Posted by Nir Halfon on Sun, Jan 24, 2010 @ 05:39 PM
It's been 2 weeks since the term begun.The students have all returned and slowly life getting back to routine. Even the large piles of snow around the drive and by the sides of the roads have now disappeared.
I have been teaching a subject close to my heart which is "Energy on Farms" more likely looking at sustainability on farms with an emphasis on energy and renewable energy. We often deal with Sustainability on farms with regards to farm practices such as: No or Low till, crop rotation, green manure, Organic and Biodynamic methods and localization of food. This time we looked at the energy actually used on the farm. How is that energy supplied and how can it be supplied?The aim was to see if we could begin to think of standards for sustainable farming.
It was interesting to see the patterns of different farms and how they are presented in their energy data. For example Plawhatch farm processes it own milk to cheese and yoghurt has got high heating bills from heating large quantities of milk and water. In addition there is a few farm houses on site which are high energy consumers (more on these in a minute). Bore place , where the students go to milk cows, on the other hand, has a relatively low energy consumption. However they contract out some of the farm work and they do not house people on site. By the way, Bore place has engaged with ZED factory in a plan of Zero fossil Energy Farm. They have already taken a big step towards setting some standards.
On the supply side, Farms have an amazing potential in being energy producers. They usually have the space for storage of wood, hot water or for erecting a wind turbine for example.They also have the resources: manure and crops to make bio-gas (anaerobic digestion), oil and sugar crops for Bio-fuel or wood for biomass. Biodynamic farms can look at the options of not only being self sufficient in nutrients and animal feed but also on energy. Taking it further they can be actually producers of community energy. If a Commuity Supposrted Agriculture farm (CSA) can provide a local area with food through shares that individuals buy, why can't the farm put up a medium wind trubine and supply the area with electricity? Models already exists (the first one in Dulas Valley).
Other aspects of Farm energy savings which I would have like to get more into but unfortunately the time was too short, were energy in housing and passive design. Most farm houses are old and enegy inefficient. During the lessons we discussed renewable energy but as a first step always passive solutions need to be looked at. Housing accounts for 27% of UK emissions with 85% of it is heating and hotwater. Passive solutions such as insulation and design for passive solar gain, can save up to 30% of these emissions.Other issues were water, waste, materials all of these we only had time to touch on.
Like I said we could have done more on the whole issue and perhaps we will in the future. Hopefully someday we will be able to come up with a set of standards. It is the first time we are doing such a block. It is an essentail part of the question of sustainable farming.