status and sustainability

John used to be a lawyer. A real high-flyer. He was a partner in Wilkins and Partners for 10 years, and acted as QC in many well-known cases. He was 48 when he realised that his jet-setting, profligate lifestyle was seriously compromising his children's future, and that all his money and stuff wasn't actually bringing him a fulfilling life. Over a period of 10 years, he quit his job, down-sized his house and belongings, got rid of his suits, sold his car, started gardening and generally remodeled his life in what he hoped was a sustainable way. He's never been happier. He is now 58 and works 2 days per week as a volunteer legal adviser for immigrants, and spends the rest of his time in the garden, volunteering at the local school, with his kids and grandkids. He usually wears old and simple clothes, has a utilitarian garden with clothes on the clothes line, chickens and lots of vegetables and trees.

Martha graduated with John, and was every bit his equal in the legal profession. In fact, they teamed up a lot in their legal work. She was a fantastic debater, to his methodical research. In their early career they were rivals, but they eventually realised that the legal world was big enough for them both. She was 47 when John was 48, and was also a partner at Wilkins and Partners. She could never understand why John would want to abandon his successful career to be poor go grubbing around in the dirt. She liked him, and was a quite tolerant person, but their wildly divergent lifestyles meant that they steadily lost contact as he reshaped his life. Martha continued to work hard at law, and by 58 had a string of famous legal victories, including pharmaceutical, GMOs, IT and the oil industry. She was the go-to person at Wilkins and Partners for any case involving technical content. She was rich. She and her husband drove matching BMWs and lived in a palatial house at Beverly Hills.

Generally, people who meet John like him. He is easy going and calm. People identify with his old clothes and cheap lifestyle. When people meet Martha, they generally get sidelined. She can be aloof and arrogant. In her power clothes and fancy car, people don't feel they have much in common with her. But, they respect her.

My question is: which of these people garner greater respect in our society? Who is listened to? Who influences politics? Who influences voters?

I believe the answer is: the person most successful and can demonstrate it using standard measures of success -- status

All over the world, people are slowly realising that our society cannot continue in its current trajectory -- that an attempt to do so will result in disaster. These are people from all walks of life: dentists, barbers, builders, shop assistants, lawyers, scientists, street sweepers, mechanics. Some of these people are prepared to reshape their lives so that they cause less damage to the ecological systems that support us (without which, our civilisation would not exist). In so doing, those people lose many of the status symbols (eg. cars, clothing, toys, houses, travel) they previously had, and hence have a corresponding loss of status. Loss of status means that their voice is heard less in general society.

Hence, there is a status imbalance between those who "pull-back" from the status quo that is undermining our civilisation, and those who perpetuate it.

This means that people who argue for continuing the status quo have a relatively louder voice than those arguing for change. I believe this is an actual and serious impediment for societal change, and relates to such things as our innate primate hierarchical social structure, tribalism and other such deep aspects of humanity.

This is an exploratory article, and I don't have answers here. I hope to provoke a discussion on this subject.

The cost of cars

I've written a couple of articles about how expensive cars are. The main two are what does it cost to own a car, and how fast do cars actually go?

However, both of these articles ignore a very significant cost: real estate. Let me show this by an example.

Last year, we visited Sydney. We stayed in a great little (and very reasonably-priced) townhouse in Sydney's inner-North (about 10 kms out). The house has space allocated for two cars to park, and this was about one sixth of the land that the house occupied. I don't know what that house is worth, but it would be at least $1 million, and probably $1.3 Million. Therefore, the value of those car parks was about $200000, or about $15000 / year [1] (the opportunity cost of having that money locked up in fairly useless land). This is in addition to all the other expenses I've outlined in the other two articles. Amazing stuff!

Our place is similar (though not worth as much money!). When we moved in, it had a driveway right down one side of the house, a double garage and a carport out the back. I think that between 1/6 and 1/5 of the land was given over to car infrastructure. That's a significant amount of money!

We've been slowly reclaiming that car space as a human space. The carport is gone, the garage will never have another car in it (and may serve as accommodation one day), and we are slowly digging up the driveway to plant more trees. My plan is to eventually have a single car space right at the front of the block, or perhaps none at all.

