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Issue 11
October 2007
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A Publication of Sustainable
Solutions for all of BC’s Energy Needs
Transition
Towns Plan for a Better Future With Less Oil
By Mary Sturgeon
In 2004, while teaching at Kinsale Further College in Ireland,
permaculture instructor Rob Hopkins was given a DVD of The
End of Suburbia, a Canadian documentary film written and directed
by Toronto-based filmmaker Gregory Greene. This film would
play a key role in helping Hopkins begin to envision the Transition
Culture movement.
Focusing on the implications of peak oil on our way of life,
the film features extensive interviews with, among others
, the man widely considered to be the key figure in peak oil
science, Dr. Colin J. Campbell, founder of the Association
for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) (www.peakoil.net).
As it happened, Mr. Campbell lived close to Kinsale, so Hopkins
decided to play the film for his students during the opening
class, and invite Campbell to speak. After watching the film
and hearing Campbell speak, Hopkins and his students began
to think about what peak oil meant to Kinsale and how the
small Irish town would adapt in an oil-depleted world.
Rather than feeling discouraged by what the future might
hold for Kinsale and doing nothing, Hopkins and his students
began to think about how their community might be better -
not worse - in a future with less oil. In a videotaped interview
with American interviewers Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle
from the Ecological Options Network, Hopkins describes how
he viewed the challenge of peak oil.
"We could just sit here, not do anything, let this unfold
as a series of lurching crises; or we could actually try to
pull together all the different aspects of the town and really,
really look at this," he said. "Because if we're
able collectively to design a way through this using our intelligence,
our ingenuity, our creativity, then there's no reason why
the future with less oil couldn't be a preferable place to
the present."
In that moment of clarity and vision, the Transition Culture
movement was spawned.
It is the goal of Transition initiatives to formulate a plan
that will help communities be more resilient to a future with
less oil. These plans are called Energy Descent Action Plans,
and the implementation of them are the ultimate outcome of
the Transition process.
Hopkins realized that to create and build a vision for a
future with less oil - or what is referred to as the post-peak
energy descent - he needed to understand the positive aspects
of life before cheap oil. He recognized that many people in
western societies and even in emerging economies like India
actually disparaged a simpler, local, and less oil-dependent
way of life.
For a different perspective, Hopkins sought out the views
of older generations, who could tell their personal stories
about the positive aspects of life pre-1950s, prior to cheap
oil becoming abundant and changing the industrial, economic
and social structures of our world.
What emerged from those stories was a strong sense of interdependent
community spirit and resilience; people living between the
1930s and 1950s worked together and had, as Hopkins describes,
"skills they could turn their hands to."
Avoiding romanticizing the past, Hopkins recognized that
the ideal approach would be to take the best of the past and
combine it with the best of the present. That year at Kinsale,
Hopkins and his permaculture students developed the first
Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) for the community (to read
this plan, visit Hopkins' web site at http://transitionculture.org/pdf-downloads/kinsale-energy-descent-action-plan-2005/).
In September of 2005, Hopkins moved to Totnes, in Devon,
England, to complete his PhD, which looked at Energy Descent
Action Plans. It was there that the first 'official' Transition
Town project, Transition Town Totnes, began.
Today, there are more than 19 official communities, villages,
towns and cities across the UK and in Ireland that have begun
Transition processes and more than 175 others currently considering
Transition initiatives. All in various stages of the process,
these 19 towns collaborate, share knowledge and best practices
using a wiki, at www.transitiontowns.org.
In working toward developing their own Energy Descent Action
Plans, Transition Towns follow a 12-step process:
- Form a short-term, four- or five-person steering committee
that will get things underway, but that also agrees to
disband once sub-committees are formed. At that time,
one steering committee member may join each sub-committee,
or choose to step aside.
- Educate and build awareness so that community members
understand the potential effects of peak oil. This step
also helps to identify allies, build networks and build
excitement toward the official launch of the Transition
initiative. Film screenings, expert talks, news articles,
etc. are all effective tools.
