Meeting Minutes 11 August 2010

Town of Underhill
Energy Committee
7:00 pm
11 August 2010
Underhill Town Hall

Call to Order 7:10
Present: Tom Moore, Steve Webster, Bob Murphy, Irene Linde, Peter Duval, Chuck Weger.

1) Tom's New House

Tom is building a new high performance house, which he expects will achieve LEED Gold certification. He showed a cross section of wall and roof assembly. He is using site-harvested tamarack for rot-resistant components. The wall assembly reflects conventional framing and typical renovation insulation. There is a drainage plane and rain screen. The interior is clear span to allow for future remodeling without requiring ceiling or floor alterations.

The foundation is insulated concrete form plus additional sheet foam on the outside, with a continuous Bituthene vapor barrier.

Windows are Pella triple pane, .24 U, with internal shades.


2) Biomass Study

Discussion of scale and sustainable harvesting. Chuck will follow up on the progress of the biomass study at a later meeting.

3) Energy Tour

Steve has been in discussion with folks from the Jericho Energy Task Force to organize this year's Energy Tour. This year the tour may be by vanpool instead of self-guided, with a beginning and end at the Jericho Community Center. They are looking for examples of several types of energy projects, including superinsulation, photovoltaics, solar thermal, biomass boiler, microhydro and passive solar.

The next meeting of the JETF will be 7pm, 18 August.

4) Harvest Market

The market is 25-26 September. There was a discussion of booth size. Chuck will coordinate and Bob will talk to VEEP about demonstration equipment. Tom will see if Scott Gardner will bring his infiltration display.


5) PACE

Bob & Steve plan to go to a joint meeting, 31 August, of the Jericho and Underhill selectboards about PACE, where they hope to find out about grant funding. Peter expressed concern that PACE, and efficiency programs in general are insufficient to the challenge of the climate crisis, and may lead to regrettable investments, particularly investments that would be stranded by a sustainable retreat. Alternative financing should be considered.

6) New Member Recruitment

Tom suggested a potential new member for the committee.

7) Adjournment, 9:00pm

Respectfully Submitted,
Peter Duval, Secretary

Meeting Minutes 14 July 2010

Town of Underhill
Energy Committee
7:00 pm
14 July 2010
Underhill Town Hall

Call to Order 7:10
Present: Tom Moore, Jerry Adams, Irene Linde, Peter Duval, Chuck Weger (by video call)

1) Community Energy Mobilization Project

Participation in the home visit program was high. 49 homes were visited.

2) Australia

Chuck gave a brief tour of a home in Adelaide, Australia. Masonry construction and not much insulation. Electric hot water system is separately metered, with an off-peak timer control.

3) Discussion

There was a wide ranging discussion of building technologies, agriculture and climate change adaptation.



4) Adjournment, 9:00pm

Respectfully Submitted,
Peter Duval, Secretary

Reading

We discussed a couple of ideas at the last meeting that appear in these papers.
When complex systems are being considered, this is a good place to start:

Leverage Points: places to intervene in a system

Another paper that touches on some fundamental issues:

Long-Term Global Heating From Energy Usage

What is relevant about this paper is that black body radiational cooling is the only way for heat to leave the Earth. Human activity -- even activity that avoids incremental emission of greenhouse gasses -- increases the temperature of the Earth.