This weekend I did quite a bit of work setting up a new bed in the former-driveway. I've previously dug up the hard-dolomite-clay hideousness with a pick, and today I worked in some compost and straw and planted a few trees. This will give summer shade to our kitchen window, and the external split-system unit (which will help it function more efficiently on hot mornings, not that we use it much). I've attached a couple of photos below. This also has an added security benefit, because a would-be burglar now needs to leave their car out the front of the house, in broad view of the street.

Our former driveway, now with a bed. Today I planted a nectarine, plum and wooly bush. We'll put a whole lot more there, though -- lots of chook food (leafy greens, comfrey, etc), and some other understory plants. You might also notice that the  wall for this bed is made of broken concrete. I'm slowly removing concrete from elsewhere on my block and instead of sending it to landfill I'm trying to reuse it. This is a bit ugly right now, but I'll put some soil in the wall and let plants grow over it. It also provides shelter for lizards and other creatures.

We've also made the step to letting the chooks run free through the vegetable beds. This was a bit difficult for me, as I was afraid of the destruction. After reading a fantastic blog post about keeping chickens, which said that:

Paddock shift systems often improve the paddock. Some folks report five times more vegetation when using paddock shift like the one suggested here. This is something that vegans do not consider when designing gardens with no animals. So ... imagine .... your garden without chickens produces less than your garden with chickens where the chickens eat 30%. 

We decided to see what happens if we just let them go and see what happened. I must admit, the phrase that popped into my head was "embrace the chaos" -- where before we had straw on the beds and bark chips on the paths, and a garden that many would regard as wild, now we have straw all over the grass and paths, holes in the path, etc. We did lose a few seedlings, and I think in future I'll try to protect them better, but I can already see what a great job the chooks are doing at turning things over. I think this is a work in process that will continue. We're also getting more eggs now, perhaps implying that they weren't getting quite enough food before.

happy chooks -- this bed sustained little damage, though the kale was enjoyed! Seeing a chicken jumping to reach the higher leaves was pretty funny!

Happy hens

----------
[1] I often use economic means to illustrate the stupid things people do. I'm not a money-driven person, and often don't do things for economic reasons, but I feel this is an easier way to communicate some of these ideas.


This article was written by Angus, and first appeared at guesstimatedapproximations.blogspot.com.au

The just-so society

It wasn't working properly, so I got rid of it and bought a new one.

This is almost the mantra of our society. One even hears things like

I'm pleased I dropped my phone -- now I can buy a new one

This is a waste, plain and simple. It's amazing how pervasive this attitude is, and it provides opportunities for people who are not likewise blinkered. We have this idea that things ought to be just right, that if things aren't perfect there is a problem, and that problems like this are fixed by buying something new.

My stereo systems

This post was prompted by Cherokee Organics' post about his new FM rooftop antenna. (I'd been thinking about writing it anyway but was procrastinating)

I love music -- and have lots of music.

When I was a kid, I had a huge collection of cassettes, many recorded from the radio. When I was about 14, my uncle lent me an old hifi amp from the 70s and a couple of speakers to go with it. I bought a second hand Philips CD player (late 80s) to go with it for about $100. I still have the CD player, it sounds great.

About 5 years ago, I bought a "proper" hifi. An NAD 3020, with an AM/FM tuner and Bowers and Wilkins speakers for $150 (it is a proper audiophile system and would have cost $2000-3000 equivalent twenty years ago). The seller was getting rid of it because it was black and he was changing his hifi to silver (!)

I've also found an NAD receiver (amp and radio together) and CD player on the side of the road, as well as a few CD-boom-boxes. I picked up a fantastic cheap hifi at the op-shop for $25. All in all, we have 3 CD players and 5 FM radios (three of which are very good) and have paid a total of about $350 for the lot.

Wallace radio

I have a fair collection of computer music. Although I love listening to CDs and vinyl, digital music is great because it's easy to come by, and I can get music that would be otherwise unavailable. How to listen to it?

I set up an old (hand-me-down) laptop (cost: $0) with a USB FM broadcaster (brand: keene, cost: $10) and a USB key full of music (cost $30). It's on my local network and can be controlled by my (hand-me-down) smartphone. It broadcasts at FM 102.7, and I can tune in any radio in the house (it has a range of about 20 meters), and the sound quality is pretty good. I can even use it to stream internet radio and then broadcast it to FM to listen to it.

