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  • 1.  Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    ASES Board Member
    Posted 01-27-2025 06:57 PM

    John Avenson, a long-timer solar expert who was recently elected to the ASES Board, is the creator of an amazing net-zero home in Colorado that was recently featured in an episode of the program "Heart of a Building," which has now recently aired on PBS. Hurray!
    Here's the link:
    https://youtu.be/W-k3ShaOqxo?si=YcA9vGAnHGXbi0_r
    I strongly urge to share this with others: John's home is an ideal, state-of-the-art example, and he and the other experts appearing in this episode explain what is going on in a detailed but entertaining and accessible way. We need so much more attention on comprehensive sustainable development like this. It's one thing to put some PV on the roof (which I say as the PV designer at a company that does precisely this), and another to combine integrate it with state-of-the-air passive solar and other sustainable technologies and building technics. 



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    Benjamin Luce
    Professor of Physics
    Northern Vermont University
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  • 2.  RE: Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 01-28-2025 11:35 AM

    Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Ben!



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    Ella Nielsen
    Membership & Engagement Director
    American Solar Energy Society
    Boulder CO
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  • 3.  RE: Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 01-29-2025 09:01 AM
    Edited by Timothy Mcbride 01-29-2025 09:04 AM

    Thanks Ben for posting this link.

    Yes a great share indeed as already forwarded this video to our group.  The old solar adage ,  Great Passive Solar makes Active Solar work way less-  shines through as every aspect of this dwelling. I love how, John Avenson  compares the construction of ancient peoples with modern solar technologies as a marriage made in the heavens literally.  Most native cultures aligned structures to the Sun and cardinal directions all over the world. A lot of these ideas have been forgotten by the use of modern appliances which is good as long as the electric production comes from a source that doesn't cause a out of balance detriment to our living planet's life sustaining abilities. 



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    Timothy Mcbride
    CEOOwner
    Sol-Era R & D
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  • 4.  RE: Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 01-29-2025 02:34 PM
    Edited by william fitch 01-29-2025 02:47 PM

    I might have sampled that vid before, not sure. Good for all the basics covering load reduction. It is wise that he avoided total cost. Quad glass! I will be using Hight R tri - pane fib windows with special coating and gas and high R tracked insulation shades, and just the material cost on that is over 50K$! All this stuff is great when you basically have "endless money". Most people practically can maybe afford one or two parts of the "whole scheme". So from an engineering side, it supplies the basic knowledge, and people can figure out what they can afford. Most people have to figure a sub 10 year ROI. Obviously his ROI is basically never, though not a goal probably, hoping for business case offset, ideally in advance.

    I only mention these things because RE FUD masters have always from the beginning, used high entry costs as a talking point against RE and anything related. But it serves a certain niche in the whole RE scheme of things. So for a certain targeted audience, it is a good PR piece.

    Side note: I had one engineering question. With all the AL outside the stud insulation (Vapor lock), if all sealed he would have potential condensation build up right in the stud space, probably right before the foam. Did he have venting at the base of the stud wall for a way to vent moisture if occurred. With water it is always good engineering to assume that it will find a way in somehow, so better have a way out...??..



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    william fitch
    Owner
    www.WeAreSolar.com
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  • 5.  RE: Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 01-30-2025 05:02 AM
    Edited by Timothy Mcbride 01-30-2025 07:46 AM

    Bill, We always have to think "  BIG PICTURE/ LARGE SCALE  "  A device that saves or creates energy in a single home is great for that particular homeowner, but that same device in a billion homes would cause such a supply chain explosion that nothing would be accomplished energywise at all. Sad fact a home that is NET-ZERO energywise will have no effect on climate change in the BIG PICTURE where the status quo expands as business as usual.  Unless the Human Family is willing to go back to living like Native Americans who survived here with a track record of tens of thousands of years until the Tall Ships arrived with Colonialism enthralled with an coal based industrial revolution and an insatiable desire for gold to this very day.  Truth is the whole way that human beings live and habitat upon this planet would need to change to actually maintain planetary homeostasis, ( Bio-Dome 101) as just having a bunch of people in so called Net Zero Energy homes is not going to change a thing if that supply chain to build and maintain the things is not.  Large Scale  Big Picture.  Now we got all these Tech Guru with overwhelming electricity hog Bitcoins, ( The New GOLD)  and Artificial Intelligence ( The New Colonialism )  preaching,  this is the future while planning tons of new nuclear power plants to power this madness. 

    AI's Growing Power Needs: Tech Industry's Move Towards Nuclear Power

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    Timothy Mcbride
    CEOOwner
    Sol-Era R & D
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  • 6.  RE: Great Video on John Avenson Net-Zero Home: Just aired on PBS

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 01-30-2025 08:18 AM

    For once I believe I pretty much agree with you. The hard unapproachable truth is that as long man has the currency construct, we are F'd. That is a crude way to put it, but it is correct. And to clarify, I am not saying money is the root of all evil. That expresses causality incorrectly. However my TFTD that I wrote a long time ago, probably 15 years by it's number, states it more clearly:

    TFTD#126. "I am not saying money is the "root of all evil" here. I am saying that currency is the perfect choice catalyst for the human animal instinct to reveal its worst sides, competition, selfishness, greed, in lieu of cooperation, compassion and equivalency."

    It is currency and its forcing into a Hierarchical structure that has held our "brains" in the Limbic mode for 4K years, rather than being able to move into the higher functions we have.

    Thanks for your thoughts on this.



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    william fitch
    Owner
    www.WeAreSolar.com
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