The Oil Drum: Local - Acting locally on energy issues

Home Buyers Demand Short Commutes, Efficient Homes (with Backyards, Parking, Lots of Square Feet)

Glenn — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:12:30 -0400

Given the recent run-up in energy prices, subsequent spike in foreclosures resulting in a full blown credit meltdown and financial crisis, I thought it would be interesting to check in with American home buyers and see what the latest data said about their motivations to buy. Not surprisingly it's a mixed bag. There are a lot of good intentions out there for shorter commutes, energy efficient homes and other environmental features. But often these are overcome by the lure of getting more "home for the money" far away from mass transit options and having a detached home in the suburbs.

[break] One of the big reasons is the supply side. Land use policy is typically a local community decision with some state input and little to no Federal government role. Local communities can decide everything from where to install utilities, what type of use (residential, commercial, industrial, etc) a particular parcel of land has, how many homes per acre, where to widen roads, the height limits in different areas and of course whether or not to fund a mass transit system in the first place.

If the Obama administration wants the next wave of home buyers and developers to make better decisions about what types of homes to demand and supply, they will need to wade into the arena of community land use decisions.

According to a new survey of home buyers by the National Association of Realtors, Commuting Costs and Energy efficiency were of primary importance in selecting the homes and apartments they eventually purchased.

Commuting costs factored greatly in neighborhood selection, with 41 percent of buyers saying they were very important and another 39 percent saying transportation costs were somewhat important. “Since fuel costs began rising in the latter part of the survey period, it’s reasonable to assume they’ve become even more important to home buyers since,” Yun said. “We’ve heard from our members that commuting costs are playing a bigger role in buyers’ decisions.”
Environmentally friendly features also were important, cited by 90 percent of buyers. Heating and cooling costs were of primary importance, followed by energy efficient appliances and energy efficient lighting.

However, does this mean that the era of the single detached suburban home is over? Far from it.

Seventy-eight percent of all respondents purchased a detached single-family home...Fifty-five percent of all homes purchased were in a suburb or subdivision.

Based on a Zip Realty Survey on housing features that would eliminate a property from consideration for a buyer, the most frequently cited features are Lack of Garage (72%), Low Square Footage (52%), Small Yard or Lack of Outdoor Space (41%).

Local community land use policy is most often shaped by NIMBY concerns of current residents wanting to avoid any development that might place strains on their police, education, social service budgets or that might increase traffic congestion. Rarely are high minded ideas of creating more efficient living arrangements or denser mixed use areas in presently residential-only areas of single detached houses.

When you are in a hole like the current housing and financial crisis, the first move should be: Stop Digging. Stop building new subdivisions of automobile dependent residential only development.

My view on a good peak oil aware land use policy is that suburban communities are going to have to make a simple choice:

1. Urbanize to become much more efficient with energy on a per capita basis

2. Ruralize to maximize production of food and energy (solar, wood, etc)

Federal and State governments have a major role to play in resetting the incentives around land use. Since roads are often created and maintained with state and federal money rather than local, this could be the lever that best makes sure that Suburban sprawl does continue.

Funding formulas for road projects versus mass transit could be dramatically reset to favor communities that have higher percentages of people that commute by other modes than automobiles. What if a community had to spend a minimum of 20%-35% of their state and Federal transportation dollars on mass transit? Or what if any community that received transportation funding from state and federal sources had to prove that they have a plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by single occupant vehicles or increase the average efficiency of cars on the road?

Similarly, I think there should be incentives around food production that could also stimulate the incentive to ruralize or at least get more people to start backyard gardens--what if you could write-off any purchase of seeds and non-landscaping garden equipment? The basic idea would be to reward higher production of either lower energy intensive crops or biomass for heating fuel. I'm sure others could come up with lots of ideas.

On the demand side, the nationalization of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae also allows the Federal government to put into place better calculations of the impact of transportation and energy costs into how much mortgage they are willing to extend to new home buyers in urban vs. suburban areas. Urban areas tend to have much, much lower transportation and energy expenses--if those are factored into a 30-year mortgage loan decision, there could be a 20-30% increase in the loan amount depending on if the home/apartment is located in an urban area versus a suburban one.

But I think a good start would be to have state and federal governments help communities make better decisions regarding their long term land use policies, instead of the current short sighted and NIMBY driven policies that encourage the over production of inefficient and low production suburban housing. Long term planning at the local level is something that is only done when it is forced upon it by an external entity to get funding. State Governors and the new Obama administration can stimulate this planning by tying Federal funding to it.

And maybe the next crop of home buyers will have more choices of much more efficient urban homes or more productive rural homes.

Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space

Glenn — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:28:13 -0400

In just the last year and a half, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has begun a dramatic transformation of New York City's streets from mere utilitarian corridors into livable public spaces.

This is no happy accident. It took advocates (and bloggers!) years and years of hard work to make this possible. Only three years ago Mayor Bloomberg proudly stated that traffic was a side effect of the city's growing vitality. Now he's leading the charge on putting into place practical ideas that make the city less dependent on automobiles, more livable, more desirable and inviting to new families that would otherwise choose to live in exurban developments.

This may seem like just a feel good story about something that just increases quality of life for some people in NYC that doesn't have much implication for the rest of the country, but consider this: As the Commissioner states, NYC is planning on a million new residents over the next 20 years. Think about how many square miles of suburban/exurban development that will save for farming. Think about how many fewer cars will be produced if those million people come to NYC. What if every city across the country were a more desirable place to live, work, play, shop than its surrounding suburbs?

As we think about our future, we will need to be very conscious of how we can make low energy consumption urban areas more desirable than high energy consumption suburban areas.

Summer Streets a Success!

Glenn — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:00:18 -0400

For the last two weeks, NYC has experimented with an idea of making a major avenue in Manhattan car-free for no particular reason than for the enjoyment of residents and visitors. There were no streetfair vendors hawking $3 tube socks or blended drinks from noisy & polluting generators. Nor was there any excuse like the Marathon or a parade where only invited guests are allowed to run or walk down the middle of the streets.

This was different.

[break] Summer Saturdays purely for locals and anyone who happened to be in town and want to get a little exercise by taking a stroll, jogging, roller blading or biking. It was for anyone of all ages and abilities. There were little children and senior citizens. There were world class athletes and people in wheelchairs. There were people from all over the world and local residents venturing into the middle of the street for the first time without fear of automobiles running them over.

