The New England Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) awarded its first $10,000 Zero Net Energy home prize, for a house that renewably generates at least as much energy as it uses, to Tina Clarke and Doug Stephens of Turners Falls, MA. The prize was announced at NESEA's annual "Building Energy" conference in Boston on March 10th. Clarke is known in the Pioneer Valley for her advocacy for the "transition towns" movement to create sustainable communities.

Clarke's & Stephens' 48 x 24 foot, three bedroom home is super insulated and has three types of solar panels on its south-facing roof -- solar hot air panels for supplementary space heating, solar thermal panels for water heating and photovoltaic panels for generating electricity. Stephens told the opening plenary of the Building Energy conference that they used 1,959 kilowatt hours (kWH) in their home last year for all energy uses, but their photovoltaic panels generated 4,892 kWH during the same period. In short, the home renewably generated more than twice as much energy as it needed to operate.

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The University Gallery at UMASS in Amherst, MA is hosting an exhibition on sustainable building projects, practices and materials, "Greening The Valley: Sustainable Architecture in the Pioneer Valley," guest curated by architectural historian Margaret Birney Vickery. A lecture series in connection with the exhibition continues March 11 with a panel on "Sustainable Homes in the Pioneer Valley Old, New, and Available for All."

The Greening the Valley exhibition runs until May 9th, and is definitely worth a visit. It includes examples of green housing, non-residential buildings and developments in the Pioneer Valley (Mass.), a "Green Lounge" with furniture made of local woods and recycled materials, and an exhibit of green construction materials.

New energy-efficient, mercury-free electron stimulated luminescence (ESL) light bulbs are expected to reach the market by mid-2010, reports Fine Homebuilding in its Winter 2010 issue of Energy-Smart Homes. The ESL bulbs are being introduced by Seattle-based VU1.

Home lighting energy use efficiency has improved markedly with the widespread adoption of compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. But CFL bulbs work by running an electric current through mercury vapor in the bulb to stimulate the light-emitting phosphors inside, meaning the bulbs are a potential source of trace mercury contamination if landfilled instead of recycled. (Energy Star reports that use of CFLs can actually reduce overall mercury emissions, however, by reducing the use of the major source of U.S. mercury emissions: coal-fired electrical generating stations.) Conventional CFL bulbs are also not dimmable, and some consumers don't care for CFL's "colder" light spectrum.

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Five farms in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts have joined to form the Hilltown Farmers Biodiesel Cooperative (a/k/a Hilltown Farmers Biodiesel LLC), reports the Hampshire Gazette. (“Hilltown farmers pool resources on biodiesel manufacture,” 11/16/09) By the Spring 2010 growing season, they hope to produce biodiesel from sunflower, canola and crambe grown on their own farms, using a mobile biodiesel processing plant in a 20 foot trailer.  One of the farmers, Doug Mason, of Heath, MA, hopes to lease his virgin crop oil to restaurants first, on the condition they return the waste oil for it to be made into biodiesel, generating double value from the crop, according to the Gazette.

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New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC) director John Miller took a rapt audience on a photographic tour of the latest efforts to generate power from ocean tides, waves and wind, in a January 14th Cambridge, MA talk sponsored by the Boston Area Solar Energy Association (BASEA). To hear an audio recording of Director Miller's talk, click here (40.4 MB mp3 audio download).

New England is at the end of the energy supply chain (far from most of its energy sources), said Miller, with an aging and unreliable grid, and high energy prices, a barrier to renewed manufacturing here. Solar energy will be a part of the solution, said Miller, but solar energy is intermittent in New England, and the transmission lines will be long from the Southwest, where large-scale solar arrays may be feasible. The high energy load (demand) of the dense east coast urban centers is, however, very near the energy of the ocean, Miller pointed out.

