Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble: Plan B 2.1 (beta) - Harnessing the powers & properties of a knowledge-based universe

Our global economy is outgrowing the capacity of the earth to support it, moving our early twenty-first century civilization ever closer to decline and possible collapse. In our preoccupation with quarterly earnings reports and year-to-year economic growth, we have lost sight of how large the human enterprise has become relative to the earth's resources. A century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in billions of dollars. Today it is measured in trillions.\n\nAs a result, we are consuming renewable resources faster than they can regenerate. Forests are shrinking, grasslands are deteriorating, water tables are falling, fisheries are collapsing, and soils are eroding. We are using up oil at a pace that leaves little time to plan beyond peak oil. And we are discharging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere faster than nature can absorb them, setting the stage for a rise in the earth's temperature well above any since agriculture began.\n\nOur twenty-first century civilization is not the first to move onto an economic path that was environmentally unsustainable. Many earlier civilizations also found themselves in environmental trouble. As Jared Diamond notes in //Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed//, some were able to change course and avoid economic decline. Others were not. We study the archeological sites of Sumerians, the Mayans, Easter Islanders, and other early civilizations that were not able to make the needed adjustments in time.^^1^^\n\nFortunately, there is a consensus emerging among scientists on the broad outlines of the changes needed. If economic progress is to be sustained, we need to replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels, the new economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels.\n\nInstead of being centered around automobiles, future transportation systems will be far more diverse, widely employing light rail, buses, and bicycles as well as cars. The goal will be to maximize mobility, not automobile ownership.\n\nThe throwaway economy will be replaced by a comprehensive reuse/recycle economy. Consumer products from cars to computers will be designed so that they can be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled. Throwaway products such as single-use beverage containers will be phased out.\n\nThe good news is that we can already see glimpses here and there of what this new economy looks like. We have the technologies to build it - including, for example, gas-electric hybrid cars, advanced-design wind turbines, highly efficient refrigerators, and water-efficient irrigation systems.\n\nWe can see how to build the new economy brick by brick. With each wind farm, rooftop solar panel, paper recycling facility, bicycle path, and reforestation program, we move closer to an economy that can sustain economic progress.\n\nIf, instead, we continue on the current economic path, the question is not whether environmental deterioration will lead to economic decline, but when. No economy, however technologically advanced, can survive the collapse of its environmental support systems.\n\n[[1.1 - The Nature of the New World]]\n\n[[1.2 - Learning from China]]\n\n[[1.3 - Learning from the Past]]\n\n[[1.4 - The Emerging Politics of Scarcity]]\n\n[[1.5 - Getting the Price Right]]\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]\n\n----\nDownload pdf version of Chapter 1\n\nhttp://www.ngo-education.net/plan-b/pb2-ch01.pdf 16pp. (75 Kb)

We recently entered a new century, but we are also entering a new world, one where the collisions between our demands and the earth's capacity to satisfy them are becoming daily events. It may be another crop-withering heat wave, another village abandoned because of invading sand dunes, or another aquifer pumped dry. If we do not act quickly to reverse the trends, these seemingly isolated events will come more and more frequently, accumulating and combining to determine our future.\n\nResources that accumulated over eons of geological time are being consumed in a single human lifespan. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize. These deadlines, determined by nature, are not politically negotiable.\n\nNature has many thresholds that we discover only when it is too late. In our fast-forward world, we learn that we have crossed them only after the fact, leaving little time to adjust. For example, when we exceed the sustainable catch of a fishery, the stocks begin to shrink. Once this threshold is crossed, we have a limited time in which to back off and lighten the catch. If we fail to meet this deadline, breeding populations shrink to where the fishery is no longer viable, and it collapses.\n\nWe know from earlier civilizations that the lead indicators of economic decline were environmental, not economic. The trees went first, then the soil, and finally the civilization itself. To archeologists, the sequence is all too familiar.\n\nOur situation today is far more challenging because in addition to shrinking forests and eroding soils, we must deal with falling water tables, more frequent crop-withering heat waves, collapsing fisheries, expanding deserts, deteriorating rangelands, dying coral reefs, melting glaciers, rising seas, more-powerful storms, disappearing species, and, soon, shrinking oil supplies. Although these ecologically destructive trends have been evident for some time, and some have been reversed at the national level, not one has been reversed at the global level.\n\nThe bottom line is that the world is in what ecologists call an "overshoot-and-collapse" mode. Demand has exceeded the sustainable yield of natural systems at the local level countless times in the past. Now, for the first time, it is doing so at the global level. Forests are shrinking for the world as a whole. Fishery collapses are widespread. Grasslands are deteriorating on every continent. Water tables are falling in many countries. Carbon dioxide (CO~~2~~) emissions exceed CO~~2~~ fixation everywhere.\n\nIn 2002, a team of scientists led by Mathis Wackernagel, who now heads the Global Footprint Network, concluded that humanity's collective demands first surpassed the earth's regenerative capacity around 1980. Their study, published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, estimated that global demands in 1999 exceeded that capacity by 20 percent. The gap, growing by 1 percent or so a year, is now much wider. We are meeting current demands by consuming the earth's natural assets, setting the stage for decline and collapse.^^2^^\n\nIn a rather ingenious approach to calculating the human physical presence on the planet, Paul MacCready, the founder and Chairman of AeroVironment and designer of the first solar-powered aircraft, has calculated the weight of all vertebrates on the land and in the air. He notes that when agriculture began, humans, their livestock, and pets together accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the total. Today, he estimates, this group accounts for 98 percent of the earth's total vertebrate biomass, leaving only 2 percent for the wild portion, the latter including all the deer, wildebeests, elephants, great cats, birds, small mammals, and so forth.^^3^^\n\nEcologists are intimately familiar with the overshoot-and-collapse phenomenon. One of their favorite examples began in 1944, when the Coast Guard introduced 29 reindeer on remote St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea to serve as the backup food source for the 19 men operating a station there. After World War II ended a year later, the base was closed and the men left the island. When U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist David Kline visited St. Matthew in 1957, he discovered a thriving population of 1,350 reindeer feeding on the four-inch-thick mat of lichen that covered the 332-square-kilometer (128-square-mile) island. In the absence of any predators, the population was exploding. By 1963, it had reached 6,000. He returned to St. Matthew in 1966 and discovered an island strewn with reindeer skeletons and not much lichen. Only 42 of the reindeer survived: 41 females and 1 not entirely healthy male. There were no fawns. By 1980 or so, the remaining reindeer had died off.^^4^^\n\nLike the deer on St. Matthew Island, we too are overconsuming our natural resources. Overshoot leads sometimes to decline and sometimes to a complete collapse. It is not always clear which it will be. In the former, a remnant of the population or economic activity survives in a resource-depleted environment. For example, as the environmental resource base of Easter Island in the South Pacific deteriorated, its population declined from a peak of 20,000 several centuries ago to today's population of fewer than 4,000. In contrast, the 500-year-old Norse settlement in Greenland collapsed during the 1400s, disappearing entirely in the face of environmental adversity.