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Amory Lovins on Lessons from Fukushima

21 Mar

Writing at RMI Outlet, the blog for the Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins draws lessons from Fukishima, noting that the US has 6 plants identical to those and 17 very similar to them. And he notes that that pouring money money in the nuclear swamp will “reduce and retard climate protection.” Thus:

Each dollar spent on a new reactor buys about 2-10 times less carbon savings, 20-40 times slower, than spending that dollar on the cheaper, faster, safer solutions that make nuclear power unnecessary and uneconomic: efficient use of electricity, making heat and power together in factories or buildings (“cogeneration”), and renewable energy. The last two made 18% of the world’s 2009 electricity (while nuclear made 13%, reversing their 2000 shares)–and made over 90% of the 2007-08 increase in global electricity production.Those smarter choices are sweeping the global energy market. Half the world’s new generating capacity in 2008 and 2009 was renewable. In 2010, renewables, excluding big hydro dams, won $151 billion of private investment and added over 50 billion watts (70% the total capacity of all 23 Fukushima-style U.S. reactors) while nuclear got zero private investment and kept losing capacity. Supposedly unreliable windpower made 43-52% of four German states’ total 2010 electricity. Non-nuclear Denmark, 21% windpowered, plans to get entirely off fossil fuels. Hawai’i plans 70% renewables by 2025.

He further notes that:

Japan, for its size, is even richer than America in benign, ample, but long-neglected energy choices. Perhaps this tragedy will call Japan to global leadership into a post-nuclear world. And before America suffers its own Fukushima, it too should ask, not whether unfinanceably costly new reactors are safe, but why build any more, and why keep running unsafe ones. China has suspended reactor approvals. Germany just shut down the oldest 41% of its nuclear capacity for study. America’s nuclear lobby says it can’t happen here, so pile on lavish new subsidies.

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The Wholeness of Life: Beyond Three Eras of Techno-Scrambling

18 Mar

In 1976 the economist Fritz Schumacher spoke at Findhorn in Northern Scotland in an address as relevant today as it was then for everyone [1]. It shapes the foundations of Transition Party USA.

Historically he noted that we are at the end of three distinct but overlapped eras:

  • 300 years of a Descartian worldview which valued mind over matter, established mind/body dualism (mind good/body bad) and advocated humans controlling Nature;
  • 200 years of a socio-economic-political system shaped by the industrial revolution’s division of labor which led to the devaluation of the whole human being; and
  • 100 years of technocratic and money idolatry, driven by a belief in infinite resources and quick technological fixes — resulting in a ravaged eco-system. [2]

As these old eras draw to a close, bankrupt, we need to regain a traditional understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful and so inform our actions to build a new era that acknowledges the wholeness of life. It is not a single-issue crisis that we face — not just an energy crisis, not just a nuclear crisis, not just an ecological crisis or sociological or political or cultural or economic crisis — our whole “way of life” has become a death-trip: species diversity and cultural diversity are both disappearing faster and faster. Solutions must be nurtured and implemented simultaneously at many levels. Schumacher calls on the audience to first work to foster a new world view in themselves, diagnose what can be done, see if others are already engaged in that rebuilding work and support them, and then act themselves, if even in a small way.

doing a few minutes or an hour each day

communicating for Transition Party USA

circulating insights that show the Path or a Local Way

encourage each child to play, play! PLAY!!!

Continue reading →

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Shazaam! Ontario, the Jolly Green Giant

17 Mar

Writing from Buffalo, Bill Nowak informs TPUSA that Ontario’s become the Jolly Green Giant of North American energy.

Check it out – Ontario has started taking over the North American market for renewable energy because they have followed Germany’s example and set fair, fixed prices for solar and wind through their “feed-in tariff”. The renewable revolution is now accessible to all in Ontario. Individuals, communities, co-ops, Indian tribes and businesses can all generate green energy profitably. They are setting themselves up for a secure future.

In the last year, over $9 billion in private sector investment has been committed to clean energy projects, creating an estimated 20,000 new jobs in Ontario.

In 2003, Ontario had 19 dirty, polluting coal units and just ten wind turbines. Today, the province has over 700 new wind turbines and by 2014 they plan to be finished with coal generators and the greenhouse gases they produce.

Check out the latest news from Ontario’s Ministry of Energy.

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Over the Rainbow and Thru the Woods to Safe Nukes, NOT

15 Mar

Over at the NYTimes Peter Wynn Kirby has kicked off a nice discussion of nuclear disaster in Japanese pop culture, which is what put me in mind of Gojira. The staff here at TPUSA has been reading through the discussion and found one comment to be particularly potent. It’s by Bert from Philadelphia:

Nuclear power is perfectly safe if it is place in a location that we know in advance will be unmolested by earthquake, terrorism, uprising, tornado for the next half century. And that it is made of pure unobtainium* so that the parts never break or wear out unexpectedly. And the software that runs it is bug free. And the operators will never be inattentive, sick, drunk or drugged up, or having sex instead of watching the gauges.

*Jeez, I hope James “Avatar” Cameron hasn’t trade-marked that term.

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No Nukes, because we Know Nukes

14 Mar

The current nuclear emergency in Japan underlines the need to transition to local power sources that are safe and sustainable. Writing in Artvoice, Michael Niman explains:

Global warming could radically transform the planet into something much less inhabitable. Peak oil could radically change society—and the change won’t be pleasant to live through. But nuclear power—now here’s something with the potential to render the whole planet uninhabitable. Nuclear waste is deadly—extremely deadly—for hundreds of thousands of years after it’s produced. We’ve produced hundreds of tons of this crap already and still have no clue what to do with it other than assuming we’ll have the wherewithal to babysit it for the next quarter of a million years through whatever chaos comes our way.

