/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>implying the manufacture and shipping of solar panels is in any way carbon-negative.

>implying that it wouldn't take longer than the expected lifetime of the panels to get to carbon-neutral

and that's not getting into voltage regulation, storage, the infrastructure to support the plant, etc

>>17670
>>>www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems

bump, i'm hoping someone can provide some concrete info so i can let him know whether it's realistic or not.

>>17705
thanks, i was wondering whether his goal was realistic or not.

>>17716
i'm not saying i agree with his idea or even that i support it, i just want to let him know if it's something he should spend time on since he's asked me for my opinion and he seems pretty passionate about it.

You can't power a house exclusively from solar power for very obvious reasons: it's not always there.
He'll have to either get industrial grade batteries which will cost a fortune or rely on the utility grid for night-time electricity.
On top of that, the construction costs for this will be well past what any hippie could afford. Your friend may have gone to college, but obviously not in engineering.

The irony here is that in ten or twenty years our power grid will probably have migrated towards a more storage-oriented structure instead of the continuous scalable output it is now, and so "green" power technologies will be properly integrated into it, instead of being more or less useless as they are today.
Did you know that there are acres and acres of wind and solar farms that just stay off all day because our power grid can't handle them?

Also, I don't know (or care) about "carbon neutrality", but anyone who says that the industrial manufacture of a solar panel offsets its savings (>>17705, I'm looking at you) is an idiot.

>>17670
google earthship
>pic related
You make a sunken earth burm house by making the walls out of tires that have been filled with compacted soil. then basically stucco the outside for aesthetics, it's easy and cheap to build, and there are tons of examples of people building these eco friendly houses in the dessert. They are perfect for that environment because you build it slightly sunken into the ground and the walls are so thick, it basically stays the same temp inside all the time so it's nice and cool during the day and stays warmer at night.

>>17898
that's probably exactly what he's looking for, and from the google results, it looks like they usually are accompanied by solar panels. thanks a ton.

It's very possible. It's been done, over and over. If you're willing to build stuff yourself, and not bothered about the 'appearance' of, eg,
>>17898
A house made of old tires/whatever....then yeah, it can be done cheap, if you don't count the labour as a cost. And having a constant, highly productive, 'project' that makes a huge difference to your life (because it is your house & food), can be very satisfying, it fits well with your natural instincts & primitive brain to have such clear links between activity and outcome.

But, you will be living (I assume) in the middle of nowhere, in not-even-a-village because you haven't even begun to build it, and it'll almost certainly be strongly communal (do you like people, in general, and this specific guy).

If you're okay with/would enjoy living in the country with (probably) a bunch of hippy eco types, go for it. It'll be a cool experience/look great on CV* if nothing else.
*lived in hippy commune=bad on CV, built food & energy self sufficient hamlet/farm from scratch=awesome on CV.

>>17968
yes, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he just heard about this project.
they usually incorporate a green house, and slope the roof in an effort to collect and use rain water, they also usually implement a "gray water" system., use solar water heaters, ect. Going carbon neutral is more of a lifestyle change than anything.

Check out the videos on this site http://faircompanies.com/ there maybe some ideas that your friend may find useful.

There's also this site http://www.permies.com/ has some nice information as well.

>>17863
>Did you know that there are acres and acres of wind and solar farms that just stay off all day because our power grid can't handle them?

I have heard that, but, at least in my country, it's an urban myth. Not even remotely true.

>>17998
awesome, thanks a lot! i'm telling him about it as we speak.

>>18016
awesome! even if his plan doesn't happen, this is something i'm pretty interested in as well, so thanks.

also, he just told me the total cost would be about 11 million.....i don't know where he thinks he'll get the money.

>>18084
no worries! and why 11 million? O_O

The problem with any commune is that it's all about the people. Every single person has to be on board with the philosophy, work ethic, and social dynamic. Even one jackass can poison the whole system in the long run. And the more people you have, the more likely it is that one of them is that jackass. That's why communism doesn't work on a macro societal level.

Technology wise, it all sounds reasonable, though it won't be cheap (and certainly not carbon neutral).

>>18084
>he just told me the total cost would be about 11 million.

It sounds like he has big plans.

Hope it works out for ya.

