Crunching numbers for energy planning

[goodcompanion]

Thought I’d start a thread for some musings about energy math, and the possible role of animal power. Much of this has been discussed in bits and pieces elsewhere on the forum.

Here’s what I’d like, for my household (which is not to say that I’ll get it, mind you): To be able to continue using electricity forever at about the same rate, of about 800 kwh per month. Much of this goes to power the farm workshop and the facilities in our commercial kitchen which are both kind of essential for us to function in the current economy.

I’d also like, if I could, to be able to drive around in a car that uses battery power for short trips, which are the only kind I take. I understand this would use about 200-250 extra kwh per month.

The current grid utility “cost” (the true cost of this energy is of course concealed from ratepayers) for us is only around $1000 per year. Some alternatives to paying those bills might be:

-6 horses on Athens treadmills for about 150 hours per month charging batteries, for a total of 900 horse-hours per month.
-A $36000 10kw commercially-bought windpower array
-10 large savonius rotor towers costing about $1000 each in materials
-maybe 10 kilowatts in solar panels? Costing about $30,000?

So the economically rational thing is to do nothing, stay the course, and keep paying those utility bills, and to enjoy the convenience of the grid. While it is true that if we invest enough money and/or time in a self-generation system we could do without the grid, such investment is also needed for many other areas on the farm, where it might pay better dividends as we enter an era of more-expensive energy.

So if it is not economically rational, then why invest money and time in being free of the grid? One rationale to which I am strongly sympathetic is that the grid as we know it is on borrowed time along with all the other cheap energy we enjoy. But here is my concern with this rationale: non-grid-tied electric energy solutions involve highly-machined components, like batteries, switches, and lightbulbs, that wouldn’t be made anymore without the grid remaining up and the overall economy remaining in a functional state.

So maybe a massive personal alternative energy investment would only buy you a few years of post-grid functionality before critical, non-replaceable parts of your system started wearing out. So why bother? Wouldn’t you rather invest that time and energy in things that are cheap, effective, and durable? Time-proven ways of getting by that you don’t need an engineering degree to make work? Like hand pumps, ice cutting equipment, and oil lamps?

My selfish wish is for the energy usage patterns on my farm to just continue, though this probably isn’t possible or worthwhile absent the cheap energy supplied by the grid. On the other hand not having electricity wouldn’t end our lives here–there isn’t anything we absolutely need here that can’t somehow or another be done by hand, after a fashion.

So when it comes to electricity, I seem to be working around to the conclusion not that achieving electricity self-sufficiency can’t be done, but that it’s just not worth the trouble.

So this brings me back to animal power. The Athens treadmills do provide rotary power that could replace the need for electric motors and can power all kinds of things, though maybe not all at once. They would probably last extremely well. You might never be able to get far on a car that you charged with a horse treadmill but you could save yourself a lot of time cranking a seed cleaner or a corn sheller or a butter or ice cream churn or a washing machine, or even a belt drive for workshop equipment. It says something too that these treadmills are made in a facility powered by treadmills and horsepowers, so Jay Bailey tells me. That’s the true litmus test for a renewable technology–self replication.

No doubt many others have considered their home and farm energy usage and reached different conclusions. I’d be interested in hearing them.

[gwpoky]

Erik,

Very well put. We are always analyzing this question of energy: cost vs. efficiency vs. conscience ect. Even with the draft power on our farm it would be cheaper and less hassle to use tractors in the short term but using draft power is really not any more hassle than fixing a tractor or not getting it started when needed, over time with self replacement, manure nutrients, and the longevity of horse powered equipment figured in horses are cheaper. This is not figuring in the benefits to one heart, sole, and closer relationship to ones work and existence that comes with working draft animals. This is a tough one at times how to get it all sorted out. Thanks for the insight and conversation. Hope all is well with you and yours.

