Nullhof

[Steve Austin]

In an apparent moment of ironic (yet topically appropriate) misfortune, I had an unannounced machine shut-down. I turned off the battery 5% alarm because it bothered me. And the Nullhof Concept that I had just spent 1+ hrs sketching out for you was lost. That is appropriate for Nullhof, isn't it?
So I'll just describe the term here and re-draft the concept for posting later today. Nullhof, a fabricated (by me) German word that might mean something close to "Zero Farm". With the dual implication for our purposes of both the zero-energy and outlays-to-zero themes. I'm also suggesting it as a prototype / tinkering platform for the ERE REIT effort, so in the sense of software versioning, Nullhof would be ERE REIT v0, while the larger effort v1.0 was in the works while the Nullhof prototype was spinning up to steady state. The reason for using a prototype is that You Don't Really Know What You Want To Build Until You Start To Build It.
In the software field, the concept is Build One To Throw Away, and in this case even my sketch (though involuntarily lost) complies with this principle.

[Steve Austin]

[Spawned from the Off-grid priority thread, with references to the ERE REIT thread as well.]
Disclaimer: Nullhof is not a cult, not a secret society, not a paramilitary survivalist reserve.
ERE recently stated preference (here in the forums) for verb-over-noun organization, so instead of going down the water, food, shelter, energy list, I'll try the ERE Way and see how it flies.
-------------------
The Nullhof Concept
Nullhof is a system of overlapping, mutually supporting sub-systems:
* drinking: well (pump, and the power to operate it)

[- rainwater cachement and storage and/or groundwater recharge]

* eating, gathering, hunting, fishing: forest-gardenable acreage, access to lake/river

- should be mostly human-powered, but there could be some other things going on:

- aquaculture (I'm not sure about this yet, but there would be energy consumption)

- terraculture/husbandry (definitely not sure about this, for me personally avian egg-layers might be too noisy, blow my poetry zone)

* prime moving: I don't imagine a lot of tilling, but may be some need for a tractor to dig wells, trenches, basements, support columns, etc. The latent mechanical engineer in me likes this: http://openfarmtech.org/index.php/LifeTrac

* living, sleeping: boxy, efficient, bare-bones core living quarters (minimalist Japanese tea bungalow style)

- DIY Passivhaus HVAC; solar chimney, etc.

- geoexchange, a ground-source refrigerant loop and heat pump (and power to operate it)

* eliminating waste: composting toilet, rigged to biogas bagging mechanism, run a small line to the kitchen for cooking fuel

* harvesting energy (for household appliances, batteries, intermittently powered/charged)

- how to make biodiesel for personal use? oilseed rape, algae farming, something else? I know nothing about this, please make suggestions.

- modest PV installation and small, DIY wind turbine (to operate SATCOM and other appliances)

- DIY solar heating installation, for hot water for washing

- back-up heating: wood/brush/pellet burning stove (tractor rigged w/ wood chipper?)

- batteries, charging of various devices

[- and/or inverter for grid connect? sell excess generated power?]

* traveling: combination of bicycles, electric generation/storage, and limited biofuel production, should be able to cover energy demands of getting to "town" as needed

* storing: limited on-site storage of good old dinosaur juice (petrodiesel) to operate the tractor, emergency power generation, space heating, etc.
Nullhof Project Objectives
* Primary mission is to inform and train ourselves to build something for real
* Secondary mission is to get payback from the capital (and labor) investment
Nullhof Principles
* Redundant sub-systems of water collection, food production, energy harvesting, and sheltering / living arrangments, such that the system itself is resilient.
* Slow Build (an analogue to Slow Food) -- lots of time to reflect and change course on the project (or spawn sub-projects) as necessary to perform missions.
* Joint Ownership / Use / Experimentation on property and installations.
Skills
needed for the project:

- legal, accounting, journalism, marketing

- site scheduling, coordination, operation, integration

- health care / medical triage

- permaculture / forest gardening / fishing

- building materials / site construction

- electrical transmission / storage (PV installation, batteries)

- mechanical systems / maintenance (tractor, wind turbine, transportation, etc.)