But most of all, there was peace and quiet in the middle of the city and it was not a park - it was Park Avenue, experienced as it had not been experienced in perhaps 80-100 years. No engines roaring, no horns honking, no fear for your life. Just a pleasant place to enjoy a great Summer day in the city.

For generations now, the Summer has been seen as a time to escape the heat, smell and hectic pace of the "the city". But it was not the city itself, but the automobiles (mostly from outside the city) that made the city so unpleasant.

The first two Summer Saturdays in NYC have been a huge success and show the possibilities of simply making a long continuous route car-free. There were dance classes, churches selling lemonade for Katrina rebuilding efforts, families having picnics, people exploring places that only cars previously ventured - like the elevated roadway around Grand Central terminal.

I walked all the way from my apartment on 97th street through Central park and all the way down to Union Square where I enjoyed a wonderful picnic with my wife at the greenmarket. Watch Clarence's video courtesy of StreetFilms and you'll get a little taste of what it was like.

Enjoy.

Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York

Glenn — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:30:36 -0400

New York State is about to approve Hydro-Fracture Drilling permits for Upstate New York in the area of the Marcellus Shale. There is a major concern about the impact on waste water containing many toxic chemicals, including areas near NYC drinking water reserviors.

Here's a slideshow of some of the key images. I'll have more on this as information becomes available. Kudos to WNYC and ProPublica for uncovering this in a great example of investigative journalism.

[break] Here a transcript of one of the reports:

NEW YORK, NY July 22, 2008 —The Marcellus Shale is what industry people call an unconventional play. It’s loaded with natural gas, from Eastern Ohio to the Catskill Mountains. But the gas is very hard to extract. It’s packed tight 7,000 feet deep.
Today, with energy prices at record highs, extracting that gas looks to be affordable, and energy companies and landowners are lining up to reap profits potentially worth billions.
But WNYC has learned in a joint investigation with ProPublica – a non-profit investigative news organization – that New York state regulators have been actively promoting the safety of a practice that has caused environmental damage elsewhere. And they may not be ready to handle the regulatory complexities. WNYC’s Ilya Marritz has the story.
REPORTER: For over a decade, gas companies have been intensively tapping unconventional plays in western states like Colorado. Drill rigs have brought a lot of wealth, but at the same time they’ve dredged up a host of environmental problems – contaminating water supplies and drying up aquifers.
The culprit is a practice called hydraulic fracturing. It’s never been done much in New York. But it’s the only way to get gas out of the Marcellus Shale. Basically the driller blasts the bottom of the well shaft with water, sand, and chemicals, under very high pressure in order to free up the gas. Hydrofracking demands a huge amount of water of water – up to six million gallons per well.
KAPPELL: How are you gonna dispose of that water?
REPORTER: Bill Kappell works for the U.S. Geological Survey. He says there are serious questions that have to be answered,
KAPPELL: It's going to be a learning process. How are you going to treat that water so you can properly dispose of it without despoiling the water resources of New York State?
REPORTER: The US Department of Energy considers the waste water that is produced in gas drilling some of the most toxic of all industrial byproducts. Kappell is particularly concerned about the chemicals used – he doesn’t even know what they are.
KAPPELL: Nothing. They’re proprietary; they’re particular to the company. They don’t have to divulge it.
REPORTER: But in sworn testimony before Congress last fall, environmental health analyst Dr. Theo Colburn – an opponent of drilling - said she was able to obtain a list of one fracking chemicals to be used in Colorado drilling. She says there were 171 substances on the list, and that 92 percent of them had health effects ranging from sinus irritation to reproductive organ damage.
All this has just landed on the desk of Bradley Field, the Director of Mineral Resources and a career employee at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. It’s his job to consider new applications for drilling permits.
FIELD: Based on what we have in front of us now, we don't expect to see any permits being issued for horizontal Marcellus well until, it could be mid- to late fall.
REPORTER: WNYC and ProPublica found Brad Field and his agency unable to answer many questions. Given that the federal government exempts disclosure of the chemicals used in drilling – will New York State demand disclosure?
FIELD: We'd have to take a look. I can’t say for sure right now.
REPORTER: Why not require full disclosure?
FIELD: Because it would be a departure from how we typically do this. So I just want to make sure that what we ask for is something we can look at and be sure of. So I haven’t really come to terms with that just yet. We’re still in looking into it phase.
REPORTER: Field says a few treatment plants in Pennsylvania would probably take the waste water from drilling. But four private waste treatment plants we spoke with say they are close to capacity already. Could municipal treatment plants also accept waste water?
FIELD: I don't really know right now. I’d say that as this development starts, that that’s an issue that’s going to be addressed. I'm not up on municipal treatment plants in New York, and what they can or cannot take or at what volumes.
REPORTER: If no one except the gas company knows what’s in the fluids, how can the public be sure that even treated waste water is safe?
Following our interview, DEC said it had sent out letters to interested energy companies requesting detailed information about chemical additives. But the agency still has not made it a requirement.
Near the source of the Delaware River in the Catskill Mountains sits the picturesque town of Walton. A few miles to the west, the stream widens into reservoir that holds drinking water for New York City. And 7,000 feet below all of this, there’s natural gas.
One pleasant evening last month, a couple hundred citizens gathered in Walton’s old movie theater. For three hours, they listened as community activists from Western States shared their experiences of gas drilling. A slide projector showed aerial photographs of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Well pads dotted the landscape right up to the horizon, like dabs of calamine lotion. Longtime resident Jill Morrison told the audience the drills didn’t just extract gas, they spoiled drinking wells.
MORRISON: Now people are dealing with groundwater contamination from the chemicals used in the drilling process.
REPORTER: Afterwards, Laurie Spaeth from Colchester, New York - also in the New York City watershed - said her thinking about drilling had completely changed since she and her husband were first approached about leasing their acres a few months ago.
SPAETH: When we first got phone call and letter, it sounded like it had possibilities. And the more I searched and the more I learned, the more I thought there is absolutely no way that you can ever make enough money from this to pay for the damages.
REPORTER: But the while Spaeth is worried, the DEC has been vouching for the industry, reassuring legislators that hydraulic fracking is safe.
On May 29th, as the legislative session was winding down, the DEC was pushing a bill through the legislature to get the gas drilling process started. Brad Field gave a reassuring pitch to state legislators. In a PowerPoint slide presentation later supplied to ProPublica and WNYC, the DEC declared:
“Adequate state regulatory programs already in place.”
And the agency entrusted with protecting New York’s environment put a slide on the screen that read:
“All oil and gas states surveyed. Not one instance of drinking water contamination in over one million frac jobs.”
Brad Field:
FIELD: That was a survey taken by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission of the states that do hydraulic fracturing and that statement was made in testimony.
MARRITZ: Is that true?
FIELD: That's what he said. So.
REPORTER: After our interview, the DEC said a 2002 EPA study was actually the source. But state regulators in New Mexico have compiled hundreds of instances of groundwater contamination resulting from gas and oil drilling. In Colorado, an industry watchdog group has gathered evidence of contamination in 300 cases. And in the Barnett Shale in Texas - the formation geologists consider most similar to the Marcellus Shale - the state has overseen the cleanup of radioactive material dredged up at hundreds of gas drill sites.
That information was not presented to legislators. Republican Clifford Crouch is an Assemblyman from Binghamton who saw the PowerPoint.
CROUCH: I was much more reassured of what was going on after seeing the presentation, yes.
REPORTER: On the last day of session, June 23, the gas well spacing bill was passed - along with a dozens of other bills. Democratic Queens Assemblywoman Toby Ann Stavisky says she - and most of her colleagues – first heard about DEC’s bill just hours before they voted on it.
STAVISKY: Why didn’t I have more information was my first reaction because it’s very detailed scientific language. What’s going to happen to the environment, to the air quality, noise pollution, what about pipelines?
REPORTER: But the DEC’s Val Washington rejects the idea that the bill would speed things up. She says the state has 13,000 conventional wells pumping gas right now, with no instances of groundwater contamination.
WASHINGTON: If there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind about we’re going to proceed with these applications without full consideration and protection of the environment, they’re just wrong. This is not New Mexico, this is not Colorado, this is New York.
REPORTER: New York does have a lot more environmental regulations than some other states – a point Tom West is eager to make. He’s an energy industry lobbyist who spoke with the DEC as it was writing this bill. He says there was a healthy back-and-forth between the agency and the companies he represents.
WEST: The byproduct was a compromise which is very common in the legislative process that’s acceptable to industry, acceptable to the department, acceptable to some of the other stakeholder groups.
REPORTER: West estimates gas companies are ready to spend a billion dollars or more on infrastructure investments in upstate New York.
WEST: I can’t think of any other example where an industry is willing to come in to New York State and spend that kind of money developing local resources, without asking for a handout. The oil and gas industry is doing this on their own. They’re asking for a regulatory environment that makes it work.
REPORTER: Environmental groups are dismayed. The Sierra Club’s Roger Downs says the DEC is enabling industry, when it should be planning for all the hundreds of things that can go wrong when a company receives a permit to drill.
DOWNS: Every step of the way there are problems and there are chemical solutions to those problems. So if you get a shaft stuck in the well, how do you get it out? Well there are certain lubricants you use. Are those lubricants safe?
REPORTER: Almost all the city’s drinking water comes from reservoirs on the Marcellus Shale’s Western edge – like the one near Walton. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection is known as a fierce guardian of those waters. Yet so far it has issued only a perfunctory statement, saying it’s committed to protecting drinking water.
The DEC in Albany says it still hasn’t managed to get together with the city to discuss.
FIELD: We’ve had some extensive phone tag and vacations and whatnot but no, we haven’t exactly yet. No.
REPORTER: DEC’s bill to streamline permitting in the Marcellus Shale in on the Governor’s desk. He has until Wednesday to sign it.
For WNYC, I’m Ilya Marritz.

