As the public ‘conversation’ about climate change and sustainable development moves closer and closer to center stage, it is now important to step away from our entrenching positions, take a deep breath, and look at a different category of ‘big pictures’.
Let’s leave the ‘skeptic-advocate’ dipole for the moment and move toward a set of principles that no sane person could seriously refute. Start with a few simple questions:
Should governments, corporations, communities and individuals use their resources and organizations to behave in an environmentally responsible manner? Yes, of course.
Should a new technology or initiative have the net result of greater units of greenhouse gas emissions for each unit of input? No, of course not.
Does the state of our technology have the capacity to improve our emissions, our lifestyles and a sustainable agenda? Well, yes and no.
If truth be told, the technologies which currently have critical mass can only offer incremental improvements. A technological revolution of the scale which saw the elimination of wood burning in favor of hydrocarbon burning is still quite far away.
Several significant obstacles and large scale experiments must be addressed before the ‘non-combustion’ (ie. Wind, Water, Solar, Geothermal & Biofuel) will ever have the critical mass to truly rival the global reach of hydrocarbons.
Note the exclusion of nuclear energy from the previous list. There is a lesson to be drawn from our brief and tentative experiment with nuclear energy. Public attitudes turned against nuclear very early in its life cycle. Who is to say that nuclear’s experience will not repeat when the true and full costs of a “renewable energy” become clear?
Three problem-solving features contained in the main hydrocarbon applications are:
Energy Density
Transportability
Small production area requirements
We, as a civilization, must either develop new technologies to address all three of these issues, or accept the inferiority of new technologies in these areas. If we opt for the latter, we must accept a measurable decline in our quality of life. If that’s not acceptable, we have the option to stick with hydrocarbons, as long as they are still around. But this option means that we must accept that anthropogenic-induced climate change will worsen. It may be much harder to measure the decline in our quality of life due to climate change, whereas the former will be acute.
ENERGY DENSITY
A gallon of regular gasoline holds 125,000 btu of energy content, or 34 MJ per liter. To describe this in daily terms, that gallon will propel 6 people in a 2.5T SUV a distance of 17 miles….all for a cost of roughly $3.00. Put another way, each mile costs 17 cents, so each person pays 3 cents for the benefit of moving one mile. Not even a rickshaw driver in the poorest country in the world would offer you this price!
Our academics and innovators are struggling to identify a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine when it comes to transporting people and material. The fuel cell, which once showed great promise is now dormant, wrapped up in the weaknesses of its own value chain. We may occasionally watch a 3 minute expose on the strange looking vehicles (with large surface areas) in the “North American Solar Challenge”, but we intuitively know these will never be able to carry a bevy of school children to their field trips.
The electric car may be of interest, but that requires plugging into the mains, which requires, in turn, that the power grid be designed for the increased demand. Since most of our electricity comes from hydrocarbons (gas, coal and oil) as of this date, we may run the risk of making the problem worse – unless it is very well thought out. Of course, we could always increase capacity by installing solar panels (photovoltaic cells) and wind turbines, but hydrocarbons will remain the core energy input. The rules of energy density relegate our transportation issue to one of incremental progress, not revolutionary step-change. The hybrid car and improved engine designs are the most realistic efforts to be made as of this date.
Note we haven’t even broached the subject of shipping or air transport which will have no access to power grids for long periods of time. TRANSPORTABILITY The next question that must be addressed is, once you have an energy source, how do you get it to the people who need it? Crude oil and its refined products are relatively easy to transport. So is coal. Natural gas is more difficult, but there is now good pipeline infrastructure in most countries, delivering the resource to market. Liquid Natural Gas also continues to grow as a viable transport network.
If one takes the transportability issue to the wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and tidal technologies, it becomes quickly apparent that we have an enormous challenge:
How do you get energy from windy areas to cities?
How do you deliver electricity from sunny areas to the northern hemisphere in winter?
You cannot package these raw materials into fuel tanks or pipelines and carry them to the places that need them – at least not in the critical masses that will be required.
An option could be to lay thousands of miles of conductive wire so that there is a “pipeline” of electrical energy running from areas of great sunlight (or wind, or tides, etc) to, say, Northern Europe. However, the raw material will have been converted into electricity close to its source (say in the Sahara), and the energy losses inherent in moving electricity over long distances may render the whole exercise too inefficient. These weaknesses will exacerbate the questionable logic of mining a bunch of copper so it can be processed into wire that connects sunny areas to cold, dark, cloudy cities.
Once again, it is more likely that the renewable energy sources will complement the core hydrocarbon power plants. Note the return of the words “incremental improvements”.