- textiles, fabrication

- communications systems / development (SATCOM, radios, power monitoring)
Further Comments
I'm of course wide open to criticism, advice, redirection, or other guidance, as I'm certain I've missed several important aspects of getting to Zero on-site.
Of considerable concern to me is that you (and others not privy to the ERE Way) might get a hint of "survivalist compound" or worse "cult house". I'm presently imagining a rural location (near one or more small towns) in rural North America, but it doesn't have to be rural and it doesn't have to be North America.
If it is rural North America, another considerable concern is interaction with the community. I have always felt comfortable in the rural US, but also suspect that my years of sprawl living on the East Coast have detracted from my "country-cred". I think it would be very important to make a connection with neighbors and surrounding community. Ideal situation would be a site near one of the major contributors, to make introductions and get inside the umbrella of a broader community.
Getting a solid legal framework for the project up front is critical, so one of the contributors or major advisors should be an attorney who has a stake or maybe a personal interest in the outcome. Once the project approaches steady state (energetically), marketing the property in whatever fashion the owners wish would be important to capital payback on the investment. Same for expert and judicious journalism as the project progresses.
From what little I've read of permaculture, it takes a decade or more to get a forest property to where it's producing food at top efficiency. ERE shared these sites a while back (or possibly it was John Robb at GG), see the tail end of part 3, all of part 4 and 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJQhRIKo5rA (part 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsPfeSRIFo (part 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Ez5ViYKYA (part 5)
Thus, permaculture is a critical skill, but sounds like there is time to learn it from inside the project, and not necessarily a skill needed up front. From the videos...
Patrick Whitefield, also an interesting book on Tipi Living, but his general website is: http://www.patrickwhitefield.co.uk/
Chris Dixon in Snowdonia, Wales; Dolgellau, Gwynedd UK has 7 acres, and has a good quote "gardening with hand tools is more productive and more energy efficient than farming". Here's a link to something he wrote: http://www.konsk.co.uk/resource/Regen1.htm
The other guy is Martin Crawford who says that a forest garden produces enough food per acre for 10 people. Perhaps that's a rule of thumb to use for siting a Nullhof project.
I've only begun research, and liked much of what I read at openfarmtech.org (LifeTrac link from above). Open Source Ecology is the way one group approached the problem, and I'm sure there are many other groups working in the same problem space. A bunch of ERErs would undoubtedly have our own priorities; I've noticed that privacy is a non-trivial theme amongst us, so much of the serious planning for this would happen off-forum, and preferably at meetups.
An example of some things to be sorted out up front: what happens to the property after it reaches energetic steady-state (well before the forest garden is at full tilt decades downstream)? A seminar/retreat rental site? Make it available to an ERE "colony" to build out the property for higher-density living? An ERE museum? Continue it as a prototype used to conduct experiments for ERE REIT or some other production project? Sell it entirely? Sell fractional shares among the original investors? Please pipe in with ideas on this and other concerns that I expect you have.
My opinion is that the most important people to engage now are gardeners, builders, attorneys, and generalists who could learn any of the skills. Any one serious contributor would have to be willing to provide resources (financial, intellectual and/or bodily capital) in some proportion codified into a founding arrangement of some sort. And I should be clear: just because I seem to have voiced the idea first doesn't mean that I'm automatic for self-selection to an ERE REIT / prototype team. To maximize p(success), the initial crew should be very tight / get along very well.
Those kind of dynamics don't fall into place until we get in person. Having said that, I think we're pretty well synchronized here already, self-selected as ERErs in one or more ways, so I'm not too worried that it can't happen (steady-state Nullhof) if there is strong enough interest from 2-6 people.
Nullhof is not a cult, not a secret society, not a paramilitary survivalist reserve. It's a prototype and laboratory for renewable resource experimentation and refinement. I'm also very interested in ERE REIT, but I think a smaller project is the best way to start, and perhaps vet the level of commitment of various contributors before a large project is undertaken. Another possible outcome here is that Nullhof is not embraced as a necessary preliminary step to ERE REIT, in which case Nullhof will be vaporware instead of an instantiation of the Build One To Throwaway pattern.

