Tag: energy efficiency

Gm Promises Fuel Cells for Homes

In the next few years, homeowners across the Great Lakes region could get a new, environmentally friendly way to power their homes – thanks to an automaker. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports:

Transcript

In the next few years, homeowners across the Great Lakes region could get a new, environmentally friendly way to power their homes – thanks to an automaker. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Bill Poorman reports.


General Motors has announced that it’s going to begin selling fuel cell power plants for use in homes or in offices in the next two or three years. Daniel O’ Connel is a staff engineer with GM’s fuel cell program. He unveiled the new system at a recent automotive conference.


“The unit we demonstrated this morning is a 5 kilowatts. That would be about enough to provide for an average home. The unit we showed this morning was about the size of a conventional refrigerator.”


All of Detroit’s automakers are working on fuel cell systems for their vehicles, not for homes. They are considered something like a Holy Grail that will let car companies escape environmental criticism. When they’re perfected, fuel cells will take in hydrogen from some source – perhaps methane, natural gas, or even everyday gasoline. Through a chemical process, they will produce electricity, and the main waste product is water.


But fuel cells have been a long time coming. Automakers are working to reduce the weight, size, and cost of the systems so that they can be put into cars. Auto analyst Paul Eisenstein of the car web site thecarconnection.com says that car companies moving into the home seems unusual at first. But it has some basic business reasons behind it.


“The automakers are hoping that they can use the home fuel cell technology to learn a lot about it, and to get it into mass production, and lower the costs of on-the-road or mobile fuel cells, as well.”


Plus, Eisenstein says, the move could help speed up research into fuel cells for all applications.


“This way they might be able to go to market much sooner and develop a revenue source that could fund further fuel cell development efforts.”


But GM still has to put a lot of pieces into place before it starts selling home fuel cell units. GM’s Daniel O’Connel says the company is still looking for the best way to jump into an unfamiliar business.


“Currently GM does not have the distribution network to set up a non-automotive applications, so we’re looking for partners to help us out in that arena.”


Of course, the ultimate goal for GM is to be the first company to mass produce affordable fuel cell powered cars and trucks. But the timeline for that is a bit longer. Most automakers believe it could be up to a decade before the cars are ready. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Poorman.

Cleaner Fuel Struggles at Take-Off

Scientists have hit a roadblock in the effort to create jet fuel that uses soybean by-products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Scientists have hit a roadblock in the effort to create jet fuel that uses soybean by products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.


Researchers at the USDA lab in Peoria, Illinois say they are ready to test a jet fuel that is made partially from soybeans. But while scientists say the new fuel will decrease engine emissions, so far no jet manufacturer is willing to take on the cost of testing the fuel. Bob Dunn is the head researcher on the project. He says eventually, government regulations will force companies to give the new fuel a try.


“If somebody says ‘We can’t let you fly this aircraft into this certain region because of the air quality issues’ than the company has to come up with an alternative aircraft or they are going to lose some business in that area.”


Dunn says in the mean time, his lab is working with the Armed Forces to try to find a way to complete a test of the fuel in jets. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

State to Force Mercury Reductions?

Mercury emissions from more than 150 coal-burning power plants across the Great Lakes are coming under greater scrutiny this summer. Several states are considering ways to reduce those emissions. Wisconsin could become the first state in the nation to issue rules requiring large mercury reductions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:

Cordwood Homes Finding Their Niche

From a distance a cordwood building looks deceptively like it’s made
of
stone. But if you take a closer look you’ll see that what you thought
were stones actually are the ends of short logs laid widthwise to form
a
wall. In Europe, cordwood homes, sometimes called "poor mans’
architecture", have existed for over a thousand years. In North
America
the technique arrived with the early pioneers. Today, in the United
States, cordwood masonry is experiencing a renewed interest as
affordable housing because it’s cheap, easy to build, and energy
efficient. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Anderson has more:

Transcript

On the far end of a pond, in upstate New York, a group of people are working away, busy as

beavers. The comparison works nicely here, because like beavers, these people are building with

logs and a mud-like mortar.


To one side, a group of men vigorously mix mortar in a wheelbarrow. When they get it just right,

it’s delivered to another group of people whoa re busy stacking 6-8 pound logs. Carefully and

methodically, men, women, and children take the mortar and slather it around each sixteen inch

log. It looks like they’re stacking a wall of firewood. Only this wall is designed to last more

than one season. It’s designed to last a lifetime.


Rob Roy has been building with cordwood for over twenty years. He says there are areas in northern

Greece and Siberia where one-thousand-year-old cordwood structures still stand. Roy and his wife

Jaki discovered cordwood masonry during the energy crisis in the 1970’s.


