Ecovillage Economics

Shapes for low energy living Structures.

Bring on the Sanitation Revolution!

 

Dr Arno Rosemarin brings to us the most salutary message from the video resource of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance. He informs us that low cost NPK fertilizers will shortly be a thing of the past. (although farmers know that already!)

The Phosphate component of fertilizers, essential to life as we know it, is well past its peak mining abstraction rate. For those of you aware of the importance of phosphate in biochemistry for energy, health and nutrition, will understand the danger confronting us as global stocks of this ingredient have dwindled to a depressing 130 years. These stocks are mainly located in four countries of the world, the US, Morocco, China, and the Republic of South Africa.

The largest Global exporter of Phosphate is the USA, dominating the market with 2/3 of the production. Reserves from this supplier are now stand at  30 years at present abstraction rates.  Below: "Bone Valley" Tampa Florida depicts a lifeless panorama - a foretaste of things to come unless we change our sanitation procedures to recycle all nutrients back to agriculture.

The Royal Horticultural Society in its recent pronouncements on Food Security must understand that no matter how wonderful (sic) the Genetic Modification of plants can be, without fertility in the soil, the yield of crops for health will be zero. 

This wake up call is being made to everyone, and  Governments must urgently implement human waste recycling strategies to recover the irreplaceable losses of all nutrients we are suffering.  

The nuts and bolts of the New Directions Project. Andrew Loxham's speech at Mere Golf and Country Club.

 

Two weeks ago John Humphrys introduced Radio 4 listeners to the Government chief scientific  adviser Professor  John Beddington .  Essentially PROFESSOR BEDDINGTONS message was blunt. “The perfect Storm will shortly be  upon us”

1. Our fossil fuel resources are depleting,

2. We will all starve and must adopt aggressive measures to improve our food production.

3. Our soils are so damaged that we must consider all measures to make recovery of them.

4. There will be insufficient fresh water resources for our needs as Global population approaches levels three and a half  times greater than when your chairman and I were born .

 For the next 10 minutes or so I want you to cast off all your decision making Frames, these are the reference points, the anchors with which we look at our life and society. 

 For this exercise please accept that Sustainable Living really means what it says.  (Not what politicians refer to as sustainable such as the nuclear Industry. ) 

What is SUSTAINABLE LIVING?   It is a way of providing food security,   creating employment,  and eliminating the carbon emissions of living.  So our project is about Services, Structures and Energy.

To achieve this the NEW DIRECTIONS project combines new and unique technologies, and integrates them with unusually shaped living space.

Our target destinations: Shanty towns on the outskirts of many Developing world Cities. Where pressure is placed any form of accommodation, every kind of service including power water and sanitation, not to mention the en grained hunger of many.

There are Five parts to the project and Ill briefly describe them and the rationale which underpins them.

1. Space. The project provides solutions for a fully sustainable form of living. Through the creation of certain specifically shaped buildings.  These structures are formed by the linking 6 hexagons together around a centrally located seventh Hexagon. The six internal hexagons form the living space and the internal hexagon is used for access. Each structure is over 3 floors, three stories high. The structures are made from organic oil which is turned into a densely filled plastic pressed to form building materials.

2. Form. Each structure has a specially shaped roof to collect rainwater safely and move it to storage through enclosed pipework. It is made from engineering grade organic foam which is integrated with its own low cost solar collecting PV  material into a watertight roof.

3. Structure. There are 4 of these structures each individually linked to one central utility, incidentally this structure is also made from two hexagonal spaces. This building  provides potable water for the inhabitants, and has facility to recycle gray water to a high standard. It is the central distribution for services and the waste  reception area.   

4. Process. This community development may or may not  be  linked to a sister community, where the total volume of organic solid and liquid wastes are composted in a very special manner.

5. The project has strong agricultural links. It would be located in agricultural lands ensuring both food security for its inhabitants and an ability to produce surplus cash crops.

Why do it this way.

1. The  structures are light weight, made within the Target Developing Country. They are modular in design  and can be produced in very a low cost efficient manner, the structure is light weight by any standard. The building material binds in atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the oil bearing plant or indeed animal.(any oil can be converted)

2. The structures allow for very efficient and very modern waste collection systems to be installed collecting that most important component ….... that of Human Excrement by way of a Separator Toilet !  

3. The wastes are composted in a manner originally described by Sir Albert Howard and later developed by my colleague lecturer and agriculturist Richard Higgins. The wastes are integrated with the agricultural wastes of farming and are pasteurized in the conversion process to an  ideal worm food, simply the best compost that can be produced. Nature attends to the transmission of TOTAL NUTRIENTS to the root hairs of plants. Good nutrition equals good health. Say no more. This community is closely linked to the earth from which it came, it has an agricultural base. The concept would not significantly alter the  present division of labour, it is not Luddite in its outlook.

