Mandatory Solar

Germany

https://renewablesnow.com/news/overview-rooftop-solar-to-become-mandatory-in-several-german-states-in-2023-809103/

"The installation of solar panels on the roofs of buildings is already mandatory in Baden-Wuerttemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, while Berlin, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein, and Lower Saxony have adopted laws introducing the obligation as of January 1, 2023.”

France 
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/12/12/france-introduces-requirement-for-pv-in-parking-lots/

"The French parliament has approved a new measure to make it mandatory for parking lots to include solar if their surface area is more than 1,500 square meters."

Tokyo, Japan

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/tokyo-rooftop-solar

"Tokyo is mandating that all new homes in the city be built with rooftop solar panels starting in 2025."

"Three in four houseowners in Germany wish to put a solar PV array on their roofs, according to a survey commissioned by the country’s solar industry lobby group BSW Solar. One in five houseowners aims to install solar PV arrays within the next twelve months, the survey by pollster YouGov also revealed, making the solar industry confident that a 'persistent solar power boom' lies ahead for Germany. Two thirds gave rising energy prices as a their main motivation, while 40 said they were driven by climate action. About 80 percent of the over 1,000 houseowners surveyed said they could imagine simultaneously installing a power storage unit to maximise the effectiveness of their roof-mounted solar power installations.”

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/three-quarters-german-houseowners-ready-put-solar-installation-their-roofs-survey

I doubt if the survey asked anyone whether they were going solar to parry the energy weapon Putin, for one, is now using but it does.

Have a Solar Civil Defense Christmas

 I ordered some of these as Christmas presents this year.  I tested them.  They work.  

"Solar Battery Charger AA AAA C and D

$4.95
Our solar battery charger is a simple way to keep your Ni-MH or Ni-CAD batteries charged. Compatible with all sizes (AAA,AA,C and D). Simply insert the batteries and put the solar charger into the sunlight.

https://www.siliconsolar.com/product/solar-battery-charger-aa-aaa-c-and-d/ “

Batteries not included (but I’m adding them to the gifts).

At these (retail) prices, $5 or 6 billion buys entry level electricity for the poorest billion people in the world - solar energy for light, communications, and battery charging.  This is also survival solar, what we are supposed to have on hand in case of emergency or disaster.

Combining even this miniscule amount of solar with bicycles as both small generators and batteries, from AAs on down and on up through 6 volts, 12 volts all the way to the grid, an individual could conceivably have access to bare minimum electricity almost all the time in almost any situation.  Looked at from this direction, bicycles, e-bikes, and the varieties of other new personal mobility devices as well as electric vehicles could be seen as a floating network of power producers and consumers* at the same time, mobile energy storage and generation.

This is one reason why I say Solar IS Civil Defense.

We would do well to prepare for the next weather event in ways that mitigate as well as adapt to the already occurring climate changes.  We may need it quicker than we think.  

*  This energy consumer/producer concept is also happening in our buildings as net zero energy building codes are adopted.

Years of links to net zero energy examples and developments at https://zeronetenrg.blogspot.com (also available as a free quarterly links list)

We remain alert so as not to get run down, but it turns out you only have to hop a few feet to one side and the whole huge machinery rolls by, not seeing you at all.
Lew Welch

Energy as a Weapon of War: Russia, Ukraine, and Europe in Challenging Times

This Zoom event comes from Energy (and Other) Events Monthly (http://hubevents.blogspot.com).  I attended and am sharing my notes.  

12/9/22

Energy as a Weapon of War: Russia, Ukraine, and Europe in Challenging Times
with 

Margarita M Balmaceda, Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, author of Russian Energy Chains, and an Associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
and

Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director and Fritz Stern Chair of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution

Moderators:  Elizabeth Wood and Carol Saivetz, both MIT 

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1DrP8wqqPs
A transcript will be available as well

Margarita Balmaceda:  Energy used not just as a threat but also as a temptation, a subversion by getting people “hooked” on “cheap” natural gas.  For instance, German reliance on Russian natural gas increased after the first invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014.

[Editorial Comment:  addiction as a model of late stage capitalism (see Anne Wilson Schaef’s work) was not mentioned.]

Industry uses of natural gas as a feedstock for chemicals, steel, glass is often overlooked as we focus on “energy” and it is hardest to replace with renewables.  These companies employ 8 million workers in EU with BASF being the largest user of Russian natural gas.

There are also markets outside the EU with China and India purchasing “discounted” Russian oil.  Without taking into consideration the Global South and their reliance on Russian energy, we will not counter Russia’s “energy weapon.”

Constanze Steizenmüller:  EU response has been more united than expected.  Germany decoupling from Russian natural gas with speed and throughout the economy, using different energy sources all without reducing industrial output.  Germany, however, was not the European country most dependent on Russian energy as some Eastern European countries were close to 100% reliant on Russian gas and oil.  Popular support has been higher than expected even with higher energy prices, 66-75% support even now.  Other surprises have been the weakness of the Russian military and less support from China than was expected.

Long term:  Will Ukraine be able to hold its territory, will its allies keep supporting it to the extent needed, especially since this war has shown the allies don’t have the force and material necessary themselves.

