Geothermal HVAC

Here's a video that nicely summarizes geothermal cooling an heating in HVAC design. The startup that put this together is getting mentoring help through a partnership between the US DOE and SBA.


Indie Energy Smart Geothermal™ for Buildings from Indie Energy on Vimeo.

I made some reference to this kind of process in a recent presentation on biomimicry for one of my Environmental Studies classes. Looking at a termite mound, you can see the inspiration for both solar chimneys and geothermal cooling.

The sun heats the tower potion of the system, using convection to passively drive air flow. Air is drawn in through tunnels that go well below the surface, accessing the cooler temperatures below ground. Thus the termites are able to keep certain chambers very consistent in temperature and humidity in hot, arid climates.

When building employ these kinds of systems, they can cut their heating and cooling costs drastically.

 

Amory Lovins' did an excellent article in the April '05 Scientific American that included a field tested prototype in a home near Bangkok, Thailand.

Deriving 3D Models From Photos

Alright! I may soon be able to bullet-time photograph a broken plastic widget and 3D print out a replacement from a homegrown 3D printer, like Bowyer's RepRap. Then I won't have to send as much to the landfill. Repairmen can expand their revenue stream: 1) scavenging at Goodwill or eWaste yards 2) look up the broken part online or inverse-panoramic photograph it, and 3) print out the replacement. Boom, fixed machine for a low, low price.

Although this is not the first venture into this space, I'm glad to see Microsoft throwing some weight behind it. We will need lots more development. I visualize a day when I can call in a contractor, who shows up with a laser grid projector and a camcorder, and then brings an accurate blueprint/3D model to the next meeting.

I wonder if the intellectual property protectionism will be as ineffective for manufacturers as it has been for the music industry.

Bacteria Making Cellulosic Butanol

Energy Secretary Chu has announced success at the DOE's BioEnergy Science Center: they have a bacteria that makes isobutanol from cellulosic plant materials. Bottom line: farmers will be able to sell their crop waste for making a fuel that should run in regular gasoline engines.

This implies:
- added farm income from making fuel out of waste
- less retooling of the auto industry, less retrofitting of the vehicle fleet
- clearing forests of fuels can result in fuel
- US energy independence courtesy of the agricultural sector

US Navy Half Off Fossil Fuel by 2020

This wide ranging Scientific American article discusses how the Navy and Air Force are becoming less dependent upon foreign oil in the interest of security. The Secretary of the Navy says his department will be halfway off of fossil fuels by 2020. The Air Force has a similar goal. It is already the leading purchaser of renewable energy in the federal government. [BioFuel test flight video]

With the Defense Department's fuel budget at $14 billion in 2010, this means a massive change in the economics of alternative energy. To help justify their strategy, a report has just been released showing a ratio of about 1 dead soldier for every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan. But what really bugs the brass is the notion that the US military might could be suppressed by foreign manipulation of the oil market.

As with computer chips and railroads, I expect the US Military will again buy down the price of a new technology. [see Breakthrough: the Death of Environmentalism] So consumers will soon have many more clean energy options courtesy of the military.

Here's a notion for how the California alternative energy goals can align nicely with the military's counterpart:
Pipe some of the exhaust from the state's natural gas power plants through algae tanks. Add some sunlight and harvest huge amounts of algae. Spend a bit more solar energy on conversion to liquid fuels, and a waste stream becomes a fuel supply for the Navy & Air Force. The utilities address their obligations to reduce their CO2 footprint while the military is willing to throw lots of money at domestic fuel production. Everyone's happy except OPEC.

BTW, the Navy's first hybrid electric ship saved $2 million in fuel on its maiden voyage to San Diego.

Reference: DOD's Energy use

Food Prices Driving Revolutions

NPR has a story about how droughts and high food prices might be driving the people of Africa and the Middle East towards overthrowing their governments.

UN Anticipates 50mil Displaced by Climate Change by 2020

Yes, 50 million climate change refugees by 2020. This PhysOrg article relays the announcement at an AAAS meeting in LA.

