

But eventually, if distributed power generation becomes widespread, most buildings will generate at least a portion of their own power requirements, and the overall demand on the grid will be reduced to the point that not as many power plants will be necessary.

Meters don't "roll back"

[menscher]

The power plant doesn't want your power. Really. If you push power into the grid, they are required by law to pay you for it. At their inflated rates. It's obviously cheaper for them to put a "diode" (it's more complicated since it's AC) in there to prevent you from supplying power to the grid. In the end, you'll probably end up buying batteries to charge, to get you through nights.

Here's hoping someone can prove me wrong, since the above policy is pretty monopolistic-sounding.

Re:Meters don't "roll back"

[Anonymous Freak]

Well, I know in California, they are required to not only pay you if it goes back into the grid; they're required to accept it into the grid if you generate it. So yes, your meter can go backwards. (I know someone with enough solar panels who consumes little enough electricity that their meter has been steadily going backwards over the course of a couple YEARS. Yes, they still pull power off the grid on evenings and during cold days in the winter (they don't have natural gas, so all heat is supplied by electricity,) but each year, they have a net negative. (Meaning they generate more power during sunny and summer times than they end up using all year long.)

The electric company isn't ALLOWED to put a diode on to block their generation. They HAVE to accept the excess power, and their meter actually runs backwards most of the time. (Which makes me wonder what will happen when the meter hits 0. Last time I asked, they had calculated that it would hit 0 in 2015, at current rates. But solar panels deteriorate, and they are trying to decrease their power usage even more, so who knows.)

It is inherently cheaper for them to just send the power to the grid, then take it back out of the grid when they need it, than it is to 'store' the excess power in batteries. This is because in California, the utility has to pay RETAIL for the power, not wholesale. This means that the power that is put into the grid can be 'traded' one-for-one later. (So if you generate 1kWh extra this month, and you need 1kWh more than you generate next month, your credit and debit will be the same. I know in some states, the utility only has to pay you the wholesale rate, but when you suck power from the grid, you have to pay retail; so you'd have to generate almost 10 times as much as you 'use' to come out ahead. In CA, it's easy to come out ahead.)

Oh, yeah, and my cousin also has one of those little 2-seater electric cars ("Smart Car" I think is the company,) and generates enough electricity from her solar panels to charge it when she needs. She does not consume any fossil fuels. (She's a bit nutty that way, she specifically avoids all products that contain petroleum, she grows most of her own food, etc. She's pretty close to off-the-grid as you can get while still maintaining a reasonably 'urban' lifestyle. (She lives in one of the outer SF suburbs, sorry, I don't remember which one.)

Size matters

[kilpo1]

For those accustomed to metric measurements, this house is a LOT smaller than you might think. Eight hundred square feet equals 74.32 square meters, NOT 244 square meters.

Energy Problems

[MournsForHumans]

Earlier, the president of Opec said oil prices were at "crazy" levels, but that Opec was powerless to cool the market. "There is no more supply," said Opec president Purnomo Yusgiantoro.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/ 3529976.stm

OPEC has increased oil production to record levels...Petrologistics said all 10 Opec producers have already been producing oil far in excess of official quotas, Middle East Newsline reported. The report said that with the exception of Saudi Arabia, OPEC members have little or no spare capacity left. http://216.26.163.62/2004/me_oil_09_09.html

Indeed, the resource situation is quite poor. Now, some might stick a tinfoil hat on me for mentioning this, but are you familiar with the concept of peak oil? Basically, it's that given all the oil reserves on the planet there is a limit to the amount of oil that can be produced per day, given the deterioration of fields. Oil production follows a bell curve: at first, oil is very easy to get out, with light oil right near the top. As time progresses and that easy to get oil is depleted, the fields must be altered if they are to continue to produce at the same rate, usually by injecting saltwater or other compounds to push the oil upwards. Unfortunately, this also causes rapid degradation as pumps begin to pump more and more water than oil.