RESOURCE PRODUCTION AREA The last issue which this commentary will address is that of production area. Put briefly, this is the ‘footprint’ we put down to access the energy that we require.
While giant oil and gas fields are expressed in billions of barrels or trillion cubic feet, the area required for production and refining facilities is comparatively small. The world’s largest oilfield, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, is 3250 sq miles (8400 sq km) and is produced primarily by 5 production wells. Apart from Canada’s tar sands and Venezuela’s heavy oil complex, the flow characteristics of oil and gas mean that the facilities to produce and refine the resource leave a comparatively small footprint per btu or MJ of energy extracted.
This will not be the case with solar, tidal and wind technologies. While it is popular to cite the extraordinary statistics about solar radiation (174 PW, 1370 watts per sq meter, etc), the fact remains that an area of around 200,000 sq km would be required to collect enough TeraWatts to match the world’s current power consumption. That is half the state of California. The “production” areas for this kind of energy extraction will be significantly larger than anything we have seen to date.
Similarly, a modern wind turbine may be specified to produce 1.33 MW in a year. Given that the world consumes 15 TW in power per year, this would imply that we would need 11 million strategically placed wind turbines to replace the existing infrastructure. That is one wind turbine for every 600 people; every city with 1M people would require 1700 turbines. Denver would require 850 turbines, which would correspond to one every 5 sq miles. Taking an average, the greatest distance that you could place yourself from a wind turbine eyesore in Denver would be about 1 & ¼ miles. At any given time, you would thus have 37 wind turbines in your field of view, assuming a flat terrain and a short tower. The taller the turbine, the bigger the visible number of units. New York City would require 13,800 turbines, or 45 turbines per sq mile. At any given time, a New Yorker would be no more than 262 yards from a tower, and would have 2544 in the field of view (flat landscape, short towers, no obstructions assumed). That’s a veritable forest…without the benefit of any trees.
Admittedly, one could put the turbines together in a more efficient wind farm outside the metropolis, but it would still be significant footprint in someone else’s back yard.
Next question…where is the wind? Oh yes, and what about growth in population/energy requirements? (Note that the above calculations are probably conservative for US cities, since the energy consumed per head is so much higher than in other countries).
It will be more realistic to use wind as an incremental addition to the existing grid.
In conclusion, each reader should ask the following question of himself or herself. How many times do you see an oil or gas production rig? How about a refinery? It is probably an uncommon event. In our effort to abandon hydrocarbons, are you prepared to look at a large photovoltaic panel complex AND several 240 ft (75m) wind towers with 300 ft (93m) rotors stirring noisily in the breeze? Note also that the land must be set aside for these energy capturing units, and the building materials must be mined, processed and assembled (probably in your back yard).
Sadly, there will be no way to make them beautiful nor to make them perfectly safe for people or wildlife.
It may all be worth it to thwart this climate change. But look at how quickly our society turned against nuclear, the ‘energy liberator’ of the 1970s. Nuclear has a lot to offer as a non-emitting technology, but its time has passed. It is not inconceivable that when the limitations of renewables become more fully understood, that there will be another outcry.
Let’s make sure that the skeptics and advocates of both existing and new technologies keep the debate open and balanced. We commoners want to do the right thing, but we’re getting a lot of bias from our green advocates, and no one would stoop to take an oil industry PR rep seriously. Now would they?
ROBERT SORLEY was trained as a Geophysicist in Canada before joining both French & Norwegian companies as a marine seismic contractor. His career has taken him to job postings and expatriations in West Africa, the North Sea, France, UK, SE Asia, Australia the USA and back to Canada. Working on the periphery of the oil exploration industry in both the developed and the developing world has introduced him to a wide range of stakeholders, nationalities and people of all walks of life, all of whom have a multitude of perspectives. Since the identification of energy resources is a strategic component of every country’s economy, Robert has frequently engaged with national oil companies, regulators and policy-makers. This, in turn, has evolved into a deep curiosity about how policies are debated, decided and implemented.
When winter finally rolls around, I’m like a kid on Christmas eve. I count down the days and wait with bated breath for the “freshies” to fall. Every snowy morning, I eagerly check the daily snow report to see where the best powder stashes might be. I admit it: I love skiing chairlift-operated ski hills. I thrive on rippin’ it down the Vails and Aspens of the world.
Nevertheless, sometimes I wonder: am I a hypocrite for supporting an industry that requires so much energy and land-use to operate? Is it possible to be an environmentalist and simultaneously a downhill ski addict?
