April 22-26 2008: EcoCity World Summit 2008 in San Francisco

I found out the about EcoCity World Summit 2008 through Scott Fossel. Scott as executive director of Green Century Institute is working with Berkeley based EcoCity Builders to organize the conference. In particular GCI’s Califia Sketchbook contest will be a contest that will feature several exhibit proposals for ecocities that will be featured at the Conference.

Mobile Home Park Ecovillage? Oakmass Village is one of the first of its kind in the Bay Area and possibly the World

I get many updates about various events in the Bay Area and around the world to promote ecological consciousness. However, one about a emerging ecovillage called Oakmass Village struck me, particularly since it is the first time I ever heard of a ecovillage located in a former mobile home park. I am inspired by their approach and so I have taken some of their ideas from a announcement about their presentation they are today from 6;30-9:30 at the Green City Gallery in Berkeley and evolved there below.

Of possible relevance is a recent blog post I did about a colleague Steve Bosserman who is working on a wiki to explore the development of kits to build ecologically responsible Park Homes which he calls Micro-Houses (park homes like mobile homes are pre-assembled in manufacturing facilities).

Also noteworthy in July they posted a job opening at the Regenerative Design website (no deadline date for applying). The Oakmoss Village website is here but I did not much there. This seems to indicate that the project is still relatively early in the development stage.

GLOBAL WARMING: How can we Make a Difference?

I have often heard that there are 15o new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today. Its a staggering number and all the more shocking when you consider that such projects are proceeding despite more and more ominous news about global climate change.

Recently this number was rekindled in my head upon my receiving a number of Architecture 2030 emails. Architecture 2030 is a program put forward by The 2030 Research Center and NM based Green Architecture Ed Mazria. The 2030 Challenge is a way to reduce building energy use by a minimum of 50% negating the need for new coal plants. I wondered why 2030 so I went through their site and as I suspected in The 2030 Challenge page:

Credible scientists give us 10 years to be well on our way toward global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Yet there are hundreds of coal-fired power plants currently on the drawing boards in the US. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the energy produced by these plants will go to operate buildings.

Their campaign is focused on the idea that an important step in the effort to reverse global climate change is to stop the current massive effort to build coal power plants in the USA. This includes this nicely done ad Stop Coal Stop Global Warming that they are putting in the NYT.

They point out that over an 11-year period (1973–1983), the US built:

1. 30 billion square feet of new buildings;
2. added approx 35 million new vehicles;
3. and yet increased real GDP by one trillion dollars while decreasing its energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

The point is that we don’t need coal but efficient design and proven technologies. Its a good point but where is the money going to come to push these initiatives forward?

Do we need more taxpayer funded seed money to prime to the pump or will the market get up to speed just by enough socially and ecologically conscious citizens getting energized about the need to take actions? Possibility it is a combination of mandates, subsidies and mobilized civil society and social venture communities. Then it is assumed that once these ecologically designed technologies get up to speed, the costs of building green will come down enough so that they will be able to be fully competitive with existing ones, especially when long term life cycle maintenance and operational costs are considered, because green buildings typically use less resources.

Buildings use 76% of all the energy produced at coal plants. So the premise is that if we make more efficient buildings using currently available technologies that we reduce the need for those power plants. Yet the challenge is that is that the costs of rebuilding the modern built environment in the USA would be a massive effort that would involve massive infusion of money. Money that is currently going to sustain the war on terror or money that would require major tax increases. Currently it seems unrealistic that either the military budget would be reduced or that taxpayers would be willing to pay more to subsidize green technologies, despite the scientific evidence that there is a compelling need for action to reverse current trends in the amount of GHG released into the atmosphere.

Coal is the worst energy source because it has the lowest energy density in terms of the amount of carbon emitted per power produced. Also green buildings reducing coal power plant usage are only part of the equation. When we consider the evils of “King Coal,” the realization is that to reverse the trend of continued investment in coal power plants, we need to offer viable renewable energy alternatives to coal as well as offer conservation as a solution.

To address global climate change, we need to connect coal to the big picture of Global Climate Change at the national as well as international levels to meet the ambitious goals of The 2030 Challenge . The global climate change “pie” in the USA includes many factors besides GHG emissions from coal. There is petroleum and natural gas gives you a broader picture. When you figure in concrete and livestock farming both major GHG emitters with gasoline and diesel for transportation and power generation through coal and natural gas you get a sense that there is no one complete solution. In addition increasing rates of biomass burning (in regards to the fires we keep hearing about in the western US as well as in other parts of the world) on the planet possibly due to climate change is now creating another major source of CO2.

Because the GHG culprits are complex and interrelated in terms of how they have deeply embedded themselves into how we live our modern lives a comprehensive approach is needed that provides a complete inventory of the build environment and enables a new system of design. What’s needed is a design science revolution that introduces wholly new approaches that run the gamut from electric powered cars to integrated farming practices to daylighting and promising renewable energy technologies like Solar Thermal and Algae. An alternative strategy to mandating national change through national orgs, is developing a series of approaches that communities could embrace and tailor to their needs.

Mark Lakeman’s City Repair Tour Hits Northern CA

Chris Marco posting on the Permaculture-SF listserv reports on how City Repair’s community work in Portland changed his life.

Many folks I met while filming in Portland told me it had changed their lives as well. It sure would be great to have our own two-week Village Building Convergence here in the Bay Area someday. Go see him and be inspired!