[Editorial Comment:  The arsenal, like the proverbial cupboard, is bare?  Or just bare of what is needed for this 21st century conflict?] 

Short term:  Biden’s climate subsidies have driven a wedge between USAmerica and EU.  EU has gone back to coal and nuclear power, contrary to climate goals.

Greatest possible challenge is if China decides to support Russia fully.  That could have dramatic effects throughout the world.

MB:  Russia does not have the infrastructure to increase exports to China & India, does not have facilities for liquifying natural gas, and cannot easily pivot from Europe to the East.

CS:  We don’t know how people will react if it is a COLD winter but the resilience of popular support with higher prices and fuel cuts has been encouraging.  Not worried about this winter.  Worried about a longtime deliberate disruption across many fronts - including things like the German coup attempt.

[Editorial Comment:  COVID was not mentioned nor was climate as disruption.]

Elizabeth Wood:  How is Ukraine going to cope and how is Russian industry dealing?

MB:  Ukraine is preparing 2000 “warming centers” for this winter.  The only pipeline still flowing to Europe is the one through Ukraine.  

[Editorial Comment:  According to one questioner, there is another pipeline running to Turkey.  In addition, one of the long-time points of disagreement between Russia and Ukraine is the pipeline system, with the Russians accusing the Ukrainians of stealing from it (which may very well be warranted).]

CS:  China can’t be happy with Russia showing such military weakness. Germany is wooing non-Western “swing states” like India and others, in some cases, in competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

MB:  Russia can not be happy relying so much on China, economically and diplomatically.  Russia has been affected by the export bans on technology, especially in energy production.  Putin has drawn soldiers from non-Russian ethnics to avoid stressing Moscow, St Petersburg.

[Editorial Comment:  this is ethnic conflict on a variety of different levels.  The level of “racism” and prejudice is ramping up, around the world, it seems.]

Through the written q&a, the moderator, who tacked on her own question about rebuilding Ukraine back “better,” asked about the explicit use of energy efficiency/energy conservation as a weapon in this carbon and climate war.  The speakers addressed the moderator’s question more than mine which leads me to believe that the speakers have not thought as deeply as I’d like about how many edges the energy weapon actually has.

CS:  Could be “mired” in fossil fuels by this war, not reach the “ambitious” climate goals, and she believes we are stringing out the military conflict which makes both of these more probable while also losing the younger, more climate-concerned  generation.  “This war will not be over any time soon”  but it may not be in our best interests for the war to continue.

MB:  Ukraine’s ability to get away from fossil fuels will not be easy and require a lot of funding.  Estimated $16 billion to move Ukraine away from fossil fuels before the war but it will now be much more expensive.  The Just Transition Model from the G7 pre-war is a blueprint for how to move Ukraine away from coal.  Ukraine will need to rethink its place in the global economy.

CS:  We may be looking at both a Ukrainian failed state and a collapsing Russian state at the same time.  This has grave consequences for EU and the world.  A rebuilt, renovated Ukraine would be positive and could be an example for a new Russia.

MB:  Whether Ukraine wins or loses, the rot in Russia is troubling for the rest of the world.  Ukraine, if supported, may win sooner rather than later.

CS:  The war crimes of Russia far outweigh those committed by Ukraine.  Russia must pay for this and we should not be afraid of escalation as  “we already have a war with a global impact.”  Not supporting Ukraine to the end would be catastrophic.

From another questioner in the q&a:
https://shapethesciences.org are rebuilding Ukraine. Education is our tool, sustainable development our template…. https://1drv.ms/w/s!AgAEn1pbwhx7kNhgSWHlNqI2qh1Bfw?e=SXb5NJ

Please connect with us at bohdan@shapethesciences.org

Environmental Demonstrations Ideas from 1970s Science Fiction

 John Brunner was a UK science fiction writer active from the 1950s through the 1990s.  Some of his work was truly prescient, mostly the four novels Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Jagged Orbit (1969), The Sheep Look Up (1972) and The Shockwave Rider (1975), where the term worm for a computer virus was coined, which have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet" because they deal with overpopulation, ecological collapse, and runaway technology.

In The Sheep Look Up (ISBN 0-345-24948-8-195), Brunner comes very close to predicting the recent Just Stop Oil traffic blockades, down to the symbol they are using, a skull and cross-bones:

Sharp on nine the Trainites [environmental protesters] had scattered caltraps in the roadway and created a monumental snarl-up twelve blocks by seven.  The fuzz, as usual, was elsewhere - there were always plenty of sympathizers willing to cause a diversion.  It was impossible to guess how many allies the movement had;  at a rough guess, though, one could say that in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, LA or San Francisco people were apt to cheer, while in the surrounding suburbs or the Midwest people were apt to go fetch guns.  In other words, they had least support in the areas which had voted for Prexy.

Next, the stalled cars had their windows opaqued with a cheap commercial compound used for etching glass, and slogans were painted on their doors.  Some were long:  THIS VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB.  Many were short:  IT STINKS!  But the commonest of all was the universally known catchphrase:  STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!