Based on research and media reports, the global output of oil is expected to peak around the year 2008. The implications of this are severe, for demand in the world China is escalating at a rapid rate. Consider that not only cars but military machinery run off of petroleum products. Consider that most crop fields in America are so destroyed that they require massive amounts of petroleum based fertilizers and insecticides to maintain production. Consider that interstate commerce is fueled by trucks on oil. How will people get to work from the suburbs? How will food be produced at an adequate rate to meet demand (this is how overpopulation will be addressed)? How will the interdependence of states be altered when goods cannot be transferred?

Rail seems like a good option for transferring people and goods, but the rail system in the US is rather poor. For alternative energy resources there is a great push towards fuel cells - which simply store energy. Furthermore, the primary method of producing hydrogen for these fuel cells is from natural gas, another source that follows the bell curve in production and is already in decline (check your heating bills last year).

To me, preparation for the peak oil phenomenon helps explain a number of US actions in the current and past administrations. Be it securing interests in Iraq, in Georgia (Clinton years - this is a bipartisan problem, of course), wanting to drill in the Alaskan reserve (might not be a tremendous amount long term, but it will make the peak last longer before decline), AIDS money to Africa (and their oil fields)... the foundation of a growing economy is built upon the ability of a nation's people to both produce and consume. Without transportation, food, and the energy requirements that go into the American lifestyle, what will happen to the economy?

Nations traditionally stock up a reserve of oil for the coming winter; however, between the disruption of gulf coast production from hurricanes and the instability of the middle east, this winter could prove to be a difficult one. China is already buying up oil left and right to fuel its growing automobile industry, when they haven't yet realized that the age of the automobile is rapidly coming to a close. Meanwhile, the US secures valuable middle eastern reserves and places them in the hands of American companies, ensuring that if there is a next world war the opposing side will be running on an empty tank.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheik Ahmad Fahad al-Ahmad al-Sabah said Wednesday the cartel agreed to the decision to raise output by nearly 4 percent, adding it would take effect Nov. 1... The move will increase OPEC's self-imposed output lim

Re:Energy Problems

[MournsForHumans]

Oops, the second paragraph should say: "in the world (especially China)"

I think you mean "the people"

[Red Rocket]

It is in the peoples' interest, in general, to have a cleaner and more sustainable world to live raise their children in. A bleak dog-eat-dog world where large, wealthy industries devour the planet for the profit of a few individuals is somewhat less in the interest of the people. Yet, here we are.

Re:ah

[GileadGreene]

Due to the fact that energy and heating costs are very high in germany a lot of people consider a "low-energy-house" or even a "zero-energy-House".

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head there. Energy costs are (comparatively) low in the US. And people will buy what they can afford. If energy costs skyrocketed, fewer and fewer people could afford to buy giant energy-sucking houses, and they wouldn't get built. It's the same reason that rising petrol costs have made hybrid cars popular (although those that can afford them still buy gas-guzzling SUVs). The question is, why is energy so cheap in the US?

Home House Project

[JMcJames]

The Home House design competition, started at SECCA in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has a similar goal. It was an open competition among architects and designers to rethink and reimagine that most basic of new homes, the Habitat for Humanity house. The designs needed to be energy efficient, use sustainable materials, and also fit within the space and cost constraints of a typical Habitat house. Finally, they needed to be easy to build, as Habitat houses are typically built by volunteers.

The competition was overwhelmingly successful, receiving more than 400 proposals from around the world. Twenty-five winners were chosen, and the winners are being shown at various museums around the US and can also be seen at the link below. Finally, construction has begun in Winston-Salem of several of the designs.

http://secca.org/homehouse/winners.html

Put your money where your mouth is. Green Up

[Jaiden]

In MA at least, you can choose who makes your power.

http://massenergy.com/Green.FAQs.html

For a few cents extra per kwh, you can have clean power without an initial investment. If you truly care about the environment, you should be buying clean power. You have a choice of wind, solar, hydro or various mixes (at varying cost.)

Re:Put your money where your mouth is. Green Up

[gront]

Same thing in Sacramento. I pay $6 a month and my power is 100% green.

SMUD Green Power

Heat Pumps

[justanyone]

HEAT PUMPS: HOW THEY WORK, ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES

Heat pumps are electrically powered. They combine air conditioning (AC) (cooling) with heating. The heating is NOT electrical resistance heating; they run AC in reverse, cooling the outside air and moving that heat to the inside.

