Karen Lynn Allen's Blog, page 3
January 9, 2017
Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel (Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017, Part 2)
Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017 Part 1: Taking Stock Part 2: Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel Part 3: Wringing Oil from Your Food, Stuff, Heat, and Everything Else
Part 2: Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” ― Jane Goodall
"Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often." -- Mark Twain
In Part I: Taking Stock , we covered how every dollar we spend on oil products supports fracking, tar sands, multinational corporate profits, and the beheadings, stonings, and terrorism financed or perpetrated by Saudi Arabia. We also covered how American life is so saturated with oil, it’s nearly impossible to wring it entirely out of one’s daily existence. To make our oil-use more conscious, Part I had a nifty on-line calculator to estimate personal oil consumption. If you haven’t done it yet, or don’t recall your results, go back and do it now. I’ll wait.



Oil in Your Private Vehicle Travel

This may surprise you, but the first order of business is not to electrify junk miles, but to shed them from your travel diet. After all, whether it causes you to consume oil or not, time spent in a car is not quality time. For most people it makes them stressed, unhappy, and fat. By shedding VMT, you will not only give less money to corporate CEOs and Saudi princes, you’ll make your family healthier, happier and likely wealthier in the process. So let's look at how to do this.


Why is living in a walkable neighborhood so important? Since only a quarter of all trips are commute trips (and only 28% of all VMT is for commutes), being close enough to walk to a grocery store, pharmacy, coffee shop, elementary school, restaurants, dentist, post office, bakery, library, and your family doctor is going to reduce your VMT significantly. If you can’t live within a ten-minute walk (half a mile), living within a ten-minute bike ride (1.8 miles) isn’t bad. As long as you’re not riding near crazed, reckless drivers, bicycling is a great way to add exhilaration and even joy to your life. (Yes, once you become moderately fit, cycling can feel that good.) Check out this site, and it will show you what you can reach in ten minutes by walking or by bicycle.

Note: don’t move to a ten-minute neighborhood and then continue to drive everywhere. You’ll just make your new neighbors miserable with the congestion and danger you create. Let someone who wants a car-lite lifestyle take that spot.

If the answer is you live in the sticks and your location is never going to become walkable or bikeable, then continue on. There are still things you can do.


5.) Choose the “pretty good” service/activity closer to home. If the best dentist or pediatrician in the region is twenty miles away, but a pretty good dentist or pediatrician is just down the block, choose the pretty good one nearby. (Go to a specialist the few times you have specialized problems.) Instead of the best church with the most brilliant minister/best music, attend a local church and visit the brilliant one only occasionally. You’ll build connections with your neighbors better that way anyway. And so on. You get the idea.
6.) Take the train for 30 to 300 mile trips. Trains have very good passenger miles per gallon (pmpg). The northeast corridor trains between Washington DC and Boston, being electric, use no oil at all. I realize trains aren’t options everywhere, but where they exist, make use of them!

8.) Drop education VMT. Where you send your children to school has a major impact on your VMT. The best is a school walkable from your home. Second best is a bikeable school. Third best is a school on public transit. This is true for lower grades as well as high school, but especially high school. The way your teen is most likely to die is in a car with friends. Let that sink in. If your child’s high school has a huge parking lot with lots of cars, the odds of your child getting in one are high.


10.) Drop down one car. US households on average have more vehicles than drivers. This is ridiculous. After you’ve reduced your VMT and car brainwashing, consider saving boatloads of money by having your household drop down one car. This is especially possible if one of the adults has a non-car commute. Owning fewer cars will further encourage you to replace VMT with other transportation options. As a corollary, the more transportation options you have, the easier it is to drop down one car.

Car replacements (consider in combinations):A.) Bike with panniers or trailer for carrying stuffB.) Handcart to walk groceries/stuff homeC.) Sturdy stroller to push young children aroundD.) Walk/bike with your children to school instead of drive themE.) Electric bikes (Check out The Pluses and Minuses of Electric Bikes )F.) Electric adult trikes (many elderly who have trouble walking find electric trikes extremely liberating as well as safer than driving a car)G.) Electric cargo bikes (mine carries 5 bags of groceries)H.) Velomobile or pedal electric vehicle (ELF, PEBL)I.) Electric skateboard or foot scooterJ.) Join a carshare company for when you need a car/second car, van, or truck for a day or even just an hour.K.) Electric scootershareL.) Rideshare/taxis on occasion (bad weather/last mile issues.)M.) Let your teens use rideshare on occasion. (Way cheaper and safer than giving them a car.)N.) Make a deal with a friend/neighbor/family member to use their car in a pinch. Repay with food, favors, etc.O.) Have large items delivered, or rent a van/truck by the hour.P.) Create family calendar to keep track of car-necessary activities.Q.) Convert far away activities into local ones.R.) Teach your children how to ride public transit.S.) Persuade your boss to let you work from home one or two days a week.T.) Combine/plan errands. Meal plan. Grow vegetables/fruit at home if possible so you can eat from the garden in the summer. U.) Other ideas? Leave them in the comments below.

11. Make your own biodiesel. As a commenter in Part I said, this is a good choice for some people. Instructions here. Corn-based ethanol, however, is a scam politicians inflicted on us to buy votes from Midwest farmers. Don’t pretend adding it to your gasoline is any kind of solution.

13. Get an electric car. Yes, this is last. There is a lot of embedded oil in an electric car, as we’ll talk about under stuff. And merely electrifying your VMT won’t improve your health, it won’t increase your joy, it won’t improve your neighborhood, it won’t save you oodles of money. An electric car will still cause traffic and congestion, and it’ll still prevent others from enjoying a car-lite lifestyle because it hogs public space, it’s fundamentally a death machine to bicyclists and pedestrians, and its need for parking pushes destinations further apart. But it’s better than buying oil, and for all but the most coal-intensive states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming) it’ll produce fewer greenhouse gases than driving a vehicle with a grossly inefficient internal combustion engine. (All internal combustion engines are grossly wasteful and inefficient, every single one.)
Oil in Your Other TravelLong distance travel is my downfall. My husband and I have squeezed our other categories down pretty well, but my kids now live across the country, and I love to travel. What to do? Here are some options.
1.) Learn to love long distance trains. Yes, they’re more expensive than flying. Yes, they take more time. Yes, Amtrak has its problems. The good news is long distance trains can give you lots of undistracted time to work (great for writing), the scenery is often spectacular, and you’ll gain an appreciation of America that is hard to describe and hard to get any other way. View long distance trains as an adventure, embrace their quirks, and if you’re going overnight, do yourself a favor and get a sleeper. 2.) Take medium distance trains instead of short hop flights, especially the Northeast Regional electric trains between Boston and Washington DC. Seriously, this is easy. Just do it. Other good regional lines, often with evocative names, mostly financed by the states they pass through: The Capitol Corridor (San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento), the Pacific Surfliner (San Diego, LA, San Luis Obispo), the Amtrak Cascades (Vancouver BC, Seattle, Portland, Eugene), the San Joaquin (Oakland, Sacramento, Bakersfield), the Missouri River Runner (Kansas City, St. Louis), the Heartland Flyer (Oklahoma City, Fort Worth), the Keystone (New York, Philadelphia, Harrisburg), the Empire Service (Buffalo, Albany, NYC), the Ethan Allen Express (Rutland, Albany, NYC), the Vermonter (Essex Junction/Burlington, Springfield, NYC), the Downeaster (Boston, Portland, Brunswick) and the lines connecting Chicago with Milwaukee, St. Louis, Carbondale, Quincy, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Indianapolis, and Detroit. 3.)Fly on airlines that use biofuel. Granted, this is a short list at the moment, encompassing just United Airlines between SF and LA, and only 30% biofuel at that. There are rumors that Southwest Airlines will start using biofuel as well. These biofuels aren’t the scam ethanol is and will likely be more expensive than oil-based jet fuel. Let airlines know you will actively seek out flights powered by biofuel.