[jac]

Some good points Erik.. I think people are starting to realise that renewable energies might not be so efficient after all when you take into account all the resources it takes to produce these items.. its said that a tractor never gives the farmer the amount of energy that it takes to create said tractor ???? thats totaly ineficient in real terms.. these huge wind turbines are the same. I think we as a race have to accept that we dont have a given right to cheap energy anymore… Erik if your car jouries are all short, would a fast moving pony not be able to replace the battery car ?…
John

[goodcompanion]

@jac 27101 wrote:

I think we as a race have to accept that we dont have a given right to cheap energy anymore… Erik if your car jouries are all short, would a fast moving pony not be able to replace the battery car ?…
John

Oh yes. I feel like horse transport for me would absolutely be a good alternative to the car! Except not just yet! Right now I am subject to the same pressures of time as everyone else in this dippy culture, my 5 year old kid goes to T ball practice at 6, home at 7, and I jump in the car and whisk him there and back in a couple minutes. It takes 15 minutes by horse, not including the harnessing and hitching. And often I have to make dinner during that time.

And some other trips are 15 miles each way and none of my horses can do that at a trot.

Also it is not particularly safe driving a horsedrawn vehicle in motorized traffic.

So you see I can come up with ample excuses why I don’t use a horse in traffic right now. But take away the time pressure and take away the motorized traffic and I am ALL FOR IT. It is a wonderful way to get around!

[jac]

Did a quick search last night for courses on Sustainable Agriculture in British colleges… couldnt find a single one that included draft animals. I know this thread is about sustainable energy but I feel that is exactly what animal power is.. why do the powers that be not accept this as a viable option??? time and time again tv programs have totally missed the chance to put forward the idea..How can it be possible to have a course teaching sustanable agriculture WITHOUT draft animals ??
John

[near horse]

I spent a little time as part of an online sustainable farm/ranch course – it did not address draft animal-power (nor any other forms of power/energy) as an option (although I did bring it up). The classes seem to focus on developing a “whole farm plan” but IMO, power source is a basic component of any farm plan.

Thanks Erik for bringing this up – I’m more inclined to practice the energy version of IPM (integrated pest management) – some things can be handled using draft-power directly while others, like transportation, might need to be integrated (as you said, charging batteries or something).

A lot of infrastructure has been built over the last 100 yrs that’s not conducive for use by animal power directly – although the Amish seem to be making it work for them. Just my quick thoughts.

BTW- Last night I was reading an article called The Passive House – Green without Gizmos in Fine Homebuilding (April/May 2010) in which they feature some super E efficient houses – 3 main requirements: air infiltration (0.6 changes per hour) BTU consumption (annual E consumption for heating/cooling 4755Btu/sq ft) Total E usage (11.1 kwh/sq ft). R-values were 62 in the roof, 45 in the wall, 35 in the floor…. While the E savings are phenomenal, it’s questionable whether the cost or products used are practical.

[jac]

Erik another way to power up the farm could be a digester. These seem really popular in europe and would give you the methane to power the car… a lot of initial expense again tho ??? seems there are no easy answers..each “solution” raises more questions than answers…
John

[goodcompanion]

@near horse 27118 wrote:

I spent a little time as part of an online sustainable farm/ranch course – it did not address draft animal-power (nor any other forms of power/energy) as an option (although I did bring it up). The classes seem to focus on developing a “whole farm plan” but IMO, power source is a basic component of any farm plan.

Thanks Erik for bringing this up – I’m more inclined to practice the energy version of IPM (integrated pest management) – some things can be handled using draft-power directly while others, like transportation, might need to be integrated (as you said, charging batteries or something).

A lot of infrastructure has been built over the last 100 yrs that’s not conducive for use by animal power directly – although the Amish seem to be making it work for them. Just my quick thoughts.

BTW- Last night I was reading an article called The Passive House – Green without Gizmos in Fine Homebuilding (April/May 2010) in which they feature some super E efficient houses – 3 main requirements: air infiltration (0.6 changes per hour) BTU consumption (annual E consumption for heating/cooling 4755Btu/sq ft) Total E usage (11.1 kwh/sq ft). R-values were 62 in the roof, 45 in the wall, 35 in the floor…. While the E savings are phenomenal, it’s questionable whether the cost or products used are practical.

