Ah but you've got Scottish blood that has not yet been thinned to the extent that your skin can recognise sunlight as anything but a foreign commodity !

Going back to the watch Gordon - could you get a wind powered watch. (that you wear on your wrist, not elsewhere :D )

What a great idea, I'm surprised that sundials ever took in Scotland, but it seems there's quite a few, they must have been a fashion accessory for every decent house!

Something a wee bit more ancient and Meg has the files with images somewhere.

Not sure where they were found but both the UK and Italy seems to come to mind.

 

The dumpster divers have located items that could have been worn as necklaces and a few more that could be worn on the wrist which when adjusted tells the time of night by the stars and or the sun during the day.

I do remember they are small about 1 1/2 inch or so and all the rings together are about 1/2 of inch in thickness.

A new (?) look at a water pump,

 

www.earthgarden.com.au/ waterwheel.html

 

I over looked his politics for the good article which is also a how to!

Vt. Dairy Farm Harnesses Power of Cow Pies

 

 

 

By DAVID GRAM,

 

Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 30, 7:58 AM ET

 

 

 

BRIDPORT, Vt. - The cows at the Audet family's Blue Spruce Farm make nearly 9,000 gallons of milk a day — and about 35,000 gallons of manure.

 

Its long been the milk that pays, but now the Audets have figured out how to make the manure pay as well. They're using it — actually, the methane that comes from it — to generate electricity.With the help of their power company, Central Vermont Public Service Corp., the Audets have devised a way to extract the methane from the manure and pipe it to a generator.

 

 

 

They make enough electricity to power 300 to 400 average Vermont homes. It's renewable energy, and they're not the only ones interested in it. Four other Vermont farms now have similar projects in the planning or early construction stages, power company officials said.

 

 

 

The Audets "deserve to be congratulated. They're the pioneers among Vermont farmers," said Dave Dunn, a senior energy consultant with CVPS who worked with them on the cow power project.

 

Elsewhere in the country, farmers are using similar technology to make energy, said Corey Brickl, project manager with Wisconsin-based GHD Inc., which built a device that the Audets use to harvest the methane.

 

One in Washington uses tomato waste from a salsa factory and waste from a fish stick plant as fuel, Brickl said.

 

 

 

For the Audets, the electricity has created an important new income stream at a time when low wholesale milk prices have squeezed their margin. The utility pays 95 percent of the going New England wholesale power price for electricity from the Audets' generator.

 

 

 

In addition, the utility charges customers willing to pay it a 4-cents-per-kilowatt-hour premium for renewable energy and then turns the money over to the Audets. So far, more than 3,000 CVPS customers have signed up to pay the premium to support the renewable energy effort.

 

 

 

The bottom line is more than $120,000 a year from electricity sales. When they add in other energy savings enabled by the project, the Audets expect their $1.2 million investment in project equipment to pay for itself in about seven years.

 

 

 

The program has piqued interest.

 

Marie Audet, who describes herself as wife, bookkeeper, and milker, has become a tour guide, showing people from the United States and a handful of other countries around the farm's cow power operation.

 

Managing the hundreds of milking Holsteins — as well as young stock — is a high-tech operation.

 

In their stalls, cows munch contentedly on a mix of hay and silage while they make an occasional contribution of fuel for the Audets' power plant. An "alley scraper," which looks like a big squeegee on wheels, comes by to push their manure down the row and through grates to a conveyor belt below.

 

From there, the manure goes to an anaerobic — meaning oxygen-free — digester, a 100-foot-by-70-foot structure similar to a covered swimming pool built by Brickl's company. The manure spends 20 or 21 days in the digester, being pushed slowly from one end to other as more is added.

 

 

 

Three products result: a liquid that contains enough nutrients that it can be used as fertilizer for the farm's feed crops; a dry, odor-free, fluffy brown substance that is used as bedding for the cows and some of which goes to a local firm that bags and sells it as fertilizer on the home-and-garden market; and methane.

