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Zero energy ready homes are coming

energy.gov

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Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#421

Post by parthianshotgun »

bscphil wrote: post #278
snow_mac wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell would I live in an American city? I live in Colorado. Denver is our 'city', there is no parking, no room for my 2 dogs and my kid would not have a giant backyard to play in. Instead, I have a 3400 sq ft house on 10,000 sq ft of land with giant trees everywhere. I'm within 2 miles of lightrail, that I will never use. I work from home, I have a home office with a indoor, led powered garden with fresh fruit…

"If one simply becomes wealthier than the Earth can even potentially sustain for more than a tiny portion of the population at once, living within visual distance of any other person becomes undesirable."

Where's that quote from?

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#422

Post by parthianshotgun »

djrobstep wrote: post #267
snow_mac wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell would I live in an American city? I live in Colorado. Denver is our 'city', there is no parking, no room for my 2 dogs and my kid would not have a giant backyard to play in. Instead, I have a 3400 sq ft house on 10,000 sq ft of land with giant trees everywhere. I'm within 2 miles of lightrail, that I will never use. I work from home, I have a home office with a indoor, led powered garden with fresh fruit…

> I hate driving in Denver. The traffic sucks. > Why is walkable so desired? When it's cold (like today) I don't want to leave my car. I'd drive through any day, I'd drive just to avoid walking half a mile. This is an amazing example of the terrible disease that is Car Brain. Instead of having a walkable city where you can walk to the shops/gym/restaurants, take convenient public transport to the theatre, and take th…

I wonder what effect the bunker life has on children... Since this kind of distance is relatively new in our typically communal existence

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#423

Post by mdgrech23 »

xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

I agree but good effing luck.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#424

Post by ajross »

makomk wrote: post #238
ajross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that [...] Is that the "fundamental" problem being solved, though? Or is it just an externality that needs to be addressed? It seems like the "fundamental" problem here is trying to maximize deployment of renewable generation, and that construction like this is a great step in that direction. (Not the least of which because it pushes the investment required onto consumers…

It's the fundamental problem that needs solving in order to achieve what this announcement claims is the ultimate end goal of all this - a "net-zero carbon economy" for the country as a whole - and it has been the fundamental obstacle to achieving this for decades now. So long as this problem remains unsolved, no amount of supposedly zero energy homes will ever get the country as a whole to that goal because they're…

So.. you're saying this specific technology can only get us 60-70%[1] of the way to the "ultimate end goal". Ergo... it shouldn't be deployed and we should whine about it on HN?

No, that's silly. Build the panels. Build the solar. Fix the externalities, but absolutely pick the low hanging fruit. Every panel on a hippie's home means less total joules needed elsewhere.

To be blunt: the kind of argumentation you engage in is absolutely toxic, and HN is awash in it. Engineers love to scream about perfect solutions, but real engineering is about tradeoffs. And folks here are absolutely terrible, just really, genuinely shit-tier, at discussing them rationally.

[1] Depending on locale, obviously. In e.g. Arizona it's probably much closer to 80-90%

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#425

Post by malfist »

js8 wrote: post #341
Xeoncross wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is going to be a lot of health fallout though as people start having oxygen depletion from tightly-sealed houses. It's important that even well sealed homes have both A/C fresh air sources as well as ERV/HRV systems that can recapture the heat/cold the house has while replacing the CO2 with outside air.

Maybe put in some plants?

Plants absorb near the same amount of O2 at night as they produce during the day.

Maybe an algae farm is that you'd need.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#426

Post by parthianshotgun »

bitwize wrote: post #100
xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

Indeed. Time to break out the omnitool Hackernews favors for solving very large scale problems: government regulation. Nationalize zoning laws, ban home ownership, and herd the population into bughive arcologies in major cities, where they'll be fed vegan or insect-protein-fortified food brought by Amazon delivery drones. If Hackernews believed in god, surely this would be their idea of heaven.

What's your point?

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#427

Post by TheCoelacanth »

ars wrote: post #333
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is produced by rural areas, not by suburbs. Suburbs produce nothing that cities can't produce.

Suburbs produce places for rural residents to get services. Or were you planning on creating isolated servants in rural area who only work all day and never go anywhere?

In my experience, rural folks go to small towns and small cities for services, not to suburbs. There are no services provided in suburban sprawl except for housing for the residents.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#428

Post by kitsunesoba »

parthianshotgun wrote: post #420
kitsunesoba wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That level of space-hungriness isn't universal amongst American suburbs. In the neighborhood I live for example, houses have only around 6'-8' between them and their "yards" are a small patch of dirt in the front and back.

Where's your nearest coffee shop?

About a 12m walk away. Where I live shops are somewhat intermixed with the neighborhoods, albeit not to the degree that they are in Japan or parts of Europe. Not all American suburbs are composed solely of houses.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#429

Post by bluGill »

parthianshotgun wrote: post #419
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. How people use their property is really their own business. I might disagree. I might despair. I might even tell them it is a bad idea, but how and whether a person uses the thing they buy is not up to your neighbor ( or non-neighbor for that matter ) to decide ( within reason, you will hear complaints about practicing on electric guitar or repairing your muscle car at midnight ). It is just a bad argument to use…

The issue with the megalawn is that it wastes water, a shared resource, create weed killer runoff issues and generally bad for the local flora/fauna, which again, are shared in ways which aren't obvious, and costs more carbon to sustain. It's an embarrassment of riches. To dispair and disagree is human, if you think you can't change people's minds then that's a self fulfilling prophecy. In the case of your family mem…

In large parts of the US you do not need to water you lawn as rain will provide all the water you need. You never need to put weed killer on a lawn, just a regular mowing (ideally with a reel push mower) will be enough. Most of what people call weeds are harmless biodiversity. In some parts of the US lawns are native grass, though that isn't common.

Understand that most people over manage their lawns. You can get your lawn a little more green (the color, not the environmental green) with excess water and chemicals. They are not needed at all though.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#430

Post by PopAlongKid »

stouset wrote: post #355
elbigbad wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would, personally, love to read at least one source. Which you didn’t even provide for some reason. And I mean that, I would happily read any source you provide, with a preference for more academic sources.

One it is. Link to original academic source is in the first sentence. https://cayimby.org/sprawl-costs-the-u-s-1-trillion-every-ye... Actually I’m an overachiever. Let’s do two! Direct academic reference. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3325575

From the first link:

"reduce the productivity of nearby lands, for example, by [...] driving up land prices beyond what local residents can afford."

What nonsense is this?

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