 And in every case the inscription was concluded with a rough egg-shape above a saltire - the simplified ideogrammatic version of the invariable Trainite symbol, a skull and crossbones reduced to

0
X

I've always liked the way The Sheep Look Up ends with USAmerica having declared war against an enemy it can't name which is simply all the poisons we've thrown to the winds coming back to poison us and a woman in Ireland greeting someone at the door.

Opening the door to the visiting doctor, also to apologize for the flour on her hands – she had been baking – Mrs. Byrne sniffed.  Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire!  

"We ought to call the brigade!" She exclaimed. “Is it a hayrick?”

"The brigade would have a long way to go," the doctor told her curtly."It's from America. The wind's blowing that way."

My full notes are available at https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-sheep-look-up.html 

Steve Baer was one of the hippie domebuilders back in the 1960s©™allrightsreserved working at Drop City building Zomes out of the repurposed metals roofs of scrapped automobiles.  He has also invented a series of passive solar designs and founded the company Zomeworks to produce his products and designs.  In his book, Sunspots (Albuquerque, NM:  Zomeworks Corporation, 1975, 1977) he imagined a different vision of the environmental demonstrations of the future in a story called “The Sun Riots":

A week earlier at a demonstration a large van was driven next to the crowd.  The driver, a swarthy man of about 40, opened the back doors and began passing out foot square mirrors. “Give ‘em some sunshine.”

A few dozen mirrors began playing beams of sunlight on a police car that had been dogging the rear end of the demonstration.  The officers were caught by surprise.  The driver managed to back the car down the street, but not before his partner, panicked by the glare and the rapidly rising temperature, had jumped out and run.  More and more mirrors were out in the crowd now.  The crowd glinted like a bank of crystals…

The mirror crowds are completely silent.  They move everywhere on foot.  A secretary at City Hall says, “They just looked so funny - a whole crowd of them standing just as still as could be holding onto those mirrors and then pretty soon the store across the street was burning." 

 

He also imagined a response by an anti-solar and energy independence government:

On the outskirts of town the helicopters wheeled and took up stationary positions - you could see the crewmen struggling with lines as the shrouds were lowered.

A large white patch of frost and snow, an island of grey and white amid greenish brown, marked their target.

It was a method of non-violent control for dissidents who were disconnecting from the power system and going solar... 

My own preference is more practical and quotidian.  The daily practice of a kind of solar swadeshi, local production, a variation on Gandhi's "soul of satyagraha."  I have one room in my rented apartment off-grid for my reading lights at night through a couple of small solar panels in one south-facing window, solar flashlights and emergency power in another south-facing window, and a little solar light and charger on my backpack that I use as a bike light. 

This is also a solar civil defense, the light, battery, and phone or radio you've supposed to have on hand in case of emergency.  

This year I'm giving solar battery chargers with rechargeable batteries as Christmas presents.  Maybe it will become a movement.

I don’t know what you’re going to do about it,

But I know what I’m going to do about it. I’m just

     going to walk away from it. Maybe

A small part of it will die if I’m not around

 

      feeding it anymore.

from "Chicago Poem" by Lew Welch

Insulate Britain Was a Bargain

Insulate Britain (https://insulatebritain.com) is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion which demanded that the British government fund insulation for all public housing by 2025, and, by the end of 2021, the government must create a plan to fund retrofitting of insulation of all homes in Britain by 2030. Someone estimated that it would cost £5 billion to insulate all public housing by 2025, which I’m sure was “too much” for conventional wisdom. 

Insulate Britain demonstrated for these demands by blocking major highways around the UK, a dozen or more times, starting in September 2021 through February 2022 when the group announced "with a heavy heart" that the series of protests had failed in their aim to force the government into taking action. One poll from October 2021 showed that only 18% supported the protests while 72% of those surveyed opposed the protesters' actions, with 10% that "did not know." 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulate_Britain_protests 

Energy prices are soaring in the UK and, according to columnist Caitlin Moran, "the present UK Energy Rebate Scheme will cost £9.1 billion for just one year"

Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-insulate-britain-conservative-party-energy-g78nbfcxm 

https://twitter.com/CHeinemeyer/status/1569646532013465600 

and the Guardian reports that 

"UK must insulate homes or face a worse energy crisis in 2023, say experts 

Cutting heat loss from houses will be more effective in the long term than subsidising bills, according to analysis" 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/11/britain-insulate-homes-energy-crisis-2023-heat-loss-houses-subsidising-bills

 Looks like Insulate Britain was offering a bargain. 

Addendum: Other groups like Home Energy Efficiency Team [HEET] have done (and do) weatherization parties (https://heet.org/energy-efficiency/work-parties/) while back in the 1970s I was part of a group which did solar barnraisings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2RgqKQFgQ). 

 Incidentally, HEET has gone on to pioneer geothermal energy microgrids as a replacement for natural gas (https://heet.org/geogrid/).

There is such a thing as positive protest too.

Energy as a System, Systems as Synergy

 MIT has designed a program which maximizes the production of wind farms by operating the wind farm as a system, not individual wind turbines.  Reducing downwind turbulence within the whole wind farm can increase energy production by 1.2% to 3%, a result validated by field trials in working wind farms.

