Sustainable Energy Easthampton

Easthampton's Energy and Sustainability Plan
Relocalization: A Strategy for Survival in the 21st Century

"People see an endangered species every day now when they look in the mirror. It is not about the whales anymore.”
—Robert Watson, chief scientist and director of the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank, and Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Next Twenty Years.

The Master Plan is a guide that sets the development parameters for the City of Easthampton for the next 20 years. As it happens, the next 20 years will also be the period of the most profound change, crisis, and yes, opportunity, in the history of the modern world. The complex and interwoven crises of climate change and peak oil will have significant impacts on our local economy in Easthampton and the Pioneer Valley region. Over the next 20 years, we will be required to restructure our economies and our way of life in order to adapt to these monumental changes.

Vision for Easthampton in 2027:

Easthampton is a model small city of the 21st century that leads the region: in local self-reliance;
-in the local production of energy from non-polluting, renewable sources;
-in local food production per square mile by utilizing 100% of its arable land for food production, both in small private gardens and larger cooperative farms;
-in local electrified mass transit that is connected to a regional mass transit system;
-in bike and pedestrian facilities and walkable urban design;
-in the design and manufacture of alternative energy technology;
-in small scale manufacturing of critical products and tools for local use;
-in recycling of products for reuse and ‘waste’ for energy and compost
-in “green” building codes, resulting in residential and commercial conservation of energy and water use;
-in the planting of trees, the protection of open land and species that helps the environment help us;
-in cooperative solution-building and democratic process

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section A: Global Warming and Climate Change

Section B: Peak Oil

Section C: Relocalization

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A-1 IPCC: CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: The Physical Science Basis
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its February 2007 Summary Report, states that there is a 95% certainty that accelerated global warming observed during the past half century is the result of concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, primarily CO2, which is produced by human activity. Thousands of scientists around the world have formed a consensus that excess CO2 levels trapped in the atmosphere is as the cause of rising global temperatures, extreme weather instability and unpredictability, increasing draught and destructive storms. The IPCC report states that the two major sources of global warming from human activity are (1) fossil fuels and (2) changes in land use patterns.

Fossil Fuels and Global Warming: The International Energy Agency has a database on energy use for every country that compares the fossil fuel consumed with CO2 levels. It denotes a straightforward relationship: for every pound of fuel burned, there are 2.6 pounds of CO2 generated. The Stern report, excerpted below, recommends that communities and nations adopt energy policies that reduce the output of CO2 by 80%, through curtailment of energy demand and the adoption of non-polluting sources of energy.

A-2 THE STERN REVIEW: The Economics of Climate Change: Summary of Conclusions, October 2006
Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economics Service of Great Britain and a former Chief Economist for the World Bank analyzed the economic costs of global warming. The Stern Report, released in the UK, predicts that climate change will cost up to $7 trillion and will be more catastrophic than two world wars and a depression combined. Melting glaciers and rising sea levels could displace 200 million people; and up to 40% of species face extinction.
From the Stern Review, it is clear that Easthampton will bear the costs of climate change as a subdivision of the State, most likely in the form of diminishing financial resources from the State, as all States will bear the United State’s increasing costs for climate change. Therefore, it is imperative that every local community, including Easthampton, does its part to reduce the impact of climate change.
Selections from the Executive Summary of the report are as follows:

There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now.

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response. This Review has assessed a wide range of evidence on the impacts of climate change and on the economic costs, and has used a number of different techniques to assess costs and risks. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting. Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms. Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.

The investment that takes place in the next 10-20 years will have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and in the next. Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes. So prompt and strong action is clearly warranted. Because climate change is a global problem, the response to it must be international. It must be based on a shared vision of long-term goals and agreement on frameworks that will accelerate action over the next decade, and it must build on mutually reinforcing approaches at national, regional and international level.

Climate change could have very serious impacts on growth and development.

If no action is taken to reduce emissions, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could reach double its pre-industrial level as early as 2035, virtually committing us to a global average temperature rise of over 2°C. In the longer term, there would be more than a 50% chance that the temperature rise would exceed 5°C. This rise would be very dangerous indeed; it is equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the last ice age to today. Such a radical change in the physical geography of the world must lead to major changes in the human geography – where people live and how they live their lives. Even at more moderate levels of warming, all the evidence – from detailed studies of regional and sectoral impacts of changing weather patterns through to economic models of the global effects – shows that climate change will have serious impacts on world output, on human life and on the environment.

The costs of stabilizing the climate are significant but manageable; delay would be dangerous and much more costly.

