Like the author of an article I just reviewed, I too question the logic of creating 'fuel' from food crops. Why would we create an industry that takes food out of our mouths while at the same time most likely consumes more energy than it produces.
Alex Wilson of GreenBuildingAdviser.com wrote in his article 'Ethanol Under Fire'
"Depending on whose study you believe, it either takes a little more or a
little less energy to produce corn-based ethanol than that end-product
contains. That EROI ratio ranges from 0.8:1 to 1.5:1, depending on the
study." "Any time the EROI is less than 1:1, it takes more energy to produce the
fuel than the fuel contains. Even giving the ethanol industry the
benefit of the doubt by assuming the actual EROI is 1.5:1, that means to
produce a gallon of the fuel takes two-thirds of a gallon (equivalent)
of fuel — diesel for tractors and combines on the farm, natural gas to
produce nitrogen fertilizer, natural gas and electricity at the ethanol
plant, and energy to ship that fuel around the country." "By comparison, the ethanol produced from sugar cane in Brazil has an
EROI closer to 8:1 — for every gallon (equivalent) invested you get
about eight gallons back out.
No matter whose numbers you believe, from an energy standpoint turning corn into ethanol to fuel our cars makes little sense."
Giving the politicians the benefit of the doubt (I know - extremely generous), they want to do the right thing!
But we have to start focusing our resources and research in more intelligent ways, at least for the immediate future while we deal with the emergency on hand - Global Warming. How much public funds has been misdirected and abused by research and subsidies on schema that will never result in a significant reduction in the burning of fuels that cause global warming (look at the hydrogen fuel cell as another great example)? At this critical time, we need to concentrate on options that at least on paper have a significant chance of a healthy EROI.
How much time have we lost going down these dead-end roads. After all, time is of the essence if we have any chance of effecting the outcome!
Showing posts with label Carbon Credits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carbon Credits. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Friday, 18 October 2013
Determining Lifespan - Updated to 50+ yrs
Back in June (previous post), I wrote about the need to determine the probable lifespan of a building in order to determine the backpack for energy efficiency upgrades and determining the embodied energy of the dwelling.
I wrote that unfortunately, I suspected that the life span for my new dwelling could be as little as 20 years and that I would use 25 years as my expected horizon.
Well I am pleased to advise that I have now significantly extended the time line based on conversations I have had with the outgoing and new District planners for my area. The following factors weighed in on the discusion:
Is this revised time line going to change the way I build? Probably not, the reality is that determining the sweet spot for say insulation levels, requires modelling that I just do not have the experience, time, or money to do right now. I am instead, going to go with my gut based on research I have done over the last 1-5 years, and on recommendations done by bodies like Building Science Corp. Once the house is built, and I am able to determine energy use by actual consumption, and learn to use various modelling programs, I will then crunch the number and report back at how close I got to the sweet spot (the sweet spot for me is when the cost of adding site energy generation is cheaper than further reducing energy use).
Stay tuned!
I wrote that unfortunately, I suspected that the life span for my new dwelling could be as little as 20 years and that I would use 25 years as my expected horizon.
Well I am pleased to advise that I have now significantly extended the time line based on conversations I have had with the outgoing and new District planners for my area. The following factors weighed in on the discusion:
- The neighbourhood has limited vehicle access with two 'exits' for approximately 700 homes and as such would not be suitable for densification.
- The current owners in the neighborhood are VERY active and vocal and would not support the addition of multifamily into the neighbourhood.
- District is considering allowing for Lane Way and Carriage houses for our neighbourhood instead.
- The real estate values in our neighbourhood are just too high (lots start at $800K and quickly climb. My lot, at just over 10K sqft, is assessed at over $1M for just the dirt).
Is this revised time line going to change the way I build? Probably not, the reality is that determining the sweet spot for say insulation levels, requires modelling that I just do not have the experience, time, or money to do right now. I am instead, going to go with my gut based on research I have done over the last 1-5 years, and on recommendations done by bodies like Building Science Corp. Once the house is built, and I am able to determine energy use by actual consumption, and learn to use various modelling programs, I will then crunch the number and report back at how close I got to the sweet spot (the sweet spot for me is when the cost of adding site energy generation is cheaper than further reducing energy use).