\n\nAs of 2005, some 42 countries have populations that are stable or declining slightly in size as a result of falling birth rates. But now for the first time ever, demographers are projecting population declines in some countries because of rising death rates, among them Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland. In the absence of an accelerated shift to smaller families, this list of countries is likely to grow much longer in the years immediately ahead.^^6^^\n\nThe most recent mid-level U.N. demographic projections show world population increasing from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.1 billion in 2050. But such an increase seems highly unlikely, considering the deterioration in life-support systems now under way in much of the world. Will we not reach 9.1 billion because we quickly eradicate global poverty and lower birth rates? Or because we fail to do so and death rates begin to rise, as they are already doing in many African countries? We thus face two urgent major challenges: restructuring the global economy and stabilizing world population.^^7^^\n\nEven as the economy's environmental support systems are deteriorating, the world is pumping oil with reckless abandon. Leading geologists now think oil production may soon peak and turn downward. This collision between the ever-growing demand for oil and the earth's finite resources is but the latest in a long series of collisions. Although no one knows exactly when oil production will peak, supply is already lagging behind demand, driving prices upward.^^8^^\n\nIn this new world, the price of oil begins to set the price of food, not so much because of rising fuel costs for farmers and food processors but more because almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for cars. In this new world of high oil prices, supermarkets and service stations will compete in commodity markets for basic food commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans, and sugarcane. Wheat going into the market can be converted into bread for supermarkets or ethanol for service stations. Soybean oil can go onto supermarket shelves or it can go to service stations to be used as diesel fuel. In effect, owners of the world's 800 million cars will be competing for food resources with the 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.\n\nFaced with a seemingly insatiable demand for automotive fuel, farmers will want to clear more and more of the remaining tropical forests to produce sugarcane, oil palms, and other high-yielding fuel crops. Already, billions of dollars of private capital are moving into this effort. In effect, the rising price of oil is generating a massive new threat to the earth's biological diversity.\n\nAs the demand for farm commodities climbs, it is shifting the focus of international trade concerns from the traditional goal of assured access to markets to one of assured access to supplies. Countries heavily dependent on imported grain for food are beginning to worry that buyers for fuel distilleries may outbid them for supplies. As oil security deteriorates, so, too, will food security.\n\nAs the role of oil recedes, the process of globalization will be reversed in fundamental ways. As the world turned to oil during the last century, the energy economy became increasingly globalized, with the world depending heavily on a handful of countries in the Middle East for energy supplies. Now as the world turns to wind, solar cells, and geothermal energy in this century, we are witnessing the localization of the world energy economy.\n\nThe globalization of the world food economy will also be reversed, as the higher price of oil raises the cost of transporting food internationally. In response, food production and consumption will become much more localized, leading to diets based more on locally produced food and seasonal availability.\n\nThe world is facing the emergence of a geopolitics of scarcity, which is already highly visible in the efforts by China, India, and other developing countries to ensure their access to oil supplies. In the future, the issue will be who gets access to not only Middle Eastern oil but also Brazilian ethanol and North American grain. Pressures on land and water resources, already excessive in most of the world, will intensify further as the demand for biofuels climbs. This geopolitics of scarcity is an early manifestation of civilization in an overshoot-and-collapse mode, much like the one that emerged among the Mayan cities competing for food in that civilization's waning years.^^10^^\n\nYou do not need to be an ecologist to see that if recent environmental trends continue, the global economy eventually will come crashing down. It is not knowledge that we lack. At issue is whether national governments can stabilize population and restructure the economy before time runs out. Looking at what is happening in China helps us to see the urgency of acting quickly.\n\n[[1.2 - Learning from China]]\n\n[[1.3 - Learning from the Past]]\n\n[[1.4 - The Emerging Politics of Scarcity]]\n\n[[1.5 - Getting the Price Right]]\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

For many years environmentalists have pointed to the United States as the world's leading consumer, noting that 5 percent of the world's people were consuming nearly a third of the earth's resources. Although that was true for some time, it no longer is. China has replaced the United States as the leading consumer of basic commodities.^^11^^\n\nAmong the five basic food, energy, and industrial commodities - grain and meat, oil and coal, and steel - consumption in China has eclipsed that of the United States in all but oil. China has opened a wide lead with grain, consuming 380 million tons in 2005 versus 260 million tons in the United States. Among the big three grains, China leads in the consumption of both wheat and rice and trails the United States only in corn.^^12^^\n\nAlthough eating hamburgers is a defining element of the U.S. lifestyle, China's 2005 meat consumption of 67 million tons is far above the 38 million tons eaten in the United States. While\n\nU.S. meat intake is rather evenly distributed between beef, pork, and poultry, in China pork totally dominates. Indeed, half the world's pigs are now found in China.^^13^^\n\nWith oil, the United States was still solidly in the lead in 2004, using more than three times as much as China - 20.4 million barrels per day versus 6.5 million barrels. But U.S. oil use expanded by only 15 percent between 1994 and 2004, while use in China more than doubled. Having recently eclipsed Japan as an oil consumer, China now trails only the United States.^^14^^\n\nEnergy use in China also obviously includes coal, which supplies nearly two thirds of the country's energy. China's annual burning of 960 million tons easily exceeds the 560 million tons used in the United States. With this level of coal use and with oil and natural gas use also climbing fast, it is only a matter of time before China's carbon emissions match those of the United States. Then the world will have two major countries driving climate change.^^15^^\n\nChina's consumption of steel, a basic indicator of industrial development, is now nearly two and a half times that of the United States: 258 million tons to 104 million tons in 2003. As China has moved into the construction phase of development, building hundreds of thousands of factories and high-rise apartment and office buildings, steel consumption has climbed to levels never seen in any country.^^16^^\n\nWith consumer goods, China leads in the number of cell phones, television sets, and refrigerators. The United States still leads in the number of personal computers, though likely not for much longer, and in automobiles.^^17^^\n\nThat China has overtaken the United States in consumption of basic resources gives us license to ask the next question. What if China catches up with the United States in consumption per person? If the Chinese economy continues to grow at 8 percent a year, by 2031 income per person will equal that in the United States in 2004. If we further assume that consumption patterns of China's affluent population in 2031, by then 1.45 billion, will be roughly similar to those of Americans in 2004, we have a startling answer to our question.^^18^^\n\nAt the current annual U.S. grain consumption of 900 kilograms per person, including industrial use, China's grain consumption in 2031 would equal roughly two thirds of the current world grain harvest. If paper use per person in China in 2031 reaches the current U.S. level, this translates into 305 million tons of paper - double existing world production of 161 million tons. There go the world's forests. And if oil consumption per person reaches the U.S. level by 2031, China will use 99 million barrels of oil a day. The world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day and may never produce much more. This helps explain why China's fast-expanding use of oil is already helping to create a politics of scarcity.