Sustainability

1
Sustainability Surviving Oil Depletion
Climate Change with Community Solutions Plan C
2009 Illinois Renewable Energy Association
Oregon, IllinoisAugust 8, 2009Presented
byPat Murphy Executive DirectorCommunity
Solutions (CS) Yellow Springs, OH 45387
2
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions

• Founded in 1940 to support Small Local
  Communities
• Represents a trend to re-localization/localization
  
• Small communities under assault since World War
  II
• Made possible by cheap energy
• In 2004 we began focusing on Climate Change and
  Peak Oil
• The factors that will lead to small community
  resurgence
• Humans develop optimally in a place over
  generations
• Our Home Town

3
New Watchword Needed!1987 Sustainability, 2009
Survivability

• Three Interrelated Threats to Humanity
• Increasing CO2 (From burning fossil fuels)
• Threatens life on earth
• Shrinking amounts of Fossil Fuels Peak Oil
  (Energy)
• Implies a declining material standard of living
• Record Inequity result of cheap fuels and cheap
  credit
• More violence, suffering and alienation today
• Related to current economic crisis

4
World Threatened with Climate Crisis

• CO2 387 ppm Increasing 2.1 ppm annually
• James Hansens new theoretical max. 350 ppm!!

5
World Facing Energy Decline

• Association for Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) says
  occurred in 2008
• IEA World Energy Outlook 2009 Acknowledged Peak
  Oil

6
World Inequity Highest in History

• Energy consumption correlates to inequity!! Ivan
  Illich 1974
• U.S. Military predicting perpetual resource wars
• Contraction and Convergence Europe and NGOs

7
Modern Technology Problem or Solution?

• 10,000 years of Agrarian living
• 250 years of technology living
• 65 years hyper-technology living
• Modern world is an energy world
• Technology is limited
• Fuel cell car a 30 years effort
• Electric cars 90 years old
• Fusion 40 years late
• Ethanol has not succeeded

8
Energy Sources Are Limited

• Fossil Fuels and Uranium
• Oil and Gas Not enough
  resources
• CoalTar SandsOil Shale Not enough
  atmosphere
• Nuclear fission Not enough resources
• Nuclear fusion Too difficult
• Renewables
• Biomass (burn food for fuel) Not enough
  air/water/soil
• Hydroelectric Not enough sites
• Hydrogen folly Needs energy to be
  produced
• Photovoltaic Wind Power Proven But
  will they scale?
• Why are there so few options?
• Are we at a point of diminishing returns?
• Has anything been added since crisis of 1970s?

9
Energy Devices Are Limited

• Fuel Cell cars a 30 year debacle
• 17 billion spent few cars
• EV a less expensive debacle
• Few billion spent 4,000 made
• Green Building not very green Energy Star and
  LEED
• 15 25 savings at best need 80 90
• PHEV next techno fix but just a coal car (no
  better than hybrid)
• And how much lithium exists in the world?
• Power plants have changed little a few IGCC
  generators
• But only a handful built in last 20 years
• Carbon Capture and Storage doubtful

10
Three Technology (Societal) Options

• Plan A Black (fossil fuel technology)
• More oil, gas, tar sands
• Proponents are oil, gas, coal, agribusiness, car
  companies
• Maintain current life style 90 (or more) of
  population
• Plan B Green (solar, wind, switch grass)
  technology
• Focused primarily on intermittent electricity
  generation
• Proponents are Al Gore, Lester Brown,
  Environmental NGOs
• Maintain current life style 9 (or less) of
  population
• Plan C High Satisfaction Low Energy Life Style
• Focused on curtailing fossil fuel usage
• Reduce current life style .9 of population

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Plan C Curtail Consumption First

• Community Survival Strategies
• We must cut energy use fast !
• Cuts must be deep
• IPCC 8090 by 2050 45 yearly
• Take responsibility
• Cant wait for techno-fixes
• Our focus
• Cut energy under personal control
• House, Food, Cars 2/3 US energy

12
Plan C High Satisfaction, Less Energy A
Community Context

• A sufficiency lifestyle
• Cooperating vs. Competing
• Sharing vs. Hoarding
• Saving vs. Consuming
• Context where curtailment is not suffering
• Happiness is relating, not accumulating
• Live simply that others may simply live
• Community is a cooperation principle
• Capitalism/Competition destroying life
• And high tech 20th century socialism
• Need high satisfaction cooperative living

13
Justifying Plan C

• Our work is Technology/Science driven
• Technology of depletion proven by M King
  Hubbert
• Climate Science Universally accepted now (IPCC)
• Psychology/Sociology Bowling Alone
• Ecological Economics
• Our Research in Plan C Intermediate Technology
• Buildings
• Transportation
• Food
• Expose false solutions