Sure, I’ve done the back country hut trips, but nothing is quite like the high of slaloming freshly groomed “corduroy” first thing in the morning. Perhaps, it’s the security blanket that patrolled ski hills offer, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m a weekend warrior who doesn’t have time to hike 3 hours every time I want to make steep turns. But, if this makes me a hypocrite, then the least I can do is to try to be a mindful hypocrite.
So, how can I be more mindful? I can take the time to honor the majestic land and sublime beauty around me; I can take the time to give thanks to the massive swaths of trees that were cleared just so little ‘ole me – and 12 million other Colorado snow riders – can have the privilege to barrel down powdery slopes with pure ecstasy and delight. But perhaps most importantly, I can spend my dollar where it counts : by supporting ski resorts and businesses that are leading the path toward “skistainability”.
CREAM OF THE SUSTAINABLE SKI CROP:
When it comes to environmental policy, Aspen Skiing Company (ASC) blows other ski resorts out of the water. Driven by the arson episode in Vail by eco-activists, Aspen and other mindful ski businesses started to question the lack of environmental scrutiny within their $4 billion dollar industry. The “point” finally “tipped” in 1997, when ASC President & CEO Patrick O’Donnell – who previously ran Patagonia – installed its very first “Environmental Affairs” department, directed by Auden Schendler, who has spearheaded programs and initiatives that go way beyond green. In fact, his “Sustainability Report” was the first of its kind within the ski industry, and has garnered attention from consumers and competing ski resorts alike. ASC is one of the first businesses in America to be ISO-14001-certified. To me, this sounds like a type of oil change, but it represents one of the most stringent third-party certification programs that demand strict criteria for environmental responsibility.
“Climate change should drive everything we do,” says Schendler, who previously worked at the Aspen-based think tank, Rocky Mountain Institute. “We make our living off the environment. The least we can do is take care of it.” In light of this commitment, Aspen Ski Co has taken a plethora of steps to reduce their impact, and, in doing so, have managed to impress such environmental watch dogs as Natural Resources Defense Council and United States Green Building Council.
Plans are in development for a massive new base village in Snowmass – a $400 million dollar project – in which all buildings will be 30% more energy-efficient than required by code. And, ASC is one of the first ski resorts to offset 100% of its energy use with wind power. Here are some other impressive examples of how ASC is leading the way:
Approximately 40% of facilities have been retrofitted for energy efficiency, including snowmaking guns at Snowmass, Buttermilk and Aspen Mountain.
Established largest solar photovoltaic system in ski industry.
100% of snowcats use B20, a bio-diesel blend.
Aspen Ski Co. perfectly exemplifies what all other ski areas should be doing: truly walking the talk. So, how do other ski hills compare?
Vail: in 1994, arsonists targeted Two Elks Restaurant in response to Vail’s expansion into a wetlands area now known as Blue Sky Basin. Since then, Vail, and other resorts, have learned a valuable lesson: that the environment and the integrity of ski resorts matter to their clientele. Following Aspen’s footsteps, Vail is starting to pay attention to their environment. Vail Resorts announced in August 2006 that they will offset 100% of its energy use by purchasing 152,000 megawatt-hours of wind energy from Boulder-based Renewable Choice Energy for its five mountain resorts (see below), specifically for its lodging properties, 125 retail locations and also its new headquarters in Broomfield, Colorado.
Mammoth Mountain, CA sits on geothermal volcanic cauldron from which they will tap their energy use required for new development. They also run bio-diesel throughout their operation.
Alta recently rebuilt their mid-mountain restaurant - the Waston Shelter – green with low-flush toilets, fluorescent lighting, and energy efficient windows.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming runs two chair lifts on wind power.
Because of their long-term sustainability plan and implementation of the Environmental Management System document in 1993, Whistler Blackcomb has won numerous awards, including the ski industry’s top prize in 2003 and 2005 for environmental excellence in ski resorts across North America. Their next goal is to reduce waste by 80% by end of 2008.
Seemingly, windows are simple devices designed for very simple purposes: to let light inside and to let you see outside. However, if you’ve ever purchased windows before you know that the illusion of simplicity disappears quickly once you begin to be confronted with all the choices you have to make, from the material the frame is made out of, to the “U-Factor”, Solar Heat Gain Coefficient, number of panes and films, and more. Making matters more complicated is that valid advice for one region might not apply to another region due to differences in climate. For example, a window in the Rocky Mountains needs to perform a very different job to a window in a hot humid climate.
First, let’s get something straight: no matter how much you spend on a window, it is very likely to be by far the weakest link in your home’s insulated building envelope. Even the best, most expensive and highest tech window will not even come close to insulating as well as the wall surrounding it. All the same, the choices you make in selecting a window can dramatically affect the energy consumption of your home and, just as important, your comfort. Here we’ll attempt to de-mystify the window buying process a bit.