\n\nOr consider cars. If China one day should have three cars for every four people, as the United States now does, its fleet would total 1.1 billion vehicles, well beyond the current world fleet of 800 million. Providing the roads, highways, and parking lots for such a fleet would require paving an area roughly equal to China's land in rice, its principal food staple.^^20^^\n\nThe inevitable conclusion to be drawn from these projections is that there are not enough resources for China to reach U.S. consumption levels. The western economic model - the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy - will not work for China's 1.45 billion in 2031. If it does not work for China, it will not work for India either, which by 2031 is projected to have even more people than China. Nor will it work for the other 3 billion people in developing countries who are also dreaming the "American dream." And in an increasingly integrated world economy, where countries everywhere are competing for the same resources - the same oil, grain, and iron ore - the existing economic model will not work for industrial countries either.^^21^^\n\n[[1.3 - Learning from the Past]]\n\n[[1.4 - The Emerging Politics of Scarcity]]\n\n[[1.5 - Getting the Price Right]]\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

Our twenty-first century global civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. We do have one unique asset at our command - an archeological record that shows us what happened to earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble and failed to respond.\n\nAs Jared Diamond points out in //Collapse//, some of the early societies that were in environmental trouble were able to change their ways in time to avoid decline and collapse. Six centuries ago, for example, Icelanders realized that overgrazing on their grass-covered highlands was leading to extensive soil loss from the inherently thin soils of the region. Rather than lose the grasslands and face economic decline, farmers joined together to determine how many sheep the highlands could sustain and then allocated quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands and avoiding what Garrett Hardin later termed the "tragedy of the commons."^^22^^\n\nThe Icelanders understood the consequences of overgrazing and reduced their sheep numbers to a level that could be sustained. We understand the consequences of burning fossil fuels and the resulting CO~~2~~ buildup in the atmosphere. Unlike the Icelanders who were able to restrict their livestock numbers, we have not been able to restrict our CO~~2~~ emissions.\n\nNot all societies have fared as well as the Icelanders, whose economy continues to produce wool and to thrive. The early Sumerian civilization of the fourth millennium BC was an extraordinary one, advancing far beyond any that had existed before. Its carefully engineered irrigation system gave rise to a highly productive agriculture, one that enabled farmers to produce a food surplus, supporting formation of the first cities. Managing the irrigation system required a sophisticated social organization. The Sumerians had the first cities and the first written language, the cuneiform script.^^23^^\n\nBy any measure it was an extraordinary civilization, but there was an environmental flaw in the design of its irrigation system, one that would eventually undermine its food supply. The water that backed up behind dams built across the Euphrates was diverted onto the land through a network of gravity-fed canals. Some water was used by the crops, some evaporated, and some percolated downward. In this region, where underground drainage was weak, percolation slowly raised the water table. As the water climbed to within inches of the surface, it began to evaporate into the atmosphere, leaving behind salt. Over time, the accumulation of salt on the soil surface lowered its productivity.\n\nAs salt accumulated and wheat yields declined, the Sumerians shifted to barley, a more salt-tolerant plant. This postponed Sumer's decline, but it was treating the symptoms, not the cause, of falling crop yields. As salt concentrations continued to build, the yields of barley eventually declined also. The resultant shrinkage of the food supply undermined the economic foundation of this once-great civilization. As land productivity declined, so did the civilization.^^25^^\n\nArcheologist Robert McC. Adams has studied the site of ancient Sumer on the central floodplain of the Euphrates River, an empty, desolate area now outside the frontiers of cultivation. He describes how the "tangled dunes, long disused canal levees, and the rubble-strewn mounds of former settlement contribute only low, featureless relief. Vegetation is sparse, and in many areas it is almost wholly absent... .Yet at one time, here lay the core, the heartland, the oldest urban, literate civilization in the world."^^26^^\n\nThe New World counterpart to Sumer is the Mayan civilization that developed in the lowlands of what is now Guatemala. It flourished from AD 250 until its collapse around AD 900. Like the Sumerians, the Mayans had developed a sophisticated, highly productive agriculture, this one based on raised plots of earth surrounded by canals that supplied water.^^27^^\n\nAs with Sumer, the Mayan demise was apparently linked to a failing food supply. For this New World civilization, it was deforestation and soil erosion that undermined agriculture. Changes in climate may also have played a role. Food shortages apparently triggered civil conflict among the various Mayan cities as they competed for food. Today this region is covered by jungle, reclaimed by nature.^^28^^\n\nDuring the later centuries of the Mayan civilization, a new society was evolving on faraway Easter Island, some 166 square kilometers of land in the South Pacific roughly 3,200 kilometers west of South America and 2,200 kilometers from Pitcairn Island, the nearest habitation. Settled around AD 400, this civilization flourished on a volcanic island with rich soils and lush vegetation, including trees that grew 25 meters tall with trunks 2 meters in diameter. Archeological records indicate that the islanders ate mainly seafood, principally dolphins - a mammal that could only be caught by harpoon from large sea-going canoes.^^29^^\n\nThe Easter Island society flourished for several centuries, reaching an estimated population of 20,000. As its human numbers gradually increased, tree cutting exceeded the sustainable yield of forests. Eventually the large trees that were needed to build the sturdy canoes disappeared, depriving islanders of access to the dolphins and dramatically shrinking their food supply. The archeological record shows that at some point human bones became intermingled with the dolphin bones, suggesting a desperate society that had resorted to cannibalism. Today the island has some 2,000 residents.^^30^^\n\nOne unanswerable question about these earlier civilizations was whether they knew what was causing their decline. Did the Sumerians understand that the rising salt content in the soil from water evaporation was reducing their wheat yields? If they knew, were they simply unable to muster the political support needed to lower water tables, just as the world today is struggling unsuccessfully to lower carbon emissions?\n\nThese are just three of the many early civilizations that moved onto an economic path that nature could not sustain. We, too, are on such a path. Any one of several trends of environmental degradation could undermine civilization as we know it. Just as the irrigation system that defined the early Sumerian economy had a flaw, so too does the fossil fuel energy system that defines our modern economy. For them it was a rising water table that undermined the economy; for us it is rising CO~~2~~ levels that threaten to disrupt economic progress. In both cases, the trend is invisible.\n\nWhether it resulted from the salting of Sumer's cropland, the deforestation and soil erosion of the Mayans, or the depleted forests and loss of the distant-water fishing capacity of the Easter Islanders, collapse of these early civilizations appears to have been associated with a decline in food supply. Today the annual addition of more than 70 million people to a world population of over 6 billion at a time when water tables are falling, temperatures are rising, and oil supplies will soon be shrinking suggests that the food supply again may be the vulnerable link between the environment and the economy.^^31^^\n\n[[1.4 - The Emerging Politics of Scarcity]]\n\n[[1.5 - Getting the Price Right]]\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

