There
has been a lot of discussion regarding alternative fuels and their integration
into single family housing and perhaps you've been involved in some of these discussions. You've probably seen
solar panels at home shows and in magazines.
You may have even seen windmills or wind generators popping up in
places. Do not misunderstand, I think
these are awesome technologies. How cool
will it be to be able to have your home generate more energy that it uses! We could even look to a day when home energy
generation rivals home gardening. Just
think, one day you could be monitoring your solar garden while you water your
blueberries... That will be pretty neat. I just don’t believe that we’re able to fully capitalize
on these technologies yet.
What I
hope to impart is how important it is to get ready for the future. For those of you old enough to remember the
flying cars in "Back to the Future," you'll recall that Doc got a
hover conversion done on the Delorian.
What we don't have yet is an easy "energy conversion" for our
homes.
Let's
see if I can explain the boring science in an interesting way that makes some
sense....
In many
ways, air performs like a liquid. It
flows through holes, transfers energy (especially heat), and creates turbulence
when it moves. Your house is really a
big air container, and for our purposes, we'll think of it as a large
purse.
Not many
women I know want to carry a purse full of water. It would do horrible things to the contents,
and it would render all personal hygiene products completely useless, but for
our example a purse works pretty good.
There is certainly a performance aspect to a purse. It generally has to perform a task, which is
to hold stuff, but very few purses are purchased because they are really good
stuff holders. How many purses are
marketed because of their great potential to carry your goldfish with you?
No,
purses are purchased more for other reasons.
It may be the cool pockets, the way it is organized inside, its style, its
color, the manufacturer, and the degree that the purse will increase one's
status. Some purses are large, others
are small. This too is as much about
fashion as it is about function. I don't
see many large carpet bag purses in the dance clubs. They don't go with club wear.
Now
imagine that in the future there are flying cars for public use that run on
water. Anyone can walk up, pick a car
and fly off, but you have to bring your own fuel with you. Everyone would have to carry water with them
if they wanted to go somewhere. Your Gucci
purse would need to hold water. How well
do you think it could do that? What
about the large canvas bag. It will hold
water, but not for very long. The more
open the weave of the fabric, the faster the water will pour out.
Soon
enough someone would market plastic zip lock bags to be used
as water bladders for purses, but that's not a very elegant solution. Who
wants to carry around plastic bags everywhere they go? Eventually, someone would realize that the
best solution would be a new purse that holds water and looks good. Those would sell for a premium until other
designers started to copy their ideas. Sometime
later someone might start a conversion service.
They might take your favorite purse and convert it with a hidden liner
and special water proof pockets which keep the water away from the things it
might damage. These conversions would be
expensive, but the costs would go down as new methods and technologies are
developed to help convert "vintage" purses. Just like Doc's Delorian, eventually, there might
be an easy "conversion" as a way to utilize this new technology.
Right
now we have technologies to produce energy at a residential scale, and the
costs of these technologies are going down.
Soon enough we'll be able to include energy generation in our homes at
reasonable and affordable rates. How
well our existing homes can hold this energy is another question.
New
homes can be designed and constructed to be very energy efficient. Modifying an existing home to achieve a
similar level of performance is more difficult and can be terribly expensive,
but there are some very sound strategies you might consider.
First,
make your purse hold water better. For
your house that would mean improving the exterior envelope by increasing the
wall and attic insulation values, decreasing infiltration rates, employing
reflective surfaces on the roof, and maximizing the performance of your windows
and doors. Remember, that these efforts
should be thought of as a total system rather than single elements. Think of the purse holding water. Taping up one side will help that part hold
water better, but the rest of the purse will still leak.
Second,
look at your consumption. If you spend
more money than you keep in your wallet, it won't matter how big it is. The same is true with energy production. If you use more than you can make, the
investment of a very expensive solar system may never pay itself back. Look for key areas of use, decrease plug
loads, replace failing appliances with higher efficient models, change to
energy saving light fixtures, unplug (or switch) televisions and appliances
when not being used. You may be
surprised at how much energy you can save and still not affect your
convenience.
Thirdly,
look for deeper energy savings in the replacement of key equipment. Furnaces, water heaters, and air conditioners
represent a significant amount of the total energy used in this country. After you have found ways to use less by
improving your purse, you may consider looking at employing more efficient
equipment. The amount of energy saved in
converting from an 80% efficient furnace to a 95% furnace could be enough to
pay for the change in five years.
Your
Grandmother surely taught you the old saying that "a penny saved is a
penny earned." This is especially
true of energy. Saving energy saves you
money, plus it puts you in a really good position for when you are able to grow
energy in your garden. You'll be in a
better place to be able to take advantage of that future "hover conversion."
Planning for the future will help you live
better now.
