Zero E House in Lewisville Texas

Dateline Friday, 30 October 2009

 

Hey there Guy,

 

Here's a first hat-pass as we search for a less censorious domain

and email provider than Yahoo! for the green-metroplex caucus
to be parked on.

.

The Dallas Morning News Metro section covered by writer

Wendy Hundley whundley@dallasnews.com of this eco-friendly

home, soon to be lived in by Amanda Ferguson's and her
Husband Scott Owens after tearing down the old family frame

house that she grew up in. The project has become a poster

child for Green Craft Builders, LLC et all, who specialize in the
construction of Zero-E homes and offices in the DFW Metroplex.  

.

If you link to nothing else on their domain website, go to the

video links and turn up the volume on your speakers when you

peruse their assorted construction of assorted eco-friendly items.

That page alone is worth the half hour or so it'll take to view

the videos of the construction and knowledge base available

concerning the Timber Creek Energy Zero House built right here

in the DFW Metroplex: http://timbercreekzeroenergyhouse.com/videos.html
Keep a notepad handy for the first rate links to sustainable construction

products and other useful earth friendly goods. I personally book

marked them and also highlighted, copied and pasted their URL's
into an info manager, just to be sure the links were not typo'd.
There is a tour of the house during the next four Fri - Sat's.

.

Here is the home page link, also: http://timbercreekzeroenergyhouse.com/

  From the desktop of Warren Richardson   pro-active advocate
  for conversion to energy alternatives and carbon footprint reduction.
  Moderator of http://dfw-alt-e-caucus.blogspot.com/ Web Blog and the

  Webmaster of http://www.green-metroplex.com/ ... You are invited 
  to come see how cost effective, and sometimes profitable it can be to

                                         go green! save big

DFW Green Advocate's new Email Address

"Guy Green" green.machine@activist.com

 

We ain't running out of no stinking oil!

   Ahem: In the news are exasperated pro-oil types that rant about there being no lack of oil available; stating that the available "reserves" and still undiscovered oil available which are sufficient to satisfy the greediest good oil boys n girls for centuries.

   In truth, it is a more or less correct factoid that we are NOT running out of oil at this time. What's being overlooked is that the barrels per year increase of oil pumped out of the ground is in still in decline since a decade ago; however stocks of oil are approaching glut proportions but that is laid squarely at the feet of we who are cutting  back on our consumption of its distilled products such as diesel fuel and gasoline. 

   A goodly number of Americans have rerouted their consumption to thriftier auto's and reduced discretionary spending on fuel and by staying home a lot more (thus making home entertainment a banner year last year) or moving closer to their workplace to reduce their commute and impacting the urbane sprawl and new home building market to some degree. Indeed the local paper has touted the resurgence of formerly blighted inner city areas by the jump in loft apartments and converted warehouse into condominiums populated by Gen Y'ers and Millenials, making it possible for thousands of former commuters to peddle to work or ride the street car or bus to there.

   What's being overlooked is that it is no longer possible for one to kick over a clod and bring in a gusher of the black gold that used make $235 bucks per wildcat dollar in profit as it travels through various streams into "higher" grade byproducts. The recent discovery of an astounding sized "oil reserve" in the Gulf of Mexico is a classic example of the the availability of oil "still out there waiting to be found." Umm, has anyone figured out how much it's going to cost to build a floating platform able to safely maintain its position over the oil reserves in deepwater, open seaways in the face of hurricanes; drill to 35,000 feet to tap into the top of the dome of this shale oil; to extract it via fracturing and pump it to the surface and load it onto ships bound for refinery's?

   And secondarily, this oil which will be in production in about ten years, is still only a fraction of the 3% total US Market oil produced in and used by Americans. The reason that we import 97% of our oil is that the imported oil is still cheaper and easier to get to the surface and into tankers bound for US refineries folks, precisely because oil has to be ever higher in price for it to be profitable to drill and pump it. That price, based on world wide demand is currently somewhere in the $65 buck a barrel range it would seem. (A decade ago crude was around $35.00 USD per barrel. Remember, it was the spiraling price of crude that triggered the U.S. economic melt down powered by $145.00 per barrel prices that we are still recovering from and it is only Americans <with the rest of the world following our lead> with the sense to cut back on our discretionary consumption of energy which has dropped the price of fuel and stabilized the economy, so far; That is in spite of the economic bail out headlines taking the credit. Shoot, even my insurance broker has a Smart Car for his commute to his offices, now.).

   Meanwhile China and India and a number of other sleeping giant middle class auto buyers world wide continue to grow at rates that outstrip US ability to compete for market share, while our dollars get less and less valuable due to the enormous debt being deeded over to those several other countries. And never forget, oil IS the gold standard of the world because it is the tremendous markup from crude to products that drives it as a major commodity that is getting more and more costly to extract from mother Earth and on its way to market.