[Q]

I agree with mostly what you say here, and yeh, it does require plenty of capital of all types (persons, money, etc).
The hardest part to me is legal - because outside forces and the masses in general do not like change, and would attack so to speak. Also, being marginalized as a cult, society, etc would also be detrimental of sorts.

[jacob]

Well, as the cult-leader-by-default, I think it needs to be considered that we (is it okay if I say we?) are also highly individualistic in nature.
I don't want to draw generalized conclusions, but I can see how a collective/community of any sorts can result in friction.
I don't think modern people has the tribal/social skills to make it work beyond two people. Divorce statistics indicate that the critical number is closer to 1.3 or so.
I think a distributed system will have a greater chance of success. I suggest finding an area (city or city sector) and simply start populating that knowing that there will be other people with similar interests within short range.
In other words. Decide on a place to turn into a "transition town" and simply start moving there en mass. [Kinda like the lifestyle designers are taking over Portland, Oregon]
As usual, there will be a great resistance to moving because pre-ERE is substantially tied to their geographical location by their jobs and are usually not willing to move. At least that's been my impression.
[Note: Anyone reading this can buy a travel trailer for $5000 and become my direct neighbor (space is open) if they so choose. The park has room for 4 right now. We can't grow much but there's an industrial lot next door which will allow for mobile construction projects. Now, is anyone willing to move here?]

[Steve Austin]

Concur on individualism; it's the North American Way. I can handle close and effective collaboration with 2-6 people, sweet spot of 4. (The US Army -- not my branch of service -- claims that the magic number is 11, not sure if that includes oneself, so I guess I'm operating at half my potential without Army training.) Meetups should confirm pretty quickly how things could go; I can usually, p > 0.9, tell (as soon as I get someone to open up) whether s/he is someone with whom I could commit to a large project.
I take your point about the act of just converging on a town and setting up shop (but how is that a distributed system if ERErs converge on one location?) I wouldn't know up front how to set up shop, so I propose Nullhof as a test drive: 1) how to go about siting a project; and 2) after siting, how to build it out, scale it in a robust and sustainable manner. It is possible I am over-planning.
Does your facility only rent to trailers? JohnnyH's Shag Mobile couldn't roll in and rent some space? Also, what is going on with the next door "mobile construction projects"? Give us the HUMINT on that.

[jacob]

Travel trailers, fifth wheels, motorhomes, truck campers, and [unmobile] mobile homes (they occasionally go up for sale). The next door address is a holding facility for big machinery, old trucks, and various junk. They also have buildings. Some of the people over here store their trucks/boats over there.
Converging on individual but closely spaced (with 2 miles) housing would make for a loosely connected system which people can enter and leave. This would be like a research group with a nominal (but hands-off) leader where people can collaborate on projects but where there always exists a single driver. For instance, it would be clear who owned the garden. Ownership is clearly defined. With a community, it is much harder to define responsibility. My experience with dorm living, where we shared kitchen facilities, was that it usually worked well ... except "one rotten apple spoils the bunch". In other words, if just 10% of the people present didn't clean up after them, standards would very quickly disintegrate under the motto of "why should I if he doesn't ...". This is a natural consequence of people having different values. I realize that we're all fairly closely aligned, but nevertheless that just means that the divergence will be on some petty details. To avert this, the solution is to hire a professional. In the example above, the site had a cleaning lady that once a week would artificially inflate "standards" back to specs.
In a family situation and ostensible in a tribal situation, blood is thicker than water. If blood isn't thicker than water, we're immediately dealing with tragedy of the commons situations. The only way I know of to solve TOTC without resorting to benevolent dictatorship is privatization.
(When I worked for "big government institution", the magic number (11) was associated with how many people a person could effectively lead, before management had to be complexified, e.g. 11 people had one manager. 121 people had 1 manager of 11 submanagers, etc. ... I had 7 levels above me )
Anyway ... as you say in terms of knowing how to set up. Nobody knows. You build and then you revise. Trying to plan centrally from the outset is stupid (maybe that's just my opinion, but my experience with projects seem to bear that out). This is why I "fear" central planning. It is not sui generis in terms of figuring out what people want. Only way that'll work if you wield power in terms of telling them what they should want (i.e. religion), but that's not really an ideal goal of the process.
Hence, with the "regional" approach, people can draw on very local people for their projects. It is similar to what we can currently do online in this forum except it would be possible to easily do it IRL due to geographic closeness.
If a compound within the looser structure is desired, that would not be a problem.
Let me put it another way. I think designing a compound from scratch is a BIG project.

