The edge of Regenerative Design and Development is surfing the wave of the open source movement:
Phrases like: Power Hacker, Open Source Ecology, and Financial Permaculture show how uncommon synergy can be generated by the combination of ideas usually isolated across barriers of culture. Moving towards a creative commons is a strong thread in the tapestry of sustainability being woven by actionists, social entrepreneurs and the REgeneration.
I am especially excited by the growth of pyrolysis and biomass energy as a viable, decentralized alternative to the grid or diesel generators. Simultaneous with innovations in the combination of pyrolysis technology and Stirling engines is the rapid and agile deployment of open source alternatives to patented technology. Potentially this puts enough carbon negative power at the hands of any community around the globe to have a computing station linked into the global Peer-to-Peer internet and economy. This will blast open the previously locked and guarded doors of the global marketplace, allowing every community to define its terms: trade on the global carbon market for carbon sequestered by the energy system running the computing stations and other basic infrastructure becomes a way for everyone to have access to a currency that has global value that is not manipulated by a small group of (arguable insane) bankers.Let me explain why it is so important to open source green energy technology, and why that is a strong step towards a sustainable and just future for humans and our mother earth:
As I write this, the "green bubble economy" is being built by the same business people and neoliberal apologists see pic----->
who gave us the three economic bubbles I remember: The Housing and Loan bubble, the .com bubble and the most recent clusterf@#k that ended with the nationalization of the banking system. This kind of economic strategy centralizes power and wealth into the hands of few. Although I disagree with the very idea of a green energy bubble, some of what Friedman is saying makes sense: Garage inventors...what turns this rapid prototyping away from just another bubble economy and into something of global significance as we work towards REAL sustainability and justice, is open source development. Open Source takes us beyond the centralization of knowledge and its use as a tool of control...
This kind of centralization is dangerous in today's world for several reasons:
P2P economy
Complimentary Currency
Open Source Energy
Sustainable Trade Networks
Slow Food
If we open source energy alternative and educate and empower local groups to choose the correct fit for their environmental and cultural circumstance we take powerful strides away form the culture of consumption that the 1st world has been pursuing, we give the 2nd/3rd world the ability to define terms and participate in an equal way in the material comforts of a post-modern world, and we automatically deconstruct the centralized system that is symbolized by grid power run off of huge coal plants (or windmill farms for that matter).
In this way we can create a global culture of production and conservation: empowering people to raise their voices into the poly vocal mosaic of a globalized knowledge commons where diversity (biological and cultural) are valued more highly than the monotonous homogenization that we are currently marching towards.
This kind of centralization is dangerous in today's world for several reasons:
- It serves to create massive upheaval during which time currency is consolidated into the hands of those who can weather the storm. This phenomena is well documented and has been re-capitulated in cycles over the course of industrialized capitalism. The latest times are the three bubbles of which I am speaking right now.
- Our world is becoming smaller and more turbulent. Climate change and resource depletion serve to create a complex system where feedback loops need to be kept small and manageable. Centralization of currency, and therefore decision making power, into cloistered enclaves on bankers and financiers in the first world serves to dismantle the ability to generate local solutions.
- Agile solutions are needed to address complex environmental, cultural and economic issues. These solutions need to be collaboratively designed by local people to have best fit to the situations. They also need to be woven together with common parameters and communication into a global matrix of sustainability.
P2P economy
Complimentary Currency
Open Source Energy
Sustainable Trade Networks
Slow Food
If we open source energy alternative and educate and empower local groups to choose the correct fit for their environmental and cultural circumstance we take powerful strides away form the culture of consumption that the 1st world has been pursuing, we give the 2nd/3rd world the ability to define terms and participate in an equal way in the material comforts of a post-modern world, and we automatically deconstruct the centralized system that is symbolized by grid power run off of huge coal plants (or windmill farms for that matter).
In this way we can create a global culture of production and conservation: empowering people to raise their voices into the poly vocal mosaic of a globalized knowledge commons where diversity (biological and cultural) are valued more highly than the monotonous homogenization that we are currently marching towards.
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3 comments:
Couldn't agree more with your post, well said!
However I must challenge the working assumption that sterling engines will emerge as the biomass energy system of choice.
Since sterlings employ air or another gas as a working medium they require large cylinders to get similar power outputs to other heat engines like the steam engine (since air has lower specific heat capacity than water). To compensate they often work with a pressurized gas. Then their is the task of designing an efficient regenerator. All of this puts the machining capabilities well out of reach of your open source participant.
Of course I am quite biased as I am working on the solar/biomass steam engine project over at openfarmtech.org Either way its really exciting to see the open source sustainable tech idea pick up steam!
Please view our documentation as to why - from the open source perspective - Stirling engines are a bad idea, apparently inferior to simple steam engines:
The second and last cycle that was reviewed is the Stirling cycle. This cycle much more closely approximates the ideal carnot cycle. Mainly this is due to the use of a gas as the working medium and thus reducing the non isentropic loses associated with the condensation portion of the ranking cycle. Additionally the closed cycle use of air as a working medium eliminates both the complex valve arrangement of the steam engine and the inherent dangers of steam. Despite the ideal safety and theoretical thermal properties of this engine its cult of hobbyists and developers have yet to succeed in a low cost entry-level sterling engine. To achieve high efficiencies and a modest size it is required to pressurize the cylinders and preferably with an ideal gas. This greatly adds in complexity and cost. Furthermore to obtain the inherent thermal advantages of this engine a high performing regenerator is needed. This device acts as a heat exchanger to store energy during the expansion stroke and keep from rejecting it to the low temperature discharge side. In practice it has proved difficult to make a compact efficient regenerator and few stirling engines achieve >60% of carnot efficiencies. These problems though are mainly due to pursuing a compact highly efficient stirling engine for mobile applications, one alternative is to look at slow speed large cylinder low pressure devices. This approach was tried in the S5. This engine was designed for burning agricultural wastes and is 20% efficient at transforming applied heat to electricity. The engine could presumably be retrofitted to accept solar input, however the initial construction and subsequent maintenance are reported to be fairly difficult. Most concerning to us at OSE is the very large cylinder, which is a result of using low pressurized air as the working medium. Manufacturing and machining of this cylinder will not be friendly to relative novices. Therefore this engine with the advantage of using a safe working medium (air) and the ability to accept a high input temperature, should be reviewed further when our machining capabilities are more mature.
We welcome feedback on this. Source -
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Solar_Steam_Engine_Selection_Process
PS. We are convinced that the simple steam engine is the superior choice in CHP for plants under 500 hp in size, as well as solar concentrator power systems. We welcome any critique -
see
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Solar_Power_Generator
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