Now I know you’re not going to shed your junk miles, move to a ten-minute neighborhood or replace all your flights with trains tomorrow. It may, in fact, take you years to squeeze the oil out of your travel. I suggest for 2017 that you adopt the task as a kind of hobby, (after all, we don’t mind spending time and money on our hobbies) and get creative, flexible and even adventurous about the options available. You may be surprised by the life benefits that cheap oil has been hiding from you.
Stay tuned for Part 3, Wringing Oil from Your Food, Stuff, Heat and Everything Else !
Note: if you’re under 70 and can’t comfortably walk at least a mile without getting tired, you have a health emergency that you should treat with the same urgency as you would an asthma attack or a foot with gangrene. Assuming your doctor hasn't forbidden you all physical activity, here’s your sixty-day program to walk with ease. Walk for five minutes today and five minutes tomorrow, no matter how slowly. Get outside if at all possible. Steps to and from your car or around the house don’t count! Increase to ten minutes for days three through seven. Walk fifteen minutes days eight through fourteen, and then twenty minutes every day for the following two weeks. Month two, move on to thirty minutes a day without fail. By the end of that month, your health will be so much better, you’ll be amazed. Start today. I’m serious.
Published on January 09, 2017 18:33
December 14, 2016
Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017: Part I, Taking Stock

The United States is the oiliest country on the planet. We Americans consume more oil by far than any other country. Next is China, but even with 1.4 billion people they’re a distant second. Americans, in fact, consume 20% of the world’s oil each year, over 19 million barrels a day. Last year US oil consumption worked out to 923 gallons per man, woman and child. Oil is a worldwide commodity. Because its consumption is so enormous, US demand drives both the price of oil and the profits it produces. And for all the talk of the US being energy independent, the US also imports the most oil of any country in the world. (China, again, is a distant second.) Americans are literally and figuratively in the driver’s seat of world oil consumption. (Canadians actually use more oil per person, but because their population is so much smaller, they have much less of an impact.)
Now if funneling profits and power to multinational oil corporations and Saudi Arabia doesn’t bother you, read no further. If you’re fine with indirectly funding terrorism, or if having a future Secretary of State who is the head of ExxonMobil doesn’t freak you out a bit, this article is not for you.
But if you stand with Standing Rock, read on. If the stonings and beheadings in Saudi Arabia trouble you, if you’re not fond of crude oil spills every other day in the US, if you’re not a fan of tar sands and fracking, or if you understand that the only way to prevent climate catastrophe is to leave much of what’s left of fossil fuels in the ground for at least the next couple centuries, then you might find this two-part article useful.

Most of our consumption of oil is so deeply embedded in our way of life that we're unconscious of it or believe there's no alternative. The antidote is to first make that consumption conscious and then get creative with alternatives, tailoring them to our specific situations. Here’s the good news: most of the steps you can take to purge oil from your life will make you healthier, happier, and your household more resilient! If you have kids, many of the steps will make them healthier, happier and perform better in school! Many of the steps will also make your community healthier, more prosperous, and more resilient. And if your prosperity is linked to your community’s prosperity, it will make you more prosperous as well.So let's bring the unconscious to the light of day. Just how oily is your life?

How we move ourselves around this planet matters. A lot. And our driving is the big kahuna. Two-thirds of American oil consumption is from transportation; close to two-thirds of that we do in cars. We can freak out about freight and air travel, but it's the daily moving about in private cars powered by internal combustion engines that is the single biggest oil slurper in our lives. To examine your oil consumption, including how oily your travel is, I've created this nifty calculator to help put a number to it. You fill in the orange boxes (replacing values if applicable), and the green boxes will calculate your oil gallons consumed. In some of the orange boxes I've put average American values. You can decide how appropriate they are for you. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the frame to see your total. Remember, we're not looking at all energy consumed, nor are we looking at our carbon footprint. Our laser-like focus here is concentrated solely on oil and its products.
A few words about oily home heat. Only 8% of US households use heating oil. If yours is one of them, you probably have records of how much you use, but, for example, the average Massachusetts heating oil home uses 987 gallons per year. Only 5% of homes use propane, and only 31% of all propane comes from oil refineries. (The rest is from natural gas.) Put in total propane you use and the calculator will take 31% of it. An average Massachusetts propane-heat house uses 886 gallons a year.

Plastic bags. The average American throws away 10 a week. That's another 2.2 gallons of oil per year. If you throw away more or less, adjust accordingly.


I'm getting tired, and no doubt you are too, of slogging through all this oil, but we'll go just a bit further. Your on-line shopping deliveries. Now the United States Postal Service comes to your house and puts junkmail in your box whether you get anything else or not, so your share of USPS oil (average 500 stops a day, 18 miles, 9 mpg) is a flat 1.25 gallons per year if you live in suburbia regardless of how many packages you get. If you live ex-urban, double that. If you live urban, cut it in half.


As you can see, oil seeps through the fabric of our existence even if we never actually see it, its viscous liquor oozing through our daily lives whether we like it or not. So what do we do with all this oil? How do we squeeze the oiliness out of our lives?
Stay tuned for part two!
Note: Gallons. I know, I know, when discussing anything to do with energy, joules or even BTU's would be better, but most people have little intrinsic understanding of either, while nearly everyone knows what a gallon is. Plus the lion's share of transportation data uses gallons. So I went with it.
Published on December 14, 2016 22:57
October 31, 2016
The Population Problem: Not as Bad as You Might Think

Ok, let’s back up. The rapid expansion of human population past the finite limits of what our planet can support is a messy business if there ever was one, full of politics, religion, and basic human needs and desires. People worried about the fate of the planet like to despair about population growth to the point of paralysis. Why lift a finger to avert the climate and energy-depletion disaster ahead of us when overpopulation will do us in however much we insulate our homes, change out our light bulbs, ride our bikes, etc.
But the situation is not nearly so hopeless. Of the 224 countries in the world, the population growth rate is negative in 34 of them, including Cuba, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, and the Ukraine. These countries are not small potatoes. Russia and Japan are the ninth and tenth biggest countries in the world. (Note: population figures and most other data in this blogpost are from the CIA World Factbook, much of it recently updated for 2016.)
Let’s examine the essential drivers of world population growth: births per woman, mother’s mean age at first birth, and mean life expectancy.
Births per woman. Here’s the good news. This number has been dropping worldwide, falling from 5 in 1960 to 2.42 in 2016. In developed countries, the replacement fertility rate is generally considered to be 2.1 births per woman. (This accounts for those children who, through disease or accidents, do not reach reproductive age.) In very poor countries, the replacement fertility rate can be much higher. More good news: in a study of 40 countries, fertility rates between 1.5 and 2.0 are shown to generally bring economic benefits that lead to a higher standard of living.

I find the 80/20 rule useful in dividing big problems into smaller ones. In this case, 80% of the world’s population resides in the 34 most populous countries. Of these 34, eighteen countries already have fertility rates below the replacement rate of 2.1 (Brazil, China, Columbia, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam.) No need to worry about these countries.

