Instead of waiting until we as a society outpace ourselves back into the dark ages, by implementing renewable energy and redesigned buildings now, we can keep the lights on.
What am I talking about?
Buildings are the number one cause of energy consumption and environmental degradation worldwide. “In the U.S., the residential sector ranks as the single largest energy consumer in the world…at 1/5 of the total energy consumed in the U.S. each year”, and “homes worldwide account for 25% of total energy use”.
According to the 2008 International Energy Outlook, “World energy consumption is projected to expand by 50% from 2005 to 2030”, and the U.N. now projects that world population will be around 8.9 billion by 2050.
The 2009 U.S. Annual Energy Outlook projects a “24% increase in the number of households, increasing the demand for appliances, and causing total electricity use in the residential sector to increase by 20% from 2007 to 2030.” With total U.S. electricity demand expected to increase by 26% from 2007 to 2030.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory predicts that “between 2003 and 2025, the U.S. population will grow by 58 million people, subsequently causing an increase in new building construction. With this comes the inevitable growth in consumption of energy, water, food and other non-renewable supplies – unless we change the way we design new comminutes.”
It is important to understand these predictions in relation to world population and energy consumption, for they directly affect every nation’s access to the basic necessities of life. As an industrialized nation, we often under appreciate our conveniences. For billions of people, the fact of population growth and access to fuel, food, and water, predominates their’ daily lives.
As a society, we take for granted our hot water, lights, refrigeration, and everything that keep our lives clean, dry, warm, and powered. We can glimpse the critical state of our nation’s infrastructure when we’re wondering when the power will turn on after a severe storm, or how we’ll eat if the supply lines stop running.
Robert Newman’s History of Oil eloquently puts these facts into perspective when he states, “Since we’ve got to make the switch from oil anyway, why not do it now while we’ve got an electricity grid that works 24 hours a day to work by?” As a nation, we’ve procrastinated to make this switch out of fear that by living sustainable – by using only the energy we produce – we’ll lose our current standard of living and live with fewer conveniences and pleasures.
When we consider all the current affairs and predictions – rising natural disasters, spiking energy prices, and growing populations – we have two options. We can remain sedative and watch as we burn the last vestiges of ancient sunlight until the day the lights remain dark and people begin to feel the urge of hunger; or, we can switch to renewable energy and redesigned buildings now, and maintain and increase both our current standard of living, and that of the entire worlds’.
Which will you choose?
Sustainable Living Systems’ C.O.R.E. Technology offers a building template, which heats and cools itself, uses fewer materials, and withstands winds in excess of 250mph; providing the home owner with all the conveniences and pleasures of our society, without the high cost of energy consumption and environmental degradation.
The C.O.R.E. Technology makes active renewable energy technologies economically viable. In standard construction, renewable energy technologies have to compete against coal and natural gas to offset 100% of a buildings’ energy use. Heating and cooling the average building, represents 66% of the buildings’ energy consumption.
Since C.O.R.E. Buildings heat and cool themselves, energy consumption is reduced by as much as 66%. This offers renewable energy technologies, such as solar, wind, and biomass, as an economic viability to coal, oil, and gas, through only having to offset the remaining 33% of a traditional home’s energy signature.
By incorporating C.O.R.E. Buildings and making renewable technologies economically viable, we can switch our nation’s infrastructure and economic outlook to work for us, rather than us for it. We increase our economic outlook by fixing our own infrastructure while manufacturing and exporting a valuable, high-end building technology to the rest of the world. For when you have a building design that heats and cools itself, it lends itself to a myriad of applications for trade and export.
To name only a few possible applications, consider the value of exporting homes that heat and cool themselves, providing reduced operational costs and safe sanctuaries from natural disasters; greenhouses that produce year-round, local, organic produce; water distilleries that convert agricultural levels of seawater into safe, clean, drinking water; and biogas digesters that increase electricity output, while producing agricultural levels of organic fertilizer.
We stand at a crossroads in time. The path we choose will determine both the longevity of our civilization and the standard of living available for our children and grandchildren.
We can live in an abundant world of clean water, energy, food, medicine, biodiversity, and all our technological conveniences. We can rebuild our nations’ economy and create value for the rest of world.
Or…we can let the lights go out.