If anyone has any expertise on this type of drilling technique, please offer your thoughts in the comments section.

Enjoying Life Close to Home: Fun Streets

Glenn — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:00:48 -0400

As we consider how to re-design our car-centric landscape, one idea that may be taking hold across the country is to close streets to automobile traffic at times and return that space to the people as a public space to be enjoyed.

We took a look at Bogata's Ciclovia earlier this year. Last month in Portland, they held a first ever "Sunday Parkways". What is "Sunday Parkways"?

What is Sunday Parkways?
6 miles, 6 hours, zero traffic~!
A circular route of city streets open to walk, bike, run, jump & skip - without having to watch out for cars!
A 6 mile "temporary park", connecting North Portland neighborhoods and residents.
A relaxed, non-competitive, FREE event featuring a variety of activities in 4 parks and along the route.

What you see here is people having fun close to home. The places we drive dozens or hundreds of miles to visit - quiet places without cars and trucks - can exist in our own front yards if we only have the will to say no to cars. Next Stop is my hometown: New York City.

[break] Here's the news conference where New York's "Summer Streets" was announced:

Here's more description from Streetsblog:

On three Saturday mornings in August, the Department of Transportation will ban cars from nearly 5 miles of city streets to make way for cyclists, joggers and walkers. Starting at the beginning of Centre St. in Lower Manhattan, then moving north onto Lafayette St., Fourth Ave. and Park Ave., people will be able to travel all the way to 72nd St. and then to Central Park by walking down the middle of a street.
The streets will be closed to cars on August 9, 16 and 23 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. On 15 major east-west streets, like Canal, 14th St. and 42nd St., cars will be allowed to cross the car-free zone.

This is moving forward despite a slew of complaints and people feeling that this might turn out to be a huge mess for traffic moving through the city. As the Mayor says, we'll see how it goes, but we need to try new things. If we only worry about the inconveniences we'll only stay in the same rut we've been in letting automobiles have the run of the land.

Personally, I plan to participate and stay close to home and enjoy my front yard.

Smart Growth Gets a New Look

Glenn — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:00:54 -0400

The growth paradigm for the last fifty years in the US (and many other parts of the world), which accelerated in the 1990s has been away from cities and more in the suburban and exurban areas outside of major metropolitan areas. While large US cities have rebounded from their nadir in the 1970s and 1980s era of white flight, homelessness, drugs and crime, much of the infrastructure investment has been made toward developing auto-centric development instead of walkable mixed use zoned areas along mass transit corridors. I've long thought that good urban planning and mixed use zoning is a large part of the answer to dealing with our dependence on automobiles/oil as well as having many social, public safety and environmental benefits.

Now that $4 gas is here and looks like it might be a short stop before $5-$10 gas, Smart Growth is getting more attention as the best method to maintain a high standard of living and promote economic growth.

So let's take a look at some videos from around the country on what's happing on the Smart Growth or Transit Oriented Development front to reduce out dependence on automobiles.