That leaves ten countries to worry about. Of these, six have cut their fertility rate by at least half over the past 50 years: Algeria (2.74), Kenya (3.14) India (2.45), Pakistan (2.68), Egypt (3.53) and the Philippines (3.06). These countries could still use encouragement and financial support but they are not where the biggest part of the problem lies.
That leaves just four countries that need heavy-duty work on the fertility rate front: Tanzania (4.83 births per woman), Nigeria (5.13), Ethiopia (5.07), Congo DR (4.53). It’s not that these countries have made no improvements; they used to range from 6 to 7 births per woman. It’s just that they still have a long way to go. But worrying about four countries is much, much easier than worrying about 224. These four nations comprise 422 million people. Even within these countries there are bright spots. For example, in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia, the fertility rate is already below population replacement levels.

Again, so we’re clear:
Education + Contraception + Women’s Innate Preference for Small Families = Low Fertility Rate.
What about men, you might ask? Don’t they matter to population growth rates? If men stopped having sex with women altogether, they might, but this appears to be against the innate preference of most of them. When men use birth control or are sterilized they matter to population control, but male sterilization is a hard sell worldwide, and male condoms, while cheap and better than nothing, have a high failure rate. Where men really count is insofar as they prevent women from getting educated or keep them from access to reliable forms birth control. This is not to say boys and men shouldn’t be educated. This is not to say it wouldn’t be helpful if men wanted small families, too. This is not to say it wouldn’t be great if we could come up with some kind of long-acting reversible form of birth control for men. But right now, it’s women and girls who impact fertility rates and population growth in a big way.
Now you might think this can’t be, that low fertility rates are an outcome of wealth not education. Women in poor countries have lots of children; women in rich countries don’t. But this ain’t necessarily so, as we can see when we plot the data from our 34 most populous countries:

High GDP/capita countries have low fertility rates, but so do lots of low GDP/capita countries. What is predictive of fertility is women’s education, especially literacy.

Educate girls and young women, births per woman go down.

Mean Age at First Birth. Why is this important? Imagine a cohort of ten women. If each them has a daughter at age 20 and a son at age 22, and if all their daughters do exactly the same, at the end of 102 years, 120 new human beings would result, with the last set of sons born in year 102. Now let’s imagine this same cohort, but change the women’s age at their children’s births to 25 and 27. At the end of 102 years, 100 new human beings would result, with the last set of sons born in year 102. A twenty percent difference! So you can see, spacing out the generations results in a substantial reduction in population growth.
For our 34 highest population countries, the mean age at first birth ranges from 18 to 30.3. What promotes a higher mean age at first birth? Well the number of years girls spend in school seems to correlate.

If we want to raise mean age at first birth, it’s also a good idea to reduce the teen birth rate. This usually involves a combination of keeping girls in school and giving teens access to contraception. In developing countries, the average cost to educate a child for a year of lower secondary school with reasonable class size is $339. The average cost to educate a child for a year of upper secondary school with reasonable class size is $738. (It turns out children all over the world learn little when there are fifty kids per teacher.) Thirteen years of education for a child is roughly $5420, which comes out to $417/year. The cost to provide a woman with contraception in a developing country runs roughly $18/year. So let’s say 13 years of education and 15 years of contraception. Total lifetime cost: $5690.

$32.3 billion a year. This may seem like a lot, but it’s really not. It’s just .04% of the world’s annual GDP. No, the decimal point is not wrong. The cost to make significant headway on over population is just 4/100ths of a percent of the world’s annual income. Heck, it’s less than 2/10ths of a percent of US GDP. The US plans to spend $26.2 billion in foreign humanitarian and military aid in 2017, but 29% will go to just five countries: Israel ($3.1 B), Egypt ($1.46 B), Afghanistan ($1.25 B), Jordan ($1 B), and Pakistan ($.74 B). The African four that need the most help will receive only $2 billion in total, less than Israel will receive alone.

Let’s look at it another way. If the 967 million citizens of twenty very rich countries (New Zealand, Norway, Australia, Switzerland, US, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Belgium, France, UK, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain) kicked in just $34 per citizen a year, cataclysmic disaster for all of humanity could be averted. That’s nine lattes at Starbucks.
Education + contraception. It’s not brain surgery; it’s not pie-in-the-sky geo-engineering. It’s cheap, it’s low tech, it works.
Now let’s examine mean life expectancy. This is the factor that has been masking both the drop in fertility rates and the rise in mean age at first birth in countries all over the world. As people live longer they increase the population. For example, imagine an island where one person is magically born each year. If each person lives seventy years, at year 70 this population would reach steady state, where one person would be born for every person that dies. If each lives for 75 years, then the steady state population would be reached at year 75 with 75 people. So as the median lifespan inches up, it causes population growth. But the growth is not geometric like fertility rate growth is, and it won’t continue forever. As countries progress, lifespans increase rapidly, but then they reach a plateau, after which increases happen slowly, if at all. In addition, countries that reach longer lifespans tend to do so concurrently with the education of women and higher mean age at first birth. This means, remarkably, that the countries on the planet with the longest of lifespans also have well below replacement fertility birthrates. Eventually the deaths in that country will exceed births, and population will decline. Which is what we see happening in Japan and Germany today.

You guessed it. Through worldwide education of girls and providing contraception to women. Increasing the mean age of first birth worldwide to age 25 will balance out the rise in lifespans. At the same time, the reduction in fertility rate worldwide, to just under the replacement rate, will give us a 1% per year population decrease. Imagine that for every hundred people who die, ninety-nine come into the world. The incremental difference would be small, but it would add up.
So say we stop being shortsighted and stupidly cheap. Say we manage to stabilize world population at 8 billion. And then, through voluntary birth control and education of girls, we start decreasing population by a mere 1% a year. Nothing traumatic, nothing humanity couldn’t take in its stride. (Yes, we’d need a new non-growth based economic system, but we’re going to need that anyway.) In just twenty years, we’d be down to 6.5 billion. In fifty years we’d be down to 4.8 billion. And in 108 years, we’d achieve 2.7 billion on a healthy planet, with plenty of food, clean water and a high standard of living for all. How we get there is by educating girls and providing contraception to women, something that we already know how to do and that doesn’t cost much.
What can I do, you might say, besides encourage my government to immediately start spending money on education and contraception in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo?
Lots of things.
1) Put some space between generations. Don’t have children before the age of 25. Don’t be in a hurry for grandchildren. Encourage your daughters to stay in school and make sure they have access to the very convenient forms of long-acting reversible birth control available these days. Spread the word that age 25 is plenty early to become a parent. 2) Support sex education and contraception for teens. Yes, no one likes teens having sex except the teens themselves, but preventing teen pregnancy is paramount. Long-acting, reversible contraceptives are also the best way to prevent abortions. 3) Donate money to girls’ education efforts in Africa via organizations such as Camfed, Share in Africa, or Enhance Worldwide. 4) If you don’t want children, don’t have them! Don’t let anybody guilt-trip you into them. If you want just one kid, that’s fine! Only children do very well in life, often better than children with siblings. If you do decide to become a parent, be a very good one. 5) Never shame or guilt-trip anyone into having children. Never imply it’s selfish not to have children; never imply that it’s sad or tragic. Not everyone is called to be a parent, and that’s a good thing. And some people who have children would be far better off if they hadn’t. 6) Don’t boo hoo or forecast doom when a nation has negative population growth. Celebrate! They are doing the world a favor. 7) Don’t focus on immigration. We are all on this planet together. The point is to reduce the number of births wherever they happen. We shouldn’t be building walls, we should be educating girls and providing women with contraception. (If you’re an American worried about Mexico, consider contributing to an organization such as Mariposas Mexico that supports the education and development of young women in rural Mexico.) 8) Ensure your country offers enough support to the elderly so that children aren’t essential to old-age survival. 9) Support dog parks in your town/city. This may seem crazy, but it isn’t. Many people have pets instead of children. This choice should be honored and supported. 10)Advocate for making long-acting, reversible contraception and voluntary sterilization free or nearly free in your country. Support organizations that offer free or nearly free long-acting, reversible contraception and voluntary sterilization. 11)Treat the children in your community like the wonderful, precious beings they are. Help them grow up to be joyous, secure, principled adults who will create and then prosper in the harmonious, equitable future they will inhabit.
Published on October 31, 2016 15:01
September 5, 2016
The Renewable Energy Future Is Here--It's Just Unevenly Distributed

