{"id":643,"date":"2010-08-15T17:38:26","date_gmt":"2010-08-15T21:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/energyrealist.com\/?p=643"},"modified":"2010-08-15T18:56:19","modified_gmt":"2010-08-15T22:56:19","slug":"a-house-and-atomic-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/?p=643","title":{"rendered":"A House and Atomic Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This short article from Germany<\/a> talks about another alternate approach to building an energy efficient house.\u00a0 What gets my attention is not so much the technical detail (more on that below), but that the German news is filled with this sort of discussion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the opposite end of the spectrum from a single house there is debate about an \u201cenergy concept\u201d \u2013 the equivalent of the much needed comprehensive energy policy in the US.\u00a0 That the Germans, who have embraced the idea of sustainable energy so well, still do not have an integrating concept shows just how difficult the economics and politics are.\u00a0 Atomic power plants are under some major scrutiny \u2013 Just how long will they run?\u00a0 Will some have to shut down because of mandated safety enhancements (including having to withstand a direct impact from a loaded passenger jet)?\u00a0 Will there be a tax on nuclear fuel elements to pay for disposal and reprocessing?\u00a0 It all sounds familiar.<\/p>\n

(A much longer discussion on Germany and nuclear power can be read at this Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists site<\/a>. )<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The large tank being lowered into the house (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Kappen)<\/p><\/div>\n

At the small end of the scale this house in Moosburg (pronounced Mohsburg<\/em>), in Bavaria, is an attempt at building an energy efficient house as simply as possible.\u00a0 It still needs a lot of people to work together.\u00a0 The local authorities helped out by granting variations from standard building practice and allowed the house to be located at an angle in the lot to gain the needed north-south orientation.\u00a0 Heat comes via 64 sqm (690 sqft) of solar collectors feeding, via heat exchangers, into a 14200 liter (3750 US gallons) storage tank.\u00a0 The more usual dimensions for collector and tank are 30 (320 sqft) to 70 sqm (750 sqft) of collector and only 150 to 250 liters (40 to 70 US gallons) of storage. The super large tank is integrated into the stairwell of the house. The southern roof pitch is a steep 67\u00ba to get the best angle for winter sun.<\/p>\n

Unlike many energy efficient houses this one relies on well sealed 49cm (19 inches) thick masonry walls, instead of masonry plus 30cm (12 inches) of Styrofoam as insulation.\u00a0 To an environmentally conscious owner the impact of producing that Styrofoam, and the glues and antifungal paints needed to install it are a definite negative. \u00a0In addition to the solid construction the design avoids thermal bridges; for instance, the balcony is suspended by steel cables, instead of being cantilevered from the house.<\/p>\n

Supplemental heating will be a wood stove (just wood, not pellets or anything high tech.).\u00a0 The owner claims that 1 to 2 hours of wood fire will generate enough stored hot water for 2 to 3 days of no sun.<\/p>\n

[The approach of using solar energy – solar thermal in this case – to raise the storage medium (water) by a small amount makes a lot of sense.\u00a0 I often wonder about the wisdom of converting sun light to electricity (at low efficiency) and then turning that highly concentrated (low entropy) energy into warm air or water.\u00a0 See Energy 101<\/a> for a slightly more detailed discussion and references.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the wide range of German energy discussion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}