[break] Starting in my backyard, here's Public Service Announcement from Vision Long Island, trying to stimulate debate on reorienting local priorities away from auto-based development and toward walkable mixed use towns around mass transit corridors like the LIRR and the emerging Long Island bus system.

Here's a short 2 minute spot explaining why the American Planning Association (APA) gave Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes their 2007 Award to her for revitalizing Smart Growth in downtown Kansas City.

And finally, here's a look at Sacramento's strategy of using infill development to manage it's growth.

The Wall Street Journal picked-up this story today.

Gasoline was less than $2 a gallon when Mike McKeever brought his gospel of bikes, light rail and tightly packed neighborhoods to this state synonymous with cars, freeways and suburban sprawl. "The development industry was very concerned," says Mr. McKeever, head of Sacramento's regional planning agency. "The environmental community was openly negative," concerned that it was "just more talk, talk." Seven years later, with gasoline hurtling past $4 a gallon, Sacramento has become one of the nation's most-watched experiments in whether urban planning can help solve everything from high fuel prices to the housing bust to global warming. "They're really the model," says Steve Winkelman, a transportation expert at the Center for Clean Air Policy.

Please leave comments below about what's going on in your area of the world.

Abundant Skies: 8 Principles for Successful Rainwater Harvesting

jeffvail — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:00:32 -0400

The following is a guest post by Brad Lancaster on rainwater harvesting. Energy scarcity and water scarcity are closely related phenomena, especially in certain parts of the world. While rainwater harvesting is no panacea for our water or energy problems, it may be a critical component in many regions for dealing with issues of scarcity. It is also an excellent example of a scale-free tool: it can be implemented by individuals, communities, or nations.

Food produced from rainwater on Brad Lancaster's Tucson residence

Brad Lancaster is a permaculture expert and consultant based in Tucson. His award-winning book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume I: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into your Life and Landscape (2006, Rainsource Press) and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks are available on the web at www.HarvestingRainwater.com and at amazon.com. This website also contains a bounty of free information, image, video, and audio resources.
[break]

My interest in water -harvesting arose from a desire both to reduce my cost of living and to be part of the solution rather than the problem in my desert city of Tucson, Arizona. One of Tucson’s biggest problems is its mismanagement of water resources, pulling more each year from the water table than nature can replace. This is a practice that has dried out the Santa Cruz river, killed countless springs and wells, and severely depleted available groundwater resources.

Living in the desert has put a special emphasis on water -harvesting for me, but it’s a valuable strategy for non-desert environments, too. Rainwater harvesting is effective for reducing or preventing erosion and downstream flooding while improving stormwater quality. Thus, Portland and Seattle have embraced water-harvesting to protect salmon populations, and Maryland is doing the same to protect the Chesapeake Bay. And anywhere in the world, water -harvesting is a smart strategy for helping to recharge groundwater tables, springs, wells, and rivers.

Back in 1994, my brother Rodd was also interested in water-harvesting, but as long as we were both renting, all we could do was read up on the subject. At the time, we were both self-employed, making what the government considers poverty wages. No bank would touch us. On our own, neither of us could afford to purchase a home, but together, it was feasible. (It helped that the house we wound up purchasing was about to be condemned.) We did 95% of the renovation work ourselves and used mainly salvaged materials.

Twelve years later, our property value has shot through the roof. The integrated water-harvesting techniques Rodd and I learned and implemented on this once-barren urban lot have transformed it into an oasis in the desert, with temperatures ranging an average ten degrees lower than our neighbors’. Our land produces 15-25% of our food, which includes organic, homegrown fruits, nuts, vegetables, eggs, honey, and mesquite flour grown solely with rainwater and greywater (reclaimed household wash-water.) Our utility bills have been dropping steadily since we moved in and now run an average $20 per month.

The Lancaster residence before renovation in 1994

2006, after renovation: rainwater and greywater utilized for food production, climate control, privacy.

In the course of creating our sustainable oasis here in Tucson, Rodd and I arrived at eight basic principles that anyone can use to implement a successful rainwater-harvesting strategy of their own.

Principle #1: Begin with long and thoughtful observation.
Right after we bought the house, monsoon rains poured from the sky. Rodd and I got acquainted with where where runoff pooled against the house and how the bulk of the rain ran off our site into the street. We mapped these observations, and others, including noise, head¬lights, and pollution from the street; where we wanted privacy; where we needed shade; and where we needed to enhance winter solar exposure. Wherever you direct rainwater in your landscape, you will be nurturing plant life, so take the time to make ensure this vegetation is part of your overall plan.

Next, calculate the rainwater resources available within your site's “watershed.” For us, that area included not only the 12 inches of annual rainfall on our roof and 1/8th of an acre property, but the 20 foot wide public right-of-way adjoining our property, the section of street draining past the right-of-way, and the runoff from our neighbor’s roof. (See Table, below) This totaled about 104,600 gallons (397,000 liters) of rainwater in an average year!

Principle #2: Start harvesting rain at the top of your watershed, then work your way down.
In most cases, the top of your watershed means the roof of your house.

Our leaky asphalt roof was a mess, so we removed it and installed 26-gauge galvanized steel metal roofing instead, which harvests rainwater in a potable form. However, as long as you’re only harvesting rainwater for use in landscape irrigation, this isn’t a necessary step. (Rainwater harvested off a conventional asphalt roof can also be made safe for consumption with the installation of an appropriate water filtration system.)

Take a look at your roof. Where do the gutters drain? Where is rainfall currently being directed? This is where you should begin with mulched water-harvesting basins and plantings (at least 10 feet from the building's foundation.) On our property, just under half of the roof runoff is directed to earthworks and fruit trees north of the house. The rest is directed to an above-ground cistern west of the garden along our property boundary on top of a 2-foot (60 cm) high earthen platform.

Our cistern is a custom-modified new ferro-cement septic tank, but a number of good alternatives exist. (See, Choosing a Tank.) We selected the location of our cistern to provide multiple functions. By placing it on the western boundary of our yard to shadeing out the hot afternoon sun, it creates a beneficial microclimate for our garden. By acting as part of the property line, it provides a privacy screen from a peering neighbor. And by placing the cistern on an elevated platform, the system utilizes gravity in circulating water from the roof’s gutter to the tank, and from the tank to the garden.

Whatever type of cistern you choose, having your garden located nearby will keep hose length to a minimum (25 ft. ideal) This will reduce water-pressure loss to surface-friction inside the hose and make watering with rainwater a convenience. (Your plants will love it too!)

