Basic Electricity for the Bottom Billion

 There are about 700 million people worldwide without access to any electricity at all and another 1.18 billion people are estimated to be in energy poverty.  80% of those without any access are in Sub-Saharan Africa: Nigeria (86 million), Democratic Republic of Congo (76 million), and Ethiopia (55 million) have the highest numbers of people without access and Pakistan is home to 40% of the Asian population without access (40 million).

According to the IEA [International Energy Agency] (https://www.iea.org/commentaries/access-to-electricity-improves-slightly-in-2023-but-still-far-from-the-pace-needed-to-meet-sdg7), if current trends continue, about 660 million people are projected to still lack electricity access by 2030 and achieving universal electricity access faces significant challenges, including underfunding.

However, decentralized solutions like mini-grids and stand-alone systems are now the least-cost option for over half of those needing access while solar lanterns and chargers, smaller off-grid solar PV systems, are meeting basic and essential electricity services.

The IEA estimates around 18% of those previously without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa now have solar lantern or multi-light and charger systems which provide basic services but are lower power than IEA's essential electricity standards:

"Basic electricity services or a basic bundle include more than one light point providing task lighting, phone charging and a radio. Essential electricity services or an essential bundle include four light bulbs that can run for four hours per day, a fan that can run for three hours per day and a television that can run for two hours per day. Solar home systems are off-grid solar PV systems with capacity above 10 Wp [10W peak power] and meet the IEA threshold for electricity access, providing basic or essential electricity services depending on size. Solar lanterns and solar multi-light systems are off-grid solar PV systems with capacity up to 10 Wp and do not meet the IEA threshold for access. For further information on these definitions, see the IEA’s Guidebook for Improved Electricity Access Statistics."
Source:  https://www.iea.org/reports/guidebook-for-improved-electricity-access-statistics

560 million people, roughly, are without access to electricity now in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The average household size there is 6.9 people which means there are roughly 81.16 million families without access.

Here are two minimal solar lights and chargers available now in Nigeria:
$5 solar lantern and phone charger
https://www.jumia.com.ng/generic-solar-led-camping-light-tent-lamp-usb-rechargeable-bulb-portable-lantern-310220583.html

$4.60 Solar Lantern with Mobilephone Charger and FM Radio
https://www.swiftermall.com/solar-lanterns/326-solar-lantern-with-phone-charger.html

At retail, a little over $0.4 billion would provide at least minimal electricity to all those families now without access to electrical power, enough for at least a light and a cell phone.

How do we accelerate these already existing economies and marketplaces to provide basic electricity to everyone who wants it?

Grameen Bank's no collateral loans and Grameen Shakti's financing system which was successful in helping to solarize Bangladesh might be one accelerant:

"He [Mr. Gazi who runs a small shop at a village market] can afford the solar system because he earns money using it.  In addition to selling groceries at the market, he is a small-scale energy service provider, a micro-utility, serving a clientele of three.  His solar system powers four lamps, but he uses only one to light his shop.  He rents the other three lamps to his neighbors, shop owners like himself.  All four benefit from solar electricity:  Mr. Gazi from the monthly rental fees and Shakti’s easy credit terms.

"Shakti’s financial model for micro-utilities is simple and adaptable.  Micro-utility entrepreneurs need pay only 10 percent down, pay no service charge, and enjoy an extended repayment period of three and a half years.  In the case of Mr. Gazi, a branch engineer first calculated if the shop owner could make a profit after paying his monthly installment. Shakti then provided one lamp for half price to help get him started.  He paid full price for the remaining three lamps and backed the expense by renting them to neighboring shop owners.  Branch staff provided training and maintenance free of cost and were close at hand when Mr. Gazi had problems.  Today, he has repaid his loan, owns the solar system, and enjoys additional income…. their [shop owners who are micro-utilities] monthly income from renting out lamps exceeds the amount of their monthly installments."

from my notes on Green Energy for a Billion Poor by Nancy Wimmer
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2014/04/green-energy-for-billion-poor.html

These small solar lights and charging systems are what anyone should have on hand in case of emergency or disaster, too.  After all, Solar IS Civil Defense.  A buy one, get one [BOGO] program might be another accelerant, especially if we here in USAmerica get serious about preparing for the next weather emergency in ways that adapt and mitigate climate change.