The risks of the worst impacts of climate change can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere can be stabilized between 450 and 550ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2e). The current level is 430ppm CO2e today, and it is rising at more than 2ppm each year. Stabilization in this range would require emissions to be at least 25% below current levels by 2050, and perhaps much more. Ultimately, stabilization – at whatever level – requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels. This is a major challenge, but sustained long-term action can achieve it at costs that are low in comparison to the risks of inaction. Central estimates of the annual costs of achieving stabilization between 500 and 550ppm CO2e are around 1% of global GDP, if we start to take strong action now. Costs could be even lower than that if there are major gains in efficiency, or if the strong co-benefits, for example from reduced air pollution, are measured. Costs will be higher if innovation in low-carbon technologies is slower than expected, or if policy-makers fail to make the most of economic instruments that allow emissions to be reduced whenever, wherever and however it is cheapest to do so. It would already be very difficult and costly to aim to stabilize at 450ppm CO2e. If we delay, the opportunity to stabilize at 500-550ppm CO2e may slip away.

A range of options exists to cut emissions; strong, deliberate policy action is required to motivate their take-up.

Emissions can be cut through increased energy efficiency, changes in demand, and through adoption of clean power, heat and transport technologies. The power sector around the world would need to be at least 60% decarbonized by 2050 for atmospheric concentrations to stabilize at or below 550ppm CO2e, and deep emissions cuts will also be required in the transport sector.

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B-1. Peak Oil: The Hirsch Report, February 2005

Peak Oil is the condition in which a given source of fossil fuels—typically an oil field—has been mined to the point where 50% of the available resource has been extracted. It refers in particular to “Hubbard’s Peak”, the mathematical formula that predicts when an oil/gas source will be depleted of 50% of its resource and the rate at which the subsequent production of that resource (of oil or gas) will decline. Hubbard’s peak, along with other geologic and financial analyses, has shown that when a fossil fuel resource has passed peak, the resource becomes increasingly expensive to extract while the decline in production accelerates, which leads to eventual abandonment of that supply of oil. The, peak, decline and abandonment of oil supplies leads to a permanent loss of that supply of fossil fuels for the whole world.

Robert L. Hirsch is a Senior Energy Program Advisor for SAIC. Previous employment included executive positions at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. Energy
Research and Development Administration, Exxon, ARCO, EPRI, and Advance Power Technologies, Inc. The following are selections from the Hirsch Report of 2005 on the impacts of Peak Oil.

Bulletin October 2005 Vol. XVI, No. 3
The era of plentiful, low-cost petroleum is approaching an end.
Without massive mitigation the problem will be pervasive and long lasting.
Oil peaking represents a liquid fuels problem, not an “energy crisis”.
Governments will have to take the initiative on a timely basis. In every crisis, there are always opportunities for those that act decisively.

The era of plentiful, low-cost petroleum is approaching an end. The good news is that commercially viable mitigation options are ready for implementation. The bad news is that unless mitigation is orchestrated on a timely basis, the economic damage to the world economy will be dire and long-lasting.

Oil is the lifeblood of modern civilization. It fuels most transportation worldwide and is a feedstock for pharmaceuticals, agriculture, plastics and a myriad of other products used in everyday life. The earth has been generous in yielding copious quantities of oil to fuel world economic growth for over a century, but that period of plenty is changing.

In the following, we describe the nature of the problem, options for
mitigation, and required timing. The exact date of peaking is not known;
some think it will be soon, others think a decade or more. However, the date
is almost irrelevant as mitigation will take much longer than a decade to become
effective, because of the enormous scale of world oil consumption.
It became abundantly clear early in this study that effective mitigation will be dependent on the implementation of mega-projects and mega-changes at the maximum possible rate. This finding dictated the focus on currently commercial technologies that are ready for implementation. New technology options requiring further research and development will undoubtedly prove very important in the longer-term future, but they are not ready now, so their inclusion would be strictly speculative. A scenario analysis was performed, based on crash program implementation worldwide – the fastest humanly possible. Three starting dates were considered:
1. When peaking occurs;
2. Ten years before peaking occurs; and
3. Twenty years before peaking.
The timing of oil peaking was left open because of the considerable differences of opinion among experts. Consideration of a number of implementation scenarios provided some fundamental insights, as follows:
• Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two decades.
• Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked.
• Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking offers the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.
10 Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R. and Wendling, R. Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management. DOE NETL. February 2005.

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B-2 Peak Oil: The CERA Report and Congressional Response

Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) produced a report Why the “Peak Oil” Theory Falls Down – Myths, Legends, and the Future of Oil Resources. The report challenges the theory of peak oil before going on to say that Peak Oil will in fact happen. The CERA report in fact predicts that Peak Oil will occur in 20 to 25 years, which is the most optimistic estimate in the industry.

It did this by saying that there will be no single peak but a series of bumpy peaks of the many hundreds of oil and natural gas reserves around the world. CERA calls the peak oil period an “undulating plateau.” CERA is the oil industry analyst group led by Daniel Yergin, author of “The Prize”. The following is the response of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus to the CERA report.

