Solar-heated communities
Here’s an interesting story from the Edmonton Journal about two solar-heated communities being built in Alberta, one being dubbed the largest of its kind in North America. I’ve got a sense that at least one of these projects is heavily supported by government funding, so it’s difficult to analyse the economics, but even as demonstration projects I think they’re important for showing that communities in the future can — should! — be built from the ground up with renewable energy in mind. This is particularly true if there are creative ways to spread out the upfront costs over the operating life of the systems.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
January 8th, 2006 at 4:04 am
I’ve commented on this as well at Earth Sentinel and my main concern is that it only can be built-in to new developments, these will likely be in ex-urban areas (increasing fuel use for transport to city center) and that the new housing market is set to decline in pace in the next few years as energy costs rise. While a great solution, a means has to be found to extend it to prexisiting locations.
You have a great take on the energy issues facing us and I’ve added it to my blog roll at Earth Sentinel , my site devoted to peak oil, renewable energy, and climate change. I hope you will return the favor if you enjoy my site.
Thanks and keep up the good work,
Nick
January 16th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Some quick thoughts: Existing district heating systems in urban areas might be able to take advantage of such advancements. Many hospitals and universities are on such systems, tunnels for steam-pipes running throughout the campuses. Geothermal and solar pre-heat/ storage could therefore be an option, as seems they have available land. Parks Canada’s Marine Discovery Centre in Hamilton uses geothermal, aligned within the pilings supporting the structure. Installing underground storage tanks might be a different story, but could possibly be sited beneath public parks, or within brownfield sites, (the vacant subway station below Queen) and possibly installed vertically. Growth of concepts such as Autoshare might also relieve some underground parking space which might then be put to this storage requirement.