I like to look at renewables as a percent of electricity consumed rather than generated, because if a state generates little of its own power, it may still be responsible for ginormous carbon emissions that it’s simply shoved on to someone else. On the flip side, some states are already meeting a high percentage of their electricity needs via renewables, a fact masked by the large amounts of electricity they generate for export to other states. In addition, locally-produced power means lower transmissions losses, reducing the amount of electricity needed to be generated in the first place.
So, let’s dive in. First we’ll evaluate non-hydro renewable electricity production, including distributed solar, as a percent of total consumption for the first half of 2016. The top states are Iowa (46%), North Dakota (43%) and Maine (40%). Iowa and North Dakota both burnt coal in order to export electricity, although the amount dropped by 32% in Iowa and 13% in North Dakota. The next two states that have really stepped up renewable production as a percent of electric consumption the first half of this year are Kansas (39%) and Oklahoma (34%). Both of these states also burnt coal in order to export electricity, but much less than in 2015—21% percent less for Kansas and 44% percent less for Oklahoma. Overall the US burnt 20% less coal to produce electricity the first half of 2016 over the first half of 2015.

Oregon 19% Vermont 18% Texas 17% Idaho 16% Montana 16% Nebraska 13% Washington 12% Illinois 10%
For the US as a whole, renewables (including distributed solar) made up 10.2% of electricity sales the first half of 2016 compared to 8.4% the first half of 2015.
Though many states have made considerable progress with renewables, some have not. States that have made a particularly poor showing (2% or less of their electricity from renewables) are Ohio, Missouri, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Florida. I will point out that Missouri, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida have solar insolation levels equivalent to one of the sunniest countries on earth, Spain. Ohio and Missouri have decent wind in the western halves of their states, while New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have access to substantial wind offshore.
Due to better rainfall, 2016 has been a good year for hydro. While hydro has its own environmental problems, it provides a nice adjustable baseload that can offset the intermittency of renewables, as well as potential for large-scale energy storage via pumped hydro, although this comes with a 20% efficiency loss. If we add hydro to renewables, we get a bit different picture. Our stellar states then become:

Yes, both Washington and Oregon created more electricity via hydro plus renewables than they consumed the first half of 2016. Unfortunately both states also burnt small amounts of coal so that they could export additional electricity. Montana and North Dakota burnt a substantial amount of coal so that they could export electricity. Any state that wants to reduce its carbon emissions should not import electricity from states that burn coal. I’m looking at you, California, the greatest electricity-importing state in the country. Although, to be fair, each year California is producing more of its own electricity and importing less. The first half of 2016, California imported 9% less electricity than the first half of 2015.
Other states that produced more than a third of their domestic electricity consumption via renewables + hydro the first half of 2016 were:
Iowa 48% Vermont 44% Kansas 39% Oklahoma 39% California 36% New Hampshire 35% Wyoming 34%
Nationally, the US produced 19% of the electricity it consumed via renewables + hydro.
In order avoid catastrophic climate change, our civilization needs to become vastly more energy efficient (see: Efficiency Is Not the Enemy of Resiliency) and replace fossil fuel use with renewable electricity (see: Obey the Law of Exergy (Time to Go All Electric.)) How much renewable + hydro electricity per capita/day will each state need in order to meet all its energy needs, including heating, cooling, industry and transportation? Currently, if we take all primary energy consumption in the US and convert it to kilowatt-hours, it comes to 230 kwh/capita/day. During the first half of 2016, the US as a whole produced 6 kwh/capita/day through renewables + hydro. Even our very best state, Washington, produced only 37 kwh/capita/day via renewables + hydro. Three other states came close: North Dakota (35), Montana (34), Oregon (34). The next four highest were: Wyoming (26), Idaho (23), South Dakota (22) and Iowa (20.) Sadly, twelve states produced 2 or fewer kwh/capita/day via renewables + hydro: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Virginia, and Mississippi. If you live in any of these states, you have serious cause for concern.
Yikes! We’ve got a long ways to go. But it’s not as bad it seems. If we look to Europe, we see that through efficiency many countries enjoy a quality of life arguably better than the US while consuming the energy equivalent of 90 - 120 kwh/capita/day. (see: An Energy Diet for a Healthy Planet .) And some US states are energy intensive largely due to extracting/processing/refining fossil fuels. Without coal mining, oil production, and oil refining, per capita energy use will drop dramatically in energy-gobbling Louisiana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska. Even Texas should see a nice drop.

The amount of electricity a state will ultimately need in order to efficiently and comfortably meet its energy demand will no doubt depend on its climate, population density, and amount of heavy industry. States like California and Hawaii with low heating and cooling loads might get by with 80 kwh/capita/day, as might states with high population densities that are already frugal energy users, like New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Rural states with intense winters like North and South Dakota may need 120 kwh/capita per day. Still, most Midwest and Rocky Mountain states, home to prodigious wind resources, could easily produce all the electricity they need from wind and hydro, plus have ample for export. Out of thirteen states windy states (MT, WY, CO, NM, ND, SD, KS, NE, IA, TX, OK, MN, MO), eleven of them have already made substantial progress in taking advantage of their renewable resources. Two haven’t. (I’m looking at you Nebraska and Missouri.)
The Pacific Northwest—Oregon, Washington and Idaho--with its hydro and nice pockets of wind should be able to reach 100 kwh/capita/day without much trouble. California and Texas have put the most effort into renewables and produce the greatest absolute amount of electricity from renewables by far. But because their large populations, reaching even 80 kwh/capita/day is going to be an effort. At the moment, both only produce 6 kwh/capita/day by renewables + hydro.

It’s the South, along with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Missouri that appear to have the most challenges ahead, mostly because they have poor on-shore wind resources (with the exceptions of western Missouri, western Ohio and pockets of the Appalachians) and, with the exception of North Carolina and New Jersey, haven’t made much of an effort to make use of the really very good solar resources they do have. This inertia will impact their economies hugely over the next decade. Over sixty major corporations have committed to power themselves with 100% renewable energy, including Google, Hewlett-Packard, Adobe, Johnson and Johnson, Mars, Microsoft, Nike, P&G, Salesforce, Steelcase, Unilever and Walmart. None of them expect to lose money from this commitment. As a result, some are already choosing to locate data centers and manufacturing sites in states where such energy is available. Although I favor small and medium-sized businesses over large corporations, it’s foolish for states to believe that continuing to burn fossil fuels for electricity will give them any kind of competitive advantage. Seventeen US cities have already committed to 100% renewable electricity by 2030. However, keeping with the trend, none of them are in the mid-Atlantic or the South, except for Ithaca and East Hampton in New York. States without renewable energy can expect to bleed industries, jobs and even population continuously over the next decade.