- Network with existing groups that are working toward
similar or complementary goals; you can tap into work
that has already been done, as well as uncover local expertise
that may provide help.
- Launch the Transition initiative through a positive
and inspiring community event. The idea is to create an
event so that people feel its significance, and understand
they are part of an historic beginning.
- Allow Transition subgroups to naturally form by the
collective energy, interests and passions of the people
who want to get involved.
- Use collaboration tools and methodologies (such as
Open Space Technology) to bring people together to brainstorm,
problem-solve and create solutions.
- Create community initiatives that demonstrate things
are happening. For example, organize a community tree
planting day or create a central community garden; the
idea is to show that the Transition initiative is not
just about talk, but also about action.
- Provide relevant skills training (such as gardening
or home energy efficiency improvement workshops, for example),
so that people can contribute, solve problems and achieve
practical results.
- Forge links with local government. According to the
Transition Towns wiki, "however many practical projects
you've initiated and however wonderful your Energy Descent
Plan is, you will not progress too far unless you have
cultivated a positive and productive relationship with
your local authority."
- Listen to community elders. Much can be learned from
how things were done prior to abundant and cheap oil.
- Remember that wherever things go, that's where they
are supposed to go. As explained on the Transition wiki,
"Your role is not to come up with all the answers,
but to act as a catalyst for the community to design their
own transition. If you keep your focus on the key design
criteria - building community resilience and reducing
the carbon footprint - you'll watch as the collective
genius of the community enables a feasible, practicable
and highly inventive solution to emerge."
- Create the Energy Descent Action Plan. According to
the Transition Towns wiki, "Each subgroup will have
been focusing on practical actions to increase community
resilience and reduce the carbon footprint. Combined,
these actions form the Energy Descent Action Plan. That's
where the collective genius of the community has designed
its own future to take account of the potential threats
from Peak Oil and Climate Change."
As more UK towns and villages join the Transition Culture
movement, scores of communities across Europe and in North
America are taking notice. Hopkins may have indeed given the
rest of the world the framework to create a better future
with less oil.
Kinsale, Ireland, birthplace of the Transition Culture
movement
My
Experience with Conversion to a PHEV
By David Moore
My name is David Moore. I am a Research and Technology director
at a local company in Seattle. I have been doing technology
and software development for almost 30 years at a number of
Seattle area companies. I have worked on many diverse technology
projects ranging from software development and computer hardware
development to commercial aircraft and spacecraft designs.
I live north of Seattle and commute 60 miles round trip
to work during the week. Five or six years ago I started learning
more about climate change and started trimming my carbon footprint.
I got my first Toyota Prius five years ago, shortly after
they became available in the US.
I first learned about Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)
a couple of years ago, and began researching PHEVs in more
detail last year. I talked to a number of the companies developing
the technology, including Edrive, Hymotion and Hybrids Plus.
When Hybrids Plus told me they would do a conversion on my
car I went for it, and in May of this year I upgraded to a
2007 Prius and had it converted to a PHEV by Hybrids Plus.
A PHEV Prius is a 2004 or newer Prius that has had its battery
capacity increase by replacing the existing battery or by
adding a larger battery. In my case I had the small capacity
Prius battery replaced with a very large capacity battery.
Hybrid Plus uses the fire resistant A123 system batteries
in their conversions.
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These batteries provide substantially more power with
very little weight gain. They increased my battery capacity
nine times but only added about 80 pounds to the weight
of the car. The new batteries fit nicely under the rear
cargo area and I still have a spare tire under there
as well.
The car drives, accelerates and handles like a standard
Prius. The cool thing about a PHEV car is that you can
recharge the battery at home and possibly at work. All
you need is access to a 110 volt outlet. The battery
enables my Prius to go about 40 miles on an electric
charge alone - if I stay below 40 miles per hour. Above
41mph the gas engine will kick in.
At these higher speeds the electric motor is still
working and with the large battery the gas mileage at
freeway speeds is two to three times higher (75mpg to
180mpg) than a standard Prius.
