Imagine the American suburb as a hive of bottom-up entrepreneurial activity

“If you revive suburbs in this way you do not need big investments.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/24/nuclear-waste-storage

Albert Einstein vs. Steven Hawking

Really Useful Source on Smart Grid

Check it out! www.galvinpower.org/electric-revolution

Architecture 2030 Website

Here is that website I found.
http://www.architecture2030.org/enews/news_032211.html

Union of Concerned Scientists Nuclear Information

Good site for stuff on nuclear.

ALL THINGS NUCLEAR.

New Numbers for Housing sector consumption... (In QBtu's)

I have finally worked out some hard numbers regarding the consumptive nature of U.S. buildings (and made corresponding graphics). In attaching this problem I wanted to, for lack of better words "go for the jugular"; which in the building debate resides in both (detached) single family homes and space heating. Ergo, I broke down the energy "pie" paying attention to how much energy was used by single family (primarily suburban homes) and by space heating those single family homes... It turns out the jugular may not be so easy to find in this case.

Radiation Dosage Charts

Two radiation charts, one from Oscar, on from myself.

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/radiation_chart_3.png

GE CO2 visualizer

Lighter cars = better mileage = less gas

Carbon Free-Nuclear Free

Here's a free book on how the US can achieve carbon-free, nuclear-free energy by 2040: http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/CarbonFreeNuclearFree.pdf.

Anyone want to join my anti-nuclear team?

Grist Article on Efficiency

Had this article sent to the Sustainable Design Thinking class from Cameron Tonkinwise. Short but sweet.

find it here: http://www.grist.org/list/2011-03-29-how-americans-defeated-efficiency-with-consumerism

Deaths per TWh

How deadly is nuclear energy

Would a New Nuclear Plant Fare Better Than Fukushima?

Would a New Nuclear Plant Fare Better Than Fukushima?

Series of events at Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Comprehensive Information on Building Energy Data

Al Jazeera OP piece

Found this interesting opinion piece about stopping the use of nuclear power . It's a little showy, but I think he makes some good points.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/2011317104344324144.html#

Radiation Dose Chart

Interesting NYT article: insight into the recent events in Japan through the lens of the Chernobyl disaster

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.html?adxnnl=1&ref=asia&adxnnlx=1300806057-GC5NUVse9067R2kCgrvS2A

Large Potential for Wind- Limited Feasibility

I’ve completed my initial calculations of the potential for wind energy in the US. There is a huge discrepancy between how much wind power exists, and how much we could actually capture with the constraints of land area. The US Department of Energy released a plan in 2006 to have 20% wind energy by 2030, meaning 300 MW or 3.6 quads. This would cost about $47 billion dollars (in 2011 dollars). It would take up 50,000 km² of space, though the footprint of all the infrastructure including turbines and roads would only be 1,000-2,500 km². The total space needed would amount to about .5% of the US’s land area. However, the capacity for wind energy is far beyond this scenario. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the US potential for wind in the 48 states is 10.5 TW or 126 quads. This would have the installation cost of approximately $2.2 x 10⁴, which is significantly less than our estimate the cost for achieving our country’s nuclear potential. However, it would require 26.89% of the land area.

German solar hits 10 GW

COLUMBIA WAVE POWER

http://www.columbiapwr.com/

Meltdown in Japan

Step one to a fossile fuel free America.

The first step in our mission to rid the America of Fossil Fuels is to tack down an over all number of total energy consumed by the U.S. (the number we agreed on is 98 QBtu's). We must then see what contributions our respective fields [transportation and building efficiency, tidal, nuclear, wind, and solar] can make to bridging the energy deficit (as a % of the 98 QBtu's) that would inevitably be caused by a complete abandonment of fossil fuels as a source of energy.

This chart is our first attempt to arrive at a workable set of figures that we could use to account for renewable energy.

Note: [Tidal, wind, solar, and nuclear are concerned with the production of energy while building and transportation efficiency deal with the reduction of over all energy use.]

ALL THE ENERGY INFORMATION YOU COULD EVER NEED.

For our project we are going to need to isolate a number (consumption of BTU's, or something) and work down from it. Everybody is going to need to sign on to account for a certain percent of the total number of BTU's consumed. [For example, my sector, building and design can account for a (%20 - %25) reduction of the over all number of BTU's consumed.] People who are looking into renewable methods of energy creating should attempt to pledge to create a certain percent of energy. [E.x. if wind power could pledge to account for %20 of the total energy needed.

The two sites with figures on over all energy consumption.

