The value of a home today is based on location (commute distance, school quality, neighborhood, etc.), size, and quality/amenities. However, those metrics are likely to change markedly in the near future, mainly due to the recognition of the rising risks and uncertainties of living a globally connected world. This realization will generate new metrics by which we value a home -- the most important of which may be a home's (whether it be an apartment building or a single family home) ability to retain and produce energy. Homes that don't have high scores in this area (which unfortunately will be the majority) put their owners at risk of financial ruin, dislocation, and deprivation.
NOTE: Excess production will likely be electricity (a premium energy product), which is shared/sold with/to community members.
RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Micropower
Centralized electricity production made sense in the 20th Century. Here's why:
- Energy was cheap so it could be wasted. 80% of the energy used in electricity production and transmission is lost as heat. However, that isn't true anymore (either in absolute cost or costs relative to income).
- Transmission capacity was on the rise. Unfortunately, investments in transmission haven't grown in 30 years and NIMBY is preventing any improvement. Transmission lines are already saturated.
- Little chance of disruption. Systems disruption as a means of warfare is on the rise. Also, breakdowns in an overtaxed transmission system cause $100 billion a year in damage, due to dirty power, in end-user equipment.
Fortunately, new technologies now make it possible to generate electricity at the level of the home, business, or urban building. This technology, called Combined Heat Power (CHP) or cogeneration (lots of resources are available on this topic). In microCHP systems, you either generate electricity as a byproduct of heating or heating as a byproduct of electricity generation. It does the following:
- It allows production of electricity within the structure it will be used. Eliminating transmission losses.
- Waste heat generated by the production of electricity can be used to heat water or the home/building. That means the 80% of the energy that would have been lost is now put to use.
- It makes electricity both resilient and clean. Transmission breakdowns have zero effect on the end-user. Further, the power is clean/smooth, generating little damage to connected equipment.
Unfortunately, despite the advantages, there are significant gaps in the marketplace for products that are truly resilient. This is a significant opportunity for commercial entrepreneurs and DIY developers. Truly resilient products would provide:
- Biomass (pellets, etc.) burning. Existing commercial microCHP systems use natural gas. Residential biomass CHPs are the next step and would likely sell like hot cakes (pellet stoves are).
- Generic stirling CHP systems. These systems would allow you to switch the source of heating from natural gas to biomass to concentrated solar. In short, you could optimize depending on costs/availability.
Micropower becomes extremely interesting when combined with Microgrids (see the brief: Microgrids for more). Connectivity to a Microgrid would ensure that a community continues to have power even if the national grid is inoperative. Further, if the community Microgrid is smart (meaning it carries data on pricing, etc in addition to power), it would allow local markets to develop. Not only would the individual producer be paid for the production (at end-user rates minus a small transmission charge), they would be incentivized to optimize/grow.
RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Community Geothermal
For those of you that don't know, I'm working on a book entitled "The Resilient Community." Essentially, it's about how a shift to local production and distribution of nearly everything can create a stable place to live, work, and raise a family (seen from the top down, it is a self-organizing alternative to a dysfunctional global system). The one problem that has plagued me over the last two years is how do we build local platforms that make resilience possible when communities are in financial distress -- proliferation of foreclosures (gutting the community), incomes in decline to the global lowest common denominator/norm (which is a likely equilibrium point for this crisis), and negative cash flow (debt >> income). One solution I have formulated is to use of volunteers to build platforms that can radically reduce ongoing expenses for community members (it's community judo). A potential candidate that fits this is a community geothermal effort.
Geothermal Heating/Cooling
More than half of all energy usage (not cars and not electricity) is dedicated to heating and cooling of structures (homes and businesses). This expense can be radically reduced by using geothermal heat (50-70 percent). Here's how it works:
- The ground below ~6 feet stays at a relatively constant temperature between 40 degrees and 60 degrees F, depending on the area in which you live.
- If you drill a well (the most efficient method to tap geothermal), you can insert a plastic pipe that allows you to pump anti-freeze fluid into the hole. This system, which costs VERY little to operate, uses the earth's energy to either heat or cool the fluid to the geographies standard temperature. The system is nearly maintenance free.
- Warmed water from the geothermal system can be used to make heat-pumps very efficient. Cooled water from the system can be used, with a forced air fan, to cool a home.
How it works
The biggest expense in any geothermal system is drilling the wells. Costs are excessive (and can run to $10,000 a home). Fortunately, a volunteer effort very much like a local fire department can accomplish this at a small fraction of this cost. Elements include:
- Drilling rig. Excellent used drilling trucks sell between $50-100 thousand. Leases are much less. There are open source alternatives that can cost MUCH less in the works.
- Training. For most communities, the level of training necessary to run drilling equipment fast and efficiently isn't difficult.
- Financing of in-house heating/cooling equipment to connect to ground loop stub. Relatively low cost. Community discounts possible. Payback in measured in a handful of years.
Where to start?
The best place to start with a community geothermal effort is with a community property, most likely K-12 schools. This focus would allow the community to generate the funds required to purchase the equipment and train the volunteers as well as pay back the expense quickly. After that common effort is accomplished, volunteer properties (with requirements for contribution) would be the first beneficiaries of drilling efforts, the follow-ons would be based on lottery and so on until all participatory homes/buildings are brought online. Small ongoing contributions from participatory homes, with volunteers exempt, would pay ongoing expenses.
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