Source:  https://news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01085-8

When you think of these things as systems, there are previously hidden benefits that become apparent. When you don't, you have the present situation and BAU forever and ever amen.

Another example, from Edwin Black's book, Internal Combustion:  How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives (NY:  St Martin's Press, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35907-2), about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system and the advantages thereof: 

"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."

Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old and coming back to the fore, both on railways and with trucks.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/07/playing-with-electric-trains-as-climate.html

Yet, thinking in systems is hard for most of us.

Donella Meadows' Guidelines for Living in a World of Systems [my comments] may help:

Get the beat of the system. [music and dance]
Expose your mental models to the light of day.
Honor, respect, and distribute information.
Use language with care and enrich it with systems concepts.
Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable. [system failure is too often the first clue to what’s important]
Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
Go for the good of the whole. [Sarvodaya, a concept from Gandhian economics*]
Listen to the wisdom of the system.
Locate responsibility within the system.
Stay humble - stay a learner.
Celebrate complexity. [and recognize simplicity]
Expand time horizons.
Defy the disciplines.
Expand the boundary of caring.
Don't erode the goal of goodness.

More in my notes to Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2017/09/summary-of-systems-principle.html

* Sarvodaya, Swaraj, and Swadeshi
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2014/04/sarvodaya-swaraj-and-swadeshi.html
Part of a series of Notes on Gandhian Economics

As for getting the beat of the system, here are roughly detailed plans for 145 countries to go 100% renewable by 2035 or earlier from Mark Z Jacobson et alia:
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/145Country/22-145Countries.pdf [pdf alert]

According to this carbon countdown clock (https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/clock/carbon_clock.htm), at the current rate, the most CO2 we can emit to stay below 1.5ºC rise is 400 Gt, starting from 2020, and that carbon budget will be used up by about July/August 2029. 

We are at 290 Gts carbon budget left as I write [September 3, 2022]

Would be good to run the thought experiment of 100% renewable by that climate deadline, July/August 2029, now that we have the model for one by 2035.

That seems to me to be the beat of this system.  Imagine 100% renewable by summer 2029 and backcast from there to see what we have to do today, and all the other todays from now to then if we want a more livable planet.

Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous behaviors that will avoid extinction.  
R. Buckminster Fuller

We don’t have much time and should get cracking.

Studying 100% Renewable Energy Studies

the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.
Diane di Prima, “Rant"

On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910) is a marvelous paper, a study of the peer-reviewed papers on 100% renewable energy systems from 1975 to date, a meta-study. It just might fire some imaginations and help us become realistic enough to demand the impossible, sooner rather than later.

"The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost. As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective. This gives us the key to a sustainable civilization and the long-lasting prosperity of humankind."

The history of 100% renewable energy system analysis goes back to 1975 when the first study by Bent Sørensen was published in Science, using Denmark as a case study (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.189.4199.255).

The next year, Amory Lovins published the second article on 100% renewables, for the United States, and became the first scholar to cite Sørensen (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1976-10-01/energy-strategy-road-not-taken).

In 1993, the Stockholm Environment Institute for Greenpeace International published a report on 100% RE for the target year 2100 (https://leap.sei.org/documents/greenpeacereport.pdf) with the intention of interesting the IPCC, IEA, IRENA and other energy and climate groups in the possibility. Unfortunately, these groups have begun to recognize the 100% RE goal only recently.

Three years later, Sørensen published the first global academic analysis of a 100% RE system for the target year 2050, 20 years after launching the field (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0196890495002413).

In 2004, Lund, Mathiesen, and Østergaard of Aalborg University develop the freeware energy system analysis tool EnergyPLAN, optimized for 100% RE system simulations (https://www.energyplan.eu).

Five years later, more than a decade after Sørensen’s first global paper, the second global 100% RE system analysis is published by Jacobson and Delucchi, their target year is 2030 (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030/).

In 2011, Denmark targets 100% renewables across all energy sectors by 2050 and now is aiming for more than 100% renewable power by 2027, Austria plans to be 100% renewable by 2030, and due to the present war in Ukraine, Germany has moved its target for 100% RE electricity up to 2035 from 2045 which I believe was their previous schedule.

At COP 22 in Marrakesh in 2016, 48 countries pledged 100% RE supply at least in the power sector, with more than 61 countries setting 100% RE targets, formally and informally.

As of 2021, there are 666 known peer-reviewed articles on 100% RE systems, 44 articles "discussing generic questions and 38 articles reviewing the field of 100% RE system analyses, totaling 739 articles known in the field. These articles do not include published reports in the field of 100% RE system analyses focused on non-scientific target audiences such as industry, policy makers and the general public.”

74% of all 100% RE studies are national or sub-national studies, 18% are regional and continental, only 8% are global.

The most affluent 3 billion are the most studied, the OECD and China: United States, Denmark, Germany, Australia, China, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Italy, and Greece. Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, where 5 billion people live, have yet to see many published studies.