[jacob]

The distributed network also solves the secret society, cult, ... etc. problem. Besides, it is extremely costly to make something self-sufficient with population densities such as they are.
My primary motivation for the next 30 years is in avoiding fallout when the industrial/technological civilization collapses under its own maintenance costs [due to shortages].
This means that efforts should be integrated with the community; and that this community must be resilient (it can't be a highly specialized region e.g. steel town, auto-town, google-town, ...)

[Q]

I think a ERE member card so to speak is what would happen. I wrote some stuff in the ERE REIT post about that.
Mainly I think buying up service stations, housing close to each other and other such small businesses and then offering discounts to promote and assist ERE is the way to go.
Plus, like stated before, the system could grow by offering pre-set buy-ins (100k seems like a magic number). Every 10 people would allow leverage into another property or business.
From there, "owners" would get dividends from the business.
Say you are a semi-successful restaurant owner, and you want to grow restaurants - well, instead of investing 100k yourself, you come to ERE, which you believe in..., and that's leverage.
A pre-set "skimming" would occur and all "owners" benefit. Pre-req's for determining true ER(E)-ness metrics can be debated, but I would gather it would require some sort of board test. In a class I took before, a group called Robin Hood was discussed - it's a philanthropic group of rich rich people who hobnob with celebrities and politicians and invest in schools and other projects based on metrics they don't divulge.
100k to me is 4 years outlay of cash savings, but, in theory, 100k is the ticket to ER(E) or FIRE, because, if combined with 10 or even 5 people, could leverage into housing units or laundromats that provide net income. Regular assigned maintenance or tasks that are clearly written out in contracts could provide controls.
Sorry for the mix of ideas, but it's late and the brain wants to be active

[Steve Austin]

I didn't do enough to emphasize my own aversion to the communal. Nullhof would be a transient, temporary experiment where a handful of tinkerers could converge, intermittently to practice on DIY skills for a zero-energy structure, mini wind turbine, mini PV array, mini ground source loop & heat pump, mini biogas installation, etc.
I most definitely support individual ownership of lots in whatever comes of an ERE REIT project. I'm suggesting a distributed build (at Nullhof) and revise (at a better researched location), whereas you prefer a co-located build-and-revise? It's possible I am impaired by the software vocation: being able to throw one away is a useful creative act of destruction, and when it comes to physically building, throwing away means selling / picking up and moving on.
I also didn't intend to propose or imply any central planning, but rather bottom-up planning. What's the objective? Being able to do all those self-resilient things that lead to Zero. And then collaborating on the site, materials, labor, etc. that are needed to get from the red to Zero, or beyond. And then go away and do it for real, either together, individually, or somewhere in between. I'm wide open to other ideas, including dropping Nullhof if no others express interest. I trust the opinions here enough that if I'm the only one with the idea, it's possible that it's not a good idea. ;-\
I also enjoyed the Q suggestion about joint ownership in small businesses for the profit sharing distributions. That would be a good front to avoid any whiff of secret organization. On the discounts/assistance to ERErs, what about a local currency, e.g. "The Null" or "The Nullspot". ;-\ I am still concerned about not publicly discussing specific locations though. Maybe on a meetup.
I'll let it stew for a while and see what additional holes folks here can poke in Nullhof.

[Steve Austin]

ERE said: "My primary motivation for the next 30 years is in avoiding fallout when the industrial/technological civilization collapses under its own maintenance costs [due to shortages]."
I thought you were a reformed doomer?

