Energy Efficiency and Mother Earth

 For a year now, Antithesis Research has been working on the “Sustainability” issues contained in the desired outcomes of the community challenge grant issued by HUD/EPA/DOT.  Sustainable living as we know it is nothing more than “traditional knowledge” partnered with modern technology. One of the tasks that we have been working on under the grant is Housing & Energy Efficiency; we have been asking what the community wanted in terms of “future” energy sources and we have also considered what the social and economic costs/benefits are associated with alternative energy sources.

Over the last year the Federal and State governments have flooded email boxes around the country with various funding and grant opportunities for wind, solar, and bio-fuels facilities to name only a few. However, regardless of the system producing the electricity or the fuel, the consumer is still expected to pay for the energy product when consumed. According to wind and solar power maps produced by various government entities the Spokane Indian Reservation is not an ideal location for maximum power productivity.

How much do you currently pay for propane or electricity? The Spokane Indian Housing Authority is aggressively trying to get heating bills down to $50-60.00 per month. An answer to the problem of high energy bills is to become less dependent upon the energy grid.  This is possible by using stored solar heat from the earth’s crust in combination with properly insulated homes.  The type of technology that can significantly reduce monthly bills associated with heating and cooling is called Ground-Source Heat Pumps or GSP’s (see figure 1). GSP’s literally transfer the stored heat energy from deep in the ground (plugging into mother earth if you will) and moves that heat into the home through and exchanger. In the summer months the heat pump can transfer heat back into the ground for cooling. As part of the grant and working together as a community, HUD offered a solution to this technologic hurdle. As part of our training under the grant, HUD has agreed to allow some AR staff to go and get GSP certification training so that the technology can be taken advantage of here at home.  We are working closely with SIHA and expect the first couple of systems to be installed in rental units. However, we will be making this heat/cooling technology upgrade available to home buyers and current owners as well, on and off the reservation starting mid-summer 2012.

We will be releasing more information in the months ahead.

Figure 1: Schematic of a ground source heat pump system hooked up to a suitably insulated home. Thanks to some HUD funding, requests by SIHA,  community input, and tribal council this technology is coming to the reservation.

Scott Radford

Antithesis Research