In the 1980s there was a non-profit that worked in the Dominican Republic building small-scale solar called Enersol.  One of their techniques was to use motorcycle and car batteries as energy storage.  These days, e-mobility devices like bikes and scooters could serve as "rolling batteries" just like an electric vehicle and could be integrated into a local solar microgrid.  Bicycle chargers as well. 

There are opportunities all around us if we recognize them.

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

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

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

Raising Hell in the Paradise Built in Hell

As the saying goes, never let a disaster go to waste.

Seems some people are reading A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit's book about the spontaneous mutual aid efforts that spring up about disasters [my notes at https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/07/notes-on-rebecca-solnits-paradise-built.html] and deciding to raise Hell in any possible Paradise for their own political purposes.  These are the people who are spreading disinformation and misinformation in the wake of the recent back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton and even threatening FEMA workers.

There's a term for this, resilience targeting, interfering with "the ability to recover, whether physically, emotionally, socially, or geographically, from a disaster."  Much more at https://www.truthorfiction.com/how-to-fight-disinformation-part-v-resilience-targeting/

This reactionary anti-climate/environment/ecology pushback is likely to get worse as climate groups begin to do what they should have been doing for years, preparing practically for the next weather emergency in ways that speed the necessary transition, whether the emergency arrives or not, building the disaster relief infrastructure and practicing for the seven lean years or how to live within our own ecological limits. 

The Climate Mobilization Project (https://theclimatemobilization.org) is one climate group now organizing around community preparedness:

"We are launching a  movement to survive climate impacts, heal together, and rise up against fossil fuels."

Here's one of their projects in Kentucky:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOieLeLY0RY

I like Solar IS Civil Defense myself (https://solarray.blogspot.com/2024/03/one-easy-shift-to-solar.html) and The Footprint Project (https://www.footprintproject.org) has "deployed dozens of larger solar microgrids, solar generators and machines that can pull water from the air to 33 sites so far, along with dozens of smaller portable batteries."

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org)

Progressive People's Action (https://www.facebook.com/PPAofPinellas/)

Tampa Muslim Disaster Response (https://www.facebook.com/groups/tampamuslimdisasterresponse/posts/532858529339340/)

Florida For Change (https://flforchange.com),

and New Era Young Lords Florida (https://www.facebook.com/groups/279049263144607/)

are all doing hurricane relief and emergency preparedness work now.

Mystic River Watershed Association (https://mysticriver.org) has a robust "climate resilience" program (https://mysticriver.org/climate-resilience) and I expect other such watershed and conservation groups  do too.

There is also the Cajun Navy (https://www.cajunnavyrelief.com) which grew out of the response to Hurricane Katrina as did Burners Without Borders (https://www.facebook.com/BurnersWithoutBorders/),  and I remember when Recovers.org (https://recovers.org/) first began developing their software system for community preparedness and recovery.

The effects of climate change are accelerating and feeding into the polycrisis or metacrisis we are living through and we are going to need to work hard and work wisely in order to navigate these times with as little damage as possible and, perhaps, restore some of what's already gone wrong.

Heat Pumps: What I Imagine an Environmental Community Could Do

A friend pointed me to a recent Wired magazine story, "The hunt for the most efficient heat pump"

https://www.wired.com/story/heat-pump-maximum-efficiency/

Seems that friendly competition is generating interest in heat pumps in the UK and elsewhere with nearly 200 installations connected to real-time monitoring systems trying to score the highest Coefficient of Performance [COP] or Seasonal Coefficient of Performance [SCOP] at HeatPumpMonitor.org (https://heatpumpmonitor.org/).  Heat pumps with higher COPs and SCOPs provide more heat output for every input of electricity.  Standard installations are now at 2-4 COP, for every 1 kW of electricity in 2-4 kW of heat comes out.  There are some on the  leaderboard (mostly UK but at least one Danish and one USAmerican system) with COPs and SCOPs of 5 edging toward 6.

The International Energy Agency published a global estimate that heat pumps could reduce CO2 emissions by 500 million metric tons, the "equivalent to taking every car in Europe off the road."  

I dislike comparing everything to cars.  Since it's heating and cooling of houses, let's measure emissions reductions in terms of households:  "each home emits 10.97 metric tons of COS per year from all energy use combined, versus 7.27 metric tons of CO2 per year from electricity alone." 