As to environmental impact, I’ll mention just a few of the many factors. Thermal power plants consume an enormous amount of water and substantially contribute the water-supply stress of states experiencing drought. When these power plants return warmed water to nearby rivers, lakes and oceans, they harm ecosystems and wildlife through thermal pollution. Coal power plants also produce wicked toxic waste in the forms of coal slurry and coal ash that must be meticulously contained in order to prevent toxic heavy metals from leaching into drinking water, metals that cause cancer, birth defects, reproductive disorders, neurological damage, learning disabilities and kidney disease. Unfortunately, not all coal toxic waste is meticulously contained. Indeed, at least 42 percent of coal waste nationally is kept in unlined ponds or landfills, making leaching likely to occur. And then there’s the long-term impact of dumping CO2 into our atmosphere, and the fact that, due to widespread leaks in natural gas infrastructure, natural gas is almost as bad as coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. One would think at least coastal southern states would be worried enough about nuisance flooding to try to prevent sea-level rise, but so far no dice.
Energy companies that produce fossil fuels and utilities that burn the stuff make profits at everyone else’s expense. This is a lucrative business model--of course they don’t want to change! Of course they will spend vast sums on denial, misinformation, and campaign contributions to protect their income streams. Legally, corporations must maximize the best interest of their shareholders, not society at large. They must follow the law, but if laws (often written by those they help elect) allow them to wreak health and environmental havoc, is it any surprise that they do so?

As might be expected, there is wide variation in renewable adoption not only between states but between countries. According to BP’s 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy, the US got 6% of its total energy (not just electricity) supply from renewables + hydro. This puts the US behind 24 of the 67 countries for which BP provides detailed information, including China (11%), Vietnam (22%), New Zealand (38%), Sweden (44%), the UK (10%), Italy (16%), Germany (14%), France (8%), Denmark (25%), Norway (67%), Austria (31%), Switzerland (33%), Turkey (14%), Canada (29%), and Brazil (33%). It puts the US behind 23 countries in terms of renewables as a percent of total energy. Indeed, nine countries in the world obtained 10% or more of their total energy from renewables alone in 2016, and this number is increasing each year. In the US, only 3% of the total energy supply came from renewables alone in 2015.
As you can see, some states (and nations) are leaping into a renewable future like mountain goats bounding across alpine meadows. Other states are moving with the speed of a recalcitrant three-toed sloth. The states out in front on this inevitable transition will have more vibrant, diversified, robust economies. They will also have greater energy security in the face of fossil fuel volatility. (Is there anyone who really expects Saudi Arabia to last as a stable country another ten years?) Just as reminder, it takes a couple gallons of diesel to strip mine a ton of Powder River Basin coal (40% of all coal production in the US.) This might not seem like much, but Powder River Basin coal currently only sells for $8.70 a ton. Last week, a gallon of diesel in the Rocky Mountain states cost $2.48. So 57% of the price of coal is eaten up by just by the diesel used to produce it. Any oil price volatility will have an enormous impact on coal prices and/or coal profitability.

Food, water, energy and health are essential to a functioning society. (Please note, I’ve specified health, not health care.) The states dawdling on renewables, especially those dependent on burning coal, will suffer heart attacks, pollution, asthma, bronchitis, acid rain and job losses in the near term, and blackouts, brownouts and population loss in the long term. Though renewables are no guarantee of economic vitality, lack of them assures economic decline. Those states with economies heavily dependent on coal mining—Kentucky, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Montana, and West Virginia--need to read the writing on the wall and embrace the future rather than be dragged into it kicking and screaming.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny. Everyone alive on this planet a hundred years from now is likely to reap the consequences of climate change and sea-level rise regardless of how much his/her ancestors contributed to the problem. But medium-term, say fifteen years from now, there will variability in outcomes. Just how tattered your state’s part of the garment of destiny will be depends on actions taken now.
Published on September 05, 2016 15:56
August 9, 2016
Reclaiming Public Space--A Peak Experience

Who should go to Twin Peaks? How should they get there? What activities should be available to them once they arrive?


Twin Peaks is a mile from my house, all up hill. It’s a lovely walk, as I describe here: Conquer Twin Peaks and Stand on the Rooftop of San Francisco . If you’re visiting San Francisco, I recommend taking Muni to the Castro Station and starting your walk from there. (Another option is to take the 37 bus to Crestline Drive, a few minutes walk from the top.)

The walk from my house is lovely because it’s largely car-free, except at the top, where, until recently, a hardy pedestrian had to scramble over concrete barriers, breathe tour bus diesel exhaust, and dodge two lanes of car traffic in order to access the area. Until recently, it was only amidst the rumble of internal combustion engines that you could admire wildflowers and hear birdsong.




Which is more important--recreation or health? What if you could offer both at the same time? Which is a higher public good, someone saving two minutes of travel time, or someone joyously climbing a peak? Is it better for tour buses to have an extra twenty seconds of view, or for a neighborhood to have a serene connection with nature? Might giving people, even tourists, interesting, enjoyable places to walk encourage them to do so? In a dense city like San Francisco, with the exception of handicapped access, is space dedicated to cars public space or a sacrifice of public space?

Even if you think cheap oil will last another fifty years, even if you think you’ll be dead before climate change affects you, even if you think human beings are so clever someone will surely solve the myriad problems humanity faces so, hey, chill out, this much is clear: the American sedentary, car-based way of life is a disaster for public health. This would be true even if all cars magically became electric tomorrow.

It’s unwise to wait until there are empty store shelves to put in a vegetable garden. It’s useless to wait until the middle of a heat wave to plant a shade tree south of your house. Being fit enough to walk a few miles without effort is as important to resilience as solar panels, a sealed and insulated attic, or a bicycle in working order. Which city or town is more likely to thrive in any circumstance—one where most people routinely walk and few take medications, or one where few people walk and most take multiple medications? Which kind of town, which kind of neighbors do you want to have?

My husband and I have a car and use it occasionally. (My mode share is 40/40/10/10, walking/biking/transit/car.) When I’m behind the wheel, I’m just as impatient as my fellow drivers, wanting to get where I’m going ASAP and then park ten feet from my destination. Go, go, go, my trip is important, get out of my way, the driver in me cries. But the saner part of my brain knows that just as we’ve reduced smokers’ convenience in order to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke, so should we reduce drivers’ convenience to protect non-drivers from the many, many negative externalities of cars, including death from speeding, careless, or reckless drivers. As frustrating (and even threatening) as it might be to those whose lives are designed around car use, for the public good we need to reclaim and repurpose space currently devoted to motorized vehicles.

Published on August 09, 2016 16:21
June 8, 2016
Building Community, One Bench at a Time


Yes, this is going somewhere. After my grandfather retired from barbering (he had trouble with his hands shaking), he spent a lot of time in his yard. At some point, he put in a bench close to the sidewalk. On it this veteran of the hell known during WWII as Okinawa put a note in tremulous handwriting: “Set a spell and rest.”



I was thrilled. I’d asked the Universe for a bench, and it had delivered. Perhaps my grandfather had whispered in its ear.


Over the next few weeks, the Milky Way sat placidly in front of our house with people indeed sitting on it from time to time. All responses from neighbors were positive. Chris’s design, refined over many iterations, included a slight curve to the back. The bench was low enough to be comfortable, but not too low to be difficult to stand up from.
After six weeks passed and the bench induced no major calamities, Chris and I agreed to the creation of a permanent bench. I enlisted the aid of my artistically inclined middle daughter as to color and design. I said I’d like something with vines and flowers. She said to paint it coral. Flowers and greenery would pop nicely on that background.