The efficiency (IMHO IIRC) is based both on the mechanical efficiency of the unit and the outside weather. Very frigid temps mean the unit works very hard and is not very efficient, and sometimes must be supplemented with electrical resistance or other heating methods.

Efficiency can be improved by using "ground loop" heat pumps. Instead of heating/cooling air, they run a working fluid through a long pipe that can be put either in the ground or into a nearby lake. Thus, instead of grabbing heat from -10 degree F air, they get it from 33 degree or warmer water. A medium sized pond (1/3 acre+ and 10+ ft. deep IIRC) will not freeze to the bottom where the pipe runs given normal home heating loads. The DISADVANTAGE to ground loops is cost; they add significantly to installation costs, but these prices are dropping slowly and steadily as techniques and technology improve.

Heat pumps have generally good efficiencies in warmer climates, in Kansas and to the south.

A prominent disadvantage of a heat pump is dependency on the electrical grid. When it's summer, AC is not usually vital to survival (at least in most states; sorry to Houston). BUT, when it's -10 degrees, heat is vital. If the power fails, this is a problem (remember ice storms in Canada 10 yrs. ago?). The competing technology, Natural Gas (90%+ methane, 10% propane etc.) is typically underground and has a very, very reliable distribution system by comparison to electricity.

So, if you live in the right states, heat pumps are great, and can be even better with a little more capital investment in a ground loop. But, more cold northern climates (last time I checked) are far less well served by this technology. Oh - and most of Oregon doesn't count as "cold northern climate" for this - it's very moderate due to the pacific). Heat pumps in Oregon probably work very well, but in places like Chicago, and especially Duluth or Fairbanks, not so much.

Just a few bits from my research for my own home.
-- Kevin

Re:Heat Pumps

[onkelonkel]

I call BS!

Natural gas heat will not work without AC either. You need to run either a fan (for forced air) or a pump (for hydronic) to distribute the heat. Without AC power the natural gas is just as dead as the heat pump.

Re:Heat Pumps

[justanyone]

Natural gas heat will not work without AC either

I presume you mean electricity not AC...

True enough. Gas heat will not work without electricity. However, a blower fan motor typically consumers approx. 100 to 400 watts. This is very reasonable to run from a portable electric generator. The generator can run with the gas to get the house up to 85 or so, then be turned off and the heat will last for a couple of hours.

Likewise, it is very possible (though slightly risky) to turn on a gas stove and heat a subset of the home with that. WARNING: Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide will build up if you do this!! You should crack some windows to provide fresh air if heating with a stove. This is not that dangerous if you're careful with the fresh air, and it will keep the house and occupants from freezing.

It is NOT possible to run a heat pump from any but the biggest generators. A generator big enough for a heat pump will cost huge dollars (many thousands) and, when you need it most in the coldest temperatures, it will be the least efficient.

Sorry for not putting the above info in the above article, but I was trying to be succinct. My grandparents used to live on a farm in central Kansas, and had heat pumps as their house's primary heat source. When the power went out, they had a tractor-driven generator, which was very pricey and they had to be careful about the load they put on it; as I remember, the heat pump & generator combination was somehow troublesome, I presume because of the large load, but I don't remember all the details.

Re:Heat Pumps

[hb253]

Wrong.

Until it died last year, my parent's had an American Standard steam boiler (circa early 1970's) tied to a millivolt thermostat system. It was natural gas fired.

A small amount of electricity was generated by a thermopile in the pilot flame. That was enough to run the heating system without outside electricity.

Re:Heat Pumps

[jdray]

I think (he?) meant "A/C" for "alternating current" and not "AC" for air conditioning.

Re:Greenhousing? that means something different he

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* dude that's hotboxing *cough* :)

green heat

[hooqqa]

Heat with a greenhouse, right? Why not.

repeat after me.....

