Thought for the day

At what point do we Americans believe that we can't continue with our unsustainable lifestyle, that we need to get more aggressive in ending our dependance on fossil fuels. Unfortunately, while everyone knows that you shouldn’t stick your tongue against a frozen flagpole in the winter, we all had to try it anyway! So I don’t think real change will come until we’ve already felt the devastating consequences and the pain.

It’s been one hell of a party the last 75 years and we don’t want it to end, but it’s almost closing time and the beers about gone. All we have to look forward to is the hangover.

I don't want to be a downer, but the sooner we start making meaningful changes, the less painful it will become.

Project Lichtnstein

I had lunch yesterday with Christian Milaster. Christian is one of the early adapters of an off-the-grid home in our neck of the woods. He built a home by Lanesboro that he named "Project Lichtnstein". Christian is an engineer by profession and he incorporated many of the technologies that we will be using in our Ecovillage and so he has a lot of experience to bring to our project. He has agreed to assist in our development. Here is his webpage:



Look forward to working with you Christian!www.lichtnstein.org

Pine Island Solar

I visited Tommy Thompson, owner of Pine Island Solar, today. Tom has been building sustainable homes and installing renewable energy systems since the 1970's. I outlined what I had in mind and he was happy to join the development team. Tom has worked with most of the alternative energy systems that we plan to incorporate into the Ecovillage and he will contribute a great deal to the project.

As I work on promoting the concept and establishing interest, I will continue to identify key people to join the development team. I had contacted the Rochester Post Bulletin to see if they could do a piece in the paper on Earthday, but haven't heard whether that will happen or not. I also spoke to the 5th graders at St. John's this week, that was fun. It was my first talk on the Ecovillage concept so it was a good learning experience.

Been a productive week so far, hopefully the PB comes through!

Sounds great, but how do we get there?

The first step is to find out the interest level in the community, that's where you come in. We can't "build it and they will come", so we need to know if there is enough interest that we will be able to sell homes for the village. These homes will be smaller than the current norm, but will be well built and fully modern and functional. It's very important that the homes are affordable, otherwise they're not practical.

If there is sufficient interest in the community, then the next step is to assemble a group of professionals who are familiar with the building techniques, alternative energy systems, and engineering. The significance of developing a sustainable housing development is important to me and that will also be an important criteria for the development team to share. This is about shaping the future, not a quick buck.

One of the challenges that we face, is that this ecovillage doesn't fit the standard house or housing development for either residential zoning or bank financing. We could build it out in the woods somewhere to make it easier, but I'd like to challenge our cities to look "outside the box". Adapting the zoning to allow for sustainable development would be an important part of effecting change, so I'm willing to fight that fight.

Banks are another story, until some developments like this are demonstrated to be successful, that's probably not an option. For this reason, we will eventually be looking for a private investor to finance the project. The investor would finance the project until all properties are paid for and recieve a return on his investment. Once the project is paid for, it will be turned over to the Ecovillage for joint ownership.

This won't be an easy project to accomplish, but someone's got to be first. We could wait for the natural progression for this to happen, but I'm not willing to wait. Being the first also has it's benefits. I would hope to be able to get some funding from state, local, and federal agencies which will help out. In return, we will share our successes and what we learned to others so they can build on what we learned.

Newsweek magazine book review

I just read a quote from a book review on Newsweek magazine website, that decribes exactly what I think:

Rosen proposes that Washington fund half a dozen off-grid developments. Here’s his pitch to Energy Secretary Steven Chu: “Each would have a few hundred inhabitants and each would be limited to using, for example, only 10 percent of the energy used per capita in the rest of the country. The speed and enthusiasm with which these places would be taken up would determine, once and for all, the demand for this lifestyle. And if the experiment proved that the technology works, then this once-maverick section of American society would be widely imitated by mainstream society because my hunch is that deep down millions feel the same way”

The plan

A sustainable community uses its resources to meet current needs while ensuring that adequate resources are available for future generations. A sustainable community seeks a better quality of life for all it’s

residents while maintaining nature’s ability to function over time by minimizing waste, preventing

pollution, promoting efficiency and developing local resources to revitalize the local economy. Decision making in a sustainable community stems from a rich civic life and shared information among community

members. A sustainable community resembles a living system in which human, natural and economic

elements are interdependent and draw strength from each other.

We envision that the village would consist of 10-30 homes initially, which will be 800-1200 sqft and clustered to promote sharing of centralized resources and enhancing the social aspects. The homes would be very well insulated using standard building materials. There would also be a common house that would be used for gatherings and shared meals, and this would also serve as a resource center for sharing sustainable living concepts with the community and surrounding area.

            This would be an off-grid development, with solar and wind electricity and battery storage with biodiesel generator backup. We would utilize rainwater catchment along with greywater recycling. We would utilize a constructed wetland for septic processing. Centralized radiant heating system will utilize solar thermal and biomass along with thermal storage and a backup propane boiler.

            Growing our own food and hopefully growing extra for sale to the community would be an important part of sustainability. We would expect to have some greenhouse space to extend the growing season. Ideally the village would consist of a diverse population, both in age and skills. My hope is that we can provide affordable housing since we will be sharing resources.

Getting started

Welcome to our blog. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself and then why we are pursuing an Ecovillage. My wife and I are moving back to the Rochester area and will be in need of housing. Our children are grown and we have made a commitment to ourselves that we want to build a sustainable house because of our concern for national and global events and the world that we will leave for our children and grandchildren. We can't change the world, but we can control our own decisions and perhaps help others who share similar interests achieve theirs.

I am an Electronic Technician/ Biomedical Technician by trade and I have been following alternative energies for the last 20 years. The technologies for sustainable housing are here now, but the cost is too high for most people and in some cases the zoning and ordinances in place creates roadblocks. To make affordable sustainable housing, we need to develop a village concept and share the expense of alternative energies. There are already some pioneers in the Rochester area who have paved the way for showing that it is possible to accomplish sustainable living in our area.

I believe there are other people out there who would like to live a more sustainable life, but the cost and lack of available developers who practice these building principles is lacking. If we are able to accomplish this then my hope is that these practices will become more widespread.

We are just getting started and there is a lot of work to achieve this. As a starting point, we want to get the concept of an Ecovillage out and see what level of interest there is in the community. So please, let me know your thoughts.