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The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits Gregg Braden See book keywords and concepts

There were roads, multistory homes (jokingly called America's first condominiums by today's residents), passive solar heating and cooling, and a system of recycling that left virtually no waste from the entire population. The early pueblo people practiced a powerful spirituality that allowed them to live in balance with the land for more than a millennium. All of that changed quickly, however, after the explorers came on the scene. "We already had a religion," our guide explained, "but it wasn't what the Spanish were looking for. It wasn't Christianity.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century James Howard Kunstler See book keywords and concepts

The house didn't even look weird, as more hyperengineered passive solar houses of that era did. In contrast, the stock products of the home-building industry in recent years have been ludicrous in terms of even minimally utilizing passive solar energy. The typical "McMansion," or super-sized tract house on a half-acre lot, with its "lawyer-foyer" and great room, is an energy hog and many of them may be uninhabitable in the coming age of energy austerity. They were designed under the assumption that natural gas would be cheap and plentiful forever.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

In the case of the Zero Energy House, the building's structure has been designed with passive solar in mind—the house's orientation, overhanging rooflines, strategically placed shade trees, and carefully installed insulation allow it to capture sunlight and heat. Thermal mass, another passive technique, uses exposed surfaces to absorb heat in daytime and radiate heat at nighttime or during low temperatures. In the winter, the Zero Energy House's south-facing windows allow ample sunlight into the house, heating the concrete walls inside.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century James Howard Kunstler See book keywords and concepts

It has only been the anomalous abundance of cheap oil and gas in our time that permitted builders, and especially architects preoccupied with style issues, to depart from traditional practices that took advantage of passive solar energy. The twentieth century was the era of glass "curtain walls" on office buildings, windows that didn't open (or didn't exist), titanium facades on civic structures, and other fashionable stunts for "dressing up" buildings to proclaim the bold creative genius of their designers.

This profound shift in values will reestablish the distinction between country living and town living, with appropriate building typologies, and they will certainly require a return to passive solar building techniques. Active solar power—solar electric generation —is another issue. Proven technology exists. It works, though not nearly as well as fossil fuel modes of power generation. I'm not sure that solar electric power can continue to exist outside the friendly confines of a fossil fuel economy.

In contrast, the stock products of the home-building industry in recent years have been ludicrous in terms of even minimally utilizing passive solar energy. The typical "McMansion," or super-sized tract house on a half-acre lot, with its "lawyer-foyer" and great room, is an energy hog and many of them may be uninhabitable in the coming age of energy austerity. They were designed under the assumption that natural gas would be cheap and plentiful forever. In fact, the single-family stand-alone house may have a tragic destiny in the years ahead.

You don't have to go to extremes to gain value from passive solar design. I once built a small post-and-beam house designed to soak up sunlight during the day and store it in a concrete slab. It was not a robust engineering effort in terms of energy efficiency. Yet I was able to keep the whole building comfortably warm on a winter day by firing up a small woodstove in the morning. It wasn't necessary to refire the stove until evening time. The heating bill was remarkably low.

He even installed passive solar water heaters on the White House roof. Carter's legitimacy would soon be fatally compromised by the standoff over American hostages following the overthrow of the shah in Iran, a year-long melodrama that distracted, preoccupied, and finally bamboozled the American public. Hubbert's Curve II—The Worldwide Peak The OPEC embargo brought home the frightening implications of the U.S. oil peak. But M. King Hubbert continued to research the oil depletion story he had pioneered.

The Healthy Home: An Attic-to-Basement Guide to Toxin-Free Living Linda Mason Hunter See book keywords and concepts

The starting point for a passive solar house or sun-room is good southern exposure. Next, bear in mind that the best passive designs strike a subtle balance between insulation, thermal mass, and the amount of south glazing used. Think twice before using glass in roof sections of a passive solar space. Glass roofs can create overheating and night insulation problems. Wood Catalytic combustors and secondary combustion chambers make today's wood heaters cleaner burning and more efficient than ever before.

Earth Right H. Patricia Hynes See book keywords and concepts

With the aid of a computer program, I designed a two-story passive solar greenhouse that could be retrofitted onto an existing building. To prove its potential, I built the solar sunspace onto my hundred-year-old rambling New England house. The next year, the house required—as predicted—25 percent less oil for heating. Two years later, I modified the design to build a new superinsulated passive solar house that uses only two cords of wood for heating and needs little cooling in summer.

The Healthy Home: An Attic-to-Basement Guide to Toxin-Free Living Linda Mason Hunter See book keywords and concepts

The best use for south light is a passive solar space that helps heat your house in winter. EAST LIGHT Rooms on the east side of the house have direct light in the morning. Such light is cool in hue because much of its red wavelengths are absorbed into the moist morning atmosphere for warmth. It's best if your kitchen and breakfast room have east-facing windows; your bedroom, too. Greeting the fragile light of early morning is an inspiring way to begin the day if you're an early riser. WEST LIGHT Rooms on the west have direct light in late afternoon.

Think twice before using glass in roof sections of a passive solar space. Glass roofs can create overheating and night insulation problems. Wood Catalytic combustors and secondary combustion chambers make today's wood heaters cleaner burning and more efficient than ever before. In addition, today's stoves are safer, thanks to high-temperature chimneys, positive-connect hookups (between the stove outlets and fireplace flues), better insulated wall pass-through systems for the stovepipes, and protective heat shields.

Nontoxic, Natural and Earthwise Debra Lynn Dadd See book keywords and concepts

Copper Cricket Solar Water Heaters (Sage Advance Corporation). Q passive solar water heater—no motors, pumps, or valves. Enro Heatsaver (Enro Manufacturing). Installs in your existing water heater and cuts bills 15 to 20 percent per month by capturing waste heat. Heliodyne Solar Energy Systems (He-liodyne). Systems for home or pool hot-water heating. Heliodyne. Instant-Flow Water Heater (Chrono-mite Laboratories). Compact point-of-use instant water heater. Muck-Vac (Elemental Enterprises).

Earth Right H. Patricia Hynes See book keywords and concepts

Superinsulated houses hold and store the heat from people, lighting, appliances, and passive solar heating through south-facing windows. State and local building standards for heating and cooling could reduce carbon dioxide emissions 2.3 percent by the year 2000. 3. Replace Inefficient Lighting. Advances in electric light bulbs offer an important opportunity to use less electricity on lighting and thus lower carbon dioxide emissions from the generation of electricity.

Two years later, I modified the design to build a new superinsulated passive solar house that uses only two cords of wood for heating and needs little cooling in summer. With minor changes, the house would require substantially less heating—as little as one-half to one cord of wood. I love this house, particularly when the winter sun strikes deep into its south-facing rooms, warming them so thoroughly that no other energy source is needed. But today there is something deeper at issue than the considerable satisfaction of "designing with the sun.

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