Fellow aspiring communitarians,
As promised, attached is a Word doc containing all of the survey questions (43!), including the modifications and additions we discussed at the last meeting (at least to the extent that my notes and memory could reconstruct). The homework goal is to arrive at an understanding of where the 7 or 8 of us stand in relation to these issues so that we can evaluate our ability to form a core organizing group. Between now and the next meeting, we hope to take two steps towards the goal:
1. Identifying the questions the core group should answer:
Read and answer the 42 questions in the attached survey, but do NOT sent your answers to me. You will answer the questions only to help you decide which are the really important questions. Each question is numbered. Send me an email with a list of question numbers. Include all the questions that are deal breakers for you and any other questions you think are important for core group members to answer for the purpose of making sure we are on the same page. If some important question has been left out in your estimation, write it out in the email.
2. Answering the selected questions:
After receiving everyone's list of numbers, I will create a new document that includes only the questions selected by the group. Each person will answer the selected questions in the word document by changing the color of the text you've chosen for your answer. Save the survey containing your answers with a new name and attach it to an email to me. I will collate the answers and Linda G and I will think up a way to display the results at our next meeting.
If we can complete these two homework assignments, we can start right out at the next meeting discussing whether or not we can be a core organizing group.
If any of this is not clear, please email or call me so I can clarify.
Thanks,
Nancy
919-403-8260
sustainabelle@gmail.com
| Attachment | Size |
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| Survey.doc | 126.5 KB |
Ecovillage HVAC
If humanity is to avoid a dire future because of overshoot (http://www.overshoot.net/ - through over-consumption of fossil fuels), me must make tremendous improvements in the efficiency of our utilization of energy.
I'd like to propose that we build a Triangle Ecovillage that incorporates innovation in design for energy efficiency. Here are some preliminary thoughts about HVAC (heating, ventilation, & air conditioning).
Substantial passive solar is obviously appropriate. In this region, it needs to be designed very carefully to minimize summer heat load.
What about summer AC? It might be appropriate to try to live without it since it requires intense electrical power (thousands of watts). Summer comfort can be provided for to a great extent using only robust ventilation (when outside temperature and humidity allow) in conjunction with thermal mass in the dwelling).
However, in this case, careful management is required to avoid excess humidity, and there will be times when the temperature and/or humidity of the outside air preclude ventilation when the inside temperature is warmer than ideal. Therefore, the best configuration for us probably includes AC (at least for some of our inhabited space). In addition to occasional relief from high inside temperatures, the primary purpose of AC would be for de-humidification (and should perhaps be optimized for this with low temperature freon evaporation coils).
I think that the structures we design for human habitation should be clustered. And each cluster should have a utilities plant to provide electricity and HVAC services. The HVAC plant should be able to also function as a heat pump - providing heating in the winter. It should utilize a freon loop buried underground (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump) and may require only a single compressor, perhaps of commercial grade.
The efficiency of a geothermal heat pump is somewhat better than a regular heat pump (which exchanges heat to outside air). However, it still uses thousands of watts of power, and would be very expensive to operate with solar power without a grid connection.
I'd like to propose that we make as much power as possible (primarily solar), but that we be grid-tied. The utilization of the fore-mentioned freon compressors could be controlled based on a thermostat and humidistat in each dwelling space in conjunction with the ecovillage's electronic "utility regulator" which tracks available electric energy in real time as we optimize our use of the grid as a battery.
What do you think?
John Mattox
http://astro.uncfsu.edu/mattox/