Principle #3: Always plan an overflow route, and manage overflow as a resource.
Eventually, all water-harvesting systems will meet a storm that exceeds their capacity, so don’t get taken by surprise. All rainwater harvesting structures should be managed in such a way that the system can overflow in a beneficial, rather than destructive way.

In that spirit, overflow from our backyard cistern is directed via a 4-inch diameter overflow pipe gutters to a series of adjoining mulched basins that passively irrigate a citrus tree and our garden. In addition, all of our sunken earthworks have an overflow “spillway.” Typically, one earthwork overflows to another and another, until all are full and then, if needed, the lowest earthwork can overflow to a natural drainage–-or, in a typical urban context, the street.

Your goal should be to harvest the rain, but never get flooded by it. This is key.

4. Start with small and simple strategies that harvest the rain as close as possible to where it falls.
When people think of rainwater harvesting, usually it’s cisterns and tanks that spring to mind. But the water collected off your roof is typically much less than what’s actually falling on your property. Simple water-harvesting earthworks, such as basins, terraces, contour berms, and check dams will harvest the rain where it falls, on the land.

The water-harvesting earthworks Rodd and I created collect the vast majority of our rain. We dug level-bottomed basins and deeply mulched them (about 4 inches) in order to infiltrate rainfall and runoff throughout our watershed—once again starting at the highest points of the yard and working down. Overflow water was directed from the upper basins to the lower basins, which brings us to principle number five.

5. Spread, slow and infiltrate the flow of water into the soil.
Cisterns along with mulched and vegetated earthworks basins with overflow routes will effectively transform your erosive runoff during heavy rainfall into a calm, productive resource while reducing water loss to evaporation and downstream flooding.

Raised pathways and gathering areas are also a great strategy for spreading water through the landscape. This pattern of “high and dry” regions that drain to adjoining basins kept “sunken and moist” will help to define those areas through vegetation while spreading and sinking the flow of water. (This also helps keep ice off walkways and driveways in colder regions.) At our place, we also used earthworks to redirect the runoff that used to pool against our house to planting areas 10 feet or more away from the building's foundation.

6. Maximize living and organic groundcover.
All your basins and other water-harvesting earthworks should be well mulched and planted. This creates a “living sponge” effect that will utilize the harvested water to create food and beauty in your surrounding landscape while steadily improving the soil’s ability to infiltrate and hold water due to the vast network of growing roots and beneficial micro-organisms.

Groundcover is equally important in helping to ensure that, in your enthusiasm for harvesting rainwater, you don’t wind up creating a haven for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes need three days of standing water to transform from eggs to adults. Water-harvesting earthworks allowing water to infiltrate below the surface of the soil (typically within one hour) where it won’t be lost to evaporation.

Take a hike in the natural unmanaged areas near your home to determine what native vegetation would be best to plant within or beside your earthworks. Out in the wild, you'll notice which plants grow naturally in depressions – they can be planted within your basins. Wild plants preferring better drainage can be planted beside, but not within earthworks.

Blue palo verdes, velvet mesquite, chuparosa, oreganillo, and desert lavender are a few of the native plants found along the ephemeral washes in our area of Tucson that we plant within our earthworks.

7. Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by “stacking functions.”
As mentioned previously, water-harvesting strategies offer maximum benefits when they’re integrated into a comprehensive overall siteplan. We focused on locating the earthworks where we wanted to stack functions with multi-use vegetation.

Through rainwater harvesting earthworks, we’ve nurtured a solar arc of deciduous trees on the east, north, and west sides of our home that cool us in the summer, but let in the free light and warmth of the sun in winter. A living fence of native plants along the property line (along with an existing citrus tree) form part of a sun trap. This suntrap shades our garden from the afternoon sun, creates on-site stormwater control, and enhances habitat for native songbirds and butterflies.

The Big Picture
Within our generative landscape, rainwater has become our primary water source, greywater our secondary water source, and municipal groundwater a strictly and infrequently used supplemental source (meeting no more than 5% of our exterior water needs). Most of our established landscape has even become regenerative by thriving on rainwater alone.

Our household consumes less than 20,000 gallons of municipal water annually, with over 90% of that being recycled in the landscape as greywater. Additionally, we harvest and infiltrate over 100,000 gallons of rain and runoff into the soil of our site (and, by extension, the community's watershed) over the course of our annual average rainfall.

As a household, we’re shifting more and more to living within our rainwater “budget”: the natural limits of our local environment. As a result, we’re enriching the land, growing up to 25% of our food on site, creating a beautiful home and neighborhood environment – and giving back more than we take!

The further we go, the easier and more fun it gets, which brings us to the eighth and last principle:

8. Continually reassess your system and improve it.
Three years ago, Rodd and I set up an outdoor shower so the bather could either use pressurized municipal water at the showerhead or cistern water distributed from a shower bucket on a hook. Other strategies have included a solar-powered greywater “laundromat” in our backyard (utilized by seven neighboring households) along with a reduction in impermeable hardscape by replacing our asphalt driveway with lush plantings and earthworks.

One of our most rewarding recent improvements has been the process of working with our neighbors and the city to replace 26% of the pavement from the corner intersection with a water-harvesting traffic circle planted with native vegetation. We also succeeded in implementing a system that harvests street runoff within curbside mulched basins to grow a greenbelt of trees along the street and sidewalk, so the street now passively irrigates the trees.

As a result, our neighborhood—once the victim of urban blight—is now one of the greenest and most livable areas of the city.

My advice to anyone who wants to get started living more sustainably is to start with rainwater-harvesting. Start at the top. Start small. But above all—start!

Enjoying a shady right-of-way produced by rainwater-irrigated, food-producing trees at the Lancaster residence

Sidebar: Choosing a Rainwater Cistern
Our cistern has a 1,200-gallon (4,560 liter) capacity. We selected this size after calculating the average annual roof runoff, assessing our water needs, and determining the resources we wanted to commit to the system. We opted for a precast concrete septic tank for a number of reasons, but primarily because it was affordable as well as a workable size and shape for our space (5 foot wide, 6 feet tall, 10 feet long).

Our septic tank was custom-made for use as a cistern, and further reinforced for above-ground installation. The cost back in 1996 was $600, which included delivery and placement. It's been working great ever since.

Other options for pre-manufactured cisterns include light-free dark green or black polyurethane plastic, corrugated metal, and fiberglass. See www.watertanks.com for options and look in the yellow pages under tanks for local suppliers.

