Page 395 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

368 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

efficiency and a major reduction of indoor air pollution over the traditional
burning of biomass, this process (describe more in further discussion) should
be vigorously pursued. In general, combined heat and power has great
potential in small village settings, especially when combined with some small
industry.
As grid connections become upgraded, attention should be paid to systems
that accommodate distributed generation, integrating locally generated power
with the larger system. Here the principles of “agile energy systems’ proposed
by Clark and Bradshaw (2004) can be applied.

Nonelectric Energy for Heating and Cooking
Solar hot water heaters already play an important role in China, and can be
further expanded for rural IMAR. Similarly, solar cookers have been employed
around western China with some success.
Much of rural IMAR depends on biomass (e.g., animal dung and wood)
and coal for their cooking. This results in some of the worst indoor air quality in
China.Shiftingsomeofthecoolingloadtosolarcookerscanhelpalittle,butmuch
more is necessary. The two main avenues are developing alternative fuels from
processing animal waste where some new technologies such as biodigesters are
available from new companies who would welcome start-up and new business
opportunities in China. Also, by distributing clean cooking fuels such as DME
or natural gas along with IMAR’s coal gasification polygeneration can be
developed.
Heating continues to be a major need throughout much of the year. Building
design can be improved (especially if indoor burning of biomass for cooking is
reduced). Home efficiency principles applicable to local situations could be
prepared by IMAR researchers at the Inner Mongolia Technical University and
distributed to rural districts. The distribution of DME as a heating fuel could
also follow the path developed for liquified petroleum gas, and could be made
common in small villages and clusters of permanent homes.

Transportation
Besides animal power, rural residents also use conventional gasoline and diesel
power vehicles. Although their contribution to greenhouse gases is small, the
availability of polygenerated DME and/or alcohols can be part of a general
push to develop these infrastructures in lieu of expanding the already
inadequate conventional petroleum-based fueling system.

Toward an Integrated Energy, Water, Waste, and
Transportation Infrastructure Strategy
Distributed “on-site” power systems now being examined for urban areas
contain many features with more in common with small rural systems than
with the traditional urban, large single power plant, model of the past.