yonkeltron

Can technology save the world? For some time now, I have thought about the high-potential intersection of advancements in sustainability. Specifically, I envisioned a multidisciplinary eco-village concept modeled after the original vision of the kibbutz.

While kibbutzim started as communes and gradually privatized or went co-op, what if we started an intentional community as a co-op with the stated goal of creating sustainable communal living?

This post constitutes a look at this concept of a Reverse Kibbutz (RK, hereafter). Specifically these are notes regarding the application of sustainable technology to intentional living. It’s a very rough cut and spends more time with “big-picture” design than with practicality. Sorry.

Energy Independence

Energy independence is a core foundational assumption of the RK idea. This is likely due to my original bias of assuming that an RK would be in Israel’s Negev desert. However, while Israel is only now realizing Ben Gurion’s dream of “making the Negev bloom” through solar energy projects, it’s not aggressive enough. In any case, the growing spectre of climate change means that more and more geographic regions will become suitable for electrosolar projects. From this we may conclude that the RK could be constructed in the diaspora as well. Ideal locations might be found in places from North America to Africa but any continent might do fine. Feel free to pitch ideas, but know that my plans thus far implicitly assume a sunny desert with nearby coastline.

Therefore, the assumption of the RK is one of abundant solar energy wherein we utilize as little external energy input as possible once reaching critical mass. For this we may look to both direct solar energy as well as indirect solar energy. These terms may already be defined so forgive any namespace collisions or redundancy.

Direct solar energy is where we just utilize sunlight for various applications. Excluding providing energy to growing plants, we could also use sunlight to power valuable activities. Cooking and baking can be done with solar ovens. Industrial applications for focused, high-intensity sunlight abound and could help with basic necessities such as water purification by boiling.

Additionally, I have an idea to adapt the European plasma arc technique used for trash disposal to rely on sun lenses. No matter how you generate extreme heat, the resulting slag is almost entirely inert and excessively durable. This makes it an ideal material for laying paving beds for roads, walkways, and other building projects.

In fact, the ready availability of solar energy applied to vaporizing garbage might help us more than we think. It may become advantageous to open a side business as a waste processing operation where other entities pay the RK to absorb their garbage. While we could consider diverting reusable materials for use as-is, everything we don't want to deal with would certainly ensure a steady supply of sturdy building materials! Perhaps the RK would even do well to sell excess back to the external markets and pocket the profits for the community fund.

Note that other uses of direct solar energy could be more subtle. I once read about phase-changing paints and exterior insulation which melt in the daytime and solidify at night. What better way to help maintain temperature constancy in habitable structures?

Indirect solar energy is really just a fancy way of saying that we’ll use photovoltaic technology to generate electricity. The beauty here is what while traditional high-efficiency solar panels suffer from a variety of drawbacks, there are plenty of low-efficiency options to fall back upon. As an example, take dry-climate deployments of solar panels. Such panel clusters must be regularly cleaned of dust, repaired, and replaced to maintain function. We don’t want to rely on such finicky, labor-intensive options like that in many cases, even if it does give us 20-30% efficiency.

Instead, we can utilize the high-efficiency options only where it makes sense and lean on lower-efficiency methods elsewhere. By vastly increasing the collection surface area, we make it up in volume. Take the photoelectric exterior paint which was developed at MIT. Compared to the panel installation on your roof, It has a laughably low efficiency. However, if you were to augment your roof panels by painting your house with the stuff, it’d surely make a dent. Multiplied by every building in the RK, it’ll surely make a major impact.

Plus, there is promising research which shows how organic, tree-like arrangements of lower-efficiency panels can outperform traditional flat deployments. So if the RK chooses to shade sunlit walkways with groves of artifical trees and call it modern art, all the better!

Clearly there’s also plenty of overlap between direct and indirect solar. The distinction falls down pretty fast with something like even the most basic solar water heaters found on every roof in Israel and throughout the MENA region.

Ok so that mostly takes care of the energy falling from the sky. What happens if it’s cloudy or something else? For this we turn to hydrogen and biofuels! Hydrogen can be created through a variety of passive means and it’s always possible to run fuel cells backwards. This means that we can opportunistically use solar energy surpluses in addition to having dedicated units connected to solar cells. Am I overlooking large-scale battery usage here or is it unsuitable for longer term storage?

Either way, we stick a solar hydrogen generator out in the sunlight and forget about it. Then we merely wait until it alerts us when its holding tank is full and ready for collection.

As for biofuels, this one is deceptively easy once you get away from US corn subsidies. As I have yet to meet anyone who’s ever carb loaded by pounding a bag of corn, we shouldn't use corn. In North America, we have a wonderful plant called Switchgrass which is usually viewed as an unattractive weed. That switchgrass is actually “green gold” in disguise since its high cellulose content makes it perfect for distilling ethanol! In fact, it's been shown that you can squeeze about six crops a year out of a switchgrass grow operation without too much effort. So every place we need greenery but can't plant edible crops, we can seed it with switchgrass or some equivalent. I hope these qualities will make it especially useful for green roofs and the like.

Note: If not building the RK in North America, it would be irresponsible to introduce a potentially invasive species. The RK would need to find local alternatives in Israel or wherever else.

