Old Way of Seeing

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - mid-January Update

2012-01-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

The Yukon's Energy Battery just got bigger! - Yukon Energy mentioned that their Mayo-B and Aishihik 3 turbines are now running, so now the stored water will go further, making more energy.

As of mid-January, the energy stored in the reservoirs is about 68% full, about 4% more energy that on average for this time of year. I wonder how fast it will be used over the next two weeks as it has been so cold?

Idea for improving affordable housing availability

2012-01-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

Late last year the Government of Yukon sought ideas for improving affordable housing availability. The following is my suggestion that would help deal with all the vacant and under-developed lots downtown:

My specific suggestion is to move to land value taxation from our current property improvement tax system. A solution lies in how property tax is assessed and would be revenue neutral (ie. wouldn't cost government anything). Our current tax assessment process is primarily based on the value of the improvements on the property, with less emphasis given to the land value itself. This assessment method is actually a disincentive to redevelopment and development of revenue generating buildings (e.g. rental or multi-housing). In fact, under our current property tax assessment system, holding fallow or underutilized land for speculation is encouraged. This is because if a developer wishes to develop a high quality, multi-use building, the tax on that property rises, whereas if they do nothing, or construct a low-quality development, the property tax is lower.

The alternative to property tax assessment is land-value taxation. Under this system, the tax on real estate is commensurate with the site's potential value, regardless of what buildings may occupy the site. Therefore, holding fallow or underutilized land is a cost to the developer. The developer will want to construct the highest quality (and highest income yielding) development on the property as possible, comfortable in knowing the taxation will not change significantly. Under the land-value taxation system, holding land is expensive, and high-quality re-development is actually encouraged by the taxation system. A good overview is found on wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax, or another nice summary of this system can be found at: http://www.sprawlwatch.org/taxincentives.html

Obviously the land-value taxation would be gradually moved to over a number of years so land-owners know it is coming and it doesn't cause a tax-shock for them. For example, increase the land portion of the tax assessment by 10% and decrease the improvement portion by 10% every year for 10 year. At the end, the tax would be assessed 100% on land and 0% on improvements. The specific rates would need to be looked at so that on balance the tax is revenue-neutral relative to the current tax base.

This would be an easy, revenue neutral way to get some of that fallow-land in Whitehorse into providing housing for people, and would ultimately lead to a better built environment for the community. Some have criticized the City (perhaps unjustly) for "not doing its part" by allowing all these derelict lots downtown, but instead going and developing in new areas. This could be a means to directly show that the municipality, supported by YG, is doing its part to provide sustainable housing to the community.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - mid-December Update

2011-12-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

The water continues to be used up fast, we used 6% of the stored water in the past two weeks. That's 11% of the stored energy used up from mid-November to mid-December. And overall, we're about 2% lower than normal for this time of year.

However, Mayo-B and Aishihik-3 should be online soon, which will make our "energy battery" about 10% bigger (those two projects add about 40 GWh/yr to the system).

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - December 1st Update

2011-12-06T22:34:00.001-08:00

The energy storage is dropping fast - we used 5% of our stored water in two weeks and we're now down to 85%. This is actually about average for this time of year, but I guess November was a cold month so we used a lot of energy. Aishihik is fuller than normal, but Marsh Lake is coming down fast

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - mid-November Update

2011-11-19T10:03:00.001-08:00

The reservoirs are 90% full, which is about average for this time of year. Over the last 15 days, we used up 6% of the water stored in the reservoirs. Hopefully Mayo-B will come online soon, and that will effectively "enlarge" our energy battery.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - November 1 Update

2011-11-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

The reservoirs are still pretty full at 96%, about 6% more than normal. I suspect we are ahead of normal because Aishihik and Mayo were shut down for their upgrades, which kept those reservoirs topped up.

Let's see Northern Lights again in Whitehorse - help stop light pollution

2011-10-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

Let's reduce light pollution in Whitehorse and be able to see the stars and northern lights again.

But what can we do?

Well the City is doing a zoning bylaw update and so this is the time to get light pollution prevention measures (aka Dark-Sky provisions) put into the bylaw. Lots of other cites and towns have done it, so we can too. In fact, the International Dark Sky Association has even produced an example ordinance to help communities implement light pollution measures.

Why? It is summed up nicely in the introduction of IDS' Lighting Code Handbook:

"All of us live underneath the sky, and all of us need quality outdoor lighting. Careless use of outdoor lighting damages the night time environment in many ways for everyone, often decreasing security and safety or even creating hazards through glare and distraction where none would exist without the lighting. But the loss of the naturally dark star-filled sky is a tragic consequence for the environment and the human soul, akin to the loss of our forested landscapes or even the loss of fresh air we breathe. The night sky has been a canvas of our hopes and inspirations since we have been aware enough to raise our eyes from the ground. But our children are more and more growing up never seeing the stars, robbed of this inspiration of the ages.

It need not happen.

Careful and considerate use of lighting at night, using light only when it is really needed, where it is needed, and as much as is needed and no more, would unblanketed the stars in all but the largest cities. Compared to typical outdoor lighting practices, such "quality lighting" on average puts less than half the light into the sky, in some cases even less than one-tenth as much. Imagine it, in Whitehorse, a city of 20,000 residents, effective lighting could bring back the endless skyways and northern light filled skies of a village of 2000. The universe above could return to our towns and homes, to inspire the coming generations as it inspired the creators of Orion the Hunter with the Golden Fleece of stars tightly in his grip.

Quality lighting brings other substantial benefits as well. Lack of glare and excessive contrast brings improved visibility, especially to the aging eye. Elimination of wasted light saves money, energy and resources, which in turn reduces air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions caused by energy production and resource extraction. Good lighting returns a sense of balance to the night, and gives a quality appearance to our town when the sun goes down.

But poor lighting practice is rampant. Careless and excessive use of lighting in our outdoor environments causes extensive damage to the aesthetics of the night, at the same time that is compromises safety and utility, the very uses for which it is usually installed. Bad lighting hurts everyone. It starts a cascade of negative consequences--beginning with the loss of our views of the heavens, continuing through falling levels of safety and utility, irritation of our neighbour and wildlife, disturbance of the rhythms of day and night that are vital to many natural systems, damage the aesthetic appearance of our communities, wasted monetary and natural resources used to produce wasted light, and increased air pollution and carbon dioxide levels from wasted fossil fuels. There is nothing good that comes from bad lighting. Quality lighting costs less than bad lighting, in the long term and even usually in the short term. Everyone wins when lighting is done right. "

And the City supports this initiative, as stated in Sustainability portion of the Official Community Plan, which says:

"13.1.3 The reduction of light pollution and energy usage of light fixtures shall be examined."

So let's turn this planning idea into reality. Participate in the current zoning re-write process and support implementation of light pollution prevention measures in the bylaw. Also let City staff and councillors know that you support seeing the stars and northern lights in Whitehorse.

If you, or someone you know, is particularly interested in this topic and want to form an ad-hoc advocacy group, then please contact me.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - Mid October Update

2011-10-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

Reservoirs remain pretty close to full at 97%. Normally by this time of year they'd be down to 92% full. Perhaps because of the Mayo and Aishihik hydro plant shutdowns over the few weeks allowed those reservoirs not to be used. I notice the diesels at Whitehorse are off now, so maybe Aishihik hydro plant got hooked back up?

bicycle events & cycling advocacy links

2011-10-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

At our Transition Whitehorse meeting tonight we discussed the ideas around doing a bicycle event and perhaps establishing a cycling coalition in Whitehorse.

On the topic of events, many cites are now doing Sunday street events were streets are closed to cars and they have community cycling and active recreation events. The grandaddy of this in recent times is Bogota's Ciclovia:

Portland Oregon has something similar called "Sunday Parkways":

As for bicycle advocacy groups, here are a couple I know of:

Portland's Bicycle Transportation Alliance
Victoria has Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - Sept. 30th Update - Plus New Feature!

2011-10-01T00:36:00.000-07:00

Yukon's reservoirs remain petty much close to full. We're at 97% full, with Marsh Lake slipping a little. But I see we're still spilling at Whitehorse, so I'm sure Marsh Lake will be get "topped-up" before winter flows hit.

I've added a new feature to the energy battery graph - it is a little red marker on the side that shows where we are at normally for this time of year. This is the average reservoir levels over the past 10 years. So right now we are a bit ahead of where we are normally for this time of year.

I also saw that Yukon Energy on thier blog have picked up on this ideas of an energy battery or gas tank in thier post on "Full Tanks". This post has some nice graphs of the reservoir levels this year and a bit of interesting commentary, so check it out.

Street Pickles

2011-09-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

I love pickled carrots.

I figure I could eat a jar a week. That means I need 52 jars, plus enough to give away for Christmas.

So I started a carrot farm in the boulevard. The boulevard is that useless piece of grass between your property and the curb. Technically, it is the City's land, but I still have to mow it. So I built a raised carrot bed in that space last year, and then a second one this year. All I grow in there is carrots, easy peasy.

This weekend I harvested and pickled my "new" bed - the bed is about 12' long x 4' wide and I got 47lbs of carrots out of it. Of course, it is new dirt, which really helps. We'll see what I get out of it next year.

Here's the pickling setup this weekend. All of this is from the one bed. Note the milk crate behind me that still needs to be cut up.

I got 39 jars (about 25L) of pickled carrots out of this bed. I should be good till New Years...

Yukon's First Privately Developed SuperGreen CERTIFIED Home

2011-09-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

Last week we finally got our SuperGreen Certification from Yukon Housing on the duplex we built at 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road in Takhini North (some photos of the home can be found here). Although there have been a number of excellent super-insulated homes built in Whitehorse over the last few years, we're the first ones to actually get certified as a "SuperGreenHome". This makes 38&40 Nijmegan Rd. the first privately developed home to receive SuperGreen Certification.

The requirements for SuperGreen certification generally consist of very high energy efficient performance (EnerGuide Rating at least 85) plus ventilation meeting the F326 using an HRV and designed, installed and balanced by an approved GreenHome Ventilation Advisor. A home built to EnerGuide Rating of 85 requires half the heating that of a new home built in Whitehorse (nominally EnerGuide Rating of 80).

Our second "green" certification, LEED Canada for Homes is still in the works (not the fastest process...)

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - September 15th Update

2011-09-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

Pretty much they are all full now - both Mayo and Marsh Lakes are "full". Aishihik is still only 95% full, not sure why. Anyway, looks like the energy battery is charged for winter. I wonder how long we'll be able to keep the reservoirs topped up.

Whitehorse to Mayo & Return on one tank of gas (821 km)

2011-09-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

I had some work last week up in Mayo drilling a couple of new water supply wells for the town. Over the past couple of years I've gotten interested in "eco-driving" - that is modifying my driving behaviour to maximize fuel efficiency. So, I decided to see if I could make 1000km on one tank of gas. I didn't quite make that, but I did get to Mayo and back on 66L of gas. I turns out my car has an 80L tank, but that includes a 12 L "reserve", so it tells you are empty at 68L used.

And no, I don't drive a Prius or a Fit - it's my big old German tank - a 1991 Audi turbo quattro - a big all-wheel drive sedan. Not bad eh?

So, how did I get this far on one tank?

Here is the secret: I drove the speed limit.

Yup, that's pretty much it. Imagine if everyone drove the speed limit - we could probably reduce vehicle fuel usage in the Yukon by 20%! Ok, I had a couple of other "hypermileing" tricks, but I don't know how much of a difference they made:

light load (just me in the car)
coasting down big hills with the clutch depressed
very slow acceleration
shift up early (5th gear as low as 60km/hr)
NEVER touch the brakes if you can avoid it
no radio or other electrical loads

Another interesting thing is I had a really good tailwind going north to Mayo. I averaged about 31 mpg on the way up. On the way back to Whitehorse, there was almost no wind (or even a slight headwind), and my mileage was much lower - 28 mpg. Interesting that the wind could make a 10% difference, even for a low-drag car such as mine.

David MacKay has a nice summary of the effect of speed on fuel efficiency of a car in his excellent book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air".

Enhancing Biomass Energy Conversion...

2011-09-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

...or in other words, I put a new catalytic combustor in my woodstove tonight.

This is the third catalytic I've put in this stove. We have a Dutchwest Large catalytic woodstove which we put in when we built the house in late 2003. We use it to provide most of our heating through the winter and burn about 4 to 5 cords of wood a year. At one time the Dutchwest stoves were one of cleanest burning woodstoves.

If you are unfamiliar with woodburning technology, a catalytic combustor "burns" the woodsmoke, making more heat from the fire and making the fire very clean burning with less smoke/particulate emissions. The catalytic lowers the combustion temperature from around 1000F down to 500F, letting the smoke "ignite" at a much lower temperature. Many new woodstove use "advanced combustion" technology which does not use a catalytic combustor, but these stoves are not as efficient/clean burning. The downside of catalytic combustors is you have to take care of them and they have a limited lifespan.

The first catalytic combustor lasted about 4 years. They say they should last up to five, so that isn't so bad. When I opened the stove up, the catalytic was badly cracked and crumbling. I've now learned that you need to be a bit "gentle" with your catalytic and not shock-cool it by adding "wet" wood to your fire by engaging the catalytic right away when refueling (the steam from the wood shock cools the catalytic, causing it to crack). I learned a lot about use, care and maintenance of the catalytic combustor in the woodstove since then. There is a really good guide called "Care and Replacement Manual for Woodstove Catalytic Combustors" that I found on Condor Corporation's (the folks that I got my new steel catalytic from) website.

