Renewable Energy and Waste Systems

Photos courtesy of Tom Check, Karin M. Abell, Justin Ruckman.

ENERGY

To move to a more sustainable, harmonious existence on the earth, we need to fundamentally redesign the way we use energy.  This requires a new approach to systems, one in which we create processes and products that inherently use little energy and are non-polluting.  We want to move from a system where we are trying to contain or reduce the toxic by-products of industry and electric generation to a system that does not pollute.  We are better off building wind farms than making coal-fired electric plants less dirty.

To tackle our global energy problems, the first step we should make is to identify places where we can consume less.  We need individuals, communities, and governments alike to identify areas where we can reduce our current energy uses. Permaculture employs a path of “Creative Descent,” or a global shift towards collective earth stewardship; Bill Mollison considers it to be energy descent.  There is a culture of fear about moving away from the status quo; consumers want to continue to drive, cook, and use as much energy as they please and corporations want to continue making money in an industry that generates billions annually.  However, a paradigm shift is possible, and many communities have intentionally redesigned their systems to use less energy, and have created a wealth of benefits in the process. For example, many rural communities in Sweden have successfully revitalized their poor economic and environmental situation by redesigning the entire framework within which they operate, reorienting every facet of their community towards earth stewardship.[1] 

The next thing communities should determine is what to use available energy for.  Should we use it to fuel boats, planes, and trucks to bring in food from all over the world that we will quickly use up and need again the next day, or should we use it to enable communities to shift to more vibrant economies that are self-sufficient with regards to locally-supplied food? Our systems for food production and transportation currently rely heavily on fossil-fuel energy consumption, which is readily apparent by the rise in food prices when fuel prices rise.  It is important to ask ourselves whether we want to use our natural resources to fuel gas guzzling machines so they may extract, refine, transport, and use the last of the earth’s remaining natural resources or instead use these resources to invest in infrastructures that make using our non-renewable natural resources completely obsolete.

Once communities know what they wish to use energy for, the next step should be to develop and implement renewable energy systems. There are many simple ways to start utilizing ecologically intelligent, passive systems which by design require much less energy. For example, ram pumps use no electricity and work very well as a passive system for pumping water.  Ram pumps use part of the water flow to pump water; 50% of the energy of the flow is used to build pressure in the pump to push the delivery flow.[2]  Other examples include passive solar design and natural daylighting.  Renewable energy and waste systems sequester and accrue natural energy from water and sun to be transformed, used, and cycled through systems for maximum use.  Stacking functions is another commonsense approach to reducing our energy consumption; it produces the highest return from the least amount of effort. If we design a system that requires say, the burning of wood, a renewable resource, we could design it to heat water, cook and heat the airspace at the same time.  Another example is using large fruit or nut trees to shade a house, increasing natural cooling and producing fruit or nuts from the tree in the process.  Another simple solution is to start a compost for kitchen food scraps to later be used as a natural fertilizer around the home, eliminating waste that would otherwise be thrown into a trash can and transported to a waste dump, costing unnecessary energy and money.

Successful efforts by developing countries to reduce their emissions show that it is possible for rich, industrialized nations to do the same. Their successful efforts include[3]:

• Market and energy reforms to promote economic growth
• Development of alternative fuels to reduce energy imports
• Aggressive energy efficiency programs
• Use of solar and other renewable energy to raise living standards in rural locations
• Reducing deforestation
• Slowing population growth
• Switching from coal to natural gas to diversify energy sources and reduce air pollution.

Transportation

Unfortunately, most communities have been designed with the motorist in mind. They are not built to welcome and support pedestrians, and therefore require a bit of effort to reduce the use of the car.  We can start by driving less, and focusing attention on creating more opportunities for urban areas to be accessible by foot.

The majority of car trips people take are only a couple of miles, and are the perfect distance for walking or biking.  We need to make a fundamental shift in the way we view our cars, and the fuel that drives them.  While the automobile industry struggles to become more fuel efficient, and produce more cars that run on electricity, or other non fossil-fuel based fuels we need to start driving less.  Then we can look at our fuel resources and our production and work towards a system that is environmentally benign with production centered in our local communities.

WATER

Water is an invaluable resource that is not renewable; there is a fixed, finite amount of drinking water, and we have depleted and polluted many of our freshwater resources on earth.  Industrial wastewater treatment adds toxic chemicals to this precious resource such as chlorine to “clean” the water before it is returned to the environment. 

Intervening in the water cycle is one of the easiest ways to effect change at home.  Collecting rainwater from the roof is as simple as cleaning out your gutters and connecting buckets to the down spouts to capture and store it for later use.  If you want to use this water for drinking, you should include a filtration system, such as a biosand filter, which is affordable and simple to construct. While there are regulations preventing this practice in some cities and towns, it is not the case for all, and if there are regulations against capturing rainwater there is an opportunity to intervene in the legislative system and campaign for change.

We need water for nearly every aspect of our daily lives, therefore we ought to take care that it is clean and abundant for all living things, for all time.  From source to sink, we need to catch, hold, and store water.  We want to capture and hold water as high on the land as possible. 

WASTE

When we use water to flush our toilets we waste drinking water—an increasingly limited resource—that then has to be chemically cleaned before it is returned to the environment.  This kind of treatment wastes energy, material resources used for transporting sewage to treatment plants, nutrients from feces and urine, and drinking water (polluting it unnecessarily).  Human poop and urine are full of nutrients and beneficial organic material that are the natural byproducts of digestion.[6]  This discarded human waste creates devastating global environmental problems—sewage is responsible for most of the world’s water pollution.[7]  There are many disturbing contaminants that make their way into our drinking water supply because of the flush toilet system including pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, hormones, and chemotherapy drugs.  In fact, 50 to 90% of the pharmaceuticals people ingest are excreted in their biologically active form and have been found in tap water, groundwater, lakes, rivers and drinking aquifers.[8] Composting toilets address all of these problems, eliminate the use of freshwater, use no energy, require no chemicals for treatment, and prevent valuable waste from being disposed in landfills.

Grey and blackwater mix together in our drains and travel to municipal treatment plants for cleaning.

When we dispose of greywater like our humanure, we miss the opportunity to re-use it and cycle it through our system a second time.  Contrary to popular opinion, sending greywater to a municipal treatment plant is not our only option.  Instead, we can easily direct this “waste” water to our gardens for irrigation where beneficial plants serve to filter and clean it.  The same argument can be made for organic waste from the kitchen when we throw it away in the trash instead of using it as nutrient rich matter for the garden.