The first big test of the international community's capacity to manage scarcity may come with oil or it could come with grain. If the latter is the case, this could occur when China - whose grain harvest fell by 34 million tons, or 9 percent, between 1998 and 2005 - turns to the world market for massive imports of 30 million, 50 million, or possibly even 100 million tons of grain per year. Demand on this scale could quickly overwhelm world grain markets. When this happens, China will have to look to the United States, which controls the world's grain exports of over 40 percent of some 200 million tons.^^32^^\n\nThis will pose a fascinating geopolitical situation. More than 1.3 billion Chinese consumers, who had an estimated $160-billion trade surplus with the United States in 2004 - enough to buy the entire U.S. grain harvest twice - will be competing with Americans for U.S. grain, driving up U.S. food prices. In such a situation 30 years ago, the United States simply restricted exports. But China is now banker to the United States, underwriting much of the massive U.S. fiscal deficit with monthly purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds.^^33^^\n\nWithin the next few years, the United States may be loading one or two ships a day with grain for China. This long line of ships stretching across the Pacific, like an umbilical cord providing nourishment, will intimately link the two economies. Managing this flow of grain so as to simultaneously satisfy the food needs of consumers in both countries, at a time when ethanol fuel distilleries are taking a growing share of the U.S. grain harvest, may become one of the leading foreign policy challenges of this new century.\n\nThe way the world accommodates the vast projected needs of China, India, and other developing countries for grain, oil, and other resources will help determine how the world addresses the stresses associated with outgrowing the earth. How low-income, importing countries fare in this competition for grain will also tell us something about future political stability. And, finally, the U.S. response to China's growing demands for grain even as they drive up food prices for U.S. consumers will tell us much about the capacity of countries to manage the emerging politics of scarcity.\n\nThe most imminent risk is that China's entry into the world market, combined with the growing diversion of farm commodities to biofuels, will drive grain prices so high that many low-income developing countries will not be able to import enough grain. This in turn could lead to escalating food prices and political instability on a scale that will disrupt global economic progress.\n\nEarlier civilizations that moved onto an economic path that was environmentally unsustainable did so largely in isolation. But in today's increasingly integrated, interdependent world economy, if we are facing civilizational decline, we are facing it together. The fates of all peoples are intertwined. This interdependence can be managed to our mutual benefit only if we recognize that the term "in the national interest" is in many ways obsolete.\n\n[[1.5 - Getting the Price Right]]\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

The question facing governments is whether they can respond quickly enough to prevent threats from becoming catastrophes. The world has precious little experience in responding to aquifer depletion, rising temperatures, expanding deserts, melting polar ice caps, and a shrinking oil supply. These new trends will fully challenge the capacity of our political institutions and leadership. In times of crisis, societies sometimes have a Nero as a leader and sometimes a Churchill.\n\nThe central challenge, the key to building the new economy, is getting the market to tell the ecological truth. The dysfunctional global economy of today has been shaped by distorted market prices that do not incorporate environmental costs. Many of our environmental travails are the result of severe market distortions.\n\nOne of these distortions became abundantly clear in the summer of 1998 when China's Yangtze River valley, home to 400 million people, was wracked by some of the worst flooding in history. The resulting damages of $30 billion exceeded the value of the country's annual rice harvest.^^34^^\n\nAfter several weeks of flooding, the government in Beijing announced in mid-August a ban on tree cutting in the Yangtze River basin. It justified the ban by noting that trees standing are worth three times as much as trees cut. The flood control services provided by forests were three times as valuable as the lumber in the trees. In effect, the market price was off by a factor of three! With this analysis, no one could economically justify cutting trees in the basin.^^35^^\n\nA similar situation exists with gasoline. In the United States, the gasoline pump price was over $2 per gallon in mid-2005. But this reflects only the cost of pumping the oil, refining it into gasoline, and delivering the gas to service stations. It does not include the costs of tax subsidies to the oil industry, such as the oil depletion allowance; the subsidies for the extraction, production, and use of petroleum; the burgeoning military costs of protecting access to oil supplies; the health care costs for treating respiratory illnesses ranging from asthma to emphysema; and, most important, the costs of climate change.^^36^^\n\nIf these costs, which in 1998 the International Center for Technology Assessment calculated at roughly $9 per gallon of gasoline burned in the United States, were added to the $2 cost of the gasoline itself, motorists would pay about $11 a gallon for gas at the pump. Filling a 20-gallon tank would cost $220. In reality, burning gasoline is very costly, but the market tells us it is cheap, leading to gross distortions in the structure of the economy. The challenge facing governments is to incorporate such costs into market prices by systematically calculating them and incorporating them as a tax on the product to make sure its price reflects the full costs to society.^^37^^\n\nIf we have learned anything over the last few years, it is that accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty corporate accounting systems that leave costs off the books have driven some of the world's largest corporations into bankruptcy, costing millions of people their lifetime savings, retirement incomes, and jobs. Distorted world market prices that do not incorporate major costs in the production of various products and the provision of services could be even costlier. They could lead to global bankruptcy and economic decline.\n\n[[1.6 - Plan B - A Plan of Hope]]\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

Even given the extraordinarily challenging situation we face, there is much to be upbeat about. First, virtually all the destructive environmental trends are of our own making. All the problems we face can be dealt with using existing technologies. And almost everything we need to do to move the world economy onto an environmentally sustainable path has been done in one or more countries.\n\nWe see the components of Plan B - the alternative to business as usual - in new technologies already on the market. On the energy front, for example, an advanced-design wind turbine can produce as much energy as an oil well. Japanese engineers have designed a vacuum-sealed refrigerator that uses only one eighth as much electricity as those marketed a decade ago. Gas-electric hybrid automobiles, getting 55 miles per gallon, are easily twice as efficient as the average vehicle on the road.^^38^^\n\nNumerous countries are providing models of the different components of Plan B. Denmark, for example, today gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind and has plans to push this to 50 percent by 2030. Similarly, Brazil is on its way to automotive fuel self-sufficiency. With highly efficient sugarcane-based ethanol supplying 40 percent of its automotive fuel in 2005, it could phase out gasoline within a matter of years.^^39^^\n\nWith food, India - using a small-scale dairy production model that relies almost entirely on crop residues as a feed source - has more than quadrupled its milk production since 1970, overtaking the United States to become the world's leading milk producer. The value of India's dairy production in 2002 exceeded that of the rice crop.^^40^^\n\nOn another front, fish farming advances in China, centered on the use of an ecologically sophisticated carp polyculture, have made China the first country where fish farm output exceeds oceanic catch. Indeed, the 29 million tons of farmed fish produced in China in 2003 was equal to roughly 30 percent of the world's oceanic fish catch.^^41^^\n\nWe see what a Plan B world could look like in the reforested mountains of South Korea. Once a barren, almost treeless country, the 65 percent of South Korea now covered by forests has checked flooding and soil erosion, returning a high degree of environmental stability to the Korean countryside.^^42^^\n\nThe United States - which retired one tenth of its cropland, most of it highly erodible, and shifted to conservation tillage practices - has reduced soil erosion by 40 percent over the last 20 years. At the same time, the nation's farmers expanded the grain harvest by more than one fifth.