The second catalytic only seemed to last a couple of years. Last year we had a lot less heating coming out of the stove. So, I ordered a new catalytic for this year. I got a so-called "Steel-cat" which is a steel catalytic converter instead of a ceramic one. It costs about $50 more, but is supposed to be more robust, ignites at about 400F instead of 500F (which is a lot lower!) and is supposed to be more efficient because there is more reaction surface due to the thinner walls of the catalytic honeycomb.

This picture shows my current catalytic as I pulled it out (honeycomb thing on the left). It looks like it was still in good shape, but lots of ash and debris on it. The air supply below looked pretty ashed/clogged up as well. Maybe it wasn't performing well because of clogging? The maintenance guides say you should open it up once a season and vacuum it out. I guess I should start doing that each year.

None the less, I have a new catalytic so I put it in. In this second picture you can see the new "steelcat" catalytic combustor on the right compared to the old ceramic one. Definitely much thinner walls and more open area, so hopefully that will make it burn better (more reaction area for the combustion to happen on, making more heat and less smoke).

So, how well does it work? Well, I made a small 2-log fire tonight to try it out. It seemed to light-off really easy with the combustor getting up to 800F with even the small fire. My old one seemed to struggle just to stay ignited (they "ignite" at around 500F).

And the heat seems to really be cranking out, which feels pretty nice. Maybe this means a few less logs for me to haul in this winter.

New steel catalytic combustor installed before re-assembling the woodstove top.

Street lights are making humanity stupid

2011-09-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

I think street lights are making us stupid, unimaginative and uncreative.

Why?

Last weekend we went camping out at Tatuchun Lake, trying to squeeze our last camping weekends in before winter. There was only one other couple there in the campground. It was a totally clear night, and when looking up, I was awestruck and inspired by the amazing depth of stars. That's just not something you see in town. I was filled with a sense of wonder and desire to explore.

What I realized is that spirit of discovery and exploration is stimulated by dark nights and seeing a full sky of stars. Without seeing the stars, I wonder how much of our (our being "humanity's") creativity and enthusiasm to learn, explore and discover is suppressed?

I've read that one of the most significant benefits of the space program in the '50s and '60s was the amount of creativity, science, engineering and learning that was stimulated in society. Since the space program has waned, we've had a real drop off in research and young people entering science and engineering. How exactly are all these M.B.As, buisness majors and IT, dot.com financiers going to advance society in REAL terms? Not much I'm afraid. The stimulation of science and research in society was a major argument for a Mars mission in Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must".

Kind of sad that we no longer want to explore. I wonder how much more inspired to learn and discover we and our children would be if we could routinely see the wonder and inspiration of sky full of stars. Are street lights and their light pollution robbing us of this gift?

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - September 1st Update

2011-09-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Looks like the reservoirs (our "energy battery") are just about full, just in time for winter! Marsh Lake, the Yukon's biggest reservoir, is just about full and so it Mayo Lake. Oddly, Aishihik has dropped a bit, down to 94% full, from last post. Perhaps it has to something with letting water out because of the flooding on the Aishihik road?

Yukon's Reservoir Levels -August 15th Update

2011-08-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Looks like reservoirs are leveling off. Both Aishihik & Mayo lake are "full", but Marsh Lake looks lower than normal and is only 87% full. Hopefully it will get filled by winter time. Over the last two weeks, the total energy in storage has gone up only 2%. Overall, our "green energy battery" is about 92% charged.

Early Results Show SuperGreen Duplex Even More Efficient Than Expected

2011-08-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

The owners of the SuperGreen duplex have been kind enough to share with us their energy bills from first five months of occupancy of the home. These early results show that the building is preforming more efficiently than expected, with over 20% less energy used than the energy model predicted. The graph below shows predicted energy usage (shown as bars) versus the actual total energy usage in the duplex (shown as a green line) for the months of February through June, 2011. The red line show is the energy usage of a similarly sized conventional new home in Whitehorse.

Month (2011)	Predicted Energy Usage		Actual Energy Usage
Month (2011)	kWh	$	kWh	$
February	1,698	$ 201.71	1,699	$ 206.51
March	1,516	$ 177.92	1,309	$ 143.47
April	1,186	$ 134.77	909	$ 104.32
May	1,119	$ 125.99	686	$ 82.48
June	1,070	$ 119.66	551	$ 71.62
Total	6,588	$ 760.05	5,154	$ 608.40

Actual Energy Usage Versus Modelled:
A widely used residential energy modelling software called HOT2000 was used at the time of design and construction to predict the building’s energy usage. HOT2000 is NRCan’s software for determining a building’s EnerGuide rating. It has been validated through years of use on hundreds of thousands (if not millions?) of homes across Canada.

A key observation here is actual energy usage is very close or better than predicted. There have been critics who have suggested that the predicted energy usage will not be achieved. As can be clearly seen here, the energy efficiency has been achieved, and surpassed! The criticism of energy modelling of residential buildings is simply unfounded, and may stem from the problems commercial/institutional buildings are having with energy performance. A good summary of the problems large, new buildings are having with energy efficiency is summarized Joseph Lstiburek’s article “BSI-007: Prioritizing Green—It's the Energy Stupid*”. However, residential buildings are a different kettle of fish: they are much simpler and energy modelling and analysis is well established and results are predictable.

This model has some “default” assumption regarding energy usage in the home for lighting, appliances and other plug loads. My experience, and as shown here at the SuperGreen duplex, is that these default “baseloads” are much higher than what a typical energy-conscious person uses. As we can see in the month of June, where there is almost no heating required, baseloads in the SuperGreen duplex is almost half of that predicted. Way to go guys on being energy-conscious homeowners!

I’ve also had the privilege of seeing over two years of actual energy monitoring data from Yukon Housing’s first two SuperGreen homes, located in Watson Lake. These two homes show similar performance, with their actual energy usage being within 20% of the predicted energy consumption.

SuperGreen Energy Usage Versus a Conventional Home
For comparison purpose (and to help illustrated the predicted versus actual energy performance of the building) the energy usage of a similarly sized, new home in Whitehorse is shown on the graph as the red line. This represents an electrically heated new home built in compliance with the City of Whitehorse’s energy efficiency bylaw. By way of comparison, over these 5 months, total energy costs for the conventional home would have been $1570. The actual energy costs over the same period for the SuperGreen duplex have only been $608. That is less than half the energy cost – a savings of $965 in just five months! Over a year, that might amount to savings almost equivelent to two whole mortgage payments.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels -July 28th Update

2011-07-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

I missed doing the mid-July update because I was distracted with the Canadian Orienteering Championships we hosted here in Whitehorse (a great success by the way, super fun). Anyway, so an early month end update instead. Reservoirs are getting near to full - overall 90% filled with largest reservoir, Marsh Lake, the lowest at 85% `full`.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels -July 1st Update

2011-07-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Yukon's Reservoir Levels -June 15th Update Lake level

2011-06-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Shallow Bay to Deep Creek Adventure Run

2011-06-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the run/trek part of the small adventure races I've run, but then the rest of those races (bike/paddle, etc.) was always a slog. I convinced Brent to do our own Adventure Run, without all of the other "stuff". So today we had a totally awesome run from our friends' place near Shallow Bay (s. end of Lake Laberge), over the grassy hills and ridges west of Jackfish Bay, to finish near Deep Creek. Totally good route, lots of great open hill sides to run on, great weather.

Here's our silly pictures from the run,

and then route we took (be patient, the map takes a little while to load). Click on the map to add the satellite view, then you can see all the nice grassy hills.

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Ok, and extra geeky, the 3d flythrough:

Shallow Bay to Deep Creek adventure run and more runs in Lake Laberge, YK on MapMyRUN. Find run

Yukon's Reservoir Levels -June 1st Update

2011-06-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

Lake levels are rising quickly - already the stored energy in Yukon's reservoirs is at 27% (up 18% in just two weeks!) Marsh Lake is filling quickly. Also Aishihik may fill quick since the Aishihik plant was shut down for the month of June to install the third turbine (see the Yukon Energy blog post here about the need to conserve even now!)

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - May 15th Update

2011-05-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Update of the energy storage graph for the Yukon. Mayo and Aishihik Lakes are starting to refill. Marsh Lake is down to low supply. Overall, energy storage is down to 9%, most of which is in Aishihik Lake.

Eco-Beer

2011-05-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

No fossil fuels were harmed in the drinking of this beer (well almost no fossil fuels):

Heard of the "100-Mile Diet"? Well this is my "100-Mile Drinking Diet" - that is drinking products only made within a 100 miles. Here in Whitehorse, this pretty much limits us to Yukon Brewing Company products. I just re-discovered my growlers, and so I refilled them on my way home from work today. Fossil-Fuel-Free elements of tonight's refreshment include:

locally produced beer, using local, sustainably produced City of Whitehorse drinking water,
powered by renewable hydroelectricity for the Whitehorse dam,
decanted directly into my growler bottle at the brewery (no transportation, other than rolling the keg over to the taps)
using a re-usable glass bottle,
and conveyed back home in my Xtracycle!

I'm sure the grain and other ingredients are from outside, but really that is a small proportion of the total embodied energy to this tasty beverage.

Yukon's Reservoir Levels - May 1st Update

2011-05-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Update of the energy storage graph for the Yukon. Looks like Mayo Lake is basically down to its low level, and Marsh is getting down to the bottom (1% energy storage left). But lakes have started to level off, so maybe spring freshet is here to start re-filling the battery. Overall, energy storage is down to 9%, most of which is in Aishihik Lake.

Yukon's Current Energy Levels

2011-04-22T00:10:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the excellent energy usage charts now online at Yukon Energy's website (http://www.yukonenergy.ca/customer/residential/consumption/waf/), I wanted to create a graphic that showed how much energy we left in our "batteries" - that is how much water is left in our reservoirs for renewable energy production. See below:

The percentages shown are based on the water level remaining in the Yukon's three main water storage lakes (Marsh, Mayo and Aishihik) from Water Survey of Canada's real-time data multiplied by the energy generated by that stored water. So, this is a pretty accurate measure of how much total energy we have left in storage.

Local Economic Leakage from Fossil Fuel Usage

2011-04-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the film "Economics of Happiness" hosted on Friday by Transition Whitehorse, I thought I'd look at how much money we are shipping out of the Yukon from using fossil fuels. Specifically:

how much could be re-invest in the Yukon's economy if we used locally produced energy?

Based on 2009 energy usage data for the Yukon, and current fossil fuel prices, we lost:

$30 million / year in heating oil (26 million litres were used at a current price of $1.17/L);
$7 million / year in propane for heating (7.2 million litres were used at a current price of $0.98/L);
$2.5 million / year in diesel to generate electricity (2.5 million litres at an assumed price of $1/L); and
$114 million / year in vehicle fuel (87.5 million litres were used at a current price of $1.299/L).

In total, that is $154 million / year spent on fossil fuels, the majority of which was lost to the Yukon's economy.

Looking at the $37 million spent on space heating alone ($30 million in oil and $7 million in propane), this is delivered-energy equivalent to 256 GWh/yr with a weighted average price of $0.147/kWh. Surely for this price and quantity we could supply this from our locally abundant renewable resources, such as hydro, biomass (wood and/or pellets) and wind, thereby re-capturing all of this expenditure to the Yukon's economy? And it's carbon-neutral as a bonus.

Now, I'm no economist, so perhaps someone who understands these matters more can comment here, but as I see it re-capturing $37 million in leakage from the Yukon's economy is equivalent to a 2.2% increase in the Yukon's GDP. In 2009, the Yukon was Canada's poster child for economic growth with an GDP growth of just 1.4%. What an easy GDP boost--stop sending money Outside for fossil fuels, buy Local Energy!

Any current or aspiring politicians listening for an easy win?

Photos from inside Whitehorse's Most Energy Efficient Home

2011-04-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Richard for the awesome photography. Click on the photo to go the full photo gallery:

How Much Energy does the Yukon Need?

2011-03-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yukon Energy recently hosted its energy planning charrette, which has generated quite a bit of discussion in the community about planning for our energy future. As part of the charrette, an exercise was done where participants had to develop an energy options portfolio to meet future electrical demands - 500 GWh/yr, 600 GWh/yr or even 1000 GWh/yr. For perspective, currently the Yukon generates approximately 400 GWh/yr of electrical energy.

So, inspired partially by this event, and also the energy accounting in by David MacKay's very engaging book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air", I thought I'd do an updated analysis of how much ENERGY (not just electricity) that the Yukon actually needs. A total energy picture is very important if we, as a community, have a sustainable energy vision for our future and want to reduce or even eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.

Full Disclosure: As part of my day job, I was retained by Yukon Energy to particpate in the charrette as one of the energy resource technical experts. However, I am also a long-time Yukoner and so I write this based on my personal interest in sustainability and this post does not reflect the views of my employer or Yukon Energy Corp.

What this analysis shows is where does our total energy usage in the Yukon come from (the primary energy sources) and what do we use it for (Energy Use). The electricity portion of energy use also includes electrical space heating, but I don't know what portion of electrical energy usage is for space heating - so it is all mixed in there. Oh, and "biomass" is the cool word for "firewood".