Source:  https://www.epa.gov/energy/frequent-questions-epas-greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Calculations%20and,per%20year%20from%20electricity%20alone.

So 500 million metric tons is about 46 million households (and there are 127 million households in USAmerica).  Heat pumps could remove the annual CO2 emissions of more than a third of all households in USAmerica.

Switching from gas and electrical resistance to heat pumps will reduce the necessity to burn fossil fuels and reduce the demand for electricity due to their (much) higher efficiencies.  Natural gas boilers typically have COPs between 0.7 to 0.9 and conventional electric resistance heaters have a COP of 1.0.  Heat pumps would use at least half of the electricity we generate for HVAC now if not a quarter, fifth, sixth... as heat pump installations attain higher COPs and we build a better future.  

Of course, CO2 emissions is not the operative consumer criterion but cost per square meter, usually what homeowners are most concerned with, will go down as more installations and installers come into the market.  Heat Geek has an online tool to help you think through your own heat pump conversion at https://upgrades.heatgeek.com/;  and, if you want to participate in the COP monitoring race, a typical monitoring setup costs between £500 - 700 ($640 - 897, given current exchange rates).

I can imagine the environmental community speeding the heat pump transition.  Filling the HeatMonitor with more and more efficient heat pumps, speeding the hunt for the most efficient ones, training the HVAC professionals and the public about the advantages, economic, ecological, and social.  A report every Friday from the Future, a practical act of Extinction Rebellion.  

This is what I call a positive protest and the experience of Safecast (https://safecast.org/), developing citizens' science radiation monitoring equipment and a monitoring network in Japan after Fukushima, is one example that could be followed.  Safecast continues their work today.

There is another, additional energy efficiency aspect of heat pumps that I saw when I visited Vietnam in 2020, just before COVID-19 began.  In the apartment in one of the new high-rises in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where I stayed, my cousin's, there were air to air heat pumps in every room.  The living room was next to the kitchen and that heat pump exhausted into the laundry room helping to dry the clothes hanging there.  I wonder if that use of energy is included in the present calculation of COP and SCOP.

Heat Pump Monitor is a project of Open Energy Monitor (https://openenergymonitor.org/) and more on Heat Geek at https://thenextweb.com/news/heat-geek-startup-heat-pumps-brits

One Easy Shift to Solar

Emergency electricity is technologically, economically, and practically trivial.  You don't need to know how to build lightbulbs, batteris, PV cells... from scratch.  They are all readily available for affordable prices as mass commodity products.  If you get them now before the fertilizer really hits the ventilation system (which is as good a descriptpion of the greenhouse effect as any other, at least for me).  If you also use them in your daily life, that will another infinitesimal drop out of the machinery of destruction and provide some personal security for yourself.

A solar light with battery charging capability for at least AA batteries costs about $10 retail. That provides you with the light, the power for a cell phone or radio, and recharging when the batteries run down.  I’ve used mine for years now and will probably get quite a few more years of use out it.

This is also entry level electricity for the bottom billion.

I’ve advocated for decades that cities like mine could do a bulk order for their citizens and help supply at least one of our sister cities around the world who needs such a program as well through a buy one get one program — solar civil defense at home and solar development abroad.

Add bicycles chargers and power take-offs for all electric vehicles, micro-mobility e-bikes/scooters/et cetera and we have an incipient emergency grid if we plan it right.  

Here’s one version of a Personal Power Set

http://solarray.blogspot.com/2018/09/personal-power-set.html

I recently suggested to a strategy session of the local Extinction Rebellion [XR] group that working on practical climate preparation can be an effective and positive protest.  I don’t know if they’ll do anything about it but we’ll see.  I believe that we could change USAmerican energy policy and REALITY in one growing season if we went to the farmers’ markets every week throughout the growing season teaching people what they can already do and helping them do it.  

 

Here’s one version of that vision

https://flourishfiction.substack.com/p/mister-franklins-folks

 

Preparing now for the next weather emergency or disaster, whatever that may be, is climate adaptation and can be good climate mitigation as well.  Organizing people to get ready that way is something, I believe, XR, Fridays for the Future, 350.org, as well as the mainline environmental groups should be doing as well as their street and legislative actions.