[the_2nd_coming]

Nuclear is not evil!!!

but it would go a lot better impact wise if we went to Thorium based Nuclear power production.

green air conditioning

[hooqqa]

What about a huge velocity stack with a fan at the bottom. Turn the fan on and get cold structured air and frost on the narrow end - like a VW bug carburetor?

energy/environment discussion

[Willard B. Trophy]

http://talkenergy.com/ is a Slash-based forum dedicated to energy and environment issues. It really could use more posters right now ...

Electric Meters and "Spite" Photons

[an_art]

We've had a solar generator with "net metering" for over 2 years now. It has a 20 yr warranty and an allegedly 40 yr design life. It runs backwards during daytime "peak" hours when the kwh cost is higher, and in the evening runs forward when the cost is lowest. The meter records the usage for peak as well as overall usage. To hammer home the point, we sell power at an overall higher price than that at which we buy it back, because we limit our daytime usage of power, being away at work and all. We haven't paid an electric bill in over 2 years! Yes, the system was expensive, with the dominant cost being the panels, but we're basically talking about a capital improvement to our house, which increases its market value to some extent. In addition, the system will pay itself off, long before the warranty period is up. The controller is digital, and since we bought it, has had one firmware upgrade to increase system (not panel) efficiency. Lastly there is the satisfaction of having every collected photon being a "spite photon", with respect to folks like Enron.
Art

Roof Vents

[Mr.Sharpy]

I was thinking this morning on my way to work about those spinning roof vent turbines like this. I don't know about in the north, but here in the south, just about every house has at least two of these things. They spin almost all the time, either from the wind or heat rising out of your attic space. If one were to attach small generators to these things, how much power could be produced? Maybe not a great deal individually, but what about multiplied millions of times. Perhaps they could be engineered specifically for energy generation.

Any thoughts?

Winter is a factor ...

[gstoddart]

That is way off, in the area of Texas I am in you can build a new home for about 70-90 per square foot . Plus it is way small if you plan to have a family.

Yeah, but Texas isn't exactly known for its biting cold winters and accumulations. In addition to local material and land costs, the amount of needed insulation and the like may also be a factor which affects price.

I'd be willing to bet that a house in Texas isn't built to the same level of low-temperature insulation as would be in more winter-prone places. It wouldn't be necessary.

Re:Winter is a factor ...

[jdray]

Right. Texas is, however, known for trailer parks. Plenty of those have average homes that are pretty small. They're tornado-portable, too.

Re:Winter is a factor ...

[gstoddart]

Right. Texas is, however, known for trailer parks. Plenty of those have average homes that are pretty small.

Well, given that the article was about new, energy efficient home construction, I didn't assume it would be a meaningful comparison to include trailers. Apples and elephants as it were.

That'd be like saying "I can get a cardboard box way cheaper than your house, so your statistics are off". When the article is specifically talking about price/square feet of 'new home construction', a 1975 princecraft trailer is hardly a valid counter-example.

Re:ah

[hkb]

So, basically, you're proud that your energy costs are high,

In their case, I would be. They have high energy prices, which produces low-energy/no-energy houses like he describes, people spend less for energy, and the environment is better off. Sounds like a win-win for everyone.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[cayenne8]

Geez...I dunno how anyone could live in a place so small. I'm a single guy, and pretty much fill the whole top floor of a double...about 1900 - 200 sq ft.

I'd imagine a family of more than one would need more that that...

Re:Solar Electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, the chinese didn't invent the fortune cookie, it's a japanese invention. For that matter, it was introduced in San Fran....

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[Carik]

I live in a townhouse condo, shared with a friend, which is about 1000 square feet. I've solved the "too much stuff" problem by throwing away (or, really, donating to charities such at Salvation Army) all the stuff I don't need.

It's amazing how much stuff in your house you simply don't use. That said, I had the place completely filled up until said friend moved in in May...

Re:live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

[maxpublic]

I think the problem is overconsumption, especially by Americans, and that is the issue addressed by the original article.

The idea of overconsumption is facetious. There is no 'overconsumption', just 'consumption'. The fact that Americans are considerably more wealthy than most of the rest of the world doesn't mean that they're 'overconsuming' anything.