Number of panes: This refers to the number of sheets of glass that make up a window. Old windows were single-paned, with only one thin piece of glass between the interior of a building and the outside world. These windows were horribly inefficient, with their main benefit being that they kept wind out, but did little to keep heat inside (or outside). The advent of dual pane windows improved the efficiency of a window dramatically by sandwiching a layer of air (or an inert gas) between the two panes. Today there are also windows with three panes as well which are even more efficient, but are also usually much more expensive. When buying windows today you’ll almost always be dealing with dual- or triple-paned windows; the only reason you would ever buy a single pane window today would be because it is required by zoning, most commonly in historic districts where the main concern is maintaining the historic character of the area.
Frame Materials: The material that the frame of a window is made of can have dramatic effects on performance and price. At the low-end, but very common, is vinyl. This is a great “bang for your buck” material as it’s cheap, easy to work with and does not transmit heat very well (which is good). However, it has a few disadvantages as well. First, you’re very limited in color: white or almond, in most cases. Secondly, vinyl is somewhat unstable and has a tendency to warp a little over time when exposed to extremes of heat and cold, which results in the window leaking air around the cracks more over time as well. All the same, millions and millions of vinyl-framed windows are installed every year, and they can be a great choice as a replacement window when replacing old, leaky inefficient windows. Even the cheapest off-the-shelf vinyl window will be far more efficient than a leaky 1960s or 1970s-era aluminum frame window, and especially an even older a single-pane window. Other materials run the gamut from wood to fiberglass to composite materials. All work well, and often the decision will be made based on cost and maintenance issues. For example, wood-framed windows look great and are quite efficient, but often cost more and require more maintenance — they have to be painted every few years. Another option we’re starting to see more and more of is “clad” windows which are sort of a hybrid: wood on the inside and clad with some other material such as aluminum or fiberglass on the outside. These exterior materials are often pre-finished from the factory and might never have to be painted at all.
However, even after you’ve decided on style, manufacturer and material, your job is not done yet. When you look at a new window you’ll see a large label with lots of strange numbers and statistics printed on it. At the least, you’ll see two Energy Performance Ratings: U-Factor and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). You might also see numbers for Visible Transmittance (VT) and Air Leakage (AL). Here’s what all that means:
U-Factor: The U-Factor is a measure of a window’s resistance to heat flow expressed as a number between 0 and 1. The lower the number, the more effective it is at resisting heat flow, and thus, the better it insulates. In almost all cases you want to get that U-Factor down as low as you can, because in either hot or cold climates you want the window to insulate as well as it can to either keep heat outside or to keep heat inside. An extremely efficient window will have a U-Factor of around 0.15 but even if you aim for a U-Factor of 0.40 or 0.35, you’ll be doing well.
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC): This is a measure of how much solar radiation (i.e., heat) a window allows to pass through it. It is also expressed as a number between 0 and 1, with 0 being no solar heat is transmitted through the window and 1 being 100% of solar heat transmitted through it, although in most cases it will vary between 0.2 and 0.8. In this case, whether you want a lot or a little solar heat transmitted through the window will depend very much on where you live and what direction the window faces. In the cooler northern climates you will generally want your south-facing windows to have a higher SHGC (above 0.7) so you can take advantage of the passive heating effects of the sun during the cold winter months. In the warm southern latitudes you’ll want to choose windows with a much lower SHGC (below 0.4) since your biggest concern is usually keeping cool during the hot summer months. In fact, SHGC is even more important than U-Factor in hot southern climates, so if you live in a hot climate and have to choose based on cost, opt for a lower SHGC at the expense of a higher U-Factor if you must.
Visible Transmittance (VT): VT is the measure of the amount of visible light transmitted through the window. This number will vary between 0 (no light transmitted at all) to 1 (100% of light is transmitted) but because the VT rating includes the frame of the window, which obviously transmits no light through it, the number will generally be between 0.3 and 0.8. In most cases you want this number to be as high as it can be, since much of the point of having windows in the first place is to let in light, however there are certainly situations where you’d want to have less light transmitted, such as when glare is an issue.
Air Leakage (AL): This is a measure of the amount of air passing through the cracks in the window assembly, expressed as a cubic feet of air passing through a square foot of window. Although all windows that open will have some air leakage, it should be pretty obvious that this is a measure you’ll want to keep down as much as possible. Aim for 0.3 or less.