The Climate Mobilization Project is organizing around some of these ideas this year

https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/organizing/

as is the People’s Response Network

prncoalition@gmail.com

There’s also Communities Responding to Extreme Weather

https://www.climatecrew.org

Lots of possibilities.  In fact, we are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.  Who wants to go opportunity climbing?

"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

0Recommend

Two Solar Parabolic Troughs

 

The larger solar parabolic trough on the left I made in the 1970s for the New England Coastal Power Show, an energy show which traveled throughout the Northeast for a few years after the second Energy Crisis.  We used it to heat water, make tea, and demonstrate the availability of solar energy as well as many other working alternatives to nuclear power.

The smaller solar parabolic trough on the right is a solar oven now available from GoSun (https://gosun.co/) which has been making solar cookers for many years.  You can put it together and take it apart in a minute or two.  The collector has something I imagined back in the day but never built, a sealed insulated dark absorber to maximize solar heat collection.  

Another thing I imagined so long ago was applying heat pipe technology (https://www.heatpipe.com/what-are-heat-pipes/) to the absorber of a parabolic trough and wonder, now, if anyone has done anything with that.

I may modify the little GoSun trough so that it can also be a vertical collector like my older model.  The sealed absorber looks like it could boil water just as well as if not better than my old copper one.  

This is a good model for anyone doing public energy demonstrations at such events as science fairs or farmers' markets (https://flourishfiction.substack.com/p/mister-franklins-folks).

100% Wind Water Solar Not "All of the Above"

Why We Must Focus on Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage, Not “All of the Above,” For Solving Global Climate, Air Pollution, and Energy Security Problems

A slide deck from Mark Z Jacobson presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting on December 11, 2023

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSNoMN/2312-AGU-MZJ.pdf

Conclusion

Carbon capture, direct air capture, blue hydrogen, non-hydrogen electro-fuels, and bioenergy even when powered by wind-water-solar (WWS), all increase CO2, air pollution, and social cost and either fossil mining and infrastructure or land use versus using the same WWS to replace a CO2 source CCS [Carbon Capture and Storage], DAC [Direct Air Capture] always increase CO2 and new nuclear increases cost, time-to-operation, emissions, and catastrophic risk versus new wind/solar.

However, a Wind, Water, Solar (WWS) Solution is practical and we can "electrify or provide direct heat for all sectors and provide [that] electricity and heat with 100% WWS. " The book “No Miracles Needed” explains how to transition to 100% WWS. https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSNoMN/NoMiracles.html

I believe Mark Z Jacobson is doing essential work.

Stanford Scientists' Recommendations for a "True" School of Sustainability

 A coalition of "Stanford scientists invested in helping the Doerr School of Sustainability achieve its full potential as a beacon of research excellence that accelerates the energy transition, with the speed and scale necessary to avert catastrophe" are making recommendations for a "true" school of sustainability:

 

Summary of Coalition for a True School of Sustainability’s Recommendations

To take effect immediately: review, identify and eliminate benefits to industry donors that present a direct conflict of interest.
Ban: For all research programs, ban sponsorship from any company, trade group, or other organization that engages in the following (see below for details on each criteria):
Does not provide a credible transition pathway
Obstructs climate policy
Plans to explore for further reserves of fossil fuels and supports the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure beyond 2025/30
Establish a Third-Party Enforcement Board to oversee the dissociation process with industry partners on a case-by-case basis.
Disclose: strengthen existing disclosure requirements across the University, including by writing specific guidance for conflicts of interest involving the fossil fuel industry.

More at https://www.truesustainabilityschool.com/big-oil-entanglements

Here is a take on the subject coming from Stanford students filtered through Adam McKay’s Yellow Dot Studios:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIiCXHnKGl4

Hat tip:  Edmund Carlevale

Seeing Three Circles: A Fundamental Failure of Environmental Vision

Seeing Three Circles

3 circle image:
society
economy
environment
Usually seen as equal overlapping circles with a 
sweet spot
in the middle

3 circle reality:
environment
society
economy
smallest circle economy inside
smaller circle society inside
largest circle environment

Once upon a time,
some MIT enviro scientists
were in Nepal & commissioned
a mandala
It was the usual 3 circles 
all the same size
overlapping in the middle

I asked them why they didn't use
the 3 circle reality

The speaker said they considered it
but liked the usual Venn diagram better

8/28/23

Seems to me this confusion between the image where two human concerns, society and economy, are equivalent to all the rest of entire world and the reality where human economy is smaller than human society and human society is merely a subset of the entire world is the central difficulty in understanding the biosphere and our human place within it.  

