Porous Paving

Why use porous pavement instead of regular concrete or asphalt?
- allows more land area to absorb water
- reduces runoff into storm drains by creating a larger reservoir for storm water
- this reduces the risk of flooding or overflowing of drainage networks
- reduces the cost of maintaining storm water infrastructure such as drains and retention ponds

By paving with this new type of aggregate, the adverse effects of blocking off so much land which would naturally filter water and create a groundwater reservoir would be alleviated. Instead of increasing runoff when it rains, the pavement will help draw down water into the ground, which will recharge groundwater reserves in the form of aquifers. Toxins which would normally be found in the runoff and added directly to streams will be eliminated by natural filtration through the ground. This will ensure a more reliable supply of water for future generations who live in the area. The health of the ecosystems around the area will also increase, including the vegetation bordering any roads which will receive a more gradual supply of water from the broader infiltration area. Since groundwater serves as the fresh water supply for most areas around the globe, this is a very important feature for our future habitation of many areas of the world.

The porous pavement also has the benefit of maintaining cooler temperatures in the paving areas and in surrounding streams where water normally heated after pooling on the pavement would drain to. It has the potential to reduce the "urban heat island effect" and the increased heath of surrounding plants can also reduce the heat normally radiating from paved areas. Since some of these systems include planted turf as the top layer, and help surrounding vegetation grow, it could be considered that the pavement helps reduce our carbon footprint by absorbing CO2.

There are a few requirements for the area however. The soil type must be able to drain at least a certain amount of water or it will still pool up and possibly harm the structure of the porous pavement. A few different types of porous pavements and what they consist of can be found here. Because the system has multiple layers, it must be deeper and more carefully engineered than any average road. There is also some maintenance requirements, which are not present for normal paving, that differ depending on the type of paving used. We can all do our part in reducing the damage done by normal paving by using simple methods of porous paving in our own driveways. This may be as simple as using crushed stone or seashells which do not hinder water percolation as normal asphalt driveways do.

A little solar powered wind

Today I was walking through a small earth day festival in my town and noticed an interesting looking fan. This fan, as it turns out, is installed into the attic of houses and pushed air out of the attic. What's so cool or even environmentally relevant about this? This fan is capable of reducing your electric bill in the summer, and it's solar powered! Since I just attended a lecture on solar power panels this past week I thought it was an interesting, smaller, and more cost efficient alternative to large panels which generate electricity but are costly to install.

The benefit to these fans is that they circulate air within the attic with the combined help of either a soffit or a gable vent, diagrams of which can be seen at the bottom of this page. The idea is that the vents allow air from the outside to enter, and the solar powered fan pulls the air that heats up in the attic out of the house. The fan is capable of moving air at a rate of 800 to 1200 cfm (cubic feet per minute). This prevents the air in your attic from reaching extremely high temperatures that are caused by the attic's stagnant air collecting heat from the sun heating the hot roof and keeping it insulated in there. This stagnant air collects and begins to radiate heat into the rest of the home. It also prevents the hot air in the rest of the home from rising up and radiate into the attic, and from there out of the house.

By circulating the air and keeping the attic and the house cooler, it reduces the need for energy on the airconditioning unit. Since this is one of the major energy consumers in the home during the summer, it will make a but impact on reducing cost. This reductiong is only possible because of the solar panel that comes attached to the fan. The unit is therefore not connected to the rest of the wiring of the house. The benefit of the fan being solar powered is that it operates during the highest concentrations of sun light. Since the highest need for cooling occurs when the sun is at its height, this system works out amazingly because it works it's hardest when it is needed the most.

One downfall is that it does cost slightly more than electrical systems according to one site, but if you consider the savings and that it doesn't have to have the extra connection to the electrical system, then it works out in the end to be more economical. The system to be very simple to install compared to other solar powered or electrical systems. There is also the advantage that this can be installed into any type of home with an attic. At the festival one woman was interested in installing one into her Victorian home. This therefore seems like a great way to retrofit a home to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable with minimal additions so that the character of the home is maintained.

