Logically, it seems that the ideology of living space, born at the end of the industrial age, has come to an end, and that today's living environments are supposed to be fully at the service of hoto sapiens: fully automated and comfortable, but also well-equipped and fully plumbed. However, this technically guaranteed comfort also has its negative effects. Recently, doctors and psychologists have been increasingly pointing out that inhabitants of metropolitan areas often suffer from unpleasant symptoms such as irritability, depression and allergies. According to futurists, these are the inevitable costs of technological progress. Humans are moving further and further away from nature to such an extent that this is the consequence. It is against this background that people are already thinking about a new ecological way of life, and the "eco-house" has arisen.
The idea of building an eco-house, which appeared in the United States as early as the 1970s during the energy crisis, has become particularly popular around the world and has become a new fashion. There are even terms like sustainable architecture and eco-home in architecture and design.
In Russia, the intention to build eco-houses did not come until the affluent part of the city dwellers began to move to the suburbs. In the view of architects and ecologists, the affluent towns around the metropolis are serving as a testing ground for eco-housing commercial development. Those real estate market experts speculate that eco-housing has a bright future because it combines ecological preservation with commercial interests.
Russia's eco-house construction in five steps
At present, Russia is still only individual in the construction of eco-house enthusiastically, including some of the scientists of the Novosibirsk City of Science, they are developing a "21st Century Eco-village" planning. The plan is divided into five steps and will last for 20 years. The first step is the organizational and implementation stage, which includes the construction of experimental eco-houses and eco-experimental buildings for testing new-generation building structures, materials and engineering equipment. The second stage is the experimental stage, which provides for the construction of a number of eco-demonstration houses and an eco-village with automatic engineering equipment by 2005. Stage 3 is the construction stage, which stipulates that the engineering equipment and ancillary equipment for the eco-houses should be put into production locally, also by 2005. Phase 4 is from 2005 to 2010, during which large-scale construction will be carried out and the technology will be extended to other regions. Stage 5 is the final stage, from 2010 to 2020, when it is planned to spread the technology throughout Russia.
The eco-house is as warm as spring
A reporter from the Russian weekly magazine Summarize visited one of the completed experimental eco-houses at a planned eco-village on the outskirts of Novosibirsk's Science City. From the outside the house looked unremarkable, but after entering it, it was realized that the house had 3 floors with a total area of 150 square meters. Because the first floor is a basement, such a structure is more convenient to keep warm. It is also true that people from the cold outside the house, immediately have a feeling of warmth like spring the layout of the whole house is like this: the first floor is a garage, kitchen, bathroom and sauna; the second floor is a spacious living room with a fireplace, according to the owner said, they rarely burn the fireplace, but do not burn the house is also very warm; the owner of the uppermost floor for the guest room and work room, the balcony made into a winter flower room.
An eco-house is a type of energy housing with independent living security and a waste recycling system. "The eco-house is five times more insulated than an ordinary house," says Igor Ogorodnikov, the designer of the eco-house and an associate doctor of mathematical physics, "and its main part is the support. The brackets have to be good at keeping warm, and also strong and durable, so the materials chosen have to be able to minimize the rate of heat dissipation. In order to keep warm, but also in the wall to install by wheat straw, reed and flax poles as raw materials processed and made of heat dissipation panels, in fact, equivalent to some clean ecological heat storage."
It is worth pointing out that an insulated house has to have a good ventilation system. In order to keep the heat from being lost, it was decided to use the co-current heat transfer method, which utilizes the outgoing hot air to heat the incoming cold air through a heat exchanger. In this way, even in the coldest winter months of the year, a 200 square meter house can be warmed up with only 4.5 kilowatts of heat, and a 2 kilowatt internal combustion generator is sufficient to supply the house with electricity and heating. If the house is heated in this way, there is no longer any need for plumbing. Eco-house designers believe that air heating is sufficient.
Scientists believe that the main source of energy for the eco-house is solar energy. Solar air heater construction is not complicated, just install a roof covered with glass or other transparent materials on the top of the insulated container, from which to accumulate solar energy. The power is taken from a solar cells, batteries and will be converted from DC to AC power converter composed of special solar power generation device, even if it is cloudy solar cells can still generate electricity.
The hot water for the eco-house can be obtained through a differential temperature circulation system. Scientists are currently using a natural convection device, which utilizes the principle that solar-heated water is lighter than cold water, allowing the heated water to rise into a storage bucket placed on top of the solar heater and then flow into the house.
