Sun, Sealing, Super Insulating - Going Past Net Zero While Occupying a 'Standard' 1979 Home

摘要

As the 21st century was getting underway, I became slowly aware of the several combined threats to civil society and animal life in general: Resource Depletion, Population Gains, Strained Food Supplies and Environmental Destruction - particularly atmospheric and oceanic transformations. All of these shared a root cause: Expanding Fossil Fuel Energy Usage. In particular, Fossil Fuels had allowed populations to grow far beyond the Earth's long term carrying capacity. As President George W. Bush announced in the 2006 State of the Union message: "We are addicted to Oil!" We have entered a Fossil Fuel based societal bubble. As a side effect, the residues of the spent fuels were (and are more so now) transforming our climate and our seas. Additionally, this binge of Human depletion of buried energy stores could not be maintained. Entering retirement in January 2001 from R&D at AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories, I needed a project. My new research project became the GREENING of my home and lifestyle. I took this up as a personal improvement project as well as a test of the limits of possibility. As I understood these issues better I learned that what was really needed was not just preaching and demonstrating for governmental action. As it has been famously stated, the problem is us. "Us" is composed of You and Me. I can not control you individually - or even the greater collective "You". But I can do something about me. In doing something about me, I might - through example - also infect some part of the collective "You" to also start a broader transformation based upon a spreading grass roots adoption of DEEP GREENING. In my past career & actions I had used (and abused) gross stores of energy for food, housing, & transportation. Each of these 3 areas is separate but potentially connected. In traditional societies they were very intertwined. The whole life support system was Local.... To the point of being accessible by foot. When hunting it might have been by running - but still by foot. I decided that I would try to convert my lifestyle to become totally free of the prime modern power sources (Fossil fuels) which have transformed societies over the last 150 to 200 years. It would be an experiment. I hoped I could speed past "Net Zero Fossil Fuel" and become a true absolute ZERO fossil fuel user. If I could not, then our civilization would need to scale down dramatically in numbers as resources dwindle. It was either scale down energy per person or scale down people, undoing the move from 1.5 billion to 7 billion inhabitants of this lovely blue and green globe. The most obvious place to start was with my home. Today's Built Environment, cannot be wished away. It is the starting point. We must begin where we are. The necessary changes for society will not be in New Construction. The overwhelming need is for DEEP WEATHERIZATION of existing structures. Thus, I took the home I have ... situated where it is ... shaped as it was made to be in 1979. Some of these aspects lent to a positive result. Some did not. This paper presents the details (and the results) of the process of energy conversion of my home to be a net energy producer generating enough extra GREEN energy to support the PHEV & 50% of the energy needs of an additional typical home in my neighborhood.