Home heat is the easy one. At least for us. Draft power in the field is easy (ish!) too. But what about this niggling dependency on the grid and all of its apparatus for food production and life in general?

I guess my answer is go ahead and use it while it lasts but don’t count on it being there forever. Might be a good idea too to find a way to power a few particularly useful devices mechanically, through wind, steam, or draft power, if one can pull it off and not look too crazy in the process.

Here’s the thing. I can look anyone in the eye and say that I farm with horses because I enjoy it and because it saves me money over farming with tractors. But if I were to try to use horses to generate power as an alternative to grid power it sure as hell would not save me money.

However I can still justify the horse treadmill for power supply where the grid is not available, for instance to operate a transfer pump in my rice paddies. A treadmill is kind of an expensive tool but if you had one you could surely contrive many uses for it, some of them worthwhile now, some of them maybe worthwhile someday.

[FELLMAN]

What about building a windmill for electricity or a water wheel ?? large altenator and some batterys with a inverter ??

[Carl Russell]

Good points all around, and I know Erik, you have been putting a lot of time into this ine of thought and reasoning.

On our farm we have our residence off grid with a small solar array (1000w) and a small wind turbine (1000w), but our greatest gains are in conservation, which I’ll get back too.

The farm shop and our freezers are attached to my mother’s residence where the grid ends.

The small power system that we have was installed by me, which cut the cost by at least 1/2. There is no way that we could have financially justified it any other way. The caveat is that we would have to had installed about 8 new poles to get to the home, so the comparable costs were astounding.

We have the luxury of gravity feed water… a huge savings. We just got NRCS cost-share funds to redevelop an old dug well to establish gravity-feed for all of our pastures, getting the animals out of the streams, eliminating the truck use to carry a water tank, and improving the effectiveness of our grazing system.

Water on a farm is a huge cost, especially if it has to be pumped. Electrical motors suck for efficient use of power, so investment in gravity systems, catchment systems, cisterns, water towers with wind powered or solar powered pumps, are all very cost-effective valuable for the long-term.

Also another big key to the formula as I see it is scale. Cheap energy has given one person the ability to mechanize so many aspects of farming, and living for that matter, so that to look at farming in the modern context it seems to require huge energy inputs. It will take some time to see the alternative clearly on each farm, but one major key to successful use of animal power is appropriate use of the power. Grazing systems is a good example.. employ the animals to build soil and harvest feed themselves.

Another way we make scale work for us, is that we concentrate on raising what we need for ourselves, plus a little extra, reducing the market down-pressure that would be pressed on large amounts of hard-earned products, and freeing up our time to earn income from professional pursuits, which are far more lucrative at this time. I know Eriks bakery and kitchen are developed to not only ad value, but to also give them access to a market where there is a potential for higher return.

Finding ways to incorporate in the farm structure time for, or production capacity for, higher end income runs contrary to the modern specialized farming model, but I really feel it is necessary. If we continue to expect our land to support our modern lifestyles we will just continue to deplete those reserves. Implementing ways to bring income onto the farm to offset the market demand not only makes our lives more affordable, it protects our lands to produce within their capacity, supporting the long-term sustainability of whatever farming system we develop.

I am just as guilty with the ball game trips, or running down to local restaurants to get pig and poultry food. It is frustrating, but I also feel like I am floating along with this wave, and will take advantage of some of this as I try to maintain some appearance of normality, for my kids sake.(25 years ago when I started using horses, raising my own food, slaughtering on farm, using hand tools, and developing a conservation lifestyle, I was the butt of many snide comments from locals who remembered how their had made the modern transition, seeing my efforts as insulting to their own lifestyle changes. Now people are seeking us out to learn from us…. because we keep building, and improving).

I recently got a book that looks back 100 years to the hayday of horse-power in USA. A remarkable aspect to every picture is the number of people working. There are many aspects to this discussion that point to cultural changes, and this piece is a huge one. Conservation requires personal investment, either in building and maintaining the replacement systems, or in personal participation driving animals or laboring.