Published on 14 Nov 2006 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 14 Nov 2006.
Congressional peak oil caucus responds to CERA study
by Roscoe Bartlett and Tom Udall

Washington, DC - Congressmen Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM), cofounders and cochairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, said that a new report released today by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), Why the Peak Oil Theory Falls Down: Myths, Legends, and the Future of Oil Resources, confirms the urgency for the United States government to adopt a crash program to mitigate the devastating consequences of peak oil.

Congressman Bartlett said, "The CERA report agrees that world oil production will peak and projects it will occur within 20-25 years. However, world demand is growing exponentially - faster than production so the CERA report confirms the likelihood of future shortages of liquid fuel and much higher and volatile prices. A major flaw in the CERA report is its reliance upon questionable assessments of global reserves by the USGS. USGS estimates of future world reserves equate a 50 percent probability with a 50th percentile or mean. That is a bizarre and totally inaccurate use of statistics. It almost doubles the amount of projected reserves compared to the 95 percent probable estimate. Actual discoveries are tracking the 95 percent probable trend. That means world oil production will peak much sooner than CERA projects in this report."

Congressman Udall said, "CERA's report is one of the most optimistic predictions for the peak in global oil production to date, and it still underscores the need to address this problem immediately. Whether it is Peak Oil, global warming, or the fact that some of the money we send overseas to support our oil addiction comes back to us in the form of terrorism, the U.S. cannot wait any longer to develop sensible and sustainable alternatives to oil."

Congressman Bartlett added, "The February 2005 'Hirsch' report by the U.S. Department of Energy and a September 2005 report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers both note that it would take a minimum of 20 years to avoid devastating consequences from peak oil. The CERA report supports the urgency and necessity for the U.S. government to adopt a crash mitigation program. A crash program will need the total participation of the American public like we had with WWII Victory Gardens, the technological focus of the Apollo Moon program and the urgency of the Manhattan project."

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B-3. National Security and Oil Dependency

The US Council on Foreign Relations has stated emphatically that the US cannot become “energy independent” in the next 20 years, if we continue our current demand for oil. The report advocates for the development of new technologies that will decrease the dependence on foreign oil, but as a country that over-consumes oil and gets 60% of its oil from foreign—and often hostile—sources, it is unrealistic to expect that new technology alone will make us energy independent.

The US Council on Foreign Relations
National Security Consequences of US Oil Dependency.

This report concentrates on the next twenty years, a period long enough to put necessary policy measures into place but not so distant as to encounter a wider range of future geopolitical or technological uncertainties. During this next twenty years (and quite probably beyond), it is infeasible to eliminate the nation’s dependence on foreign energy sources. The voices that espouse ‘‘energy independence’’ are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future and that encourages the adoption of inefficient and counterproductive policies. Indeed, during the next two decades, it is unlikely that the United States will be able to make a sharp reduction in its dependence on imports, which currently stand at 60 percent of consumption. The central task for the next two decades must be to manage the consequences of dependence on oil, not to pretend the United States can eliminate it.

A popular response to the steep rise in energy prices in recent years is the false expectation that policies to lower imports will automatically lead to a decline in prices. The public’s continuing expectation of the availability of cheap energy alternatives will almost surely be disappointed. While oil prices may retreat from their current high levels, one should not expect the price of oil to return, on a sustained basis, to the low levels seen in the late 1990s. In fact, if more costly domestic supply is used to substitute for imported oil, then prices will not moderate.

Yet the public’s elected representatives have allowed this myth to survive, as they advocate policies that futilely attempt to reduce import dependence quickly while simultaneously lowering prices. Leaders of both political parties, especially when seeking public office, seem unable to resist announcing unrealistic goals that are transparent efforts to gain popularity rather than inform the public of the challenges the United States must overcome. Moreover, the political system of the United States has so far proved unable to sustain the policies that would be needed to manage dependence on imported fuels.

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Response to the Climate Change and Peak Oil Challenges:

We can and should develop technologies that help us reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, thus reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. However, many of these technologies are in the experimental stages. Many have not been fully developed to be market-ready and deployable. We do not yet know what kinds of unforeseen problems and consequences might arise from implementation.

Even if we put all available alternative technologies into place, it will result in an uneven, widely-dispersed, localized distribution pattern of energy production. Even the most advanced technologies will not add up to the fully integrated, unified system that currently exists for oil and natural gas, although it may become a more integrated system in the distant future.

Instead, we must reduce our total demand for energy by “powering down”, by reducing the total amount of activity that requires this steady stream of energy. So-called “Renewables” will probably only produce 20% of the energy currently produced by our oil and natural gas supplies. The key will be reducing our demand to equalize our energy demand with this 20% supply.

The Transportation Problem.

The Hirsch report correctly identifies the looming crisis, not as a generic “energy crisis,” but as a liquid fuels crisis. It is a fuel crisis that will affect the transportation sector first and foremost.