Methodology: I've based this on my earlier "Yukon's Energy Budget" analysis, but I've updated this with the most current data from 2009 Yukon Bureau of Stats annual report. As for end usage, I've adjusted downward the actual delivered energy for space heating by 78% average efficiency for fossil fuels, and 65% for biomass. Note that pellets are missing from this inventory because we have no statistics of pellet consumption / utilization in the Yukon. I don't think it is a significant portion of our total energy usage, but maybe that is something someone can start to track.

Observations:

75% of our energy in the Yukon comes from fossil fuels. So, we are a LONG way from having a sustainable energy system in the Yukon.
If we are to start thinking about a fully sustainable energy future, then perhaps we need to start thinking about the total energy usage picture - something on the order of 1,400 GWh/yr - not just the 400 GWh/yr of electricity we currently use.
Transportation is a huge portion of our fossil fuel usage. However, we don't know anything about how much of this energy is used for long-haul transport versus local (e.g. <100km) driving around. Again, this is something we should figure out because it is such a big piece of our total energy usage in the Yukon.

Maybe in a future post I'll share my ideas of how we could move to a sustainable energy future, and what are the implications for our investments as a community.

Sustainable Design Elements Signs from Open House - 40 Nijmegan Rd.

2011-03-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to our open house at 40 Nijmegan Rd. on Friday. And an even bigger thank you to the hard working team who made it possible.

A number of folks asked if they could have a copy of the sustainable design information signs around the building, so here there are for your perusal:

40 Nijmegan Rd. Open House - Friday March 25th

2011-03-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Our open house for the SuperGreen duplex on 40 Nijmegan Road will be Friday, March 25th, noon to 7pm. Come see one of the most energy efficient homes in the Yukon - we'd love to see you there!

Comparing Heating Costs of A SuperGreen Home

2011-03-06T23:05:00.001-08:00

We've recently completed construction of our SuperGreen duplex in Takhini North. One side is being lived in already by a pair of proud new owners of what maybe the most energy efficient home in the Yukon. We're just getting the energy modelling and LEED certification wrapped up now, so the final rating is not yet in, but I thought it would be interesting to compare energy use in this home versus a "conventional" home in Whitehorse.

Below is a graph of estimated heating costs. I've based this on typical floor size and heat load data from Yukon Housing's analysis of energy usage in Yukon homes. Energy usage for our SuperGreen duplex is based on the HOT2000 model results (which in my experience are pretty accurate estimates.) I've use a heating oil cost of $1.15/L (average cost as of February 1st, 2011) and an electrical cost of $0.11/kWh.

What is interesting is even compared to the City's new energy bylaw compliant building, our SuperGreen duplex is still dimes-to-dollars on heating cost compared to this SuperGreen home. And I shutter to think about paying the heating bills on one of the vintage Takhini duplexes...

Total Home Energy Use
It is interesting now to look at the proportion of energy use for Space Heating versus other energy use in the building. Here is the energy profile of a "conventional" home in Whitehorse, versus our SuperGreen duplex.

Total energy usage is the SuperGreen
duplex is more than half that of a conventional home. In the SuperGreen home we see that Water Heating and is actually a greater energy use than Space Heating! With respect to Lights & Appliances, my experience is that default values HOT2000 (the energy modelling software) over estimates the usage in this category. I expect total usage in the SuperGreen duplex to be lower given the EnergyStar appliances installed, drain water heat recovery and the energy efficient lighting.

What this analysis tells me is that we've made great progress on the heat-loss side of the building. I think the next steps in energy efficient homes is now to look at water heating; and we need even better heat recovery on our ventilation systems....heat-pump HRVs anybody?

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Xtracycle Adventure on Westside Express Service

2011-02-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

We did a nice ride today through the Fanno Creek greenway from Beaverton to Tualtin, OR with our sweet new xtracycles.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"&amp;amp;gt;br&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;a &amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"&amp;amp;gt;href&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/27984004"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;A ride mapped on 02/07/2011&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"&amp;amp;gt;br&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"&amp;amp;gt;br&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;a &amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"&amp;amp;gt;href&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/?location=Beaverton, OR"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Cycling Routes / Bike Rides in &amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"&amp;amp;gt;Beaverton&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;, OR&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18"&amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;;&amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19"&amp;amp;gt;br&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Took the MAX light rail from downtown Portland over to Beaverton. Technically, the Xtracycles are too "big" for MAX, but we went off-rush hour and had no problems. One thing we figured out was take a bungee cord and strap the front wheel to the post behind the bike rack. This combined with the Xtracycle kickstand makes the bike stand-up very stable in the train.

The fun part of the ride (for me) was to take the WES diesel commuter train back to Beaverton. We again went counter-flow for the commuters so we had space.

Of course, we forgot to bring the camera today, but the bikes again fit really well. The WES has a set of straps and you can strap two bikes in at the handicap space. In this picture below (stolen from Tri-met) you can see how it works, but on the train we went on, there were not the two seat there, so there was lots of space for the Xtracycles, and they strapped in really well.

The WES is very comfortable and nice way to end a bike ride - and even has a nice friendly conductor - not something you see on most transit.

First Run in Portland

2011-01-29T15:42:00.001-08:00

We just arrived in Portland, Oregon yesterday. Ferry trip down was great, no bad weather. Had a good run in Sitka. Here in Portland, no rain and a very plesent 12oC.

Went for a hard training run today in the neighborhood, and did a cool "Map My Run" thing with the GPS watch:

&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/27620998"&amp;gt;Tillamook / Thompson&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/?location=Portland, OR"&amp;gt;Find more Runs in Portland, OR&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;

Ah, such a geek.

Dmitry Orlov: Social Collapse Best Practices

2010-11-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

When thinking about issues such as peak oil, it is important to consider broader social implications. Here is very entertaining lecture by a fellow named Dmitry Orlov.:

http://fora.tv/2009/02/13/Dmitry_Orlov_Social_Collapse_Best_Practices

It's a video, about an hour an half you can watch online. Dmitry is a Russian-American fellow with a very classic Russian black sense of humour. What is really interesting about this lecture is he sees the United States on the same route of superpower collapse that the Soviet Union went on. If you listen to some of the rhetoric coming out of the States lately (particular from the far right wing), you can hear a lot of the reminiscence / anger at the loss of their former "glory" that Demitry described as happening after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The second observation he makes is how men are particularly poorly equipped to deal with social collapse.

LEED/SuperGreen Duplex - Finished Exterior

2010-11-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of quick photos of the exterior of our LEED for Homes registered project. We're essentially done the outside, just a few things to finish up like the gable vent. Inside is getting painted right now and then its on to interior trim!

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

Steam Powered Backpack

2010-11-01T23:31:00.001-07:00

For this year's Halloween costumes, we decided to go as "Steampunk".

Always up for a challenge, I figured I could actually make "steam" as part of my costume.

So, below is a few pics of my steam powered backpack. You can see all of our Steampunk costume pics here.

Here's a few pictures of the the steam backpack under construction - and yes, it made "steam". There is a cheap Canadian Tire fog machine in the upper part of the backpack, a large inverter bolted to the top, and then a battery booster pack in the bottom half of the backpack (the black "boiler/fuel tank" part of the back). And yes, it is heavy - but its oh so cool to have a steaming Halloween costume.

Special thanks to my bros for all the goggles and other paraphernalia.

Updated Yukon Home Heating Costs

2010-10-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'm often asked what is the best home heating source? Oil? Wood? Propane? Surely not electricity! This used to be quite a conundrum five or six years ago back when heating oil was $0.50/L. But now that we are looking at $1.00/L for heating fuel, and climbing, the question is much easier to answer.After a bit of nagging, the good folks over at Yukon Housing have updated thier home heating cost charts for Whitehorse. This is where to look to answer "what is the least costly heating source". Of course, the best answer is "don't use any (or much) heating energy" - if you super insulate, you are much less at the whim of heating energy fluctuation.

Transition Town Whitehorse?

2010-09-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

I spent this all this weekend with 30 to 40 other Whitehorse (or near-Whitehorse) residents in a workshop called "Training for Transition". As I've been interested in community resilience (e.g. preparing ourselves for the Post-Carbon Age), I was really excited that others in Whitehorse were thinking the same thing and that an event such as this would come to Whitehorse.

The purpose of the workshop was to introduce a community engagement model for responding to the threats of climate change, fossil fuel dependence (Peak-Oil) and economic instability and inequity. Below is a quick, 3min video overview of the basis / rationale for the Transition initiative.

The Training for Transition workshop was put on by the Canadian Center for Community Renewal and Transition Victoria and hosted by the Northern Climate ExChange.

The thing about the Transition model that is attractive is that it bridges the multiple elements of sustainability well. It isn't a single issue concept. Rather, it embraces all of the interrelationships of social, environmental and economic elements of a community and recognizes that all the parts are needed for local resilience.

The really cool things about the workshops were:

how many people showed up, and stayed for two days: I didn't realize so many people cared and had a similar vision for our town; that was so encouraging.
the variety of people there: even though there was a definite leaning towards the "green" and socially minded segment of Whitehorse, there was still quite a broad mix of people. I think I might have been one of the more "diverse" as I was the lone capitalist in the mix. (I'm not really sure I'm a capitalist, but I do have a keen interest in economic sustainability. I think the economic part is too often overlooked in the Green Rush, and that we can't have the other two without having our financial house in order.)
No one was there represented an organization: it seemed that everyone there was simply as a community member. That's great grass-roots and makes it way easier for us to connect as individual people and neighbors.

What was so encouraging was that even though there were a wide variety of individual interests and views, there seems to be common vision for building our community so that it weathers the storm. I think that is a healthy way for us to realize "We are all in this together" (as Red Green would say). We need to help each other with a common vision and help build bridges over the polarization in the Yukon.

A big thanks to Stephanie and Wendy for making this happen. Getting a transition initiative going here in Whitehorse is something I've pondered for a long time, but didn't know how to start. Or if anyone else was interested or cared. This has been a really encouraging start and I hope it can grow momentum here in our town.

There's a kick-off Transition Town meeting planned for next week. If you are interested to know more or to participate, you can contact me (I'm in the phone book).

P.S.

I found an even better (and shorter - 2min.) primer on Peak Oil and Transition Towns:

Flashing

2010-09-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Flashing windows correctly

I recently saw a quote that said:

there are two types of windows: Those that leak, and those that will leak¹

This sums up my paranoid view of windows pretty well. We invest all this effort in making shelter with really good walls, and the we go cut big gaping holes, called windows, in those walls.

Because of our supposed "semi-arid" climate in the Yukon, the building industry has gotten very complacent in many of the water management details of our buildings. Yet, I've seen bulk water coming through windows (e.g. windows dripping water inside) even in some well built, R2000 buildings build by some of our better builders. I look around town at buildings being built, and immediate I can tell by the window detailing if the building is doomed to failure. This has made me very paranoid about water management, especially if we are trying to build "sustainable" homes.

In our SuperGreen duplex we are building, we have done the windows detailing right. However, this is far beyond "common" practice here in Whitehorse, and yet flashing windows correctly is not hard to do and does not cost much more (especially when you look at the total cost of the building!)

What we did was follow the window water management and flashing detailed prescribed by building scientist Joe Lstibruek (most succinctly illustrated in Figure 10 of his article "Drainage, Holes and Moderation ). I've reproduced those window flashing details below, without permission:
As is a chronic problem, you can't get all of these materials in Whitehorse. So, for example, noone can seem to supply flexible flashing. So, instead we used Blueskin which is carried by both Kilrich and Igloo. Here is the instructions for building a window sill backdam with Blueskin:
Make sure you use the Blueskin primer - which is basically a contact cement. This make the Blueskin stuff stick really well. Below are pictures of our pan flashing installed. Note the corner gussets. We also made the backdam (the small "ridge" at the inside edge of the sill flashing) with 3/4" wide neoprene gasket (the stuff for window and door sealing) installed before the Blueskin waterproof membrane. This gasket material made the backdam compressible in case we needed to squeeze or shim the window in, but still creates a ridge to prevent any water flowing towards the inside:

Here is another view of the sill flashing from the inside:

Not only are the windows flashed, but the door openings too:

And then, install the windows. Once the windows are on, use flashing tape to seal the window flanges. Most builders simply use the red Tuck tape, but really this tape is not rated for this application. So, we used proper flashing tape - you can get actually Typar RA in a variety of widths locally from Home Hardware.

This stuff is a rubberized asphalt tape that turns to a gooey mess that seals the window flange much better than a simple building tape. It's pretty easy to install, so no excuse for the builders.

Finally, we installed a metal trip edge flashing over the window trim, which also was sealed to the weather barrier with flashing tape. This makes sure that any water that gets behind the siding is directed outward and away from the window before it even gets to the window: a true belts and braces approach to protecting the building from its #1 enemy: water.

¹ BSI-039: Five Things, Building Science Corporation. April 20, 2010.

Mt. Biking with a 4-year old: Dangerous? Dumb? Maybe. Lots of Fun: Yes!

2010-09-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Now that the kid is getting a bit bigger, I thought it might be fun to try mountain biking. Since we got the Xtracycle for carting the kid around on, I thought I could haul him on the trails.

So, on Friday Finn and I went to ride the Boogaloo trail. Georgi packed a small picnic lunch for Finn and we headed out.

From Misc 2010

Even with the extra 42 pounds of kid and +10 pounds of the Xtracycle, the climb to the top of Boogaloo wasn't too bad. I thought I would have to walk at some point, but was able to climb all the way.