People who scream about American use of resources are operating on jealousy, and nothing more. Their envy is translated into ridiculous arguments about 'American greed' and how we should somehow be punished because we have more wealth than any other nation around. That coming to our country and looting the wealth we've built in order to distribute it to others is somehow more 'fair' if the thieves chant "for the greater good" while they're making off with property that doesn't belong to them.

And it's damned amusing, when you think about it. The people who would force us to give up most of our wealth (if they had the military might to do so) are the very same people who berate us for interfering in the sovereignty of other nations. The hypocrisy of these conflicting views never seems to dawn on their tiny minds....

Max

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

We called that a white buffalo. Couldn't see in due to the massive amount of smoke.

Re:ah

[maxpublic]

The question is, why is energy so cheap in the US?

Because there is no shortage of coal, the primary source of electrical power in the U.S.

Max

Solar panels?

[Moofie]

In Portland? HAH! That's a good one.

the misery love company

[Doc Ruby]

Typical waster. Demonstrating an extremely efficient house with some compromises doesn't force anyone to use it. The ease with which oil shoots from the ground and burns in furnaces has allowed us to waste so much of it that it now costs over $40:barrel, with $50 inevitable, and soon. Why are you complaining about environmentalists offering a typically sized city apartment, when you could be complaining about the energy companies whose supply of misery is inexhaustable?

As for "wasteful nature", the Earth sheds only 30% of the power it receives in sunlight. The other 70% is consumed in the complexity of natural processes, with human life balanced amidst the cycles. Even that 30% albedo might not be "wasted" - it's too early to tell, until we understand even a little about the conditions where it goes, far from the planet. Nature's conservation is an inspiration, not an invitation to waste.

Re:the misery love company

[KilobyteKnight]

The ease with which oil shoots from the ground and burns in furnaces has allowed us to waste so much of it that it now costs over $40:barrel, with $50 inevitable, and soon.

No, $50 is not inevitable. The $40 a barrel mark is about where it becomes profitable to refine the non-sweet oil. There are huge oil reserves that have been largely untapped (a huge amount in Canada and the US) because it was simply cheaper to use the easier-to-process oil. As the refining of the dirtier oil becomes more common, it will also become more efficient and cheaper.

The main reason Middle Eastern oil has been in such demand is because it is of the sweeter variety. If the price of that goes up, more non-Middle Eastern oil will be used. In that respect, the higher oil prices could be considered a good thing.

Re:the misery love company

[Doc Ruby]

When $40:bbl is barely profitable, and the old sources of vast profit have run out, the new sources will be harnessed for at least the same profit, and probably more. Of course the humongous cost of switching the global infrastructure to use the new source will be added. Now we're talking at least $50:bbl. But at least the money will be going to nearby Midwesterners and Canadians, rather than Mideasterners.

But that cost doesn't include the full cost. It's just the cost to get fuel from the ground into engines. Refining this dirtier fuel produces much more pollution. Most likely that will just be pumped into the air, earth and water of the "business friendly" production regions, where the pollution will cost a lot in health costs and destruction of other resources, like water and farming. Or a later cleanup when the cycle leaves even those businesses to rust, with an orphaned population still living on the wasteland. Or even the increased cost of scrubbing the refinery during production. Any way you look at it, that oil is going to cost at least $50:bbl. Except for the slight possibility of a technology revolution in efficiency, on top of that produced by the past century or so of petroleum science, driven by huge profits and the greed for more.

The cost today of pumping Mideastern oil from the ground is about $12:bbl. The extra $28:bbl is profit taken by the industry, paradoxically increased at the expense of consuming countries which militarily and politically defend their "access" to that oil. When that $12 shoots to $50, it should be obvious that we shouldn't have wasted so much of it when it was cheap and easy for a century. It's too late to do anything about that, but it's timely to look forward and make sure we don't do it again, as the poster to whom I replied demanded. There's never enough to waste, regardless of how far down the line we realize that.

Monolithic Dome

[mrgreen4242]

Two word topic says it all. Monolithic Domes are both energy efficient and disaster resistant. They aren't that expensive, when you consider energy savings and quality of materials being used in construction.

do you like drinking water?