Passive Solar and Light In Earth-Sheltered Housing

I've been reading a lot lately about this earth-sheltered housing phenomenon, but some people still remain skeptical about the potential "basement-like" feeling of living partially underground. This is understandable, considering most of the homes are enclosed on 3 sides. If you are lucky enough to own land on a south facing slope, however, or if you have an area where you are able to pick the direction of your home, then you can utilize passive solar energy and avoid that "basement" feeling

If the house is built to properly maximize its solar potential, then it will have an elongated layout, with all bedrooms and living areas to the front of the home where the windows are located, and all of the bathrooms, storage areas, and utility rooms toward the rear of the home because no windows are necessary. In south facing homes this allows the maximum amount of light to penetrate the home, even in the middle of winter. This light also has the benefit of warming the home in the winter, with the assistance of an absorber and a thermal mass to hold the heat inside the home. In the summer this is controlled by an overhanging roof, as discussed previously.

Back to the original topic; lighting. These homes can actually have more light than a conventional home without any lighting fixtures. Many of these houses are constructed with domed or cathedral ceilings and light colored paint. This allows the light that enters the room to bounce off all of the curved and angled surfaces, scattering the light and illuminating the would-be dark space. The homes may also be built with skylights which allow sunlight access to the rear regions of the home. A fairly large example of this can be seem here.

Earth-sheltered homes therefore utilize solar energy in two major ways which cut down on energy consumption. They use passive solar energy to heat the home in the winter. This is accomplished through direct gain through the windows, and through indirect gain from the earth around the home. The summer sun warms up the earth around the home and slowly releases it into the home as the winter wears on. The light from the sun is also used to light the house which prevents the need for lighting in the rooms with windows during the day.

We need to begin to use more of these qualities from the earth and sun which are all renewable sources of energy, or at least reduce our need for it. It may be able to cut down on our impact on the world enough to save it from being irreversibly damaged.

Solutions for Space and Rural Area Housing

So a little more on these underground homes. Gideon Golany has researched different types of homes using earth-sheltered technology around the world. Many of his study areas have been focused in rural regions with little to no advanced technology available for constructing energy efficient homes. Some of these regions are also greatly lacking in construction materials, such as some arid regions in Tunisia, and some are just generally lacking in space due to over crowding, such as China. A list and preview of some of his books and papers can be found here.

Golany traveled to many of these areas to study the efficiency of maintaining temperatures for comfort and how they can save space in overcrowded regions. Many of these building techniques have been taken from ancient housing designs from each region. These can teach us a lot about how to use passive practices to maintain a comfortable environment inside our homes. This could reduce our impact on the environment.

Golany's studies in China tested the efficiency of two typed of homes. In the rural regions he tested, he found that completely underground dwellings radiating from a central courtyard were less efficient than dwellings located in the cliff face. This is because the air in the courtyard dwellings becomes stagnant. It heats up to uncomfortable temperatures in the summer and becomes cold because of a lack of sun penetrating the courtyard in the winter. This problem with stagnant air does not exist in the cliff side dwellings because air circulates much more readily past the front face of a dwelling.

This is important for more technologically advanced earth-sheltered homes as well. Ventilation is very important for these houses, because they are only exposed on one side. For the more natural houses it is an important factor in maintaining a comfortable temperature and preventing a stagnant feel inside the home. Various ventilation systems can maintain a comfortable atmosphere within advanced earth-sheltered dwellings and normal air conditioning systems may also be used to maintain the small comfort window down to an exact cue. These systems, as discussed earlier, may be much smaller, and therefore less expensive than those meant for conventional homes.

Mole Men in Our Future?

Have you ever considered living underground? Well, not completely underground necessarily, but in an earth-sheltered home? I've been dreaming about the day when I could live in one of these unique houses of my very own. But before that happens, is it really worth it?

There are a number of benefits to owning an earth-sheltered home, such as reduced heating bills, environmentally friendly living, and no great loss of yard space! One company, Earth Sheltered Technology, Inc., offers a list of benefits to owning an earth-sheltered home, as well as some designs and frequently asked questions.

The main selling point of the houses for me is their efficiency of heat use. The company claims that their houses are up to 80% more efficient than standard home. This of course means that many of their homes are less efficient than this, since that is the maximum efficiency. Because of this efficiency, however, you would need a system that was only about 1/4th the power of a normal heating system. You could also then combine this with newer, energy efficient technology, such as geothermal, passive solar, and efficient light bulbs such as LED (expensive but the most efficient for now).

If you were to build the house with the windows facing south and with an over hanging roof, it will be warmed in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky and be more shaded in the summer when the sun is higher. All these little things have the potential to greatly reduce energy bills and make an earth-sheltered home even more sustainable.

Follow up

Here is Speaker Pelosi thanking Power Shifters for their lobbying efforts and accomplishments.

Power Shift

Over the past weekend I attended a conference, along with 10,000 other young people, called Power Shift. This was a great experience for me and I would like to encourage anyone interested in environmental and sustainability issues to go next year. There were a number of panels and workshops presented by leading researchers, entrepreneurs, and leaders in many fields concerning sustainable power and how to achieve it.

This was a great experience that allowed me to learn a little bit more about different methods of combating the energy crisis. Many of the forums focused on our dependence on oil or on new energy sources, such as wind, geothermal, and solar. One of the forums I attended looked at making buildings more energy efficient. This one was especially informative and covered everything from what types of insulation work best in new buildings to how to go through old buildings and find ways to improve their energy efficiency with minor upgrades.

One work in progress that one of the panelists mentioned was a water heater, for any sort of building, that would use the heat normally lost from the hot water holding tank to reheat the water in loop. This would greatly reduce loss of energy from the hot water and recycle it for more efficient water heating. The panelist mentioned that it has the potential to take the water heating bill for a normal family home from about $75 down to about $16 a month.

Other more simple updates can be made to your home or the places you work, such as using more energy efficient light bulbs and eliminating "decorative" lighting fixture. Replacing old windows with new, more insulating ones is also becoming a popular investment. These methods are especially important for old buildings that cannot handle major renovations, but that have e tendency to drain power and have high energy bills.

Consider going though your home or office and looking for minor upgrades that will help us all in the long run.

Landfills for the Environment?

So I heard from a representative of Curtis Engine about utilizing landfills to run their methane powered engines this past week. They make one of only a handful of engines world wide that can be powered by methane.

The basics of the landfill background are:
-Large landfills, especially those with lots of organic materials in them and with moist conditions, give off tons of cubic feet of 50% CO2 and 50% methane (as well as <1% other trace elements) per year.
-In the past this would have merely leaked out into the atmosphere, or possibly leaked out underground, occasionally into people's basements, and rarely causing explosions.
-In more recent years, the excess methane has been flared off, which produces CO2 and H2O, because it is 20 times as detrimental a greenhouse gas as CO2.
-This is wasted energy potential.

Many up and coming entrepreneurs, and some who are already well established, are realizing the potential for some of the newer and larger landfills to be converted into small, methane-fueled power plants, with the assistance of these special engines. This will still convert methane into the less harmful CO2, but it will do so in a beneficial way that will take pressure off of using fossil fuels and natural gases as a source of power.

One of the most interesting things noted in the presentation and discussion was that this way we are only using carbon from today, not stable, stored carbon from millions of years ago and adding it in addition to the current circulating supply. This goes along similar lines as using corn oil as a source of fuel, because the corn that will be used will sequester some of the carbon in the atmosphere. It will all be in a nice little cycle. Though I am not necessarily for corn oil as a source of fuel, because I think those lands could be put to use at making food instead, I am very much for the use of methane from landfills. This gas will be present either way, and using it as a fuel does not waste it, and it controls its release better so that it will not escape through underground crevasses and cause unnecessary damage.

This is also a nice opportunity to create more jobs for today's economy. Technicians would be needed round the clock to monitor the engines and generators. This would take an otherwise generally unwanted area and turn it into an economically profitable venture.

Advances for Wind

I went to another lecture on wind energy this past week, and part of a solution to the unpredictability of wind caught my attention. They mentioned three methods of storage.
1) One used the turbines as some sort of water pump which would then drive generators.
2) The second used a sort of compressed air system.
3) And the third used a storage system built into home appliances.

There were a few other methods named which were a bit less direct, like using excess energy when the wind was blowing the fastest to charge electric cars (another very interesting topic). The one that most interested me, however, was the compressed air system. I found a great New York Times article that talks about the potential for the new technology. One of the major problems people point out with wind energy is that there is currently no way to store the energy during times of high wind to be used at peak hours of electrical use when there may not be as much wind. This system would use wind turbines to compress air underground, which would later be released and used to turn generators during peak hours. There is apparently a power plant in Alabama that has been using this sort of technique since 1991, as well as a plant from Germany built in the 70's.

These power plants are not based on wind power, though, and can use a variety of fuels to compress air. This means that they are still researching new ways to store the technology, but I believe the new market for it will spur them into quick innovations. Forerunners on the project are looking at using old mines and natural gas deposits to store the air underground, since in many places excavating new underground storage would be difficult due to the rocky substrate. I think this would be a very economical, and environmentally conscious act on their par. Since mines are normal detrimental to the environment, it would be just to use them as part of a mechanism for clean energy.