From Misc 2010

It went very well, only one crash - dropping over a log, I didn't appreciate the "low-clearance" created by the bike's long wheel base and the chain-ring drove into the log, bringing us to an abrupt stop - just a few bumps, it it didn't slow us down much.

We had a nice lunch overlooking town. Rest of the ride went well - I had to go pretty slow on the downhills because Finn got nervous. It's a fully hard bike (no suspension), so I was worried about how "rattled" he'd get - but I think the long wheel base helps smooth it out a bit.

Tonight when we went to the hospital (to see Finn's new cousin), Finn told us - "Hey, there's the bike trail we went on", remembering where we came back from the ride on - pretty good orientation for a little guy.

Anyway, mountain biking with 4-year old was a success - seems we had fun and no permanent injury!

High performance homes and dealing with fundimental building changes

2010-09-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

The folks at Building Sciences have just come out with an excellent article on "things we need to worry about" in our new, high performance buildings. This Building Science Insights article called "Five Things" should be a must read for anyone thinking about building a high performance, super insulated building. With these super energy efficient buildings, the consequences of "getting it wrong" are far worse than in a low-performance building.

Right now we are currently building in Takhini North what may become the most energy efficient home in Whitehorse. So, this article is a good confirmation that our design is sound for a super insulated building that will also be durable. Key things that the Building Sciences guys identified as areas of concern, we are getting right:

We are using no building cavities for air distribution: all of our air handling (fresh air and exhaust) is in well sealed ducts, located inside the building envelope;
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road
All of our windows and doors are fully pan flashed
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road
We are currently installing full flashing integrated with the siding on the exterior of the building, at all windows, doors and building intersections;
We have a full rain screen drainage plane behind the siding;
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road
We have a SINGLE vapour barrier, located on the inside of the building (which is the right place for cold climates); and our outside of the building is allowed to dry outward (no outside vapour barrier to trap water in the wall)
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road
We have no paper faced material in wet areas - cement board around the tub, no drywall outside of the building envelope and our firewall is concrete.
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road
Minimal use of OSB - the plywood dries much better and is less susceptible to mold.
From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

This Building Sciences Insights article is a good confirmation that the details we are focusing on are the right steps to building a durable home that should last generations.

The most airtight home in Whitehorse?

2010-09-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

We've been working hard lately to get ready for having at least on half of the SuperGreen duplex ready for hanging the drywall. This means getting all the electrical, plumbing, ventilation and the last of the insulation all in place. But most importantly, it means completing the pre-drywall Air Leakage Test. Craig, our Energy Adviser and Green Rater, was kind enough to come late in the day Friday to do the test on #40 Nijmegan. We'd been busy for most of the day preparing the for test finding all the holes and sealing them up.

I forgot to take a picture during the blower door test, but they are pretty standard now days, so I'm sure most folks know what one is - otherwise, just look up Blower Door on Wiki.

Fixing Holes

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

The approved method for sealing holes in a poly vapour barrier is with a poly patch, acoustical sealant and then mechanically closing (clamping) the patch. Most builders simply use the red Tuck Tape. That seems to work well enough, but technically, the red tape is not approved for sealing the vapour barrier. Because we're building this house for a long life span, we chose a "belts-and-braces" approach - the approved method of acoustical sealant and mechanical clamping AND red tape!

We also went and mechanically closed all joints in vapour barrier. Again, this is the recommended best practice, but you don't often see this being done. The issue here is that over time, as you open and close doors, it pressurizes and depressurizes the house, causing the joints in the vapour barrier to open up (think of inflating and deflating the house). To prevent the joints from opening up, you should mechanically fasten the joints closed. In our case, strips of 3/8" plywood attached to the studs did the trick.

Blower Door Test
As soon as the blower door turned on, the house very quickly depressurized. Now, that sounds like a bad thing, but it means that it is a very air tight house. In a high performance, energy efficient building, you want there to be almost no uncontrolled air leakage. Uncontrolled air leakage is a bad thing, it means either:

cold air leaking in (energy loss); or
moist indoor air leaking out (possibly damaging the building).

Of course, you need fresh air in the building, and that is why a ventilation system is so critical to a healthy building. A heat recovery ventilator (HRV) is a must and we are installing just about the highest performance HRV available in the North American marketplace. In fact, because there the home will be so energy efficient, the house only requires a minimal heating system (a couple of small baseboard heaters) and so the ventilation system will be the most advanced piece of machinery in the building. Insulate well and Keep it Simple!

Results
The pre-drywall air leakage test showed the house is extremely air tight. A common measure of "leakiness" is Air Changes per Hour (or ACH) at -50pa. The City of Whitehorse's new energy efficiency building bylaw allows a maximum leakiness of 1.5 ACH. We achieved a 0.75 ACH. My own personal house which is a GreenHome with EnerGuide Rating of 81 has 1.1 ACH.

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

0.75 ACH may seem a bit high for such a high performance building, but this measure is a bit misleading for a small building. Air Changes per Hour are a function of building volume. So, a small hole creates a comparatively large "leak" in a small house. The same hole in a large house with a large volume would create a much lower ACH rating.

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

Another way to look at the air leakage is the equivalent leakage area. In our case, it was only 9 sq. inches. That means if you put all the holes in this building together, it would be a 3" by 3" square! Most well built houses have on the order of 40 sq. in. of leakage area. So we are 1/4 the leakage of a well built modern house. Craig says this maybe the tightest house he's ever tested.

The house will be testing again at completion, and we anticipated the leakage will increase a bit once all the ducts are in place (range hood, dryer, etc.) that may add a bit of leakage.

Lastly, with this new, low air leakage rate, our projected EnerGuide Rating for #40 Nijmegan Rd is 86: it's well on its way to becoming the most energy efficient house in Whitehorse.

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

Now we are ready to labour away over Labour Day finishing the insulation so the drywall can go on next week. Congratulations to the whole team for working hard to make this deadline and still do a quality job on this high performance home!

Lock-Up

2010-08-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

Wow, I realize it has been a month since I've posted pictures of our SuperGreen duplex construction - I've been a real delinquent I guess.

Well, Friday was a milestone for us - we installed locks on the doors and locked up the building!

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

All of the windows are in, we have a foot of sprayfoam in the walls, the porches are on and now we're putting in the vapour barrier.

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

Because the building is a simple rectangle, and the the interior walls are not in yet, the vapour barrier is very simple and pretty quick to put on. Also, the continuous layer of spray foam creates our air barrier, so that make detailing the vapour barrier easier (air barriers must be continuous, vapour barriers should be continuous, where possible).

Visit the web album for more construction photos.

We also tested the verandas on Friday - for Happy Hour - and they passed with flying colours!

LEED Home in Construction Update

2010-07-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to posting a bunch more pictures from construction progress at our SuperGreen duplex project in Takhini North.

Here is a link to the photo album (go to Day 23 for the new photos):

We got our project resisted as a LEED Canada for Homes project at the end of last month, so it is exciting to be the Yukon's first LEED Home in construction.

Construction is progressing, albeit slower than planned. The team is taking time to make sure the details are done right and so some of these elements are take us a bit longer. This includes using the ICF for the foundation and the I-joist floor system. We originally planned to use some specialty ICF blocks to integrate the floor system, but these blocks never arrived, which caused us to have to re-design the floor connections. We ended up switching to using LVL headers and joist hangers for everything, but this really slowed the work down (first waiting for the blocks, then a bunch of labour for installing all the hanger hardware). The second big factor I see that is slowing the project is we have a small framing crew - basically one lead carpenter and two assistant carpenters.

We are now on the second floor and things are going much faster. We have an concrete party wall between the two units, and the ICF for that went much faster. Similarly, the second floor went on much faster.

A Real Conan Run

2010-07-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Last weekend's US Long Orienteering Championships was the perfect Conan Run.

From 2010 Orienteering Trip

What's a Conan Run?

It's a term I use for a long, epic run that crosses vast distances. The term comes from my favorite clip in the movie Conan the Barbarian (fast forward to about 1 min in this clip) - it's a short segment where Conan and his buddy Subota, King of Thieves decided to go somewhere, and then there are a series of shots of them running - running through mountains, running across plains, running through deserts, day and night. It looks like they are running across the continent: wherever they go, they are running.

View Larger Map

Running Sunday's race at Fishtrap, WA was exactly like what I envisioned Conan to be doing - running on and on, across open grasslands, scorching heat, crossing vast distances, and always running. The race distance was 16km and it took me around 2hr18min - but the scenery was epic and the whole time I felt like Conan; well, minus the broad sword and I wasn't wearing a pile of furs....

Forest's 2010 Orienteering Adventure

2010-06-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Decided to go to some orienteering races this year - the US Orienteering championships are in the Washington "Scablands" which is a really wild, catastrophic landscape created by glacial outburst floods.

Next weekend is the North American Orienteering championships in Cranbrook, BC. I've worked there several times over the years, and it always looked like really good terrain - open pine forest - it looks like really fast running forest.

Here are some pictures so far:

Finished the Basement Pour

2010-06-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

Today we finished the pouring of the insulated concrete basement (ICF) for the SuperGreen duplex we are building. Below is a little movie from the pour. It's good to have it done as we now have a very robust foundation and basement system that should provide a resilient base for the home are planning to last more than 100 years.

From 38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

The pour went well due to the hard work and preparation of the crew. We're a few days behind schedule because some of the insulated concrete form blocks didn't arrive, causing us to modify the design a bit; but also because we wanted to take our time on making sure everything was square, level and secured for the pour. We figured take a bit of time now will save us time later in the project.

There are also quite a few new photos added to the project's photo log (see Day 19 and Day 22 photos) that show many of the details included in the basement, including some "planning ahead" features that will facilitate future building adaptability:

38 & 40 Nijmegan Road

Photos of Building a SuperGreen Home

2010-05-27T23:31:00.001-07:00

I've started a photo album to document construction of our sustainable housing project at 38/40 Nijmegan Road in Takhini North. As I described in the previous post, we are hoping to get this building double green certified: SuperGreen and as the Yukon's first LEED certified home.

Although there is lots of "green" in the project design, the project is really designed around truly sustainable housing concepts. That is a project that is not only environmentally sustainable, but also socially and financially sustainable (I wrote about this the Elements of Sustainable Building Design in a previous post). I've illustrated the interrelationship of the various elements of sustainable building as follows:

Building the Yukon's First Double Green-Certified Home

2010-05-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

Today we broke ground on what we hope will be a the Yukon's most sustainable home. It is a duplex project that myself and two partners have started in the Takhini North infill area. I'll try to setup construction progress photos in the next few days, so check back soon. Here is what the building is going to look like:

Project Description: 38 & 40 Nijmegan Rd. is a privately developed residential duplex project. The project principals are based on bringing truly sustainable housing to the community. The building is based on a classic duplex from the turn of the last century—therefore is a classically lovable building. Each half is two bedrooms and relatively small at 960 ft² plus a 480 ft² unfinished basement. The size of the building is to fill a void in the Whitehorse housing market: high quality, smaller homes. The building site is centrally located in Whitehorse, Yukon in a residential infill development project called “Takhini North”. The building is designed with three major themes: Super energy efficient, Durable and Healthy.

Project Objective: To build a truly Sustainable home: A home that is an asset to future generations, not a liability. A Sustainable home project means:

	Building Owner/Occupant	Building Team
Financially Sustainable	Affordable to buy, own, operate & maintain (Simple, compact design; Energy efficient & Durable)	Financially successful project for team members.
Environmentally Sustainable	Reduced environmental impact of construction & operation (Energy efficient). Healthy for occupants.	Healthy & safe for building team during construction.
Socially Sustainable	· Occupant: Lovable house, pride in ownership, dignity in housing, promote social interactions. · Community: Lovable house, contribute to streetscape / tribute to community, promote social interactions.	Happy Team: enjoyable project to work on; Pride in work & being part of a great project.

Key Themes:

1. Super Energy Efficient

Super insulated house; well sealed.

Annual heating cost to be <$400 / year.

2. Durable

Comprehensive building Durability Plan. Building is planned to last for more than 100years. Design includes adaptability elements to allow the building to be easily modified over time.

3. Healthy Indoor Environment

Ventilation plan & verification;

Use of healthy / low emission materials inside.

Demonstrating Sustainability:

Two “green” certifications are being sought for this project:

4. Yukon Housing’s Super GreenHome Certification: This will be one of the Yukon’s first privately built Super Green homes.

5. Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED)[1] for Homes Certification: If achieved, this will be the first LEED Certified home in the Yukon.

[1] Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED is a consensus-based system for rating the design, construction, operation, and certification of the green buildings administered in Canada by the Canada Green Building Council

The “LEED Canada for Homes Logo” is a registered trademark owned by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and is used by permission. The logo signified that Old Way of Seeing Sustainable Building Services is actively participating in CaGBC’s LEED Canada for Homes Program; the CaGBC does not guarantee the products or services offered by its participants

Our Miniature House

2010-05-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

Was sent a link to this picture today - our house looking like a miniature; too cool.

Podcast on the importance to truely green building

2010-04-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

I just listened to an excellent, 2-part radio/podcast on the importance of green building from a site called "Green Building Radio"

The presenter is quite entertaining and I think completely on the mark. Our buildings have a major role to play in addressing our society's environmental footprint.

The one thing that is a bit different in our situation (that is in the Yukon) is he states that electricity is one of the dirtiest form of energy. That is true where significant coal and natural gas are burned to generate electricity, where as in the Yukon, the vast majority of our electricity is from renewables (at least for those communities on the grid), and therefore is one of cleanest forms of energy.