Low-E: This stands for “Low-Emittance Coating,” and is a microscopically thin and virtually invisible coating of metallic layers deposited on the glass of a window or skylight. The purpose of a Low-E coating is to reduce the U-Factor of the window (and thus make it more resistant to heat flow) by reflecting long-wave infrared radiation, otherwise known as “heat.” Most windows today have some sort of Low-E coating on them as a way to push that U-Factor down.
Hopefully this has helped to shed some light on what you should be looking for when buying windows, whether replacing old ones or when building a new house. In almost all cases you’ll have a professional installer involved during the ordering and installation process, but now that you’re an informed window consumer you can double-check to make sure that this person is recommending an appropriate product. Ask them to explain why they are recommending what they are recommending and not just ordering the “default” because it’s easier. The characteristics of the windows you end up with can make a very large difference in your energy consumption and comfort, so make sure you’re getting the correct product for your climate and for the orientation of each window you’re installing. At the very least, ask your window professional “Why is this window here and why is that window there?” — and make sure they have a good answer!
Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace, author, activist, thought leader, and friend, recently posted a thorough article on Peak Oil. In light of the recent financial crisis, it seems important to remind eCoTimes readers about some of his important insights.
As a veteran in the sustainability industry, I have been asked by scores of people recently, “Wow - you were talking about this three years ago… at the time I really thought you were crazy; and now look it’s happening! WHAT CAN I DO?”
Rex Wyler does a fantastic job of summarizing the best course of action. The recent $700 Billion bailout “solution” is no solution. It’s a simple quick fix that only feeds the addiction. It may temporarily stop the shakes, sweats and shudders that accompany detoxification, but, what are we going to do when the last hit of credit wears off?
Rex Wyler nails it… grab a cup o’ fair trade coffee and take a look…
PEAK OIL - IT IS THE ECONOMY
by Rex Wyler
As the era of cheap liquid fuels draws to an end, everything about modern consumer society will change. Likewise, developing societies pursuing the benefits of globalization will struggle to grow economies in an era of scarce liquid fuels. The most localized, self-reliant communities will experience the least disruption.
Oil is a fixed asset of the planet, representing stored sunlight accumulated over a billion years as early marine algae, and other marine organisms (not dinosaurs) captured solar energy, formed carbon bonds, gathered nutrients, died, sank to the ocean floors, and lay buried under eons of sediment. Like any fixed non-renewable resource, oil is limited, and its consumption will rise, peak, and decline.
World oil production increased for 150 years until the spring of 2005, when world crude oil production reached about 74.3 million barrels per day (mb/d), and total liquid fuels, including tar sands, liquefied gas, and biofuels reached about 85 mb/d. In spite of the efforts since, and tales of “trillions of barrels” of oil in undiscovered fields, liquid fuel production has remained at about 85.5 mb/d for three years, the longest sustained plateau in modern petroleum history. Discoveries of new fields peaked 40 years ago
Meanwhile economies everywhere want to grow, so demand for oil soars worldwide. The gap between this surging demand and flat or declining production will drive price increases and shortages. That’s peak oil.
Peak experience
Peak oil is not a theory, but rather a simple observation of a common natural occurrence. Peak oil is only one symptom of an exponentially growing population, with exponentially growing demands, reaching worldwide limits of all resources.
“Peak oil has long been a reality for the oil industry,” says Anita M Burke, former Shell International senior advisor on Climate Change and Sustainability. “To believe anything else belies the facts of science.” In 2007, Dr James Schlesinger, former US Defense and Energy Secretary stated flatly, “if you talk to industry leaders, they concede … we are facing a decline in liquid fuels. The battle is over. The peakists have won.”
Global warming, caused primarily by forest destruction and the burning of fossil fuels, now aggravates natural limits and the human turmoil that these limits provoke. One might think that peak oil will solve global warming because less oil means less carbon emissions. Sadly, this is not so because humanity took the best, cheapest, and easiest oil first, leaving dirty, acidic, expensive oil in marginal reserves that require vast amounts of energy to recover. In the 1930s, 100 barrels of oil cost about 1 barrel in equivalent energy to extract. That ratio is now about 20:1 and sinking fast. The Canadian tar sands produce barely 1:1 net energy. By the time someone burns tar sands oil in his or her vehicle, the industry has burned nearly an equal amount retrieving it.
When we account for the net energy left after production, and population growth, we discover that the world peak for net-oil per-capita occurred three decades ago, in 1979. Many oil suppliers – Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and others – recognizing the limits of the resource, are now keeping more of their oil for domestic use, and saving it for future growth. Regardless of energy alternatives – ethanol, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal – humanity will never again enjoy the current consumption rates of cheap, convenient fuels. This fact changes everything.