When faced with an energy crisis, people console themselves by saying, “well, we have solar power.” They are confusing stationary power generation (i.e. electricity) with mobile power generation, e.g. gas, diesel, and jet fuel. Solar power doesn’t run your car, truck, or jet engine. We currently have no viable replacement for the gas and diesel engine, and our entire economy is constructed around this form of transportation.

The transportation sector is where we are going to feel the most pain. To avert this crisis and adapt requires a massive investment in public transportation. Interstates like Routes 90 and 91 should be turned into electrified railways. There should be bus and van systems in every suburban town and rural village in the state, not just in the major cities.

In terms of carbon emissions, the City of Portland was able to reduce their greenhouse gasses to pre-1990 levels, through a massive investment in public transportation. In the US, 23% of our C02 emissions come from the motor vehicle sector, compared with 6% worldwide, almost 4 times the global rate (Mass v. EPA, 2006). That suggests that the sheer volume of motor traffic is responsible for our excessive C02 output from motor vehicle sources.

In the US, transportation represents two-thirds of our oil consumption. Of that usage, the majority, just under two-thirds, is used by light vehicles (cars, trucks) on highways. We are overspending our diminishing sources of liquid fuels on private vehicle transportation. We need to reduce the total volume of motor vehicle transport, as well as employ high mpg, low emissions engine technology.

President George Bush, in his 2007 State of the Union Address, said it best: he called for a 20% reduction in gasoline use in order to cut oil imports from OPEC nations by 70%.

Mass transit, though not a perfect solution, is the only cost-effective, viable solution to the shortage of liquid fuels. If 60 people take the bus, that’s 60 people who are not burning copious amounts of gas/diesel/electricity, and 60 people who are not pouring thousands of pounds of C02 into the atmosphere. Public transportation, e.g. bus and train, is the only practical way to reduce total private vehicle transport, and it’s cheap enough for everyone to afford.

Agriculture and the Food Production Problem.

The Hirsch report correctly identifies that the impending energy crisis is a liquid fuels shortage. Agriculture—food production and distribution—as an industry is one of the largest consumers of liquid fuels. Richard Heinberg, a Peak Oil expert and leader in the effort to shift toward a low-carbon economy, has identified agriculture as an industry deeply threatened by the shortage of liquid fuels. In his recent address to the E. F. Schumacher Society (October 2006), Heinberg explains why agriculture will be so severely impacted, and what we can do to change our form of food production to survive in the low-fossil fuel future. Selections from his address follow.

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Modern industrial agriculture has been described as a method of using soil to turn petroleum and gas into food. We use natural gas to make fertilizer and oil in order to fuel farm machinery as well as to power irrigation pumps, as a feedstock for pesticides and herbicides, in the maintenance of animal operations, in crop storage and drying, and for transportation of farm inputs and outputs. Agriculture accounts for about 17 percent of the U.S. annual energy budget, which makes it the single largest consumer of petroleum products as compared to other industries. The U.S. military, in all of its operations, uses only about half that amount. Approximately 1,500 liters (350 gallons) of oil equivalents are required to feed each person in the United States each year, and every calorie of food produced requires on average ten calories of fossil-fuel inputs. This is a food system profoundly vulnerable, at every level, to fuel shortages and skyrocketing prices. Both are inevitable.
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An attempt to make up for fuel shortfalls by producing more biofuels—ethanol, butanol, and biodiesel—will put even more pressure on the food system and will likely result in a competition between food and fuel uses for land and other resources needed in agricultural production. Already 17 percent of the U.S. corn crop is devoted to making ethanol, and that proportion is expected to rise to one-quarter, based solely on existing projects in development and on government mandates.
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The second factor potentially leading to famine is a shortage of farmers. Much of the success of industrial agriculture lies in its labor efficiency: far less human work is required to produce a given amount of food today than was the case decades ago (the actual fraction, comparing the year 2000 with 1900, is about one-seventh). But that very success implies a growing vulnerability.

Today so few people farm that vital knowledge of how to farm is disappearing. The average age of farmers in the United States is over fifty-five and approaching sixty. The proportion of principal farm operators younger than thirty-five has dropped from 15.9 percent in 1982 to 5.8 percent in 2002. Of all the dismal statistics I know, these are surely among the most frightening. Who will be growing our food twenty years from now? With less oil and gas available, we will need far more knowledge and muscle power devoted to food production and, thus, far more people on the farm, than we have currently.

The third worrisome trend is an increasing scarcity of fresh water. Sixty percent of water used nationally goes toward agriculture. California’s Central Valley produces the substantial bulk of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables yet receives virtually no rainfall during summer months and relies overwhelmingly on irrigation. But the snowpack on the Sierra, which provides much of that irrigation water, is declining, thanks again to global warming, and the aquifer that supplies much of the rest is being drawn down at many times its recharge rate. If these trends continue, the Central Valley may be incapable of producing food in any substantial quantities within two or three decades. Other parts of the country are similarly overspending their water budgets, and very little is being done to deal with this impending catastrophe.