14
If You Cant Measure It, You Cant Manage It!
per Capita Thinking

• Need to understand energy accounting
• EROEI, LCA, Embodied energy vs. operating energy
• Understanding requires per capita comparisons
• Country comparisons are always misleading
• Media obscures per capita lets us feel
  righteous
• There are three key macro considerations
• CO2 Generation (tonnes per capita per year)
• Energy Consumption (BOE per capita per year)
• Income (PPP) ( per capita per year)

15
CO2 90 Reduction Required for Survival

• Per Capita Comparison
• 33 most populous nations
• 80 of world population
• Survival (sustainable) level
• 1 tonne CO2 yearly per capita
• 4 tonne CO2 world average today
• 19 tonne CO2 U.S. average today
• U.S. greatest CO2 contributor
• 4.5 of world made 27 of CO2
• Need a 90 cut

16
World Organization by Energy

• OECDL OECD minus US, Turkey, Mexico (moved to
  ROW)
• U.S. is a separate category

• Rich world is most of OECD (Organization for
  Economic Co-operation Development)

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U.S. Energy Consumption Breakdown

• Population U.S. 300MOECDL 700MROW
  5,700M
• U.S. Household sector (food, cars, home)
• Each sector uses more than total energy of ROW

18
Setting 80 90 Reduction Targets

• Housing (15.4 BOE/c/year)
• Deep Building Retrofits German Passive House as
  model
• ACIs 1,000 Home Challenge
• Cars (13.5 BOE/c/year)
• Smart Jitney ride sharing shared transit
• Metrolite from India
• Electric bicycles Chinas real transportation
  growth
• Food (10 BOE/c/year)
• Elimination of fossil fuel based industrial
  animal products
• Change your diet
• Eat locally grown non-industrial food

19
1 Target US Homes Size Matters Most

• Per capita square foot
• 1950 260
• 2008 800
• New US home size
• 1950 1,000 sq. ft.
• 2007 2,300 sq. ft
• US residences almost twice as large as Europe or
  Japan
• A cultural issue

20
U.S. Energy Use in Buildings

• 50 of US energy is used in buildings
• 40 operating, 10 embodied (building) energy
• US has about 130 million residences (80 million
  buildings)
• New building about 1.0 million units yearly

21
Green Building Too Little, Too Late LEED,
Energy Star Ineffective

• Programs reduce energy use by 15 25 (need 80
  90)
• Green buildings are less than 5 of new
  construction
• Less than 1 of existing stock after a decade
• Would take about 75 years to turn over the
  building stock

22
Home Energy Reductions

• Easier
• Lighting CFLs reduce energy use by factor of
  three
• Plug leaks 15 30 of heat loss low cost
• Insulate attic inexpensive
• Window coverings inexpensive and fast
• Harder and costly but with very large payoff
• Replace windows
• Modify (thicken) the building envelope
• Move ductwork into the conditioned space

23
Needed A Thick Building Envelope
24
The German Passive House

• Passive Houses use 90 less heating and cooling
  energy
• They have no external heat source or air
  conditioning

25
13th Annual Passive House Conference

• Held four months ago in Frankfurt
• 1,200 attendees from around the world
• 100 presenters
• Tours of homes/schools
• About 20,000 passive houses/buildings to date
• 18 years since first build a maturing
  technology
• Windows, heat exchangers, insulation, sealants
• Achieving the 90 heating/cooling reduction

26
Challenge Retrofit Existing Buildings

• 1,000 sq. foot. Carriage House
• Thicken walls, roof, floors
• First floor 4 rigid, 7 fiberglass
• Double wall added 12 total
• Roof rafters from 2x4 to 2x12
• Installed a heat exchanger
• Replaced windows
• A model for retrofitting

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Retrofit Building Energy Savings and

• Wide range of estimates to redo all homes
• 130 million residence _at_ 40,000 is 5 trillion.
• Impossible? Maybe only 7 years of US real
  military budget
• Or a year or two of bailing out banks !
• Far cheaper than paying fuel bills e.g. 2008 to
  2050 (42 yr)
• Save 10 boe yearly estimate 300 boe eqv. in
  2012
• 3,000 yearly for 40 years 120,000
• Culture likely to adopt 1950s values homeowners
  do work!
• Any serious sustainability group must have a
  retrofitting plan!

