Dry wall of foamed concrete (DWFC) building panels can be designed as an abundant source for storing presently wasted solar energy. Converting a building’s envelope using engineered concrete panels for floors, walls, and ceilings is an ideal thermal energy heating and cooling storage shed. Why should this be considered a renewable energy source? Because its source is the amount of invisible light wave energy from the sun stored as heat in an engineered stone foam building panel used in a dwelling we call an “Energy Cabin”.
The innovative system works by collecting and storing the natural convective thermal wave energy from the sun. Until recently, the system was only marginally economically feasible. With California’s solar roof requirement now becoming a mandate for all new residential construction – the opportunity is now, only limited by the imagination.
We use the term “Back to the Future” in describing our innovation. Our ancestors knew all about the earth’s inner heat. They heated their dwellings, cooked their food, and even got a warm bath without a water heater. Today, scientists estimate that given what we know about this internal energy in the earth’s crust, about 1% of that energy amounts to 500 times what exists in all the oil and gas resources on our planet. Thanks to technology advances and deep hole boring in Russia, we are just beginning to measure this incredible energy resource. As material engineers of the 4th industrial revolution we have figured a way to mimic the geologic formations found in nature and design our habitat enclosures based around four of these types.
The heat from the sun’s rays to surfaces upon the earth are an almost limitless source of solar thermal power. Existing industrial process heat systems use air as the delivery system using a series of ducts along with a heat exchanger that functions to maintain a desired human or equipment thermal gradient. Some cities in the United States pipe wet geothermal underneath roads and sidewalks as a way to melt snow and ice. Using the thermal mass capability within a building’s walls, floor and ceiling with or without fluid, thanks to advances in technology, we can now heat and cool indoor air with only the clean solar voltaic power from atop the roof. California estimates 10% of grid power is now from solar, Iceland by example receives 25% of its energy from geothermal. And of course Hawaii’s legislature, set the bar a little higher in mandating 100% renewable sourced electricity by year 2045.