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If I had to do a lot of driving in one day (60 to 100 miles
depending on highway speed) the large battery would eventually
be depleted and my gas mileage would drop to the level of a
typical Prius (36mpg to 60mpg). I charge the car up at night
and at work each day and have never seen the large battery depleted.
Since I got the car in May I have driven 2200 miles, and I have
had to fill the gas tank only once.
You are probably wondering how much it costs to charge the
car up each month. I charge the car at home each night and
at work each day. At work they have spaces reserved for electric
and PHEV cars. My charging at work is free. I checked with
the building management and their utility charges are half
what I pay at home. They estimated that my monthly charging
would cost them $4. They jokingly said they would unplug a
light bulb somewhere to cover the added cost of providing
a free charge to me. If I drive 1000 miles each month I estimate
that the increase in my monthly electric bill is about $8.
It would be about $16 dollars if I did not get the free charge
at work.
There is nothing that I don't like about the car. The Prius
is a great car. It's a great commute car and with the PHEV
conversion it's an awesome commute car. On my first tank of
gas I got 123mpg. The car has plenty of room, good performance,
and lots of storage space. Just yesterday I gave a ride to
four other people in downtown Seattle. They were all able
to get in the car (three is tight in the back, but it can
be done) and we drove around Seattle completely on electric
mode. I didn't burn a single molecule of gas the entire drive,
despite going up a few of the steep hills.
These cars are very rare. I know of only about 50 that are
in existence in the United States. The cost of the best battery
technology right now is too high to enable low cost conversion
kits. I expect the price for these conversions will come down
over the next few years. If gas prices stay high, we should
see a lot more of these cars on the roads in the coming years.
Here are some resources where you can learn more about PHEV
cars:
Electric Auto Association : www.eaa-phev.org
Plug-In Partners: www.pluginpartners.com
Plug-In America: www.pluginamerica.org
CalCars: www.calcars.org
You can find a video log about my initial PHEV experiences
attached to the Hybrids Plus website at www.tinyurl.com/ytv4ch
Follow the links at the top of the page to learn more about
Hybrids Plus.
Building
a Solar Toilet and Shower in the Kootenays
By Tom Anderson
The best way to utilize the free energy provided
by the sun is to build solar receptivity right into your house.
It doesn't require complicated technology, it doesn't need
to be expensive, and it doesn't need to make your house look
weird. One of the simplest and quickest ways to start drawing
energy from the sun is to build a solar wall to heat water.
Such a wall can be added to any home.
When I first moved to the Kootenays, I needed
hot water for a toilet and outdoor shower. The toilet was
designed to use a jet of warm water in place of toilet paper.
It was completely odour free and self-cleaning as well. The
waste material was automatically composted with straw, chicken
droppings and other materials, and eventually returned to
the land. The shower was situated outside of the same end
of the building, in a sunken area open to the sky but sheltered
from breezes. The water for both toilet and shower was heated
by a collector I had built onto the south-facing wall of the
building.
I started constructing this solar collector by covering the
wall with reflective foil, then installed heavy-duty flexible
plastic pipe over the foil in the form of a large spiral,
using loose clamps to allow for expansion and contraction.
The whole wall was then covered with black plastic sheeting,
stretched tight over the pipe, and a selection of flowers
was planted along the bottom. This design worked beautifully!
Because the wall was vertical, rather than being sloped towards
the sun, it picked up heat very nicely in the spring and fall,
when the sun was at a low angle, but did not get too hot during
summer. The flowers shaded the wall during the hot months
as well, so overheating was never a problem.
This solar wall provided all the hot water I could use from
March through October, and provided the most enjoyable showers
anyone could ever hope for. I used the idea again when I built
my new house, both for cooling walls and warming floors, in
addition to simply bathing. There too it worked beautifully.
The best part is, anyone can do it and it costs almost nothing!
Tom Anderson's homemade solar wall
CLIMATE
SOLUTIONS PORTFOLIO
The BCSEA's Climate Solutions Portfolio is a series
of concise one-pagers outlining sustainable energy initiatives
relevant to British Columbia, researched and written by Guy
Dauncey, Tom Hackney and others.
