Archive for February, 2011

Architect, developer, scientist, farmer – Bill Dunster explains his zero fossil energy beliefs, theories and practices to RUPERT BATES.

You know you are heading to meet an eco-architect when the directions include instructions on how to get there by bicycle.

Sorry ZEDfactory. I am all for reducing my carbon footprint, but cycling down the M23 is not sustainable for my health, although parking my petrol-guzzling wagon in front of an electric car charger point was not very sustainable either.

Bill Dunster’s offices are located on the Surrey site of BedZed, the mixed-use sustainable community he designed, developed by the Peabody Trust.

Armed with my book of stereotypes I was expecting to find Dunster the eco-warrior in a potting shed with a mug of nettle soup.

I was expecting a fight too. I am neither a warmist nor a denier when it comes to climate change; more a doubting Thomas, sceptical until I see Poseidon emerging from the floodwaters of London with a mighty roar and the Gherkin impaled on his trident.

But Dunster disarms you – thankfully not in a nuclear way. While the integrity of his projects reveal a man clearly passionate about the environment and a bold and innovative architect/scientist mixing his low carbon technologies, the fact that he had just stepped off – or rather hobbled off nursing a bad back – a plane from China, suggested he realises the hunt for global business solutions means commercial pragmatism sometimes had to trump eco-efficiency.

Dunster uses bald facts not the four horsemen of the apocalypse to get his point across. “The world’s population is rising fast: fact. We do not have the fuel to run the world based on the numbers, nor the resources to build and sustain the necessary infrastructure.”

In other words simple supply and demand economics for nature’s resources - be they clean or dirty. And as we have to find and fund fresh wells of sustenance to draw on, they may as well be clean, rather than fossil fuels.

Dunster is clutching at straws – literally – for a solution and to open up a whole new sustainable supply chain.

His housing system StramitZED - on display at Ecobuild - combines biomass, straw-based energy generation, with low energy manufacturing processes and a biofuel based distribution strategy.

StramitZED - a joint venture with straw panel supplier Stramit Technology Group - buys straw from farmers, thus producing another revenue stream for the agricultural sector. The Stramit straw board system, fusing compressed straw’s natural resins, delivers a durable, high-performance Code Level 6 house with low embodied carbon and exceeding Code 6 in photovoltaic electricity generation.

The thermal mass keeps the house cool in summer and warm in winter with terracotta floor tiles and vaulted ceiling bricks, while there is passive ventilation with heat recovery, based on the principles of the ZEDfabric windcowls.

There is also access to Feed In Tariffs and a PV carport canopy for charging electric cars. “The net electricity cost to the homeowner is zero,” said Dunster.

The StramitZED house features the ZEDroof, providing a conservatory style area in the south-facing roof space and generating electricity and hot water.

The panels are produced at Dezhou Solar City in China, between Beijing and Shanghai by Himin – the largest solar panel manufacturer in the world.

“There is simply no investment of this size in Europe. You need volume for economies of scale. Zero carbon is no longer a technology question; it is a cost question,” said Dunster, determined to establish a proven, national supply chain model right through to energy mortgages.

ZEDfactory has an office in Shanghai, with its ZEDpavilion showcasing a holistic approach to urban sustainability.

Dunster has never been a ‘chained to the railings’ green protester. In his spare time he prefers to chop wood, walk the dogs and enjoy a glass of beer in a country pub.

His epiphany came aged about 12, growing up in suburban London. “There was an apple orchard opposite our house where I used to play. One day it was not there, replaced by a truly awful development of ‘executive’ homes. I thought there must be a better way.”

Dunster is wary of sounding like a Zen master coming down from the mountain, but stresses that sustainability is not just about product, but lifestyle, community and a sense of well-being. “It is the package that makes people happy – homes, space, children, culture, fashion, sex.”

So why the feet dragging by the big boots when it comes to reducing carbon footprints? “Too many vested interests. Developers bought too much land at the top of the cycle and so want to hold off from having to implement onerous environmental standards.”

“At least the industry is now legislatively engaged with sustainability, if not yet philosophically engaged and it has not been sold to the public.”

Dunster, pulling no punches, said: “There is no point in district heating. Super-insulated homes do not need space heating. It is the politics of energy, with lobbying from the big power companies.”

It is not all bad news. “The fact that the Code for Sustainable Homes got through the government machinery will transform the industry. It is akin to the passing of the Victorian Public Health Act.”

Dunster is not expecting phone calls from the mainstream volume housebuilders any time soon, “but I would love to sit round the table and talk to them”.

You suspect Dunster will find a more receptive audience down the pub, chatting to local farmers. Pyrolosis of agricultural waste for zero carbon energy production is fascinating and Dunster nothing if not ambitious, talking of “how farmers will save the world.”

Surplus straw, rather than decomposing and belching out greenhouse gases, is used as a fuel in a pyrolosis plant to produce a hydrogen rich bio-methane gas, with the carbon fixed as charcoal.

The gas is then cleaned and sent to the city, where small fuel cells can provide electricity and heat to buildings, which are retrofitted, negating the need for digging up streets for thermal heat or district cooling mains.

I am by now lost in an eco-maze; an extraordinary cross-pollination of ideas and connections. The process can even create liquefied biogas to power planes, while the charcoal produced from the straw goes back into the soil, increasing fertility and agricultural yields to improve food harvests. My only beef is the “predominantly vegetarian diet” needed to live Dunster’s zero carbon, zero waste lifestyle.

There is more. Dunster is working on plans for a zero-carbon solar farm village in North Devon called DuneZed, on the site of an old power station, putting holiday homes and leisure facilities beneath solar canopies.

If I had bottled the embodied energy in Dunster’s ideas, I could have flown home from BedZED on my bike.

www.zedfactory.com

This article first appeared in the February issue of Showhouse magazine

Rupert Bates is editorial director of www.whathouse.co.uk and Showhouse magazine

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