[Anonymous Coward]

whoa, are you serious? "...hollow out a few of the Rocky Mountains?"

Do you have any idea what the water table is, or what that would do to the settlements anywhere near that area? Depending on where it was done, you could see draining from the sources of the Colorado, Green, and columbia rivers just to name a few. I honestly have no clue what it would do, but am befuddled how you could even jest on this in an article about being enviromentally friendly.

Don't forget space

[Engineer-Poet]

You would need about 15 m^3 of storage to absorb a 6" (~15 cm) rainfall over 100 m^2 of roof. That is a LOT of volume to work into anything, unless you have a patio to use as the top of a storage tank.

For the masses, 15 cubic meters is 15,000 liters or just shy of 4,000 gallons.

Re:ah

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's take you question and turn it on its head: Why is energy so expensive in Europe?

My guess is that the taxes on energy in Europe are quite high, based on petrol costs there.

Re:live in a smaller house, driving a smaller car.

[G00F]

Now this is disgusting.
Americans also give away the most for countries/people that are unable to provide for themselves. Heck we even provide N Korean with toons and toons of supplies.

America provides quite well for itself, so it isn't a drain on any other country. (alothough we do make use of canada's plentiful water and damns.

The world isn't over populating. The population is growing to fast for some areas (the area we send toons of food and supplies to for example).

Anyways, I forgot what I was going to say, so I'm going to lunch.

Re:Greenhousing? that means something different he

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* dude that's hotboxing *cough* :)

what are you smoking man. it's called clam baking.

You store it as heat

[Anonymous Coward]

There are CAES systems already in operation which do this. One in Germany and one in the US.

e.g.
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpj01/ise2grp/ene rgystora ge_report/node7.html

This and the system you mentioned builds in storage capacity to the grid. Storing energy overnight from solar and during calm days for wind power is then straightforward.

here ya go... inspiration?

[poptones]

the makings of a tiny trailer park

9 million? you crazy

[chocolatetrumpet]

Considering the world's current 6 billion population, 9 million would require mass extinction. I for one don't believe it.

Re:ah

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no shortage of coal, the primary source of electrical power in the U.S.

i've had a vision...
the new alternative fuel source for cars.

coal.

just need to get enough horsepower out of it to pull around a trailer filled with the stuff.

Try living in an RV

[cecirdr]

We've spent the last 1.5 years living in a 38 foot RV. No...it's not necessarily eco friendly, but to all those who grouse that people need more space that 800 square feet....that just isn't so. We're two people, two dogs, a cat and a bird living in 400 square feet. And no...it's not crowded or piled high with stuff. We sold or gave away all our "stuff". If it doesn't fit into the built-in cabinets or under the rig in the cargo bays, we don't have it. I don't miss all the accumulations of suburbia at all. I'm glad to be rid of it. Now...we do use 50 amp hookups for power, but we plan to add solor to the roof in the future. Water fixtures are also low pressure. Eventually we'll probably find a place we want to settle down and we'll probably build a 800-1000 square foot house despite what the resell potential is of small cottages. If you design it right, that's plenty of room. We also plan to use as much technology as possible to be as free from being on the grid as possible.

Clean power means not being spendthrift

[Engineer-Poet]

For the simple answer to cost of instal is check the power requirement for a simple AC unit. Remember they don't like power sags. Now price a solar system big enough to run the AC.

The response you would get from a RE advocate is that your scenario betrays a completely wrong engineering approach, like asking for a skyscraper design using wattle and daub. The first thing you do is minimize your requirements by insulating walls and windows, using infiltration and vapor barriers to keep out humidity, and shading glass to prevent unwanted heat gain. Then you use thermal mass to keep temperature fluctuations down and allow night-time ventilation to keep the building cooler during the day. Only THEN would you use mechanical A/C, and with current systems a least-cost solar chiller would probably not be electric.

Don't expect to run a regular all electric home of just solar.

Part of the problem is the mentality that an all-electric home is "regular", instead of the architectural equivalent of an H2 Hummer.

Expect to use an alternate power source for things like the hot water, heating, cooling and clothes dryer.