“My wife and I just needed low cost shelter. This was back in 1975. We had worked on a log

building of heavy pine logs in Arkansas, and we found we just couldn’t heft these large logs by

ourselves. About that time there was an article in National Geographic that showed two pictures,

one interior and one exterior, of a cordwood wall… and we said jeez that makes sense. We can do

that. You are not handling anything more than a six to eight pound log end.”


No literature was available, so Roy and Jaki did their own research. They build their house,

learned from their mistakes, and wrote a book about it: The Complete Book of Cordwood Masonry

Housebuilding. Now they teach workshops at their home near Plattsburgh, New York and speak at

conferences. They’ve become missionaries of cordwood masonry.


“Cordwood makes use of waste wood which is unsuitable for other building uses. Logs which, for

example, are not strait enough to take to the saw mill. perhaps dead wood that has been fire

killed or disease killed on your property. I have even heard of people using driftwood or peeler

cores left over from plywood plants. All sorts of sources of so-called junk wood is perfectly fine

when you cut it into sixteen inch pieces.”


Roy says depending on how resourceful you are, materials can cost between ten to twenty dollars

per square foot. Roughly half of the cost of a standard frame building. Roy says a properly made

cordwood home will be energy efficient. It’s easy to heat in the winter and stays cool in the

summer.


“It has this wonderful combination of insulation and thermal mass. The mortar joint between the

log ends does not pass through the wall. There is insulated space. That space can be filled with

loose insulation such as vermiculite or pearlite. We use sawdust treated with lime. It’s equal to

about R3 insulation value per inch of thickness, roughly the same as fiberglass.”


Not only is cordwood masonry easy on the environment, Roy says it’s easy on people as well.

Light-weight logs allow an ease of construction that invites everyone to participate, including

Grandma. Although it’s probably unlikely you’ve ever seen one, Rob Roy says cordwood construction

is on the rise. Today there are three times as many cordwood homes in the United States as there

were a decade ago. Most can be found in Wisconsin and New York.


Eight years ago, in Cambridge, New York, Scott Carrino built a cordwood home with his family. Like

many cordwood homes, his is round. Colored glass bottles have been placed in patterns in the

walls. When the sun shines, it looks like stained glass. Carrino became interested in cordwood

masonry after reading Rob Roy’s book.


“I had actually visited Rob Roy pretty quickly after seeing this book, and saw some of his

buildings and really connected with it, and just fell in love with this building technique.”


TO keep his costs down, Carrino used lots of recycled materials, scavenging old windows, tubs and

sinks. He says many people look at his house and think it was an enormous amount of work. But his

friend, Jon Carlson, says that’s relative.


“It is a lot of work, but all building of homes is a lot of work. When you lay up a cordwood wall

its finished. Don’t have to come back and paint it. Don’t have to come back and side it. So not

only are you finished, but also you are creating something that is pretty maintenance-free.”


Cordwood builders, like Carlson and Carrino, love living in a home made of strong, natural

materials built by their own hands. Rob Roy says with the right materials and friends, anyone can

have that experience. And just like beavers, they’ll be experts in no time.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Linda Anderson in Cambridge, New York.

Green Energy Fueled by the New Year

In the 1970’s during the Arab oil embargo, conventional fuel
prices skyrocketed and it appeared that alternative energy was going to
bloom. But in less than a decade, cheap fuel returned and interest in
solar
and wind energy declined. However today alternative energy is becoming
more viable, in part due to worries about a Y-2-K disaster. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ley Garnett reports:

Automakers Accelerate Toward Greener Cars

In the next few months, Honda and Toyota each will launch a
new type of super clean car, called a hybrid. The fact that the
Japanese
are
first to market hybrid vehicles concerns some environmentalists.
They’re
worried that domestic auto makers aren’t moving fast enough on this
promising technology. But in an unusual move, environmentalists are not
chastising the big three. Instead, they’re lending a helping hand. The
Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Edelson Halpert files this report:

Fuel Cells in the Home

Automotive fuel cells have received a lot of attention lately. The fuel
cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into useable electricity. The electricity
they produce is clean, quiet and cost effective, but as The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Hammond reports, this same technology is likely to
power homes before it powers automobiles:

‘Greening’ an Old Building

It’s no longer that unusual for builders to incorporate elements of
“green” design into their projects. Often, the buildings are new
construction. But it’s much more challenging to renovate an existing
structure. Now, some colleges and universities are leading the movement
toward green renovation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy
Nelson reports:

Building Healthy Homes

Homeowners are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of building
energy-efficient homes. But there’s a more recent movement to build
healthier houses as well. And it turns out – often these two features
can go hand-in-hand. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson
reports: