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Smart Growth

In a community, there need to be many different options.  One such option to communities that want to expand or remodel failing neighborhoods is to consider smart growth.  There are many different types of households, so only one kind of housing doesn’t work for every one.  Apartments are good to have in any community, because they save space, and are affordable to most citizens.  Duplexes are also space savers.  But for larger households, with a larger income, a roomy house in the suburbs may be desirable.

Interestingly enough many old European villages meet this model as well.  One way to accomplish smart growth  is to remodel existing buildings into housing.  These buildings may include old schools, factories, or historic buildings.  Many of  the new co-housing  communities fit this smart growth model.  They are built on the concept of clustering the housing together and then having open areas for recreation or environmental concerns.  These areas provide places for water to drain, keeping streams and lakes clean.  Smart growth also gives people an option of walking, bicycling, or having access to public transportation.  It also encourages people to be involved in the local government and have a say in the decisions that are made about their community.  The goal is a high quality of life that makes these communities able to compete economically with business opportunities available.  These communities fit the  goals of sustainability, as they give people the quality of life that they need and they consequently want to remain part of the community.

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Co-housing Communities

Co-housing communities are small-scale neighborhoods with private, small scale homes that function together sharing common needs. Co-Housing is sustainable because it incorporates compact designs such as townhouses, apartments or clustered houses. It also overcomes the alienation of modern suburbs, by creating communities where people can interact with each other.  Each unit is a private home, but they share facilities like laundry, pool, game or TV rooms, stores, offices, gym, and guest rooms. The design usually includes open green space for gardening, play and interacting with neighbors and promotes pedestrian walking or biking between locations instead of using cars. Co-housing first began in Denmark with over 200 such communities in America already built or in progress or planning stages.

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Building Green

Construction and the maintenance of buildings consume 40% of the world’s energy use. They also use 30% of wood and raw materials. Buildings contribute to global warming by giving off 30% of the CO2 emissions in the United States through either heating or cooling the houses.

Developing home designs that use less energy, make a better use of water, and require fewer building materials is an important factor in sustainable building. Although these homes may cost more initially, they save money in the long term. They will cost less to run and help with reducing greenhouse emissions.

Groups such as ‘SustainableABC’ collect leftover and recyclable building materials which are then available for others to reuse in order to cut their building costs and to save on materials. Another innovation is using fiber-cement siding which is durable and has low maintenance. This is made from cement, cellulose fibers, and sand. It is low cost, doesn’t rot in damp weather, and is unaffected by insects, like termites. Adding insulation to attics and doors and buying Low-E(nergy) windows also reduce energy loss. Building green incorporates renewable energy sources like active solar systems that heat or cool the home.

Site design is a key element as a southern exposure is important for buildings in the Northern Hemisphere to be able to use active or passive solar power. Properly placed deciduous trees can help keep houses warmer in winter and cooler in the summer. They drop their leaves in the winter to allow the sun to warm the house, and the leaves shade the house in summer to keep it cooler.

To upgrade existing homes, home owners are encouraged to buy new appliances that use less electricity. All appliances have energy ratings on them now when you go to buy them. That way you can compare the cost in running them. People can also replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs that use a fourth of the energy. They can also use solar power for lighting for the yard or for outdoor water heaters, and they can incorporate light motion sensors indoors as well as outdoors.

Since construction and the maintenance of buildings consume 40% of the world’s energy use and generate 30% of CO2 emissions in the U.S., developing home designs that incorporate greater energy and water efficiency and the use of fewer materials are important factors in sustainable building. Such ‘Building Green’ uses recycled materials, which are durable and have low maintenance like fiber-cement siding. Building Green incorporates renewable energy sources like wind turbines or active solar systems that heat or cool the home, and generate electricity.

To upgrade existing homes, home owners are encouraged to buy new appliances that use less electricity. They can also replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs that use 1/4 to 1/2 the energy, use solar lighting for the yard and incorporate light motion sensors for indoors as well as outdoors. Adding insulation to attics, doors and buying Low-E windows also reduce energy loss. Renewable solar energy can be incorporated for heating outdoor pools and water heaters.

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Transportation

Transportation is a huge problem in most communities. Most families spend more than $5,000 dollars each year to own and maintain a motor vehicle. Transportation accounts for as much as one third of greenhouse emissions in the United States. Congestion costs are over 6 million dollars in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York City,  and Mexico City.  Transportation is vital for economical development, moving goods and services and allowing access to jobs. Sustainable communities must find creative solutions that balance the need for economic growth with the need for less expensive mobility that is accessible and environmentally friendly. Communities need to offer alternative choices that focus on people instead of motor vehicles. Also, cities can encourage people to stop using their cars by making public transportation easier to use and to access.

There are many solutions to these problems. Communities need to make better transportation routes for bikes, modern trains, buses and other more sustainable choices.

Many cities in the United States have Bike Alliances that promote the development of bike routes and the safety of cars and cycles which share the same roads. Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, are two cities which have public bike programs.

Public electric scooter programs are a possibility as well, with public charging stations available at scooter parking spots.

Communities should offer incentives for people to use carpooling and vanpooling to ride to work with their co-workers. VPSI is one company that provides "Commuter transportation programs… serving 50 major urban areas throughout the world".  Denver, Colorado has a different successful program called Ride-Arrangers. Now in their 30th year they assist businesses and individuals with carpool matching. Ride-Arrangers promotes vanpooling for commuters by allowing them to easily share rides to work for a low monthly fee.  Other regions in the United States using vanpooling include Sacramento, California, and Metropolitan Washington area.

