Questions Asked To MyEnergyTech.com

Questions from Kochi, India:  This is about the low impact garden project. I've been under the impression that one needs to refill the aquarium tank every fortnight with fresh water in order to keep the fish healthy. How can you do this if you grow plants on the top layer? Or, is such refilling necessary only in the case of decorative fish?

We replied: Yes, it does depend on the type of animals you have in the tank.  Catfish work good for fish. Snails seem to work even better than fish.  We've kept the "eco" system going with snails by only adding water once a month or so.  With catfish, we could just add water for many months at a time (but, found it helped to move the entire contents to a different tank with with fresh water every several months.)

We hope this is useful.

Referer URL= http://membrane.com/help.html  Question = This is about 'electricity from water'page. There is a description of using punctured hose on the roof connected to a five gallon water tank that can bring down temperature inside a building. I needed a few more details. Who should I contact?

We replied:  This is the correct address to contact.  The following page has links to a lot of good information --

http://kingarthur.com/games/1000_Reward.html

Including links to http://kingarthur.com/free/dream_house/H2O_Fusion.html

math formulas http://kingarthur.com/games/cooling_formulas.html

the economics http://kingarthur.com/free/dream_house/economy.html

We found capturing rain water and reusing gray water to be the most cost effective (though physical labor is something to consider)

From: http://kingarthur.com/contact.html  Question: I wasn't able to find a 'contact us' link to the King Arthur site.  What if an electric pump is used to pump up water in the five gallon water tank?  Will the electricity used be less than that of an AC running 12 hours a day? (I'm close to the equator. Heating is never required.)

We replied:  Yes. In general, the electricity used to pump the water up to the roof is minimal. A sump pump with auto shut-off works fine.  The shorter the distance the water needs to be pumped, the better.  When possible, we capture the water as high up as possible.   If the water is collected at ground level, we carry the water to the highest location.

Referer URL= http://kingarthur.com/games/1000_Reward.html   Question:  What's that stuff you have spread on the roof? I have a powder coated galvanized iron sheet roof. Will the water cause it to rust faster shortening sheet life? Will the electric pump used to pump up water consume as much energy as an AC?

We replied:  The roof will not last as long... unless you use standing seam aluminum.  Galvanized will last as long as zinc powdercoat (10 yrs ?) An electric pump is small, will run off a solar panel, and uses much less electricity than air conditioning (AC).

The viewer then wrote to our email address:  Thanks a lot!

I'm not all that 'net-savvy' and not too familiar with social movements in the west (or in the east, for that matter). I read a few pages of the intro to the 'membrane.com' site but couldn't really understand how the site came to exist and how it is being supported.  ( I do not mean 'support' in terms of monitory input).

My wife and I have been thinking seriously about how to live our lives in a meaningful way and we've launched a social group called ' force_1. sociocultural initiatives Fro '. Our first project, ( a very unassuming one ) is a banana bio-farm project with 68 saplings right now four months old. We've managed to keep them growing without chemical fertilizers or insecticides. Our second project, in collaboration with the Regional Cancer Research Centre is an early cancer detection camp in town which is free for all, scheduled for January 2009.

Wonder if the people behind the site share the same philosophy (if you could call it 'philosophy') of life as we do. And I wonder who this 'help desk' really is!

We replied: Thank you for your interest. Does force_1. sociocultural initiatives have a website? We'd love to learn more. From what we can tell, The Membrane Domain does share the same philosophy.

We've tried putting our philosophy on the Internet since 1994, but have yet to find the right words.

Here is one of our more recent attempts http://metroworld.com/

In general, the site came to exist during the dawning of the world wide web. It started with two people getting together. At that point, you might say it became a social movement.

When it came to monetary input, the philosophy has always been -- "try to have fun doing the right thing."

From there, we started a publishing division. The philosophy of the publishing division has always been -- "the viewer comes first."

Since this new media known as the www was a much more evolved form of interactive publishing, the line between the publisher and the audience became harder to differentiate. In affect, the two sides combined creating a much larger entity. That seems to be the way this social movement went from breathing, to crawling, to walking... to running.

Does this help explain it any better?

In any event, we would love to collaborate with you. Your projects sound wonderful.

Sincerely,
The Help Desk

ps About "who is behind the help desk?" Well, now that you have helped interact with this social group... I suppose that makes you part of the help desk? Heehe.