Anyway, the podcast is two 15-min segment - I encourage you to find the time to have a listen, it really reinforces what a lot of us are striving for.

Enjoy:

Going to Vancouver, Which Way is Worse? Flying or Driving?

2010-04-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

The other night at our neighborhood happy hour, my friend and I got in a heated argument about traveling to Vancouver: Is flying to Vancouver versus driving worse for the environment (in terms of CO2e emissions)?

We had been discuss the merits (or lack there off) of so-called carbon offsets you can buy when you fly. My friend was trying to absolve some of his guilt for flying when I informed him that if he had to go to Vancouver, then flying was probably the lowest carbon way he could have done the travel. Although initially relieved (because he felt less guilty for flying), he said he could not believe that this could be true - we've all heard how terrible for the environment flying is, so how could flying be the lowest carbon way to travel? Argument ensued.

The Answer - Is flying to Vancouver the lowest carbon emission way to travel?

The Big Picture: From a big picture perspective, my friend is correct. Flying is bad for the environment because it enables you to travel long distances easily, burning a bunch of fuel in the process. Had flying not been so quick or convenient, he would not have taken the trip, and therefore his emissions would have been a big fat ZERO.

The Technical Answer: From a technical perspective, I am correct, with the following caveat: There was only one person traveling. Here are the numbers:

I used the GHG Emissions Calculation Tool for Mobile Combustion from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative (World Resources Institute (2008) GHG Protocol tool for mobile combustion. Version 2.0)
For flying, I used a single person, traveling 3,100 km (Vancouver return) with standard US long-haul emission factors. The answer: 0.27t CO2e
I think the GHG tool calculates flying emissions / per passenger. So, assuming the plane was only half full, let's double the emission / passenger, just to give flying a bit of head wind (har har) = 0.54t CO2e
For driving, I again used a single person, traveling 5,176 km (the road distance, Vancouver return, according to GoogleMaps). I assumed a 2005 vintage car for fuel efficiency. The answer: 1.27t CO2e

So the technical answer, if one person is traveling, then YES, flying is WAY better than driving (or should I say less-bad then driving). A single person driving to Vancouver would produce over twice as many GHGs compared to if he/she had flown.

More than One Traveling?

Note the caveat: One person traveling. The picture changes when you load more people in the car. Let's say a family of three drove to Vancouver instead of flying. If you do that, you divide the driving GHG emissions by the number of passengers:

GHG Emissions of Travel to Vancouver, return (t CO2e / person):

No. of People Traveling	By Air	By Car
1	0.55	1.26
3	0.55	0.42

So, if you are three or more, driving is "better", plus you'll probably think twice about taking the trip!

Summary

So, in summary, I was right. Flying is better than driving, if you are traveling on your own.

HOWEVER, Mitch, you are still a bad boy - because you took the trip! Flying enabled you to make a trip, that if convenient air travel had not existed, you would have not taken, and therefore you would not have generated any GHG emissions.

Week 2 in Stumptown

2010-02-20T16:50:00.000-08:00

Still no sign of snow - but lots of sun! Apparently Portland has one of the highest rates of depression in the US - possibly attributed to the 222 overcast days per year - so I think we are getting pretty lucky since we've had a fair share of the nice days.

Did a couple of cool bike rides over the weekend sans Finn as we were relieved of him by Grandma Mac. Georgi and I did a ride on for historic Columbia River Highway - it is the 1920's vintage road through the Columbia River gorge and they have re-opened a 5 mile segment for bikes and walkers only. A perfectly smooth paved road with no cars - it even has a tunnel to bike through.

Watch this bike-video of the 1-mile downhill run at the end of the trail. (note the bobble at the end where I happen to notice a gate ahead coming up at the last minute!)

(Larger versions of these videos are here)

After the bike ride, went to Full Sail Brewing's tasting room in Hood River.

Then the next day, we did the the "Worst Day of the Year Ride" - which is a 18-mile recreational ride through the streets of Portland. 3500 people on bikes, silly costumes, lots of donuts and three-snack stops en-route.

Even a cool syncopated drummer band at the start. (see video)

After sending Grandma Mac back home, I went to the Portland Humpin' Hash House Harriers (Wednesday) - lets just say this hash was more about the beer than the running, and a much younger crowd. Not one, not two, but at least four beer checks enoute (there may have been 5 beer checks, but things were getting fuzzy). However, there was lots of good views along the run. The nice thing too is that the transit system is so good, I figured out how to get the hashes with bus +/- bike, so no driving restrictions!

I also went and saw Redfern's hoverbarge - after working for two years on permitting this mythical beast I finally laid eyes on it. It is pretty much finished, just needed one engine cover put on and some of the skirting installed. Pretty sad really.

Lastly, Finn and I went to an aerospace museum about an hour out of town - somewhere in farm country. Wow, I was amazed - it was such a cool, huge place, and we had it all to ourselves. Finn went nuts with all the levers, buttons, dials and even mini-helicopters to play in. Also, I took Finn to his first movie - but it was a 3D IMAX, so I suppose he will disappointed forevermore with the theater in Whitehorse.

Escaping Winter - Bikes, beers & boobs in Beervana

2010-02-15T20:37:00.001-08:00

Yes, another week with no sign of snow! Even had a few days of sun - seems the stories of never-ending rain here in Portland were unfounded.

Picked up some "cruiser bikes" (aka dork bikes with big-ass saddles) and have spent a couple of days checking out town. There are tons of cool bike features in town, making it pretty fun to roam around on bikes: you can roll your bikes on to the trains and there are bike hangers on the trains, cross-town bike routes on side streets are marked with bike symbols on the pavement, bike lanes everywhere, including some bike & bus exclusive roads, and the coolest thing is the bike signals at intersections - roll your bike over the bike-symbol painted at the stop line, and the light changes, sometimes with bike-only symbols! I'll have to post a picture of that.

On one of our first rides we rode up a volcano located within one of the city parks (how many cities have volcanoes? how cool is that!)

Then the next day, I ended up running up that f#$#$G volcano 2 or 3 more times on the hash house harriers run. There are 3-4 hashes a week here, so I'm sure that I will get in great shape (running or drinking, you decide). 30 odd folks on the hash, clear night, two beer checks and a keg at a partially finished house at the end. Return home by bike and train, so beverage enjoyment was not limited...

My 100-mile drinking diet is going very well. There are reportedly 30 breweries in Portland, and one of them is less than 5-min walk from here. (steam in photo is emanating from brewery just below our house - note bike lane and yet crazy double-decker interstate bridge in background)

Also, beer is very cheap, and both local beer and local wine are sold in very civilized fashion at the Safeway.

Did a cool "trail" hike one day called the
"4T" trail - for Train, Trail, Tram and Trolley - it is a loop where you do all four, including the highest point in the city. The train section included one of the deepest transit stations in North America - some 200+ feet deep! I was excited because it was the first time I've ever seen my professional organization's logo in public - there was a plaque in the station from the Association of Engineering Geologists - hee ha!

Finn's Grandma also arrived this week from Ontario. So, they've been busy doing serious tasks like "paper-bag-pants" and "junk-food-eating", Georgi and I have been able to go out for some hot dates....Avatar 3D one night, and a burlesque show the other night!

Oh, ya, and did I mention, not only no snow, but the cherry tree across the street is starting to flower.

MORE PICTURES HERE!

Escaping Winter - 1

2010-02-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well, we arrived today in Portland, OR - moved in to our 1905 cottage across the river from downtown after 5 days of "overland" (non-aircraft) travel to get here. Sunny when we got here (still clear and warm) - after leaving a restaurant from dinner this evening heard people remarking "wow, it's NOT raining".

As I have come to loath winter, especially trudging through snow, we decided to skip a bit of Yukon winter - so we are hiding out in Portland, Oregon for 6 week. Why Portland? I don't know, but what I do know is there is no snow here! Also, I wanted to practice "post-peak-oil-living," so we are doing all of our travel without flying. Took that Alaska ferry from Skagway to Bellingham - three days, four nights on the ferry. Was very nice, clear, calm, sunny in Sitka and Ketchikan.

Apparently, Ketichan only gets 2 clear days of the year, and we got one! I was a bit disappointed with the seas though - I was hoping for big storms, big waves, etc. Just a little windy and rolly one night, but nothing to write home about.

Finn was great, and the time past pretty quickly. 'Course Finn spent many hours starring at the arcade games, which was very dull for Mom and, to a lesser extent, Dad.

Got off ferry today at 8am - made a run for the Amtrak train at 8:30 and made it due to the heroic ticket efforts of Bellingham station agent Mary (who was muttering under her breath the whole type "God damn Alaska ferry, God damn ferry, scheisse ferry, etc...). Although we ended up with tickets only as far as Seattle, we managed to arrive in Portland anyway.

We have yet to meet a Portlander other than waitress at Memphis-Blues type BBQ place we had dinner at tonight. First human contact in Portland was Croatian cab driver that spoke no English and got lost trying to find our place (less than 2km from train station). Then, it seems we are in the Ethiopian quarter of the city, so picked up milk at the Ethiopian grocery store.....

In closing, our house is nice, there is no snow here, kid is asleep, trains horns wailing in the distance, and having a beer in what is unofficially known as Beervana.

UPDATE: Georgi has posted some of the pics to-date - here is the link

5 Years in a GreenHome

2009-12-30T22:20:00.001-08:00

Below is 5-years of energy use data from our GreenHome.

What is show is the actual energy delivered to the house, so I've taken out the effect of the different efficiencies of electric, versus wood versus oil heat. I've also "normalized" the data - that means I've converted all the data to a common average year, thereby taking the effects of cold years and warm years. (interestingly, the all five of the last years have been about 10% warmer than average...hmmm, climate change?)

As you can see, our energy use has been rising until this year. I think this is largely due to having a baby in the house starting in 2006 and Georgi started staying home then, making the house occupied full time. Our energy use dropped dramatically this year - although we did a number of small energy efficiency upgrades, I think it is largely due to the end of diaper laundry (hahoo!).

And here are the total energy costs to us as we've actually experienced them:

The Roots of Sustainable Buildings

2009-12-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

I put the following diagram together to show the interaction of the various elements that comprise the design of a sustainable building. I did this diagram to illustrate the concepts I described in a previous post on Elements of Sustainable Building.

Feel free to use this with appropriate credit. Special thanks to my brother Lake for the tree-roots illustration behind.

Kicking the Fossil Fuel Habit

2009-12-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

Our house uses a "combo" heating system - an oil-fired hotwater tank that provides both space heating and domestic hot water. Two years ago when oil prices were higher, I installed a small electric hot water tank to pre-heat the water with electricity before the oil-fired hot water tank. I described this conversion in a previous post here. That conversion was saving us about $50 a month in energy and reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 70% to 1.6 tonnes of CO2 / yr (Yukon average is about 12.6 tonnes / person / year)

A couple of months ago the insurance company decided to do an inspection of our home (we built it 5 years ago and they've never actually seen what they are insuring). Well, the inspector happened to notice that our above ground fuel oil tank does not have a "sticker" on it, and gave us 4 months to get it replaced. Now, this fuel tank is perfectly fine, but I had salvaged from the house we tore down previously. Given the fuel tank's age, it doesn't have a CSA sticker. We got a quote to replace the fuel tank, and due to the new code requirements for seismic tie-down, concrete pad, etc, it was going to cost us $2500 to get a new tank installed.

I've wanted to get off the oil for a while now, so I thought if my little pre-heat tank is providing 90% of my water heating already, why not go all the way with electric? In Whitehorse, our electricity is pretty green: in 2008 99.94% of our electricity came from renewable (hydro and a bit of wind) . The advantages of getting off oil include:

reduction in GHG emissions associated with our house
reduced risk of backdrafting (indoor air quality)
reduced heat leakage up the chimney (my chimney always had a lot of air rising in it, constantly sucking heat off of my hot water tank)
no annual maintenance on the oil burner (a savings of ~$200 /yr)
no worries about running out of fuel/fillups, etc.
no worries about oil leaks
reclaimed 15 sq. ft. of yard where the fuel tank used to be (living in downtown, I value every square foot of yard I have!)

I looked into an electric boiler first, but we only have a 100A service, so that looked like it was out of the question (replacing a electrical service can be big $$). As an alternative, I got a the largest electric hot water tank from Canadian Tire - it is 60 gallons and has a big heating element at 5.5 kW. So, combined with the little hot water tank, I have a total of 8.5 kW of heating. My house has a peak heating load of around 34,000 Btu, which is 10 kW--this means the heating system is a bit undersized, however I mostly heat with wood, so this is fine, it is adequate to keep the house from freezing up if were away!

Total cost to me?

Hot water tank: $560
Wire, new 35A breaker and electrical permit: $105
Plumber: $260
Stevie bucks (renovation tax credit): $-79
Total: $846

And that's not counting the $200 I saved on not doing burner maintenance this year! Now our house GHG emissions are just 0.19 tonnes / year from our propane cook stove.

So, anyone want to by a perfectly good 5-yr old oil-fired hot water tank? For sale, cheap!

We Need a Carbon Tariff, Not a New Kyoto says Jeff Rubin

2009-11-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Jeff Rubin just had a nice little article called "We Need a Carbon Tariff, Not a New Kyoto" associated with Wednesday's Globe and Mail - check it out, a good read if you are interested in sustainability.