We witness the impact in the increasing scarcity and cost of food and other critical resources that rely on oil. Most trucking firms now add a fuel surcharge to hedge against fuel price increases. As fuel prices soar, airlines cancel flights or simply close down. In many cities, police add a gas charge to traffic tickets because police departments have already spent their annual fuel budget on high-priced gasoline.
The post-peak oil era will require new human development patterns and strategies that cope with limits to growth. Humanity has no new continents to exploit or planets to occupy. Frantic industrial nations may drill in the Arctic and dig into dirty tar sands, but none of this will increase or even match the past abundance of cheap liquid fuel that we have already squandered. Nevertheless, the actual moment that world oil production peaks is less relevant than our preparation for the impact.
Relocalization
Well-financed voices promoting global industrialization claim our economies can grow “forever,” or “for the foreseeable future,” but these voices cry out against the evidence before our eyes. Our massive growth economies were built with cheap oil. Poorly planned development left behind disappearing forests, toxic lakes, soil erosion, species loss, foul air, dead rivers, drying aquifers, and creeping deserts.
The dream of a globalized world marketplace linked by airplanes and trucks will not endure. Monolithic superstores that rely on liquid fuels to ship cheap goods around the world will become the relics of the cheap oil era. These massive chain stores also undermine the local enterprise that communities will need to survive.
“The current solutions being bantered about are inadequate to the conditions we are faced with,” says Anita Burke, after decades inside the oil industry. “We must embrace adaptation strategies that immediately create whole new ways of being in relationship to each other and the planet. Buy local, get off of hydrocarbons in every aspect of your life, gather in community, and espouse only love - your grandchildren’s lives depend on it.”
Communities addicted to cheap oil, especially suburban environments without public transport, will become untenable. Regions that still build highways for cars are simply designing their own demise. Smart communities will design light, convenient public transport to run efficiently on the most locally available energy source.
The post-peak oil era will require that we re-establish local manufacturing and food production, and refurbish economies that have been gutted by globalization. Smart urban designers are now planning for the end of cheap energy, global warming, and the human migration that these changes will set in motion. Smart neighbourhood and regional planners are preparing communities for the inevitable transition from escalating consumption to conserver societies, built on a human scale and linked to social services and the natural cycles that sustain them.
Building communities in nature
I recently walked through an abandoned industrial section of Vancouver, where I live. The empty, poorly designed, decaying buildings seemed depressing, but I noticed how much actual green space flourished with wild plants. Squatters with gardening skills, I kept thinking, could make a life for themselves here.
Human society can change. Witness the historic changes to establish democracies, end slavery, secure civil and women’s rights, or eradicate polio and AIDS. Humanity can harness its resources to change destructive habits and improve living conditions. The crisis of peak oil provides an opportunity strengthen the two pillars that nourish real quality of life: local community and wild nature.
Relocalize: The end of cheap oil means less products arriving from around the world and less jobs making junk to sell elsewhere. Globalization is literally running out of gas. As fuel prices soar, communities will have to supply more food, water, and vital resources locally. If you are thinking of earning a degree in international finance, it might be smart to take some permaculture courses as well.
Preserve Farmland: Wise communities will preserve agricultural land, support farmers, provide local food for local consumption, compost all organic waste including sewage, build soils, apply efficient water use, move toward vegetable diets, and restore and replenish water resources. Rather than building suburbs and highways on farmland, smart communities will design small residential neighbourhoods on the least-arable land, integrated with the life-giving farmland and natural bounty that supports a healthy society.
Change the pattern of community: The entire distribution of public activity, public space, and housing must adapt to less fuel and resource consumption. Past planning in the cheap-oil era created public dysfunction, decaying city cores, foul air, and squandered energy. We do not have generations to correct these mistakes – the time we have to act is now best measured in months, not decades. We now face the choice of responding gracefully and wisely or reacting later in chaos.
Productive urban green spaces: Cities face huge challenges and require green space, not only for play and peace of mind, but for food. Suburbs and urban neighbourhoods must be redesigned to transform lawns and streets into productive green zones linked by public transport. Planting trees anywhere reduces global warming. Cities such as Bogotá, Columbia, and San Luis Obispo, California have shown that degraded cities can revitalize community and economic life with programs that increase green space.
Public transport: Basing development and land-use patterns on the private automobile may be the worst design decision in human history. The automobile is responsible for resource depletion, global warming, degraded farmland, alienated neighbourhoods, aesthetic eyesores, time wasted in traffic, and an epidemic of transport death and injury. Light rail public transport is clean, energy efficient, safe, community-building, and allows travelers to be productive rather than stressed. Smart cities will implement public transit, encourage bicycle use, and create neighbourhoods that encourage walking for most services and family needs.