Construction

Ok so once we have energy out of the way, we get to another necessity. In this case, that's shelter. For housing I have been looking at how effective Earthbag construction can be for building durable, eco-friendly shelters. I’ve read that a team of 5 unskilled workers lead by a single skilled leader can erect a basic dwelling in less than a week. Obviously we’re shooting for well-above basic for most RK homes, but its basic principle remains soundly inspiring.

A brief foray into the world of Seacrete/Biorock also opens tremendous potential in the event of readily available ocean access. Since sea levels are surely rising, more and more locations will end up being at least somewhat proximate to a shoreline! The nearby beach could become an infinite supply of durable building bricks.

Technologies like Earthbag construction, superadobe, and Earthships can be combined to allow lower-income folks to join the RK and immediately build “sweat equity”. Since everyone will have to pitch in somehow, this is a great way for folks who external society would look at before deciding they “don’t have any other skills”. In the rare case that such an assessment is perfectly accurate, it’s nothing to worry about or exclude people over. There will be plenty of work for everyone, it’s just a matter of finding the right task for the right person. Physical labor will be it for plenty of folks! In this way, we will be able to welcome individuals from all walks of life (and tax brackets).

When constructing residences on the RK, we may also wish to submerge them partially underground (Tatooine style). Such a design will reduce elemental exposure and provide stabilized utility spaces closer to those Earth layers which maintain constant temperatures over time. Plus, a little digging will provide plenty of ground material for wall fill and similar use elsewhere. I’ve actually been reading about how sand on lower layers can help mitigate moisture intrusion in the event of flooding. Handy, right?

Whereas residential construction can easily use Earthbag construction and superadobe, larger buildings will almost certainly benefit from Earthship architecture and other eco-friendly techniques. In hotter climates we can utilize Persian-style windcatchers for evaporative air conditioning. In cooler climates we would probably be stuck with good old fashioned skylights augmented by geothermal arrangements such as heat pumps.

Water and Infrastructure

In any case, residences will need supplies of fresh water and sewage returns, right? While I haven’t figured out a magic recipe for reducing net water intake, we can lessen our consumption. Dune’s Fremen dew collectors could stretch even drip irrigation. I am still working hard on the issue of consumption for dry climates but in the event of rising sea levels, desalination becomes a viable option. That, combined with solar condensers, might just do the trick.

I have done extensive research into extreme greywater reclamation. Combined with human-waste repurposing (aged urine actually makes a great fertilizer for various crops), this is a way to ensure that we maximize water usage. Plus whatever else happens, we'll want to irrigate the switchgrass!

I also envision the use of algae bioreactors but I haven't figured out exactly what we'd do with that so far. Either way, it's something to have in our back pocket in the event that we require additional biomass in a hurry.

Food

So with energy to fuel our industry and roofs over our heads, we are probably quite hungry by this point. That's where hydroponics and traditional agriculture come in. If there's anything that the last 70 years taught the Kibbutz movement, it's that 100% self sufficiency is a pipe dream. However, in that same time we have learned a lot about maintaining the homeostasis of closed loop systems. Short of a literal biodome (great movie, by the way) we're obviously looking at a “mostly closed loop system” for the RK. This yields tremendous incentive to grow as much food locally as possible. This will likely be the one major departure from a “make each residence self-contained” rule since allocating the space required for year-round subsistence farming would be impractical. It would make the RK the sparsest Kibbutz ever, what with every home being so spaced out as to be equivalent to a farmhouse! I still firmly believe that each neighborhood should have a local community garden, of course.

In this case we'd want to look at farming technology which has developed in recent decades to maximize land use and efficiency. Things you're already well versed in such as hydroponic gardens are clearly a great option. As are more unconventional mix-in techniques such as vertical farming.

This being said, the RK may discver that it's more cost effective to specialize on a few higher-value crops which the RK can sell to the outside market. Provided that any profits go into the communal account, it shouldn't be much of a problem. More on financial models later, but suffice it to say that the best agro model would need to be tested out over the first decade or so.

In any case, community composting is an absolute must for any of the food system to work properly. Everything from table scraps to paper goods should be added to the composting system. This will allow retaining viable biomass so as to nourish neighborhood gardens, RK agriculture, and serve as augmentation to regreen landscape immediately surrounding the RK.

About those surrounding areas! I have been reading up on regreening efforts in places like Kenya. There, they have developed a system of semicircular pits called bunds which optimize the labor-to-gain ratio of manual digging. These are dug once, spaced apart, and naturally hold on to rainwater. Such ground-level catch basins are ideal for allowing native plantlife to grow without additional intervention. This practice has made huge positive impacts on Masai tribal lands and has helped to radically restore much of their local biome. In the RK's case, more greenery acts as insulation from the inevitable ravages of climate change.

As for getting rid of biomass efficiently, we can turn to mycoculture to raise mushrooms for both food and materials. Advances in mycological breeding and other steps forward mean we can use fungus strains to do everything from breaking down agricultural waste to reinforcing bricks! This last bit would be a game changer since the thermal properties of mycelium bricks doped with junk glass fines (we have plenty of silica!) exhibit wonderful thermal and structural properties. Now all of a sudden we can't have too much compost since we can use mushrooms to transform it entirely. This is all before we explore the many uses of different substrate-grown yeast strains!

At this point transportation of good and resources around the RK becomes deeply troublesome so it bears mentioning that several advances in Arcology design have made it rather attractive to build up rather than our. Perhaps the centerpieces of each neighborhood could be a dense concentration of resources processing facilities arranged in a big vertical block.