art

This will likely be my last winter solarpunk scene for a bit – I want to focus on library economies next. This one is based on two different ideas recommended for the village scene, which I decided to combine in their own photobash.

The first was to reconsider icehouses, not necessarily for storing ice for directly cooling food, but as part of a much larger temperature regulation system and meltwater reservoir.

They suggested creating buildings with flat roofs with hatches on top and earthen ramps up the sides, where snow could be hauled in from roads and walkways, pushed up the ramps, and down into the open hatches. They also suggested harvesting ice from a designated pond, which is why I added a pond to the small waterway in the village in my last photobash.

The cool idea (I thought) was that in the summer, the snow and ice can be used as centralized air or water chillers, part of systems for nearby apartment buildings, or, if the buildings are adjacent to barns (as in the village scene) then during deadly heat events the cooling effect could be used to protect the animals. The meltwater could also serve as an additional emergency water source for drought conditions if clean enough, and could even be misted around wilderness water sources to keep wild animals alive during heat disasters.

Otherwise, the meltwater would circulate into coolant loops then get discharged into algae farms or water treatment (because of road/path/roof/track matter scrapings.)

In my design, I decided to have these snow vaults dug as concrete pits in the ground, to make loading them easier. Roller doors and insulation, along with railings and gates, would hopefully make them fairly safe, while the roof would protect them from the sun and rainwater seeping in. This thing might make for snow removal easier in especially snowy years, as they’d have someplace nearby to put a lot of it. Hopefully when they’re filling the vault, an assistant is out keeping watch for pedestrians who might for some reason wander into the pit.

I’m not an engineer, and I know my limits in designing new structures. But I also know that in a lot of systems, cold is a resource, something you always have to create heat to produce. So a big reservoir of free cold has to be useful somehow. I also like the idea of turning a wintertime hassle into a resource, both for temperature regulation and for water supplies.

I decided to combine the snow vault idea with a possible use for some existing Internal Combustion Engine vehicles – conversion to run on woodgas. I think in rural areas, like this village, society will continue to need some independent vehicles. I think in this setting, that doesn’t mean everyone is driving around in personal automobiles, but that some are maintained for specific tasks, by hobbyists, and by farmers, forest managers, and others whose work takes them impractically far from public transit. I think woodgas is a good fit here. It emphasizes reuse of existing machinery instead of new manufacturing. It doesn’t require high-tech electronics like electric vehicles. And it’s less practical for the kind of quick trip to the store or daily commute which has shaped our current society. A woodgas vehicle takes awhile (ten to twenty minutes to start up), can’t easily be stored indoors, and because the fire needs to burn down, doesn’t make much sense for short trips. But in a solarpunk society, most folks shouldn’t need a car for that stuff – they’d be walking or taking public transit. So conversions like this would be used for special trips – hauling produce to town, supplies out to forest management camps, research sites, and other remote locations. And perhaps for road trips by campers and other people who might borrow one for an adventure. The wood can be sustainably sourced, using scraps from sawmills, harvested invasive trees, brush, and even dedicated coppiced plantations of especially fast growing trees like paulownia elongata. One of the byproducts of gassification is biochar, which can be tremendously useful in compost, and holds carbon for a comparatively long time. I also think its important to note that while this can be done well, when these vehicles were previously used in massive numbers (during WWII) they led to deforestation. They make sense in small doses, and with some careful management of their inputs.

Sorry if any details are unclear in the art, I’ve been looking at a lot of Christmas cards lately, and wanted to aim for that aesthetic with this one.

This image and all the other postcards are CC-BY, use them how you like.