Fourth and finally, there is the problem of global climate change. Often the phrase used for this is “global warming,” which implies only the fact that the world’s average temperature will be increasing by a couple of degrees or more over the next few decades. The much greater problem for farmers is destabilization of weather patterns. We face not just a warmer climate but climate chaos: droughts, floods, and stronger storms in general (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, hail storms)—that is, unpredictable weather of all kinds. Farmers depend on relatively consistent seasonal patterns of rain and sun, cold and heat; a climate shift can spell the end of farmers’ ability to grow a crop in a given region, and even a single freak storm can destroy an entire year’s production. Given the fact that modern agriculture in this country has become highly centralized due to cheap transport and economies of scale (as we found out in the recent tainted spinach scare, almost the entire national spinach crop comes from a single valley in California), the damage from that freak storm is today potentially continental or even global in scale. We have embarked on a century in which, increasingly, freakish weather is normal.

I believe we must and can de-industrialize agriculture. The general outline of what I mean by de-industrialization is simple enough: this would imply a radical reduction of fossil-fuel inputs to agriculture accompanied by an increase in labor inputs and a reduction of transport, with production being devoted primarily to local consumption. Once again, fossil-fuel depletion almost ensures that this will happen, but at the same time it is fairly obvious that if we don’t plan for de-industrialization, the result could be catastrophic. It’s worth taking a moment to think about how events might unfold if the process is driven simply by oil and gas depletion—without intelligent management.

The Key: More Farmers!

One way or another, re-ruralization will be the dominant social trend of the twenty-first century. Thirty or forty years from now—again, one way or another—we will see a more historically normal ratio of rural to urban population, with the majority once again living in small farming communities. More food will be produced in cities than is the case today, but cities will be smaller. Millions more people than today will live in the countryside growing food although they won’t be doing so the way farmers do it today and perhaps not the way farmers did it in 1900.

In the United States in 1900 nearly 40 percent of the population farmed whereas the current proportion is close to 1 percent. Do the math for yourself: Extrapolated to our country’s future requirements, this implies the need for a minimum of forty million and up to fifty million additional farmers as oil and gas availability declines. How soon will the need arise? Assuming that the peak of global oil production occurs within the next five years and that natural gas is already in decline in the United States, we are looking at a transition that must occur over the next twenty to thirty years, and it must begin approximately now.
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In summary, Heinberg argues that the key to maintaining adequate food production in a low-fossil fuel future requires 1) more people to produce food in a sustainable way that uses little or no oil or natural gas-based fertilizers or pesticides, and 2) growing food closer to home in order to drastically reduce the distance that food is transported. The ideal model would be to grow as much food as possible in local community gardens and farms which is then consumed by the people who grow it, while excess food production is shared and traded with nearby communities,

STRATEGIES FOR SUVIVAL IN A LOW-FOSSIL FUEL FUTURE

When evaluating strategies for surviving in a low-fossil fuel future, we have to consider 1) those strategies which are under our direct control and immediately deployable, and 2) the available sources of fuel in the near and distant future. The following comparison, provided by Pat Murphy of The Community Solution, evaluates three possible scenarios: A) continued dependence on fossil fuels and the systems they fuel; B) supplying older fossil-fuel dependent systems with energy from renewable sources; or C) developing community-based low-energy systems supported by renewable energy sources.
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PLAN A, PLAN B, AND PLAN C
Pat Murphy, E.D. The Community Solution

Plan A: Old Energy from Old and New Sources.

Plan “A” is the most widely discussed option concerning energy depletion and climate change. It might be called the “business as usual” plan. It represents the growth-oriented paradigm including the obsession with scientific technology that has driven Western society for 60 years and much of the rest of the world for a lesser period. Individual self-interest is its underlying philosophy and its basic thesis is the doctrine of “substitution,” which means that we can never run out of a resource because the free market will always find an alternative; i.e. technology will always find a solution to every problem. This theory treats the natural world as a “sink,” the term used to describe the process of dumping the refuse, toxins and waste of manufactured goods and services into the air and water, as well as in and on the land.

Extreme Plan A proponents argue for burning anything that will burn to generate energy, regardless of the consequences. Included among the proponents of this plan are the leaders of most major manufacturing corporations, fossil fuel companies, utility companies and the president of the United States.

The fuel sources for Plan A technology are largely non-renewable, mostly oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. Future nonrenewable fuels are lower quality versions of oil, such as tar sands and oil shale in the U.S. and Canada, and the heavy oils of the Athabasca region of Venezuela. A sizable majority of the population of the U.S. has put its trust in Plan A and a continuing flow of oil from the Middle East, domestic natural gas and tar sands from Canada.

According to a Canadian investment bank, Canadian Tar Sands oil is expected to reach its peak in the next 15 years. Nuclear energy is a possibility, but uranium prices jumped 800% in 2006 because there is reported to be only 35 years of uranium left on the planet. Coal-fired power plants emit the greatest volume of carbon greenhouse gasses today.