I have found great personal reward knowing how I am physically involved in the production and application of my life. It has sustained me. As we move forward I realize that most people don’t want to know the details of every aspect of their needs, the wiring, the mechanics, the guts and blood, nor do they want to exert themselves to cover all those bases. This is fine, but I feel like in my life these things have also helped me to determine scale. I can really only cover so many bases well. My choice has been to find the bases that I NEED to cover, and stick with them. Everything beyond that requires significant thought and consideration.

I truly feel we will never be able to find energy sources to supply our current needs. I think we need to stop looking at how to power up our lives and start looking at how to power down our lives.

Make do, and do without.

Carl

[Livewater Farm]

Carl I hear what you are saying I have always operated on the assumption of everything I can do and provide for myself is one less dollar I have to make to give to someone else small is beautiful operate at personal capacity and grow into markets to a point; keep the ability to work within the family unit without much outside help labor intensive yes but keep what you make not give it away on payments on fancy new equipment and hired labor I am at a point now where I am scaling back even more .I know what my cost are and where I want to go from here and what I need for the pleasures in my life
Bill

[J-L]

Very interesting subject here. First off I have to agree with most that the alternatives we have are not that good (windmills, solar, etc) and are surely not going to work without the technology and energy that we have right now. No getting around it.
I think back to my grandmothers and even my dad’s day. They only occasionally had power when they could afford it well into the 1950’s and they got by alright. I do think we all (at least we folks on this forum) have an idea how we can survive in that situation. What we can’t plan for is the rest of humanity. Our population is so grossly out of whack with the carrying capacity of this planet that we are supporting it only by artificial means. That’s the big problem as I see it.
What we’ve all grown used to, as far as conveniences, has gotten us as a society in trouble. We now can’t differentiate conveniences from necessities. I’m guilty too.

[near horse]

@Carl Russell 27126 wrote:

I truly feel we will never be able to find energy sources to supply our current needs. I think we need to stop looking at how to power up our lives and start looking at how to power down our lives.

Carl

We need to recognize that we’re never truly generating energy, just converting it into a form that is better utilized by us. If I recall, it’s the First Law of Thermodynamics (I think it’s 1st) – “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.” Also, we’re inefficient in our ability to transfer E from one form to another. AND – energy taken out of a system is energy lost to that system, although it may be negligible in the bigger picture. Same is true of water but the negligible part is debatable.

This is where I lean toward an “integrated” system – reduce where/when possible and working more towards that end but taking advantage of modern power sources when necessary. Doesn’t come without some soul-searching and guilt sometimes.

Water – always an issue. We integrated a “graywater system” into our house when we built it (err, still building it, now in our 2nd decade).

[FELLMAN]

@Carl Russell 27126 wrote:

Good points all around, and I know Erik, you have been putting a lot of time into this ine of thought and reasoning.

On our farm we have our residence off grid with a small solar array (1000w) and a small wind turbine (1000w), but our greatest gains are in conservation, which I’ll get back too.

The farm shop and our freezers are attached to my mother’s residence where the grid ends.

The small power system that we have was installed by me, which cut the cost by at least 1/2. There is no way that we could have financially justified it any other way. The caveat is that we would have to had installed about 8 new poles to get to the home, so the comparable costs were astounding.

We have the luxury of gravity feed water… a huge savings. We just got NRCS cost-share funds to redevelop an old dug well to establish gravity-feed for all of our pastures, getting the animals out of the streams, eliminating the truck use to carry a water tank, and improving the effectiveness of our grazing system.

Water on a farm is a huge cost, especially if it has to be pumped. Electrical motors suck for efficient use of power, so investment in gravity systems, catchment systems, cisterns, water towers with wind powered or solar powered pumps, are all very cost-effective valuable for the long-term.Also another big key to the formula as I see it is scale. Cheap energy has given one person the ability to mechanize so many aspects of farming, and living for that matter, so that to look at farming in the modern context it seems to require huge energy inputs. It will take some time to see the alternative clearly on each farm, but one major key to successful use of animal power is appropriate use of the power. Grazing systems is a good example.. employ the animals to build soil and harvest feed themselves.