In 2022, ten countries supply near or more than 100% of their electricity from renewables, mostly coming from hydropower: Albania, Bhutan, Congo, DR, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Iceland, Namibia, Nepal, Norway, Paraguay. Kenya, Scotland, Tajikistan, and Uruguay are in the 80-90% range.

100% renewable energy for electricity is a proven concept and 100% renewable energy for electricity plus everything else is a realistic goal, even, it seems, by 2030 if not earlier.

Grid Enhancing Technologies

This Brattle Group study (https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/grid-enhancing-technologies-shown-to-double-regional-renewable-energy-capacity-according-to-study-by-brattle-consultants/) found that in Kansas and Oklahoma Grid Enhancing Technologies [GETs] could double renewable energy generation on the grid, paying for themselves in just six months.

Rocky Mountain Institute describes Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) (https://rmi.org/ferc-could-slash-inflation-and-double-renewables-grid-upgrades/) as

"Dynamic Line Ratings
Adjusting the carrying capacity of transmission lines based on real-time measurement of ambient conditions
Transit analogy: real-time adjusted speed limits

"Advanced Power Flow Controls
Hardware solutions that push power away from lines with capacity constraints and pull power to lines with spare capacity
Transit analogy: railroad switching stations that direct trains to free tracks

"Topology Optimization
Software solutions that automatically route power flows around congested areas
Transit analogy: re-uniting drivers around traffic"

As Pogo said, “We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities;”
but then
Pogo also said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Playing with Electric Trains as a Climate Tactic

From Edwin Black's book, Internal Combustion, about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system: "Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."

Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old.

Today, Fortescue Williams, a hard rock mining company, operates an "Infinity Train” in Australia that never needs charging using this idea. Eventually, they want to make all 54 of the trains “Infinity Trains."
https://www.fmgl.com.au/in-the-news/media-releases/2022/03/01/fortescue-williams-(wae)-settlement-powers-development-of-world-first-infinity-train
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/05/31/an-electric-train-that-never-needs-charging-its-real/
https://inhabitat.com/mining-company-adopts-electric-trains-that-never-need-recharging/

Hybrid diesel electric trains with batteries charged by regenerative braking are also now available (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/battery-electric-freight-train-wabtec-rail-transport-emissions) with a present model that reduces fuel use by 11% and a prospective model to be produced within the next two years that will reduce it by nearly a third. Less than 37% of global rail is electrified now (https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/electric-trains/technical-summary) so even without taking full advantage of the energy conservation or exergy maximizing potential of electrified railroads, there is quite a lot of room for improvement.

Some more electric train examples:
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/17/wabtecs-100-electric-locomotive-trickle-suddenly-becomes-international-flood/
Germany’s first battery electric train - 61% of their rail system is electrified https://www.juancole.com/2022/01/germanys-battery-regional.html
A battery-powered electric train platform: put two together, set a standard shipping container on top of them, and you have an autonomous freight car with none of the emissions of a diesel locomotive.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/24/electric-train-cars-coming-from-parallel-systems/

In addition, companies like ARES North America (https://aresnorthamerica.com) are now designing grid-scale energy storage projects using electric trains as energy storage, "highly efficient electric motors drive mass cars uphill, converting electric power to mechanical potential energy. When needed, mass cars are deployed downhill delivering electric power to the grid quickly and efficiently.”

Regenerative braking can be used on most vehicles including cars, trucks, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, wheelchairs….

One of the largest electric vehicles on Earth, weighing in at 123 tons with a 65 ton payload capacity, is the fully electric eDumper, developed by eMining AG, using regenerative braking to charge the batteries, and in active use since 2018. Roger Miauton, the chief executive of eMining AG, says, “When you have a descent of 10 percent,* from top to bottom, you never need to recharge. You generate enough energy going downhill as you need to get back up again.” (https://cleantechnica.com/2021/04/26/lithium-systems-acquires-123-ton-edumper-project/)

We should keep reminding ourselves that about 2/3rds of the energy we produce each and every year does no useful work, is dissipated as friction, transmission losses, inefficiencies throughout our energy systems. Recovering some of those losses is usually more affordable and easier than building new generation capacity. It is changing the lightbulbs writ large and can be done if we simply recognize that the opportunity is there.

But then, as Pogo says, “We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.”

* I wonder if we could use this 10% grade figure to maximize energy generation throughout a regional or national rail system and whether that would equal 100% of the energy needed for rail transportation or, just possibly, generate excess energy to the grid.

Mr Franklin's Folks

Preface: I originally wrote this a couple of decades ago, based upon my experiences working with a traveling energy show in the 1970s and 1980s and my own experiments with public displays of renewable energy at farmers’ markets (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/8/21/140257/-). I rewrote it for a new venture, Flourish Fiction which is trying to fill the need for “more hopeful stories to awaken imagination and help inspire the next generation of climate solutions.” It is also published there at https://flourishfiction.substack.com/p/mister-franklins-folks?s=r

_____________

Mister Franklin's Folks began when a small group of people decided to bring a solar fountain to the local farmers market. A solar electric panel pumped water up from a tub into a little fountain that would splash and spray. The brighter the sunshine, the higher the water would go. Children loved to turn it on and off with their shadows, jumping into and out of the sunlight, making the water dance and themselves laugh. Older kids asked questions, and so did some of the adults. "What's it for? How does it work? Why are you doing this? So what?"