^^43^^\n\nSome of the most innovative leadership has come at the urban level. Amsterdam has developed a diverse urban transport system; today 35 percent of all trips within the city are taken by bicycle. This bicycle-friendly transport system has greatly reduced air pollution and traffic congestion while providing daily exercise for the city's residents.^^44^^\n\nNot only are new technologies becoming available, but some of these technologies can be combined to create entirely new outcomes. Gas-electric hybrid cars with a second storage battery and a plug-in capacity, combined with investment in wind farms feeding cheap electricity into the grid, could mean that much of our daily driving could be done with electricity, with the cost of off-peak wind-generated electricity at the equivalent of 50¢-a-gallon gasoline. Domestic wind energy can be substituted for imported oil.^^45^^\n\nThe challenge is to build a new economy and to do it at wartime speed before we miss so many of nature's deadlines that the economic system begins to unravel. This introductory chapter leads into five chapters outlining the leading environmental challenges facing our global civilization. Following these are seven chapters that outline Plan B, both describing where we want to go and offering a roadmap of how to get there.\n\nParticipating in the construction of this enduring new economy is exhilarating. So is the quality of life it will bring. We will be able to breathe clean air. Our cities will be less congested, less noisy, and less polluted. The prospect of living in a world where population has stabilized, forests are expanding, and carbon emissions are falling is an exciting one.\n\n[[1.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

Diamond, Jared, //Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed// (New York: Penguin Group, 2005). Tainter, Joseph, //The Collapse of Complex Societies// (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988).\n\nUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), http://www.unep.org\n\nUnited Nations Statistics Division, unstats.un.org/unsd\n\n[[1.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

1. Jared Diamond, //Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed// (New York: Penguin Group, 2005).\n\n2. Mathis Wackernagel et al., "Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the Human Economy," //Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,// vol. 99, no. 14 (9 July 2002), pp. 9,266-71.\n\n3. Paul B. MacCready, AeroVironment Inc., letter to author, 19 April 2005.\n\n4. Ned Rozell and Dan Chay, "St. Matthew Island: Overshoot & Collapse," //Energy Bulletin//, 23 November 2003.\n\n5. Diamond, op. cit. note 1, pp. 90, 248-76; "Población Total, Por Sexo e Indice de Masculinidad, Según División Político Administrativa y Area Urbana-Rural," table in Chile Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, //Resultados Generales Censo 2002// (Santiago, Chile: 2003).\n\n6. United Nations, //World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision// (New York: 2005); Population Reference Bureau, //2005 World Population Data Sheet//, wall chart (Washington, DC: August 2005); Population Reference Bureau, //2004 World Population Data Sheet//, wall chart (Washington, DC: August 2004).\n\n7. United Nations, op. cit. note 6.\n\n8. See Chapter 2 for further discussion of peak oil.\n\n9. Car fleet includes passenger cars and commercial vehicles, many of which are light trucks and sport utility vehicles used for personal use, from Ward's Communications, //Ward's World Motor Vehicle Data 2004// (Southfield, MI: 2004), p. 238; population living on less than $1 a day in World Bank, //World Development Report 2005// (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).\n\n10. Diamond, op. cit. note 1, pp. 90, 248-76.\n\n11. The New Road Map Foundation, "All-Consuming Passion: Waking up from the American Dream," factsheet, //EcoFuture//, updated 17 January 2002.\n\n12. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), //Production, Supply, & Distribution//, electronic database, at http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd , updated 13 September 2005.\n\n13. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), //FAOSTAT Statistics Database//, at http://apps.fao.org , updated 14 July 2005.\n\n14. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Administration (EIA), "World Oil Demand," //International Petroleum Monthly//, December 2004.\n\n15. British Petroleum (BP), //Statistical Review of World Energy 2005// (London: Group Media & Publishing, 2005).\n\n16. International Iron and Steel Institute, //Steel Statistical Yearbook 2004// (Brussels, 2004); data for 1990-93 from Phil Hunt, Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau, e-mail to Viviana JimÉnez, Earth Policy Institute, 24 January 2005.\n\n17. //UNStats Statistics Database//, at http://unstats.un.org/unsd , viewed 14 February 2005; International Telecommunication Union (ITU), //Telecommunication Statistics// at http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/cellular03.pdf , 15 March 2005; ITU, //Telecommunication Statistics// at http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/internet03.pdf , 15 March 2005; Ward's Communications, op. cit. note 9.\n\n18. Chinese economic growth from International Monetary Fund (IMF), //World Economic Outlook Database//, at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo , updated April 2005; population from United Nations, op. cit. note 6.\n\n19. Grain from USDA, op. cit. note 12; paper includes coated papers, household and sanitary paper, newsprint, other papers, packaging, printing and writing paper, and wrapping papers, based on data from FAO, op. cit. note 13; oil from BP, op. cit. note 15; all per capita calculations based on population from United Nations, op. cit. note 6.\n\n20. Ward's Communications, op. cit. note 9.\n\n21. United Nations, op. cit. note 6.\n\n22. Diamond, op. cit. note 1; Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," //Science//, vol. 162 (13 December 1968).\n\n23. Sandra Postel, //Pillar of Sand// (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), pp. 13-21.\n\n24. Ibid.\n\n25. Ibid.\n\n26. Robert McC. Adams quoted in Joseph Tainter, //The Collapse of Complex Societies// (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 1.\n\n27. "Maya," //Encyclopaedia Britannica//, online encyclopedia, viewed 7 August 2000.\n\n28. Ibid.\n\n29. Jared Diamond, "Easter's End," //Discover//, August 1995, pp. 63-69.\n\n30. Ibid.\n\n31. United Nations, op. cit. note 6.\n\n32. USDA, op. cit. note 12.\n\n33. United Nations, op. cit. note 6; U.S. Census Bureau, //Foreign Trade Statistics//, "Trade: Imports, Exports and Trade Balance with China," at http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html , updated June 2005; Peter Goodman, "China Tells Congress to Back Off Business," //Washington Post//, 5 July 2005.\n\n34. Munich Re, //Topics Annual Review: Natural Catastrophes 2001// (Munich, Germany: 2002), pp. 16-17; value of China's wheat and rice harvests from USDA, op. cit. note 12, using prices from IMF, //International Financial Statistics//, electronic database, at http://ifs.apdi.net/imf\n\n35. "Forestry Cuts Down on Logging," //China Daily//, 26 May 1998; Erik Eckholm, "Chinese Leaders Vow to Mend Ecological Ways," //New York Times//, 30 August 1998; Erik Eckholm, "China Admits Ecological Sins Played Role in Flood Disaster," //New York Times//, 26 August 1998; Erik Eckholm, "Stunned by Floods, China Hastens Logging Curbs," //New York Times//, 27 February 1998.\n\n36. Gasoline prices from DOE, EIA, //This Week in Petroleum// (Washington, DC: various issues).\n\n37. Andrew Kimbrell et al., //The Real Price of Gasoline// (Washington, DC: International Center for Technology Assessment, 1998), p. 39.\n\n38. James Brooke, "Japan Squeezes to Get the Most of Costly Fuel," //New York Times//, 4 June 2005; DOE and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, //Fuel Economy Guide// (Washington, DC: 2005); Marv Balousek, "Hybrid Cars Are Catching On," //Wisconsin State Journal//, 10 August 2005.\n\n39. Danish Wind Industry Association, "Did You Know?" fact sheet, at http://www.windpower.org ; Colin Woodard, "Fair Winds in Denmark," //E: The Environmental Magazine//, July 2001; Marla Dickerson, "Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Brazil Breathe Easy," //Los Angeles Times//, 15 June 2005.\n\n40. USDA, op. cit. note 12, updated 7 September 2005; FAO, op. cit. note 13, updated 17 January 2005.\n\n41. FAO, //FISHSTAT Plus,// electronic database, at http://www.fao.org/fi/statist/FISOFT/FISHPLUS.asp , updated March 2005.\n\n42. Se-Kyung Chong, "Anmyeon-do Recreation Forest: A Millennium of Management," in Patrick B. Durst et al., //In Search of Excellence: Exemplary Forest Management in Asia and the Pacific//, Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission (Bangkok: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 2005), pp. 251-59.\n\n43. Mark Smith, "Land Retirement," in USDA, //Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators 2003// (Washington, DC: 2003), section 6.2 updated in December 2000, p. 14; USDA, Economic Research Service, //Agri-Environmental Policy at the Crossroads: Guideposts on a Changing Landscape//, Agricultural Economic Report No. 794 (Washington, DC: January 2001).\n\n44. Molly O'Meara Sheehan, //City Limits: Putting the Breaks on Sprawl//, Worldwatch Paper 156 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, June 2001), p. 11.\n\n45. Lester R. Brown, "The Short Path to Oil Independence: Gas-Electric Hybrids and Wind Power Offer Winning Combination," //Eco-Economy Update// (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute), 13 October 2004; Senator Joseph Lieberman, remarks prepared for the Loewy Lecture, Georgetown University (Washington, DC: 7 October 2005).\n\n[[2 - Beyond the Oil Peak]]

Some time ago, I had a call from my son Brian, who had come across a huge new wind farm as he was driving on one of the interstate highways in west Texas. He described the rows of wind turbines receding toward the horizon. Interspersed among them were oil wells. The wind turbines were turning and the oil wells were pumping. My son was fascinated by the juxtaposition of the old and the new, the past and the future. I said, "If you return 30 years from now, the wind turbines will still be turning, but it is unlikely that the oil wells will be pumping." What he was looking at in a nutshell was the energy transition, the shift from the age of fossil fuels to renewables.\n\nThe energy transition is gaining momentum. When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, the proposed 5-percent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels in industrial countries by 2012 seemed like an ambitious goal. Now it is widely seen as an outmoded, grossly inadequate goal. National governments, local governments, corporations, and environmental groups are coming up with plans to cut carbon emissions much further than was agreed to in Kyoto by turning to renewables and raising energy efficiency. Some individuals and groups are even beginning to think about how to cut carbon emissions by 70 percent, the amount that scientists say will be needed to stabilize climate.^^1^^\n\nIn July 2005, the European Commission proposed a new plan to cut energy use 20 percent by 2020 and to increase the renewable share of Europe's energy supply to 12 percent by 2010. Together, these two initiatives will reduce Europe's carbon emissions by nearly one third. Among the long list of measures to boost energy efficiency in these countries are replacing old, inefficient refrigerators, switching to high-efficiency light bulbs, and insulating roofs. Reaching the renewables goal requires a rather conservative addition of 15,000 megawatts of wind power, a fivefold expansion of ethanol production, and a threefold increase in biodiesel production. The Europeans' proposed 20 percent cut in energy use by 2020 contrasts sharply with the projected growth of 10 percent under a business-as-usual scenario.^^2^^\n\nThe proposed plan, which is scheduled for final approval in 2006, is designed to save 60 billion euros by 2020. It is also designed to stimulate economic growth, create new jobs, and, by reducing energy outlays, enhance European competitiveness in world markets. The 25-member European Union is second only to the United States in energy consumption.^^3^^\n\nIn 2005 the Japanese government also announced a national campaign to dramatically boost energy efficiency in its economy, already one of the world's most efficient. It urged its people to replace older, inefficient appliances and to buy hybrid cars. The //New York Times// described this as "all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming." It noted that the large manufacturing firms were jumping on the energy efficiency bandwagon as a way of increasing sales of their latest high-efficiency models.^^4^^\n\nBeyond this initial effort, Japan has set goals for boosting appliance efficiency even further, cutting energy use of television sets by 17 percent, of personal computers by 30 percent, of air conditioners by 36 percent, and of refrigerators by a staggering 72 percent. Scientists are working on a vacuum-insulated refrigerator that will use only one eighth as much electricity as those marketed a decade ago.^^5^^\n\nAt the nongovernmental level, a plan developed for Canada by the David Suzuki Foundation and the Climate Action Network would halve carbon emissions by 2030 and would do it only with investments in energy efficiency that are profitable. And in early April 2003, the World Wildlife Fund released a peer-reviewed analysis by a team of scientists that proposed reducing carbon emissions from U.S. electric power generation 60 percent by 2020. This proposal centers on a shift to more energy-efficient power generation equipment, the use of more-efficient household appliances and industrial motors and other equipment, and in some situations a shift from coal to natural gas as an energy source. If implemented, it would result in national savings averaging $20 billion a year from now until 2020.^^6^^\n\nIn Ontario, Canada's most populous province, the ministry of energy plans to phase out the province's five large coal-fired power plants by 2009. The first, Lakeview Generating Station, was closed in April 2005; three more will close by the end of 2007, and the last will be shut down in early 2009. All three major political parties support the plan to replace coal with wind, natural gas, and efficiency gains. Jack Gibbons, director of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, which endorses the ministry's plan, says of coal burning, "It's a nineteenth century fuel that has no place in twenty-first century Ontario."^^7^^\n\nCorporations are also getting involved. U.S.-based Interface, the world's largest manufacturer of industrial carpeting, cut carbon emissions by two thirds in its Canadian affiliate during the 1990s. It did so by examining every facet of its business - from electricity consumption to trucking procedures. Founder and chairman Ray Anderson says, "Interface Canada has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 64 percent from the peak, and made money in the process, in no small measure because our customers support environmental responsibility." The Suzuki plan to cut Canadian carbon emissions in half by 2030 was inspired by the profitability of the Interface initiative.^^8^^\n\nAlthough stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is a staggering challenge, it is entirely doable. With advances in wind turbine design, the evolution of gas-electric hybrid cars, advances in solar cell manufacturing, and gains in the efficiency of household appliances, we now have the basic technologies needed to shift quickly from a fossil-fuel-based to a renewable-energy-based economy. Cutting world carbon emissions in half by 2015 is entirely within range. Ambitious though this goal might seem, it is commensurate with the threat that climate change poses.\n\n[[10.1 - Raising Energy Productivity]]\n\n[[10.2 - Harnessing the Wind]]\n\n[[10.3 - Hybrid Cars and Wind Power]]\n\n[[10.4 - Converting Sunlight to Electricity]]\n\n[[10.5 - Energy from the Earth]]\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]\n\n----\nDownload pdf version of Chapter 10\n\nhttp://www.ngo-education.net/plan-b/pb2-ch10.pdf 22pp. (160 Kb)

The enormous potential for raising energy productivity becomes clear in comparisons of energy use among countries. Some nations in Europe have essentially the same living standard as the United States yet use scarcely half as much energy per person. But even the countries that use energy most efficiently are not close to realizing the full potential for doing so.^^9^^\n\nWhen the Bush administration released a new energy plan in April 2001 that called for construction of 1,300 new power plants by 2020, Bill Prindle of the Washington-based Alliance to Save Energy responded by pointing out how the country could eliminate the need for those plants and save money in the process. He ticked off several steps that would reduce the demand for electricity: Improving efficiency standards for household appliances would eliminate the need for 127 power plants. More stringent residential air conditioner efficiency standards would eliminate 43 power plants. Raising commercial air conditioner standards would eliminate the need for 50 plants. Using tax credits and energy codes to improve the efficiency of new buildings would save another 170 plants. Similar steps to raise the energy efficiency of existing buildings would save 210 plants. These five measures from the longer list suggested by Prindle would not only eliminate the need for 600 power plants, they would also save money. Although these calculations were made in 2001, they are still valid simply because there has been so little progress in raising U.S. energy efficiency since then.