Harvey Rayner
The Wrentham Solar Bubble Build
Solarbubblebuild.com is an ongoing documentation of the UK’s first ‘Blue-Green’ project. I'm currently working to produce an image rich web presentation illustrating the solutions I have used in the designing, building and running of this particular build. Follow the link above for over 100 construction images and overview. This site will be updated weekly.
Some notes on the Wrentham Solar Bubble Build
I am viewing this as a prototype for future more ambitious projects. I want to get a small tunnel up and running through different seasons and gain experience of maintaining and observing a live solar bubble system. I recently gained an invaluable increased understanding of the process from Richard when he generously came over to visit the site. Theoretical knowledge of the green/blue concept is of course not worth much without the real thing there in front of you bubbling away, demonstrating the reality of sustainable development.
My wife Lauren will be using this project to expand her business growing and selling rare herbs and edible plants. The financial cost of building this project has been surprisingly low. It has required some degree of resourcefulness, but we have managed to beg, acquire and buy all the materials for the project so far for about £500. For example Lauren phoned round a bunch of local farmers to ask for redundant polytunnel hoops and we picked up 30 for £20.
I figure the tunnel will pay for itself after a few years, but it was never built as a financial investment. I undertook the build to make a start in gaining a practical working understanding of a technology. A technology I truly believe can make a real contribution to the many solutions we humans need to find to combat the damage we are doing to our environment.
Harvey Rayner January 2005 Contact details
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Looking forward to more details, both about construction, running, crops, etc. Thanks! Lucas Gonzalez
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Daydreaming:
A webcam
and
a few sensors
and
the apropriate software (something like http://webalizer.org/ might do the trick)
and
lots of work
would give
"recent data": a chart of "temperatures, humidities, light intensities, etc" vs "time"
and
"recent pictures": one minute ago, 5 minutes ago, one hour ago, etc
If you want, I can set up a "dummy page" at the wiki, just to see what it would look like, what elements we have and what's missing, etc. It would be called {{Data Image Show}} or something like that.
The "lots of work" part is a tough one but we can only do things at our own speed anyway.
Shall I start the page? Are there other factors we should consider? Is the timing right?