Stay tuned!
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Determining the Lifespan of a Dwelling
In order to determine the payback of the various design decisions needed in a new build (or even a renovation), you need to first determine the most likely lifespan of the dwelling you are designing. Many Europeans would say a home should be around for hundreds of years because many of theirs have been.
How is this possible?
Most are built with brick or stone and are in OLD cities. How old? Well the Romans were around when many of them were in their infancy.
Why is the age (maturity) of a city important?
To answer that we need to look, in contrast, to cities like Vancouver and its surrounding neighbours which are all very young in comparison and changing rapidly. Single family dwellings on small parcels of land still represent the majority of the housing built and available (when looking at land use and not just total numbers of dwelling units). As such there is a huge potential for redevelopment as the city matures and grows.
I live in a large single family neighbourhood 10 minutes from downtown Vancouver. North Vancouver has predominately been a single family neighbourhood since the early 1900’s. But it is rapidly changing (many would say for the worse due to the traffic congestion that has developed and really does not have an easy cure due to the geographical challenges of the region). The District and the City of North Vancouver are both looking to and have been dramatically increasing density in our region with the misguided goal that doing so will make accommodation in our cities affordable. This has been attempted over and over again in Vancouver, and the facts are that these high density ‘villages’ become sought-after-hot-spots that have some of the highest rental and real estate values in the country if not all North America. Cole Harbour comes to mind.
I digress, why is the age or maturity of a city important?
Well, the fast growth of urban areas in my region dramatically shortens the life span of what I feel will be the soon defunct urban single family dwelling. While my current house was built in 1954 and has had a good run until now, I highly doubt that the house I plan to build next year on this property will come even close to 60 years before it is torn down to make way for a low to mid-rise multi-family housing. In fact, I would be surprised if it was still around in 25 years. With its proximity to the Down Town core, Lions Gate Bridge, and Upper Levels highway, it is prime land for re-development; development that is already underway at several nearby locations. A single family neighbourhood less than 5 minutes from me is slated to become the new Lower Capilano Village. Another single family neighbourhood within 7 minutes drive has now been bulldozed and is slated to become part of the Lower Lynn Town Centre.
The point I am making, is that it is unreasonable to expect that a single family dwelling built today will still be around in 50, 30, or even 20 years in many neighbourhoods in growing urban centres. Like the cities that have a much longer lineage than those in North America, there will be a forced march to densification and an abandonment of the single family home on a small distinct plot of land. Does it therefore make sense to model a home that would have a 50, or worse, 100 year payback in energy savings or carbon reduction in these types of neighbourhoods? Before coming anywhere close to cancelling out the costs to build or embodied energy of the dwelling, it would be torn down and end up in a land fill.
So often logic is not part of our design decision making process. We want something so badly that we will fabricate a way to make that decision sensible. Designing a home that is SO energy efficiency that it would take 50 or more years to pay back may not actually be helping the planet if that dwelling is only around 20 years. I hope that more discussions like these will encourage a greater uptake on what makes sense in the larger picture, and start allowing informed well thought out designs that are defensible.
For my part, I believe it will be sensible to apply a 25 year life span when calculating the break even point on the various design decisions I have ahead of me. If the dwelling is torn down earlier, I will not have left too much on the table, and if it has a longer run, the payback will have already occurred and it will then be providing dividends in carbon reduction and utility bill savings.
As always, thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts.
How is this possible?
Most are built with brick or stone and are in OLD cities. How old? Well the Romans were around when many of them were in their infancy.
Why is the age (maturity) of a city important?
To answer that we need to look, in contrast, to cities like Vancouver and its surrounding neighbours which are all very young in comparison and changing rapidly. Single family dwellings on small parcels of land still represent the majority of the housing built and available (when looking at land use and not just total numbers of dwelling units). As such there is a huge potential for redevelopment as the city matures and grows.