[jacob]

Maybe tempered doomer is a better descriptive.
I'm a secular "better have the house in order for the ultimate depression" doomer, not a catastrophic "store food and shotguns for the zombie apocalypse" doomer.
In other words, I think the decline will take a generation or more and that it can be arranged so that the personal impact will look like how the world changed on the way up, that is, certain nonessentials will simply disappear from every day life.
[I'm old enough to remember life with no cell phones, life without a computer, and life with only 1 TV channel transmitting 7-8 hours daily. And somehow, that wasn't bad at all.]

[jacob]

(Nullhof == test site)?
Consider that some things can be tested individually e.g. PV installations, and do not need a test site per se. Other things are based on complexity e.g. anything permaculture and would need it.

[Steve Austin]

Yes, Nullhof == a laboratory site for testing, practice, collaboration, seeding of additional directions. In the ERE Boat thread, you mentioned joint ownership of a vessel, 2-3 people for 4-6 years via an equal share LLC. I don't think that's too far off from the arrangement I was imagining for a Nullhof: 2-6 people for several years, equal share venture of very like-minded players.
Concur on testing sub-systems individually, but what I'm most interested in testing is the network of energetic sub-systems, the holism of the system of systems.
I would describe myself as a tempered optimist, something which I don't think I could discriminate from a tempered doomer beyond the descriptor. I wish to see The Man decline but not perish. The Man has some value, but much of The Man's power really should be devolved to first the states, and then on downward to municipalities / counties. Localities have to get their sh*t together though; I have very rarely been impressed by local government.

[Maus]

@Q

What you are suggesting reminds me of the Mondragon Corporation in Spain. It was started as a workers' cooperative and has grown into a powerful multi-industry corportation owned by its workers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
I tend to side with Jacob in prefering a loose association of private individuals. I wouldn't mind swapping tools or directing my shopping for necessities at a cooperative market, but I am the slob that doesn't want to clean the kitchen to Martha Stewart standards. So I know that I'd probably be the source of friction in any tightly interwoven community.

[Q]

I'll look it up! I think hiring a maid service (another possible investment, since people are getting lazier) would solve the problem.
There is nothing wrong with getting maids and showing them the ERE light so to speak...then they can start their own maid services and the cycle continues

[Maus]

@Steve Austin

I am about 50 pages into Doctorow's "Makers" and I can see the inspiration/affinities for your Nullhof. For those who want to push the creative possibilities, such a laboratory would be wonderful.
I tend to fall in the camp that prefers to be pulled by problems encountered to impliment efficient solutions ad hoc. Jacob's mantra of choosing to think about solving problems in a DIY way rather than running to a big box to purchase a "solution" resonates with me.
If things ain't broke, I tend not to worry about how they might break. If something is good enough, I generally won't try to make it better. (Though regarding my own expenditure of energy in working, I will strive for hyperefficiency.) It may come down to analytic versus synthetic abilities. I can break down problems without breaking a sweat and contingency analysis or minimal/maximal analysis compels me; but synthesizing parts into a greater whole is almost impossible for me. I think that is why Doctorow casts Perry and Lester as artists. Artists seem, at least to me, to have far greater facility with synthesis. And if there is one thing I've known since finger painting in kindergarten, I am NOT an artist.

[Steve Austin]

Maus, yes I was definitely engaged by those Gibbons-Banks fabrication labs; Doctorow romanticized fab labs a bit. Before I read Makers, Global Guerrillas and Open Source Ecology / openfarmtech.org were my sources of interest in "Nullhof". I think it was Global Guerrillas (or someone in his blog circle) who recommended Makers.
I most certainly find synthesis much harder than analysis, though I also wouldn't claim to be an exceptional analyst. Both are important, but the real challenge is synthesis and why I'm often looking for it. Perhaps it's not an either-or line to draw, and more of a creation-destruction cycle, whereby analysis decomposes phenomena or ideas into their parts, and synthesis uses the parts for its own purposes, which gives more things to analyze, und so weiter. My source for the analysis-synthesis stuff here is John Boyd, whom I admire as a gifted synthesist.

