Plan C – Community Solutionsfor

Housing, Transportation and Food

EarthCare Sudbury Annual MeetingGreater Sudbury, Ontario

May 7, 2008

Presented by

Pat Murphy – Executive Director

Community Solutions (CS)

Yellow Springs, OH 45387

New Watchword Needed!

1987 – Sustainability, 2009 – Survivability

Three Interrelated Threats to Humanity

Shrinking amounts of Fossil Fuels – “Peak Energy”

Implies a declining standard of living

Increasing CO2 (From burning fossil fuels)

Threatens life on earth

Record Inequity – from cheap fuels and cheap credit

More violence, suffering and alienation

World Facing Energy Decline

Association for Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) says occurred in 2008

IEA World Energy Outlook 2009 – Acknowledged Peak Oil

World Threatened with Climate Crisis

CO2 – 387 ppm; Increasing 2.1 ppm annually

James Hansen’s new theoretical max. – 350 ppm!!

World Inequity Highest in History

Energy consumption correlates to inequity!! Ivan Illich – 1974

U.S. Military predicting perpetual resource wars

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

Energy sources have major limitations

Fossil Fuels and Uranium

Oil and Gas Not enough resources

Coal–Tar Sands–Oil 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?

Energy devices have major limitations

Fuel Cell cars a 30 year debacle

$17 billion spent – few cars

EV a less expensive debacle

Few billion $ spent – 4,000 made (most gone)

PHEV next techno fix – but just a coal car (no better than hybrid)

And how much lithium exists?

Green Building not very green – LEED and Energy Star

15 – 30% savings at best: need 80 – 90%

Power plants have changed little – IGCC offers a few percent

But only a handful built in last 20 years

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% 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% of population

Plan C – Low Energy Life Style

Focused on curtailing fossil fuel usage

Reduce current life style – .9% of population

Plan C – Curtail Consumption First

Community Survival Strategies

We must cut energy use – fast !

Cuts must be deep

IPCC: 80–90% by 2050; 4–5% yearly

Take responsibility

Can’t wait for techno-fixes

Our focus:

Cut energy under personal control

House, Food, Cars – 2/3 US energy

Plan C – High Satisfaction, Less Energy

A “Community” Context

A “sufficiency” life style

Cooperating vs. Competing

Sharing vs. Hoarding

Saving vs. Consuming

Context where curtailment is not suffering

Happiness in relating, not accumulating

Live simply that others may simply live

Community is a cooperation principle

Capitalism/Competition destroying life

High satisfaction cooperative living

Justifying Plan C

“Technology/Science driven”

Technology of depletion – proven by Hubbert

Climate Science

Psychology/Sociology – “Bowling Alone”

Ecological Economics

Research in Plan C Intermediate Technology

Buildings

Transportation

Food

“If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t

Manage It!” – Per Capita Thinking

Need to understand energy accounting

EROEI, LCA, Embodied energy vs. operating energy

Understanding aided by 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)

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

World Organization by Energy

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

OECD–L = OECD minus US, Turkey, Mexico (moved to ROW)

U.S. is a separate category

US Energy Consumption Breakdown

Population: U.S. – 300M, OECD–L – 700M, ROW – 5,700M

U.S. Household sector (food, cars, home)

Each sector uses more than total energy of ROW

Setting 80% Reduction Targets

Housing (15.4 BOE/c)

Deep Building Retrofits – German Passive House as model

Cars (13.5 BOE/c)

Smart Jitney ride sharing – shared transit

Food (10 BOE/c)

Elimination of fossil fuel based industrial animal products

Change your diet

Eat locally grown non industrial food

#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

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

“Green Building” – too little, too late LEED, Energy Star ineffective

Programs reduce energy use by 15% – 30% (need 80% – 90%)

“Green buildings” are less than 5% of new construction

Would take about 75 years to turn over the building stock

Home Energy Reductions

Easier

Lighting– CFLs reduce energy use by factor of three

Plug leaks: 10 – 20% 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

The Core – A Thick Building Envelope

The German Passive House

Passive Houses use 90% less heating and cooling energy

They have no external heat source or air conditioning

13th Annual Passive House Conference

Held two weeks 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% reduction

Challenge – Retrofit Existing Buildings

1,000 sq. foot. Carriage House

Thicken walls, roof, floors

First floor 4” rigid, 7 ½“ fiberglass

Double wall added – 12’ total

Roof rafters – from 2x4 to 2x12

Installed a heat exchanger

Replaced windows

A model for retrofitting

Retrofit Building Energy Savings and $$

Wide range of estimates to redo all homes

130 million residence @ $40,000 is $5 trillion.

Impossible? Maybe – only 7 years of US real military budget

Or a year or two bailing out derivatives!

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 might change to 1950s values – homeowners do work!

Any serious sustainability group must have a retrofitting plan

#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

U.S. Drivers Tend to Drive Alone

Passengers per trip

U.S. Transportation Energy Book, 2008

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?

Efficiency Ineffective – (Jeavon’s Paradox)

Efficiency isn’t the answer

From 750 million 30 mpg cars to 3 billion 100 mpg cars?

3 times the efficiency – 5 times the number of cars

1–2% yearly tech improvements and population increase

2–4% yearly oil depletion rate

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

Snared transit with cars

Not mass transit with buses

Common in 85% of world

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 75–80%

Status – Operational ! ! !

Avego of Ireland is first out of the box

Should expect announcements soon in MA and CA

First conference held in April at MIT

#3 Target – Food

May be the hardest change – 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 CSA’s

John Michael Greer – Organic garden is contemporary!!

Local Work in Yellow Springs

Council formed Electrical System Task Force in 2007

Resulted in cancelling a $3 million new substation

At same time, withdrew from AMP-Ohio coal plant

Council just formed Energy Task Force for long range planning

CS Board Member started house energy audit company

CS received grant for Yellow Springs Energy Partnership

Will review town’s energy use

Different than token sign ups for Architecture 2030 or Kyoto

Must measure use and design solutions

Time is Running Out

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 requires 80% reduction of energy use (4% 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

Financial Crisis Creates Opportunity

Financial corporations have defrauded–swindled–cheated us

Will mean cutbacks in energy exploration and R & D

This will 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 as in pre 1929 period

Curtailment will be unavoidable – and that is not all bad

In the depression community flourished!!

Expect a Community Resurgence

Today is 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”

Summary CS Plan C is focused on Curtailment and Community

No techno–fix will maintain current way-of-life

CS projects are directed at personal 2/3 of energy consumption

Houses, Cars, Food

Working with Low E 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 communities

World sacrificed community for consumerism

Horrible mistake – community will be reborn

With community strong, energy (materialism) less important