^^10^^\n\nOf course, each country will have to fashion its own plan for raising energy productivity. Nevertheless, there are a number of common components. Some are quite simple but highly effective, such as using more energy-efficient household appliances, eliminating the use of incandescent light bulbs, shifting to gas-electric hybrid cars, and redesigning urban transport systems to raise efficiency and increase mobility.\n\nAlthough there was an impressive round of efficiency gains in household appliances after the oil price jumps during the 1970s, the world generally lost interest as oil prices declined after 1980. Rising oil and natural gas prices are rekindling interest in this issue. Fortuitously, engineering advances since then have brought another wave of efficiency gains, such as those mentioned for Japan, that promise to substantially reduce electricity use. If national governments raise appliance efficiency standards to fully exploit the latest technologies, it would sharply cut carbon emissions worldwide.\n\nOne simple energy-saving step is to replace all remaining incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), which use only one third as much electricity and last 10 times as long. In the United States, where 20 percent of all electricity is used for lighting, if each household replaced the still widely used incandescents with compact fluorescents, electricity for lighting would be easily cut in half. The combination of greater longevity and lower electricity use greatly outweighs the higher costs of the CFLs, yielding a risk-free investment return of some 25-40 percent a year. Worldwide, replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs in, say, the next three years would facilitate the closing of hundreds of climate-disrupting coal-fired power plants.^^11^^\n\nA second obvious area for raising energy efficiency is automobiles. If over the next decade the United States, for example, were to shift from the current fleet of cars powered with gasoline engines to gas-electric hybrids with the fuel efficiency of the Toyota Prius, gasoline use could easily be cut in half. Sales of hybrid cars, introduced into the U.S. market in 1999, reached an estimated 88,000 in 2004. Higher gasoline prices and mounting climate change worries are driving sales upward. With U.S. auto manufacturers coming onto the market with several new models, hybrid vehicle sales are projected to exceed 1 million by 2008.^^12^^\n\nAnother attractive way to raise energy efficiency is to redesign urban transport systems, moving from the existing system centered on single-occupant automobiles to a more diverse bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly system that would include well-developed light-rail subway systems complemented with buses. Such a system would increase mobility, reduce energy use and air pollution, and provide more opportunities for exercise, a win-win-win situation. Taking automobiles off the street would facilitate the conversion of parking lots into parks, creating more friendly cities.\n\n[[10.2 - Harnessing the Wind]]\n\n[[10.3 - Hybrid Cars and Wind Power]]\n\n[[10.4 - Converting Sunlight to Electricity]]\n\n[[10.5 - Energy from the Earth]]\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

World wind-generating capacity, growing at 29 percent a year, has jumped from less than 5,000 megawatts in 1995 to more than 47,000 megawatts in 2004, a ninefold increase. (See Figure 10-1.) Wind's annual growth rate of 29 percent compares with 1.7 percent for oil, 2.5 percent for natural gas, 2.3 percent for coal, and 1.9 percent for nuclear power. There are six reasons why wind is growing so fast. It is abundant, cheap, inexhaustible, widely distributed, clean, and climate-benign. No other energy source has all these attributes.^^13^^\n\n<<tiddler Figure 10-1>>\n\nEurope is leading the world into the age of wind energy. Germany, which overtook the United States in 1997, leads the world with 16,600 megawatts of generating capacity. Spain, a rising wind power in southern Europe, overtook the United States in 2004. Denmark, which now gets an impressive 20 percent of its electricity from wind, is also the world's leading manufacturer and exporter of wind turbines.^^14^^\n\nIn its 2005 projections, the Global Wind Energy Council showed Europe's wind-generating capacity expanding from 34,500 megawatts in 2004 to 75,000 megawatts in 2010 and 230,000 megawatts in 2020. By 2020, just 15 years from now, wind-generated electricity is projected to satisfy the residential needs of 195 million consumers, half of Europe's population.^^15^^\n\nAfter developing most of its existing 34,500 megawatts of capacity on land, Europe is now tapping offshore wind as well. A 2004 assessment of the region's offshore potential by the Garrad Hassan wind energy consulting group concluded that if governments move aggressively to develop their vast offshore resources, wind could be supplying all of Europe's residential electricity by 2020.^^16^^\n\nThe United Kingdom, moving fast to develop its offshore wind capacity, accepted bids in April 2001 for sites designed to produce 1,500 megawatts of wind-generating capacity. In December 2003, the government took bids for 15 additional offshore sites with a generating capacity that could exceed 7,000 megawatts. Requiring an investment of over $12 billion, these offshore wind farms could satisfy the residential electricity needs of 10 million of the country's 60 million people. At the end of 2004, the United Kingdom had an offshore generating capacity of 124 megawatts, with an additional 180 megawatts under construction.^^17^^\n\nThe push to develop wind in Europe is spurred by concerns about climate change. The record heat wave in Europe in August 2003 that scorched crops and claimed 49,000 lives has accelerated the replacement of climate-disrupting coal with clean energy sources. Other countries that are turning to wind in a major way include Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, India, and China.^^18^^\n\nOne of wind's great appeals is its abundance. When the U.S. Department of Energy released its first wind resource inventory in 1991, it noted that three wind-rich states - North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas - had enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs. Those who had thought of wind as a marginal source of energy obviously were surprised by this finding.^^19^^\n\nIn retrospect, we now know that this was a gross underestimate of the wind potential because it was based on the technologies of 1991. Advances in wind turbine design since then enable turbines to operate at lower wind speeds, to convert wind into electricity more efficiently, and to harness a much larger wind regime. In 1991, wind turbines may have averaged scarcely 40 meters in height. Today, new turbines are 100 meters tall, perhaps tripling the harvestable wind. We now know that the United States has enough harnessable wind energy to meet not only national //electricity// needs, but national //energy// needs.^^20^^\n\nWhen the wind industry began in California in the early 1980s, wind-generated electricity cost 38¢ per kilowatt-hour. Since then it has dropped to 4¢ or below at prime wind sites. And some U.S. long-term supply contracts have been signed for 3¢ per kilowatt-hour. Wind farms at prime sites may be generating electricity at 2¢ per kilowatt-hour by 2010, making it one of the world's cheapest sources of electricity.^^21^^\n\nLow-cost electricity from wind can be used to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen, which provides a way of both storing and transporting wind energy. At night, when the demand for electricity drops, the hydrogen generators can be turned on to build up reserves. Once in storage, hydrogen can be used to fuel power plants. Wind-generated hydrogen can thus become a backup for wind power, with hydrogen-powered electricity generation kicking in when wind power ebbs. Wind-generated hydrogen can also serve as an alternative to natural gas, especially if rising prices make gas prohibitively costly for electricity generation.\n\nThe principal cost for wind-generated electricity is the upfront capital outlay for initial construction. Since wind is a free fuel, the only ongoing cost is for turbine maintenance. Given the recent volatility of natural gas prices, the stability of wind power prices is particularly appealing. With the near certainty of even higher costs of natural gas in the future, natural-gas-fired plants may one day be used only as a backup for wind-generated electricity.