Jeff's argument for using tarrif for carbon emission management is the best scheme I have heard of yet, and would whole heartedly support this kind of approach.

If you are not familiar with who Jeff Rubin is, he was the chief economist with CIBC World Markets for 20years. He just left last year to publish his book called "Why Your World is Going to Get a Whole Lot Smaller". - Excellent read, and you are welcomed to borrow my copy. And there is a direct reference to the Yukon, his last chapter is set in the Yukon, fishing on McEvoy Lake!

Why Green Building Needs to be About Energy Efficiency and Not "Green" Gadgets

2009-10-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I made the remark that many "green-building" projects and practitioners focus entirely too much on so-called green products, green gadgets and even on-site energy generation (e.g. PV or other).

An excellent case for why green building needs to focus primary on energy efficiency is presented in John Straube of Building Science Corporation's article entitled: Why Energy Matters.

In this article, they show how 85% to 95% of a building's "environmental harm" over a 50-year period comes from the energy used by the building during its operation. The environmental impact / embodied energy of the building materials is only a very small portion of the total environmental footprint of the building.

Check it out, an enlightening read for anyone interested in Green Building and Sustainability.

Elements of Sustainable Building Design

2009-10-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

The term "sustainability" is bantered around a lot these days. Although in some instances it is used as green-washing, overall it is good that the mainstream is at least cognizant of the concept / term. But, in the context of our built environment (our communities, buildings and homes), what is sustainability? How can we move our built environment to truly sustainable buildings?

Conventional Meaning of Sustainable Building
In the context of buildings, most of the time Sustainable Building focuses on efficient use of resources (energy, building materials, water, reduced waste, etc.) and to a lesser extent, the health of the building users/occupants ¹. Unfortunately, Sustainable Building has been misappropriated by the building industry to promote new building products and gadgets as "green" building. This largely overlooking or misses other, more important elements of sustainability, such as energy efficiency ². In other words, sustainability, has been stolen by the building products industry to sell us new and more products! In my view, buying more and consuming "stuff", even if it's "green" is the antithesis of sustainability.

Old Way of Seeing's Vision of Sustainable Building
When I approach sustainable building design, I approach the building from a more balanced perspective. I take the "three-pillars" approach to sustainability. That is the building must be:

Environmentally Sustainable
Financial Sustainable
Socially Sustainable

I think of this as the three-legged stool - remove one leg, and the stool tips over.

How do you apply the Three-Pillars of Sustainability Apply to Buildings?
We all understand the "environment" or green portion of the sustainable building, be it either "efficient use of resources" or more importantly, simple energy efficiency ³. But what do I mean by the other two pillars when it comes to sustainable buildings?

Economic sustainability of building - buildings that are affordable to build/buy and affordable to operate (which links to energy efficiency), affordable to maintain (which links to durability) and last a long time (e.g. 100 to 150 years), so you don't burden yourself or future generations with the cost of replacing the building regularly (again, this links to durability).
Social sustainability - this is the most difficult element for most people to link to sustainable building. Socially sustainable buildings are building that contribute to what I call:

External social sustainability - buildings that contribute to the community, the street-scape: buildings that make the town a nicer place to live and are a tribute to the people who are on the street - contribute to the shared realm of the street; and

Internal social sustainability - buildings that keep the occupants healthy and happy. The latter means good buildings that people what to be in, buildings people love, and building that not only sustain the occupants' physical health, but also enhance their mental, emotional and social health.

How can building design achieve these things? Some of them, especially social sustainability, seems a bit vague, right? Yet, there are concrete design elements, approach and considerations that can all directly and tangibly address all three elements of sustainable building design. How? Well, that is a topic for future posts.

References:

¹Green Building from Wikipedia
²Prioritizing Green—It's the Energy Stupid
³Joseph Lstiburek at Building Science Corporation referes to the 80/2o Rule, or his new "Golden Mean" which he defines in his article on the Westford House:

This conservation thing should not be news. This was all figured out long before by some pretty smart folks, some of who are still alive, who are still smart, but mostly bemused at what passes for green today. Let me first define what green should be focused on if I was in charge: 80 percent energy, 20 percent everything else like water and materials. The new “golden mean”—80:20—perfect harmony and proportion for buildings and the built environment.
“The new “Golden Mean”—a ratio of 80 percent energy concerns and 20 percent everything else.”³
If you want to design a green building program or a green building this is what your priorities should be. The single most important aspect of green should be energy. OK, I feel better now that I’ve once again pointed out the obvious. Let’s move on and get re-acquainted with those smart old folks I mentioned.

Preparing Children for the Future

2009-06-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

A nice, thought provoking article on how to prepare our children for an uncertain future:

http://restoringmayberry.blogspot.com/2009/05/children.html

Whitehorse * Adventure * Run '09: Back to the Wild

2009-05-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

Recruitment has been rapidly filling the ranks of this year's Whitehorse * Adventure * Run, or W*A*R as it is affectionately known as. Multiple veteran teams are returning to this year's run, including a return of Team Alaska!

The W*A*R is Whitehorse's ALL-TERRAIN half-marathon. Teams of two have to complete a 21-km cross-country adventure race style run. The event is accessible to all runners and only minimal navigational skills are required (if you can read a road map, you are good to go). Details and registration are found at the W*A*R website:

http://www.yukonorienteering.ca/war.html

This year's W*A*R is on Sunday, May 31st. 8am Registration & Mandatory Gear check. Pre-registration has now expired, but we'll still accept late recruitment - here is the link to the recruitment forms.

For folks not ready for an all-terrain half-marathon, there is also a recreational class called P.E.A.C.E. (People Enjoying Adventurous Competitive Exercise) which is solo and typically 10km in length.

Whitehorse Hash House Harriers Start Running Again

2009-05-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

WhiteHorse Hash House Harriers (WH4) have started their second season - WH4's first run of 2009 (Run #013) was on Thursday last week (good turn out, 19 some runners, but not enough beer). Runs will be every two weeks throughout the summer

If your are interested in a social, very inclusive running club, you can get future run info at the WH4 website at: http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/whitehorsehhh/

For general information on Hash House Harriers, have a look at the wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers

or just YouTube Hash House Harriers

on-on!

Railways? Pipelines? What's better than 7 B-train Trucks a Day?

2009-04-24T20:51:00.001-07:00

In response to my previous post, I've had a number of questions about "what's better than trucking? We need a railway? Pipelines?"

Well, we've had a railway for over 100 years, and a pipeline for over 50 years. But, we don't use our railway which connects us to a fine deep water port, and we've been busy ripping up our pipeline infrastructure. Ah, that's progress.

So, the question is, what is better than trucking all that gasoline, diesel and heating fuel to the Yukon?

First rule, USE LESS! If we cut our fossil fuel consumption in half, the amount of trucks half. That's a fundamental of energy efficiency and energy independence - USE LESS!
Second, use a ship from Vancouver and the railway from Skagway:

Energy use / tonne-km for rail is 1/10th that for trucks. Ships are 1/6th that of trucks¹
A round trip from Vancouver to Skagway via the Inside Passage is about 3000 km. A round trip from Skagway to Whitehorse by rail is about 360 km.
Assuming we are moving some 126 million litres of fuel annually, or 107,500 tonnes of fuel annually, then the total fuel consumption (diesel) by ship and rail from Vancouver to Whitehorse is 3.2 million litres of fuel

So, the answer is 1) use less; and 2) if we used ship and rail, we'd cut the fuel usage (and GHG emissions) associated with transportation of fossil fuels to the Yukon by 63%.

Hydro-electrify the railway, and it's even more...

Note that oil pipelines use about 1/5.5th the energy of trucks, so are less efficient than railways from an energy perspective (no comment on relative manpower requirements). However, if the pumps running the pipeline are hydroelectric powered, and the rail is not run on hydro, then probably the pipeline is a better idea. Overall, the railway should be hydro-electricfied (if that is a word!)

Here's a radical Yukon sustainability suggestion: Should us Yukoners acquire (dare I say it - nationalize?) the railway to Skagway to ensure a long-term sustainable transportation solution for ourselves?

How Many Tanker Trucks Arrive in the Yukon Each Day?

2009-04-23T22:14:00.001-07:00

I've always been curious as to how many trucks are required to haul all of the gasoline, diesel and heating fuel to the Yukon? Well here are the numbers:

2007 annual fossil fuel usage in Yukon¹: 128,062,000L - yes, 128 million litres of fuel used in the Yukon.
Assuming the average B-train has a payload of 50,000 L, then that is: 2561 B-trains loads a year, or
almost 7 tanker trucks of fuel A DAY are consumed by the Yukon!!!!!

From a green house gas emissions perspective, if we assume the average B-train comes from Edmonton to Whitehorse and returns, this is a round-trip of almost exactly 4,ooo km. The average B-train has a fuel efficiency of 1.7 L/km², so each round trip consumes some 3,400 L of diesel. Sum all those trips, and we burned 8.7 million litres of diesel just to get our fossil fuels to us!

Convert that to green house gas emissions, and that's 23,000 tonnes of CO₂e annually. Another way to put this is trucking fuel to the Yukon accounts for 6% of the Yukon's total GHG emissions! This means when we are doing GHG inventories, we should be tacking on a GHG transporation surcharge of 6% on GHG emissions.

Drain Water Heat Recovery

2009-04-12T22:34:00.001-07:00

The other week I finished installing a drain water heat recovery (DWHR) unit (shown in photo to right)

If you don't know what these are, they are a VERY simple device that recovers heat from the sewer stack (primarily from shower water) to pre-heat cold water coming into the house. They are sometimes called gravity film xchange (GFX). The optimum configuration is to pre-heat both the cold water going to the shower and supplying water to the hot water tank as illustrated below:

I ordered mine from ECOInnovation Technologies Inc. in Quebec. I've had a couple of dealings with these folks, and they are very helpful, responsive and good to deal with. The first time I ordered the wrong size - a 4" diameter unit, when in fact my sewer stack is the more standard 3" diameter. Doh. They were very good about doing the return.

In the end, I ended up getting a S3-60 which is a 60" long unit and has a heat recovery efficiency of 68%. The unit has a 3/4" water supply, which splits into two 1/2" lines around the sewer stack. The purpose of this is to minimize pressure drop and increase heat recovery efficiency. My unit cost about $980 once shipping and tax was included, so not that cheap. Given the amount of copper in the thing, I'm not surprised. Then there is another $50+ dollars with of misc. plumbing parts (couplings, pipe, fittings, etc.). You can get smaller units (40" long) which are only slightly less efficient for $500 to $600. Those are probably a better return on investment because your get more bang for your buck.

Note that Energy Solutions Centre is now including DWHR devices in the Good Energy program, and you can get a $100 rebate from them.

Energy Savings
These units have been validated by NRCAN through a number of studies you can find online. In fact, they've commissioned an on-line DWHR calculator at http://www.ceati.com/calculator/. I ran my setup through this calculator to see what my savings would be. I logged our family showering patterns for a couple of weeks (ya, what a nerd) - we take on average 1.35 showers a day, with an average shower time of 9 minutes (I shower WAY longer than Georgi). So, based on the calculator and our unit, we should be saving about 550 kWh / year, or at a marginal electrical cost of $0.14 / kWh, that is about $77/year. When Finn starts showering, obviously these savings will increase. Furthermore, if marginal electrical rates rise to $0.22/kWh as proposed by Yukon Energy, the savings during winter time (when we use a lot of electricity for space heating), would be $121 / yr (although less in summer when we use the cheaper first block electricity).

So, at current prices, the simple payback is about 12-years, again a bit mediocre as far as energy efficiency upgrades. From a return on investment perspective, the unit has a IRR of 8% over a 25 year period. Quite a bit better than any of my RRSP's are returning these days!

Installation
Theoretically, the installation of these should be pretty easy. In new construction, I think this is a no-brainer. However, things never go smoothly as planned....

1) because my sewer line is HIGHER than my basement, I don't have space on the sewer stack in the basement to install the DWHR, so I had to cut the wall open on the main floor and install the unit in the wall cavity. That was okay, because I wanted to rip the drywall off anyway to install wood paneling in my front entry, however....

2) the stack was in the wrong place (not where I designed it to sit in a nice big wall cavity), rather it is in a skinny section of wall, too narrow to accommodate the diameter of the DWHR. So, I had to fur out the wall to accommodate the unit, and....

3) my lovely plumber also put a "jog" in the sewer stack there, so not only did I have to cut out the stack to for the DWHR, but also had to move the jog in the stack- making the overall length of the installation too long for the hole I cut in the wall. So, I had to cut the hole bigger, meaning I have to patch the drywall (yuck). Then....

4) I decided to install the unit on a Monday night, after 8pm when we put Finn to bed. So, that means the store is closed if anything goes wrong. There was no shut off valve between the supply to the house and the hot water tank, so I had to shut off all the water to the house.

I hooked up the unit with relatively no problems, but once I tested it, it didn't seem to be working right (the cold water supply to the shower wasn't warming up). Then I realized I had installed the water supply lines BACKWARDS!!!. I had to completely disassemble the nice plumbing job I did, and in the process, got totally soaked, spraying water all over the place and creating a minor flood in the basement. A very Chevy Chase like scenario. AND, I was running out of PEX fittings, so was totally stressed about not being able to complete the job. If it wasn't hooked up, then I couldn't turn the water on, and we'd be without water over night. I was not getting impressed looks from Georgi.

