outmoding the commode

What the modern fridge does for household electricity consumption, the modern toilet does for water. Actually, the toilet - in its most common form - is not modern at all, and it's time for a makeover. But toilets that use little or no water face the same problem I mentioned yesterday in relation to the energy-efficient refrigerator: poor public image. I am not talking about the low-flow models that are now fairly common in some countries. Five- or six-litre flush toilets are a bit like the hybrid car: better than gas-guzzling 4x4 vehicles, but not something that will really wean us off liquid fuels.

I am talking about a litre or less per flush. We need a revolution in the water closet, and Dwell magazine presents a few models that might do the trick. But they are a long way from price levels that will encourage widespread adoption, and some of them still look like they belong in a caravan, not a house. Design, design, design.

old fridge design brought back to life

A few years ago, when I witnessed the effects of Eskom's budget-sapping rollout of the national electricity grid to rural Transkei, I wondered how people who rely on a largely subsistence economy could possibly afford to buy, operate and maintain the electrical appliances that they could now run on 220 volts of coal-generated power. Most rural families probably have one or more family members working in cities, sending money back home, which helps pay the bills; but is that really a sustainable approach to community development?

I have written before about alternative financing models for supplying renewable energy to make rural life more convenient, and here is another technology that could help significantly: a fridge design that was invented by Albert Einstein in 1930. The original design was abandoned when freon and cheap power made it possible to sell fridges that operated with more efficient compressors. But the compressor is what makes it difficult to run a modern fridge using solar power, so the Einstein fridge is being dusted off and improved so that its zero-moving-parts design can be powered with solar panels. In addition to reducing reliance on dirty power, this approach also reduces maintenance needs, so it's perfect for rural communities.

Of course there are more primitive systems, like evaporative fridges, but let's face reality: a huge challenge in stemming the tide of human desire for electrically-powered appliances in the developing world is in coming up with designs that don't make people feel like they are being handed second-rate goods. This sounds like one that could work.

for men only

You may have heard of waterless urinals, and at least one manufacturer is making the lowly urinal even greener. Soybean urinals from Waterless Co. are made from approximately 30 percent soybean resin, which is a naturally sustainable resource.

the future of LED lighting

Here's an article reminding us that the uptake of new technology is not just about the technology itself. Some people see LEDs as the future, with CFLs as an intermediate technology that will soon be replaced. Others suggest that even the old incandescent bulb will never completely disappear. We still use candles, don't we? Everything seems to have its place, but whether through market forces or regulation, some things will be discouraged. The question is what? and how?

the future is light

It's still a real challenge to find product suppliers who understand what products are suitable for solar energy. There's lots of general information on the internet, but what I need is local knowledge of what is available right here, in my city. I've been combing the local shops for LED lights. There are lots of LED downlighters, but even at Eagle Electric, one of Cape Town's biggest lighting suppliers, the shop assistants are clueless about how much light you get per watt of electricity consumed. I need to understand how many LED lights are needed for general lighting or for specific tasks, to replace traditional incandescent or new CFL lights, and this depends on the particular product. Not all LED lights are created equal.

So this morning I had an 'aha' moment when I read in the Cape Times 'Techno Times' supplement about LEDlighting, a Cape Town company that designs commercial LED installations and gives advice on energy-efficient lighting. If you need LEDs, Pierre van Helden is your man. The company doesn't have a retail outlet, but if you want to transform your house to reduce your carbon footprint, give him a call.

In the TechnoTimes reproduction of a Popular Mechanics article, Pierre suggests that LEDs will change the way we see lighting. Instead of an easy-to-replace central bulb in every room of the house, distributed lighting will become the norm, with fixtures embedded into furniture or other elements of the room. Since they can last up to 20 years, LEDs don't need to be easily accessible. Design options are more flexible, and clever design is more important for energy efficiency. We don't need uniformly bright light, but rather a lower level of ambient light with additional task-specific areas of light.

tech, tech and more tech

Another attempt at predicting what features might be in the house of the future. Am I the only one who wonders why the future is always portrayed as "current trends, amplified"? I have seen pictures from old magazines envisioning cities of the future with skyscrapers that dedicated most of their space to allowing cars to drive to the top, to meet airplanes landing on the roof. The dreamers were enthralled at the prospect of moving up to previously unimagined heights, but failed to consider that cars were not the way to get there. If there is one thing forecasters have been notoriously bad at, it's anticipating how new technologies will be used - invariably there are unintended behaviours and designs that result.

Still, one thing that most certainly will be needed in houses in the very near future is improved monitoring of resource consumption. Today's carbon calculators are too simplified and generic to be much use in tracking attainment of personal, municipal and national targets. We need to be far more aware of the impacts of individual day-to-day decisions.

