Conservation is the Best Energy Source, German Builders Prove it
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.07
Unlike profligate North Americans, in Germany they have gone from a standard house's consumption of fuel oil of up to 30 litres per square meter to "three litre houses" to "passive" (max 1.5 litres per square meter) to "positive energy" houses that give back more than they consume. Everybody is doing it; more than six thousand have been built. Architects compete to design the most energy efficient homes. Houses and apartments are being renovated and upgraded; The government gives subsidized loans to encourage it. It isn't even hard or high tech- lots of insulation, good siting for solar gain, "The heat released by small appliances and the body heat of the inhabitants -- which amounts to no less than roughly two kilowatt hours per person and day -- is largely sufficient. Automatic ventilation -- with a built-in heat retention system, of course -- ensures that the rooms don't get too stuffy." Their homes cost a lot more per square foot that North American ones do, so logically they build fewer square feet. What could be simpler?
We don't need to reinvent building technology and develop new expensive sources of energy, we just have to remember that Conservation is the World's best energy source, and build half as much twice as well.::Der Speigel
Unfortunately, conservation is also the world's least glamorous energy source.
Great article Lloyd. MY's right too. You just say the word conserve and people think you're anti-American. Consumerism is a big deal. Maybe we'll get to the point where it's cooler to have a smaller, well-designed, green home, as opposed to the large ones.
One of the greatest resources in our country, abundant land, is also one of the biggest problems here. Private ownership of land, which is a good thing, tends to see opportunities in the low cost land. Maybe this is a reason to keep giving money to the Conservancy, so they can buy up land. I don't think they can buy enough, fast enough. Nevertheless, developers build huge communities in the suburbs, with fairly thin margins on each home, and people keep going further out to buy them. Then they start to complain about the commute and ask the cities to build rails out to where they live.
Building smaller allows us to live closer and tighter and conserve all types of resources. You tend to build smaller when the land is more expensive.
They don't "ask the cities to build rails out to where they live."
They demand more lanes to their roads/freeways.
There's a reason I've been upgrading the efficiency of our home: HVAC (went from 8 to 16 seer + variable speed), tankless hot water heater - not only removing a tank but also moved it outside the envelope of the home to stop negatively pressurizing the house, replaced half our lighting with CFLs and will be increasing our insulation and replacing both the dishwasher and clothes washer... eventually, we'll upgrade windows and convert all the remaining lighting. I've been seriously eyeing up the SunCube if they make them available in the US.
The rush towards energy efficient homes calls up similar efforts in sweden and elsewhere in the seventies.
Zero houses enclosed by greenhouses and with five-pane windows.
Architects' wives ((harsh reality: they had housewives sometimes)complained under their breath that you could look out but you not hear anything.
So energy efficient housing not always equals human friendly ( historians have an idea of the gradual isolation of the sense through breakthroughs in building: room separation, evolved heating,systems, the window pane especially).
So, do we want to live in thermos bottles or inshelters with permeamble skins?