With global society strains like this, I expect the US will become more concerned about borders. The GOP will push hard for a wall on the southern border. The accommodation might include a wall, and probably will include drone patrols, added border personnel, maybe even robotic patrols on the ground.

I expect there will be more US Military missions of a humanitarian nature. If soldiers can help people survive where they are, then they won't have to shoot them at our borders. Better strategically to spend our money than their lives.

How to help people stay in a climate stressed region? And how would the military approach a solution? Desalination & water filtering. Localized education in permaculture, composting, solar thermal applications, etc.

Graphene and Fullerenes on PBS's Nova

Fullerenes and Graphene are going to radically change electronics and industry. They promise terrific features with a great potential for sustainability in their manufacture.

In the Making Stuff Stronger episode (about 25 minutes in) they discuss CNTs - Carbon Nanotubes.  CNTs are about 100 times stronger than steel, yet you can make them without mining.

About 18 minutes into the Making Stuff Smaller episode, Graphene is described. These single layers of carbon are the best conductors (besides a superconductor), the best thermal conductors, and can be made using pencils and tape!

The Making Stuff Cleaner segment had the best news, IMHO. About 37 min. in, a researcher at Argonne National Lab was shown using shredded plastic bags to generate CNTs. The catalyst is cobalt acetate and is needed in volume. But the process converts about a fifth of the plastic bag mass to CNTs according to a New Scientist article.

Fullerenes (including CNTs) and graphene can be made into electrical components while still remaining very tough. So we may soon have printed computers, paper batteries, solar umbrellas, and auto bodies that store electricity. What if the foam insulation you spray into your wall could stop a bullet, record humanity's entire music collection, store enough electricity to run your EV, and be safe for your toddler to chew on?

With the supply resources for these carbon materials being readily available in most of our waste streams, the critical challenge seems to be how to get the energy costs down. But since the solar resource supply is 5000 times the current demand, I think that barrier will fall pretty soon. In a few decades the oil industry could be more about plastics than energy.

And someone may get really rich developing the most elegant solution to our growing climate change challenge: suck the excess carbon out of the air and mineralize it into cheap, high tech carbon materials that radically reduce our collective carbon footprint while offering the potential for stuff to get smarter.

99% Wave Energy Capture?

According to this Popular Science article, researchers have figured out how to capture 99% of the energy in a deep ocean wave. Looking further into the technology, I find it is a bit like those old water wheels. And I found a terrific interactive graphic that shows how this mechanism works when used on a tugboat as a propeller.

When I see a 99% capture rate, I get a bit suspicious. Sounds too good. And looked at another way, we are talking about an almost perfect wave dampener. You should be able to set up a wall of these near a coast and protect the land from big ocean waves, even tidal waves if the system is powerful enough.

Mind you, even if you captured all of the was energy in the oceans, according to Saul Griffith, it would still only supply about a fourth or a fifth of humanity's demand. I think wave energy will be viable in a few places, but the bulk of our efforts should go towards making solar cheaper than coal. The supply for solar is more than 5000 times the demand!

Productive Gaming, Drone Labor, Game-gineering

From Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond blog:
"Play labor. The click machine. The monolithic block of eyeballs. The scam engine. The cognitive surplus."

He's talking about designing game networks so that the hoard of players might actually be accomplishing something while they are playing, the same way that Flickr gets visitors to tag photos as an entertainment.

I would like to add to the notion. Productive gaming.

Verna Allee talks about companies as a productive network so she has a label to use both for companies and for group endeavors outside of the corporation structure. The Open source folks collectively improve the Linux code without getting paid to do so. And the open source Apache server software is a superior product, with the larger market share, than the next competitor from Microsoft. We are not used to non-profit endeavors beating out corporate efforts in industry.

So what would you call mobile network games that had players performing a community service during gameplay for in-game rewards?