Calculating Your Rainwater Resources
To calculate the volume of rain falling in an average year on a specific surface such as your roof, yard, or neighborhood, use the following calculation: CATCHMENT AREA (in square feet) multiplied by the AVERAGE ANNUAL RAINFALL (in feet) multiplied by 7.48 (to convert cubic feet to gallons) equals the TOTAL RAINWATER FALLING ON THAT CATCHMENT IN AN AVERAGE YEAR: CATCHMENT AREA (ft2) x RAINFALL (ft) x 7.48 gal/ft3 = TOTAL AVAILABLE RAINWATER (gal/year)

Green Cottage: eco-renovation of a 100-year-old Victorian end-terrace

Chris Vernon — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:00:00 -0400

This is a guest post from Andy Hunt (solar_bud on The Oil Drum). It's an inspiring account of what can be done today with a modest property to live efficiently and maintain a degree of energy security.

Vital Statistics

Our house was built around 1900. It is an end-terrace house with 2 bedrooms, located in an inner-city area in Bury, Lancashire, UK. Our household comprises me and my partner, with no children, and we live in the property all year round. No planning restrictions are in effect in our area.

Wood burning stove with back boiler.

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Annual Energy Use

We use around 3200 units of electricity annually from the grid, although this is expected to fall once we install the second stage of our solar PV system. This includes all cooking, as we don’t have a gas supply, and is about average for our part of the country.

Our heating system is 100% wood and solar fuelled, so we don’t tend to count heating in our energy consumption. We go through quite a few logs over the course of a winter though!

We use a ‘green’ electricity tariff, initally Npower “Juice” but now Good Energy as it's 100% renewable unlike Juice.

About Us and Why We Did It

I work as Sustainability Manager for a local Council, and have a long-standing interest in energy issues, climate change and fossil fuel depletion. I have always wanted to live in an eco-house, and my home renovation project of our very ordinary Victorian terraced house has made that dream a reality.

My partner comes from a family whose motto is “mend and make do”, and she has grown up with solid fuel heating all her life. She is very practically minded, the daughter of an electrician, so her ideas and practical suggestions have been a very valuable part of our ‘green’ experiment.

Heating

The existing gas central heating system was converted to run on wood fuel and solar power.

I hired a plumber who disconnected the existing radiator system from the (cheap and low-quality) gas combination boiler which was running it when I bought the house, and connected it up to a new wood burning stove which was installed in the fireplace in the living room. The stove has a back boiler which runs two pipe loops – one connects the stove to a dual-coil hot water storage cylinder in the bedroom directly above, and the other connects the stove to the radiators in the house.

The hot water storage cylinder is heated by convection from the back boiler, and on the return pipe from the cylinder to the stove is a pipe thermostat. When the temperature of the return pipe (and hence the water in the cylinder) reaches 60°C, the thermostat starts a circulation pump in the radiator circuit, which pumps hot water around the house. This ensures that the hot water cylinder is heated as a priority, and is kept hot at all times.

When choosing a wood stove, it is essential to choose the right type for the application and situation. An ordinary room heater stove will provide warmth and cooking facilities in an emergency such as a power cut. A larger stove with a back boiler like ours can also run a central heating and hot water system, but is more expensive to install.

If you live in a smoke control area, you must legally install a stove which is exempt from the Clean Air Act by DEFRA for burning wood in a smoke control area. Most stove manufacturers make such models, but at the time of writing the only wood stove with a back boiler which is CAA-exempt is the Dunsleyheat Yorkshire stove.

In the summer, the cylinder is heated by a solar hot water system, which is plumbed into the lower coil in the hot water storage cylinder – the wood stove is plumbed into the top coil. Our solar hot water system is by Zen Eaga Solar – it is a flat plate system, and works well. Most solar hot water system installers will provide a dual-coil cylinder as part of the installation. The cost of the cylinder is actually a substantial part of the cost of the whole system.

Power Generation

The house uses solar photovoltaic panels and a battery back-up system for power security and low carbon emissions.

In the house there are two ring-mains - one which serves the heavy duty appliances in the kitchen such as the hob, cooker and washing machine, and a second one which serves the rest of the house.

When considering solar PV for electricity generation, I didn't like the idea that I would still lose power during a power cut if the system was grid-connected. So I went for a hybrid system, which doesn't feed excess power into the grid but stores it in batteries, will work during a power cut for several days, and can also take mains electricity when it is available.

We currently have 330Wp of solar PV (to be expanded to around 700-900Wp soon), connected to a 720Ah battery bank and an inverter-battery charger, which serves my second (low power) ring main. The inverter/charger is a Powermaster 1.5kW pure sine wave inverter which can take a 240V mains input, or can run off the batteries and solar PV in the absence of mains electricity. It was originally designed for use aboard boats, and so we just use the grid as our ‘shore power’ equivalent. Interesting to think of our home as a ship afloat at sea when we are running off-grid! Our PV panels are currently two Schüco 165Wp polycrystalline panels – the next stage will see an additional 165Wp Schuco panel plus a 200W Kyocera polycrystalline panel, bringing our installed capacity to 695Wp. The 30A solar controller on the inverter/charger can take up to 1kWp of solar, so even then there will still be room for another 200-300Wp of PV, as long as we can find the roof space for it!

In the summer the system will run for around a week at a time before the batteries need to be recharged from the mains. Further PV addition should improve this so that it runs pretty much constantly over the summer months. In the winter when the PV isn't generating as much, the batteries can be charged from the mains and in UPS mode the inverter will switch over to the batteries during a power cut, which will last us for 3 days or so, giving us desk lamps, TV (using a laptop and TV card), central heating pump, solar pump and general electrical gadgetry which makes life much more bearable during a power cut.

The only things we can't use during a power cut are the heavy-duty kitchen appliances. The fridge can be plugged into the off-grid ring main during a power cut with an extension reel.

Batteries and inverter.

Water and Sewage

We have only made fairly basic water efficiency improvements at Green Cottage - the installation of two water butt in the garden holding around 450 litres, a dual-flush toilet and spray nozzles on the bathroom taps all help to reduce water consumption.