Plan B - Clean/Green Technology

Plan B proponents can be described as advocates of “clean or green” technology. Plan B advocates are more or less happy with the status quo, particularly their lifestyle, and hope to simply replace nonrenewable energy products with renewable ones.

New energy alternatives will save us; per capita use of fossil fuels continues upward along with population and CO2 emissions. Representatives of this group include former vice president Al Gore and most environmentalists and organizations that support wilderness, as well as solar, wind and biofuel corporations. Ethanol and wind turbines are popular with Plan B people. The environmental movement is the largest identifiable population that supports some version of Plan B.

Plan B proponents also feel that efficiency is a key component of their strategy. They typically do not accept Jevons’ Paradox, which says that consumption increases as a function of efficiency.

The overriding majority of Americans, well over 90 percent, believe in either Plan A or Plan B. They share basic consumer values and their preferred energy projects sometimes overlap. Al Gore’s movie, The Inconvenient Truth, advocates for carbon sequestration, popular with utilities and oil companies. This technology will supposedly keep the increased burning of coal from speeding up global warming by burying (sequestering) the deadly CO2 emissions in the ground, the ocean, etc.

Biofuels are a component of Plan B and are supported by large agribusiness companies such as Arthur Daniel Midlands and Cargill, the large suppliers of ethanol and bio-diesel, using natural gas-based fertilizers and other fossil fuels to grow corn and soybeans. Plan A and B types do not see that any particular action to be taken by consumers. For them, it is the responsibility of government and corporations to make the necessary changes.

Plan C - Curtailment in Community

Plan C differs from Plans A and B by assuming that the relatively recent availability (a blip in geological time) of fossil fuel energy has caused a temporary detour in the evolution of humankind. Under Plan C, the first priority for society as a whole is to drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuel energy and products derived from it. We must “curtail.” That means buying less, using less, wanting less and wasting less. Curtail means to “cut back” or possibly to “downsize.” Conservation often implies a relatively small reduction in consumption, possibly recycling or buying compact fluorescents or maybe buying a hybrid car.

Plan C also implies massive and permanent societal changes. A major restructuring of our society will need to take place. It requires reducing our consumption of fuels, minerals and plants as well as wasteful use of water. Plan C: Curtailment and Community means consume less, grown your own food, live well; a sustainable, sociable existence.

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Plan A: Old Energy from Old and New Sources. Plan A requires that past and current sources of fossil fuels continue to be mined to exhaustion, without a plan for reorganizing social production before total depletion is achieved.

Plan B: Renewable energy for older fossil-fuel systems. “Renewable” energy sources will, at best, only replace 20% of our current energy supply from oil and natural gas. Moreover, renewable energy sources will not adequately supply older systems that were designed to run on millions of barrels of liquid fuels.

Therefore, we must consider and implement
Plan C: Conserving in Community as our best strategy at the local level in Easthampton.

Why Plan C is best for Easthampton.

1. We would not have to depend on far-flung sources of oil, coal, natural gas or biofuels, nor would we have to depend on new technologies that are only in the development stage and not ready for deployment. We can begin to provide for our own needs locally and independent of the successes or failures of distant energy enterprises.

2. We are a small town with compact, mixed development and diverse resources. With its traditional mixed-use design, which potentially reduces dependency on automobiles, a small town like Easthampton is best-suited to survive the transition into a post-fossil fuel world.

3. We have over two hundred acres of land that is preserved for agriculture that we can immediately put into use to produce the food we need, including the Town Farm.

4. We have our own supply of clean water in the Barnes Aquifer.

5. We have localized sources of clean energy—particularly small hydroelectric power, wind power, solar power, and geothermal power.

6. We have compact housing development, mixed with small scale commercial and retail stores, that makes the use of public transportation feasible and more convenient.

7. We have already developed a bike trail, and more bicycle and pedestrian facilities could be developed.

8. We have a limited bus system that could be expanded and further integrated into the regional mass transit system. We have historically had electrified streetcar systems in town, dating back to the early 1900s, and could revive the use of electric streetcars in the future.

9. We have small-scale manufacturing in several industries, a vital industrial base that could be expanded.

10. We have a strong community tradition, and a culture of working together to solve problems

C. Response: Relocalization as a Strategy for Survival

What is Relocalization? Relocalization is the generation of all social production—cultural and economic—within the local community, and within the limits of its regional ecosystems. It involves the production of energy, goods and services by and for the community that will use them, producing them with nearby materials and resources, and producing them with systems that are owned by the community. Relocalization focuses on problem solving and resource sharing within the community, building both self-reliance and community bonds.

As a strategy for Easthampton, Relocalization would supply the majority of our material and cultural needs from production within our community or in partnership with our regional neighbors in the Pioneer Valley.