The exhibit was labeled "Solar Fountain/Wishing Well" and some coins lay at the bottom of the tub. Nearby, there was a table under the shade of an umbrella where one of Franklin's Folk sat with a collection of books, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, and stickers, along with a big can labeled “Donations.” The van parked behind them was full of working models and public experiments, product demos, and testing equipment. They shared guides with anyone who wanted them. For a small donation.

Each week, from Memorial Day to the week before Thanksgiving, throughout the farmers’ market season, they'd be there. Each week, they'd set up a little solar fountain and present a different example of solar ingenuity and practical power. When they said power to the people, they meant it.

They said, "A south-facing window is already a solar collector and we can show you how to use it. A south-facing porch is even better. It can become a sunspace or greenhouse and you can grow food all year long."

They provided designs and projects that began by caulking and sealing a window and ended with a complete one-room HVAC and electrical system for daily and/or emergency use.

"A few inches of solar panel, a hand or foot powered generator, and a set of rechargeable batteries is a perpetual source of personal electrical power. You can have power as long as the sun keeps shining and can turn the handle or push the pedal when it isn't. You can have power as long as the batteries hold a charge. And when the batteries die, recycle the old ones and buy some new. That is, unless we've changed to capacitors, flywheels, or fuel cells by then."

They had plans for many DIY solar projects and organized a bulk buying club so that people could save money on parts and supplies.

"Let your kids make their own battery power from sunlight and a little exercise. Power your electrical devices with a walk on the treadmill."

They called themselves Mister Franklin's Folks because, like Benjamin Franklin, they believed in ingenuity and thrift. They quoted from Poor Richard’s Almanac:
“A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a year. Save and have.”
“Every little makes a mickle.”
“A wise Man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully and leave contentedly.”
“Spare and have is better than spend and crave.”

They updated these home truths by putting them into an ecologically regenerative context. Each week they offered practical lessons in real thrift or "how to save money while saving the environment, the community, and the world."

Like Mr Franklin, they were experimenting with electricity but instead of kites and lightning, they were looking at the sun for energy independence and building the idea of a renewable economy use by use, appliance by appliance, socket by socket, room by room.

“What would Mister Franklin do these days?" they asked. "Benjamin Franklin was one of the early researchers into the Gulf Stream. How would he deal with global warming?”

These were some of the things that Mr. Franklin’s Folks did at their table at the farmer's market, week after week, all that year.

Planning for Extreme Heat: NY, Phoenix, California, and Beyond

Boston University organized a talk on how Phoenix, New York, and the State of California are planning for extreme heat the other day.

https://www.bu.edu/ioc/2022/03/02/bridging-the-research-policy-divide-lessons-from-cities-tackling-extreme-heat/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0UGVX8bs1I

As NOAA Weather Service reports, "More Americans die from heat every year than from all other extreme weather events combined."

Daphne Lundi, Deputy Director for Social Resiliency of NYC Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, spoke.  Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call for the city and thus it has developed a long-term heat resiliency plan as part of their overall sustainability efforts. The city’s approach is "If we're in the 2080s and we're going to have triple the amount of extreme heat days, what are we doing now in terms of our buildings, in terms of our land use policy to get us to a better place decades from now."

NYC has been developing Cool Neighborhoods since 2017 including ideas like

Shading and tree canopies

White rooms or reflective surfaces like "cool roofs"

Cooling centers

Report available at https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/orr/pdf/Cool_Neighborhoods_NYC_Report.pdf [pdf alert]

They are constantly leading building preparedness and understanding of heat risk so that people know the tools available before a heat wave happens.

NYC also has building energy standards and the Office of Resiliency works on necessary legislation and regulation.  For instance, they are now looking at the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program [LIHEAP] in relation to cooling as well as heating, which is where the bulk of funding goes.

David Hondula, Chief Heat Officer, City of Phoenix; Associate Professor, Arizona State University is in the new Office for Heat Response and Mitigation, started in just the last six months.  Phoenix's first heat response plan passed recently but no long-term cooling plan yet even though they set records for heat associated deaths in the last few years, up 450% since 2014.  65% of "heat associated deaths were among unsheltered" in Phoenix.  An unsheltered person is 200-300% more likely to suffer a heat associated death than a sheltered person.

Karen Smith, Partner at Healthy Community Ventures; former Director, California Department of Public Health provided a larger perspective and addressed how academia can help the public health community gather data during heat emergencies;  advocated more research into prolonged exposure to heat as a health risk, below the threshold of heat emergency, especially for outdoor workers,  and on what actually works in saving lives among the general public.

In most heat events, Karen Smith said, "The major distinguisher of people who died versus people who didn't had nothing to do with their diseases, had nothing to do with whether they had air conditioners or fans, it was social isolation."

It's getting hotter.  We have to learn how to deal with it.