I live in a large single family neighbourhood 10 minutes from downtown Vancouver. North Vancouver has predominately been a single family neighbourhood since the early 1900’s. But it is rapidly changing (many would say for the worse due to the traffic congestion that has developed and really does not have an easy cure due to the geographical challenges of the region). The District and the City of North Vancouver are both looking to and have been dramatically increasing density in our region with the misguided goal that doing so will make accommodation in our cities affordable. This has been attempted over and over again in Vancouver, and the facts are that these high density ‘villages’ become sought-after-hot-spots that have some of the highest rental and real estate values in the country if not all North America. Cole Harbour comes to mind.
I digress, why is the age or maturity of a city important?
Well, the fast growth of urban areas in my region dramatically shortens the life span of what I feel will be the soon defunct urban single family dwelling. While my current house was built in 1954 and has had a good run until now, I highly doubt that the house I plan to build next year on this property will come even close to 60 years before it is torn down to make way for a low to mid-rise multi-family housing. In fact, I would be surprised if it was still around in 25 years. With its proximity to the Down Town core, Lions Gate Bridge, and Upper Levels highway, it is prime land for re-development; development that is already underway at several nearby locations. A single family neighbourhood less than 5 minutes from me is slated to become the new Lower Capilano Village. Another single family neighbourhood within 7 minutes drive has now been bulldozed and is slated to become part of the Lower Lynn Town Centre.
The point I am making, is that it is unreasonable to expect that a single family dwelling built today will still be around in 50, 30, or even 20 years in many neighbourhoods in growing urban centres. Like the cities that have a much longer lineage than those in North America, there will be a forced march to densification and an abandonment of the single family home on a small distinct plot of land. Does it therefore make sense to model a home that would have a 50, or worse, 100 year payback in energy savings or carbon reduction in these types of neighbourhoods? Before coming anywhere close to cancelling out the costs to build or embodied energy of the dwelling, it would be torn down and end up in a land fill.
So often logic is not part of our design decision making process. We want something so badly that we will fabricate a way to make that decision sensible. Designing a home that is SO energy efficiency that it would take 50 or more years to pay back may not actually be helping the planet if that dwelling is only around 20 years. I hope that more discussions like these will encourage a greater uptake on what makes sense in the larger picture, and start allowing informed well thought out designs that are defensible.
For my part, I believe it will be sensible to apply a 25 year life span when calculating the break even point on the various design decisions I have ahead of me. If the dwelling is torn down earlier, I will not have left too much on the table, and if it has a longer run, the payback will have already occurred and it will then be providing dividends in carbon reduction and utility bill savings.
As always, thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts.
Friday, 12 April 2013
1250 Kms on a single 50 litre tank of Diesel! - Reducing Carbon Impact
One of the largest carbon outputs we create as individuals, is due to our need for transportation. The graphic below from eoearth.org identifies that personal transportation is the largest contributor to personal carbon output next to recreation and leisure and represents 10% of our overall total carbon output.
My wife and I do not do a lot of air travel and we also do not drive long distances. Her work is only 10 km away and the majority of my work is also close by. My vehicle is 22 years old and my wife’s is 9 year old, so we probably buck the trend there as well (would lower the carbon in car manufacturing percentage). We also are home bodies, so I would estimate that our recreation and leisure is a lower percentage. In fact, I would imagine that our total output is much lower than the North American average due to the lifestyle we live and the efforts already in place in our household to reduce our impact.
My vehicle, a 1991 Toyota Hilux Diesel Right-Hand Drive, used to produce 22.2 pounds of carbon per gallon of diesel burned (Ref 1). As I typically travel approximately 7000 miles per year and was only getting 15 MPG(USG), I was contributing a whopping 5.2 tons (10,400 lbs) of carbon to the atmosphere every year.
Well, I am pleased to advise that I have made a major shift in my output and am driving a vehicle I could almost consider carbon free.
You see, I have converted the Hilux to a duel fuel system that allows me to burn vegetable oil. But not just any vegetable oil, I am able to burn USED vegetable oil (Waste Vegetable Oil – WVO). I converted the vehicle last summer, but for technical reasons and oil supply, I have just finished my first session where I was able to fully utilize the WVO system. In typical urban driving (limited highway and no long trips), I was able to travel 1250 km before having to refill the diesel tank.