Though wind energy can be used, as it has been proven in many places, without the assistance of energy storage, the addition of storage systems would help it pass judgment with some naysayers who hold this as their main negative aspect. I believe the more innovations that can be made to improve this technology, the more people will realize how crucial a component it is for our world's future.

Why not wind?

So I went to a lecture on wind energy last night, done by a representative from Maryland's Blue Water Winds project. He showed us an interesting video about wind power, including people's opinions, technical information, and environmental effects.

Now one thing that stood out to me was the people's opinions. Now of course they had the people talking about how great it would be and how useful and environmentally friendly, as any campaigning project would. But what I thought was interesting, was that one of the construction managers from Denmark said. He noted that the US is worrying about problems that they were discussing 30 years ago.

It is understandable that we are taking another look at most of these issues, seeing as we are in a completely different part of the world and may face a whole new set of problems. I feel like people are ignoring many important issues, such as the general reduction of CO2 emissions which has been proven, and focusing on less drastic problems, such as temporary effects on the benthic sea life when the cable is laid down.

People also do not seem to realize that this is a potentially new industry for the US to take part in. With any new project, new jobs are created, but right now we do not have any of the equipment to build these wind parks on our own. If we opened the doors for outside companies to start facilities here, or even started one from scratch (though this would be significantly harder) it would make this budding industry much easier to realize, and more beneficial to our working class.

Bird Buzz

So I did a little research on the bird issue. I still couldn't find migration patterns, but I did look on Cape Wind's website (http://www.capewind.org/news491.htm) to see what they said about birds.

The Cape Wind project was compared to the Altamont Pass, a wind farm in California, despite the fact that it is in a completely different locations. It would be best to compare it to another offshore wind farm. A study was done at at Nysted, one of the offshore wind farms in Denmark with 72 turbines. Over the turbine's 6 year operation period, observation of wild fowl show that less than 1% of ducks and geese in the area fly close enough to be threatened by the turbines. They also apparently flew further away at night. This study, along with another at Horns Rev, also in Denmark, used infrared cameras to monitor some of the turbines. Out of 2,400 hours of footage, only 15 birds and bats, and one moth, flew close enough to be recorded. Only one bird/bat actually collided with a structure. (http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/18167/)

I realize that I'm still being a bit harsh and getting my data from those who will benefit from the wind farms. The Birdlife International website (http://www.ornithologiki.gr/gr/politiki/wind_birdlife.php) made an interesting and importand point. They said, "Climate change is widely recognised as posing the most serious threat to people and global biodiversity." We need to begin weaning ourselves off of fossil fuel dependence and seek out new, renewable energy sources. This may involve sacrificing a few birds for the greater benefit of the biosphere at large.

Wind Power

After reading a little about the Bluewater Wind project in Deleware, and hearing some of people's views and concerns about wind power, I still believe it to be a brilliant idea. It is a new technology so there will be many kinks to work out and problems to be worked around, but there is also the possibility for so much advancement in the new technology.

Just think about oil. We began utilizing it in it's crude form and have since been refining and advancing the technology to change it and be powered by it so that now we even have different gradients of octane for different cars to use. People are concerned that wind is unreliable as a power source, after all having a constant wind at a steady rate for even a short time is very odd. But just because we do not yet have the technology to store that excess energy for times of calm does not mean that it will never exist. Just having the idea of it, and having an industry to supply that new technology to, will spur scientists into a flurry of activity.

Another major concern is the aesthetic aspect. People do not want their pristine ocean view to be marred by these massive wind turbines. I personally think they are clean cut pieces of engineering artwork. Unlike wind turbines on land however, these would be located on an offshore sandbar. Other proposed wind farms would be located 5 to 7 miles out, but in Delaware they would be located 12 miles out. Considering a normal person standing on the beach can see a horizon only 3 to 4 miles away, I don't think many people would be that disconcerting about tiny blips on the horizon, if they noticed anything at all.

Another major concern is bird kills (I don't believe bats would be a factor that far out at sea). Do birds actually go that far out on a regular basis? I feel like most migrating birds would be fairly far away from the danger. Not to mention any bird lacking the skill to evade a slowly turning wind turbine may deserve to be taken out for the good of the species, just my feeling.