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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Ethical energy use - what is your favorite "better than PV panels?"

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  • From: venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Ethical energy use - what is your favorite "better than PV panels?"
  • Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2013 08:58:54 -0500

On 1/1/2013 8:19 AM, Cory Brennan wrote:
This is great for a homesteader on 10 acres, but I'm looking for
something that works on a 1/4 acre lot that already has a bunch of
stuff on it like food forests, house and garage (for co-housing),
compost, vermicompost, rain catchment, etc. On a lot that size, you
need most or all of the coppiced wood for fertility if you don't
want to import it. You gotta have something that goes on the roof,
like PV, or something really small.

This is a design problem that is not handled or solved that I know
of. If everyone on the planet moved to 20 acre homesteads, or 5 acres
or even 1 acre and grew wood for fuel, it wouldn't be the highest use
for trees or wood on this planet, and therefore not sustainable. It's
all well and good to talk about how others aren't really applying
permaculture, but how many of us are fully off grid and using fully
renewable (over the long term) energy sources that could work
anywhere on the planet - particularly in US suburbs? What would
happen if we as a group put our collective genius to the task of
solving this one?

An answer to that question is simply to use Toby's propopsal:
"self-reliance on a bioregional level is where we need to focus not on self-sufficiency". Organize neighborhoods with distributed production in mind. Have them all meet and brainstorm. There is hardly anything more fun than doing that. Determine the needs of individual (urban) (permaculture) home(steads). Locate vacant urban space within the neighborhood. Install permaculture gardens with woodlots for fuel generation and compost from leaves and twigs, wildlife habitat. I'll bet you'd be surprised at how much land you would find that could be used for these purposes. Some of this space could be devoted exclusively to fuel production. Also, why would every house need its own power generation system? Why not determine the most efficient size
of such equipment and have it supply electricity to as many homes as possible; also those homes can schedule power usage at different times
to eliminate peak loading (overloading) of the system. Also, individual homes could have small PV units with battery storage as determined by their needs which may differ from their neighbor's, i.e. more or less electronic gear to be charged, or have a common charging station for several homes. Why not have community kitchens and dining facilities,
with food storage: pickling, canning, fermenting equipment, freezers and refrigerators, food dehydrators, pantries, baking facilities (coupled with steam & DHW boiler). I really like the idea of steam engine driven electrical generators with battery storage. This can be done on any scale proportional to need and provides living space and greenhouse heat as well as heat for cooking and baking, if the equipment is designed with that in mind. Coordinate the latter with
operation of the power plant.

The possibilities are endless. As Bill Mollison said (with a few words added by me): "the only limit to the scope, depth and complexity of a permaculture design is the imagination of the designer (and of course the skill and knowledge of those implementing those designs)".

LL




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