 

The methane is piped into an adjacent shed that contains a big Caterpillar engine that powers the 200-kilowatt generator.

 

 

 

 

 

Audet said the farm was saving the $1,200 a week it formerly spent on sawdust bedding for the cows, as well as some of the cost of heating the milking barn. A study by agricultural scientists from the University of Vermont found that the bedding produced from the manure was better than the sawdust. "Wood harbors a lot of bacteria," she said.

 

 

 

With the success of the 200-kW unit, the Audets are expanding by adding a new, 75-kilowatt hour generator. And Audet said she's even grown to like giving the tours.

 

"It's bringing a lot of people to the farm who are normally very removed from food producers," she said.

 

___

 

On the Net: Central Vermont Public Service: http://www.cvps.com

Here are some things to look at, when going green in a Castle

 

Hydro Power

 

Ultra-thin Photovoltaic Films

 

Solar Hydronic Under Floor Heating System

I am so planning on radiant floor heating! After living in an old house with cold floors, this is a big MUST HAVE for me!

 

Thanks for posting the links.

(Just me digging into old topics again! :) )

 

I've done a lot of digging around on the web for environmentally friendly ways of doing things plus ways to save money on energy, both of which can be easier on the pocketbook in the long run. It's probably a bit redundant with some of the information already posted, but here's what I've found to be the most common, and therefore likely the best cost to the home or castle owner. Also, some thoughts on other items I've done some initial research on.

 

Photovoltaics: Still up in the air. The cost of purchase, installation and replacement, along with the battery bank if you choose to have one, can still overshoot the return in energy savings at this time. To take it a step further, batteries are hazardous and not always easy to recycle, and there is a high embodied energy cost in the production of both battery and PV array. There is hope with the new super thin PV cells, but they are somewhere around 30% less efficient than normal PV cells (silicon converts around 15% into sunlight, the new thin-film types convert 10% or so) needing more of them to produce the same wattage, but: They are not made of expensive silicon and are easier to produce, the money saved on purchase price and energy return is forecast to outweigh the cost of needing more cells very soon, especially if energy prices continue to rise.

 

Wind turbines: Im sure many folks have seen the new ads for the "$10,000, installed" wind turbines that have been on the news and in tech magazines. I spoke to a green architect about them and came to find out that they are not being installed. Why? Many local codes on height restrictions are preventing suburbanites from owning then, and even folks that could have them aren't buying them because maintenance costs over the long term outweigh or at least negate the savings of owning them. If you broke even on the installation, I guess you could still take satisfaction in knowing you lowered your carbon footprint. At any rate, the architect said photovotaics are the way to go, especially with the new types coming out which are supposed to drive the cost way down.

 

Simplest of all; trees: Don't cut them down around your house. They shield your home from the sun's rays during the hot summer months and are natural air conditioners. During the winter, they shield your home from winter winds that siphon the heat from your walls. Plus, they look great, they're cheap, 100% renewable and they pull carbon out of the air.

 

Evacuated Tube Solar Hot Water: Best system so far. You can use this in so many different ways. Hot water for radiant floors, bathing, forced hot air (using a heat exchanger), and even "bank" it in a large tank so you can circulate that hot water on long winter's nights or cloudy days. The Vacuum in the tubes is such a good insulator it ensures that you will get some heat even on overcast days.

 

Passive solar: Great if you're building a house that you can design and orient to take advantage of the Sun's rays. Not so good for castles that, by tradition, generally have limited area devoted to windows. Just throw on another set of solar hot water heaters and call it good! :) Passive solar simply takes advantage of the Sun's rays during the colder months to warm the interior of the house. Best use of this method allows the sun to heat a dark floor, and better yet, if it is allowed to heat a space specifically designed for passive solar gain. The space is designed with a thick insulated cement or stone floor and a thick cement wall that the Sun will hit. During the day the sun heats up the slabs (using them as "thermal mass") and the air in the room (which can be passively or mechanically circulated into the building), and during the night, the heat radiates from the slab into the home, keeping it warm. Most folks that use this method report that it works great, and they only need to supplement their heat in the first part of the morning when most of the heat is gone from the slab or on the cloudiest days. Many people fill the space that soaks up the sun with plants, an added bonus: It cleans the air in the house, looks great, can add humidity in dry climes, and if you grow edible plants you can have a year-round supply of fresh herbs and vegetables.