One of the ideas expressed at the Green Building Retrofitting Seminar on 10 April was "sweat the small stuff". We can't rely only on grand plans to manage resources more responsibly. Colin Devenish from the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town pointed out that if toilets were modified to reduce water consumption by only one litre per flush, the Waterfront would save 23 million litres a year. But we can't manage what we don't measure.

power demand reduction efforts in SA

South Africa's Western Cape Province is set to deliver solar water heaters to reduce energy demand. Environment, Planning and Economic Development MEC Tasneem Essop, and Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, have announced the launch of a solar water heater project that will roll out 1 000 geysers and establish a training academy to establish a pool of installation contractors.

Meanwhile the City of Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo has said the city would install 10 000 solar water heaters, distribute compact fluourescent light bulbs, instal geyser electricity controls, and use solar-powered traffic lights* to help reduce the city's peak power demand of 3 500 MW. Together, these initiatives are expected to reduce peak demand by 325 - 475 MW at a cost of R397 - R577 million. That's somewhere in the range of R1 - R2 million per megawatt saved. In contrast, the Medupi coal-fired power station being built in Limpopo Province will cost at least R15 million per megawatt of generating capacity - proving yet again that reducing power consumption is far more cost-effective than increasing supply.

*After testing locally-manufactured solar-powered LED street lights, manufacturing company Broadwing Technologies figures retrofitting street lights could save 1 MW for every 12 000 to 15 000 units. Johannesburg has more than 140 000 conventional high pressure sodium and older mercury vapour street lights that could be converted.

dwell lightly

As a great example of re-using waste, Dwell shows how to make a chair from cardboard boxes. Not what you'd call elegant, but if you've moved house recently, you could fill an auditorium with these babies made from the packing boxes.

Afromusing highlights a few green gadgets from DEMO 08 last month in California, including Green Plug, eliminating the need to buy, carry and dispose of multiple chargers for all the electronic devices you use to enhance life in your cardboard chair.

And Inhabitat reports on New York's first Greener Gadgets 2008 conference this month. In case you still need a reason to buy the Green Plug.

Being the responsible citizen you are, if you manage to tear yourself away from your gadgets, maybe you should have a Tesla Roadster in the garage. Greencars reports on real-world testing of this rare set of wheels.

Or if you feel like something a bit more energetic - but not too much - how about an electric bicycle? Seen in Cape Town!

[Update: How green is the iPod? From Exploratory Design, which is "about latching onto the process and exploring it to no end."]

thinking outside the closet

Millions of people still don't have clean drinking water, yet in modern cities we flush literally gallons of it down the toilet every time we go for a pee. This should be a crime.

There are lots of examples of low water toilets, dual-flush toilets, composting toilets, and waterless urinals. There are even incinerating toilets for those who dare. Here and there, these end-user technologies are adopted voluntarily or with incentive subsidies, but they are not being used in sufficient numbers to offset growth in demand for water. We seem to be stuck in the pilot project stage, meaning "Hey, I wonder if this thing works?". Of course it bloody works. Just do it. We don't have to go completely waterless, but there is no reason for any toilet to use more than six litres a flush.

But we should be beyond that by now, and here's why.

inconvenient realities

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

1. Building a new "green" house has a bigger (negative) impact than making an existing house more energy-efficient.
2. CFL lightbulbs use less energy than incandescents, but as a product they pollute more (they contain mercury). LEDs are better, but too expensive and difficult to find.
3. In some places you can get a rebate for installing energy-efficient appliances, but this encourages us to send old appliances to landfills.
4. The carbon impact of manufacturing new triple-glazed windows can be bigger than the benefit in heat savings.

This does not mean we shouldn't make low-carbon choices. It does mean that every decision involves a tradeoff. This applies not only to individual householders, but also to city planning processes. One reason why planning needs to be integrated across government departments (and various other stakeholders) is that sometimes, the best plan overall will require some aspects of the plan to be suboptimal.

For example, city planners may decide that they want to encourage high densities in residential areas in order to achieve economies of scale in the provision of bulk services (water, sewers, and so on) and to increase public transport ridership. But in some areas the targets may not be achievable because developers are not prepared to build to the target densities, or for some other reason. Then planners may need to work with lower densities, and focus instead on arranging the orientation of streets and buildings so that buildings can incorporate passive solar design and rooftop photovoltaic panels for micro generation of electricity - something that is harder to achieve in high-density areas.

This strategy would require, as a minimum, interaction between the spatial planners, urban designers, traffic engineers, land developers and the local power utility. If these players are working in isolation, as they so often are, then the strategy won't work. In planning a low-carbon world, as with so many other things, there is no universal strategy. There are, perhaps, general principles that can be used to guide decisions, but reaching appropriate decisions requires a coordinated approach.