Public transportation needs to be accessible and fast for people to decide to use it.

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Renewable or Green Energy

Renewable energy is energy taken from sources that for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. Mankind has been able to discover many different ways to use the resources we have at hand, such as biomass, wind power, water power, solar energy and geothermal energy just to name a few.  Below is a chart that lists the types of renewable energy that are in use today. Unfortunately these account for only about 6% of the energy that we consume world-wide, according to the Energy Information Agency in 2004.

The major type of renewable energy in use today is biomass fuels. Biomass fuels are organic materials that are used as fuel, usually for burning. The most well known is wood. It was the main fuel until fossil fuels were used. Organic materials in garbage can also be burned to provide energy, and there are facilities that burn garbage to produce electricity.  Another form of biomass energy is methane gas. Landfills and manure from farms release methane gas. This can be captured and used as a source of fuel.  * (See an example of this below).  Some biomasses are used as fuel for vehicles. These fuels burn cleaner than fossil fuels. They include ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol is an alcohol based fuel made from sugar in grains, usually corn.  Some gasoline companies add ethanol to their gasoline to make it burn cleaner.   Biodiesel is made from recycling vegetable fats and oils from the food industry. Any diesel engine can use biodiesel.

The second most common type of renewable energy is hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power, or water power, uses flowing water to generate electricity. The basic premise is that water from a river will power a turbine to generate electricity. But not all rivers provide the same amount of energy. In order to provide large amounts of energy a river either needs to flow fast or fall rapidly. Having one of those conditions present will increase the flow of water enough to turn a turbine. There are two main kinds of hydroelectric plants. One type uses the strength of the river as it flows to provide energy. The other type uses a dam to make a reservoir. As the demand for electricity is higher, the more water in the reservoir is released, causing more water to pass through the turbines more quickly and generating more power.

Wind energy is the harnessing of the wind to create energy. Wind currents are created as the sun acts on the land. The wind turbines have large blades that are shaped like airfoils and create an effect, like that of an airplane wing, to spin the blades. The fans are mounted on top of large poles.  The higher the fan blades are, the stronger wind will be. The spinning fan blades are then connected to a generator which turns the rotations into electricity.

Solar energy is another type of renewable energy. Solar energy is the process of capturing the sun’s energy to provide electric power. There are several methods of capturing solar energy. One way is through the use of photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells are the small tiles in solar panels that capture the sun’s energy. They directly turn the sun’s energy into electricity. This happens when the cells absorb the energy from the sun. The energy (in the form of photons) excites the electrons in the cells and causes a current to flow. Photovoltaic cells are used for multiple reasons. First, since the cells release no by-products they are very environmentally friendly. Also, the conversion to electricity happens in the cells, so no other devices are needed for the conversion. This allows the solar cells to be very portable and able to be installed in many locations. The problem with them is that they don’t produce much electricity, but each year as technology improves, they get better.  Another type of solar energy is solar thermal troughs. These mirrored troughs  focus sunlight on a fluid which is used to power a turbine. A variety of mirror arrangements can be used depending on the optimal temperature to which to heat the fluid. For example, the parabolic trough heats fluids to 400 degrees Celsius.  This hot fluid then makes steam to power turbines that make electricity.

Geothermal energy is using the heat from the earth to generate power. Geothermal energy can only be harnessed in specific locations. The location needs magma to rise higher into the crust than normal to generate heat. Water must be trapped underground in the area to capture the heat and be pumped out. To harness the energy heated water, a facility pumps steam from the ground, uses to it to power a turbine, and then reinserts the water back into the ground to be reheated.  This works especially well in countries like Iceland, where there are many steam vents to the earth’s inner core.

Conclusion — Although currently only a small percentage of the energy produced is from renewable sources (6-10% depending on your source of data), the trend appears to increasing.  At present over 2% of electricity produced in the UK comes from a renewable source. By the year 2010 the Government's target is to exceed 10%. Various predictions suggest we will achieve 50% by the year 2050.(1) This is typical of most major countries, that is, they are setting goals to increase the amount of renewable energy sources. The Rand Corporation expects the USA to reach the goal of 25 % if the cost of producing it decreases 20%, which is the apparent trend.  Australia currently has 8% of its energy from renewable sources, and is working towards increasing it. Japan is looking towards 6.2% by 2010, up from 1.89 in 1989. It appears that major governments and the energy industry  are both seeing the wisdom in increasing the amount of renewable resources.  Many of these, like solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro, have the added benefit of reducing green house gas emissions, for which many governments have set standards. We hope that they will continue to see the wisdom of these trends, and will support them well into the future.

From the: “University of New Hampshire Magazine, winter 2007”:

An exciting example of a local University planning to use energy in a sustainable way, is what is happening at the University of New Hampshire today. A landfill in Rochester, New Hampshire contains over a million tons of garbage which produces a gas called methane. This gas is created by decomposing garbage and is a greenhouse gas. This gas is dangerous and could contribute to global warming if it is able to escape into the atmosphere. For a while Waste Management Inc, has been burning it out in the open, but forward thinkers in the University of New Hampshire figured out a much better solution. They are proposing to build a 12.5 mile long pipeline from the landfill to the UNH power plant, providing up to eighty-five percent of the University’s energy needs. So instead of releasing the harmful gas into the atmosphere, they are saving the environment, and gaining a sustainable energy source. (2)