Practical Blog # 8 - Electricity and Fossil Fuels

We have now presented to you all four of the Secondary Design Elements/Support Systems at Living Earth Garden Project. Before we move into our Primary Design Elements, and the core of our work here. I will bring up one more set of Support Systems, This set could be called our Tertiary Design Elements or Secondary Support Systems. They are less central to the goals of our project, but yet essential for our daily living at present.

I have chosen to describe, or perhaps 'reveal', our Support Systems before presenting the core of our work, in order to show the paradigm that we are working out of, and actually materializing. One reason I use the term "Deep Sustainability" is to separate our project from those that are simply 'Green Washing' . By 'Green Washing', I mean projects that appear to be following Sustainability Principles on the surface, yet with closer examination, one finds excessive use of energy, either through the use of physical power or embodied in the types of materials used. Other times, a large volume of something is brought from somewhere else, helping the site look 'sustainable', but giving no regard to what is happening to the land that these material inputs are being taken from.

In a summer past, when we were hosting AirBnB guests in our big tipi, (now not our practice) we a Guest, who on the morning after a night in our Big Tipi, looked around, and said to me, something similar to, "Wow! You are completely sustainable here, aren't you?" I responded, "Well, we still use propane." He replied, "Alright, 90% then?" I said, "Ok".

In truth, it is difficult to give sustainability a percentage or a rating. Sustainability level is always relative to the far-sightedness of the ranker and their field of comparison. The concept of "Footprint" is somewhat more objective. By calculating our Footprint, an attempt is made to describe numerically how much land is being used to provide for our energy and material uses. Our local college teacher commented that our Foot print here at Living Earth Garden Project is approximately 1/50th of that of the average family living within the United States.

We do use propane in our kitchen, for both cooking and space heating. It is a small space (~250 square feet), so does not require much input. Although use varies widely depending on season and activities, on average our use is about one small canister, or 5 gallons of propane per week for both needs. No amount of fossil fuel use is sustainable in the long run, and we look forward to reducing the small amount that we do currently use.

In our primary living space (of ~ 700 square feet), where we rest and sleep, we have put in a large wood stove and heat only with firewood (to supplement the significant amount of solar heat captured through our south-facing glass windows). Currently, the burning of firewood for home heating is desirable. Due to the suppression of both natural lightning-caused fires as well as the traditional cultural practice of Indian Burning, both of which thinned trees to healthy numbers, forests throughout North America have become overgrown and contain dangerous amounts of dead wood that act as kindling for large uncontrolled wildfires that cause great damage. Thinning these forests and converting weak unhealthy growth into firewood is currently good for both People and Forests. Looking into the future, however, it is unlikely that our Forests could support the current heating demands of our entire population, once fossil fuels are depleted, and that should be kept in mind when designing and building long term permanent dwellings.

Now, onto electricity. Here in the 'Four Corners' Region (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado), most on-grid electricity is generated through the burning of coal on Navajo Land. Very unsustainable and very unhealthy, in particular to the Navajo. Most conventional builders require unlimited on-demand electricity on-site before beginning a job. We went into our Project with a curiosity of how much could we do without electricity? and how much could we do without using fossil fuels in general?

So far, we have found that it is convenient, and sometimes necessary, to have a fully-charged power drill on hand as back-up when driving screws become too difficult. Yet, for most tasks, a ratcheting screwdriver remains my tool of choice. It is light, easy to maneuver, doesn't make a lot of noise, and surprisingly fast when ratcheting. Other times, we have used the power drill for drilling holes. Yet, usually, our hand drills and braces are up to the task. When they are not, it is due to the poor quality with which they are commonly made now. Once we obtain a well-made hand drill and hand brace, with a full set of old style square bits to choose from, we think we will be able to rely on them fully for hole drilling.

Of course, it took quite a bit of fossil fuel energy to drill our well (the one job that we have hired out for), and we are not considering yet all the energy required to deliver materials to our site. Yet, outside these exceptions, everything else that we have done on our land has been with human-powered hand tools, such as hammers, planes and rasps, spades, shovels and forks, or just our own bare hands and bodies.

After 3-4 years without any on-site electrical generation, we purchased and installed ourselves the components for a simple, modest solar electric system. The solar panel generates up to 125 watts per hour and the auto glass mat battery stores 1200 amphours of energy. We use it to regularly charge that power drill, as well as compact fluorescent lights in our kitchen, rechargeable batteries that go into portable lamps, and small low-energy gadgets such as cell phones. Sometimes we also use this solar system to charge laptop computers and tablets, but this use depends on our having the usual high desert sunny day, and when we don't, these higher energy uses need to wait.

I would like to share one experience that happened during our early years without electricity. The background understanding comes from the Amish. In my studies, I learned that the Amish actually have a fairly liberal approach to innovation. When a community member brings forth a new idea to the elders, they usually allow it a 'test run'. After this examination period, the Amish ask, 'Does this new tool or gadget strengthen our community, or weaken it?' Through this process, most new things are eliminated.

We were finishing up the building of our Yurt deck, adding on a porch by securing 2x4 floor boards to 4x8 cantilevered beams with 3" screws. Everything on the Deck, up to that point, was secured by nails or bolts and done with hand tools. These 3" deck screws were too long and the white fir beams too hard for me to drive them all in all the way by hand, even with my trusty ratcheting screwdriver. We had been loaned an old power drill with weak batteries and a charger. Out of necessity, I would charge them off our car battery. I could not, however, keep these weak drill batteries charged up enough to drive in all the screws all the way either, and so I tried many different combinations of driving in by hand and electricity to help the charge that I did have go farther.

Of all the different variations on driving in these 3" screws, the best and most enjoyable one was found on the day that I had help from both Nyna and our eldest daughter, Madrone. Madrone would get each screw started in its hole that I had predrilled. Then, Nyna would drive it in as far as she could. Finally, I would finish each screw off by driving it in the rest of the way. This was not too difficult for any one of us, and we all enjoyed working together. As we advanced our way down each porch board, I thought, 'this is what the Amish know, and this is the feeling of family and community that they hold onto so dearly'.

With Best wishes for families and communities.