[jacob]

I guess I'm always the guy who wants to poke holes in everything, but ...
Self-sufficiency is usually very expensive (follows from comparative advantage - it should not go to extremes in either direction.)
It sounds like the goal is to build a high-tech homestead. Why is a high-tech homestead more efficient than a traditional primitive homestead?
I could see this relying substantially on an initial capital infusion.
Thus, I'm not convinced that this capital, monetary or energywise, is not better invested in the traditional economy.
What I'm looking for is

1) Return on investment.

2) Bootstrapping ability.

3) Transferable skills and resellability.
I am wary of buying technology as a way to solving problems.
Yes, it's neat to be able to build your own tractor with a 3d printer; but isn't it easier and cheaper to buy an old tractor for $1000 and fix it up?

[jacob]

So the proposal is essentially to set up a job shop with technology replacing the most of the human skill.
This is where it could tie into the traditional economy: Manufacturing spare parts.

[Steve Austin]

No soft skin here w.r.t. criticism, which I consider a lateral expression of interest. The more holes poked the sooner, the better.
It's possible that there is a philosophical discrepancy here, so I'll hold forth on that first. Is it possible that -- because you're a scientist -- you push the line between science and technology further out than would an engineer? As an engineer (so I claim), I like to imagine the science / technology divide more holistically: in the purest sense, the scientist acquires knowledge, while the engineer applies knowledge. But, of course, the impurity of reality yields an interplay whereby the scientist levers the products that engineers develop to amplify the acquisition of knowledge (applied research?); likewise, the engineer acquires knowledge by synthesizing the knowledge that scientists acquire (scientific tinkering?) I don't imagine that scientists and engineers are so different though, only that there are creators with a scientific preference and creators with an engineering preference, the line blurring between knowledge acquisition and application. I consider myself an amateur in that I probably couldn't produce a bulletproof example of this distinction or its blurring, so I'll leave it at: is it possible that what you mean by technology is really high technology (applied knowledge for the sake of applying it, not for the presumed usefulness of the application)?
Can't say that I can imagine the resistance to technology in problem solving, but can say that I'd much prefer the lowest (cheapest, most easily synthesized and reused) technology possible. DIY preferred over more expensive state-of-the-art technology. Nullhof would be (akin to) Bauhaus not Art Deco. The elegance or art of Nullhof would be in the interconnected sub-systems. What is the simplest, lowest-footprint arrangement of a set of mutually supporting, renewable energy sub-systems and ERE-style-living structure(s)?
I'd like to characterize the Nullhof like this: a technologically-appropriate, systemically-balanced homestead. All systems (both organic and inorganic) "wired" up to consume zero non-renewable energy sources, and/or slightly energy net positive (grid connected) to offset property taxes or other fixed costs that cannot be mitigated via the Nullhof system. Clearly, non-renewable energy will be embedded in many of the site installations, but the longer term objective would be screw down the embedded non-renewables to the minimum, perhaps through using one Nullhof to bootstrap as many of the installation parts of a virgin Nullhof as possible.
But I'm on-board with a slow bootstrap of Nullhof Eins. I think transferable skills are a given. I'd be willing to sell Nullhofs, parts for Nullhofs, and Nullhof installation services. Return on investment is where we may differ. What is your rate? I fancy that the return on investment for a Nullhof would be an indirect effect; the direct effect would be a reduction to zero (the zero in Nullhof) of the expense lines on a Nullhof's income statement.
Regarding tractors and fabrication, sure, buy an old tractor if there is one to be bought. I'd still keep "building my own tractor" on the list of Good Things To Know How To Do, if it came to that. Maybe an alternative conception of a Nullhof is: everything about a self-sufficient homestead that you can't/won't source through cheap, local re-use. Someone else coined the term glocal, and I am fond of the implication: keep good lines of communication with both a levered global system, and a self-sufficient local system. When the system is strong, exploit the links to it. When the system is weak, be able to cut over to the off-grid, local mode of operation.
Back to bootstrapping, with a job shop and parts manufacturing. You thinking car parts, bicycle parts, laundry machine parts, or what?