100% recycling: Nature recycles everything. There is no “away” in nature where garbage and waste is thrown. Human communities must mimic the 100% recycling of nature, eliminate designed obsolescence, and turn garbage landfills into recycling centres. Sewage is natural compost that can be converted to productive soil, as demonstrated in Sweden, India, and Mongolia.
Preserve wilderness: Smart ecological planning not only nurtures people but also preserves wilderness habitat for species diversity. In regions where indigenous people still live on the land, wilderness also preserves cultural diversity and knowledge of local food, medicines and resources.
Modern consumer cities – made possible by the age of cheap fuels, designed for cash profits, or not designed at all – alienated people from each other and from their organic roots. When we gaze upon degraded cement landscapes and the lost souls of inner city children taking refuge in gangs and drugs, we see the cost of broken communities. The end of cheap fuels may help us reclaim an authentic quality of life, not purchased with more stuff but with relationship: our affiliation with each other and with nature.
Rex Weyler is author, journalist, ecologist and long-time Greenpeace trouble-maker
Solar
panels, carbon credits, wind turbines or remodeling the place you live
are some of the most common things we are served up when asked what we
can do to begin the process of being more environmentally responsible
in our day-to-day living. These options are great if you can afford a
$10,000 solar installation or $15,000 for new windows, let alone a
$100,000 home renovation, but for most people who really do want to
make changes in how they are living, these are simply not realistic
options. Yet the fact is that most of us live in structures that were
not designed to function in synergy with their environment: they are
oriented in the wrong direction, have poor insulation, improperly
placed windows, leaks in the duct work, inefficient appliances and
generally work against us despite our desire to shift into the green.
Great news: You’ve still got options. There are very viable,
relatively inexpensive and simple changes you can make to your home or
apartment to increase its energy efficiency and save yourself real
money on your energy bills (and help to save the planet, while you’re
at it). Because winter is quickly approaching we’ll concentrate on
things you can do now to reduce your energy bills during the coming
winter. Energy usage in winter is dominated in most parts of North
America by heating, we’ll focus on those things you can do to keep that
expensive heat inside and keep the cold outside, where it belongs.
Here are five things that you can get started on today to prepare your house for the winter heating season:
1. Get a Home Energy Audit - Before you set out to fix a problem, you first have to identify what
that problem is. That’s where an energy audit comes in. An energy audit
is performed by a trained and licensed technician using specialized
equipment to discover where your house (or apartment, condo, whatever)
is wasting energy. The auditor will check your insulation and duct work
(if you have ducts) and will scan the various “penetrations” in your
house to see where you might be leaking energy. “Penetrations” are such
things as your windows and doors, outlets, switches, attic hatches,
etc. — basically anywhere that there is a hole in your wall. He or she
will look for air leaks that can let heat out (and cold in) so you can
take corrective action to plug these leaks. The auditor will also
inspect most of the other sources of energy usage in your house such as
furnaces and boilers, lighting, appliances, etc. You will be provided
with a customized report detailing the auditor’s findings, which
usually also includes advice about what you should do to improve your
house’s efficiency. Energy audits aren’t that expensive — a few hundred
dollars at most — and they yield a treasure trove of good information
you can use to fix your house’s energy problems. It’s quite possible
that you’ll recover the cost of your audit with the energy you save in
the first year.
The US Department of Energy has a decent web site with advice on where to find an energy auditor and what to ask them.
Also, be sure to check with your local municipalities to see if they
have a subsidized energy audit program; if they do, it could cut the
cost of your energy audit in half.
2. Check your attic insulation - If you live in a house or townhouse that is more than a few years old
then it’s likely that you could benefit from additional insulation in
the attic. Almost all houses built before the 1990s have inadequate
insulation, as are many houses from the 1990s and 2000s - even if your
attic insulation meets current building codes! That’s because building
codes in most of the country are simply inadequate when it comes to
insulation. The US Department of Energy recommends that attics in most
of the country be insulated to R-49, which is equivalent to about 14-16
inches of blown cellulose insulation or fiberglass batt insulation. So
if you have less than that in your attic, have some more insulation
added. Of course, insulation in walls is also very important, but
adding insulation to walls is generally a much more complicated
operation, since your walls are sealed from all sides (i.e., you have
to somehow get inside the wall to add insulation). In contrast, most
attics are accessible so it’s usually a relatively simple task to beef
up attic insulation. So, concentrate on the “low hanging fruit” of your
attic first, and we’ll focus on what to do about your walls in a later
post.