   Meanwhile, once again, the good oil boys have tried to flourish the red cape in front of our consuming eyes to distract us from the fact that we need to be firm in our resolve to make carbon fuels of all types only a dwindling part of a triad of energy. We really need to convert to none-carbon, renewable fuels as fast as we can manage it; with electric battery power as fuel as a major change away from Detroit pig-iron cars and trucks belching fumes rich with greenhouse gases.

   Whew

  From the desktop of Warren Richardson   pro-active advocate
  for conversion to energy alternatives and carbon footprint reduction.
  Moderator of http://dfw-alt-e-caucus.blogspot.com/ Web Blog and the

  Webmaster of http://www.green-metroplex.com/ ... You are invited 
  to come see how cost effective, and sometimes profitable it can be to

                                         go green! save big

The next step down in lighting power consumption

At the risk of appearing to brag, our electrical consumption stats (measured in Kilowatt Hours) are down by over 35% since four plus years ago when we first decided to "Go Green;" that is because we have implemented most of those things posted on the www.green-metroplex.com website and our blogs. Our deciduous shade is keeping the sun off in the summer; almost all of our appliances are Energy Star rated; we unplug most electrical vampires when not in use; and all but a couple lights are fluorescent or compact fluorescent, as well. We're our own guinea pig when it comes to making these suggestions for how to save money by becoming greener over time (out of cash flow). Now, many of our compact fluorescent lighting bulbs are starting to approach their life span and we admit to lusting after LED lighting to replace them as the CFL's wear out. Our CFL's have paid us back in spades in their kilowatt power saving so we are looking to reduce our power needs even more by using the new LED lighting technology during our next replacement go-round and reduce our carbon footprint even more by not having to recycle mercury rich CFL's any longer, either

However...

While trying to shop them at our local Lowe's Home Improvement - I found that they stock not one LED lamp, period. At Wal-Mart there are stick on under-shelf LED's and we actually have a small number of those at home in the odd dark nook, because they are so handy to use. The spouse is not happy with the intense color of LED stick on lights and flashlights we own, but I've witnessed how demonstration full sized LED lighting replacements have tinted lenses to compensate for this nuisance factor.

At any rate, what I'm looking for is a tenfold drop in lighting power for the same lumen's count as our former incandescents used to emit and our compact florescent lamps which have fairly well matched their outputs for the past half decade. Remember, it's lumen's not watts that are the target prime benchmark, i.e., just sufficient brightness that one does not have to peer intently to easily see and not too bright such that one needs sunglasses to not squint whilst in their presence.

So far I've been stumped at finding retrofit LED Lamps in retail venues the local area - however, here's a link to my first cast into the Internet: http://www.earthled.com/ ... I'll keep you posted. wr
 

From the desktop of Warren Richardson   pro-active advocate
for conversion to energy alternatives and carbon footprint reduction.
Moderator of http://dfw-alt-e-caucus.blogspot.com/ and the

Webmaster of http://www.green-metroplex.com/ ... You are invited
to come see how cost effective, and sometimes profitable it can be to

                                         go green! save big

Model Electrical Triad: Updated

        A suggested...
model standard (For an Electrical Generation Triad)

 

Adoption of this model electrical regulation concept by ERCOT and utility regulators in other states would accelerate a trend toward renewable energy solutions and a reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that are fostered by the burning of none renewable fuels for electrical production. This triad would not do away with conventional power generators, nor nuclear power plants, because to do so is not practical nor will it win support from major stockholders of utility companies, many of whom contribute significant cash for re-elections of those representatives that ERCOT and other utility regulators in other states are answerable to. Utility companies faced with mandates from their regulators will find it in their stockholders best interests to jump on the band-wagon and start installation of PV and none wind turbulence damaged wind turbines on the buildings in cities and suburbs to which they supply electrical energy; instead of buying ever larger blocks of carbon credits, with this suggested scheme. They would make de-facto partners of their electrical consuming customers by the utilization of inside city limits subscribers' structures, by implementation of lease-back, low fixed kilowatt hourly rates as a means to pay down the installation price of these systems on their customers' buildings and otherwise unused inner-city land. It is a win-win scenario. The utilities' existing grid-connected conventional electrical power plants would be retained and used as load-leveling sites for the existing grid, which should require no new high tension power lines to be installed as load demands continue to increase every year; because the commercial sized solar (focused solar for steam and PV systems) and wind turbines that they themselves would, for the most part, be installed at the load end of their grid since these generators do not pollute nor make greenhouse gases when making electrical energy.

Above is an example of a wind turbine that is not damaged by wind turbulence.
There are twisted, multi-vane horizontal-axle variants as well. These turbines are low
speed, quiet and none-lethal-to-nature. When mounted with inexpensive, self-powered
so-called  "anti-gravity" thrust bearings (essentially comprised of like-charged direct-
current magnetic fields that repel each the other, effectively making them frictionless
bearings) this type of turbine does not induce the structural damage or noise caused
by the induced vibration of conventional bearings, to the tops of buildings that they are
mounted upon.

Source: http://www.green-metroplex.com/Assorted/Ideas/Electrical_Triad.html posted on Tuesday, 9/22/2009