Some may ask why I don’t just burn the WVO. Well the reason is because the WVO must be heated to achieve the right viscosity before it can be burned in the engine. I have elected to heat the oil using the engine coolant system as I have a weak alternator that would not have stood up to electric resistance heating of the oil flow. Using the coolant at the heat source requires me to start the vehicle on diesel and drive until the coolant temperature is high enough (I wait till the thermostat opens and I see the temp on the dash go to normal operating temps) before switching to the WVO tank. (I have the stock diesel tank and an auxiliary WVO tank) and start burning only WVO. I can leave it on the WVO setting throughout the day as long as the vehicle will not sit for more than 2 hours. If I will be stationary for more than 2 hours or am back home for the day, I then need to switch back to Diesel to purge the WVO out of the engines injector system so that when it is cold the next day, I will not have thick congealed WVO in the engine. I usually start this purge about 2-3 km from home.
The system has worked well over the last 3 months and is well proven in the industry. In Europe, countries like Germany have formalized the ‘fuel’ and tax it like any other. All of the research I did, showed that the buring of WVO is safe as long as the fuel is properly processed to remove water and particulates and is adequately heated before burning.
For the interim, I am buying my WVO from a local ‘producer’ who collects the oil from local restaurants on the Sunshine Coast and then processes it. This involves letting the oil settle (removes most of the particulate), running the oil through a centrifuge (removes any moisture), and then running the oil through a series of filters down to 10 microns. Once the new house is completed, I will start producing the oil myself. At 50¢ per litre, I am saving 80-90¢ per litre or around $1500 per year. The system only cost $1000 in parts, so I am ahead of the game within about 8 months of typical driving.
So, what does this all mean to my personal output?
Based on 777 miles (1250 km) per 14 gals of diesel burned, my carbon output for just the diesel per year would be reduced down to 2800 lbs or a 73% reduction from my preconversion contributions.
But wait, we are not finished. Vegetable oil as a plant material is often considered carbon neutral as it is just releasing the carbon it already sequestered from the atmosphere. I question this statement, as the growing and harvesting of the seed crop that creates the oil is still a very carbon heavy activity. I would agree that vegetable oil as a food item has the lowest carbon output by a very significant margin when used as a fuel in comparison with all other fuel forms including electricity from the North American Grid. So if I was burning new, unused, vegetable oil, I would need to calculate some contribution to my carbon output.
But I am using used oil, so I am reusing a very low carbon product for the second time. I am reusing something that would otherwise be thrown away. This means that I am receiving a carbon credit in some fashion. I have been unable to find a logical resource that identifies how to calculate this credit. You would need to reduce the credit by the energy it takes to collect and process the waste oil into WVO, but what should the initial credit be? 100% of the carbon output of burning diesel, as this is the fuel being offset? 100% of the carbon created by growing, harvesting, and processing the vegetable oil?
What ever credit is used, you can see that it would quickly take my 73% reduction and increase it quickly to a point approaching 100% or Carbon Neutral.
Even at a 73% reduction however, assuming the WVO comes out neutral (no credit or contribution), this is still a feat I am very proud of. This has been an action that has significantly lowered my personal contribution to this planet and will probably represent the single largest action and carbon reduction I will ever make.
Note: I can provide specifics of conversion for any interested parties. Just leave a comment below with your email address.
References: (1) http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/documents/420f11041.pdf & http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/faqs/answer.cfm?id=3460
My wife and I do not do a lot of air travel and we also do not drive long distances. Her work is only 10 km away and the majority of my work is also close by. My vehicle is 22 years old and my wife’s is 9 year old, so we probably buck the trend there as well (would lower the carbon in car manufacturing percentage). We also are home bodies, so I would estimate that our recreation and leisure is a lower percentage. In fact, I would imagine that our total output is much lower than the North American average due to the lifestyle we live and the efforts already in place in our household to reduce our impact.
 |
| Breakdown of a typical individual's carbon footprint. (Source: Carbon Footprint) http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_footprint |
Well, I am pleased to advise that I have made a major shift in my output and am driving a vehicle I could almost consider carbon free.
