Das Passivhaus

The term passive house (Passivhaus in German) refers to the rigorous, voluntary, Passivhaus standard for energy efficiency in a building, reducing its ecological footprint. It requires the creation of extremely well-insulated, airtight building envelopes and the controlling of other energy uses in the house such as water heating, appliances and lighting.

The Passivhaus movement started in Germany in the early 1990s. According to performance standards set by the Passivhaus Institute in Germany, the building can’t consume more than 15 kilowatt-hours per square meter in heating energy per year (equivalent to 4746 BTU per square foot per year). This typically requires that the wall, roof and floor insulation must be between R40 and R60. The building can’t leak more air than 0.6 times the house volume per hour. An energy recovery ventilator provides a constant, balanced fresh air supply. Basically, if a house fulfills all the Passivhaus requirements, the goal is that fuel costs will be zero and it doesn’t need a furnace anymore.

Although Passivhaus standards are difficult to achieve, I think that setting the bar purposely high is a good thing. So far, setting firm targets for reducing energy standards and switching to renewable energy sources has moved Europe onto the forefront of renewable energy technologies. Most of the innovations today come from Europe, and EU countries are slowly but steadily moving towards fossil fuel independence. The high passive house standards will also most likely act as incentives for builders and architects to reach those standards or even come up with a mainstream solution for a zero-energy house.

As of August 2010, there were approximately 25,000 certified passive houses in Europe, while in the United States there were only 13. As with so many other green innovations and leading-edge building designs as well as with the widespread use of renewable energy, the question is why is the US lagging so far behind? I think you can guess the answer(s) to that. For now, let’s just acknowledge that the technology is here and ready to use. We shouldn’t stop and be satisfied with LEED certifications because we can do better.

Energy Efficiency

In a time when our current energy policies are becoming more inefficient and expensive, it's beneficial to have people such as Amory Lovins active in promoting the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. Lovins has been working with trying to spread the importance of renewable energy for years and has written many books about it as well as actively participated in trying to contribute to the movement. 

One of his books, "Winning the oil endgame", he talks of substituting liquids made from biomass or wastes for petroleum fuels. He also talks of substituting natural gas for oil in uses where they are interchangeable, for example, furnaces or boilers. Lovins believes that the generation of energy should be done always at or near the site where the energy is actually used. 

Soft energy paths are the route we should be taking when trying to use renewable energies. Soft energy paths are energy conserving and involve efficient energy use as well as diverse and renewable energy sources. These soft energy paths are based on solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, etc. One of Lovins biggest concerns is the danger of committing to nuclear energy to meet societies energy needs. Amory Lovins also started the "Negawatt Revolution". Negawatt is a unit in watts in which watts of energy are saved, the opposite of a watt. He believes that people don't want kilowatt hours of electricity, they want to keep things cold or have hot showers, therefore saving energy becomes more efficient. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he uses this similar idea. He talks of digging for "negabarrels" of oil. These negabarrels are the opposite of digging for oil and can be done in major cities. He points out that by using "negabarrels of oil" (saving oil), you can save more oil than Saudi Arabia can produce.

Collecting Data and Using It,

  In Donelle H.Meadows Book "Thinking in Systems" on page 89 she says " When systems thinker encounters a problem, the  first thing  he or she does is look for data, time graphs, the history of the system.  That's because long term behavior provides clues to the underlying system structure. And the structure is the key to understanding not just what is happening, but why."

  To me this means, in order to figure out why something is going well or why something is going wrong we really need to look at all the facts.  And furthermore, it makes me question why even sometimes with the positive facts out weighing the negative facts we still seem to ignore certain systems that work.  The one system that we choose to ignore in America that has so much potential is Hemp Production.  I do not understand how we can turn our backs as a nation on something that can clothe, feed, shelter, and so much more.

     Lets get one thing straight, Hemp is not Marijuana, Hemp has no "Drug" properties.  It simply cannot intoxicate a human.  But what it can do has its own power and value.  Hemp seed can be made into a food protein in many forms.  Hemp fiber can make strong durable clothes, clothes that will last three times longer than cotton.  It takes one acre of Hemp 120 days to produce as much usable fiber as 3-4 acres of trees can produce in 7-8 years.  Hemp in the last few years has been made into a concrete type material, that homes can be made from.  And Hemp oil can be used to run cars.  To grow hemp you just need water and sun, it is usually pest resistant so no pesticides need to be used.  It is such an amazing plant with so much potential yet we can not grow it in the US, just import it, which drives up the cost to work with or buy, even though it is only a "weed".  It is a "system" that has worked for 1000's of years, it has founded countries, help discover new lands, and its future is wide open, as long as we let it in.
 

Biomimicry

Biomimicry

Humans are infants in the grand scheme of life.  Our biological elders have been here on earth much longer than we have, and compared to them, we still have everything to learn about sustainability.  –Janine Benyus

*We are a biological organism which means that we are nature.  So not to be confused, when Janine Benyus refers to nature, she means more than human

*Organisms have done everything we humans want to do without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future.

Bacteria arrived 3.8 billion years ago, since then life has learned to fly, circumnavigate the globe, live at the top of mountains, in the bottom of the ocean, light up at night, make miracle materials like skin, horns, hair, and brains.