The three equal circles overlapping in the center is a design known as the Borromean Rings and is the logo for Ballantine Beer.

BBC Gets Real About Climate

 I stumbled on a BBC documentary called "South Africa: On the edge of darkness" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofwx-kyxHq4) a week or so ago.

It was a hard look at the South African energy and climate situation where coal provides 85% of the electricity while the customers endure frequent load shedding (power failures, brownouts, blackouts) and rooftop solar is taking off* as the country attempts to meet its climate pledges, against vehement and entrenched opposition.  The stakes are so high that André De Ruyter, the anti-corruption CEO who took over ESKOM, the South African utility, in 2019, was poisoned the day after he announced his resignation in December 2022.

*  South Africa rooftop solar installations increased from 1MW to 4.4MW in 14 months 

(https://www.eskom.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Weekly_System_Status_Report_2023_w28.pdf)

as the unreliability of the energy sector seems to be driving a transition to independent power.

After that program, BBC showed "Life at 50ºC" which is about how people around the world, particularly in the developing world which is feeling the brunt of the damage, are reacting to the changes in the weather, the climate, their lives

https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/ckx7gv5qm3et

What impressed me about the stories presented is the resourcefulness and determination of the people.  It is life and death and they realize that clearly so the purity of their purpose shows through, no matter what they do.

Thanks BBC for presenting the stories of these remarkable people.

An Ecological Vision from Gary Snyder

 From Gary Snyder's essay "Four Changes" [1969]

recast as a found poem,

still a fertile vision:

A technology of communication, education,

and quiet transportation,

land-use being

sensitive to the properties of each region... 

Careful but intensive agriculture

in the great alluvial valleys,

deserts left wild for those

who would live there by skill. 

Computer technicians who run

the plant part of the year

and walk

along with the Elk

in their migrations

during the rest.

How Many Ways Did He Change the World?: Mel King and the Chain of Change

 My friend and mentor Mel King died at the age of 94 on March 28, 2023. 

I first met Mel when he was a MA State Representative in the mid-1970s.  It was in a State House hallway after a hearing on food and agriculture issues.  He was a big man, 6 foot 5 inches, and, in those days, he was wearing overalls to work.  He was also bald, bearded, and Black.  As I recall, he walked down the hall away from the hearing room still gently lobbying a fellow Representative on the issues.  He was working hard for an urban/rural coalition, building community gardens in the South End and other neighborhoods of Boston while rebuilding the Commonwealth’s agriculture infrastructure with farmers, foresters, and others from far beyond Route 128 and Boston’s South End, his district. 

Over the next few years, he was the focus of a lot of work around these issues as Boston became a hub of urban gardening and the Commonwealth became a model for new methods of supporting local agriculture.  To a great extent, the efforts of those days when there were, at most, 18 farmers’ markets in the state has led to now when there are hundreds, with indoor winter markets and a local agriculture showcase near Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market in downtown Boston.  Mel King was instrumental in the early stages of these changes and a brilliant advisor and advocate all along the way.  In many ways, the rebirth of local agriculture, in part pioneered in Massachusetts, has changed the world.

In 1983, Mel ran as a candidate for Mayor of Boston.  He was the first Black candidate to make it to Election Day.  For that campaign, he wore a straw boater hat, blazers, and bowties.  He cut a very dapper figure as he talked about a Rainbow Coalition made up of all classes, creeds, and ethnicities.  He ran against Ray Flynn from South Boston.  They’d been on opposite sides of the contentious busing issue which integrated the Boston schools but they knew and respected each other.  The racially charged electioneering some feared never materialized.  Flynn won handily but Mel’s Rainbow Coalition was a bridge between Fred Hampton’s original Rainbow Coalition and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1984.  In 1997 Mel founded the Rainbow Coalition Party in MA, later turning into the Green-Rainbow Party of MA which still exists.  King told The Boston Globe a decade after his mayoral run: “What I believe people want more than anything else is a sense of a vision that’s inclusive and respectful and appreciative of who they are. What the Rainbow Coalition did was to put that right up front, because everybody could be a member.”

