Recognizing the Difference

Alternative power and green buildings are often equated as meaning the same thing, but there are some real differences.

Green buildings, in many cases, just don’t need the power. For example, a Monolithic Dome school is greener than grass without an alternative power source. It only uses 25% to 40% as much energy as a same-size traditional building. And the energy cost of producing the dome is generally much less than that of a conventional structure, especially if a life factor is evaluated.

So it’s quite obvious that eliminating the need for power is far better, economically and environmentally, than using an expensive alternative power.

The Cost Factor

At this point in our world’s history, alternative power is expensive – unless you happen to be sitting beside a river in which you can simply insert a turbine and generate your own power. Generally, alternative power is more expensive than power off the grid.

Coal power and natural gas power are both relatively inexpensive. But solar power and wind power are expensive.

The Need

So, do we need alternative power? Absolutely! If we do not devise more efficient power uses in this, our 21st Century, we will not make the advances we made in the 20th Century. For that reason and because they minimize the need for power, Monolithic Domes will become far more accepted and popular in our near future. A Monolithic Dome conserves power during its construction and as a finished product. But we still continue working on various ways to cut energy use during construction.

Nevertheless, the need for alternative power is so great that governments are spending huge amounts of money, encouraging the making and usage of alternative power. After all, the sun and the wind are inexhaustible power sources. We would be foolish not to look for ways to use them.

But we would not see huge advances in making and using alternative power if it were not for government subsidies. Germany has subsidized solar to what many believe is beyond reason. But that subsidized power will lead to better uses when we devise a way to build better batteries.

Wind power has similar problems. The United States, Denmark and many other countries are subsidizing it enormously. And nobody can say that they do not generate power. But what they need is a method for storing that power.

Consistency and Storage

Wind and solar are certainly viable methods of alternative power. But unlike natural gas, coal or diesel, they are not consistent. Graphs of California’s wind generators show that they make the most power at the time of day when it’s least needed, and they make the least when it’s most needed.

Storing power is the next big step. Battery technology, to date, does not store enough power to solve the problem. But notice that I said, “to date.” Some very bright people are working full time at improving power storage.

One recent idea uses underground caverns to store compressed air that then can be released to turn generators. And we already know of places where water is pumped into reservoirs at night and during the day released back through the generators as a liquid battery.

Water cooled and stored during the evening can be used to cool a building during the day. Monolithic has helped build swimming-pool-size ponds under buildings for that purpose.

And we suggest that, in a similar process, we will soon use ice stored in underground Monolithic Domes. Land has become so expensive that the cost of having a large cold water storage is prohibitive. But we can build a Monolithic Dome ice vault, under a parking lot, that can withstand the pressure of the parking lot above. Such an ice vault can store the ice made during off-peak power times, then use it to cool the building during peak power times.

We cannot call ice storage an alternative power, but we certainly can show it as a power reducer, used to cut back overall power. In effect, such ice storages are large batteries.

A Valuable Memory

I like to recall what a physics teacher taught me in the 1950s. He said, “I believe if you could cross any two of the magnetic fluxes of the earth’s magnetic field it would have as much power as an atom bomb.” What he was saying is that the earth has a very powerful magnetic field that is kept fully charged from the sun. And so far, we use it to tell directions, but we have not learned how to tap into it for power. And the amount of power in that magnet sphere equals all the power we could ever hope to need on this planet. We just need some bright-eyed, young scientist to figure out how to make it work.

Sea power is also huge. We really should call it moon power: As the moon rotates around the earth, gravity sucks the oceans’ water and creates the tides. Those tides and waves have an enormous amount of power. We haven’t really learned how to tap into it as well as we need to. But there are wave generators and as more get built these wave generators will produce more and more power. They are consistent because, except for maintenance, they can run all of the time.

We owe it to ourselves and each other to keep finding ways to save power, to use it more efficiently and to look at, work with, invest in alternative power and reduce our use of petroleum resources.