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Pitch

The HOUSE can become a power station. Test new technologies on one house, grow that into a development, create ETF that invests in the tech.


Description

Summary

Half the wealth on the planet is in the hydrocarbon industry, which will continue to destroy and corrupt the planet until it is vanquished. Alternative energy investments are very shaky because a new development can make previous ones obsolete, so investing in a PV manufacturer, for example, doesn't make sense for an individual. Tesla invented the grid, powering it with Niagara Falls, but it grew so fast that fossil fuel combustion is causing global warming. So why not get rid of the grid, create off-grid affordable housing with tested equipment, then create a financial instrument that invests in the companies making the best batteries, pv, magnetic motors, electric cars, turbines, inverters, whatever. This ETF idea is designed to draw investments away from Big Oil on the world's exchanges. 

I came up with this after 10 years of studying the energy market. The cost of clean energy is undercutting the price of oil and gas, but the market is hooked on the burning of materials, and a paradigm shift and a shift of wealth has to occur or we are doomed. I am not a financial guy, but this proposal combines many solutions and can be infinitely scalable. Renault is trying it on the Island of Santo Porto, but though they do not include the financial aspect, the research will be valuable to this project. One idea is to use a house at Brookhaven Labs on Long Island, to access the skillsets available. The HOUSE would be open to the public, and publicized. 


Is this proposal for a practice or a project?

Not sure


What actions do you propose?

The idea of a house has changed with the emergence of the energy grid, whereby it has become a producer of garbage and children and otherwise a consumer of anything that is in distribution, including electricity and gasoline.

This was not the case before the grid; rural houses had wind turbines, livestock, agriculture. The grid was built to turn the farmers and homesteaders into customers, but that can be reversed. The productive HOUSE makes its own electricity which also powers the car, it turns urine into a gas for cooking, it has vertical gardens, collects and purifies rainwater.. I am curious if the house I imagine can heat itself in winter, can sell electricity locally, what the economics are, what comfort level can be achieved, how the public will react. 

The financial aspect is impossible without serious credibility, which I alone cannot provide. So this proposal starts with a HOUSE, perhaps at BNL, where new tech is brought in and integrated and assessed on a continual basis. The ETF would take equity positions in the best technologies and then lure the energy investment away from fossil fuel stocks. If successful, the ETF would grow by orders of magnitude and would fund off-grid developments all over the world.  The publicity would spur the PV industry as people take various aspects of the HOUSE and apply it to their own homes. 


Who will take these actions?

I would try to get the New York Energy Research and Development Authority involved. The problem is that every area of research is compartmentalized, with a head of department. My proposal transcends, or combines many different aspects, so it becomes difficult to shoehorn into a bureaucracy. The ETF suggests private capital in a public offering, so an arrangement might involve access to the different departments as needed, even the green banks and the local governments to perhaps overrule local ordinances that conflict with the HOUSE idea. 

The HOUSE has a technological aspect, requiring engineers (there are many at Brookhaven), a financial aspect, requiring an investment firm and a bank, a real estate aspect, requiring a developer, an architectural aspect, requiring an architect, and a local political aspect, requiring a local politician.

The HOUSE has to become a proposal which can be distributed to the people above, so that this section gets more specific as to who might be involved. So far it's only me. Every organization has their own projects and they aren't interested in mine, but in this context things might be different. 


Where will these actions be taken?

Long Island is one solid housing development where nobody leaves the house except by car, usually a large one, and everybody lives their lives at room temps. This is not going to change, but the source of the energy to fuel this lifestyle can change. Brookhaven Labs is located in a less developed part of the Island, they are researching different battery technologies, different materials, so we know they want a piece if the future. I have not tried to contact Doon Gibbs, who runs the place, but would love to know what he/she thinks and whether such a project fits into their charter with the Dept. of Energy. 

