20121013
Hi Nancy, great to hear from you! Your timing is excellent because Sola Roof is now establishing an initiative for the POD Kit development that will become generally available everywhere through a global COOP that will be established before the year-end. There are several sites around the world where we anticipate POD Pioneers to build projects that will increasingly enable COOP Members to have the best solution for a self-build (DIY) POD.
The key to accelerating this process and reaching a stage where everyone can have a POD for food/water/energy security is to focus on the family/micro-enterprise scale and bring the POD Kit cost down through the large volume of purchasing of components by COOP Members and the simplification of assembly that will come with feedback from the Members over time. Our Open Source community of POD Owners will have a social network and learning system on the Web and also COOP Chapters to help everyone to learn and gain the capacity for self-reliant living that are enabled by the POD and the various integrated technologies that will come together in the Creative Commons.
The size of such POD projects can vary but as mentioned, we have an advantage if we standardize - the POD Prototype at Greenfire Farm near Athens, Ohio is already setting a good pattern and we would like to see what further feedback is coming in before the POD Kit is settled on for prefabrication of components. What we have built at greenfire is a POD that is 20' wide (16' wide interior) and 24' in length (20' interior length) and is 20' from the floor of the pond to the roof peak (two levels of green growing volume and under floor blue aquatic growing volume). As we are now near completion we are really feeling the size and the large volume of productive space for the small footprint. The standard size for a micro-enterprise would be 20' wide and 40' to 60' in length. The 20' by 40' footprint would provide you 16' by 36' of growing space. Each roof/wall glazing area, to the south and north sides, has an aperture of 20' x 40'; therefore the POD has over 1600 square feet of bright growing space, with high sunlight capture in the winter because of the "vertical farming" design.
The POD will operate as an Eco Dynamic system by integration of all 5 Kingdoms of Life: Algae will be grown in the inner Sola Roof; Sun-loving plants under the Sola Roof and shade plants to the interior below; mushrooms will grow under benches; and, fish and aquaculture crops under floor/bench spaces; anaerobic/aerobic composting is integrated with the pond system. This is the Blue Green concept for regenerative food/water/energy. A large Liquid Thermal Mass is comprised of the blue, aquatic systems that are thermally coupled to the Sola Roof with the Liquid Bubble Insulation and Liquid Solar processes. Even in extreme climate the energy cost for climate control with closed atmosphere operation is very low.
We are seeking the optimum configuration of all these complex, life-based processes that will produce continuously the maximum value of highly nutritional food, generating all nutrients in vital organic systems - establishing a nature based feed to food cycle within the POD. We recycle all organic biomass resources including food/plant/algae/fish waste to the Bio Digester? for generation of clean energy, organic nutrients for crop production and solids for mushroom/worm production. Input costs are very low and outputs are multiple and high value. The income produced by the 20'x40' POD will exceed $100,000 per year.
The POD Kit cost for the 20'x40' is $20,000 for supply at this time to POD Pioneers only. These early stage purchasers are working in a global collaboration to "seed" the POD solution widely for purpose of rapid replication and diffusion of POD skills and knowhow and to grow the COOP organically, forming clusters of POD Owners and a Sola Roof Enterprise Network (SE Net). The first of the enterprise development that we seek to establish is POD Works. Each POD Pioneer is invited and welcome to be commissioned as a POD Works Entrepreneur. POD Works includes sales and support; learning center, skills training and certification. A POD Works Enterprise will be a facilitator and promotor of the COOP and will help to establish the local COOP Chapters. This means that POD Pioneers can not only have revenue from the POD operation but also from POD Works - especially as a sales agent and by providing technical support.
The commission to establish the POD Works now originates from the greenfire Earth Regeneration Center, and this group is working with the global Sola Roof community to give birth to the POD COOP and to the network of POD Works people (or teams) and a broad Membership. This a initiative connected with Birth 2012, which is a goal for global paradigm shift in this tipping point year. In connection with 350.ORG we have targeted to establish 350 POD Works people/teams for 12.12.12 and to celebrate with Birth2012 the birth of our local, regenerative food/water/energy COOP movement on December 22, 2012.
You can see that we have set our sights on a high vision that is both personal and local and at the same time is connecting with other like-minded people across America and around the world. When we have such a radical solution that answers most of the urgent Global Challenges of our time, then we must share it will everyone. We must act to enable families and communities everywhere to regain hope, dignity and to build resilience and self-reliance to face the extreme change and crisis ahead with confidence and in peace and hope for building a better world together! Together we can build a future of abundance for all!
I appreciate your interest and will do my best to answer your further questions. Regards, Richard
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Nancy Phillips wrote: Greetings!
I'm trying to get more information about costs etc. for building a 15 x 40 foot structure and not sure who I can speak to.
I have a brochure but would like some specific information.
Thanks so much!
Nancy Phillips MA Center, Chicago