Waste Not, Want Not

One of the deeply ingrained problems of our Western culture, particularly in the U.S., is that we've been living through a period of abundance with profligate attitudes. Many of our current energy challenges could be met by simply being less wasteful.

Generating electricity from waste heat is a step in the right direction. A Waste Heat Engine designed by Cyclone Power Technologies, as profiled in this gizmag article, can generate up to 10kw, recapturing energy from heat sources such as biomass combuston, industrial ovens, and furnaces.

Journalist Paul Evans notes:

The first WHE system will be installed at Bent Glass Design in Hatboro, PA. This system will harness waste heat from the customer’s glass manufacturing furnaces, and is expected to produce enough electricity to light their 65,000 ft2 facility while providing a quick payback possibly within two or three years.

Smart technology! We need more of this kind of approach.

Middlebury College Becoming Carbon Neutral

With a target to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2016, Middlebury College in Vermont has taken a major first step in that direction with the completion of a $12 million dollar biomass boiler and plant. Bill McKibben, whose organization 350.org is playing a major role in calling for a fair global climate treaty, participated in the opening ceremonies and gave a lecture on the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions/

At optimal capacity, which the plant is expected to reach over the next month, the facility will consume about three tons of wood chips an hour and meet about half the campus’s heating, cooling and hot-water needs. The other half will still be supplied by boilers that burn No. 6 fuel oil, but the overall campus use of such oil will be cut in half, from 2 million gallons a year to 1 million. As a result, the college’s carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced about 40 percent, or 12,500 metric tons a year.

Middlebury College is working to develop its own supply and wood chips on its surrounding property and also investigating the potential of geothermal energy for further reducing carbon emissions. More details are available in this article, orginally published in the Burlington Free Press.

From a Fossil-Fuel to a Green Economy

From Nation videos, some thoughts on the benefits of moving from an economy based on fossil fuels to one that generates jobs though solar projects, wind energy, and energy efficiency.

Passive Energy Design Attracts Interest

At the very top of the popularity list of e-mailed articles at the New York Times three days afters its initial posting, No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses' is an instructive lesson in solving energy problems in a non-traditional way. Journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal describes an innovative approach to building design, focusing on the "passive house" of a German family that maintains comfortable temperatures throughout the winter even though it has no furnace. The trick? Ultrathick insulation, a unique ventilation system, and similar design advances that essentially recycle heating.

It's a technique that has been tried, but was marked by failure in the past.

Decades ago, attempts at creating sealed solar-heated homes failed, because of stagnant air and mold. But new passive houses use an ingenious central ventilation system. The warm air going out passes side by side with clean, cold air coming in, exchanging heat with 90 percent efficiency.

“The myth before was that to be warm you had to have heating. Our goal is to create a warm house without energy demand,” said Wolfgang Hasper, an engineer at the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt. “This is not about wearing thick pullovers, turning the thermostat down and putting up with drafts. It’s about being comfortable with less energy input, and we do this by recycling heating.”

There are now an estimated 15,000 passive houses around the world, the vast majority built in the past few years in German-speaking countries or Scandinavia.

This isn't an approach that I hear discussed often in the U.S., which is perhaps why there was such a tremendous amount of interest in the article at the New York Times. Unlike other forms of alternative energy at the residential level, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars to deploy, passive houses in Germany cost approximately 5 to 7 percent more to build than a conventional home. This technique definitely bears more investigation. Sometimes the solutions to the most vexing energy problems are right before us, but overlooked in the rush toward flashier, higher technology solutions.