You see, I have converted the Hilux to a duel fuel system that allows me to burn vegetable oil. But not just any vegetable oil, I am able to burn USED vegetable oil (Waste Vegetable Oil – WVO). I converted the vehicle last summer, but for technical reasons and oil supply, I have just finished my first session where I was able to fully utilize the WVO system. In typical urban driving (limited highway and no long trips), I was able to travel 1250 km before having to refill the diesel tank.
Some may ask why I don’t just burn the WVO. Well the reason is because the WVO must be heated to achieve the right viscosity before it can be burned in the engine. I have elected to heat the oil using the engine coolant system as I have a weak alternator that would not have stood up to electric resistance heating of the oil flow. Using the coolant at the heat source requires me to start the vehicle on diesel and drive until the coolant temperature is high enough (I wait till the thermostat opens and I see the temp on the dash go to normal operating temps) before switching to the WVO tank. (I have the stock diesel tank and an auxiliary WVO tank) and start burning only WVO. I can leave it on the WVO setting throughout the day as long as the vehicle will not sit for more than 2 hours. If I will be stationary for more than 2 hours or am back home for the day, I then need to switch back to Diesel to purge the WVO out of the engines injector system so that when it is cold the next day, I will not have thick congealed WVO in the engine. I usually start this purge about 2-3 km from home.
 |
| Engine compartment contains the heated WVO filter, a 30 plate heat exchanger, and two solenoid valves. |
For the interim, I am buying my WVO from a local ‘producer’ who collects the oil from local restaurants on the Sunshine Coast and then processes it. This involves letting the oil settle (removes most of the particulate), running the oil through a centrifuge (removes any moisture), and then running the oil through a series of filters down to 10 microns. Once the new house is completed, I will start producing the oil myself. At 50¢ per litre, I am saving 80-90¢ per litre or around $1500 per year. The system only cost $1000 in parts, so I am ahead of the game within about 8 months of typical driving.
So, what does this all mean to my personal output?
Based on 777 miles (1250 km) per 14 gals of diesel burned, my carbon output for just the diesel per year would be reduced down to 2800 lbs or a 73% reduction from my preconversion contributions.
But wait, we are not finished. Vegetable oil as a plant material is often considered carbon neutral as it is just releasing the carbon it already sequestered from the atmosphere. I question this statement, as the growing and harvesting of the seed crop that creates the oil is still a very carbon heavy activity. I would agree that vegetable oil as a food item has the lowest carbon output by a very significant margin when used as a fuel in comparison with all other fuel forms including electricity from the North American Grid. So if I was burning new, unused, vegetable oil, I would need to calculate some contribution to my carbon output.
But I am using used oil, so I am reusing a very low carbon product for the second time. I am reusing something that would otherwise be thrown away. This means that I am receiving a carbon credit in some fashion. I have been unable to find a logical resource that identifies how to calculate this credit. You would need to reduce the credit by the energy it takes to collect and process the waste oil into WVO, but what should the initial credit be? 100% of the carbon output of burning diesel, as this is the fuel being offset? 100% of the carbon created by growing, harvesting, and processing the vegetable oil?
What ever credit is used, you can see that it would quickly take my 73% reduction and increase it quickly to a point approaching 100% or Carbon Neutral.
Even at a 73% reduction however, assuming the WVO comes out neutral (no credit or contribution), this is still a feat I am very proud of. This has been an action that has significantly lowered my personal contribution to this planet and will probably represent the single largest action and carbon reduction I will ever make.
 |
| Filling Up Auxiliary WVO Tank in Cargo bay of vehicle |
 | ||
| WVO Storage Tank – Can hold up to 1000 liters of Waste Vegetable Oil |
 |
| Time for a fill-up - My supplier is delivering another 400 liters |
References: (1) http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/documents/420f11041.pdf & http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/faqs/answer.cfm?id=3460
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