Event Speaking Dates

• Saturday, Sept 29, 7:30pm- New College of California,  Santa Rosa, North Bay campus
• Sunday, Sept 30, Workshop with New College Students, Contact New College for more information.
• Monday, October 1st, 6-9pm, for Willits Economic Localization Initiative, Willits Community  Center, Willits, CA.
• Tuesday, October 2nd, Regenerative Design & Nature Awareness School with Jon Young & Penny Livingston, near San Gregorio, Evening Presentation,  at 415-868-9681
• Wednesday, October 3rd, Esalen Institute at Big Sur, Daytime workshop and evening community-wide presentation.
• Thursday, October 4th, in Santa Barbara: – Noon-1pm, “Nuts and Bolts of City Repair”, Public Library, Faulkner Gallery. and 7:45pm, “The Village Lives” Presentation, Public Library, Faulkner Gallery.
• Saturday, October 6th, UCLA Planning School, Graduate Student Conference, Presentation and Workshop in the Field. Call Ava at 818.939.9205
• Tuesday, October 9th, 7-9pm, Soulutioneers 2007 Speaker Series, 1950 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley.
• Wednesday, October 10th, 6:30-8pm, An Architects,  Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility Event, Pacific Energy Center 851 Howard Street.
• Thursday, October 11th, Evening Event, in Point  Reyes, Time and Location TBD.
• Alternate Date: Friday, October 12th, 6-9pm, for Willits  Economic Localization Initiative, Willits Community  Center, Willits, CA.
• Monday, October 15th, 7-9pm, Lost Valley Educational Center, near Eugene, Oregon.

Berkeley Based Chlorophyll Collective Demonstrates at Burning Man

Chlorophyll Collective is a presently experimenting with the use of algae to promote more sustainable living.

In prep for Burning Man, Chlorophyll Collective built a mobile bioreactor unit using algae at Burning Man which they taught and showcased as a open source approach at the event.

They have also been featured at the Green City Gallery in Berkeley.

Bay Area Green Tech Innovator Reinhold Ziegler Reports Progress in Wind & Biofuels

I recently chatted with Reinhold Ziegler of www.synergyii.com on Skype. He noted progress on several fronts.

He is now working with to develop an integrated farm system that uses a gasification process developed by Ed Burton and being put forward under the Ed Burton Company which is based Willits – about 2 hours north of SF on 101.

He says they are doing a joint venture with Tom Reed and Jim Fournier of Biomass Energy and Carbon:

Biomass Energy & Carbon develops biomass gasification technologies that produce clean, tar free, producer gas streams for electrical and thermal energy. The same process will also generate charcoal for use as a new kind of agricultural soil amendment, which permanently sequesters carbon in the soil thereby producing carbon-negative energy from biomass. Future designs will also include oxygen fed gasification systems that produce synthesis gas as a feed stock for catalytic gas-to-liquid fuel production.

BEC draws on the experience of its co-founders Dr. Tom Reed and Agua Das Ellis who together have over sixty years of experience in all aspects of biomass gasification and associated technologies.

The plan to build a 25 KW full Biogassifier in Colorado. The Ed Burton company will be supplying the fuel utilizing our new “chunkateer” spiral cutter. He reports that he has also set up an aeroponic growing system that is based on the Burton Nutrient-rich Water Processor. The system also uses the EPRIDA method of growing plants in charcoal which has been inoculated with arbusto micorhyzal fungus. The result is phenomenal, he says with redwood trees growing as fast as bamboo. The (click for full sized picture of gasifier) vegetable results are equally impressive.

Reinhold is also working with Aerotecture on a project to install innovative screw type wind turbines atop what is to be the San Francisco Civic Center. The building is expected to be more energy-efficient than any large office building in the United States. According to a report about the project in the SF Chronicle, “The headquarters of the city’s Public Utilities Commission [SFPUC] would include design features rarely seen in comparable buildings, such as wind turbines on the roof and a water recycling system in the basement. Solar panels would be embedded in outer walls, and a ventilation system using ‘thermal chimneys’ on each floor would pull hot air out of the building.” Construction is expected to start on the 12-story structure next year.

The idea is that while the sustainability measures add $16 million to the $178 million price tag, it demonstrates the city’s leadership and commitment to implementing sustainability on a very practical way. “We can’t ask people to change their way of doing business and not put our money where our mouth is,” said Susan Leal, the agency’s general manager.

The wind turbines are to be situated on the roof and stacked vertically behind glass walls along Golden Gate Avenue.
The wind tower is made of two Clark Y airfoils in a mirror image of each other. He says there are still “quite a few details to work out but they are planning to mount 36 10 KW turbines (8′ in diameter and 10′ high) and deliver a substantial fraction (to be determined but not estimated at around 40 percent) of the building’s daily budget of 4,000 KWhrs. The balance of this energy is provided by the PV panels on the roof and southern side facing S.F. City Hall.

The renderings are done in Google Sketch-Up which you can download for free. The $480 dollar version is substantially more powerful.

Making the Case for a Comprehensive Approach to Global Warming

No one loves a fast, beautiful sports car more than me, but the realization emerging from the scientific community is that we are not being accountable to our children and the future generations nor the planet and the countless other species on this planet by our reluctance to rethink our extremely car dependent lifestyles. Yet as a light to moderate meat eater, I am also faced with the reality that a growing number of reports cite animal based diets as a bigger culprit for Global Climate Change than even the worst gas guzzling SUV. The growing realization is that it is no single issue is the culprit for Global Climate Change, but rather a whole range of factors. Yet it still appears that much of humanity is unwilling to fully accept the consequences that Global Climate Change is but one of many adverse impacts that our modern lifestyle is having on the ecology of the planet.