Finally, I did get it installed, and it works great now. When showering, you set the shower a bit cooler than previously (because the cold is being pre-heated, reducing the amount of hot water used). Also, you really can feel the heat on the outlet to the DWHR, so it does work.

Overall, it is a very simple device, and does work. As with most things, install it as part of new construction for far less "reno-pain”.

Our Energy Use Implications for the Yukon's Future, Community Sustainability and Energy Security

2009-03-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I illustrated the Yukon's Energy Budget. So, what does this mean for our future? What does this mean looking forward to maintain some semblance of life-as-we-know-it in the Yukon as we enter the post oil age? We know that fossil fuel costs are going to rise exponentially (and become increasingly volatile as we've recently experienced) over the next 10-20 years. Fuel prices have doubled in the last 8-10 years, and we should expect this cost doubling to occur again in an even shorter period of time.

Space Heating - Use of fossil fuels for space heating is not going to be affordable in the next 10 to 20 years. What do we do?

Reduce space heating requirements - insulate, build more energy efficient buildings, etc. Although this can help, I doubt we can count on more than a 20% Yukon wide, net reduction in building heating requirements.
Burn more biomass (wood, pellets) - this is going back to the old way we did things, however our population is WAY bigger now, so this will mean cutting a lot of trees. And even though our new wood stoves are "clean burning", there would be a lot of local air pollution if we all burned wood.
Burn coal for heat - yuck, who wants to go there.

So what does this leave us? ELECTRICITY. Knowing that we won't be able to afford to heat our homes with fossil fuels in 10-20 years, then we need to start planning for the electrical production needed to replace that energy. In other words, we will have to DOUBLE our electrical production in the next 20 years to make up for the shortfall left by fossil fuels.

Some have argued that new hydroelectrical production is very expensive. Say $0.25 to $0.35/kWh. Well, right now oil space heating is in the range of $0.15/kWh equivalent. So, when our fossil fuel prices double and then quadruple to $0.30 and $0.60/kWh equivalent, then that "new" hydro is going to look pretty cheap. Let's start the planning now, especially while energy (and its proxy, "money") are still cheap.

Transportation - Energy for transportation is a hard nut to crack - fossil fuels really are not easily replaceable for transportation. Possible solutions:

travel less: fewer trips, transit, walk & bike, live closer to your work, friends and family.
produce more goods & foods locally so we are less dependent (vulnerable) to trucking goods here
use electric vehicles for local travel
use electric transit systems: either trolley buses, or electrify and extend our existing streetcar system (say to Whistle Bend?!). Grid connected vehicles are highly efficient - on the order of 98% - what other vehicle can claim that kind of efficiency?
switch some vehicles to biogas- again, probably relegated to relatively local travel because there isn't likely to be much biogas production outside of Whitehorse.
limited local natural gas production from Whitehorse Trough (perhaps coal bed methane) - a long shot, and would only be affordable if "nationalized".

Are these things going to be enough? Probably not, so let's prepare for transportation to become VERY expensive. Fossil fuels are probably going to be reserved for long-range transportation.

The Yukon's Energy Budget

2009-03-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

Today's post has been inspired by a couple of things: 1) a casual conversation with a friend about the merits of (or as was argued, lack there of) using of hydroelectricity for space heating, 2) starting work with some folks on a sustainable building design and associated discussions about long-term operating and maintenance costs; and 3) I just finished reading James Kunstler recent fiction book "World Made by Hand" which is a "what-if" novel about life in the post-oil age.

Below is an energy budget for the Yukon - or a summary of energy usage in the Yukon - I prepared over a year ago as part of our business plan for Earth Energy Yukon, Inc. It's a useful snapshot of how we use energy, but more importantly, some insight into what we are going to need in the future:

Figure 1. Yukon's Energy Use - 2005

Energy Category	Energy Use (Terajoules/year)	%	Category %	Source Notes
Electricity - Hydro	1237	19%	20%	1
Electricity - Diesel	81	1%	20%	1
Heating - Oil	995	15%	22%	2
Heating - Propane	184	2.9%		4
Heating - Wood	208	3.2%		3
Transport - Land	3343	52%	58%	1
Transport - Aviation	396	6%	58%	1
Total Energy Use	6444

Source Notes:

Yukon Statistical Review, 2005 Annual Report. Yukon Bureau of Statistics. http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/stats/annual/review05.pdf
ibid, sum of "heating oil" and "light fuel oil"
ibid, based on firewood timber permits issued. Due to typical lower efficiency of woodstoves, total energy reduced to 65% for comparative purposes.
Report on energy supply-demand in Canada, 2005. Statistic Canada. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/57-003-XIE/2005000/part1.htm

How the Yukon Energy Budget was Created

This energy use summary is very similar to that prepared by Vector Research for the Yukon Energy Strategy - it is based on Yukon Bureau of Stats and StatsCanada data. However, there are two difference from what Paul did and my Energy Budget:

Vector research included energy use and production associated with the gas development in southeast Yukon. Although technically, this is Yukon energy in the political sense, however it does not flow to any Yukon communities, and as such I excluded it when trying to understand energy usage from the perspective of Yukon community sustainability; and
I included fuel wood. StatsCanada doesn't identify firewood usage. So, I took the total amount of firewood permits (cords) reported by Yukon Bureau of Stats. There is likely more firewood harvesting than there is permits, so this is likely an under-reported amount. Either way, it is not an insubstantial amount of our energy use/production. I did "down-report" the energy production by firewood by 35% to account for the lower efficiency of firewood burning. Although this energy was still used, it wasn't usable to the building, and to allow easier comparison with other space heating energy use which is typically 80% to 100% efficient. In other words, if we were to replace wood with electricity, the chart show how much energy would be required.

Key Observations about Our Energy Usage

Transportation fuel is a huge part of our energy demand - over 50%. This is much higher than the provinces (transportation tends to be about 30% of their energy use. Interestingly, aviation fuel isn't that much (relatively speaking) and transportation energy usage is much higher than space heating usage (which was a surprise to me, I would have thought our space heating energy needs would be proportionally bigger).
Space heating provided through fuels (e.g. fossil fuels or biomass (a.k.a. "firewood")) accounts for only 22% of our energy use, with firewood providing 3-4%. Although the percentage provided by firewood is small, that is still a staggering17,000 cords of firewood a year!
General electrical use includes some space heating. I don't know what percentage of the electrical use is for space heating, so I can't figure exactly how much of the Yukon's total energy is used for space heating. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that fuel usage for space heating exceeds total electrical energy production!

SuperGreen Vs. R-2000

2009-03-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

In recent discussion with some folks, the question was asked "Isn't Super Green a bit much? Isn't R2000 / GreenHome (Energuide 80 rated houses) good enough? Is it worth the extra effort?"

So, to assess the difference between doing a SuperGreen building vs. a regular R2000/GreenHome, I built an example building to run through HOT2000, NRCAN's residential energy analysis software.

Example House:
The example building modeled is actually a 4-plex building consisting of two apts up and two down. The building is basically a large residential building, 40'x52' in Whitehorse, with full basement. I modeled it as half a duplex and then doubled some of the inputs (occupants, baseloads, etc.) to simulate two families. HOT200o doesn't explicitly model apartments, but since this building really is just a big "house", this is how I tricked HOT2000.

R2000/GreenHome Model
The base case is a building with basic "R2000" building design: 2x6 w/ 2x4 interior strapping, 2" under slab, ICF basement, all triple-glaze, low-e, argon filled windows, R50 in ceiling, high-efficiency HRV, electric baseboard heating. Under this model, the building take a total of 82,712 kWh of heat a year, or $3,370 in heating each year ($840 /yr / apt unit).

SuperGreen Model
In the SuperGreen model, the base case building was upgraded to R60 wall, R100 in the ceiling (where possible based on the building design - some cathedral ceilings), 4" under the slab, and R60 effective in the basement walls. Under this model, the building take a total of 46,012 kWh of heat a year, or $1,876 in heating each year ($469 /yr / apt unit).

Comparative Return on Investment Savings:
Because the base case model is relatively energy efficient by today's standards, the SuperGreen savings, although significant, seem somewhat modest. However, if we look at this from the building owners' perspective while owning and operating the building for 20-years, a clearer picture emerges.

1) Energy Cost Escalation
Modeling energy cost savings at a fixed energy cost is not reasonable. We know that energy costs are rising, especially fossil fuels which are rising much more than the cost of inflation. In fact, in the Yukon fossil fuel costs are rising at some 10% / year and have doubled in the past 8 to 10 years, even with the recent drop in prices. Electrical rates have been relatively stable in the Yukon, however are scheduled to rise. As people switch to using more electricity for heating, we can expect our electrical rates to rise in response. So, for the purposes of this analysis, I've assumed a electrical cost escalation rates of 5% going forward, which is more than inflation, but less than fossil fuel cost escalation.

2) Cumulative Savings
The second way to look at the relative effect of going SuperGreen over the building ownership period is cumulative savings. If we assume the incremental cost to go SuperGreen is $8000 on this building, the cumulative cash flow is as follows:

So, over the ownership period, going SuperGreen with this building will save the owners almost $50,000! Even if the initial investment was $10,000, this is a 16% return on investment. Can't find an investment that pays those kind of returns these days.

Follow-up Comment (March 15, 2009):
Juergen Korn at Yukon Housing Corp called me last week to tell me he was doing almost the same analysis on cost implications of SuperGreen. However, he had one important observation: In the cash flow model, you are not dropping the cash at the start of the project, as I have suggest in my cumulative savings figure. Rather, you are mortgaging that cost, and as the incremental mortgage payment is much-much-much less than the energy savings, in fact SuperGreen is cash flow positive, right from the start!

Inactive parenting means happy, smart kids

2009-03-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

A DH Lawrence essay, Education of the People, published in 1918: "How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone. That is the whole beginning."

The following article sums up very nicely my philosophy to being a kid:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/familyadvice/3355719/Idle-parenting-means-happy-children.html

Manifesto of the idle parent

We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work
We pledge to leave our children alone
That should mean that they leave us alone, too
We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children from the moment they are born
We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals
We drink alcohol without guilt
We reject the inner Puritan
We fill the house with music and laughter
We don't waste money on family days out and holidays
We lie in bed for as long as possible
We try not to interfere
We push them into the garden and shut the door so that we can clean the house
We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small
Time is more important than money
Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness
Down with school
We fill the house with music and merriment

From Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine

Why did oil prices spike, and then drop so quickly? Will it happen again?

2009-02-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

The unprecedented rise in oil price over the last few years, then followed by the even more dramatic crash in oil prices we have more recently experienced has certainly been an roller coaster ride for us energy-enthusiasts.

Figures From The Economics of Volatile Oil Prices at The Oil Drum.

The first thing to note in the above figure is that global oil production (crude, shown with the orange line and on the left axis) was climbing quite steadily until 2004. Then, for some reason, amidst a period relatively high economic activity (ah, the good times, remember them?), oil production has plateaued. Up until 2004, prices were pretty stable (blue, right axis). Then, prices started to spike. What is interesting is how these two events coincided. This is the tightening of the supply-demand spread.

Why did the price spike exponentially? And why did it drop so dramatically? At the Oil Drum, one of the contributors prepared a chart of Oil Price versus total global oil product. The chart below shows it all:Global Crude Oil Production Versus Oil Price / Barrel

Basically, the world hit the oil production wall - somewhere around 74 million barrels of crude a day. As we approached our maximum potential global oil production, the price spiked - it went vertical! This also explains why the price collapsed so quickly. When demand dropped off because of global slowdown (caused by high oil prices, see my previous post on this topic), we slid left a bit on this chart, and the prices plummeted. This explains it: as we reach total global output, the price goes exponential, as demand slacks a bit from peak global output, the price crashes. This is illustrated a bit more graphically below (from the same article):

Future Spikes / Crashing into the Wall

So, will we spike again? YES- and sooner. Because of declining total production capacity (exacerbated by the current lack of investment in oil development give poor economic climate), our maximum global oil production (or peak) is dropping. As such, the WALL of maximum production is moving down (or left on the graph). So, we will run into it sooner next time demand starts to grow. And this will continue to move down, causing more price spiking, and we move past 50% total global production of oil.

Insulation anyone?

FOLLOWUP NOTE: Oh, by the way, Non-OPEC (e.g. the rest of the world) has been confirmed as passing peak production in 2004.

Increasing the Durability of Building Constructions

2009-02-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

The other day I was reading some criticism of LEED for Homes and the building durability section of LEED-H, which lead me to probably the best resource / guideline I've seen on practical building durability. It is publisehd by Building Science Corporation:

Increasing the Durability of Building Constructions

One interesting this is the discussion of life-span of various building components, and therefore the serviceability / replaceability of said component. For example, if you have a 100-year design life for a house, but windows only have a 20-year life, then we should be taking design measures to facilitate easy replacement of windows - because they are going to get replaced 5 times of the life of that building.

If you are interested in building durability and building sustainability, then buidling science.com should be defiantly on your reading / resource bookmark list. They have lots of great, practical building science articles, papers and discussions.

CIBC World Markets' January Report on the Next Oil Price Spike

2009-02-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

CIBC World Markets' January Report has a good article by Jeff Rubin (their chief strategist) on the predicted next oil price spike, including a good discussion of the current affect of low oil costs reducing investment in new development coupled with global oil field decline rates.

CIBC WM predicts oil price to return to $100/bbl by end of 2010 (ie. next year).

