EnviroLink Forum

What would your dream vacation be?
Collecting and cataloging rodents from around the world with no restrictions on time and place so I can learn everything about each species from raising a litter or two in captivity... yes this is a vacation to me!
What would your dream job be?
If someone would let me have full reins on the environmental policy development of a high-energy-use country, I could reduce energy use and increase efficiency and surpass any Kyoto Protocols without any taxpayers dollars (beyond wages of my policy team and some enforcement of the policies by industries)
What would your dream car be?
I would like a sports-car-like body but there should be room to put a 4'x8' sheet of building supplies inside. It must be a hybrid or semi-hybrid and I would like an external combustion engine so it can burn any fuel with minimal alterations. There is a new type of engine called a quasi-turbine that may be designed to burn a large variety of fuels or even work as an external combustion all without changing the physical structure of the major parts. It also promises to be more efficient and less polluting with quieter and much lighter as added features. With solar heat gathering and a heat pump sort of design added in,extra energy can be extracted from the sun and from the exhaust to extract every lase BTU/joule. Of course it has to weigh close to nothing for high efficiency in wheel drag (weight seems to be the biggest efficiency factor beyond the engine)
What would your dream house be like?
I am working on it!!! I want a "zero energy" house and I am not talking "net-zero energy". To do this I have 4 main strategies (and a fifth will prevent needing new buildings):
1) super-insulate and be very air-tight (and of course include heat recovery ventilation). I am thinking on the order of R 50 for the walls and R 70 for the roof.
2) buffered and wheelchair accessible and round in shape but designing the hallway as a spiral ramp around the outside of all the rooms which are of various heights. This hallway is not temperature controlled so it will be part of the way between the inside and outside temperatures (but closer to the inside temperature due to having more insulation toward the outside). All surfaces will be covered with ceramic tile of some sort and proper floor drains so they will steady the temperature and also be able to be cleaned with a pressure washer.
3) heat storage including storing heat for stove/oven use and cold storage for refrigeration. The storage will be in insulated parts of the dirt under or around the home. Solar heat panels will be needed for the high temperature heat generation for the oven part with it's waste and leaked heat going to the hot-water-level temperature storage (still insulated dirt) section and it's waste going to annual heat storage for the house section. The Annual heat storage section can be heated purely with summer hot air and no solar is needed.
4) a large automated greenhouse because most of people's true energy use is for getting food on their table. If I can figure out a system to do so, I would like a way to get the frequency of light for the plant's chlorophyll and vitamin D production into the greenhouse but turn all the other frequencies into heat for the oven-heat-storage. For those who are meat eaters, I want to develop better ways of raising small animals in conjunction with the greenhouse so outside air does not need to be brought in (which brings in pests and loses heat/cool - no pests mean no pesticides needed). Mushrooms and other fungi and bacteria can replace animals for the CO2 producers for the plants so I am looking into ways of raising mushrooms or other things. Aquaculture may be a good animal option raising fish, mollusks, and crustaceans in water under floating greenhouse plants (the floating plant units make for an automated conveyor belt for the greenhouse plants and makes for automated watering with wicking.
5) The building must be safe from damage by just about every natural disaster you can come up with (and vandal proof by default). Fireproof is the most important and taken care of with the use of mineral wool , extra gypsum board, and ceramic tiles. Flood-proof will be part of the earth-burming and the annual heat storage. Strong winds will be taken care of using post and beam style construction, dome-like shape, and being strapped down and anchored as well as the roof and outside walls can be covered with ceramic or shale tiles (also protects from fire, hail, and even small meteors)

How many would buy this mirror?

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Heh.. I know people who would buy that mirror.

I'll have to pass though.

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I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much. - Mother Theresa