permaculture

[Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

Yes, some very good ideas, but I deal with urban systems which must be 
retrofitted, not torn down and rebuilt (which would be way wasteful, and just 
lazy design). This is a problem that I feel needs to be confronted with the 
group genius at work, really digging in and looking for the best solutions to 
the existing structure - not some pie in the sky scenario. We are here, we 
did do what we did, and now we are functioning via the use of fossil fuels on 
massive scales. What is the design solution?

I like your comment about passive heating.cooling. I can't tell you how many 
"green" buildings I've been in, including platinum LEED buildings, that are 
using only a fraction of the passive tools they have available to them. Lazy, 
man. As long as they get their points, they are not going to go the distance. 
LEED needs to be reformed. I know at least one regional head of USGBC who is 
interested in doing that. That was several yers ago - I woudl bet there are 
more now. There are a number of leverage points that we can use to move our 
energy systems to more sustainable designs. A big factor is the energy mafia 
- utility companies in bed with fossil fuel monolith corporations to maintain 
their monopolies. But we're not going to get anywhere toppling that edifice 
until we have some real solutions to replace it with. And we dont', at least 
not to ready hand. But I will bet that they are out there, if we did our 
homework....
 
Koreen Brennan

www.growpermaculture.com
www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition


________________________________
 From: Jeremy Baker <childscrick@yahoo.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Ethical energy use - what is your favorite 
"better than PV panels?"
 
Some nice energy here, pun intended. I find it easy to fall into a mindset of 
what can I buy to fix the energy elephant in the room and add complexity, 
redundancy, and consequences. While be waste piles up, I wonder how did it, 
the elephant, get in the room. Did someone not notice it while they built the 
room. Did they build a big enough door. Why or why not. Why is this my 
concern, I didn't put the elephant there. Am I complicit in putting it there. 
How am I going to get it out. Can I live with it. It could be interesting 
living with it. Can I get along with the elephant. Whats it going to eat. 
Maybe I'll leave and let someone else figure it out. Maybe the elephant will 
leave anyway. Who will pay for it. .............this is a lot of poop to 
move. 
  A gist is that energy is all around and the biggest material question is 
the social and cultural fabric that cloaks it. I see tumbling water from 
ditches and culverts frequently in my region that could generate neighborhood 
power while the conundrum is how to bring it into the inner cultural and 
social realm. 
I read somewhere that electric vehicles, tractors, trolleys, steam 
generators, and so on were in use in a century ago. I like electricity and 
solar panels. I think they have immense potential to increase our freedom 
from work we don't want or to do work we do want. Sure, presently batteries 
are a bit of a hassle, however I have seen battery requirements minimized 
with fine tuning. Is doing nothing the answer to the energy dilemma. The 
image of Mollison rising up out the garden after presumably slumbering rather 
than laboring motivated me as much as any other aspect of Permaculture. 
In the nineteen eighties after the oil shortage a lot of focus went to 
passive design. This seems to get glossed over by the whiz zing and whirring 
of active systems. Ground source heat pumps are way cool innovations but will 
break down. What about simply building into the earth in the first place.?
Cheers all and HNYear


Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 1, 2013, at 5:58 AM, venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> 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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On 1/1/2013 10:26 AM, Robert Waldrop wrote:
> I think in urban areas some kind of district energy setup works, it could
> provide hot and cold water (for cooling and heating, respectively) during 
> their

Complexity, size and cost of facilities with equipment providing
services could be scaled from groups of homes to neighborhoods to
communities (urban village, hamlet?) depending on operational efficiency
and the community's ability to provide operators and maintenance. I
think Koreen is emphasizing low cost and use of ease of access to
available materials and equipment, new or recycled. A steam turbine
should not be difficult to design and build. Manufacture could be done
in house providing jobs (or community work-trade; keep the "currency" in
the community) with products distributed to all other communities
needing them. Products of this sort might include:
1) steam turbine
2) boiler: super high efficiency wood burning combustion chamber and
    pressure vessel with co-generation capability: waste heat is
    recycled for boiler water pre-heating, DHW production (bathing,
    dishwashing, laundry, space heat, greenhouse heat). The combustion
    chamber could be coupled with a cook and bake oven.
3) unique wood fired combustion chamber capable of heating water for
    DHW use, generating steam for the turbine driving generator and
    cooking using a cook and bake oven. If the combustion chamber and
    boiler were located within (and accessable for maintenance) a
    Russian type stove then the building housing the equipment could be
    heated during cold months. Solar pre-heated boiler water could be a
    by product of space heat generation with a solar closet.

I think Ray Cirino will know a lot about this sort of thing.

> seasons, freezer/locker service to householders,laundry service, and do so 
> with
> technologies that might not be feasible at the household level.I'm thinking 
> of a

Yes, a community building could house a kitchen which could have
refrigeration, freezers, cooking equipment, food preservation equipment,
processing, packaging and prep of garden produce and more. It could also
house the power generation equipment which would be tied into DHW
production, cooking and laundry. It could be the full time jobs of a
number of people managing and maintaining such a facility which could
run 24/7/365.

> solar driven ammonia adsorbation (if I got that spelling correct) for 
> freezing
> and cooling,

I'll Google this.

> and maybe collected biogas from the residents for heating
> supplemented with biomass furnished by the beneficiaries.  Electricity 
> would be

> from a several sources including on site solar pV, and wind associated with 
> the
> neighborhood "Service Center".

Right. Locate the steam turbine driven electric generator with wind
turbines, photovoltaic arrays and storage battery banks. All co-located
at the comprehensive community center with cooking and dining, laundry
and all kitchen and food storage services. Keep all wiring supplying
power to appliances as short as possible; everything under one roof so
to speak.

> Or the district service center could operate via large ground source heat 
> pumps.

For heating and cooling and for preheating water for steam generation. A
high RPM steam turbine would be a good option, geared down to drive a
generator.