For example, a Zoo game App for smart phones with massive bonuses for uploading real pics of endangered species being traded or owned, extra point for including the GPS location. The pics could inform law enforcement and NGOs. The informants could be anonymous, not involved in the trading, and perhaps entirely oblivious to the issue. The game company could incentivize the good citizen behavior without needing to educate, protect or pay the informants. The potential customers for restricted trade animals would have to worry that even their own kid could naively clue in law enforcement. Like Orwell's Big Brother divided into lots of Little Brothers.And like any tool, potentially benevolent and malevolent.

Drone Labor. Displaced Attention. Armchair Daylaborers.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have seen the arrival of the killer robot. The Armed Forces use of drones and robots went from zero to over 5000 units in use. And as it did with the chip industry, the military is buying down the initial setup costs of the robotics industry. Or would that be the Drone Industry? They are buying the costs down for everyone.

The hawkish pessimist view will look first to the potential for hostiles using the same tech on us, oddly enough increasing the US military's demand for more drones. The pacifist pessimist will lament that we are removing the disincentive of bodily risk from the process of waging war. But I am noticing that many of the benefits that drones offer to the Pentagon might also attract the Peace Corps.

When you hear of humanitarian groups leaving a crisis zone, it is usually a safety issue. But drones remove risk for pilots, and reduce the risk for troops in the field via surveillance and bomb disposal. So why can't the NGOs continue to operate in risky areas through drones?

Military robots worry P. W. Singer: they are faceless, making America seem more callous; and they reduce the domestic political backlash for conducting war, inclining us towards more military actions. But there are advantages he doesn't mention.

Robots don't rape or marry the local women. They don't violate local customs on dress, gender relations, music, religion, politics, sexuality, drugs, or alcohol. They don't consume local food, water, or housing. They don't carry disease. They don't colonize, set up criminal networks, steal local cultural artifacts, or take over businesses. P. W. Singer is concerned that the US is telling host populations that we have nothing personal invested in their region by using robot and drones. This may turn out to be mostly a good thing.

The Peace Corps might find this facelessness to be quite valuable. Say they send a robotic well drilling machine into an Muslim rural community. Translation software could allow the local council to tell it where to drill, tacitly lending legitimacy to the project. The townsfolk might admire the technology, but they won't feel inspired to convert to Christianity, drink alcohol, demand democracy, or speak English. The Peace Corps gets to do good while only risking theft or vandalism, and less of that given the cameras on board. The only residue from their departure could be their good works and an appreciation for the US & robotics technology.

The military has been fitting robots into roles that are dirty, dangerous and/or dull. It seems like a lot of humanitarian and environmental work includes one of these aspects. So I foresee a bright future for robotics in humanitarian and environmental efforts in developing countries. And the US population could express the giving aspects of its nature with less risk and unintended side effects.

And how do we adapt the good intentions of the frenetic first world to tasks they think are beneath them? By building a gaming into the control interfaces. "10000 points for each rainwater capture system install. And hurry, because your buddy is about to pull ahead."

So how about some new tags/phrases/memes:
WorkPlay. Carpal Tunnel from tunneling. Arcade Works. Gamegineering. Global Community Service. DroneWorks.

Biochar: Cheap Fuel Plus CO2 Sequestering

I found a clip that shows the essential process in making biochar, a cheap way to generate heat while sequestering some of the carbon in agricultural waste.

It would be terrific if agriculture became carbon negative while still generating revenue. And biochar puts this within reach of not just wealthier nations, but developing countries as well.
The biochar process involves heating organic waste products, like manure or plant clippings, in a low oxygen container to a high enough temperature that the combustible molecules break their chemical bonds, releasing gasses that can be burned as fuel. The remaining biochar, which is essentially charcoal, can then be used as fertilizer. This increases soil fertility while trapping carbon in the ground for a net reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere.
By the way, those of you inspired to experiment with burying regular charcoal as a fertilizer and carbon sink, please use the charcoals that don't have the easy start additives.
Wikipedia has a great article on the process.

Dan