1. Electricity Generation and Conservation.
—Design Imperative: Renewable Sources w/o Greenhouse Gasses
—Design Imperative: Localized Ownership, Distribution and Conservaton
? Hydroelectric
? There are three sites for development of micro-hydro power: the Nashawannuck Pond spillway; the Lower Mill Pond spillway; and the Manhan River dam. The Manhan River is potentially the most abundant source of hydro-electric power.
? Solar
? The City plans to obtain funds for photovoltaic solar power to be installed on the City Hall building; expansion of this plan could include flat roofs on school buildings. Older brick industrial buildings in the Pleasant Street and Ferry Street area that have been reused for residential and small commercial uses could be equipped with photovoltaic and solar hot water units; newer commercial buildings on O’Neil Street, and commercial retail buildings on Rt. 10 could also make use of solar power.
? Wind
? Wind turbines have been tested on Mt. Tom since the early 1980s. Failure of these turbines has been attributed to high winds that wear out the gears of wind turbines too quickly. The high winds on Mt. Tom would require large, high-capacity turbines that do not use gears. Smaller wind turbines could be located throughout the city on residential and commercial properties.
? Methane Gas Recovery/Recycling:
? The town landfill that is capped could be tapped for methane gas recovery, as proposed by the PVPC’s renewable energy plan.
? Geothermal
? No geothermal sources have been identified within Easthampton to date.
? Biomass: wood, pellets
? Wood burning should be limited to private, individual use by homeowners in small stoves and furnaces in order to limit the production of CO2 from burning. Pellets made from agricultural waste and wood waste have potentially a lower net CO2 output; local suppliers, such as VEE-GO have begun marketing these waste pellets for home and commercial use.
? Biofuels: ethanol, biodiesel and “grease”
? Easthampton has a growing biofuels industry. Grease Car produces kits that adapt diesel engine cars and trucks to burn reconditioned waste vegetable oil. Local entrepreneurs have begun marketing biofuels developed from corn and soybeans that increase the burnable output of these fuels while returning agricultural waste to the soil as fertilizers, thus potentially reducing net CO2 output.
? Contract Conservation
? Conservation Companies would contract with the City to identify every possible method of energy conservation, to calculate the amount of energy and fiscal savings, and to calculate the payback period for each improvement that leads to conservation. The company is paid a percentage of the savings over a period of years stated in the contract; thus, the City incurs no upfront costs from the Conservation Company.
? City-owned Power Company
? A Municipal Power Company would control the procurement, production and distribution of power from local micro-hydro, solar and wind sources. A Municipal Power company could make 100% use of the energy generated and capture all the revenue generated, rather than being forced to sell power at an unfair discount to private power companies.

2. Transportation
—Design Imperative: Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
All housing and commercial-industrial development should be concentrated in areas that have greatest access to public transportation, pedestrian and bike facilities.
? Electrified Streetcars & Rail
? Historically, Easthampton was one of several towns in the Pioneer Valley that had electric streetcars; overhead electric streetcars could be reintroduced by the PVTA as a way to electrify the public transportation system. This local electric streetcar system could be connected to a regional rail system that connects the Pioneer Valley from New Haven to Brattleboro. The system could also be tied into an east-west rail system that would run parallel with Rt. 90, from Albany to Boston.
? Improved Conventional Bus Systems
? The current PVTA bus system could be expanded to included longer hours of service and more frequent connections to hub cities such as Northampton and Holyoke.
? Bus shelters should be installed to shelter riders and encourage ridership.
? Bike Facilities
? The Mahan Rail Trail should be completed to include a commuter connection to the downtown Northampton and the Norwottuck Trails, to the Canal Walk trail in Holyoke, and to proposed bike trail in Southampton, which will eventually complete a bike trail extending to New Haven, CT.
? Bike lanes should be installed on all major routes in the center of town, including Main Street, Park Stret and Rt. 10, the Rt. 141 corridor; the New City corridor (Pleasant, Parsons and Ferry Streets), and East Street.
? Pedestrian Design
? Sidewalks should be built and maintained in every neighborhood; curb cuts should be made to accommodate disabled pedestrians; walk signals should be installed at all major intersections along the Rt. 10, Rt. 141 and New City corridors (Pleasant and Ferry Streets).
? Efficient, Low Emission Public/Commercial Motor Fleets
? Police Units in dozens of major cities around the US are already using hybrid-electric vehicles to save gasoline and fleet fuel costs. Public works fleets should include diesel trucks that burn bio-diesel, or dual-fuel vehicles that burn ethanol mixtures.
? An Easthampton city ordinance already requires that City departments purchase the most fuel-efficient, low emissions vehicles available.

