Comments on: Rain Barrels, Chickens, and Walking the Sustainable Living Talk

By: Christopher Retzler

Christopher Retzler — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:04:56 +0000

This was a good, refreshing
This was a good, refreshing post! Taking it one step further, here is an article from 5 years ago that still applies today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112101856.html

By: Ben Stallings

Ben Stallings — Tue, 29 May 2012 00:37:22 +0000

Hello, Allison. I'm glad to
Hello, Allison. I'm glad to see I'm not the only energy auditor who's also into sustainable living! The particular school I follow is permaculture design; I have my PDC and am trying to make a go of it as a garden designer since the auditing field has dried up here in Kansas.

I think the word "sustainable" needs to be reclaimed, not abandoned. The fact is that the sustainability of a practice -- or rather the UNsustainability -- is quite easy to determine, because if it consumes any nonrenewable resources or produces any unused waste products, it is unsustainable. Rather than just throw up our hands at the greenwashing of unsustainable products through false claims of their sustainability, we should do something about it. Sue them for false advertising, perhaps. I don't have a plan, I just have a conviction that the word still has meaning and value in spite of its misuse.

Of course the sad fact is that if we were to enforce the use of "sustainable" only for practices that can truly be sustained indefinitely, most of what WE do would also fail the test. The only case I know of where someone has truly achieved meaningful sustainability and proven it beyond a doubt is Jim Merkel, in his book Radical Simplicity, recently made into a film, RADICALLY simple, which I have not yet seen. The rest of us are just poseurs compared to him!

In any case, thanks for this post, and I look forward to hearing more about your homestead.

By: Robert Bean

Robert Bean — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:22:57 +0000

Here’s what drives
Here’s what drives me squirrely when it comes to sustainability.
The Aqua Tower in Chicago: A Thermographic Perspective.
Can you picture the annual energy flow into this building for the rest of its life…

http://tinyurl.com/brdktmc 

We can fix up all the houses we want and build all the Passivehaus to our hearts content but until this “modern” architectural mayhem stops – all is for not…

By: John Poole

John Poole — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:34:50 +0000

Let's see if I can get that
Let's see if I can get that link right this time:

squirrel pic

By: Paul Price

Paul Price — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:54:40 +0000

Allison,

Allison,

I have read nearly all of your blog entries, commented a couple of times, most excellent and stimulating. I love building science, just too scared/unqualified to go to Lstiburekian boot camps.

You said:
"the resources that I save get used somewhere else, but only as long as we're on the upswing. Now that resource production is peaking, we can make real progress because that cycle will be forced to change."

How is that necessarily so? If we are on the downswing the demand/supply relationship will still hold at any particular time, just as it did on the upswing when supply was at a similar level. Therefore what you save will still be used somewhere else.

On the downswing it may well be that the reason we are not buying the resources or energy is not because we are being 'responsible', it will be because resources and energy become unaffordable. Unfortunately Jevons holds.

The question is: how can we maintain prosperity for the most people on the downswing if some make excessive use of resources, either by having more wealth or by being enabled to by the restraint of others keeping prices down.

I am still struggling to see how restraint, though ethically laudable, is helpful to the overall problem on any sustainability scale larger than a small community. Overall it will have little effect, hence the need for government and preferable global agreements on how we face the future together with future generations.

Robert Frank has suggested that taxes escalate with escalating personal use so that the wealthy also feel the ethical benefits of restraint. He suggests that this would restrict the overall size of antlers in the useless "I've got a bigger antlers than you" consumption race among the wealthy. They would still race but on a restricted scale and the taxes would bring in societally beneficial funding for investment in energy efficiency and renewables.

Is there another universal restraint on excessive resource and energy use except direct taxes or regulation?

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:54:09 +0000

Maybe slightly OT, but
Maybe slightly OT, but regarding rain barrels – has any pro actually analyzed water off an asphalt roof to be sure it’s safe for use in a vegetable garden? I’ve heard concerns, but no idea if they are well founded…

By: John Poole

John Poole — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:48:57 +0000

My relationship with
My relationship with squirrels is not unlike that of an Ahab with many Moby Dicks chomping away at his peg leg…

OK. That was something silly I just made up. But I do have a long history with squirrels.

Here’s the one staring me down, right outside my window, while I was working at my desk, just a few days ago. Glad I had my camera within reach:

http://twitpic.com/9grqwe 

– Capt. John

By: Robert Bean

Robert Bean — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:24:38 +0000
A recommend academic lecture
A recommend academic lecture on sustainability – (because unlike most talks, it covers the dark side of engineering ethics and sustainability) - is presented by Professor Roland Cliff, Engineering for Sustainable Development and offered through the Department of Engineering Science, Oxford University.

This will take you to the free 60 minute podcast:

If you would be uncomfortable hearing about ethical challenges for engineers forced to work for the Nazi regime and how these ethical challenges still apply today as it relates to energy sustainability – then don’t listen to the lecture.

On another note, there is something delusional about believing in high efficiency appliances as part of a ‘sustainability’ solution when these devices require the generation of 2800F (1500C) in combustion chambers at coal/gas power plants or onsite for the purposes of generating 50F (10C) to 80F (27C) to 120F (49C) for use in buildings.

Think about that for a second…non-renewables are converted into temperatures 20 to 50 times higher than what is required in our buildings – there is absolutely nothing sustainable about his process regardless of the efficiency of the system.

A few things to consider:

First, in Canada (as an example), of all the non-renewable energy sources harvested from our soils and used domestically (not exported) approximately 50% of its usefulness is lost via conversion entropy (thermal, sound, vibration etc.).

ref.:

For effect see this thermographic image of a cooling tower at a power plant:

Put it this way we throw away a kW for every one that we use...or you could say we steal a kW away from the future for every one that we use.

Consider also every time combustion takes places for the generation of electrical energy or thermal energy for space heating, cooling and domestic water, the energy is not destroyed however access to the potential high temperature needed by future generations for industrial purposes is destroyed and can never be recovered. Look at it this way...what we do with non-renewables is kind of like throwing away a slightly exhausted hand warmer in front of freezing homeless person.

This concept is called “exergy efficiency” hence mathematically something that is say 98% energy efficient may only be 5% “exergy efficient” because the temperature generated is at polar extremes from the temperature required.

Remember this...whenever energy is converted entropy is created and exergy is destroyed.

Just something else for everyone to think about while contemplating rain barrels, chickens, and walking the sustainable living talk...and now squirrel hunting (buggers pillage our strawberry patch)!

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:22:39 +0000
Uh, oh. You may have met your
Uh, oh. You may have met your match, John Poole. Maybe you can show Allison the photo of the mean squirrel that stared you down the other day.

(Correction: That should say "Allison's blog" in my first response to John, not "the Allison's blog.")

By: Allison Adams

Allison Adams — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:40:20 +0000
My antipathy toward the
My antipathy toward the squirrels is white-hot and all-consuming. They mock me with their evil chittery laughter, then they eat my outdoor wiring.