The upshot

I can set music to play on my phone and can listen to it in any room in the house or even outside -- just by tuning in the radio. Similar commercial systems cost thousands of dollars -- particularly for a 7 room system. I feel that this system is a real winner!

Details

Computer: 2004 Apple iBook running Debian Linux

Music server: "Music player daemon" -- Free Software

FM USB key: Keene FM broadcaster. (These are not made any more, but there are others available)

My lounge room stereo. Philips CD player, $120. NAD receiver: free on the side of the road. Sounds fantastic. You can also see a heap of records -- I found about 1/2 in a box on the side of the road and bought most of the rest at the op shop for an average price of $2 each.

Sony CD boombox. It had a broken ariel and was free on the side of the road. I replaced the ariel for $3. Sound is ok, not great, but it's convenient.

GE speakers - free. Stereo $25 at op shop. Sounds great.

Conclusion

I wanted to talk about this system, because I'm a bit of a nerd and think it rocks. But I also think it shows a general idea: There is a lot of good stuff that is going to waste -- If you tap that resource stream you can become rich, without spending much money.

The heart of the house

Kitchens are funny things. Or, rather, the way that people relate to kitchens is sometimes funny. I read somewhere "In Australia, kitchens continue to get smaller and bathrooms continue to get larger. What this says about us, I leave to you."

The past few decades have seen a change in the way Australian houses are laid-out and how they are used. Where once there was a formal dining room and a more casual meals area in (or adjacent to) the kitchen, now the trend is for the kitchen to flow to a more informal eating area that often doubles as a living area.

However, this has caused a change in the way that people think about kitchens. What was once a utilitarian space (a place for getting cooking done) is now often seen at least as much as a showpiece. For many kitchens, the aesthetics have sometimes even come to surpass the function. Since many people these days don't really cook much, this is understandable (though ridiculous).

However, there seems to be a parallel trend, even amongst people who value good home-cooked food, to aspire to an immaculate kitchen that looks more like something in a magazine than a place to, er, cook food.

Below are a few photos of my kitchen. I've put a caption on each, describing what can be seen. The kitchen is almost exactly as I fount it when I went to do the dishes tonight. I moved a couple of things slightly, so that they could be better captured by the photo, but what you see is almost exactly what was there. This wasn't planned, and the state of the kitchen is pretty normal for us. The reason I've done this, is that I want to promote an aesthetic of the kitchen as a messy, human space which has a definite purpose of making beautiful food rather than looking good. I aspire to the kitchen that was common in Australia in the 1930s to 1950s (although I'm very happy to accept a few modern conveniences such as a microwave).

Our house was built in 1955, and the kitchen is mostly original from then. In the 1970s, there was a new cupboard installed along the meals area wall, and all the benchtops were replaced. The oven is newer, not sure how old.

Starting from left, this photo shows our microwave with the chooks' scraps bucket on top, the grey water bucket on the bench, a bag with home-grown onions poking out the top, our yoghurt-maker,  assorted plastic containers full of home made crackers, bread, a bowl of figs that we picked from a tree in the park around the corner, some semi-insulated bags that we use for shopping.

Standing in the same place, but turned 90 degrees to the right, you can see the fridge (an Electrolux ETM4200-series, which uses about 0.8 kWh/day -- very efficient. Bought second-hand for $500), the meals area (where we usually eat) our recycling box, a small container of various stone-fruit-pips (waiting to be planted) a container of grapes and another of figs. You can also see the LED strip light I installed (white line). On the wall, you can see the chasing for the ceiling-fan controls that we've just installed.

This shows the bag of flour we never put away (because we use it most days), a bowl of home grown tomatoes, spice drawers, coffee makers, roasted vegetables, a home made pull-apart loaf. This covers our old and un-funky, but very usable oven.

This shows some of our preserves in the cupboard next to the wine, a mini-oven that I bought cheaply 2nd hand to save power and heat in the house, jars of seeds/spices, cookbooks, etc

This is all mundane, I don't think our kitchen is particularly exciting. But I do think it is beautiful. I love it. So much great food comes out of this kitchen -- most of it is cooked from scratch, and a lot of it is home grown. For me, I'd much rather have a kitchen like this than something schmick but sterile. I think the idea that utilitarian can be aesthetic is an idea that should be spread.

