What will the homes of the future look like? Will they have voice-controlled nifty appliances? A robot maid like “The Jetsons”?
Honda has a very smart — and very innovative — idea for the house of tomorrow that’s not quite on the level of George Jetson and his space-aged brood, but it’s exactly the direction American home-building needs if we’re going to slash our enormous, and unsustainable, energy consumption.
The carmaker built an experimental 2,000 square-foot Honda Smart Home on the University of California, Davis campus. Currently, a UC Davis employee is living in it, and for the next three years, the employee will monitor the power usage to see if the house is practical for the average American.
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What’s so amazing is that the home draws power from renewable sources, such as solar panels. As Fast Company puts it, the residence is so energy efficient that it pumps out more power than it uses — which means a homeowner could potentially sell energy to the power company. According to this infographic, the average home uses up 13.3 megawatt hours annually, whereas the Honda Smart Home puts back 2.6 megawatt hours on the grid. The home surpasses California’s 2020 target for zero net energy residential homes.
And wave bye-bye to air conditioning and heating bills with the geothermal heating and cooling (who isn’t interested in cheaper electric bills?). The Honda home slashes water consumption to a one-third of most American homes, and cuts more than 11 tons of CO2 annually compared to conventional homes and cars. And because Honda is behind it all, there’s garage space for a Honda Fit electric vehicle that gets charged from the house’s solar power (check out the video below).
This house may not have as many bells and whistles as the sci-fi cartoon, but if we want to reduce our reliance on planet-harming fossil fuels, Honda’s house of the future might be the kind we should be living in today.
Tag: clean energy
Here’s What Happens When Communities Demand Green Energy
There’s a green revolution happening in Illinois, and we’re not just talking about citizens recycling cans and bottles, buying organic fruits and vegetables, or even driving hybrid cars. We’re talking about an environmental movement that’s happening on an unprecedented scale.
Statewide, 91 communities are using 100 percent renewable energy, according to a report titled “Leading from the Middle: How Illinois Communities Unleashed Renewable Energy” from the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, LEAN Energy US, the Illinois Solar Energy Association and George Washington University Solar Institute.
All of this has happened because of one small thing: Electric deregulation (aka allowing communities to choose their own electricity supply). As a result, Illinois utility providers are competing on the open market for customers, rather than one large entity dictating how much power costs. Each of these 91 local governments voted to purchase power through renewable energy providers (wind, solar, and geothermal sources). And because there is power in numbers, these individual towns were able to leverage their size in exchange for discounts from the energy providers. It’s a winning scenario for all the stakeholders — clean energy companies get more customers while residents get sustainable energy for cheaper prices — and one that more communities should follow.
MORE: How One State Is Making It Easier and Cheaper to Use Wind Power
All told, Illinois customers saved as much as $37 billion over the past 16 years. Additionally, these communities have saved more than 6 terawatt hours, which is the stunning equivalent of taking more than 1 million cars off the road or 250,000 homes off the grid.
“The findings of [the March 7] report are an example of Illinois leading our country’s movement to a more sustainable future from the community level,” said Dick Durbin, a U.S. senator from Illinois. “Communities up and down the state have banded together to pursue renewable electricity, reducing both their utility costs and the state’s environmental footprint. Illinois is showing what can happen when change at the local level is harnessed to create a collective movement, and I hope other states take notice.”
We couldn’t agree more.
This Solar Farm Stands for a Lot More Than Clean Energy
Farming is a tradition in Reginald Parker’s family. His mother and her family grew up picking cotton as sharecroppers, and his dad picked tobacco. But Parker is continuing that legacy in a new vein — farming solar energy. He plans to open a six-acre, 1.4 megawatt solar farm in North Carolina on Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a form of remembrance for his family, but also as a triumph for African American entrepreneurship in the South. “This land was originally used for cotton farming, so with our groundbreaking we are announcing the change from cotton farming to solar farming in North Carolina, and cotton farming is something I truly will not miss,” Parker told Grist. “It was something like servitude to be a sharecropper, but now we’re owners, and that’s a source of pride in my family.”
An MIT graduate, Parker learned about solar energy after he wrote a paper for the African Technology Forum where he proposed the use of solar energy in Zimbabwe. “People beat up on solar because of the initial start-up costs to install solar energy, but it’s still significantly less than the costs for coal,” Parker told Grist. “Coal is trying to stay in there, but coal and natural gas have two things working against them: Both are in limited supply.” Here’s to many years of bountiful sunshine in North Carolina.
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The Cars of the Future Might Be Powered By… Algae
Oil is going green — literally. Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have discovered a way to simplify the process of turning algae and water into crude oil. The process, called hydrothermal liquefaction, has long been touted as a viable way to produce more energy. In fact, most of the oil that’s drilled from the ground was formed by algae, compacted and heated over the course of millions of years until it transformed into petroleum. But now scientists have figured out how to quickly reproduce the process in the lab, converting algae into oil in less than an hour.
“It’s a way of mimicking what happens naturally over an unfathomable length of time,” says lead investigator Douglas C. Elliott. “We’re just doing it much, much faster.”
So how does it work? PNNL researchers mix 20% algae with 80% water, and send the mixture down a tube at 660 degrees Fahrenheit and 3,000 psi for 30 minutes. The pressure cooker breaks down the algae and converts it into oil. An added bonus is that the process yields byproducts, such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen, which can be reused to generate more heat or fertilize the algae.
The same hydrothermal liquefaction process can also be used on other organic wastes, such as manure, sewage or compost, which could have big implications for recycling waste into energy all across the country. Researchers’ next challenge is figuring out how to make the process cheap. Algae-powered cars aren’t here yet, but they’re a bit closer thanks to this new innovation.
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A Plan to Bring Lighter Cars to the Masses Without Using Oil
A vehicle’s weight is the single biggest driver in its energy use. According to the research non-profit Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), “In the U.S., oil fuels 94% of our transportation system; cars alone use about 8.8 million barrels of oil at a cost of $2 billion every day.” That’s why RMI is working with researchers and manufacturers on a national effort to transform the automotive supply chain. “Making cars lighter is the single most effective way to dramatically reduce their fuel consumption and accelerate the electrification of their powertrains, weaning autos off oil entirely,” according to RMI. To help support the non-profit and a clean energy future, head over to their website.