>>18130
As long as you don't try to reinvent the wheel, you can keep things working really well. I live in co-operative housing, which is awesome. It's a lot of work, but totally worth it for how expensive it is to live in my city otherwise. Look into models of co-operative housing in your country, it's really good to have the social framework in place. We have 10 households and a really good feeling of community/family in our co-op. There's one guy I don't particularly like, but it's evened out by the fact that I ADORE other members and we look after each other like we're family. Diversity is important, I am young and lazy, but am always motivated to work and help out the older members, and more than pull my weight so they aren't burdened, and they are there for me for emotional/social support, so it totally works out. Look into what people have already done and then adapt it to fit your model, rather than let things evolve potentially into shit, this safeguards against idiots poisoning your amazing micro peace love mung beans world. Also, getting a good legal framework in place is something I highly reccomend. We operate under co-operative law in our country, and when you move in, you become a part of the business and have rights and responsibilities under the law as well as socially which I think is really good. We have training sessions a couple of times a year, too, which are amazing and educating and empowering. We run on grey water and solar power(partially) and have plans for community gardens and such. It's an amazing lifestyle and I can answer questions if you have any.

>>18255

>our country
Which country is that?

also some useful stuff on this page as well http://soultutor.com/pdf/

>>18981
that's an invaluable page, thanks a ton!

20 foot parabolic mirror + stirling motor + turbine = 10kw of electricity.

>>19052
no worries, have fun!

>>19093
That reminds me of this video xD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtzRAjW6KO0

>>17670
Your friend isn't actually that intelligent if he thinks he can go carbon negative or create any sort of commune that "generates" energy.

Everything you do pushes toward the heat death of the universe. The only way to stop entropy is to do nothing at all.

>>19173

sigh...

>>19093

If you have a BUD (big ugly dish) and a lot of time and Krazy Glue you can make a parabolic dish out of it, but flexible mirror is more useful, and troughs are easier to build.

You can actually make a parabolic dish of sorts out of several very shallow parabolic troughs tilted along a curve set into the frame holding them. Some folks from MIT did this and it worked swimmingly. You get the area and mobility of the big dish but with a fraction of the work and no expensive polishing, etc.

For power and heat storage, you should look into seasonal heat storage and geothermal heating and cooling. It's not all mile-long bores and hot rocks, you can just heat up the rock beneath you to act as a heatmass.

Keep in mind that the bigger your dish is, the hotter it's going to be in the middle. Solar furnaces get scary hot, so be smart. You won't go blind or catch on fire if you treat this thing like hardware and not a toy.

As an aside:

For inexpensive temporary or permanent structures, give Desert Domes a look. They'll show you how to build geodesic domes out of all kinds of stuff, including just wood and cardboard, but the calculations for the truss lengths (supplied by an applet on the site) work for any material and there's some info about using metal conduit, etc. People like taking them to Burning Man because the desert winds don't knock them down in spite of being very light. I like them because it's a cheap way to enclose a lot of space with a very durable frame. You can stretch them into tunnels or cylinders too by repeating some of the layers of the frame.

As for generating more power than you take in and using it to generate a dividend for the inhabitants of your commune, that's a bit more ambitious and perhaps a tougher sell. First, you have to be connected to the grid. (You'll want this anyway. Cloudy days happen and so do accidents.) Second, you'll have to have your solar generators connected too. How you'll do this is out of my area but to make a long story short, it's possible but complicated, and you may not get a very good return. Duke Energy lets us sell power back to the grid here in the Midwest, for instance, but how you'll go about attaching these things to the grid depends on the size of the build (which for your friend's idea sounds big, and only gets bigger) and what your local utility company can handle. In other words, you should ask them, not us.

I don't want to sugarcoat this - your friend sounds like he has an interesting idea but it's in way over his head. If you scale it down and just try to run a more conventional housing cooperative first, and then work toward making it more self-sufficient in time, your chances of success will be greater and you'll waste less capital.

The issue isn't power or shelter, that's easy, the issue is food and water. The land is cheap because it is not viable land for farming. Growing shit in these areas takes a lot of work, and tons of water. It doesn't even rain enough to grow a decent amount of food. So you'll be dependent of outside food and water. As long as you keep that in mind it'll be fine. If you want your own food and water the land will cost much much more.

>>19412
>>19326
>>19264
Thanks for all the info! Keep going I'm sure there are others still lurking and reading.

>>19264
>>19326
>>19412
damn, thanks a lot. talk about invaluable. i appreciate it.

Has he tried hydroponics/aquaponics/aeroponics before?

The systems take a couple of run-throughs to get to get it right even if you read every book on the subject.


If he's looking at this as a primary source of food then it's not a smart move and you better have a backup fund. He needs to test out his ideas and perfect them before he tries to "escape it all".

>>19326
The big sticking point is getting connected to the grid. Generating to sell = hugely optomistic, but generating to be self sufficient is very doable if ya learn to use less energy. And assuming you're gonna have non-energy needing temperature regulation, that's gonna happen on its own.
>>19412
aqua/hydroponics & greenhouses I figure.
As they're building from scratch they may want to consider trying to harvest CO2 into a greenhouse by means of its tendency to sink (co2 heavier than most of air, & really really good for plants)