Basement Insulation Upgrade for Post-War Bungalow

2009-02-07T16:14:00.000-08:00

My brother is currently adding insulation (2" EPS foam) of to the basement walls of his 1 1/2-story post-war bungalow. I was curious to see the effectiveness of this common approach versus building an R60 wall inside the basement, similar to Yukon Housing Corp.'s "SuperGreen" method.

The house is a well-cared for 1 1/2 story bungalow, very common to Whitehorse, especially in Riverdale. The house has some new windows, modest air sealing, and an un-insulated concrete basement with concrete floor. To estimate the energy savings of the two upgrade options, I built a basic model of this house in HOT2000.

Then, ran the two basement insulation scenarios:

2" Foam - 2" EPS foam, taped seams, 1x4 strapping & drywall - R10
SuperGreen wall - 2x4 inner stud wall on 1x4 top & bottom plates creating a 16" cavity filled with cellulose. Vapour barrier and drywall - R60

Energy Saving Results:

Basement Insulation Upgrade:	Base Case	2" Foam	SuperGreen
R-Value of Basement	~ R3.5	R10	R60
Total Building Heat Loss (MJ)	116.4	106.6	103.3
Basement Heat Loss (MJ)	34	20.9	24.2
% of Heat Loss through Basement	29%	22.7%	20.3%
Annual Oil Use (L)	2766 L	2452 L	2346 L
Annual Cost Savings @ $1.00/L	-	$314.00	$ 420.00
Annual Cost Savings @ $1.50/L	-	$471.00	$ 630.00

Note: This does not include re-insulation of the rim joist, which would likely be foamed, resulting in reduced overall air-leakage. I assume this would be common to both scenarios, so didn't model rim joist re-insulation upgrade.

Costs:

Assuming the home-owner supplies the labour for both upgrades, material costs are as follows. Costs common to both options (e.g. drywall) are not shown.

Dimensions are:
W: 28', L: 24', H: 7.5', Perimeter: 104' , Wall Area: 780 sq. ft.

Option 1 Material Costs: 2" Foam

Item	#	Unit	Unit Cost	Item Total
2" Foam Board	54	2x8 boards	$ 32.49	$ 1,754
Foam-Concrete Glue	8	tubes	$ 6.00	$ 48
Hilti gun rental	2	days	$ 30.00	$ 60
Hilti nails	3	boxes	$ 60.00	$ 180
Tuck Tape	2	rolls	$ 14.00	$ 28
Acoustical sealant	2	tubes	$ 3.00	$ 6
1x4 16' strapping	33	ea.	$ 5.27	$ 174
Total Material Costs				$ 2,250

Option 2 Material Costs: SuperGreen

Item	#	Unit	Unit Cost	Item Total
Top & bottom plates	13	1x4 16' stapping	$ 5.27	$ 68
Studs	52	2x4 8'	$ 3.77	$ 196
Accustical sealant	4	tubes	$ 6.00	$ 24
Hilti gun rental	1	days	$ 30.00	$ 30
Hilti nails	1	boxes	$ 60.00	$ 60
Tuck Tape	1	rolls	$ 14.00	$ 14
Vapour Barrier	1.5	100' roll	$ 80.99	$ 121
Cellulose Insulation	70	bags	$ 17.97	$1,258
Total Material Costs				$1,772

Summary
If you can "afford" to loose 16" around the perimeter of your basement, then insulating with the SuperGreen method is the way to go:

Upgrade Option:	2" Foam	SuperGreen	Relative Savings
Material Cost	$ 2,250	$ 1,772	$ 478
Oil Savings (L)	314	420	106
Cost Savings @ $1.00/L	$ 314	$ 420	$ 106
Cost Savings @ $1.50/L	$ 471	$ 630	$ 159
Simple Payback @ $1.00/L (years)	7	4	3
Simple Payback @ $1.50/L (years)	5	3	2
Return on Investment @ $1.00/L	14%	24%	10%
Return on Investment @ $1.50/L	21%	36%	15%

The Long Emergency, Oil Production Decline, and the Economy

2008-12-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, I received a copy of James Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency". If you've never heard of James Kunstler, he is a very engaging writer and commentator from upstate New York. He's written a number of books, including "Geography of Nowhere" and "Home From Nowhere" and is a former editor with Rolling Stone.

While reading this book, (published in 2005--back when the markets were roaring along making lots of money), I came across the following passage:

"The best information we have is that we will have passed the point of world peak oil production sometime between the years 2000 and 2008. The date is inexact for several resons. One is that the reported reserves (oil left in the ground) of private sector and nationalized oil companies tend to be routinely overestimated, variously to benefit the share price of the stock, or to gain export quota advantages in international markets, as in the case of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members. Another reasons is the "peak" will tend to manifest in several years of oscillating market instability, a volatile period of recurring price shocks and consequential recession dampening demand and price, presage a terminal decline. The peak therefore will only be seen in a "rearview mirror" once the terminal decline begins. Signs of sustained market instability therefore tend to suggest the earlier onset of peak but would not be probable except in hindsight."

This was written three years ago. Doesn't this very pointedly describe our current economic situation? It looks like Jim nailed it.

As Robert Heinberg described in his article "Say Good Bye to Peak Oil", the one-two punch of rapid oil field declines (IEA estimates global average oil field decline of 6% / year) coupled with the current low oil prices causing lack of investment in new development, has likely lead to peak global oil production having occurred in July 2008. Is this the peak starting to appear in our "rearview" mirror?

With respect to our current global economic instability, Jeff Rubin of CIBC World Markets has identified that the current global recession is the result of high oil prices. Again, Jim nailed it - volatile energy prices, price shocks followed by recession with dampened demand and prices
.

Charts from CIBC World Markets' October 31st, 2008 report.

All in all, the forecast presented in the preamble to "The Long Emergency" seem to be panning out. So, the Long Emergency might be a good description for the years to come.

Happy New Year.

Fuel Switching - Energy, Cost and GHG Emission Reductions

2008-12-22T22:31:00.000-08:00

Last year we "fuel switched" from oil heat to electric heating for our house. The following is a summary of cost savings, energy savings and reductions in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions resulting from this fuel switch.

Figure 1. Monthly energy costs savings for adding electric pre-heat to oil-fired combo heating system.

We have an Green Home which means it is a energy efficient home (Energuide Rating of 81, equivalent to R-2000) - or in other words, our house should use half the energy of a normal home. Our home is heated with a combo-system: it's a oil-fired hotwater tank that provides both domestic hot water and space heating. The "fuel switch" was achieved by installing an electric hotwater tank in front of the oil-fired hotwater tank - that way the electric "pre-heats" the water entering the oil-fired tank. Both tanks are set at 140 DegF (I tried putting the oil-fired tank lower than the electric, but the relatively colder water from the oil-fired hot water tank was causing my fancoil (which provides the forced air space heating) to run in low-speed due to low inlet water temperature).

Figure 2. Electric Pre-heat for combo-heating system. Electric hot water tank on left (half-height space saver so it fits under the fancoil unit) pre-heats water entering / returning to oil-fired hot water tank on right. Yes, I know it's a pretty messy install - but it works.

I installed the hotwater tank in December 2007 due to both rising oil costs, but also in consideration of the benefits of using our locally produced hydroelectricity: very low GHG emissions and investing locally (e.g. energy expenditures flow to Yukon owned energy corporation). The hotwater tank cost about $250, and then I spent about another $200+ on fittings, copper, valves, breaker, wire, etc. So, the conversion probably cost me $450 plus a bunch of my labour (I'm not a very fast plumber).

Building Energy Use
During the design of our house, we had an energy model run (using HOT2000). Figure 3 below shows the modelled energy consumption of our house, and the acutal energy usage before and after the fuel switch to electricity

Figure 3. Actual and modelled total energy consumption for 705 Jarvis St.

We are using a wood stove for much of our space heat, and the HOT2000 model did not originally consider that. Overall we see that our house is using about 12% more energy than originally modelled, even when you take into consideration the relatively lower combustion efficiency of the wood stove.

The fuel switch to electricity did not substantively reduce our total energy usage (only about 1% annual energy consumption savings), however in 2008 it has saved about $260. The simple payback on the electric pre-heat system should be about two years: not a bad investment given today's investment opportunities!

However, looking at Figure 1 you can see that the differential between oil and the electricty has decreased in recent months, reducing our savings. Oil prices have dropped and net electricity prices have risen due to YEC and YECL rate riders.

Green House Gas Emissions
Reductions in green house gas emissions are substantive. Figure 4 shows GHG emissions for our house. Note that biomass related GHGs have to be reported under most GHG protocols, but as biomass (e.g. burning wood) is considered renewable and carbon-neutral, it does not count towards your total emissions.

Figure 4. Green house gas emissions for 705 Jarvis Street.

The Yukon's electricity is generated primarily by hydro-electric generation, and hence the Yukon's emission factor for electricity is currently very low (on the order of 1.6 g/kWh of CO2e). Given our use of biomass (aka wood) for heating our house, our baseline (pre-fuel switch) GHG emissions were already 16% lower than modelled, even though we are using 12 % more energy than modelled. With the fuel-switch to electricity, we've reduce our home related GHG emissions another 70% - from 5 tonnes of CO2e per year to 1.6 tonnes of CO2e/yr.

Old Buildings Photo Gallery

2008-12-14T17:31:00.000-08:00

I've started a gallery of old building photos:

Haines, Alaska - mainly Ft. Seward buildings from 1898.

Victoria, BC

Forest's Christmas List

2008-12-08T22:17:00.000-08:00

To make Christmas even easier, here is my Christmas list:

1. New skate skis (ok, that one might be a bit much, since I want the REALLY expensive ones ;-)
2. new ski boots (Solomon pro combi - I'm size 10 1/2 to 11)
3. Socks okay (not big wooly ones, just day-to-day sock), NO underwear (I have lots, and never wear it anyway).
4. A zola coffee card
5. New headlight for my bike - there looks like a nice one at MEC
6. Beer & wine!
7. Any Memoir '44 items (see Fun Games Cafe for a good canadian place to order from)
8. The Memoir '44 campaign bag - its cool, but never mind, no one will play M44 with me anyway.
9. A new job

Georgi's Christmas List

2008-12-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

To easy Christmas concerns, I am sharing with you all Georgi's Christmas list. If you want to claim a list item, let me know and I'll cross it off so we don't double up:

1. Chocolate (item not sanctioned by Forest)
2. ~~Smart Wool socks (size M, not mega long ones, bright colour w/ stripes)~~
3. Skate ski wax job
4. Massage....
5. Yarn store gift certificate
6. ~~Snowpants~~
7. ~~Metal water bottle, with elephant picture or eggs & chicks~~
8. Helley Hanson long underwear: bright colours
~~- top,long sleve, size M~~
- bottom, size L
9. Fox Fur - from trappers assoc.
10. ~~Spice bottle stickers - at Coffee, Tea and Spice store.~~
NEW 11. ~~Book "Saving Fish from Drowning" by Amy Tan at Coles (paper back)~~.

Merry Xmas!

2008 Yukon Orienteering Campaign Results

2008-12-07T23:22:00.000-08:00

Just for fun, I developed a ranking system for the Yukon Orienteering Association. It is based off of the IOF system, but ranks ALL Yukon Orienteerers over a season. It also "flattens" categories/courses so it acknowledges orienteerers can be competitive at what ever level they are at.

The ranking system has no official or sanctioned purpose. It is just for fun to see, relatively, who is the Yukon's best orienteerers and how you improved over the orienteering season

Click here to download the 2008 Yukon Orienteering Campaign Rankings results.

Title Page Picture - Carcross Performance Pavilion

2008-12-07T23:10:00.001-08:00

The building on the header of the site is the timber frame performance pavilion in Carcross, Yukon. I did the design of this building with Dave Brook and Mike MacDonald, who are the builders. This is the second of these buildings that have been raised, the first was at Mt. Lorne Community Centre built in 2006.

The original concept and the bents (the structural elements) were by Mike and Dave with review by a structural engineering in Canmore, Alberta. I facilitated the design, overall layout, generally building aragement, massing, facade and ultimatly prepared the design. I should post a few more pics of it soon, as this building really does nicely showcase the structure of timber frame.

What Does "Old Way of Seeing" Mean?

2008-12-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

The name "Old Way of Seeing" comes from a book written by Jonathan Hale called "The Old Way of Seeing: How Architecture Lost Its Magic - and How to Get It Back" (it's at Whitehorse Public Library if you are curious).

Although the book is a bit lackluster and rambling, the concept does nicely capture my view on our built environment: We are always hoping technology and new ways of doing things will solve our problem, but fail to recognize that we've been building our environment for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and that many of the lessons have been learned, but simply forgotten or forsaken.

A few reviews of Hale's book summarizes this sentiment nicely:

"...[a] calling for a combination of design that incorporates universal human fondness for pattern with a designer sense of intuition and play. He argues that such "old way of seeing" has been lost in much by both the designer and the wider public and that today's contemporary architecture and built environment is the result."

and

"if you've ever wondered why new buildings, even though they seem to try very hard, still pale in comparison to old buildings...[there is a] missing "something." He promotes rediscovering our aesthetic eye-- that part of us that knows unconsciously the pattern and geometry of nature, the balance of shape and form that brings us joy."

Forest, Georgi & Finn's 2008 Online Christmas Card Album

2008-12-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

We did up our family Christmas card / newsletter today - it's very cool, so check you mailboxes soon! It also comes with online content: A Christmas card photo gallery at Flickr.