The bench is not in full view of our front window, so I can’t really see all who sit on it, though every once in a while I notice someone stop and set for a spell. Once as I came home, I talked with a young couple from Germany who were happily seated while eating their frozen yogurt, bought at least half a mile away. There’s someone who sits on it while smoking Marlboros, because I’ve found three cigarette butts. (Hey Mr./Ms. Marlboro Man, try carrying a pocket ashtray rather than littering. Though I have to say, my grandfather was a chain smoker until emphysema forced him to go on oxygen.) One morning there was a pizza box and beer cans near the bench. Evidently someone had a party. Does anyone sleep on it? My husband, an early riser who often goes for walks at 6 am, has never seen anyone on the bench at that hour.
While my daughter and her friend were painting the bench, many passers-by were interested and asked questions about where they’d gotten the bench and why they were doing it. While we know most of our neighbors, one neighbor I’ve never spoken to crossed the street and told me how much he likes the bench. In the past, my husband and I have hosted a pop up happy hour in front of our house with lawn chairs, and we’ll try it again with the bench.


Cora Flora raises some questions. Where can teenagers go to eat pizza and drink beer? (Answer: nowhere.) Can providing frequent resting places make it easier for all sorts of people, including seniors, to walk their errands? (Answer: yes.) Are free, welcoming places to sit a fundamental element of a healthy democracy? (Answer: Jane Jacobs would say yes.) Can putting a bench on the sidewalk create community? Can it change the world?
Answer: I suggest try it and see.
Published on June 08, 2016 09:46
May 15, 2016
Monster Day for Renewables in California
Yesterday, May 14th, was a windy, sunny, fairly cool day in California. As a result, records were set for the proportion of California electricity produced by renewables. For the day: 34%! From 3 - 4 pm: 54%! And the grid didn't explode, black out, or do any number of other terrible things. Congratulations to the California ISO, the entity that manages and balances California's electric grid, for coping with its highest proportion of renewable electricity so far. Here are the graphics from the ISO for yesterday.
This is great news, and you will no doubt hear more about it in the media. Of course, remember, journalists often conflate electricity with energy. Until we go all electric, electricity is a small subset of energy used. For example, Californians consume the energy equivalent of 161 kwhs per person per day, but only 18 kwhs of that comes from electricity. However, roughly 30 kwhs per person each day is wasted creating that electricity (waste heat from burning fossil fuels), so as California increases its renewables, its total per person energy consumption will decrease. Next up--hot water and space heating via heat pumps and solar!


This is great news, and you will no doubt hear more about it in the media. Of course, remember, journalists often conflate electricity with energy. Until we go all electric, electricity is a small subset of energy used. For example, Californians consume the energy equivalent of 161 kwhs per person per day, but only 18 kwhs of that comes from electricity. However, roughly 30 kwhs per person each day is wasted creating that electricity (waste heat from burning fossil fuels), so as California increases its renewables, its total per person energy consumption will decrease. Next up--hot water and space heating via heat pumps and solar!
Published on May 15, 2016 09:24
April 3, 2016
An Energy Diet for a Healthy Planet--Part II
How do we get to 100 kwh/person/day, and where are we now?

This means just converting our electrical generation to solar, wind and hydro, which have no heat losses, will give us a big jump in reducing our energy consumption. Solar and wind are also not 100% efficient in turning potential energy into electricity, but the sun would have shone and the wind would have blown anyway. Whereas the coal, natural gas, oil and uranium that turn into unused heat are gone forever, not to mention all the polluting by-products.


Back to a 100 kwh/person/day energy budget. "Come on," I hear you say. "Sealing and insulating homes is all well and good, and maybe heat pumps are snazzy, but how could the United States possibly cut its energy use by more than half and still have a decent way of life?" It does seem daunting. Let’s look at it by sector. Industrial is longest because it's the toughest nut to crack due to high process heat needs. Just scroll through it if you're not interested.






So let’s examine 2015 renewables + hydro generation kwh/person/day by state, grouped by region. (The EIA includes as renewables electricity produced by geothermal and biomass.) Remember, each state needs 100 kwh/person/day, or another state will have to generate more than that and send the extra to them. Also remember that the further electricity is transmitted, the higher the losses along the way, although underground DC cables could cut transmission losses in half. (The US currently loses 6% of its electricity in transmission.) Rooftop solar PV avoids almost all transmission loss.
New England and Mid-Atlantic Renewable+ Hydro kwh/capita/day generation Not with the program Working on it Serious Progress Connecticut (1.2) Vermont (9.3) Maine (16.7) Massachusetts (1.5) New Hampshire (7.2)
Rhode Island (.7) New York (4.8)
New Jersey (.9)
Pennsylvania (1.9)
North Central Renewables + Hydro kwh/capita/day generation Lacking Snail Pace Solid Progress Very Good Smoking hot Ohio (.6) Illinois (2.3) Minnesota (6.1) Kansas (10.4) South Dakota (23.4) Missouri (1.2) Indiana (2.3) Nebraska (6.3) Iowa (16.6) North Dakota(31.3)
Michigan (2.4)
Wisconsin (2.7)
South Renewables + Hydro kwh/capita/day generation Feeble Some progress Making headway Good work Delaware (.6) Georgia (2) West Virginia (5) Oklahoma (11.8) District of Columbia (.1) North Carolina (2.5) Tennessee (4.6)
Florida (.7) South Carolina (2.9) Alabama (7.6)
Maryland (1.3) West Virginia (5) Arkansas (4.8)
Mississippi (1.3) Tennessee (4.6) Texas (4.8)
Virginia (1.6) Alabama (7.6)
Mountain Renewables + Hydro kwh/capita/day generation Not trying Progress Advancing Great Work Best in Show! Utah (1.7) Arizona (4.7) Nevada (7.5) Idaho (18.7) Montana (30.8)
Colorado (4.9)
Wyoming (23.6)
New Mexico (4)
Pacific Renewables + Hydro kwh/capita/day generation Making an effort Some hydro Oodles of hydro! Hawaii (3.8) Alaska (6.5) Oregon (27.5) California (4.6)
Washington (31.9)

Future US energy production in a 100 kwh/person/day world might look something like:
Residential and commercial rooftop PV and building-integrated PV 15 kwh Biomass/biofuels/ geothermal/tidal 5 kwh Large-scale solar 32 kwh Nuclear 2 kwh On shore wind 28 kwh Hydro 2 kwh Off shore wind 12 kwh Wood heat 1kwh Fossil fuels for high heat industrial processes 2 kwh