4. Communities are formed in these dwellings where each individual is bound to all his neighbors  for his own and the community good.

5. The communities can stand alone, responsible for their Food Security, Power, Water and Waste treatment. It is the first step on the road to a hydrogen economy. I would like to talk about this but sadly not now! Our partners in the United States have already shown the way in this regard, our task is merely to include the technology at the appropriate stage.

 

I wanted to leave you with two thoughts tonight after such a splendid meal.

• Your visit to the toilet tomorrow will effectively dispose of all nutrients, damage soils, give succor to Fertilizer, Petrochem and pesticide  industries. It will engage a process that will consume an astonishing 780 kilowatts of energy consumption per person per year in England and Wales. An astonishing 42.9 tera-watts per year!

• Our living style and its unquenchable thirst for Utility Services, ensures that the construction Industry alone emits  over half of the UK's carbon emissions!  
   

How can you helpThe New Directions Foundation will promote the project and its aims on a Global basis. We will work with the UN, Governments, NGOs, and the private sector to bring about the benefits of these measures.  We seek friends both active and passive, partners, leaders, associates, collaborators, advisers, volunteers, even that most dreaded of recessionary concepts, financial support in these early days.

Can I take you back to Professor John Beddington on Radio “the perfect storm will shortly be upon us” – we must accept change and develop radical solutions to combat the dangers we all face. Our survival will depend on this. The technology now exists to begin the repair of our damaged environment. What is needed is a shared vision and determination to use this technology for all our futures.

Things will change.

 

It is important to get the economic and legal framework in place as well as solving the practical issues of living in a sustainable manner.  Thank youDavid Korowicz of Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability,

Pollution, Power and the need for change.

A Five year study by the UK Environment Agency on the quality of River Water in the UK suggests that half the male fish in lowland rivers are developing female characteristics. The linkage between water borne human sewage discharges and the pollution it causes could not be demonstrated more clearly.

Dr Susan Jobling of Brunel University points out that the research on fish should be taken as a warning to Humans. The costs for water companies to clean up their act may cause them to wish that the Romans had never invented the sewer and water borne sanitation and that Mr Crapper should not have developed his Cater Closit! [The prohibitive costs mean the Water Companies will probably never get round to making the improvements necessary.]

What price this sewage business anyway?

Government published figures [Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Postnote 282] states that 6.34 gigawatt hours of electricity are consumed daily in England and Wales just in sewage treatment alone. A figure close to 118 gigawatt s of electricity is consumed daily in pumping both water and sewage around the UK countryside, process it and still be the cause of nutrient loss, dreadful pollution is a demonstration of abject “concept” failure.

The power cost for that population is in the order of 780 Kilowatts per person per year!

Provide such services to an expectant Developing world and the users could expect to consume an eye watering 2 Peta-watts (2 X 10 ¹² ) of electricity per year.

The situation in the developing world shows that intensive global efforts have been put in place to help resolve issues surrounding drinking and waste water. It must be said that a much louder voice needs to be heard by the policy forum in the Sustainable Sanitation lobby on behalf of Dry sanitation and the Eco-San systems which use no water.

Support for a developing world.

Global poverty eradication is the single most important humanitarian issue facing mankind. The use of carbon (oil/coal) as the main energy resource has created this global inequality. Shell's chief executive in 2008, Jeroen van der Veer made headlines when he estimates that oil supply will no longer keep up with Global Demands. His alternatives for Nation States to are "a Scramble for oil" (Conflict?) or co-operation . On historic grounds the prognosis is poor unless all national leaders abide by Humanitarian ethical values.
“The Humanitarian perspective takes a long term view of human welfare and one of its essential dimensions is its solidarity with future generations. Our first responsibility to our children is to ensure they have a future by avoiding catastrophic war. It is also necessary to ensure they do not inherit a planet whose environment has been substantially diminished or irreparably destroyed.............. It has a strong bias against the irreversible.” (Report of the independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues - Ethics of Human Solidarity)

More mundane matters surround those millions suffering economic or conflict driven hardships where simple financial help is necessary. Holders of wealth in the developed World are driven to extend charity to those in dire need where lives are be saved. Sadly few in the Developed world react favourably, aware that “Givers money” en route to its destination has a tendency to loses its shape, and volume as it is gnawed at by Marketing, Officials, and generally abused by service providers........ and when received it rarely helps in the creation of an economic situation where self reliance and individual growth and improving education are the long term objectives of that giving.

Large population migrations are caused not only by climate chaos, but also financial and economic inequality. The inevitable climatic changes will only contribute further to global migration, causing  anxiety and anger not just to the migrating people themselves, but also to the host nation of the migrants.

The base of the Human Pyramid must be reached in any poverty reduction effort. The people who make up this majority must become economically empowered in such a manner as to support the drive towards a sustainable future for every person on the planet. Projects which support sustainable living solutions and reduce energy demands must be supported by the wealthier nations.