MakeHeat

“ Central Waters Brewing is the first brewery in the state to use solar energy. Company President Paul Graham says they rebooted the facility with solar thermal panels a year and a half ago at a $105,000 price tag. With grants and tax incentives, he says they paid about 45 percent of that, out of pocket.

Graham figures the system will be paid off in six years. Depending on cost fluctuations of natural gas, he estimates $1.6 million in savings during the life of the system.

The Amherst brewer says there is intrinsic value as well, “We’re very green minded people. We’ve done this essentially because we feel it’s right.”

The solar power provides heat for the building, water used in plant operations, and brewing which is a high energy process. …’

Listen to the story here: Harnessing the power of the sun…for beer.

“Research conducted by scientists at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) has enabled a new solar heating system to be developed using nanotechnology which heats water to five times the temperature of a conventional system. Reportedly, the project has emerged from one of the enterprises of the URFJ’s business incubator. …”

Read more at: Renewable Energy Magazine

“… The vacuum between the tubes prevents heat loss during cold weather. Other solar heaters need antifreeze to keep working in winter. The Solar Quest system of tubes keeps working even at temperatures of minus 40 degrees F without any chemicals added to the purer water.

Another advantage of the new system is it integrates the function of hot water storage and solar energy collection into one unit. Evacuated tube collectors produce hotter water. The heated water keeps circulating through the tubes by a passive convection current. This eliminates the need and cost for a pump to circulate water between a storage tank and a heat collector. The storage tank is stainless steel with a polyurethane coating to insulate it from the outside weather. …”

World solar power: Turkish technology reaches Stroudsburg |PoconoRecord.com.

A great discussion and intriguing answers at green building advisor’s forum.  Beats the daylights out of watching Sensationalized Hypocritical Information TV “News”…

Long term thermal storage has never yet panned out in practice.

You want to save all that extra solar energy from the summer and use it in the winter? Get a PV system and put it on the grid. Then pull it off the grid. The grid stores it for you, not in Btus or even kwhs, but in Dollars. Problem solved.

ANSWERED BY KEVIN DICKSON – Jul 12 10

6.

Kevin,

You’re exactly right. Although solar thermal systems collect more BTUs per dollar invested than PV systems, they yield less useful energy on a year-round basis — much less in winter, when thermal heat is needed.

The simple fact of the matter is that solar thermal systems collect too much heat during the summer, when no one wants it — and that solar thermal heat is almost impossible to store.

Grid-connected PV systems, on the other hand, give homeowners credit for 100% of the energy produced — so they come out ahead.

ANSWERED BY MARTIN HOLLADAY, GBA ADVISOR – Jul 12 10

via Solar heat storage in sand bed under house slab? | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.

Low Enough to Keep Competition Away
The Atlantic has a good piece about OPEC, everybody’s least-favorite cartel. It shows pretty clearly why OPEC is probably the most effective enemy of renewable energy. The way they do it is by going against their short-term interests and keeping oil prices relatively low (at least low compared to the kind of prices they could create if they choked off supply more) to assure their long-term market-share and keep alternatives to oil down….Read the full story on TreeHugger

“This modern home built in Wisconsin by designer Shane Black uses solar thermal panels to heat a bed of sand beneath the house, keeping the interior temperature comfortable throughout the year. Combined with smart window placement and energy-efficient building techniques, the project achieves a 50% savings in energy consumption. Black’s goal was to create a home that utilized as many of his ideas as possible while at the same time being earth-friendly, proving that it’s possible to create a unique, beautiful home that also has a low impact on the environment. ”

(ed.) I’d always heard of using a bed of rocks, and the problems that resulted (mold, etc.).  This sounds like an idea to pursue.

via Unique and Geometric Solar Home Cuts Energy Usage in Half | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

How Much Will It Really Save?