Published on April 03, 2016 19:38
March 31, 2016
An Energy Diet for a Healthy Planet--Part I
Part I: Envisioning 100 Kilowatt-hours/Person/Day
Biodiverse farm of the future (Singing Frogs Farm)Nearly every human being on the planet consumes energy beyond the amount they derive from food, some more than others. In 2014, Americans, on average, consumed a total of 230 kilowatt-hours of energy per person per day. (See note at bottom for data sources and types of energy this includes.)
Is 230 kwh/person/day a lot or a little? How do we compare to other countries? As you can see, we use nearly double the amount of per capita energy as Germany and France, and nearly 2 ½ times the energy per capita of the UK. How can this be? Those of us who have visited Germany, France and the UK can testify that they have cold winters, warm summers, and that their citizens seem to enjoy a high standard of living. For comparison, I’ve included a few of the most energy-sipping US states.
Let’s compare the US to some other countries. Ones that have snow. These countries on most measures offer their citizens a higher standard of living while using 3/4ths to 1/2 the energy per person that we use. I've compared them to our most energy efficient snowy-land states. Rhode Island manages to beat Sweden, anyway.
Here we compare the US to key Asian countries (plus Australia).
And here are the big kahuna per capita energy gluttons of the world. Though the US might not tower over these guzzlers, we still hold our own. I've include some of our domestic guzzling states for comparison, all home to energy-intensive oil drilling, oil refining, or coal mining. (Texas would be on this chart if not for its huge population.)
A number of other states, while not energy sumo wrestles, are still obese when it comes to kwh/person/day and some outdo even Kuwait, as you can see in the chart below.
It’s interesting to note that even countries that are highly energy efficient have room to improve because they all still use substantial fossil fuels for transportation and/or space heating. While electricity at present provides only 16% of US total energy consumption, even the most electrified countries in the world don’t break 30%. The reason electrification is important is that in terms of wringing the most benefit from every kilowatt-hour expended, electricity is the way to go. Electric motors turn 60% of the energy fed to them into power at the wheels whereas gasoline engines convert only 20%. (Diesel motors convert 35 – 40%.) An air source heat pump is three times as efficient as the most efficient natural gas furnace; a ground source heat pump is six times as efficient. A heat pump hot water heater is generally four times as efficient as a gas one. And a desuperheater connected to a ground source heat pump will turn waste heat into hot water all summer with almost no additional energy at all.
In the US, our current energy per person/day energy budget is this: 51 kwh residential, 44 kwh commercial, 73 kwh industrial and 62 kwh transportation. (This includes losses incurred in thermal generation of electricity. More on this in Part II.)To get to 100 kwh/person/day, we’ll need the split to be more like this:23 kwh residential, 20 kwh commercial, 35 kwh industrial and 22 kwh transportation.
Right now 30 out of 51 kwh/person/day of residential energy is used towards space and water heating. With a combination of heat pumps, better sealing and insulation, solar hot water, energy exchange ventilators, and ceiling fans, we can drop total residential energy down to 26 kwh/person/day. Put in all LED lightbulbs and efficient appliances (and a few other items I'll mention in Part II) and we can drop it down to 21 kwh/person/day, below our future energy budget.
For transportation, less than 1 kwh/person/day comes from electricity, making it a key area in need of change. As you can see below electric forms of transportation are substantially more energy efficient than those powered by internal combustion engines.
Type of Transport
KWH to go 100 miles(For transit, per 100passenger miles) Gasoline car (22 mpg) 155 International air travel 99 Domestic air travel 69 Gasoline motorcycle 68 Gasoline car (50 mpg) 67 Amtrak (current load)
47 Transit bus (diesel) 36 Electric car (Leaf) 34 US light rail (mostly electric) 31 US heavy rail (mostly electric) 31 US commuter Rail (mixed) 26 Amtrak (ideal 80% load) 24 Gasoline scooter 18 Calif. High Speed Rail (projected) 16.4 Electric motorcycle 12 French High Speed Rail 7 - 8 Electric Scooter 7.5 Proterra Electric Bus 5.3 Around town walking 5.2 Japanese HS Rail 4.2 Siemens electric train 4.2 Around town biking 2.8 Electric Biking 2
Note: Around town bicycling and walking kwh/mile rates are calculated based on calories burned above baseline human metabolism (45 additional calories/mile walking and 32 additional calories per mile biking.) Transit, train and air travel calculated with 80% passenger load. Electric bike rate includes relaxed pedaling. Amtrak is a combination of diesel trains and all-electric.
Has a 180 mile range between chargesOn average Americans travel 13,183 miles per person in a year. By private car (with average MPG and average occupancy) this amount of travel works out to 37 kwh/day. Way over the transport budget. If we drop travel miles by a fourth to 9900 miles/year (by a larger portion of us telecommuting and by most of us living closer to work, goods and services), that gets us to 27 kwh/person/day. This is still over the transport budget, and it doesn't include freight miles traveled. But if 2000 of those miles were by high speed rail, 3000 by transit, 2000 by air, 1900 by electric car (or rideshare) and 1000 by walking and biking, that squeezes down to 9 kwh/person/day.
Seriously efficientNow let's look at freight. For each person in the US, 55 tons of domestic freight are moved an average of 325 mi. By diesel truck that comes to 58 kwh/day (and that doesn't include ocean shipping if it's an import.) Say we could cut this in half by buying local, by not buying stuff we don't need, by drinking filtered tap water instead of bottled water or soda, and by ending coal and oil shipments. That puts us at 29 kwh/day, still way above the travel budget. However, if we use diesel electric trains, each person's freight movement only comes to 2.5 kwh/day. If we use electric trains it gets down to .75-1.5 kwh/day, leaving a lot more room in the energy budget for passenger travel. No doubt with trains we'd have to add on a couple kwhs for the last 1 - 20 miles of delivery by electric truck, and international freight and water transport have to folded in here somehow, but all of the sudden 20 kwh/person/day for total transportation looks a lot more manageable.
Freight transport KWH per ton per mile 18-wheeler truck 1.19 Cargo ship .16 Diesel-electric rail .10 Electric rail .03--.06
As far as industry goes, Part II goes into this further, but for now I'll just point out that oil refining and coal mining use a 40% share of industrial energy. Get rid of both of those, and industrial energy use instantly drops from 73 to 44 kwh/person/day.
Add in horses: 50% of energy (1850); 10% (1900)Still, wouldn't a 100 kwh/person/day energy diet be like going back to the Stone Age? Well, up to 1900, Americans lived on less than that. (Note: chart at right is in BTUs, not kwhs.) Aside from horsepower, most nineteenth century energy came from wood and coal, much of which they burned to power wildly inefficient steam engines and to heat drafty, poorly insulated houses. Today, all of South America, Africa and most of Asia manage to exist with less than 100 kwh/person/day, admittedly with a lower standard of living for the average person. (India survives on just 16 kwh/person/day!) But there are quite a few countries that achieve this energy diet with a comparable standard of living to the present day United States, including Italy (78), Ireland (93), Spain (90), and the United Kingdom (94). And then there’s Denmark with a higher standard of living than the US while using only 98 kwh/person/day. (Denmark, not resting on its laurels, has plans to drop to 95 kwh/person/day by 2020.)
Why should we care about a 100 kwh/person/day energy diet? We should care deeply because if we want to avoid climate catastrophe, we need to stop spewing carbon and methane into the atmosphere. Now it's true that 56 kwh out of the 230 we slurp up are completely wasted as unused heat in electricity generation, so if we switched to all renewables and hydro, we'd only need to build out 174 kwh/person/day. Still, it’s much, much easier to produce 100 kwh/person/day of carbon-free energy than it is 174. Climate change is accelerating faster than anticipated. If we let the permafrost in the Arctic melt, the methane released will produce a self-reinforcing methane timebomb that cannot be reversed. The result will be a planet largely uninhabitable by humans. (On the plus side, pine beetles, mosquitos, zebrafish, snakes, yellow-bellied marmots, and jellyfish will likely do quite well. So, hey, it could be worse.)
If we insist on slurping up energy at current levels, even with extraordinary measures it might take us fifty years to stop spewing emissions, and that will be too late to prevent permafrost detonation. But if we can get by comfortably with 100 kwh/person/day, that’s a much easier target to meet, one we can probably achieve in 20 years. Not only is this a target we can achieve faster, it’s a target we can achieve more cheaply. That’s because energy efficiency is absolutely the most economical form of energy production available to us.
(Click for larger image)
While the cost of solar and wind will no doubt drop even more over time, in 2015 the US produced only 5 kwh/person/day of electricity from renewables (including rooftop solar) + hydro. Which means to get carbon-free we have a long ways to go. Even if we start building out solar PV and wind at 20 times the rate of 2012 (our best year ever), we won't be able to produce enough carbon-free energy fast enough to prevent catastrophe. But if we combine a rapid build out of renewables with a rapid lowering of demand through common sense behaviors and technology that already exists, we have a fighting chance. Find out how to do this and more in Part II!
Note: Most data in this post is from the 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, probably the best compendium of world energy available, and from the US Energy Information Agency, the best source for state-level data. The per person per day energy figures include all large-scale sources of energy such as oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, hydro and renewables, their equivalent energy content turned into kilowatt-hours. They do not include rooftop PV or wood for heating or cooking, or energy expended to walk or bike for transportation. They do include all uses—residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. Because our future will be mostly all electric, I’ve used kilowatt-hours as the energy unit of choice, better, in my opinion, than Tons of Oil Equivalent or BTU’s, although I acknowledge there’s a good case to be made for joules.