WE NEED A CONCRETE NUMBER

WORLD BANK U.S. Public information

Energy Information Administration

Current Generation

Differences Between Energy Efficiency and Demand Response

Link to Kate Rowland's Feb 22, 2011 article

Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! | Video on TED.com

Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! | Video on TED.com

Tidal Energy in the U.S.

In my initial research on tidal power as a feasible source of renewable energy, it is becoming clear that implementation of this technology has to be in areas that will be productive enough to justify the large initial capital investment. I am currently trying to target these sites based on tidal flow rate and proximity to consumers, in addition taking into account potential shipping lanes and environmental impacts.

Pictured above is a tidal power generator installed in Northern Ireland. This particular set-up is capable of producing 1.2 MW, supplying power to about 1000 homes. This design has adjustable blades allowing it to harness both incoming and outgoing tidal energy. A turbine design like the one above is an attractive option for U.S. implementation because of its efficiency in operation. On the flip side, cost as well as depth of the turbine rotors need to be explored before I am fully convinced of this designs practicality in U.S. waters.

Nuclear Power from Thorium?

Just found this article from the guardian which describes China's recent move to develop a prototype reactor that runs on thorium instead of uranium. This would be big news if they managed to get one going because thorium is more widespread across the globe and in greater quantities than uranium (about 3 to 4 times as much). The waste from thorium would theoretically only last decades instead of millennia.

Here's the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/16/china-nuclear-thorium

Wind Energy Research Begins

I started seriously collecting sources on the potential for wind energy. The good news is there are plenty of studies out there- the bad news is its going to be quite a long task finding the most useful information! So far, the future of wind looks pretty optomistic- a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and AWS Truewind finds that the capacity for wind energy in the US is 10.5 GW. However, that is making a lot of assumptions about how much space we are able to take up and how high wind turbines would be perched above the ground. While we are not delving into the political and social potential to implement these renewable energy solutions, there are clearly many barriers to be addressed while considering the feasiblity of wind energy.

Greensulate (degradable insulation)

Polystyrene and other insulations are incredibly energy intensive. According to Eben Bayer one square foot of insulation foam (which falls under the category, disposable plastics, make up %25 of US landfills) contains the same energy content as 1.5 Liters of petrol [13.185 KWHr].

His company Ecovative Design has come up with a solution to petroleum based insulation. He calls it Greensulate and it is made of agricultural byproducts, like cotton-seed hulls, buck-wheat hulls, and mushrooms. It is fully biodegradable, competitively priced with conventional insulation, and uses a fraction of the petroleum that regular home insulation uses.

The future of building insulation rests in innovative environmental designs, much like the one devised by Eben Bayer and Ecovative Design.

MISSION STATEMENT

Environmentalists and foreign policy experts have joined in a call for America to rid itself of its fossil fuel habit; we have been called “addicted” to oil. Environmentalists, because fossil fuels contribute - or cause - global warming, foreign policy experts, as well as some economists, because of the high military and economic cost of securing oil fields and transportation routes.

Sounds good. There is plenty of sunlight, the sun also powers strong winds, provides biomass and hydropower, and there are lots of geothermal and tidal energy sites in the country as well. And nuclear power plants have already been operating for decades, and new reactor designs are extremely promising.

However, energy from the sun is very dilute and variable, drilling for geothermal energy causes earthquakes, nuclear plants produce much radioactive waste and produce material which if enriched, could produce lethal weapons. And it all may be very expensive. Can it be done?

The class will find out. With each class member becoming part of a research team, we will conduct research and calculations to determine exactly how hard it will be to get off the fossil fuel habit, and how we can do it. Each class member will have a particular semester long assignment - solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind, biomass, geothermal, energy efficiency, nuclear, and so forth - and will conduct research to determine what contribution to America’s energy needs each of these technologies can make.

A portion of each class will be devoted to receiving reports from each researcher, and discussing the results. Each research should spend about half an hour - no more - before each class session doing research, and spend about five minutes - no more - of class time making a report. [Given different schedules, it is conceivable that some researchers may find it better to do one hour of work before every other class session; this is totally acceptable.]

In all of these activities, we will be mindful of the costs and benefits to all parts of the population, particularly poor people. It is likely that some measures will increase costs to working people, such that some amelioration will be necessary. These measures will be included in our analysis.

The result will be a full report, complete with calculations as accurate as can be given current knowledge of the technology, which will be given to an appropriate body (say the Environmental Studies program and the Science and Math department). All researchers will participate in the presentation.

It is an ambitious project, to be sure, but if all the researchers work as a team, with every person pulling his or her own weight, it can be done. It will even be exciting!

Spring 2011

Syllabus