Solar PV: opinions, merits, challenges

I read a lot about solar photovoltaics (PV). Some people believe they will save the world and that, in the future, we'll have electric cars with a solar panel on the roof (let's call them techno-utopians). Others believe that solar is useless. Interestingly, that latter group fall into two main groups (in my experience):

1. fossil-fuel-loving climate-change-deniers, who think that solar will never replace coal/oil/gas
2. devoted environmentalists, who believe that the cost of manufacturing solar PV outweighs its benefits (presumably, they believe that some sort of return to a non-industrial society is therefore required)

I have sympathy for the environmentalists, and can see where they're coming from, but I think they're wrong. I also think the deniers are wrong. I believe that solar PV can replace many uses of fossil fuels, and is starting to do so right now.

Making solar PV

Solar PV panels are reasonably energy-intensive to manufacture. They are a semiconductor and, although they don't require the same level of precision as (say) computer chip fabrication, PV factories still require clean-room manufacture. They also require a large number of obscure material inputs. This is energy-expensive. However,

1. Even with current technology, a solar PV system is thought to be energy positive after as little as a few years (ie. it has produced all the energy in its manufacture). [1] (remember that the system will generally last well over 25 years)
2. There is much research into lower energy cost solar panels. This may reduce the energy and material inputs still further

Solar PV performance

The amount of sunlight falling on the ground represents an absolute maximum to what energy a PV panel can produce. However, given most panels operate at well below 20% conversion efficiency, there's a lot of headroom! In other words, I'm not sure that lack of winter production is quite as bad as it is often made out to be.

PV panels "thermally derate", which means their production decreases when they're hot. On cold days, they work much more efficiently. Thus, if panels are oriented for winter production, cooler temperatures mean that they'll work more efficiently. This increase in efficiency tends to partially offset a lack of winter sun intensity. Of course, a cloudy day is a cloudy day, and production will be lower. Such is the nature of renewables.

What is solar capable of at a domestic level? Evidence

I have a 2 kW system at home, facing due north at about 22deg inclination. I have taken regular meter readings for the last 12 months, and throughout last winter I exported on average 3 kWh/day to the grid (in other words, the panels' average production was greater than this, because some of their power was consumed on site and not exported). I live at latitude 35 deg, in a climate that is often overcast and rainy in winter.

The data I've collected are shown in this article. Note that the winter data look artificially bad because at the time we had an electric storage hot water system that was consuming about 6 kWh/day (now replaced), some of which was produced by our solar PV and hence not exported to the grid.

My feeling is that my family of four could go off-grid with the system we have now. It would not be hard for us to live within our solar PV energy budget as it currently stands. It is possible that we are doing this right now, however winter 2015 will show whether our solar PV production exceeds consumption. Right now, I'm betting it will.

But, solar PV can't power industrial society!

The simple fact is that we do not know if we can run an industrial society on solar PV and wind power -- we've never done it before. I think that, given that an industrial society can be run on 1% (or less) of current power consumption, that it is possible to do this -- though there would be challenges. The question is: do we have the political will to vastly reduce our energy consumption to enable a complete transition to renewable energy?

I think we need to conceptually separate technical and political limitations. I especially think we should not limit political considerations based on incorrect technical opinions (eg. someone saying "we should not invest in solar or a transition to renewables because it is technically infeasible to replace fossil fuels and maintain our society": the latter part of that statement is unproven)

Solar is not a silver-bullet -- there are no silver bullets -- but solar can do a lot. Some people think that anything that is not perfect is useless. That logic is fallacious, in my opinion.

Off-grid versus grid-tied solar PV systems

While I'm at it, I also tire of criticisms of grid-tied solar, as if only off-grid systems have merit. In broad strokes, having a network will almost always represent better resource use than having batteries, because it means that resources can be shared (compare the installation and maintenance energy-costs of batteries versus a grid connection). If a network is available, it is best to use it (even if it is a "network" of two dwellings). By all means add some batteries if you want, as this can help the network function more effectively, but setting up batteries as an off-grid system means one requires a massive excess of storage for the rare occasion that it's needed.

Conclusion

Our current way of life is unsustainable. This means it won't continue. We cannot keep burning fossil fuels. Solar PV offers an alternative energy source that is available right now, that can probably allow us to maintain many/most important aspects of our society. 