3. Repair leaks in duct work - Ducts are notorious
wasters of energy. It’s not unusual to have half or more of the air
flowing through your ducts escape before it gets to its destination
because of leaky duct work. Sealing your duct work, therefore, targets
a major energy waster by ensuring that your expensive heated (or
cooled) air gets to where you want it to go, rather than being leaked
into your attic or inside your walls. However, sealing your ducts can
be very easy or very difficult, depending on the configuration of your
home and where your ducts are located. If you have a one-story house
with a unfinished basement and the duct work running along the basement
ceiling, it’s easy. If your house is two or more stories with duct work
running through the walls, it’s obviously much more complicated. But,
you can usually access some of your duct work, particularly near the
furnace, and even if you seal just the little bit you can reach you’ll
have a positive impact. How do you seal your ducts? NOT with duct tape! There is a saying in the industry that you can use duct tape for just
about anything EXCEPT on ducts. Instead, you’ll use duct mastic, a
thick, sticky, gooey substance that you brush on the joints of your
ducts, where it hardens and completely seals the ducts. It flows into
the cracks of the joints and forms a tight, permanent seal. You can
find mastic at many hardware or home improvement stores and HVAC
(heating, ventilation and air conditioning) supply stores.
Hint: Wear rubber gloves and old grungy clothes when you’re
using this stuff, as it will, for sure, get on you. Also, buy a few of
those cheap disposable brushes called “chip brushes” to apply it with
because whatever brush you use to apply it will get destroyed. Better
to destroy an 89 cent chip brush than a $15 paint brush.
4. Check the weather stripping on your doors and windows - Despite that this is perennially one of the most common pieces of
energy saving advice, and one of the easiest to undertake, it’s
surprising how many poorly sealed doors and windows still exist out in
the wild. For doors, a very simple way to check if you need new or
better weather stripping is to stand outside at night and close the
door while someone inside shines a lamp or flashlight around the edges
of the door. If you can see light leaking around the edge of the door,
you have a leak where warm air can escape and cold air can get in.
Windows need weather stripping also, though the correct type of product
depends on the window type and material - ask your local hardware store
for advice. There are literally dozens of weather stripping products
you can use to seal the door, from very inexpensive foam rubber tape
that might cost you $3.50 to vinyl gaskets to felt strips to copper
flashing. Some products are better than others, but suffice it to say
that anything is better than nothing. Again, the US Department of
Energy has a good web site with advice on weather stripping.
5. Replace or clean the air filters in your furnace - If you don’t have forced air heat or cooling you can ignore this one,
but if you do, then do yourself a big favor and either clean or replace
your filter often. A clogged furnace filter causes the fan in the
furnace to run harder and longer, wasting energy in the process. Most
filters are the type you simply change out and throw away, but some are
reusable after you clean them (while we’d normally tend towards
anything re-usable rather than something disposable, unfortunately the
re-usable filters are often not as effective as the disposable ones).
In either case, ensuring you have a clean filter can cut $10, $20 or
even more from of your energy bills each month, depending on the size
of your system. You might be tempted to just yank out the filter
altogether, figuring that you can’t have a clogged filter if there’s no
filter there to clog. But avoid that temptation! If you do, all that
dust will just end up in the delicate mechanisms inside your furnace,
which will eventually cause it to wear out and fail. Obviously it’s
much cheaper to replace a $5 filter than a $4,000 furnace. Also, note
that ASHRAE (The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and
Air-Conditioning Engineers) recommends a filter with a Minimum
Efficiency Rating Value (MERV rating) of at least 6. As higher MERV
rating means that a filter will filter out smaller and smaller
particles.
While
some of these suggestions might not apply to your situation (i.e., you
don’t need to replace the air filter in your furnace if you live in a
house with radiator heat) there is probably something in this list that
can benefit you this winter. No matter what, you should get an energy
audit — that’s your first step, the step that will highlight where you
need to focus. From there, it’s as simple as TAKING ACTION on what the
audit brings up. If you can’t do what is suggested in the audit
yourself, call in a qualified contractor or consultant to do it for
you. The savings you realize from improving your home’s energy
efficiency will quickly offset any costs you incur by taking these
measures, and remember that energy improvements to your home will keep
paying you back year after year.
The electric car may be of interest, but that requires plugging into the mains, which requires, in turn, that the power grid be designed for the increased demand. Since most of our electricity comes from hydrocarbons (gas, coal and oil) as of this date, we may run the risk of making the problem worse – unless it is very well thought out. Of course, we could always increase capacity by installing solar panels (photovoltaic cells) and wind turbines, but hydrocarbons will remain the core energy input.
If one takes the transportability issue to the wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and tidal technologies, it becomes quickly apparent that we have an enormous challenge:
