The Third (!?!) Law of Thermodynamics

I've taken over editing the monthly River Exchange and Barter System (REBS) Newsletter from my wife because she gets busier by the week with work at the YMCA. It has given me the opportunity to think and write about ways of retaining wealth in our community. Below is the article I wrote for the September Newsletter.

Peace, Estwing

Energy is often defined as the ability to do work. In many ways, money - or wealth of any kind - is also the ability to do work. In other words, I can pay someone like Jonah to help me install my stove, or I can buy petrol to put in my car. A big difference between these two is that when I pay Jonah the wealth stays in the community, but when I buy petrol most of the wealth leaves the community. However, I can't really pay Jonah to bring my wife home from work on a day she works later than the last bus. (Come to think of it, I probably could but she may not enjoy the ride in his bamboo bike trailer).

The point is, the work that energy or wealth can do is not 100% transferable back and forth. But sometimes it is. Going back to the example of the multi-fuel stove, the work that Jonah did will translate sometime in the future into energy savings in the form of reduced home heating costs.

Additionally, the wood that we will burn will likely come from the land cared for by Melinda and Murray. Therefore, any wealth transfer for home heating goes to these three "locals" and not to Meridian Energy in Christchurch (I believe).

And the same can be said for another form of energy delivered to Wanganui nearly every day for free: sunlight. Sunlight can heat homes quite effectively, and simple insulating and draft-proofing efforts can help hold the heat in overnight. These efforts may be labor intensive, but if the labor is local then the wealth stays in the community. Over time the homeowner makes up the upfront cost in energy savings. And then those savings can be reinvested in the community. For example, our electric bills are so low that we treated ourselves to an afternoon of local rugby. Go the Butcher's Boys!

Intersections

I reckon life is all about finding balance. And because we live in a dynamic world, the balance point is always changing. On this project we are looking for balance not only between eco and thrifty, but also factoring in the New Zealand building code and the potential for wide applicability across society and across the world. In other words, we are looking for the intersection of eco, thrifty, legal, replicable, beautiful and attractive to people other than already committed Greenies.


To my knowledge this is a unique endeavor. This project represents an everyman's/woman's approach to permaculture. There are lots of examples of eco-villages and perma-farms and expensive bespoke eco-homes. But in the foreseeable future, the vast majority of people will never live in such places. Most people in OECD nations live in places like this.


Well, much nicer than this actually. But we did not want to be accused of cherry-picking.


In response to Richard's comment on the last post, I'll give an example of the intersection mentioned above using insulation. Pink Batts are widely available, recognized by almost everyone, cost-effective, meet the NZ building code and contain up to 80% recycled content. Meeting (and exceeding) the NZ building code is essential to this project. So the options of insulation included Pink Batts, polypropylene batts, and wool batts. (We did not consider blown in cellulose too closely because we wanted to do the job ourselves to ensure quality installation and to keep costs down.) Polypro batts are made from recycled plastic and the wool batts are made from...wool. Both are more expensive and less available than Pink Batts.

Some people like polypro batts because they are so soft and easy to handle. But in terms of insulation, handling should be (!) a one off. I do not mind handling Pink Batts. Once they are installed, I don't plan to touch them ever again.

Some people claim that wool batts are the most eco option possible. I question that thinking. Have you seen the unsustainable ways sheep are grown in NZ? A holistic look at the ecological footprint of wool batts must include soil erosion, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers. Some might argue that the ecology, soil health and water health of NZ would be much better off with fewer sheep.


In the end, the insulation intersection for this time and place and the goals of this project was Pink Batts. For the equivalent cost of polypro or wool we were able to exceed the building code at a higher r-value. In other words, we have a warmer house at the same cost. By using an innovative installation technique (see Bridge to Nowhere), we reap the benefits and can share this under-utilized approach with others to replicate from Auckland to Alberta.


Peace, Estwing

Still the One

We have had an amazing run of mild weather this autumn and early winter. Even up through Matariki - the winter solstice (fewest hours of sunlight for the year) - we have not needed any supplemental (electric or otherwise) heating for hot water or our living space. This has allowed us to keep our electricity use around one kilowatt hour per day for the last eight months. Our last bill was remarkably low. We used only 23 kilowatt hours in 30 days.

$15.72 includes a 38 cents/day line charge.

But those "cheap as chips" power bills are likely to hibernate until September, as we face two cold months ahead, and most immediately cool, cloudy weather and rain for the next 10 days. But I thought I'd share some of the best approaches we've chosen to save energy and money. From big picture to detail, they include:

Passive solar design: Increased glazing on the north side (toward the equator) for free heating.

(Morning photo: Drapes are still closed.)