Upgrade Buildings for Energy Efficiency at Point of Sale
Proposed Measure
A commitment to introduce a Green Building Code was made
in the Throne Speech, and is being developed through the office
of Housing and Construction Standards. An equally important
challenge is how to make BC's existing building stock more
energy efficient.
In 1982, San Francisco introduced a Residential Energy Conservation
Ordinance (RECO), under which a seller, before transfer of
title can occur, must have an energy inspection verifying
that all applicable conservation applications have been installed
to meet or exceed California's Title 24 Energy Codes.
Sellers are not required to spend more than 1% of the purchase
price or assessed value, and buyers and sellers may negotiate
the responsibility for the upgrade, as long as the changes
are made within 180 days of transfer of title. RECO's mild
regulatory approach has been successfully normalized in the
Bay Areas housing market, and has been highly effective at
reaching older housing stock and marginal elements of the
private rental market. Using RECO, since 1987 Berkeley (pop'n
104,000) has reduced its residential energy consumption by
13%, saving 5,098 tons of CO2 a year, saving households up
to $450 a year on their energy with payback in two years.
To accelerate the energy efficiency upgrading of BC's existing
building stock, the BC government could:
- Phase in a province-wide RECO, making the energy/water
efficiency aspects of the Green Building Code mandatory
for all residential and commercial buildings upon sale,
transfer, or renovation exceeding a total permit value
of $20,000. Start in CRD, GVRD, FVRD, Nanaimo, Kelowna,
and Kamloops.
- Make the RECO performance-based as well as prescriptive,
allowing the use of EnerGuide as a tool.
- Match all federal ecoENERGY grants, as in Ontario,
where (eg) the installation of a ground-source heat pump
earns a grant of $7,000. Do not limit the investment to
1% of the assessed value (as above)
- Extend the PST exemption on alternative energy equipment
to equipment associated with an upgrade.
- Create a loan guarantee fund enabling private financial
institutions to offer energy upgrade loans.
- Empower BC Hydro to issue energy upgrade loans.
Benefits
- Greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings would
be steadily reduced.
- BC businesses offering building efficiency technologies
and services would expand to meet the demand.
- Home-owners and landlords would feel supported in the
process of upgrading, and enjoy lower energy bills following
the upgrade.
- Businesses would have lower ongoing fuel costs, allowing
them to be more successful in the market.
- The RECO itself carries no cost to government.
Execution Plan
Actions by staff:
- Building and Safety Policy Branch: Study Berkeley's
RECO, and prepare recommendations for Cabinet.
Areas for Cabinet approval:
- Agreement in principle that this approach should be
supported.
- Empower BC Hydro to issue energy upgrade loans.
Resources: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/sustainable/residents/ResSidebar/RECO.html
www.nycclimatesummit.com/casestudies/building/bldg_berkeley.html
Millijoules
by Guy Dauncey, BCSEA President
Have You Driven a Fjord?
Stand by for a revolution in the way we think about a car
- the iCar, as in iPod and iPhone. The story starts with the
Norwegian Think City, an electric car from the 1990s. When
the US car industry killed off California's regulations that
favoured clean air vehicles, the Think's company went into
bankruptcy - but like the phoenix, it has remerged transformed.
The new Think EV will be sold on-line, not through d ealers.
It will be Internet and Wi-Fi enabled, so the car can send
you an email if it's battery is getting low, or if it is good
to sell some power to the grid. The company is selling mobility
- think "Web 2.0 on wheels", as CNN Money reported
(www.tinyurl.com/ywo8s9).
It will do 100 kph, with a range of 180 km on a single charge,
and when the batteries need replacing, a power company might
buy them to store intermittent green energy, for which they
are still good. The owner and CEO, Jan-Olaf Willums, is planning
to produce 20,000, initially for sale in Norway in 2008, where
it will sell for $34,000 US. If the battery is leased, however,
the car will sell for $16,000, with a monthly "mobility
fee" of $100 to $200 that might include the battery,
insurance and Internet access. The concept draws a lot on
car-sharing, where you own a share in the mobility that car
sharing provides, and pay a fee for use. It may also appear
with a Stirling engine that can run on biofuels to recharge
the battery en route, eliminating the range limit.