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2 Target The Private Car

• U.S. has 210 million cars/SUVs/pickups
• U.S. has 30 of the 700 million cars in use
  worldwide
• U.S. cars/trucks generate 45 of auto CO2 in
  world
• Average American buys 13 cars in his/her lifetime
• 75 million new cars and trucks are built each
  year worldwide
• Net addition to world car population 55 million
  yearly
• U.S. fleet mileage 21 mpg Europe 42 mpg Japan
  47 mpg
• Replacing this fleet with new cars would take
  decades
• Hybrids less than 1 of cars after 10 years
• This is a little known scale issue

29
U.S. Drivers Tend to Drive Alone

• Passengers per trip
• U.S. Transportation Energy Book, 2008

30
New Mass Transit Success Questionable

• Mass transit typically just supplements cars
• Paris, London, Toronto, New York high car
  populations
• In Europe cars growing faster than mass transit
• Mass transit overrated (BTU per passenger mile)
• Private Car 3,496 SUV
  4,329
• Bus Transit 4,318 Airplane
  3,959
• Amtrak Train 2,760 Rail transit
  2,569
• Vanpool 1,294
• How much and how long for a mass transit system?
• Can it even be done in places like Los Angeles?

31
Efficiency Ineffective (Jeavons Paradox)

• Efficiency isnt the answer
• From 750 million 30 mpg cars to 3 billion 100 mpg
  cars?
• 3 times the efficiency 5 times the number of
  cars
• 12 yearly tech improvements and population
  increase
• 24 yearly oil depletion rate

32
What About a Jitney?

• A small bus that carries passengers over a
  regular route on a flexible schedule
• An unlicensed taxicab
• Essence of the Jitney
• Shared transit with cars
• Not mass transit with buses
• Common in 85 of world

33
The Smart Jitney Proposal

• Every existing car can be jitney
• Shared transit not mass transit
• Made possible by new communications/GPS
  technology
• A software problem not hardware All components
  exist!
• Will provide anywhere/anytime/anyplace pickup and
  drop off
• Not limited to tracks/lines/schedules
• Smart enough to cut transport energy use 7580
  
• Status Operational!!!
• Avego of Ireland is first out of the box
• First US Real Time Rideshare conference April
  09 at MIT
• Should expect announcements soon in MA and CA

34
3 Target Food

• May be the hardest changes behavior changes
• But the easiest physically no new technology
• Step 1 stop eating factory meat and processed
  foods
• Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan
• Modern meat generates more CO2 equivalent than
  cars
• Suffering of food animals is horrific
• Garden and buy locally grown food
• CS has its own garden supports CSAs
• John Michael Greer Organic garden is
  contemporary!!
• Restore rural America

35
Local Work in Yellow Springs

• Council formed Electrical System Task Force in
  2007
• Cancelled a new 3 million substation
• Withdrew from planned AMP-Ohio coal plant
• Council formed Energy Task Force for long range
  planning
• New home energy audit company working with
  local college
• CS received grant for Yellow Springs Energy
  Partnership
• Will review towns energy use
• Different than token sign ups for Architecture
  2030 or Kyoto
• Must measure usage and design solutions not
  easy
• Metro Lite

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Time Is Getting Short

• Peak Oil may have already occurred July 2008
• IEA November 2008 report acknowledges depletion
• Climate Change is extremely serious IPCC report
  desperate
• Artic ice melt is accelerating
• Survivability needs 80-90 reduction of energy
  use (4-5 yearly)
• Incrementalism is death Stephen Tanner
  (BioHaus)
• No time to hope for breakthrough technologies
  CCS, PHEV
• Must change habits and way of life become
  different people
• Using intermediate proven technologies

37
Financial Crisis Creates Opportunity

• Financial corporations have defraudedswindledche
  ated us
• Will mean cutbacks in energy exploration and R
  D
• This could end our love affair with corporate
  America
• Important to consider inequity in post great
  depression period
• Up to 1929 Very high inequity
• 1930s 1980s focus on increasing equity
• 1980 2008 Inequity buildup like pre 1929
  period
• Curtailment will be unavoidable and that is not
  all bad
• In the depression community flourished ! !

38
Expect a Community Resurgence

• Early 2000s was like pre-depression period
  (roaring 20s)
• Things were declining before October 1929 like
  now
• The financial crisis is a crisis of character
• The smartest and the best of us built Ponzi
  schemes
• Consumer debt triggered both depressions
• Free Market has become a license to steal
• Community provides the alternative value system
• Cooperation, not competition
• Values of caring and sharing

39
Summary

• CS Plan C is focused on Curtailment and Community
• No technofix(es) can maintain current
  way-of-life
• CS projects are directed at personal 2/3 of
  energy consumption
• Houses, Cars, Food
• Working with Low Energy building organizations
  Affordable Comfort, Inc., Passive House Institute
  US
• Working with Smart Jitney developers in Ireland
  (Avego) India
• Working with farmers for local food production
• Our view A return to high satisfaction low-e
  communities
• World sacrificed community for consumerism
• Horrible mistake community will be reborn
• Strong community means less materialism (energy)

40
Einsteins Reminder

• We can't solve problems by using the
• same kind of thinking we used when we
  created them
• All our thinking (and values) since WWII has been
  to consume more
• Our current way of living (values) is threatening
  life on earth
• Time for new thinking new values
• How about Community?
• And High Satisfaction Lowe Living