We do have a dishwasher and a washing machine but they are both 'A' rated for energy and water efficiency. Studies have shown that dishwashers make more efficient use of water and electricity than washing up by hand, and we have a manual ‘wonder washer’ for clothes which we can use during power cuts. Our dishwasher is a very new model, and the instructions give details on how to connect it up to make use of solar-heated hot water. However, we tend to use our solar hot water for baths and showers only, so the dishwasher is actually connected to the cold water supply in our case. Not ideal, but with British summers the way they are, we need all the solar power we can get just for washing ourselves!

Insulation

We have had the standard 250mm of loft insulation installed under a Scottish Power discount insulation scheme a few years ago - most utilities offer these schemes under the Government's Energy Efficiency Commitment. You can find out which are the cheapest schemes in your area by telephoning your local Energy Efficiency Advice Centre on 0800 512 012.

Unfortunately our house does not have a wall cavity and so we can't install cavity wall insulation. We have no intention of getting external insulation done - far too expensive! The nice thick Accrington brick walls of our home give a good thermal mass though.

Summer Cooling

The high thermal mass of our old house helps to keep it cool in the summer.
We are lucky in that our living room is on the North-facing side of the house, but houses the wood stove which heats the house in the winter.

This arrangement means that in the winter, the living room is the warmest room in the house, and in the summer it is deliciously cool, even in the hottest weather. The high thermal mass of the house means that the North side stays very cool, like a larder, even whilst the back of the house is baking in the midday sun.

Lighting

All the lights in the house are Compact Fluorescent Lamps, otherwise known as energy-saving bulbs.

We tend only to use low-power desk lamps rather than the 'big light' in each room. As the desk lamps run from the solar PV/battery system, this means that we get free electricity to run the house's lighting, and also that we have lighting even during a power cut.

Appliances

All appliances are energy efficient appliances, under the European rating system.

The kitchen appliances are 'A' rated, with the exception of the fridge, which although old is still working. Rather than scrap it and buy a new one, we invested in a 'Savaplug', which regulates the motors on old fridges and reduces their energy consumption.

We watch television on a laptop computer with a LCD monitor, and a TV card, which uses very little electricity. The same computer doubles up as our stereo CD player and DVD player, which means we have very little entertainment technology clutter.

Even with 100% electric cooking, our electricity bill is very low, typically around £5-6 weekly.

One measure we have recently taken to cut our electricity consumption is a flat-bottomed kettle to go on our wood stove – electric kettles use huge amounts of electricity, and our £3 aluminium stove-top kettle from Ikea will hopefully make a significant difference to our electricity bill!

The Garden

Although just a small terraced house back garden, ours is crammed with food plants, biodiversity and storage areas.

Our back garden is South-facing, and has been planted up according to Permaculture design principles.

A huge variety of perennial fruits and berry plants are crammed into a small area, with an additional raised bed for growing annual vegetables.

Perennials include: strawberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants, blueberries, a grape vine, apple tree, pear tree, raspberries, cranberries, blackberries and hazelnuts.

We have tried a variety of different things in the raised beds – the most successful to date have been carrots, pak choi, tomatoes (although we have had problems ripening them as they grow against an East-facing wall), French beans, onions, potatoes and a pumpkin which we have just harvested. We also had a butternut squash plant in the miniature greenhouse which did very well, although the pot it was in turned out to be too small for it in the end.

A storage space for logs, a bunker for kindling, a small lean-to greenhouse and a table and benches for enjoying the sun are all crammed into this typical small terraced house back yard. Space has even been found for a network of four small wildlife ponds and wildlife areas amongst the food growing, and the garden has a significant population of frogs, which is good because slugs and snails are a big problem. We use copper ‘slug rings’ to try to keep small plants safe, but it’s a constant battle, and I may well try other approaches in the future such as beer traps.

Conclusion

It has taken a good few years to get from standard gas-heated end-terrace to low-carbon eco-cottage, a lot of hard work, improvisation and a reasonable chunk of hard-earned cash, but we love the end result. The old gas combi used to really struggle to heat the house, but the wood stove system warms the brickwork through, and we are really cosy. It's also great not having to use any kind of heating in the summer, as the solar hot water system provides us with a cylinder full of free hot water, and even the solar pump runs on free electricity.

I'd like to thank Powerswitch for the inspiration, help and encouragement provided on their forums.

There's nothing quite like relaxing in a hot bath knowing it has been heated free of charge by the sun, and free veggies from our back garden taste so much better than from the supermarket. A couple more PV panels and we will be finished. And then, we might start looking for a small patch of woodland for our next project...

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First published in Permaculture Magazine - solutions for sustainable living.
www.permaculture.co.uk

TOD Local Open Thread: Any Hope of a Buyer's Strike?

Glenn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:30:44 -0400

We've heard all sorts of different ideas on how to ease the pain at the pump this Summer for motorists. The Bush administration has argued for OPEC to increase production and Congress to ease restrictions on drilling. In reply Congress wants to sue OPEC over high prices and tax oil company's windfall profits. Senators Clinton and McCain have called for holiday for the Federal gas tax. All of these various ideas have made a lot of headlines, but none of this has done a drop of good so far.

More long term, price induced demand destruction will take hold and people are making better decisions factoring in oil price - they are buying smaller cars and not snapping up McMansions in the hinterland, but with oil near $140/barrel right now what's the short term answer?

The secret answer to curbing high oil prices in a supply constrained world that no one seems to be talking about is for buyers to go on strike. And no, I'm not talking about a meaningless "Don't fill up on this day" but keep driving.

My back of the envelope estimate is that if there were a concerted effort by the major economies (hello G8 ministers meeting in Japan) to have demand pulled back sharply (10-15%) over the Summer, we could see oil prices go down fairly rapidly.

What prospects do people think there is of it? Would it be politically feasible? How much would demand need to decline to make a substantial impact of oil prices?

Peak Oil 101: Why Isn't This Class Available Yet in My College?

Glenn — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:00:21 -0400

This is a guest post from Max Arturo Alcala Sainz.