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Adaptation, Resilience and Distributed Power

12 Mar

In the course of a discussion about the earthquake in Japan, Adrew Revkin and David Roberts talk about the to start adapting to coming changes and, in particular, they talk about the need for a distributed power grid and bottom-up efforts. Video at Bloggingheads.tv.

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Real Returns, Sustainable Communities

11 Mar

In the Spring of 2010 three executives in New York University’s CleanTech Executives Program, conducted a field survey and study on locally-driven sustainable energy initiatives: Wendy Brawer, Brett Barndt, and Lakis Polycarpou, Real Returns for Sustainable Communities: White Paper, Linking Communities and Investors for Sustainable Development (downloadable PDF of the complete study). They were particularly interested in how such projects could be financed:

Our survey found that investment professionals are interested in local sustainable development projects as a potential asset class. As one professional put it, “Local infrastructure projects like these are very suitable to our investor profiles.” Project finance professionals also said that they expected the sustainable development industry to “grow immensely,” and the key is to “build a platform” for growth.

What then is needed to increase adoption of cleantech and sustainable development projects? “We need to get beyond the bias we have toward centralized energy sources,” and develop ways to get small projects funded, said one professional.

Continue reading →

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Sustaining a Life in the Desert

10 Mar

The New York Times just ran a story about John Wells, who lives off the grid on 60 acres of West Texas desert. He calls his place the “Southwest Texas Alternative Energy And Sustainable Living Field Laboratory.” As Wells hit middle age got tired of a city-based life style and mounting debt. His father died and Wells began to rethink his life. As he says at his website:

Several years ago I began experimenting with alternative energy. I feel that the technology today has advanced enough and the costs have dropped to the point where just about anyone can make the move to off the grid living. This just happened to coincide with discovering accounts of pioneer life of some of my relatives from over 100 years ago. Their lives were difficult back then, but I sensed a feeling of great joy and accomplishment in overcoming hardship – where hard work payed off and living life was a fulfilling experience. I began to envision my life as a pioneer in the 21st century, and have chosen to follow that path.

In taking inventory of my life to this point in time, I believe that over the years I have picked up just the right skills and mentality to live my dream of how I would do it if I had it to do all over again. I suddenly found myself at the perfect point in my lifetime to go for that dream.

And so he sold his house for $600K, paid off his debts, and moved from upstate New York to Texas. He lives on rainwater, solar power, composts his wastes, and is grows vegetables. He’s got a blog going back to 2008, and a bunch of photos at his Flickr site.

Wells, of course, is in a long tradition of go it aloners. One suspects he’d be doing this regardless of the society-wide need for Transition. And that’s the point, our society needs to make such a radical decision. We don’t all have to make the decision together, but by ones and twos and tens and more, we’ve got to start moving and start changing our communities.

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Resilience in a Small English Town

9 Mar


Rob Hopkins, the founder of the Transition movement, did a case study of the transition movement in Totnes for his PhD thesis, Localisation and Resilience at the Local Level: The Case of Transition Town Totnes. Writing in a review of Hopkins’ thesis, Frank Kaminski note that Hopkins draws a broad general conclusion: “the Transition approach has been effective in generating community engagement and initiating new enterprises.” Beyond this Hopkins has noted that, Totnes

could supply nearly all of its own food needs, the only exceptions being foods that require soil types not indigenous to the region. As for energy, Hopkins shows that local renewables could meet half of total demand, and that efficiency measures could make up the difference. On the subject of housing, he says that demand could easily be met with local materials (e.g., straw bales, earth, lime, car tires and other recycled objects, hempcrete and cob) but that ramping up current natural building efforts to a commercial scale has proven difficult. Lastly, with regard to transport, Hopkins notes Totnes’ high level of automobile use and suggests that a crucial step in reducing it will be to sway people’s attitudes.

Kaminski concludes by noting that, while England “shares much of America’s oil vulnerability, it’s easier to get around there without fuel, since the area was settled long before the reign of the automobile.”

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Local Currency: The Totnes Pound

8 Mar

I was leafing through Rob Hopkins’ Transition Handbook (thanks! CK) and came across a discussion of the Totnes Pound, local currency established in Totnes, UK, the first town to undertake the Transition. But you don’t have to have the handbook to read about it. You can google it and finds lots of stuff on the web.

And, of course, the Transition Town Totnes has its own write-up. According to that write-up, they started the Totnes Pound in 2007:

  • To build resilience in the local economy by keeping money circulating in the community and building new relationships
  • To get people thinking and talking about how they spend their money
  • To encourage more local trade and thus reduce food and trade miles
  • To encourage tourists to use local businesses

The basic idea is simple: “Totnes Pounds enter circulation when people choose to exchange their sterling currency into Totnes pounds at one of four places around Totnes. At present the exchange rate is 1TP for £1.” People can then use the Totnes Pounds at local businesses that accept them (roughly 70).

Such local currency does well during a recession:

As the country heads into recession the benefits of local currencies can really be felt. Keeping money within the community becomes even more important at making the local economy resilient. Most local currencies around the world have been successful mainly in times of wider economic recession. Here in Totnes we are lucky to have an established local currency already in place, making us well prepared for the difficult economic times unfolding.

Check it out. Nothing like your own local currency to create a sense of local sufficiency.

EDIT: Here’s a link to local currency they’ve been using in the Berkshires (USA) for a few years. It’s called BerkShares.

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