Plug It
In...
Energy consumption, leaks and plugs
by David
B. South
Reprint
from the 2001 Summer Roundup
 David B. South, President of the Monolithic Dome Institute |
On April 20, 2001, I completed a thirteen-week trial run of our radio talk show - DomeTalk - hosted by Phoenix radio station, KFNX. This was a fascinating adventure for me. I have been a guest on several talk radio shows, but never a host. As host, I had to make sure the program remained lively and interesting to the listening audience.
It gave me a new perspective on radio show production. Each broadcast of DomeTalk has been taped and loaded on www.monolithic.com/dometalk. These sessions can be listened to online or as MP3 files. Each show addressed specific dome topics. More information about each broadcast is available online at www.monolithic.com/dometalk. I invite you to review its contents.
Energy Costs Increase
Energy costs are on everybody's mind. Recently, California witnessed a 45% energy cost increase in some of their electrical prices. We hear talk of de-regulation and re-regulation. It matters not how much it's talked about; it is obvious energy costs will continue to rise. In my opinion, the current cost hike will be much like the early 70s - revisited. There will be a run up in energy costs, then prices will flatten for a short while and then rise again. Chances are, we will probably never see a serious roll back.
Recently, in a discussion with Ward Huffman of the U.S. Department of Energy, he stated that 33 percent of all the energy expended in the United States goes into heating and cooling of buildings - two-thirds of all electricity. He calls it the leaking away of wealth because money spent on heating and cooling of buildings is gone forever. It does not benefit the community - it is simply gone.
Household budgets have the same problem. The checks we write to utility companies are for past services and that money is gone forever. It makes a lot of sense to try and plug the leaks.
How Do We Plug the Leaks?
We plug the leaks in our energy cost by re-insulating old structures and building well-insulated new structures. Time after time, we have proven to Monolithic customers that the energy savings from a Monolithic Dome could be put in a bond account to mature and the accumulation would equal the value of the building within twenty years. This would put a huge plug in the rise of leaking energy cost. It is something to be considered on every new building.
The concrete in a Monolithic Dome is isolated from the outside world by insulation. Therefore it is used as a thermal battery , thermal storage, thermal flywheel or any other "buzz word." This means heat can be stored in the dome shell and then that heat is available to use at a later time. There is no other structure which offers this advantage.
Recently I asked one of our engineers to figure the energy calculations of a church currently under construction. In this particular structure, if the building were cooled to 68 degrees before church service started, the 3000 members would not emit enough heat to raise the temperature in the dome above 73 degrees within ninety minutes.
This means a ninety-minute church service could be held without using any outside air conditioning. I realize that this is an extreme case, but it points out the importance of purchasing a heating and cooling system designed to utilize the thermal battery of a Monolithic Dome.
|