Proving the Power of Conservation

Derek Toups knows the daily drill of living in one of America’s most energy-stingy homes: If he wants to watch television or run the blender to whip up a batch of homemade almond milk, he doesn’t just press a button, he first gets on a bicycle.

To catch the news the other morning, Toups hopped onto a recumbent bike in his living room. Peddling effortlessly, he calmly supplied a bit of human power to a small battery that, in turn, ran the TV.

He and two other Humboldt State students who live in the 10-room hillside home are part of a 20-year-old experiment that has evolved into a national showcase for conservation and renewable energy methods. From humble beginnings, students have fashioned a simple can-do statement about how Californians can begin to dig themselves out of their energy hole.

The 70-year-old house, now known as the Humboldt State University Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, contains scores of often-whimsical energy-saving devices, many the results of erstwhile student projects. They include solar roof panels, handmade thermal curtains that provide twice the insulation of double-paned windows, a heat-producing greenhouse and metal-insulated kitchen hotbox that cuts stove time in half. To run their outdoor generator, students use biodiesel--a fuel made from used cooking oil from the university cafeteria.

The results: Each month, the house uses only 4% of the electricity consumed by the average single-family home: 22.5 kilowatts, compared to 533.

The program, staffed each year with three live-in students, a maintenance staff of 15 and numerous volunteers, sponsors tours of the demonstration home, along with energy workshops for residents of this university town 275 miles north of San Francisco.

They’re visited by countless alternative energy advocates and have traded conservation tips with groups in such developing countries as Cuba and Nicaragua.

Toups, a 25-year-old New Orleans native, looks at his little leg-powered TV and sees the future: “People in fitness centers line up to use exercise bikes and watch TV--so it makes sense to have something where they can power their own sets. You could do a lot with that energy.”

There’s a strong sense of 1960s idealism at work here. The students don’t do in-your-face protests of selfish consumers. Instead, they have created a community that revolves around a life of energy conservation they’d like to see others emulate, even if it only means buying a few energy saving light bulbs.

“Nothing blew my mind like living in this house,” said Sean Armstrong, a former program participant who is co-writing a book about the home. “Before I came here I was this environmental activist who tried to stop the things I thought were wrong. But this house was a chance to live the solution--and opportunities like that aren’t too common in our society.”

Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley, said the students are proving that energy use can be slashed with less sacrifice than people fear.

“They’re getting the message across [that] the utilities can’t: that you can conserve power without huddling in a corner shivering. These students are as comfortable as people living in most homes.”

This winter, with temperatures here dipping toward freezing many nights, the students’ monthly utility bills have ranged from $10 to $25--for natural gas to run their kitchen stove and water heater.

The one-story house with its wood-burning heater is so self-sufficient that it’s no longer even connected to the state’s power grid. Ten years ago, in a gesture of energy independence, students held a rooftop ceremony at which they snipped the Pacific Gas & Electric connecting wires.

But with new technology that allows solar-heated homes to pump unused energy back to the grid, students plan to reconnect to the state system as a way to help the university reduce its power bills. The move will be aided by new photovoltaic roof panels that will increase their generated solar energy eightfold.

The program was born in 1981 when an idealistic group of students persuaded university officials to allow them to repair an old home that had been slated for demolition and establish an energy research center there.

Raising their own money, the students added the first of what would over the years become dozens of energy-efficient flourishes: a dry compost toilet and an adjacent solar-heated greenhouse that helped warm the home over the Northern California winter.

“We looked at that old house as our laboratory,” recalled Kirk Girard, an original program member who is now community development services director for Humboldt County.

“In the end, we saw a light left on in a vacant room as chewing up valuable energy and affecting the entire balance of where we lived.”

As interest soared in the program, school officials formed a steering committee to select--from among applicants nationwide--three student directors each year to live at the demonstration house.

Students raise the program’s $20,000 operating budget, which benefits from hundreds of class projects aimed at making the house more efficient.

“They’re constantly reinventing the wheel,” said university instructor Mike Manetas.

Like the students who wanted to turn old French fry oil into diesel. After some experimenting to find the right mix of lye and methanol, they now use the converted grease to power an old Mercedes and several machines at the house. They want to use the fuel to run some university vehicles and maybe even a few local farm tractors.

Not every idea makes the cut. Devices such as the pedal-powered washing machine are relegated to the basement. Said 22-year-old co-director Sean Dockery, “If there’s no comfort, people won’t use it.”

When the university recently considered relocating the demonstration house, the community came out in protest.

For the home’s gravity-based rainwater collection system--used to water the gardens-- sheriff’s officials donated plastic water tanks seized from marijuana growers. The 1970s-vintage solar panels were once used in space experiments at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The energy-producing wind turret sits atop a mast from an old banana boat. And the home’s pair of backyard parabolic cookers are recycled satellite dishes--also donated.

Some students have found the adjustment challenging, especially after the home abandoned the state power grid in 1990. One fell behind in her classes after discovering that her laptop computer didn’t run reliably on solar power.

On a good day, when the sun is shining, the house creates enough energy to meet its needs--with leftover power feeding into storage batteries. But on the many cloudy days when the batteries run low, the home’s three residents either crank up the old biodiesel generator or look for ways to cut their usage.

“It means I can’t always listen to the radio when I want--so I just play my guitar,” said Dockery. “You learn it’s a lot easier to consume energy than it is to create it.”

Because they recycle their gray water--the sink and shower runoff--to water their garden, students are careful about the chemicals they dump into their sink. That means no antibacterial soap or shampoo with phosphates.

And they relish the natural cycle of having their compost put back into the garden to grow more vegetables. “I grew up thinking that food came from the grocery store,” Toups said.

“So it was eye-opening to realize where everything I consumed came from--and where it goes.”

Like an energy watchman, Dockery continually consults a living room energy meter that students hooked up to measure the battery supply and minute-by-minute voltage being used in the house. He’s on the lookout for phantom loads, those unnecessary uses such as a light left burning in a vacant room.

“I check that meter morning, noon and night,” he said.

Richard Olson, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Studies program at Kentucky’s Berea College, recently saw the campus center’s energy policies in action during a field trip there with 15 students. He plugged in a camera recharger, only to watch Dockery pass the meter and exclaim: “There’s an extra draw on our batteries!”

“He knew his house so well, he picked up even a tiny thing like a recharging battery,” Olson said. “Most people can’t even say where their power comes from. They don’t have a clue. These people have a clue.”