Insulation: Holds that heat in at night.

Fiberglass insulation has up to 80% recycled content and is affordable.

Thermal drapes and pelmets: This is another form of insulation that happens to open and close daily. Mindfulness makes these much cheaper than double-glazing if you are conscientious about opening and closing them at appropriate times.

Pelmet is an old weather board from the exterior. (Ripped to 150mm and inverted.) Will be painted white to look like a crown molding.

Solar hot water: Electric water heating is one of the biggest additions to a power bill.

One of the best investments I've ever made. Thanks Allen!

Under-the-bench-fridge: Our refrigerator sips power while many others gulp it.

Small is beautiful! Big enough if you keep yourself organized.

Compact flourescent light bulbs: This hardly needs to be said, but CFLs use 1/4 the power of incandescent bulbs for the same amount of lighting.

Old reliable. I'm looking at LEDs, but the quality has to go up and price down.

We use heaps of other strategies for saving power, but those will be highlighted another day. Which of these can you implement in your home? What other great energy saving strategies do you employ?

Oh, the sun just came out. Gotta go open the drapes... - Estwing

10 Watt Pasta

We ran a new workshop this weekend with excellent response from participants. The workshop - Solar and Energy-Efficient Cooking - is part of an ongoing workshop series by The ECO School.



We covered a number of different solar cooker designs and cooking techniques during the first half of the workshop. But for those who have not yet made their own cooker, or for cloudy days, we introduced a number of other energy-efficient cooking techniques. Central to many of those techniques is the straw box.



Our straw box happens to be full of towels, not straw. But we still call it a straw box. The key to a good straw box in insulation on all 6 sides.

A great example of using a straw box - not to mention an excellent energy-saving cooking technique - is what we call "10 watt pasta." This cooking technique uses a small fraction of the electricity of boiling pasta for 10 minutes on a hob (stovetop). Here's how to make it.

1) Boil a jug. Because the heating element is inside of the container, heat transfer is more efficient than heating a kettle or sauce pan of water on the stovetop (hob). We fill the jug with our solar hot water which comes from the tap at a high temperature using no electricity.


2) Pour over pasta until covered and place in the straw box.


3) Cover the straw box and wait 20 - 25 minutes. Stir once at 10 to 12 minutes. For al dente pasta, remove at 15 minutes and stir at 8 to 10 minutes.


The pasta comes out perfectly cooked as long as you drain the water at the prescribed times. Use the intervening 25 minutes to make a healthy sauce from fresh veggies and herbs from your garden.






Bon apetito! Estwing

From off te grid to off te radar

Editors note: "te" is Maori for "the". Te Radar is a famous NZ comedian.

After living off the grid with solar electricity for 8 years on a 38 acre farm surrounded by thousands of acres of forestland, I thought moving to the ‘burbs’ would be simply cosmopolitan: mains power; postal delivery; bus service around the corner; fish and chips around the next corner; and fish and chips around the next corner and the corner after that.


While the bus and fish and chips are working out well, we have had significant trouble with the post and a minor disagreement with Meridian Energy over our first bill. One might think that putting up a post box on a certain street with a certain number would qualify one for mail delivery to that particular number on that particular street.


But one might be wrong. As we discovered, despite a neon-clad NZ Post pedal pusher passing our lonely #10 five days each week, we failed to receive anything in our newly painted post box except circulars which we specifically requested not to receive. Ah, I get it. Everything is reversed in New Zealand: different hemisphere, different lane for driving; fork on the right; toilet bowl flushes opposite. We should have written ‘No Letters’ and ‘Circulars Please!’ on the box. Of course!

Alas, after half a dozen phone calls, a visit to city council, the local post office and NZ Post Central Processing Wanganui, we…think we have it sorted, although we will not know for sure until the national database of postal addresses is updated next month. In the mean time, 10 Arawa Place in Whangarei is enjoying an abundance of wandering mail looking for a home, and our dispute with Meridian awaits resolution.

Our first paperless (that’s why we got it!) electricity bill came in at $144.56 for 510 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity. The good news is although the NZ household average electricity consumption is around 25 kilowatt hours per day, this bill represented our use as 16.5 kWh. The better news is that we actually used 0.39 kWh per day for a total of 12 kWh on the month. In other words, we were over-billed by 498 kWh or 98%. There appear to be only 3 possible explanations for this: the meter-reader is blind; the meter reader was intimidated by our high-tech meter box…


…or he/she – like NZ Post – simply could not find 10 Arawa Place, Castlecliff, and so Meridian simply billed us on estimated use.

Turns out the latter was, indeed, the case, and they have promised to send a human being to take an actual reading next month. Better work on the meter box before then.




-M.C. Estwing