State Senate Candidate Makes Hot Water By Composting Wood-chips
Fayston, Vt. --Independent Washington County Senate candidate Gaelan Brown has built a working prototype system that captures the heat from compost to make hot water for his house. The “Jean Pain Mound,” named after the French farmer who invented the concept in the 1970s, is a specially designed mound of shredded woody biomass, (wood-mulch), which has several hundred feet of water-line coiled throughout. As the mulch is consumed by bacteria, (composted), heat is generated. Cold water is circulated into one end of the water-line that is coiled throughout the inside of the mound. The water is warmed by the heat of the mound as it passes through the coil, and hot water comes out the other end of the water-line.
"The woody debris compost mounds developed in Europe by Jean Pain represent an opportunity to harvest solar energy for use in heating, transportation and cooking, while building soil and regenerating lanscapes simultaneously," said Ben Falk, Yestermorrow Board member and owner of Whole Systems Design. "This potential synergy between ecology and renewable energy does not appear to be even remotely possible with most other forms of 'green' energy such as solar PV and wind. Amazingly, few pioneers have taken up where Jean Pain left off, Gaelan Brown is one exception. I look forward to his continued testing of the Jean Pain mound system in Vermont's climate."
In the summer of 2009, the Brown family and some friends from the Carbon Shredders, Valley Futures Network and Vermont Commons, built a “Jean Pain Mound” at the Brown residence in Fayston. Within a month the system was generating ½ gallon per minute of 110-degree water, (starting with 48-degree well-water), continuously around the clock. This equates to more than 700 gallons of 110-degree water per day, without burning anything, and with no waste. And twelve months later, the system is still producing at the same level. Each mound should produce hot water for up to 24 months, and afterwards, the composted wood-shreds can be sold as high-value compost to build up our soil.
“I’m running for State Senate, and I’m doing a lot of other things like experimenting with compost-based water heating, because I want to create an economically and environmentally sustainable Vermont. You won’t get ‘vote for me, I’m so great’ political campaigning from me, I don’t have time for that. I’m not raising money and I won’t be running any ads or doing any door-to-door, robo-call or spam-email campaigns,” said Brown in a statement on his website. “I am focusing my energy on moving Vermont toward a stronger position, and hopefully my efforts and intentions are noted by enough people to get me significant votes in November.”
Brown believes that Vermont is being led down an unsustainable path by the federal government, which results in unacceptable economic pressures on average families and small businesses.
“If elected I will prioritize creating jobs by re-localizing our food, energy and finance-systems in Vermont. For example, my research shows that Vermont could heat 75% of our homes by harvesting less than 1% of the standing wood in our forests annually, while creating thousands of jobs and saving the average home $2,000 per year in heating costs. If we prioritize producing 75% of our own food by helping dairy-farmers transition to diversified food production, we’ll save millions of dollars per year and create up to 10,000 agriculture jobs. If we prioritize producing at least 50% of our own electricity with distributed renewable energy including micro-hydro along with some wind and solar, we’ll create thousands of jobs and have a strong foundation for economic sustainability. If Vermont creates a state-owned bank like the highly successful Bank of North Dakota, we’ll be insulated from Wall Street speculation while providing better access to affordable credit for Vermont families and small businesses. These will be my priorities to build a strong Vermont for future generations.”
Brown lists the following as examples of the professional and volunteer work he’s been doing to make Vermont a better place:
-Building prototype “Jean Pain Mound” water-heating systems that could heat an entire house without burning anything, using an abundant, renewable, local resource; and with a by-product of high-value compost that we can use to rebuild our soils.
-Speaking truth that that people don’t want to hear: our economy and our federal political system is broken and bankrupt; we need to decentralize our systems and take power back from the federal government to the state and local level. Vermont is spending $1.5 billion per year as our share of the cost of our 1000+ US military bases around the globe, yet we’re slashing social programs to cover a $150 million budget shortfall. This is morally unacceptable and fiscally irresponsible.
-Spending as much quality time with my family as possible, while gardening and cutting/splitting/stacking all our own firewood.
-Teaching a course in October at Yestermorrow Design/Build School, “How to Build a Jean Pain Mound”
-Moderator, “Our Energy Options” Friday August 20, Village Building Convergence; a discussion with experts on the questions around appropriate scale for wind, hydro and biomass energy systems.
-Writer/Columnist/blogger “An Energy Optimist” for Vermont Commons and other publications and websites, focused on making sense of global and local energy and economic issues.
-Vice President, Marketing, for groSolar, a national leader in solar power installation, working to create a clean-energy economy in the America.
-Collaborating and writing with nationwide proponents of state-owned banks, such as the Bank of North Dakota, to insulate state-economies from Wall Street speculation. See my quotes in Ellen Brown’s Huffington Post articles on the subject.
-Sponsored/Introduced Peak Oil Expert Michael Ruppert in his state-wide Chelsea-Green book tour “Confronting Collapse.”
-Offer free, monthly solar-power seminars to help people understand today’s technology and the economics of solar power including government incentives, first Thursday of each month at Yestermorrow Design/Build School.
-Member of Valley Futures Network, Energy Committee; exploring local community-energy options including wind, solar and biomass.
-Co-founder of Carbon Shredders, an educational non-profit that helps people save money and reduce their pollution by putting their home on a “low carbon diet.”
-Mad River Valley representative for the Vermont State-wide Transition Towns kickoff meeting in June.
-Volunteer organizer for Renewable Energy Vermont conferences and workshops to educate the public and policy-makers on Vermont’s energy options.
-Panel-member and organizer for a “Mad River Valley Transition Towns” kickoff meeting in July.
-Editorial Board Member, and Business Manager, for the state-wide Vermont Commons news-journal.
-Organizing and participating in the Efficiency-Vermont “Vermont Community Energy Mobilization” conducting over 60 free energy-assessments and basic efficiency upgrades in the Mad River Valley area during the course of 8 weeks in 2008.
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