One evening last week I was part of a large and rather diverse group invited to view my friend Jeff's new photovoltaic array, then tour Anathoth Community Farm next door. I thought you might like to come along.
Kris (center, in the black jacket), whose company sells and installs solar panels, is explaining to the group how the system works. Kris's background is as an electrical engineer; he knows what he is talking about.
Jeff (above) explains a bit about the panels. He is on the board of directors of the local electric co-op; several other board members plus the general manager and customer service rep were part of the group.
These are some of the meters and the inverter (converts the solar-produced DC electricity into usable AC). I know enough about electricity and wiring that I listened to all the details, but I don't know enough about it to explain it to you. I do know that Jeff's eight-panel system can generate 1.5 kilowatts when the sun is shining; thus, in an hour when the sun shines, the system produces 1.5 kilowatts hours (Kwh), the unit we are all familiar with from our electric bills. I think I remember Jeff saying that their electrical use averages about 9 Kwh per day. On a sunny day his system can provide a goodly chuck of his electric power, and when it is producing more than he needs he can sell the excess back to the electric co-op at the retail rate. Some systems, in particular off-grid systems, have batteries to store power for nights and cloudy days; Jeff and his wife decided they didn't need that since they didn't plan to go off-grid.
Kris answers questions from the crowd. The guy in the white t-shirt is Mike Miles, founder of Anathoth, whom you last saw here making æbelskiver last year.
If you follow the Anathoth link in the first paragraph, above, you can learn all about that community, so I won't attempt to give you its history here. I'll just show you some of the things that caught my attention there.
Ed, a local city administrator, is standing next to a homemade solar hot water panel that occupies one window of the sunken greenhouse attached to Mike and his wife's house (which is a recycled log building and where they raised their three kids). Sorry about the reflections; you have to look carefully through the glass to see the black pipes.
The little photovoltaic panel above the hot water panel runs a small pump to move the hot water from the panel to the kitchen upstairs.
Note: I think Ed looks like a slightly rumpled version of Chris Noth. [/digression]
Here is the inside of the greenhouse:
Yes, that is a hammock hanging across the space. (Wouldn't that be a great place to lie back and read or knit in the middle of winter?) Just visible at the back right is the curtain around the tub/shower. Gray water from the tub and the kitchen on the floor above drain through pipes buried under the floor of the greenhouse and water things planted in the floor. The house has a composting toilet; that plus the gray water system mean it needs no additional septic system. We were in the basement where the composting tank for the toilet is located; it smelled earthy and a little musty, exactly like an earth-floored basement, which is what it is.
The farm has a couple hoop-house greenhouses and several large outdoor gardens.
See the buckets next to the hoophouse? Those are the diluted product from the urine-diverting toilet. Yes, they fertilize the plants with diluted urine, which is an excellent and free source of nitrogen. (Urine, unless you have a UTI, is sterile.)
That black-painted tank is part of the outdoor solar shower. It is an old water heater, gutted and painted black, to which they hook up a garden hose, let the filled tank sit in the sun all day, and have free hot water for a shower after working in the gardens. (The shower is not fully set up here; it does have an enclosure for the modest.)
Quiz time: what is this house made of? I'll give you a hint: that is stucco on the outside.
Answer: The walls were framed in the traditional manner, then straw bales were packed around the framing, and the interior and exterior were stuccoed. Mike described the whole process, but I'll spare you the details. Just know that the entire 2-story straw bale house was built for about $13,000 and is cozy in the winter and cool in the summer. It is off the grid, too -- see the small solar panel at the right? That produces enough electricity for lighting and to run a laptop. No fridge, though; most food is kept in the farm's main house.
The interior walls are charmingly rough and curved.
This is the last house we saw. Mike has his arm on the exterior portion of the propane refrigerator. By installing it partially outside the house, they can turn off the propane in the winter and let Mother Nature keep the food cold.
No place is really home, though, without animals.
Sometimes I get a little frustrated living in a low-income rural area that seems to be populated largely with [ahem] old farts and rednecks. It is a beautiful area, but occasionally I am jealous of people in the Pacific Northwest -- an educated populace, a mild climate, an abundance of great local food year round. But then I am reminded of the people I know here -- many of whom I am proud to call my friend -- who are trying to live simply and locally and progressively, and I remember that where I live is a great place, too. I do not choose to live the way of the Anathoth inhabitants, but I try in my own small way to move in that direction. The day is coming -- when the oil is gone -- when we will all have to live that simply.
