What a satisfying sight to behold!
SOLAR ADVENTURE
Robb Murray
ctoncall@aol.com
On
Saturday, April 2, 2005 I went on an
Alternative Energy field trip around Chicago . . .
And I finally
visited a Chicago solar house!
What a satisfying sight
to behold!
and
. . . seen from another angle . . .
Here are some other enlightening spectacles from the day . .
.
BIO-DIESEL
ALTERNATIVES -- The guy next to this car
runs
his engine on vegetable oil (gets it free).
WHY
PAY TO HEAT YOUR WATER WHEN THE SUN DOES IT FOR FREE?
The hot water in this house is all all heated by a dark
hose lying on the roof that simply gets hot from sunshine.
The hose contains refrigerant that is pumped to this
water tank, where it exchanges out the heat into the water --
and heats it to to
140 degrees.
(The house gets its heating and cooling of air from a geothermal
appliance. It looks like a refrigerator and is called a WATER FURNACE.
It's a heat pump that connects to 6 pipes that go 60-feet down into the
side yard. (Ideally, they go 120 feet down, but the water table around
Chicago is too high.) The "furnace" exchanges heat between the ground
and
the air in the house --
out or in depending on the season. The exchanger
can additionally be powered by solar, resulting in no power usage from the grid.)
SILENT
WIND TURBINE:
The gentleman on the left was a student
of Buckminster Fuller --
he's showing plans for a wind turbine that will go on the ridge of
this house's roof. It collects energy by spinning a long, lateral rotor
that can't be heard from the street or from inside the house.
WINDOW SHADE HEAT COLLECTORS:
The solar panels shading this first floor's back porch collect
the sun's heat, which helps heat all the hot water in the building
(three apartments). The tenant's gas bills are thereby reduced, too.
This owner also keeps bees, and won an award from Mayor Daley
for the most naturalized garden in the city (it's to the right and
not visible here). Her home is a Solar Ranch in the city.
WOW! Innovation speeds along!
What's next? . . . I
want to see a wave farm, a wind farm
and an aircraft that flies entirely on solar power. I'd also like
to see the new solar energy collector in the form of a thin film
that isn't as silicon-intensive to make
as previous collectors, and that is less polluting and costly.
It may make solar even more attractive.
Seems to me that the only abiding "energy shortages"
in the economy are going to stem from Old Paradigm thinking.
I have faith in independent leaders to guide our society
into a nonpolluting, renewal-energy way of life.
But watch for some parties to attempt to privatize sunlight and its use.
The field trip was sponsored by the Chicago Alternative Energy Alliance