Currently, the list of academic institutions offering relevant and up-to-date information and courses geared to confront the imminent energy slope is awfully short. If you have ever tried to enroll in your local university for some hands-on Peak Oil learning experience, you may have found yourself disappointed in knowing that no such course is offered. Even in certain high-level economics courses that scrape at energy depletion and natural resources, you will probably be able to teach your professor a thing or two (if you are a keen reader of TOD). :)
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Now, this is a very wide generalization. There are quite a few universities that are currently pushing the envelope in Ecological Economics, Energy Economics and developing some very insightful research (Dr. Hall's EROEI paper is a good example of students and prof. working together in these issues). Every day, more and more faculty is ramping up on their knowledge of Peak Oil nationwide and passing on the news to students. Still, if students are not fortunate enough to be near the handful of universities that offer Peak Oil-related syllabi (including Duke, Oregon U, URI, Vanderbilt and others), chances are they will be stuck without any classroom education regarding declining energy and what to do about it. Even in universities where one may find Peak Oil information, open conferences and non-official meetings are significantly more frequent than formal classes and structured courses. Given that universities are the ideal spawning grounds for elaborating on and raising awareness of declining energy-related topics, it's worth to analyze a bit more why such a weighty matter is not being fully discussed and integrated into university curricula all over the country.
note: Some of the links are kinda old. You might do well contacting the university directly if you are interested in taking classes.

It might not seem that Peak Oil is taking a long time to propagate itself in academic circles, because the standard protocol for new theories dictates a hefty amount of time for discussion, peer review, and proven results(in fact, some may say that this issue has been spreading out incredibly fast for academic standards). There is no getting around this buffer, since it puts a barrier against unfounded knowledge and weak arguments ever getting into the classroom. Nonetheless, the inherent urgency of Peak Oil and the disastrous consequences entailed command a higher priority in the list of newcomer theories to be tried and proven by academic circles in all disciplines. One might dream as far away as to think that Peak Oil theory will be included in syllabi for children in elementary school in a near future, but even climate change being taught to kids is still receiving attacks nowadays. It is a good bet to first tackle university settings.

Here is a tiny list describing some of the problems Peak Oil runs into while trying to get into the classrooms. In this post I wish to remain focused on the academic, administrative barriers for Peak Oil in the classroom; other elements that also affect the acceptance of Peak Oil in the media, politics and general public have been discussed far more skillfully in other posts(and here, and here). I will gladly accept contributions from readers. For the time being, some of the most noticeable issues in my opinion are:

- The University's flexibility regarding course syllabi and lecture acquisition: The location of the university, its funding (state or private) and the university's internal regulations will all affect how much liberty a professor has while teaching his classes. Different states will have unique requirements for university syllabi and these affect how much cutting-edge discussion (Peak Oil included) a lecturer will be able to inject into his class. Many professors will use seminars and open discussions to discuss topics not neccesarily included in their syllabi, but we are interested in full-fledged, compulsory classes that will hopefully reach all of the students and let them know about Peak Oil.

- The conservative approach of many Economic schools. Let us think of "conservative" as a broad, neo-classical economics perspective where growth is considered to be exponential and infinite without taking into account the geophysical limitations of planet Earth. This stereotype only serves to help paint the typical situation in an Economics school of a "typical" university. I am aware that the logical structure I am following has several flaws, but I intend to use it only for illustrating purposes.

This conservative approach we are talking about will busy itself more with the financial, socioeconomic, equity, and international aspects of economics, rather than the energy standpoints of sustainable economics. We can stereotype this approach as what has been taught in Economic schools for the last decades: everything but sustainable, energy-measured economics with strong ties to Natural Sciences, Ecology and Geophysics.

Now, if "Peak Oil 101" existed, it would more than likely first be housed in the School of Economics (Maybe the school of Natural Sciences?) of the "typical" university. If this is to be true, then that means that at least a group of lecturers and professors from that School have a good understanding of Peak Oil and consider Economics to be a wholesome, interconnected discipline that lacks many current "conservative" assumptions. From point A of current conservative economics, to point B of energy econometrics-orientated Economics, a number of situations could take place.

One possibility is that the change in economic schools could take a great deal of time (or never happen at all), regardless of the forthcoming consquenes of Peak Oil. It's all too easy to throw the blame around, especially with Peak Oil. In this scenario, experts and academis would go back and forth, blaming the government, the society and Tuna fish for the eventual break-down of financial systems and conventional institutions. Thus, the real cause of economic failure would never be subject to academic study. Another more hopeful alternative is that Economic schools trace the symptoms of market failure and societal breakdown to their roots on their own, and eventually come to terms with Peak Oil knowledge. The acceptance of Peak Oil would imply a change in many fundamental economic assumptions that would, in turn, take a great deal of time to take hold of classrooms. Then again, the would not be the first time that academia lags behind on accepting evidently visible facts. Only time will tell how Peak Oil knowledge will trickle down from the Sustainable Economics roots it is based upon to commonplace Economics, but in my personal opinion it is a bleak immediate future. It will take fierce determination from both students and professors to put Peak Oil in the university map, at least in the Economic disciplines.

Note: This is a particular situation of the School of Economics. I am personally inclined to think that other schools (such as Geophysics) would more easily understand Peak Oil, and embrace it faster. I would like other ideas regarding this.

- The multidisciplinary nature of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is multidisciplinary in nature: Geophysics, petrophysics, Economics, Forestry, Physics, Sociology, Chemistry... the list goes on. If it would take a determinate amount of time for a single School (Economics, say) to fully adopt Peak Oil as a reality, it is likely that the other disciplines would be more inclined towards following suit. But the amount of time for multiple disciplines to take full swing would be deadly in the long run, as some predictions state. Economists have been taking a liking to introducing Psychology, Sociology and other interdisciplinary elements into their work in the last years. Let us hope that this trend continues into the Natural Sciences and the other disciplines that help Peak Oil make sense.

- Funding orientation and Trustee objectives. Many universities don't exactly have their focus placed upon promoting new ideas, such as Peak Oil. While private universities have the most lax funding available, they also have diverse priorities: promotion, prestige, and grants all play a decisive factor as to how much incentive professors have to get entrepenurial. State educational systems have the strong money leverage to play a big part in promoting Peak Oil, but policy decisions and politics also constrain that budget.

There is a multitude of other reasons why Peak Oil isn't quite taking off in many universities, and even the above points would each make for essays of their own. But it seems as if we won't be able to expect classes like Peak Oil 1101 available throughout all universities to freshmen anytime soon. This is no light topic, and requires deep, thorough analysis and discussion. But I think this is a good start to put issue out there. I would also like to open this up for discussions on how to get the ball rolling in many universities through the help of the excellent contributors we have here in TOD. I know we already have some faculty here on board, so it would be great to hear from them!

Gail the Actuary's University syllabus seems like a good start for any potential classes regarding Peak Oil. I will try pushing harder in my own university to see if we can crank up some sort of seminar, at least. With any luck at all, I'll be able to register for some Peak Oil-ish class before I graduate. Please leave your opinions!