 

Earth Tubes: Large pipes run through the earth through which air is pumped. The warm air is cooled by heat exchange with the Earth's constant of around 57F. Works, but from what I've found, not well. There is also the problem of mold that some installers have reported. The tubes are cool enough in humid environments that condensation occurrs allowing mold to form. Spores are circulated into the home; not good for your health, especially for allergy or asthma sufferers. The tubes are not easy to clean, being buried, unless you pre-thread them with a cable long enough to attach a cloth or other cleaning device in the middle and pull it back and forth through the tube. That means you have a mess of rope or cable at the mouth of each end of tube. More bother than it's worth?

 

Geothermal: I don't mean steam. I mean using Earth loops. Buryng lengths of special hose either in deep trenches or vertically in a purpose-dug well hole. Fluid is circulated through the tube and used to pre-warm air entering the house during the Winter via a heat exchanger (like a car radiator) or used as or in conjunction with an air conditioner. Air passed through the fluid/air heat exchanger will pre-cool the air going into an AC system (so the system doesn't have to run as long to cool the air down, saving you $), or air is simply circulated through the heat exchanger and back into the building. This is a good system that can help you year-round.

 

Radiant Heat: Great in a new install, not so good for a retrofit. Who doesn't like toasty toes on a warm floor in the cold winter months? Radiant heat consists of tubes "buried" above the subfloor in a cement-like mixture which is smoothed to accept whatever flooring is applied. I've heard of folks installing wood floors over radiant heat, but this is a detriment to the benefit of the heat source, because wood is an slight insulator. The benefit of a new install is that the floorign can be insulated on the bottom to prevent heat loss, especially in the instance of radiant heat being installed in a slab that contacts the Earth. In retrofits, tearing up the floor to install insulation may not be economically or realistically feasible, causing heat loss to the Earth or air below. The radiant heat can be divided up into as many zones as need be, increasing efficiency by allowing the user to selectively heat zones in the house. Radiant heat can be driven by solar hot water heat or a regular hot water heater. Used in conjunction with a well insulated slab (the slab can also be used as a heat sink to radiate heat back into the rooms when solar driven systems are not receivng a lot of Sun), this method can be very efficient. I've never met anyone I've talked to that didn't like radiant floor heat.

 

More as it gels in my mind...

Yeah, I like the fact that wind power is clean but I have bird killing issues

 

Windmills do kill birds, but you do have to put it in perspective. Average kill for a turbine may be 2 birds a year. On the other hand, an outdoor cat might kill 10 birds a year. Likewise large glass windows on homes and buildings also have a higher kill ratio than the average wind turbine. And then again there is the pollution caused by using traditional energy sources instead of a clean fuel.

 

Bird strikes can be reduced by putting silhouettes or models of various bird of prey nearby as well.

 

 

Geothermal: I don't mean steam. I mean using Earth loops.

 

Best search term for this would be "ground-source heat pump." Geothermal usually refers more to using hot springs or steam sources for power or heat. Once I figured that out I discovered a lot more info on the topic.

 

 

Also, some thoughts on other items I've done some initial research on.

 

In my opinion if you have access, one of the best sources of energy for your castle would be microhydro. Part of the appeal of a castle is to have that authentic look about it, and solar and wind turbines both scream out how modern the place really is. Obviously not everyone can build their place near running water though.

 

In the solar category, I'm hoping a smaller one of these might be available in the near future as well:

 

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/technology/suncatcher.asp

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/infinia_plans_s.php

 

Rather than use photovoltaics to generate energy, they use the well known principles of the stirling engine, which transfers heat into movement to run a standard generator. Currently generating electricity this way is actually more efficient than photovoltaics right now.