“… Lets assume a 2,000 square foot (~45′x45′) house with eight foot ceilings. This house would have 5,440 square feet of ceiling, floor, and wall space, of which 120 square feet represent ten 3′x4′ windows. If your windows currently have an R-Value of 1 and the rest of the building envelope is insulated to R-13, your building’s average R-Value would be 12.73. Replacing your windows with windows rated to R-3 would increase this to 12.78, or 0.4%. Saving a couple of dollars a year on your heating bill is probably not worth spending $5,000. In fact, a study mentioned in this TreeHugger.com article says that the payback period of replacing old wooden windows is up to 400 years! …”

The blog goes on to say:

“…One undertaking that might have a more reasonable ROI is insulation. Since replacing wall insulation is a bit more involved and costly, we are typically limited to replacing floor or ceiling insulation. Attic insulation like cellulose or fiberglass can be blown in using what resembles a giant vacuum cleaner running in reverse. Some local equipment rental stores or home improvement warehouse stores even rent this equipment by the hour. Loose fill insulation typically has an insulating value greater than R-3.5 per inch. Assuming that our hypothetical house already has four inches of loose-fill insulation (~R-13) we can add another four inches to bring it up to R-26 for very little expense and a 37.5% increase over our previous average insulation value. …”

via Ask Pablo: Is Replacing Windows A Good Investment? : TreeHugger.

In our case, the replacement of the windows was imperative, since they were “murder weapons”: every time you opened one window, the other one would slide down and try to break your arms. Fortunately, we’d taken the time and money before hand and added insulation to the attic (R-48), and did our own home energy audit, finding many other areas where the heat was escaping.  The “free” home energy audit given by the state just said “you need to replace your incandescent bulbs, replace your windows and (with no real specific points) insulate.  Here’s a few free CFL’s. “.  A blower door test and a thorough inspection would have cost us about $500, but we found a better solution which is a book and several excel spreadsheets offered by David Andersen (link). Another low-cost investigation you can do yourself and save a lot of money is following my “DIY Thermal Heatmap” (link). All you need are an excel spreadsheet, an infrared thermometer and a digital camera.

Michael Davis is a true DIY’er.  He’s built everything from solar panels to wind turbines, and this is a remarkably ambitious project that’s still a work in progress, though it does work. Good words of warning here – be well aware of the following before attempting this project: “… A word of warning here. This project is dangerous. Metal working and welding are involved in the construction, so all the usual dangers of laceration, burns and electrocution that go along with them are present. Use all necessary precautions. Also, the operation of a biomass gasifier produces lots of heat, flammable and poisonous gasses. Never operate the gasifier indoors. The gasses produced are flammable and potentially explosive if allowed to accumulate in an enclosed space, like a building. Also, the Carbon Monoxide the gasifier produces is lethal! Only operate the gasifier outdoors and try to stay up wind of the unit when it is running. Treat the gas coming out of the gasifier with the same respect as you would for the natural gas that you may have piped into your house. It is just as potentially explosive and deadly. …”

via My Home-Made Biomass Gasifier.

SEBRING – A year ago Roger St. Laurent decided he was going to make his carbon footprint smaller.He started off by adding two solar panels to heat his water. Soon his cost saving ambitions grew and he added 22 solar panels to power his entire house.His last electric bill was $6.47.”Its unbelievable,” said St. Laurent, a retired Sebring resident.”I told my wife was this a good idea or what.”His 2,800 square-foot Sebring home is an energy saving machine. In the family room, beside the solar panel circuit board, hangs St. Laurents first zero balance electric bill.

via Resident goes solar, electric bill drops to nothing.

“…A heating system is critical for the success of a greenhouse. Common sources of heat are electrical heaters and gas-, oil-, and wood-fueled heating systems (all of which must be vented to the outside). If you want to try heating your greenhouse naturally, try passive solar heat. This system involves a “heat sink,” which stores heat during the day that can be used when the sun goes down. (See “How to Make a Passive Solar Greenhouse.”) …”

How to build a greenhouse | MNN – Mother Nature Network.