Växjö's Green Power Plant
Since 1993, the southern Swedish city of Växjö
(pop'n 80,000) has decreased its CO2 emissions by 30% per
capita. In 1996, the city leaders decided that they should
reduce the city's CO2 emissions by 50% by 2010, 70% by 2025
and 100% by 2050. The main change has been the use of wood-wastes
from the town's sawmills in the power plant, instead of oil.
The gases that are produced as the wood burns are condensed
into liquid form, then purified. The hot liquid is then pumped
around the town, producing heat and hot water. With oil-fired
power, it used to cost 16,000 kroner ($2888) a year ($240
a month). Using wood wastes, it costs $1900 a year - still
very expensive, by ultra-cheap Canadian standards. Växjö
has many other environmental goals, including that 30% of
the farmland should be ecological by 2015, and that 25% of
all food bought locally should be ecological by 2010. See
www.vaxjo.se/vaxjo_templates/Page.aspx?id=2780
for more information.
The Paris Freedom Bike
Since July, Paris has been dotted with 10,000 self-serve
bicycles, stationed in 750 bike ranks - known as the Velib.
You can buy a year's membership from 300 métro stations
and 400 pastry shops for 29 Euros ($41) plus a $215 credit
card deposit. A one-day card is $1.40, and a weekly card is
$7. After buying a card, the first half-hour is free, then
it's 1 Euro ($1.40) for the next half-hour, 2 Euros for the
next 30-minutes and 4 Euros for each half-hour after that.
The bikes have been a huge success - in the first 3 weeks,
they were borrowed 1.2 million times - 6 times a day for each
bike. By the end of the year, they are planning to have 20,600
bikes, and 1400 parking spots. Paris has 370 km of cycle paths,
and is governed by a green socialist Mayor, Bertrand Delanoë.
A similar club for city car rentals has also been set up,
using low pollution and electric vehicles. See www.velib.paris.fr
 
The Impact of Meat on Climate Change
- Share of greenhouse gas emissions caused by raising livestock:
18%
- CO2 emissions from producing 1 kg of beef: 36.4kg
- Distance traveled by the average European car to produce
the same emissions as 1 kg of beef: 250 km
- Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if the beef is organic:
40%
Sources:
"Meat is murder on the Environment". New Scientist,
July 21 2007.
Livestock's Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options.
H. Steinfeld et al. UN FAO, Nov 29, 2006.
Mojave Solar Project
Pacific Gas and Electric, one of California's big power companies,
has signed a contract to buy power from a 553 MW solar concentrating
power plant in the Mojave desert - the future Mojave Solar
Park. The technology - from Solel, in Israel - will cover
6,000 acres of desert with 1.2 million parabolic mirrors,
which will heat a fluid to run a steam turbine, via 317 miles
of vacuum tubing. The project is scheduled to break ground
in 2009, and begin operating in 2011, providing enough power
for 400,000 homes in northern and central California.
Algerian Solar Project
Algeria, a country that covers 2.4 million square kilometres
of sun-baked land (2.5 times larger than BC), could provide
60 times more electricity than Europe consumes if it deployed
similar solar thermal technology. To start the process, New
Energy Algeria has started on a 150 MW plant at Hassi R'Mel,
260 miles south of Algiers. 25 MW of the power will come from
solar energy produced using parabolic mirrors that will cover
2 million square feet (45 football fields). The rest will
come from natural gas. The long-term goal is to generate 6,000
MW of solar energy for Europe by 2020. One unknown factor
is the cost of the undersea cables to Sicily and Spain. By
2020, the cost of thermal solar will be the equivalent of
oil at $15 a barrel. In 2007, it costs 25% more than using
natural gas.
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