Physics is highly specialized, which I see as a problem in getting the scientific community on board a very general project, or get them even thinking for a second about global warming, but I see the HOUSE as attractive to physicists once it actually exists. I have contacted many scientists and engineers in the alternative energy world, there is the  Energy Science Technology Conference in Idaho every summer where the motors that may eventually run the HOUSE are demonstrated. With 5000 scientists visiting Brookhaven each year, this would give the world exposure to the new technologies, to show them in action, and to let people imagine this equipment in their lives..  


In addition, specify the country or countries where these actions will be taken.

United States


Country 2

No country selected


Country 3

No country selected


Country 4

No country selected


Country 5

No country selected


Impact/Benefits


What impact will these actions have on greenhouse gas emissions and/or adapting to climate change?

The grid has been hacked by Russians, is vulnerable to storm damage, is supported by aging nuclear plants and coal-fired dynamos, and it may not be even necessary. Transportation is fossil fuel-based, the branch lines of the Long Island RR run Diesel locomotives that should be obsolete. A long-term goal is to find the best replacements for Diesel locomotives and gas engines. The Germans have developed Hydrogen fuel-cell engines to solve this problem, but most people on Long Island don't even think there is a problem. 

The political atmosphere is more and more toxic, with corruption from Big Oil, which includes Putin's Russia, reaching up and down society's hierarchies. I've noticed that off-grid communities on Facebook only discuss practical matters, there is no spreading of fake news and hatred. Off-grid unites left and right. The community I imagine would be free of corruption and isolation, with common spaces and trading of services and supplies. It would also have a negative Carbon footprint and be scalable to anywhere on the planet. 


What are other key benefits?

In the city people generally walk everywhere, the sidewalks are teeming with pedestrians. Bike lanes are busy, and though traffic spoils the air quality, things are improving. In the suburbs not so much.. people don't walk or bike, they drive. They don't like being outdoors unless it's on a motor boat or motor bike; their leisure is mechanized like everything else in their lives. The only ones concerned about climate change are beach-front property owners. 

This situation cannot be changed, but it is unsustainable so it must be changed. People are very suspicious about limits on their freedoms, which are not accompanied by any sense of responsibility, so they have to be seduced. The HOUSE will be something shiny and new, and it should attract some attention. Perhaps solar panels will increase the market value of their property, perhaps savings on gas and oil will make possible things that weren't before. 


Costs/Challenges


What are the proposal’s projected costs?

The main expense will be for the technology, and the installation. Since the HOUSE is a model of a private residence, costs are an issue, it has to be affordable to the average family. Then there is a management structure for the project, with salaries, but by the second year the project should pay for itself through the ETF. Maybe $200,000 will get the HOUSE set up to test and combine the technologies. I haven't discussed getting working models from the inventors, they would probably want to be paid, but on the other hand, their invention would have a good chance to be backed by theETF, so they could provide the model of their invention for testing instead of selling it to the project.


Timeline

By the second year the ETF will be attracting investors, the HOUSE will be interesting to home-buyers, the technological and political issues will have been identified and addressed. This would be time to start thinking about the DEVELOPMENT based on the HOUSE. Financing the DEVELOPMENT can be done through the ETF, and the building of a community can start. 

Once the housing units are sold, the financials will be clearer and the DEVELOPMENT can be exported and scaled. There will be nothing proprietary about the general concept, so developers all over the world will see this as an option.


About the author(s)

I live in NYC and have a house on Long Island. I'm a songwriter, have written screenplays, a history book, and a book on walking ('Walking, a Step by Step Approach to Saving the Planet and Ourselves'. Available on Kindle). For the last 10 years I have been working on the INDEX, which compiles all the solutions I can find to the causes and consequences of atmospheric Carbon. This proposal came out of that work, which identified some of the problems that are sending us down the slippery slope of climate change. The HOUSE project is one of a few solutions that I see as the only way forward if we are to survive. I usually take a general approach, rather than specializing in one field, because I never know where a line of inquiry will lead. 


Related Proposals

I'm not sure. I'll look at the other proposals. There are off-grid experiments in Europe, and lots of the world is off-grid, but I think my proposal is unique.


References

The INDEX, available on request. Also I have written essays, proposals, but the general nature of my work doesn't lend itself to specific science studies. This crosses over into many areas.