Another way we make scale work for us, is that we concentrate on raising what we need for ourselves, plus a little extra, reducing the market down-pressure that would be pressed on large amounts of hard-earned products, and freeing up our time to earn income from professional pursuits, which are far more lucrative at this time. I know Eriks bakery and kitchen are developed to not only ad value, but to also give them access to a market where there is a potential for higher return.

Finding ways to incorporate in the farm structure time for, or production capacity for, higher end income runs contrary to the modern specialized farming model, but I really feel it is necessary. If we continue to expect our land to support our modern lifestyles we will just continue to deplete those reserves. Implementing ways to bring income onto the farm to offset the market demand not only makes our lives more affordable, it protects our lands to produce within their capacity, supporting the long-term sustainability of whatever farming system we develop.

I am just as guilty with the ball game trips, or running down to local restaurants to get pig and poultry food. It is frustrating, but I also feel like I am floating along with this wave, and will take advantage of some of this as I try to maintain some appearance of normality, for my kids sake.(25 years ago when I started using horses, raising my own food, slaughtering on farm, using hand tools, and developing a conservation lifestyle, I was the butt of many snide comments from locals who remembered how their had made the modern transition, seeing my efforts as insulting to their own lifestyle changes. Now people are seeking us out to learn from us…. because we keep building, and improving).

I recently got a book that looks back 100 years to the hayday of horse-power in USA. A remarkable aspect to every picture is the number of people working. There are many aspects to this discussion that point to cultural changes, and this piece is a huge one. Conservation requires personal investment, either in building and maintaining the replacement systems, or in personal participation driving animals or laboring.

I have found great personal reward knowing how I am physically involved in the production and application of my life. It has sustained me. As we move forward I realize that most people don’t want to know the details of every aspect of their needs, the wiring, the mechanics, the guts and blood, nor do they want to exert themselves to cover all those bases. This is fine, but I feel like in my life these things have also helped me to determine scale. I can really only cover so many bases well. My choice has been to find the bases that I NEED to cover, and stick with them. Everything beyond that requires significant thought and consideration.

I truly feel we will never be able to find energy sources to supply our current needs. I think we need to stop looking at how to power up our lives and start looking at how to power down our lives.

Make do, and do without.

Carl

http://www.lifewater.ca/ram_pump.htm

My neighbour uses on of these they are brilliant his is about 80 years old and going strong !

[Andy Carson]

Another possibility is the use of methane from anaerobic digesters. They are usually used for cattle manure, although I suppose they could be used for other manure as well. If a cow (or steer) produces 60 lb of manure per day, a good digester will produce 60 cubic feet of methane from this which will yield 36000 BTUs per cow per day (60*600 BTU/cubic foot) (from http://www.habmigern2003.info/biogas/methane-digester.html). 36000 BTUs is equal to about 10 KWH if the conversion to electrical power was 100% efficient. Of course is wouldn’t be, and would probably have a loss of 50% or more, yielding maybe 5 KWH per cow per day. That said, some household appliances could be run off of the gas itself (which is similar to natural gas) and not incure the loss from conversion to electrical power. Even if it all the methane was used to make electrical power and a 50% loss was incured in the process, that would make 1825 KWH per cow per year (5 KWHx365days). At $0.15 a KWH, this would yield a savings of $273 per cow per year, so 4 cattle might pay your electrical bill if you watched your consumption closely… It’s still alot of investment in the digester and generator, but thought I would throw this idea out there as well.

This analysis doesn’t include (of course) the “fringe benefits” of money from the sale of milk or meat from cattle. It also doesn’t include the monetary value of the work oxen could do.

I personally find it fascinating that the power excreted out the rear of an animal seems to be close to (and maybe greater than) the amount of power they are able to produce with thier muscles. In this scenario, they essentially become roaming collectors of the solar power that is captured by the plants thoughout the farm. This essentially turns the entire farm into a solar panel. Although this biological system is surely less efficient at producing electrical power than a solar panel (with energy passing through various forms and losses are incured at each step) the mammoth size of the “panel” and it’s relative cheapness, would likely make the system competative. Not to mention the fringe benefits…

[Author]

Posts