Functional Block Diagram F.4 Global Village Facilities

Diagrams

(Note: This page is new, diagram is in work)

Notes

(1) Put numbered notes aside from description here

Description

Facilities includes land, buildings, and outdoor modifications/additions. Generally items permanently attached to the ground are included as facilities. A device such as a wind turbine could also be counted as equipment, so the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. The important thing is to only list a given item in one place, and track the flows going in and out of it.

Total land required is based on the total number of people, what percentage of their needs the land will support, the productivity and geology of the land, and land needed for individual buildings and other facilities. An allowance for future expansion may be included. Not everything can be built at once, so time phased use of land should be considered. For example, an area may be used for an outdoor garden at first, and later converted to a more productive greenhouse. Mixed or multiple use land should also be considered.

For comparison, United States average values are 3 acres of farmland + 1.5 acres forest and resource land + 0.5 acres homestead = 5 acres/person total required. An optimized village design should use much less.

A partial list of facility types and initial estimates for sizing are:

Managed Forest - Land primarily used for growing timber, but with other shared uses when possible. Standard home construction uses about 6 board-feet wood per square foot of floor area. Median US home size is 750 square feet per person. Total US timberland is 750 million acres, with 1 trillion board feet of commercial sawtimber volume (which is only 11% of total tree volume). Annual growth is 2.8% of volume, of which 100% can be sawtimber volume as smaller trees become large enough to use. Converting to per acre values gives 1333 board feet per acre, adding 38 board feet per year. These are highly variable numbers for any given piece of land.

If we assume 2% growth and 1% maintenance after initial construction, we need 135 board feet per person/year or 3.5 acres per person to be sustainable. This does not count initial construction. This seems high, so there are several ways to reduce the number. Sawtimber only counts the parts of trees over 10 inches in diameter and 8-12 feet long, ie useful for commercial loggers. You can use more of the tree, or smaller trees. Average land is not "fully stocked", meaning having enough trees to fully use the light that falls on it. So selecting fully stocked land or planting additional trees can increase the growth. The vast majority of forest land is not fertilized like field crops. Trees respond to fertilizer like any other plant. Finally, a house can be built using less wood.

Crop Fields - Land primarily used for growing field crops

Pastures - Land used for grazing livestock or growing feed for them.

Gardens - Land used for growing specialty plants on a smaller scale than fields

Quarries - Land used to extract soil, subsoil, rock, or specialty minerals

Residences - Buildings for people to live in when not working.

Storage Buildings - This includes various subtypes:

Tool and Equipment Storage

Parts and materials inventory

Food storage

Workshop Buildings

Metal Shop

Wood Shop

Infrastructure - This includes various subtypes:

Drainage and irrigation channels

Roads and parking

Utility lines

Power generation

Links to Related Diagrams

Higher Level: Functional Block Diagram F.0 Global Village System

Inputs: (To be done)

Outputs: (To be done)

Controls: (To be done)

Mechanisms: (To be done)