[Greenbuilding] innovations in general

Sacie Lambertson sacie.lambertson at gmail.com
Sun Mar 30 13:05:59 CDT 2014


Re innovative systems, many of you may remember Anna Edey who wrote the
highly recommended *Solviva* published at end of the 90s.  Among many
innovations than might benefit our planet, I was particularly struck by the
self-sustaining greenhouse system she developed that involved entirely
natural sources for its heat, essentially rabbits and chickens.  Her ideas
are wonderful.  She continues to be an active advocate of alternative ways
of living.  She lives in New England.

http://www.solviva.com/

Sacie



On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:31 PM, RT <archilogic at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 11:37:00 -0400, john daglish <johndaglish at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>  They could just make a big compost pile outside and use a hydronic
>> heating system preferably with large surface low temperature over-sized
>> radiators,embedded floor slab or  embedded (in plaster) wall emitters in
>> the house.
>>
>
>  PS how many horse stables are there with large used bedding holding
>> bunkers that compost away producing heat and methane that could be captured
>> and
>> used?
>>
>
> Back in 1985 when I was building my current house, I bought a $#!+-load of
> IGUs from a fellow who had bought a bunch for himself to build a large
> greenhouse which utilized such a hydronic heat-from-compost system to warm
> the growing beds.
>
> Despite it's large size, it was quite cozy on the interior during the
> early winter morning that I was there to pick up the glass. While standing
> there chatting with the fellow, I heard a bleating sound that I didn't
> recognize immediately. It turned out that they were new-born kids (of the
> baby goat variety, not the jam-face/rug-rat variety) who had been moved to
> the greenhouse from the barn because it was warmer.
>
>                   *
> Not just manure piles from horse barns, but what about manure piles from
> dairy barns, liquid manure tanks from pig and poultry barns
> (uber-methane-rich) or maybe even the holding tanks at municipal sewage
> treatment plants ? (I've never been in a municipal sewage treatment
> facility so I don't know anything about what they've got to play with.)
>
> I know that in the 1980's there were thousands of owner-built methane
> digesters in use in the rural villages in China and India, utilizing a
> design developed by the IDRC ( http://www.idrc.ca   ... a Canadian
> govt-funded public corp (for which my neighbour across the road was VP for
> science policy) - basically consisting of a holding tank made of staves
> (like stave silos)
> with a vinyl bladder over top to collect the sewage gas -- from which
> vinyl tubing (of the variety and size used for the aeration systems of
> hobbyists' aquaria) piped the gas to lights and appliances in the houses,
> controlled by el-cheapo in-line ballcocks, just like the ones on the
> aforementioned aquaria systems  -- the bladder being "pressurized" by
> atmospheric pressure bearing down on the bladder-- the essence of
> simplicity.
>
> Just a few days ago on the local news here in white bread Ottawa, there
> was a story about an animal rescue facility that wanted to construct a
> methane digester on their farm to utilize the animal and vegetable wastes
> to generate fuel but the City wouldn't issue the permit to allow them to do
> it. [rolling eyes wa-a-a-y back]
> --
>
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