Hot water: flat-plate solar collector to supply full heat during summer and pre-heat during the winter.
Heating: insulate and plug air leaks well enough and the heat of the occupants and their activities will do most of the job. You can have a backup heater, like a small propane furnace or wood stove, for the periods when combined cold and dark increase your requirements.
Cooling: see above.
Clothes dryer: Use a clothesline, it's free. Failing that, use a tumble dryer fired by natural gas or propane; this will require less than half the fuel needed to feed an electric dryer.

Things like the dishwasher, electric dryer, AC, electric heat, and un-effecient refrigeration (fridge and freezer) would have to be replaced.

A high effeciency fridge is a serious chunk of change. I've looked into them.

If you're dependent upon electric resistance heat, the rest of your list appears to pale by comparison. This still does not keep you from insulating your attic, putting awnings over your windows, planting deciduous trees to shade your walls in the summer, and watching your tradeoff between the remaining lifespan on your fridge/freezer and a new model.

It used to be that people living off-grid who wanted refrigeration either used a propane-fired absorption unit or a Sunfrost. This has changed, with some major brand offerings being nearly as good as a Sunfrost and a lot cheaper. The best fridges at the appliance store can be run on solar electricity cheaper than the cost of running mains power a half-mile.

Re:Clean power means not being spendthrift

[Technician]

The response you would get from a RE advocate is that your scenario betrays a completely wrong engineering approach, like asking for a skyscraper design using wattle and daub. The first thing you do is minimize your requirements by insulating walls and windows, using infiltration and vapor barriers to keep out humidity, and shading glass to prevent unwanted heat gain. Then you use thermal mass to keep temperature fluctuations down and allow night-time ventilation to keep the building cooler during the day. Only THEN would you use mechanical A/C, and with current systems a least-cost solar chiller would probably not be electric.

Unfortunately this includes the majority of the used housing market. Most of us can't afford a new instalation including a solar solution. Most first time home owners buy used, then after they have enough equity, then they are able to consider options.

In the future, maybe there will be enough energy effecient housing on the market and first time buyers will have the option.

It was like my car purchases for a long time. They were all under 3K dollars and over 80K miles. Green and effecient were not in the mix. In another 10 years it may be possible to pick up sub 3K dollar hybrids. It may be possible to pick up affordable 20 year old homes that are energy effecient. Most sub $100K homes are either tiny, old, or cheap. They don't come with heat pumps, high R value insulation or thermal management by design. You pay extra for these.

Re:Clean power means not being spendthrift

[Engineer-Poet]

Most first time home owners buy used, then after they have enough equity, then they are able to consider options.

It's not a huge deal to blow in R-50 insulation in the attic and use soffit, gable, ridge and even powered vents; this is within the capabilities of many do-it-yourselfers. Planting trees is fairly cheap and increases property values. Replacing old, leaky windows with high-performance units is more expensive but also increases the value of the house and comfort levels while cutting energy costs. If you get to the point of re-siding, you can go much further.

In the future, maybe there will be enough energy effecient housing on the market and first time buyers will have the option.

Such measures should be part of all building codes (should have been 20 years ago, IMHO). People buying used housing wouldn't have to put up with as much cheesy, leaky work if we stopped building it that way, and every day we let it continue the problem gets worse.

It was like my car purchases for a long time. They were all under 3K dollars and over 80K miles. Green and effecient were not in the mix. In another 10 years it may be possible to pick up sub 3K dollar hybrids.

All the better reason to get cracking, no? We knew how to build hybrids at least 15 years ago, but it's taken until now to get more than a few models on the market - and most are Japanese. We need to do better.

Energy payback of PV cells

[Engineer-Poet]

One source that I've been unable to locate again actually said that the PV cells use more energy to manufacture than they will produce over their lifetime.

Perhaps because it was true for the earliest cells, but hasn't been for a long time. I've read that current cells have a payback time of 2-4 years depending on type and site, and this figure continues to drop. Some claims are far less.

Re:Energy payback of PV cells

[Moofie]

Thanks for the info! I'll read about it and evaluate my position.