It is not certain that we will successfully transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Failure to do this means our civilisation will collapse. We need to be installing as much solar capacity as possible, as quickly as possible, and not waiting for some pie-in-the-sky, perfect technology to appear. 

To the greenies who don't believe in solar PV or renewables, I say: fine, don't use them. But don't keep using coal/oil/gas powered electricity -- you know that road is a dead-end.

References

[1] http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

Canning and packaging

The energy to make things

An aspect of our consumption that is hard for people to understand is that of embodied energy. This is the energy that is required to make things and deliver them to us to use. It is difficult to estimate the embodied energy of a thing, because it's difficult to know where to stop.

Let's take a 2 L plastic container as an example. In Australia, these are typically made from HDPE or high-density poly ethylene. HDPE is an amazing material, and has many uses. It is a petroleum product. How much energy does it take to make a milk carton and get it to our home?

Obviously, we have the energy involved in the manufacture and delivery of the container -- but what about the supporting infrastructure? The more stuff like this that is transported, the heavier the burden on our highways (ie. a significant proportion of road upkeep can be attributed to the delivery of stuff). Also, since HDPE is a petroleum product, we need to include the raw oil that is destined to be made into our container. Also, we need to include (part of) all the ancillary machines and tools used to discover, extract, process, refine and distribute that oil. We also should really include (part of) the support infrastructure for all those machines -- how they are manufactured, delivered, serviced, repaired, and disposed of.

Clearly -- this is a bit of a rabbit hole. Where we draw the line (ie. where we stop counting) is a bit arbitrary, but we can be sure that we can't count all of the energy inputs that go to making a 2 L HDPE bottle.

I estimate that one 2 L HDPE container, such as those used for milk, has an embodied energy of at least 1 kWh [1]. 

Recycling

This is a lot of energy. What is poorly understood is that, for plastics, recycling doesn't save that much energy.
Recycling plastic only saves about 1/3 the energy compared with making new plastic from oil [2]

To me this shows that disposable plastic packaging is very wasteful, even if it's recycled.

What to do?

Really, it's simple. If you want to use less energy, you need to reuse your packaging instead of throwing it away. This was normal only 50 years ago, so it's not really such a far-out idea.

Ideas

Cook preserves (eg. jams, chutneys, stewed fruit) at home. If you find which neighbours have fruit trees, they will probably be happy to share their fruit with you when it's ripe -- particularly if you give them back a jar of preserve. I recently read that the cost of the jar is about 1/3 the cost of buying a jar of jam (can't find the reference, sorry). That's quite amazing when you think that people often buy cheap jam to save money. Making your own jam is really easy, it tastes better and you save money. Also, we're quite careful to make our preserves when our solar PV is producing, so we know that the electricity to make the jam is renewable(-ish) too.

Some of the fruit we gathered for free yesterday at a local park (beautiful nectarines)

Our preserves cupboard. The top jars are empty jars ready to be reused. The drawers have the beginnings of our preserving efforts. Very exciting!

Figs that we "gleaned" for free at the park yesterday. When we discovered this tree (almost a year ago) there were rotting figs all over the ground. There won't be this year!

Shop at places that allow you to bring empty packages to fill and reuse -- this is especially easy for dried goods (eg. beans, grains, flours, dried fruits, etc)
If you drink soy or nut milk, experiment with making your own (either from powder or from scratch) -- it's a lot cheaper too
Try making your own yoghurt -- it's about 1/2 the price of bought yoghurt

We do all these things at my place, and it's really not onerous -- it's quite fun. It's very satisfying to build up a store of beautiful home-canned fruits -- many of which we've got for free. Home-made jam is the best you can get, and you know exactly what has gone into it.

References

[1] http://www.withouthotair.com/c15/page_89.shtml
[2] http://www.planetgreenrecycling.net.au/recycling-facts.php

-------------
This article was written by Angus Wallace, and first appeared at guesstimatedapproximations.blogspot.com.au

Progress report on water systems

Here is a brief update on how the water systems I've installed are faring.

Hot water

I have written articles about my hot water systems here and here.