As Mel practiced electoral politics he also worked as an Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and created the Community Fellows Program (CFP) there in 1970.  The nine month program brings together "community organizers and leaders from across America to reflect, research, and study urban community politics, economics, social life, education, housing, and media.”  He was a director of the program until 1996 and the Mel King Community Fellows program continues today.  The Fellows organized a conference on healthcare this year which happened a few days after his death.

With his equally formidable partner, Joyce, Mel had a practice of Sunday open houses where people would cook and eat and talk and organize.  I went to a couple, once to help Mel think through solar possibilities for his South End row house on Yarmouth Street and another time with a friend who was working on prisoners’ rights issues.  Hundreds if not thousands of people passed through his home learning how to make good trouble from a past master.

Before all of this, in 1968, Mel King led a demonstration of more than 1000 people against a parking garage the city planned to build as part of an urban renewal project,  replacing housing that had been demolished.  It took until 1988 but a 269 unit mixed income apartment complex opened at the site as Tent City, in honor of the protest where the demonstrators occupied the site and slept there in tents.  As Lewis Finfer, a longtime community organizer in Boston and director of Massachusetts Action for Justice, said, “He’s the father of affordable housing in Boston.”  

In 1997, after retiring from MIT, Mel created the South End Technology Center at Tent City, offering community residents free or low-cost training in computers and technology.  It is also one of the inspirations and early sites for a FabLab.  In fact, at a festschrift for Mel King at MIT in 2018, I learned that Mel had been instrumental in making FabLabs happen.  According to Neil Gershenfeld, Mel was the person who told the folks at MIT Media Lab to take the 3D printers, CNC machines, and other equipment and put them in schools and community centers.  Now there are over 1200 FabLabs in over 100 countries.  Mel helped set up some of the first ones in Ghana and Norway and proposed midnight computer programs to complement midnight basketball.

Once I heard someone ask him what was the piece of legislation he was most proud of and he said it was passing the Fruition Project, a bill that provided funding for perennial food plantings on public access lands.  I had distributed a short note to friends in the local agriculture movement about a public access planting project in Santa Cruz, CA back in the 1970s and someone had passed it on to Mel who made it into law.  I was surprised and gratified that the idea sparked Mel’s action and happy that I had, in small way, been one of his collaborators.

Mel King was a quiet but forceful person who never quit.  He changed his neighborhood, his city, his state, his country, and the whole world in many different ways without claiming credit and without stopping.  He was a friend and a mentor whom I will continue to learn from for the rest of my life.  

More on Mel King
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/politics/mel-king-dead.html
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/03/28/mel-king-obituary

Books by Mel King:
Chain of Change:  Struggles for Black Community Development 
Streets:  Poem Book

Carbon War and Energy Transition in Germany and Poland

Sales of heat pumps in Poland experienced a 120% rise in demand in 2022, as interest in the renewable heating technology booms across Europe.

Poland saw sales grow to over 200,000 units in 2022, accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and plans to move away from natural gas in heating buildings.

In terms of equipment designed for central water heating, the increase reached 130%, representing almost one in three of all space heating units sold in 2022.

Source:  https://www.coolingpost.com/world-news/heat-pump-sales-rise-120-in-poland/ 

More from the European Heat Pump Association 

https://www.ehpa.org/2023/02/08/ehpa_news/port-pc-2022-was-the-year-of-heat-pumps-in-poland/

German heat pump sales were also up 53%

Source:  https://www.coolingpost.com/world-news/german-heat-pump-sales-up-53/

and German "Roof-mounted [solar] installations for family homes increased by 40 percent to nearly 3 GW"

Source:  https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-solar-power-capacity-2022-sees-fast-growth-still-well-below-target

Meanwhile, Poland installed the third most solar in the EU after Germany and Spain

Source:  https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/12/20/poland-has-installed-third-most-solar-capacity-in-eu-this-year/

More from  SolarPower Europe 

https://www.solarpowereurope.org

EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2022 - 2026

https://api.solarpowereurope.org/uploads/5222_SPE_EMO_2022_full_report_ver_03_1_319d70ca42.pdf

People, individual homeowners are responding to the carbon war by getting off fossil fuels and installing renewables.  This is a response to the current war between Russia and Ukraine as well as to climate change.  It's a connection I don't see made often enough.

As with climate change, perhaps this trend will only accelerate.

See Mandatory Solar for more

https://solarray.blogspot.com/2023/01/solar-mandates.html

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