Sunday, November 17, 2013

Proposal


 We are interested in the minimizing the externalities of entropy flow, maximizing energy efficiency, and incorporating waste-to-energy technologies into current infrastructure with the intent of revitalizing social processes as they pertain to the environment. The goal of our project is to study different forms of waste-to-energy capture, including forms of methane harvest, holistic or whole systems designing, waste management, and nuclear waste recycling, as well as the diversion of wasted energy through smart metering and energy storage. Our professional contacts include engineers, holistic designers, green building professionals, the founder of a commercial composting company, and an independent energy auditor.



 The word waste currently carries the connotation of something that is unwanted, undesirable, expended or concluded; a cradle-to-grave end product of construction or consumption as Green Architect and Designer William McDonough would describe it.  But with the incorporation and education of waste-to energy systems in rural, urban and landscape scaled settings that paradigm could change to one of resilience, recurring or cyclical in nature.  Throughout this project we will demonstrate the feasibility and possible necessity of implementation of such systems and in turn soften the realization threats like climate change and coming off of an age of abundant, cheap oil have on populations across the United States.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Mission Statment

10-16-2013




Our project intends to explore the incorporation of waste to energy technologies within communities and institutions. The main focus of our project is going to be on biomass digestion. We have found a company called Avatar Energy located in South Burlington that commercially sells biodigesters to farmers so that they can collect the biogas from their cow's manure and turn it into energy. Another local practitioner of waste to energy is Liz Calabrese. She is a professor here at UVM and teaches a CDAE class regarding ecological design. Her focus is on communal food waste digesters. 

We are most interested in the design aspect of waste to energy technologies. Specifically, we would like to study the feasibility of creating an infrastructure based around them. Avatar would be able to provide us with a perspective from the private sector while Liz could teach us about the public sector.