The system was finalised at the beginning of September 2014, and has worked flawlessly since. We have not boosted it through Spring/Summer -- in fact, I have shaded the collectors to stop it boiling. Some things I really like about it:

• I now have shorter "runs" of pipe between the hot water system and where I use the water, which means less waste
• Because water is effectively heated instantaneously within the hot water system tank (discussed in previous articles), it has no taste, and so can be used to make tea and cook with. There is also no concern with Legionnaires' disease.

Rain water

I have written about our rainwater systems here and here.

We have been exclusively using rainwater since the beginning of September. This includes watering the garden, washing clothes and people, toilet flushing. At the beginning of September, we had ~35 kL of stored water of which I estimate about 30 kL is usable (due to the position of the tanks relative to input/output feeds, etc) -- this was not something I previously considered. Because the system was not completed until December, we did not capture the Spring rain maximally, and Spring rains were very sparse this year. It has been a relatively cool and dry Spring.

We have been very frugal with water, and have captured our washing machine grey water, and grey water from the kitchen for use on the garden (we don't keep washing machine grey water if washing nappies). Until last weekend, I estimate that we had used about 23 kL or a bit under 200 L/day.

I (very roughly)  estimate that this water is used as follows:

• 6 - 8 toilet flush/day: 50 - 70 L daily
• 1 load of washing / day: 70 L daily
• kitchen sink: 30 L daily
• garden direct watering: 50 L daily
• bath/showering: 30 L daily

Clearly, the big users are the toilet and the washing machine. 

Toilet

The toilet is a total loss, because that water goes straight to waste. I want to replace one of our flushing toilets with a composting toilet. This will save a lot of water, and also give us more compost.

Washing machine

Most of the washing machine water we use in the garden, though in a sub-optimal way. This probably seems like a lot of washing, but we have two young children, one of whom is in the process of toilet training (ie. we still wash nappies, as well as soiled clothing)

Bath/shower

I generally wash in the shower every 2 - 3 days, and sometimes use the bath after the kids. They have a bath every 2 - 3 days. My wife often showers at work.

Lessons learned

• Some water is easy to save, and grey water represents an easy saving if it displaces fresh water on the garden.
• Timer taps make it easy to waste water on the garden. Also, it is hard to measure how much water is being used. I set up a timer tap out the back on the vegetables and fruit trees (separate circuits). Given the amount of grey water we have, it is almost possible to water all our trees and vegetables with grey water only (note that there are hygiene implications of watering vegetables with grey water -- make sure you do your research if you plan on doing this). In future, I will consider watering more by hand and less by the drippers
• I accidentally let about 5000 L out of the tank via the vegetable drippers. I wanted to give the vegetables a bit of water before a very hot dry day, but forgot to turn them off until the next day. In future, I will never leave a tap running without an auto-off or an alarm to remind me.

Likely outcome for the Summer of 2014/2015

We will probably run out of water this Summer. I think we have about 5000 L (accessible) remaining in the tanks, which will last only about 25 days. I doubt we will get significant rain in that period. (We have had about 15 mm of rain in the last 4 days, which is very unseasonal, and is factored into this estimate). We are in the fortunate position to be able to switch over to town water easily.

Plans and thoughts for Summer 2015/2016

• I would like to have one toilet replaced with a composting toilet by next Summer
• I might add some extra sheeting to the pergola which will increase the rain collection area (very important for catching every drop of Spring rain)
• We now have all the tanks installed and connected, so will maximally collect the Spring rains in 2015
• I will try to do more to keep "dirty" clothes separately in the laundry, and wash them irregularly, keeping them for dirty tasks. This can hopefully ease the washing load

Conclusions

Water is one of those things that requires a whole system to perform well. Any compromises in subsystems will compromise the whole system. We are getting closer to the ideal that I modelled here, at which point I think we will operate (almost) solely on rainwater. I am hopeful that next Summer, even if we don't have a composting toilet, we will go a lot closer. Even this year we might well have made it through summer, had I not accidentally released that water. 

I think this system shows that it is possible to be self-sufficient for water with a relatively small amount of storage, however it does not leave any margin for error. In a fully off-grid scenario, I would want double the storage, even if it was rarely/never used. Of course, in such a scenario space would be less of a premium than it is in an urban environment!

----------------------

This article was written by Angus Wallace, and first appeared at guesstimatedapproximations.blogspot.com.au