The wood frog can freeze solid in winter and hop away unharmed in spring, a garden snail builds its own highway of slime, a rhino’s horn heals when cracked, even though it has no living organisms.  These are all miracles of nature.  A rhino did not go to school and learn to heal his horn, a frog didn’t have to learn how to freeze, and a snail does not have to learn how to produce slime.  All of these come natural.  Humans have different types of natural miracles that we do without thinking about that makes us able to survive.  We breathe without thinking about it, when our eyes become dry we blink without thinking about it.  Cardiac and smooth muscle contraction occurs without conscious thought and is necessary for survival.  Examples are the contraction of the heart and peristalsis which pushes food through the digestive system.  A human has a natural brain capacity to do much more than this, and in turn, do more harm to the planet.  But we also have the capacity to do more good, it is up to us on how we use our brains, and to be more aware and learn more on how to live sustainable. 

          I believe the only reason some of humans behavior/actions are detrimental to a natural/sustainable life cycle, is that we humans have the capacity to learn and execute new ideas.  If a wood frog knew a way to survive through the winter without having to be frozen in one single spot, I’m sure it would.  If a gazelle knew how to use fire power, then it would do so on the cheetah before the cheetah killed him.  If other forms of life had the brain power humans have, then they wouldn’t settle for the natural strengths their creator gave them.  Humans have very complex brains that need stimulation.  Our creator gave us such brain capacity so that we can put it to use.  Our creator wants us to learn and create and build.  That is a natural part of life for humans.  I think for humans to go back to basics (caveman life) would be totally unnatural and a slap in the face to our creator.  We weren’t given this supreme potential so that we can sit on rocks and bang sticks together.  God wanted us to go to the moon, he wanted us to travel the world on airplanes, and he wanted us to do all of these things that we do.  That is why he wired us in a way that through time we were able to figure out how to do all of these things.

Deforestation

I think that it may, in some ways be hard to consider deforestation to have effects on sustainability because when people think of trees they don't realize all of the things trees are used for. Not only us as humans need them but hundreds of thousands of species rely on the rain forests for shelter and food, it is their home. What most people don't realize is that our forests have been rapidly decreasing due to to and misuse/abuse of Mother Earths trees. While reading about deforestation I came across a sweet book I was able to read online called Vital Forest Graphics. I thought this book offered some really good information about Deforestation in the past, present, and some things people can do to help rebuild our forests and stop deforestation. “Conserving forests has become a key weapon in the fight to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change.” (VFG, 56)

Along with the conservation of many forests around the world, people are also doing their part to reestablish forested areas. “In 1999, China launched the ‘Grain for Green’ programme to promote recovery of vegetation cover, watershed management and poverty alleviation ... The programme now covers 25 provinces in over 1,600 counties (autonomous regions and municipalities) and involves 15 million households and 60 million farmers. From 1999 to 2002, 7.7 million hectares of land was converted into forest, including 3.72 million hectares of farm land turned forest and 3.98 million hectares of plantations established on barren hills.” This program is considered to be “the largest participatory community forest project in China, possibly in the world.” (VFG, 61) I believe that people are realizing how preserving our forests is becoming a key part of sustaining a healthy Earth and more people should be taking part in communities similar to the Grain for Green in China because these types of programs are the only chance this planet has for survival.

NHPR.org - Bacteria Power: Energy Minute

NHPR.org - Bacteria Power: Energy Minute

Bacteria Power: Energy Minute

By Jon Greenberg on Tuesday, May 19, 2009

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Hungry bacteria can cut energy bills by thousands of dollars a month.

I’m Jon Greenberg with this energy minute.

Treating wastewater takes a lot of power. But both the City of Nashua and Stonyfield Farm have struck a deal with bacteria to clean up their wastewater at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

They both built massive tanks called digesters. Inside these tanks, water and bacteria mix it up, breaking down solids. Now, the bacteria won’t do their thing if it’s too cold. Fortunately, as they clean the water, they produce a gas. Lisa Drake at Stonyfield says you can use that gas to run heaters under the tank.

DRAKE: So it keeps them nice and warm and keeps them happy and productive and that’s basically how it works.

This approach has already paid for itself at Stonyfield and saves Nashua about a million dollars a year on its electric bills. In Germany, they built a more advanced system that drives a 250 kilowatt power plant. They run the digester, heat buildings and still have juice left over to feed back into the electric grid.

With this energy minute, I’m Jon Greenberg.

We are too many

Whenever my friends and I are discussing the fate of our planet (which happens quite often), we come to the same conclusion: one of the root problems our planet is facing is the population explosion of the human race. At the beginning of the 19^th century, world population was only about 1 billion. By 1960, it reached 3 billion and doubled to about 6 billion during the next four decades. Currently, the world population is about 6.7 billion. Although the growth rate declined since then due to a global increase in education levels and standards of living, we are expected to reach 10 billion by the year 2050.

American biologist and ecologist Paul Ehrlich has warned us over and over again about unlimited population growth and limited resources. He developed the formula I=PAT: Human Impact (I) on the environment equals the product of population (P), affluence (A: consumption per capita) and technology (T: environmental impact per unit of consumption), which is mentioned in Tom Wessel’s “The Myth of Progress” but most ecologists focus more on affluence and technology. Understandably, population control is a sensitive and very emotional issue that impacts not only economics and the environment but also sociology, philosophy, family, politics, ethnic and national pride, religion, sexuality, and individual rights.

Many western countries accuse the “under-developed and under-educated world” for the overpopulation. And, indeed, there is a strong inverse correlation between education and birthrate. The western countries all are seeing a decline in their population growth rate. But, according to Paul Ehrlich, “The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but the numbers of people in an area relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities. […] It also depends on how those people behave. When this is considered, an entirely different picture emerges: the main population problem is in wealthy countries.” Our behavior has caused the biggest environmental crisis this planet has ever seen and it is our responsibility to act first.