The Environmental Resilience Institute at University of Indiana has a case study of how Chicago, which had a devastating heat emergency in 1995, has worked to reduce the dangers of extreme heat as well as a comparison to what NYC and Minnesota are doing:  

https://eri.iu.edu/erit/case-studies/chicago-il-uses-green-infrastructure-reduce-extreme-heat.html

The American Planning Association has just published a report entitled Planning for Urban Heat Resilience, available as a free download at https://www.planning.org/publications/report/9245695/

A Pattern Language of Work

 I just learned that Christopher Alexander, the principal writer and force behind A Pattern Language, died on March 17.  This is to remember him, someone who made me see with a new focus.

A Pattern Language of Work
earlier version written in October 1997

There are 253 patterns Christopher Alexander et alia's _A Pattern Language_. There are over 30 that I identify as the patterns that make for human and humane work:

9 Scattered Work 19 Web of Shopping 32 Shopping Streets 41 Work Community 42 Industrial Ribbon 43 University as a Marketplace 46 Market of Many Shops 47 Health Center 61 Small Public Squares 80 Self-Governing Workshops and Offices 81 Small Services Without Red Tape 82 Office Connections 83 Master and Apprentices 85 Shopfront Schools 86 Children's Home 87 Individually Owned Shops 88 Street Cafe 89 Corner Groceries 90 Beer Hall 91 Traveler's Inn 92 Bus Stop 93 Food Stands 101 Building Thoroughfare 146 Flexible Office Space 148 Small Work Groups 149 Reception Welcomes You 150 A Place to Wait 151 Small Meeting Rooms 152 Half-Private Office 156 Settled Work 157 Home Workshop

These patterns can be roughly assembled into four groups - work, shopping, learning, and structure:

9 Scattered Work 41 Work Community 42 Industrial Ribbon 80 Self-Governing Workshops and Offices 81 Small Services Without Red Tape 148 Small Work Groups 156 Settled Work 157 Home Workshop

19 Web of Shopping 32 Shopping Streets 46 Market of Many Shops 47 Health Center 87 Individually Owned Shops 88 Street Cafe 89 Corner Groceries 90 Beer Hall 91 Traveler's Inn 92 Bus Stop 93 Food Stands

43 University as a Marketplace 83 Master and Apprentices 85 Shopfront Schools 86 Children's Home

61 Small Public Squares 82 Office Connections 101 Building Thoroughfare 146 Flexible Office Space 149 Reception Welcomes You 150 A Place to Wait 151 Small Meeting Rooms 152 Half-Private Office

Finally, these patterns and their underlying rules can be developed into sentences and paragraphs to tell something like a story:

A community should be built on walking distance so that all the basic needs can be met within a comfortable walk. Scatter work throughout the community so that there is less of a separation between living and working. No bedroom communities, no 5 pm deserted office blocks, no commutes. Build work communities, groups of a dozen or so businesses with common areas, throughout the whole community. Those activities that are noisy, dangerous, dirty should be concentrated in industrial ribbons at the edge of communities and serve as their boundaries. Work should be organized in small work groups, self-governing workshops and offices, providing small services without red tape and opportunities for home workshops and settled work.

Build a web of shopping which decentralizes services throughout the community into short, pedestrian shopping streets that are perpendicular to vehicular traffic. The shops should be individually owned rather than franchises or chains and concentrated in a market of many shops, like farmers' markets and flea markets, with push carts and kiosks, peddlers and street performers. There are opportunities for many businesses: cafes, restaurants, food stands, and bars with entertainment, health centers, corner groceries, inns and bed and breakfasts...

Education should also be decentralized with the university organized as a marketplace where anybody can give or take a course (the January Independent Activities Period [IAP] at MIT, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, any "open university" are models already in existence). Another model is that of master and apprentice, practical mentoring, where the community becomes part of the curriculum with shopfront schools and intergenerational learning from birth to death so that teaching and learning is perpetual and integral within the life of the community. 

Now, how do we make that work economically, here and now in the cities and towns we already have?

Pattern Language for Urban Agriculture

https://solarray.blogspot.com/2013/10/pattern-language-for-urban-agriculture.html

Climate Deadlines

 According to this carbon countdown clock (https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/clock/carbon_clock.htm), at the current rate (1,337 tonnes per second or 42.2 gigatonnes [Gt] per year), the most CO2 we can emit to stay below 1.5ºC rise (global average surface temperature is 1.2ºC above what it was in 1880 and the annual rate of change has doubled in the last 40 years) is 400 Gt, starting from 2020, and that carbon budget will be used up by about July/August  2029.  

We are at 311 Gts left as I write (3/8/22).

To stay below the 2°C threshold, the carbon budget deadline is April/May 2047.  No more than 1061 Gt of CO2 emitted between now and then if we want to stay below that temperature limit. 

I'd like to think there are a whole bunch of wise, dedicated people backcasting from those dates and figuring out what we can do daily, weekly, monthly in the next 7 years and a few months, 25 years and a month or two so that we don't exceed those limits.  If there is, I wish there'd be a more public conversation about it.