3. Food Production
—Design Imperative: Proximity and Scale
It is absolutely imperative that we begin to produce as much food locally as possible, in every available parcel that has an agricultural restriction, in private gardens and farms, in cooperative farms and community gardens.
—Design Imperative: Critical Calories and Nutrients
Agricultural production should prioritize a wide variety of vegetables, grains, and fruits for critical calories and nutrients for people first, farm animals secondarily. In no case should local agricultural land be used to produce fuel crops that would supplant food production.
? Open Space for Community-Scale Farming
? Hundreds of acres have already been placed under agricultural restriction and more acreage should be placed under restriction as it becomes available. However, most of this land is leased to private farmers who do not produce food for local consumption. The City should prioritize agricultural land for those growers who would produce food for local consumption.
? Water Supply
? Increased local food production will greatly increase demand for water from the Barnes Aquifer. Therefore, residential and commercial development should be limited so as to maximize the supply of water for local food production.
? Fertilizers and Pesticides
? City ordinances should prohibit the use of fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides.
? Harvesting, Storing, Processing, Marketing
? Locally produced food could be stored and processed in locally-owned food processing plants. A small business development plan should encourage the local processing and storage of food which is then sold in local markets.
? Farmers Markets: Food produced locally can be traded and sold in local farmers markets and to local restaurants.

4. Manufacturing: Meet LOIS (Locally Owned Import Substitution)
—Design Imperative: Import Substitution, Critical Products
—Design Imperative: Small Scale, Local Distribution
? Craftspeople are “small scale manufacturers.”
? Easthampton has a wealth of local craftspeople who produce useful and beautiful objects in wood, iron, metals, fabric, textiles, glass, ceramic, paper, and other materials; there are craftspeople who are “refabricators”, who recycle discarded objects and materials into new products. All of them produce objects of great utility, such as household goods, furniture and garments, that are local sources for goods that are otherwise manufactured thousands of miles away.
? The City should prioritize economic development to support and increase the number and variety of crafts being produced in the city and sold in local markets.

5. Housing and Commercial/ Public Buildings
—Design Imperative: Green Building Codes
—Design Imperative: Affordability and Conservation
? Affordable Housing: smaller and more energy efficient homes
? Building codes should encourage the building of smaller homes and multi-family homes. A Canadian architectural study found that the two-story townhouse was the most fuel-efficient dwelling design.
? Housing Linked to Jobs through Public Transportation.
? Water Supply: The City should limit development so that we do not outstrip our water supply.
? Landscaping/Garden Space
? Building codes should encourage compact development that sets aside land for gardening.
? Tree plantings should be encouraged by the building code around every new building and development, to help cool houses and business in the summer, to help insulate them in the winter, and to increase CO2 recycling.

6. Recycling
? City ordinances should encourage recycling at least 80% of our waste for reuse as new products, energy or compost for growing food.
? The City’s waste transfer station should have facilities and services that accommodate 80% recycling.

7. Habitats for Survival: Reforestation and Species Protection
—Design Imperative: Less Tar, More Trees & Flowers
? Trees are Natural Recyclers of CO2, Coolers and Insulators.
? The City should undertake a tree-planting campaign to evaluate how many more trees could be planted and where, and to obtain funding for the planting and maintenance of trees.
? Pollinators: Birds, Bees and Butterflies
? Recent studies have found that the number and variety of pollinators, including bees and butterflies, has decreased, possibly due to climate change, to the extent that the pollination of trees and vegetation is threatened. The City should provide information to residents, gardeners and farmers about plants and flowers that provide a habitat for pollinators, and include such plants and flowers in “beautification” plans for the City.
? Protecting Wetlands, Plant and Animal Diversity
? Overdevelopment and Climate Change threatens the habitats and life cycles of many local species of plants and animals, which are necessary to maintain local eco-systems. Each time a plant or animal species is removed, the viability of the entire eco-system is depleted, including habitats for trees and vegetation that recycle CO2, for food webs and energy recyclers. Every effort should be made to maintain the diversity of plant and animal species and their habitats.

7. Education
—Design Imperative: Learning w/o Wires: Hands on Learning
* Green Schools: The New Elementary School and High School Expansion
? The ‘Big E’ Curriculum: Energy and the Environment
? Our children and grandchildren are going to inherit the full-impact of climate change and oil depletion. It is our moral duty to educate them about life in a climate-stressed, post-carbon world. Without a thorough grounding in the science of these conditions, they may not have the knowledge and tools required to survive in a climate-stressed, post-carbon world.

8. Democracy and Security
* Education: Key to Security in an Age of Crisis
* Community Policing
* Mediation
* Democratic Process: Returning Power to the Locals

D. Conclusions:

Land Use Decisions
1. Food First: Preserve more open land for agricultural use

2. Stop Car-based Development
a. all development must be matched with an equal investment in public transportation
b. no more strip malls unless they also include housing and A
c. no more condos or housing subdivisions unless A
d. set aside space for small-scale manufacturing

For Further Education: An Inconvenient Truth, The Party’s Over, The Long Emergency, Going Local, The Power of Community
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