Compared to the 28 gigawatts (GW) of peak electricity load in New England, Miller estimated there was the potential for over 100 GW of peak offshore wind energy, 10 to 30 GW of wave energy, and about 0.5 GW of tidal energy generation in this region. In other words, if fully developed, total marine renewable ocean energy sources could exceed the peak electric demand in New England, according to his estimates. In addition to these potential marine energy resources, New England has the universities, institutions and intellectual power, and the deep water ports and manufacturing and construction infrastructure, to be an advantageous place for ocean renewable energy development, said Miller. Developing this marine energy potential could spur $2 billion a year in regional economic activity, Miller estimated.

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The Massachusetts Agricultural Commission's second annual statewide agricultural commissions conference is being held March 20, 2010 at the Worcester State College Student Center, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA. The conference agenda and regisistration information is available through www.massagcom.org . You can also contact Irene Winkler at USDA NRCS, at 508-295-1317 x 130 for more information.

Massachusetts allows communities to appoint municipal agricultural commissions as standing committees in those towns, and scores of municpalities have done so, including many in the Pioneer Valley. The commissions are charged with representing the farming community and promoting agricultural-based economic opportunities, among other things.

The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) is holding a variety of workshops and presentations on organic farming and gardening this winter and into the spring. The last of the workshops include NOFA's Statewide Organic Gardening Workshop Day, in Massachusetts, April 10, 2010, with workshops in most regions of the state. In western Mass. the workshops will be held simultaneously, 9 AM - Noon, at the Gensler homestead in Wendell, MA, at Crabapple Farm in Chesterfield, MA, and at the Monterey, MA community garden. Workshops require registration. Go to www.nofamass.org .

Newly released temperature figures from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the earth's surface show that the past decade was the hottest on record, reports the NY Times ("Past Decade Was Warmest Ever, NASA Finds," 1/22/10). NASA also found "that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998," reports the Times. The Times quoted NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies director, Dr. James E. Hansen, as concluding "we find global warming is continuing unabated."

"Average global temperatures have risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit . . . since 1880. . . . Policy makers at the United Nations climate change summit conference in Copenhagen last month agreed on a goal of trying to keep the rise in average global tempeartures to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit . . . to try to forestall the worst effects of global warming", says the Times. The new NASA data showed planetary temperatures increasing at about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, according to the Times, meaning the worst effects of climate change could begin to show up within our children's lifetimes, even at the current rate. With long lead times needed to introduce many greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts, action is needed soon to head off the worst of the climate change impacts.

What will it take to sustain our communities, our regions, our country over the long run?  That’s the question we tackle here at Sustenance, with news reports and analysis, links to important websites, articles and resources, and audio reports. 

Over the long run, for Sustenance, we hope to help build a new politics of sustainability.  To that end, we will be sharing with you the new practical experiments and innovative thinking emerging in:

• local and organic agriculture,
• alternative energy and energy efficiency,
• sustainable economics, oriented towards the satisfaction of real human need, not the exponential expansion of desire and consumption,
• energy efficient housing,
• healthcare for all, with a focus on ideas like “single payer” healthcare that are not getting an adequate hearing,
• manufacturing, with a focus on green industry, a restoration of the American manufacturing economy, and the production of durable and recyclable goods,
• transportation, with a focus on public transit and low carbon-footprint vehicles, and
• water, keeping it a clean and publicly shared resource protected for generations to come.

But most of all we hope to discuss what it might take to link these innovations in a new culture and politics of sustainability that can transform our communities, our regions and our country.

Sustenance is based in the Pioneer Valley region of western Massachusetts -- the towns of the Connecticut River valley in our state. We have a particular interest in the practice and politics of sustainability in this region, and in the Connecticut River valley to our north and south. But we won't confine our interest and reporting to this region or even to this country. If all politics is local, all politics is now global as well. Wherever you are, we'd like to hear from you.

To send a comment, or to subscribe to our email updates, email us at:  publisher@sustenancetoday.org.

-- Rudy Perkins, publisher

 

 

© 2009, 2010 by Rudy Perkins • Site first published 7/5/09 • Photo credits and copyright unless otherwise noted: Rudy Perkins. Sustenance opening percussion theme composed and performed by Hollie Marron and Deb Reed.

Site last modified 3/11/10

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