Maybe even an even an online all the time, open source simulation/conversation, a World Game (https://worldgameworkshop.org) where those of us all who are for the benefit of all, as my friend the ethicist Milt Raymond would say, could play out the next 7-25 years repairing the climate damage our species has done and is doing, envisioning how "To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone," as R. Buckminster Fuller, the originator of the game, said.

Fuller also wrote, "Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous behaviors that will avoid extinction."

How about a global online design workshop on a climate successful 2029 or 2047?  Just as a thought experiment.

We remain alert so as not to get run down, but it turns out you only have to hop a few feet to one side and the whole huge machinery rolls by, not seeing you at all.
Lew Welch

the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.

Diane di Prima

Interface: From Living Zero to Climate Take Back

I met Ray Anderson in 1996 at a conference about The Natural Step (https://thenaturalstep.org), an environmental action framework from Sweden.  He had founded Interface (http://www.interface.com/US/en-US/homepage), a carpet tile manufacturer, in 1973 and built it into one "of the world's largest manufacturers of modular carpet for commercial and residential applications and a leading producer of commercial broadloom and commercial fabrics."

In 1994 he started the company on Mission Zero (https://www.interface.com/US/en-US/about/mission/Our-Mission), zero environmental impact by 2020 because, he said, his grandchildren started getting on him about environment, pollution, ecology.  He listened, took a good, long look at what he was doing, and realized he was a pirate, robbing resources and giving nothing back but waste and indigestible detritus.  

So he started the company on Mission Zero, the promise to eliminate any negative impact the company has on the environment by the year 2020.  They did by 2019.

At that meeting in 1996, Anderson said that Interface was working on seven aspects: eliminating waste; eliminating emissions; renewable energy; closed loop recycling; resource efficient transportation (which may he thought might be the most difficult); and sensitivity - teaching sustainability (using the example of hiring a family therapist at the Interface factory to help keep workers from bringing problems at home to work [and vice versa?] and citing the resulting growth in production and morale); and finally, redesigning commerce. For Ray Anderson, the "prototypical company of the 21st century will take nothing from the Earth, do no harm, be just, and do well by doing good." It is interesting to note that the Hippocratic Oath is "First do no harm" and that the first precept of Buddhism, according to Gary Snyder, is "Do no unnecessary harm.”

Now that Interface is living with zero negative impact it has launched its next mission, Climate Take Back, a net positive mission:
https://www.interface.com/US/en-US/sustainability/climate-take-back-en_US

They intend to do it by
Live zero
Love carbon
Lead the industrial re-revolution
Let nature cool

Ray Anderson told us back in 1996, "I think the Earth needs a miracle. We can be that miracle.”

He certainly was.

Ray Anderson wrote Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model (1998) and Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose: Doing Business by Respecting the Earth (2009) which was released as Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist (2011).

How to Counter Putin and Reduce Climate Change or Reversing the Energy Weapon

 The impending (2/18/22) invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia is, at least in part, an energy war.  Certainly, he is using the methane Russia sells to the EU and neighboring countries as a weapon.  Russia supplies a third to a half of the gas the EU burns and this is a strategic and economic fact that has to be taken into consideration by all sides.  Thus, reducing Russian energy dependence (and increasing energy independence)  would reduce Putin’s leverage and could also reduce greenhouse gases, increase energy efficiency, save money on the costs of fuel while benefitting local, national economies as well.  If done wisely.

If the worst case scenario plays out and EU and neighboring countries lose up to half their gas supply, we should remember that, for example, USAmerica produced about 92.9 quadrillion btu’s in 2020 (and has been bouncing between 90-100 quads since the year 2000) but about two thirds of that energy, about 62.3 quads, is “rejected energy,” does no useful work, it lost in transmission, distribution, friction, and systems inefficiencies.  That’s quite a lot of slack, even with Carnot efficiencies.
Source:  https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/Energy_US_2020.png

There is also at least one example of a country which  lost half of its energy supply almost  overnight, a few decades ago, Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Empire.  Their situation was made worse because they also lost 85% of their foreign trade economy and about one third of their GDP in one year, all at the same time.  The people of Cuba had to endure near starvation conditions before transforming their energy situation with a robust local and urban agriculture movement and much more bicycle and public transport.  Despite the differences in energy use, supply, and circumstances, there are still some lessons we can learn from what they did then and continue to do now.

How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
2007 diary:  http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/11/204215/961

Film:   https://www.communitysolution.org/mediaandeducation/films/powerofcommunity/

The EU and neighboring countries could go further.  In the face of another imminent war, the constant threat of oil-funded terrorism, and increasingly expensive natural disasters and emergencies, a solar insurgency (http://solarray.blogspot.com/2007/11/solar-insurgency.html)  could upgrade energy and resource systems to reduce waste and improve efficiency while increasing resiliency and preparedness for the next heatwave, flood, fire, hurricane....  A Civilian Conservation Corps doing deep energy retrofits and training people for two of the fastest growing jobs these days, wind technician and solar installer could help us live up to our climate commitments as well as eliminate  the cost of fuel (http://solarray.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-do-you-pay-for-green-new-deal-cost.html).   

Cutting Putin off at the wallet is powerful and, incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he is playing the oil and gas spot and futures markets, making $$$$ hand over fist.