It's Coal

[lgbarker]

Although the NW US has a lot of hydro, the two major utilities that serve Portland get around 70-75% of their power from coal.
PGE ref: http://www.portlandgeneral.com/about_pge/corporate _info/power_plants.asp
PPL from memory.

You don't start with PV, you end with it

[Engineer-Poet]

I can percieve that generally, unless there is a major social move on the viewpoint, it would be just a 'fad' amongst the wealthy / high-society. To make it last beyond that would almost require it to be socially unacceptable on a large scale rather than just 'un-cool', to have a house that is not ecologically friendly. Until the technology comes down in price a little thats unlikely to happen.

Most of the "technology" is just being careful about how energy is used. Here's a for-instance: I've read that the houses in the Solar Challenge competition were run with about 40% of the total energy of the typical house (a house only needs to cut to 70% of typical to qualify as "Energy Star", IIRC). If the ONLY thing you do is adopt high-efficiency envelopes and systems, you are already 3/5 of the way to the goal without installing a single solar device. If you use flat-plate heat collectors for hot water and some space heat, you're even closer before installing any PV cells. The solar-electric systems are one of the last steps, not the first.

Re:800 sq ft = 74.322432 m3

[cayenne8]

"I've solved the "too much stuff" problem by throwing away (or, really, donating to charities such at Salvation Army) all the stuff I don't need."

Well, I've got a large living room..kinda shaped in a 'L' formation. In one half...got the KHorn speakers, 60" Tv...couch, coffee table, stereo rack, futon and some end tables. In other half..cabinet for dvd's and cds, 3 guitar stands with guitars, fender amp, drum set, chest deep freezer, arcade machine (MAME in old Tempest cab), tables. Kitchen full with cooking stuff, washer and dryer. Bathroom filled with necessary stuff. One bedroom is my office, bookcases for books, shelving for parts, etc. I've got a Dell, 2 Sun boxes as servers and personal computers..tables...Bedroom, with stuff needed there..

And one spare room...but, I store all my beer making (all grain) stuff in there..kegs, kegging equipment, bottles, bottling equipment, propane tanks and burners (I live in New Orleans, so needed for crawfish boils and fried turkey)...and shelving for misc stuff. I also have an attic for the junk I really don't use often (holiday decorations for inside/outside of house). And lastly, I have a patio overlooking the road...I cleaned stuff off it..just now have my smoker, and patio furniture.

As you get a bit older...you do tend to collect a bit of stuff as you go along...and I'm getting to the point now, to where most of it is useful nice stuff that just can't be throw away. As a college student, yup...tons of crap. I keep trying to throw stuff away...but, getting harder and harder these days, as it is all good stuff that I use.

Speaking of in the winter...

[Anonymous Coward]

"In winter, you could divert the fridge flue into an upstairs room"

Is there some reasonable explanation for why our refrigerators are not equipped with a blower that connects to some ductwork to the outside for use in the winter months in temperate zones?

Just draw cold air in from outside during the winter. That would save some energy. It would save a shitload of energy if it was in general use.

Green Housing

[dickrichardv8]

Why doesn't housing automatically get designed in each person's area to take advantage of the climate or to mitigate the disadvantages where in as much the cost would be nothing additional at original construction time. Black roofs in the North and White roofs in the South for starters would work. Small gains in energy cost, yes, but no additional original costs.

Your interests != builder's interests

[beer_maker]

Well he would say that, wouldn't he. Extra labor for his crew, making sure they fit the insulation in around the wiring & plumbing in the interior walls, a slow & fiddly process to do correctly, and with little return for him...

In my current place, I can barely hear noises from outside (even the takeoffs & landings at the nearby general-aviation airport) because of the excellent insulation in my exterior walls. What I can hear quite clearly is every conversation on the telephone in the kitchen and every commercial on the television in the living room, because only uninsulated interior walls seperate the master bedroom and those rooms.

Builders don't get paid by the day, they get paid by the job - the faster they finish the house, the sooner it can sell and the sooner they get their money. Of course he's going to tell you not to bother ...

Re:Size matters

[baldinux]

It most certainly is 74 square meters and some change. Sorry about that blatant typo -- stuff like that is really embrassing.