A number of other states, while not energy sumo wrestles, are still obese when it comes to kwh/person/day and some outdo even Kuwait, as you can see in the chart below.

It’s interesting to note that even countries that are highly energy efficient have room to improve because they all still use substantial fossil fuels for transportation and/or space heating. While electricity at present provides only 16% of US total energy consumption, even the most electrified countries in the world don’t break 30%. The reason electrification is important is that in terms of wringing the most benefit from every kilowatt-hour expended, electricity is the way to go. Electric motors turn 60% of the energy fed to them into power at the wheels whereas gasoline engines convert only 20%. (Diesel motors convert 35 – 40%.) An air source heat pump is three times as efficient as the most efficient natural gas furnace; a ground source heat pump is six times as efficient. A heat pump hot water heater is generally four times as efficient as a gas one. And a desuperheater connected to a ground source heat pump will turn waste heat into hot water all summer with almost no additional energy at all.
In the US, our current energy per person/day energy budget is this: 51 kwh residential, 44 kwh commercial, 73 kwh industrial and 62 kwh transportation. (This includes losses incurred in thermal generation of electricity. More on this in Part II.)To get to 100 kwh/person/day, we’ll need the split to be more like this:23 kwh residential, 20 kwh commercial, 35 kwh industrial and 22 kwh transportation.
Right now 30 out of 51 kwh/person/day of residential energy is used towards space and water heating. With a combination of heat pumps, better sealing and insulation, solar hot water, energy exchange ventilators, and ceiling fans, we can drop total residential energy down to 26 kwh/person/day. Put in all LED lightbulbs and efficient appliances (and a few other items I'll mention in Part II) and we can drop it down to 21 kwh/person/day, below our future energy budget.
For transportation, less than 1 kwh/person/day comes from electricity, making it a key area in need of change. As you can see below electric forms of transportation are substantially more energy efficient than those powered by internal combustion engines.
Type of Transport
KWH to go 100 miles(For transit, per 100passenger miles) Gasoline car (22 mpg) 155 International air travel 99 Domestic air travel 69 Gasoline motorcycle 68 Gasoline car (50 mpg) 67 Amtrak (current load)
47 Transit bus (diesel) 36 Electric car (Leaf) 34 US light rail (mostly electric) 31 US heavy rail (mostly electric) 31 US commuter Rail (mixed) 26 Amtrak (ideal 80% load) 24 Gasoline scooter 18 Calif. High Speed Rail (projected) 16.4 Electric motorcycle 12 French High Speed Rail 7 - 8 Electric Scooter 7.5 Proterra Electric Bus 5.3 Around town walking 5.2 Japanese HS Rail 4.2 Siemens electric train 4.2 Around town biking 2.8 Electric Biking 2
Note: Around town bicycling and walking kwh/mile rates are calculated based on calories burned above baseline human metabolism (45 additional calories/mile walking and 32 additional calories per mile biking.) Transit, train and air travel calculated with 80% passenger load. Electric bike rate includes relaxed pedaling. Amtrak is a combination of diesel trains and all-electric.


Freight transport KWH per ton per mile 18-wheeler truck 1.19 Cargo ship .16 Diesel-electric rail .10 Electric rail .03--.06
As far as industry goes, Part II goes into this further, but for now I'll just point out that oil refining and coal mining use a 40% share of industrial energy. Get rid of both of those, and industrial energy use instantly drops from 73 to 44 kwh/person/day.

Why should we care about a 100 kwh/person/day energy diet? We should care deeply because if we want to avoid climate catastrophe, we need to stop spewing carbon and methane into the atmosphere. Now it's true that 56 kwh out of the 230 we slurp up are completely wasted as unused heat in electricity generation, so if we switched to all renewables and hydro, we'd only need to build out 174 kwh/person/day. Still, it’s much, much easier to produce 100 kwh/person/day of carbon-free energy than it is 174. Climate change is accelerating faster than anticipated. If we let the permafrost in the Arctic melt, the methane released will produce a self-reinforcing methane timebomb that cannot be reversed. The result will be a planet largely uninhabitable by humans. (On the plus side, pine beetles, mosquitos, zebrafish, snakes, yellow-bellied marmots, and jellyfish will likely do quite well. So, hey, it could be worse.)
If we insist on slurping up energy at current levels, even with extraordinary measures it might take us fifty years to stop spewing emissions, and that will be too late to prevent permafrost detonation. But if we can get by comfortably with 100 kwh/person/day, that’s a much easier target to meet, one we can probably achieve in 20 years. Not only is this a target we can achieve faster, it’s a target we can achieve more cheaply. That’s because energy efficiency is absolutely the most economical form of energy production available to us.

While the cost of solar and wind will no doubt drop even more over time, in 2015 the US produced only 5 kwh/person/day of electricity from renewables (including rooftop solar) + hydro. Which means to get carbon-free we have a long ways to go. Even if we start building out solar PV and wind at 20 times the rate of 2012 (our best year ever), we won't be able to produce enough carbon-free energy fast enough to prevent catastrophe. But if we combine a rapid build out of renewables with a rapid lowering of demand through common sense behaviors and technology that already exists, we have a fighting chance. Find out how to do this and more in Part II!
Note: Most data in this post is from the 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, probably the best compendium of world energy available, and from the US Energy Information Agency, the best source for state-level data. The per person per day energy figures include all large-scale sources of energy such as oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, hydro and renewables, their equivalent energy content turned into kilowatt-hours. They do not include rooftop PV or wood for heating or cooking, or energy expended to walk or bike for transportation. They do include all uses—residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. Because our future will be mostly all electric, I’ve used kilowatt-hours as the energy unit of choice, better, in my opinion, than Tons of Oil Equivalent or BTU’s, although I acknowledge there’s a good case to be made for joules.
Published on March 31, 2016 16:26
March 4, 2016
Efficiency Is Not the Enemy of Resiliency

I'm an odd duck. When I was in college, I started on a coterminal master’s in industrial engineering even as I was finishing up my undergrad degree in English. This meant I would go from Fiction Writing one hour to Circuits the next, a true ambi-cerebrum experience. After nearly a decade working in industry, I decided it wasn’t my cup of tea and reverted to my fonder love, writing. But my education and training left me with affection for efficiency, a fondness that to this day causes my heart to swell indignantly every time I see it maligned.

On a simplistic level, efficiency is maximum (or optimal) output with minimum waste. The output could be a product from a manufacturing line; it could be a warm house; it could be nutritious food to eat. Efficiency is not the opposite of resiliency. It does not equate with fragility. It does not, in and of itself, impede a system’s ability to cope with difficult conditions. In fact, it can vigorously improve that ability.
I think efficiency gets its bum rap because it sometimes involves eliminating wasteful redundancy. Poorly performed, without due consideration of externalities and risks, eliminating redundancy can indeed increase fragility. Efficiency is also closely linked in many people’s minds with just-in-time supply chains that have been deservedly criticized for being fragile and vulnerable. Let’s examine just-in-time first.





Just because the US doesn’t indulge in refrigerated beaches and indoor ski slopes like the United Arab Emirates doesn't mean we don’t squander resources wildly.






Published on March 04, 2016 13:16