Currently, the price of this eco-house is not low, about 8 thousand rubles for 1 square meter.
Prospects for eco-houses in Russia
At present, the "Eco-house" program has been recommended by the Russian Federation as a joint project of the State Committee for Construction of the Russian Federation and the United Nations Center for Settlement Construction, and has also been included in the general program of construction of the federal "Homeland of their own". It has also been included in the general program of construction of the "Own Homes" of the Russian Federation. A development plan has been drawn up for the construction of energy eco-houses in Siberia, which includes specifications for the construction of eco-houses in Siberian conditions, and a selection of outlined processes for the production of building materials from local raw materials. The plan was presented at the International Symposium "Housing and Environment" in Vienna, where it was recommended as a reference document for further development. The plan has also received favorable reviews from the Russian General Directorate for Technology Appraisal and the State Construction Committee of the Russian Federation, which has approved the design and demonstration of the construction throughout the country. Igor Ogorodnikov added: "Siberia is a testing ground for the construction of ecological houses in Russia, and our aim is to start the construction of ecological houses all over Russia.
Russia's Special Instrumentation Manufacturing Science and Technology Center has recently developed a new type of spectrometer that is small in size and not afraid of vibration, which can be instantly adjusted to switch from measuring one wavelength of light to another in just a short interval of time. In the event of environmental pollution, the new spectrometer can help environmental protection personnel quickly find the source of pollution.
If sound waves act on a transparent crystal, the spatial structure inside the crystal will change periodically, and its refractive index will also change slightly. The beams of light coming from the outside into the interior of such crystals are diffracted, and the rate of diffraction depends on the amplitude of the sound waves. Thus, the optical properties of the crystal can be changed by adjusting the amplitude of the sound wave. The new spectrometer is based on this principle.
With this new spectrometer, the operator controls the vibration of the piezoelectric wafer at the desired frequency when it is generated by an electronic signal, so that sound waves of the desired amplitude are generated inside the crystal. By changing the electronic signal, the amplitude of the sound wave inside the crystal can be changed instantly, thus instantly changing the optical properties of the crystal and making the crystal an acousto-optic filter that can be adjusted instantly. This acousto-optic filter requires only a short time interval to switch from measuring light of one wavelength to measuring light of another wavelength. At present, the ordinary spectrometer from measuring a wavelength of light to measure another wavelength of light conversion, generally through a set of complex mechanical devices to adjust, often need to consume dozens of seconds of time for nothing. The new spectrometer also has a high measurement sensitivity and is able to record light waves of very weak intensity.
Russian experts say that if nuclear energy is used, it will be possible to land on Mars in 2017
Academician Nikolai Ponomarev Stepnoy of the Russian Center for Scientific Research (RCSR) said at the international conference "2005 - Cosmic Energetics" held in Moscow on March 2, that Russia strongly recommends that the international community Russia strongly recommends that the international community should use nuclear energy devices in its far-flung space development program. If they are used, manned expeditions to Mars will be realized in 2017.
The academician added that
Russia's nuclear energy equipment is second to none in the world, and if the countries participating in the Mars landing program use Russian-developed nuclear engines and other nuclear facilities, then landing on Mars will not be a distant dream for mankind.
According to Vladimir Smetanikov, Chief Designer of the Russian Institute of Scientific Research and Design, "If we make this decision and start working on it on an international scale from now on, then the nuclear engine and nuclear equipment for landing on Mars will definitely be developed before 2017." He also pointed out that Russian scientists repeatedly emphasize the year 2017 because it is the prime time for the realization of the Mars landing program and research on Mars. He emphasized that the development and use of cosmic nuclear energy technology is a subject that is difficult for any highly technologically advanced country to accomplish on its own, and therefore the international community should work together in this area***.
Academician Ponomarev Stepnoy also said that at the beginning of the new millennium the international community has reached a general *** understanding that the development of the mission in the far reaches of space is not the nuclear power engines and nuclear reactors. Nuclear energy is indispensable for the development of interplanetary spaceships and simply for the provision of energy for cosmic flights. He added that the Soviet Union had already developed such nuclear reactors in the 1960s, but only for military purposes. Now that time has changed, we are turning our attention back to the nuclear field in order to realize the dream of mankind's flight into the universe as soon as possible. Besides, Russia's efforts to develop nuclear power engines have never stopped, and experiments in this area continue to this day.