EnviroLink Forum

I was stunned to see that it is a bureaucratic and expense nightmare to go green in building in so many places. I would think carbon neutral buildings would be welcome everywhere, and needed to reduce HGHGs 90% by 2020. My own county is slightly on the red side but marked white. The amount of red in CA was incredible.
http://earthship.com/pockets-of-freedom ... dium=email

Correlate that with the plant hardiness zone map and the renewable power potential.
http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html
the other ones, solar, geothermal, and hydro are on the left.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Here is a map Ann Vole will be interested in.
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/geotherm ... -final.jpg

Yes, it is for deep, expensive holes to get the heat.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

the interesting thing is that geothermal (and I am assuming it is the drilling to great depths kind) is most applicable in flat areas rather then mountains. At first it seemed wrong as I was thinking of volcanoes but I realized that it is the mountains where the earth's crust is thickest and thus is pushed up.

yes, even for retrofits. I am concentrating on insulation and air-tightness first because with a more efficient building, any alternate energy systems will need to be much smaller and cheaper. Just removing the drywall and installing insulation requires a building permit I found out... and building inspections before and after and having plans approved to get the permit... crazy. Of course many people do it anyways but if I want to start a business doing such renovations, I need to be prepared to jump through lots of hoops with every project. My alternative business idea is to do building inspections myself and thus I will be taking the course required to declare myself an inspector ASAP.

The wind map it limited, too.
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/30m_US_Wind.jpg
But there is a lot of yellow to red solar potential, and cheaper power, on this map;
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/map_pv_n ... lo-res.jpg
over lay it on this map, and avoid the red areas on the counties map. Remember, there is an email to write if your county is green or red. Interesting talk by my friend Mike Reynolds.
http://earthship.com/pockets-of-freedom ... dium=email
In the USA the tests to be an inspector are hard to get and you must have a certain number of years in construction and only can work for the city, or county as an inspector, not free lance.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I am less interested in wind because they are very restricted in cities. Out in my place in the country, the few farmers who have put up wind towers more then 3 years ago have all taken them down or replaced them... the wind here gets so strong it destroys most designs. It is also impractical due to the wind stopping altogether for weeks at a time. Still, the average wind energy is high so if you can build a tower that can handle 2 inches of ice on everything, hurricane force winds at least twice a year, -45 C (-50 F) temperatures, and power outages about monthly (some systems need manual restart after outages), then you might be able to make money... BUT Saskatchewan has the lowest pay-back for electricity of all areas in North America and you have to apply and WIN A DRAW of the applicants in order to join the energy producer market.

Ann, do you know of similar maps for Canada?? Solar, geothermal, and wind, as well as a district by district ease of going green type map?

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Canada has less political power provided by the counties (called Rural Municipalities or RMs) so it is more a province-by-province distinction. The energy market dictates how the province reacts to alternative energy and the severity of the weather and pest damage problems will determine changes to the national building code. Here in Saskatchewan, both the electricity provider and natural gas provider are government-run corporations whose profits go directly to balance the provincial government's budgets. This is why Saskatchewan was the last area in North America to allow meters to go backwards or even allow grid-tie solar or wind altogether... you had to go off-line if you wanted to go solar. The federal government actually forced Saskatchewan to change to try and follow Kyoto Protocol. The interesting thing is for Alberta, the oil and gas industry wanted freedom and privacy so got such when it comes to building design. This made Alberta to be one of the easiest places to convert to alternate energy. On the other hand, Saskatchewan's government had a vested interest in building efficiency and has implemented several building codes making all buildings more "green" and added strong design goals for government buildings to be green (but had to go out-of-province to find installers due to a lack of local alternate energy businesses). My advice to determine which provinces have easy or hard green building laws is to see how many businesses are active in each province (may also find a list of building starts for solar).

Also note that there are two different technologies that use the term "geothermal" and they should not be confused. Someone adding a "geothermal heat pump" to their house is only extracting heat in the top 20 feet (horizontal) or top 200 feet (vertical) of the earth to be used for heating their house (or cooling). The "geothermal" of the maps you used are going down a mile or two for getting to rock that is 150 C (about 300 F). That kind of geothermal is where you create steam and run a turbine to create a few megawatts to add to the grid and power thousands of homes.