\n\nThe United States is lagging in developing wind energy simply because the wind production tax credit (PTC) of 1.5¢ per kilowatt-hour, which was adopted in 1992 to establish parity with subsidies to fossil fuel, has lapsed three times in five years. Uncertainty about the tax credit has disrupted planning throughout the wind power industry. With the two-year extension of the PTC in mid-2005, however, through the end of 2007, growth in wind power investments is escalating rapidly. Given wind's enormous potential and the associated benefits of climate stabilization, it is time to consider an all-out effort to develop wind resources. Instead of doubling every 30 months or so, perhaps we should be doubling wind electric generation each year for the next several years, much as the number of computers linked to the Internet doubled each year from 1985 to 1995. Costs would then drop precipitously, giving electricity generated from wind an even greater advantage over fossil fuels.^^23^^\n\nEnergy consultant Harry Braun points out that since wind turbines are similar to automobiles in the sense that each has an electrical generator, a gearbox, an electronic control system, and a brake, they can be mass-produced on assembly lines. Indeed, the slack in the U.S. automobile industry is sufficient to produce a million wind turbines per year. The lower cost associated with mass production could drop the cost of wind-generated electricity below 2¢ per kilowatt-hour. Assembly-line production of wind turbines at "wartime" speed would quickly lower urban air pollution, carbon emissions, and the prospect of oil wars.^^24^^\n\nThe economic incentives to spur such growth could come in part from simply restructuring global energy subsidies - shifting the $210 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies to the development of wind and other renewable sources of energy. The investment capital could come from private capital markets but also from companies already in the energy business. Shell, for example, has become a major player in the world wind energy economy. In 2002, General Electric, one of the world's largest corporations, entered the wind business, becoming overnight a major wind turbine manufacturer.^^25^^\n\nThese goals may seem farfetched, but here and there around the world ambitious efforts are beginning to take shape. In the United States, a 3,000-megawatt wind farm is in the early planning stages. Located in South Dakota near the Iowa border, it is being initiated by Clipper Wind, led by James Dehlsen, a wind energy pioneer in California. Designed to feed power into the industrial Midwest around Chicago, this project is not only large by wind power standards, it is one of the largest energy projects of any kind in the world today. In the eastern United States, Cape Wind is planning a 420-megawatt wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.^^26^^\n\nSome 24 states now have commercial-scale wind farms feeding electricity into the U.S. grid. Although there is occasionally a NIMBY problem ("not in my backyard"), the PIMBY response ("put it in my backyard") is much more pervasive. This is not surprising, since a single large turbine can easily generate $100,000 worth of electricity in a year.^^27^^\n\nThe competition among farmers in places like Iowa or ranchers in Colorado for wind farms is intense. Farmers, with no investment on their part, typically receive $3,000-5,000 a year in royalties from the local utility for siting a single, large, advanced-design wind turbine, which occupies a quarter-acre of land. This land would produce 40 bushels of corn worth $120 or, in ranch country, beef worth perhaps $15.^^28^^\n\nIn addition to the additional income, tax revenue, and jobs that wind farms bring, money spent on electricity generated from wind farms stays in the community, creating a ripple effect throughout the local economy. Within a matter of years, thousands of ranchers could be earning far more from electricity sales than from cattle sales.\n\nThe question is not whether wind is a potentially vast source of climate-benign energy that can be used to stabilize climate. It is. But will we develop it fast enough to head off economically disruptive climate change?\n\n[[10.3 - Hybrid Cars and Wind Power]]\n\n[[10.4 - Converting Sunlight to Electricity]]\n\n[[10.5 - Energy from the Earth]]\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

With the price of oil over $60 a barrel at this writing in September 2005, with political instability in the Middle East on the rise, with little slack in the world oil economy, and with temperatures rising, the world needs a new energy economy. Fortunately, the foundation for a new transportation energy economy has been laid with two new technologies - the gas-electric hybrid engines pioneered by Toyota and advanced-design wind turbines.^^29^^\n\nThese technologies deployed together can dramatically reduce world oil use. As noted earlier, the United States could easily cut its gasoline use in half by converting the U.S. automobile fleet to hybrid cars as efficient as the Toyota Prius. No change in the number of vehicles, no change in miles driven - just doing it with the most efficient propulsion technology on the market.^^30^^\n\nIn fact, there are now several gas-electric hybrid car models on the market in addition to the Prius, including the Honda Insight and a hybrid version of the Honda Civic. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Prius - a midsize car on the cutting-edge of automotive technology - gets an astounding 55 miles per gallon in combined city/highway driving compared with 22 miles per gallon for the average new passenger vehicle. No wonder there are lists of eager buyers willing to wait several months for delivery.\n\nRecently, Ford released a hybrid model of its Escape SUV, and Honda released a hybrid version of its popular Accord sedan. General Motors will offer hybrid versions of several of its cars beginning with the Saturn VUE in 2006, followed by the Chevy Tahoe and Chevy Malibu.^^32^^\n\nEarlier in this chapter we outlined how to cut U.S. gasoline use in half by shifting to gas-electric hybrid vehicles over the next decade. As we shift to these cars, the stage is set for the second step to reduce gasoline use, namely the use of wind-generated electricity to power automobiles. If we add to the gas-electric hybrid a second battery to increase its electricity storage and a plug-in capacity so the batteries can also be recharged from the grid, motorists could then do their commuting, grocery shopping, and other short-distance travel largely with electricity, saving gasoline for the occasional long trip. Even more exciting, recharging batteries with off-peak wind-generated electricity would cost the equivalent of gasoline at 50¢ per gallon. This modification of hybrids could reduce remaining gasoline use by perhaps another 40 percent (or 20 percent of the original level of use), for a total reduction of gasoline use of 70 percent.^^33^^\n\nThese are not the only technologies that can dramatically cut gasoline use. Amory Lovins, a highly regarded pioneer in devising ways of reducing energy use, observes that most efforts to reduce automotive fuel efficiency focus on designing more-efficient engines, largely overlooking the potential of fuel savings from reducing vehicle weight. He notes that substituting advanced polymer composites for steel in constructing the body of automobiles can "roughly double the efficiency of a normal-weight hybrid without materially raising its total manufacturing cost." If we build gas-electric hybrids using the new advanced polymer composites, then we can cut the remaining 30 percent of fuel use by another half, for a total reduction of 85 percent.^^34^^\n\nUnlike the widely discussed fuel cell/hydrogen transportation model, the gas-electric hybrid/wind model does not require a costly new infrastructure, since the network of gasoline service stations and the electricity grid are already in place. To fully exploit this technology, the United States would need to integrate its weak regional grids into a strong national one, which it needs to do anyway to reduce the risk of blackouts. This, combined with the building of thousands of wind farms across the country, would allow the nation's fleet of automobiles to run largely on wind energy.\n\nOne of the few weaknesses of wind energy - its irregularity - is largely offset with the use of plug-in gas-electric hybrids, since the vehicle batteries become a storage system for wind energy. Beyond this, there is always the tank of gasoline as a backup.\n\nThe combination of gas-electric hybrids with a second storage battery and a plug-in capacity, the development of wind resources, and the use of advanced polymer composites to reduce vehicle weight has been discussed in a U.S. context but it is a model that can be used throughout the world. It is particularly appropriate for countries that are richly endowed with wind energy, such as China, Russia, Australia, Argentina, and many of those in Europe.^^36^^\n\nMoving to the highly efficient plug-in gas-electric hybrids, combined with the construction of thousands of wind farms across the country to feed electricity into a strong, integrated national grid, could cut U.S. gasoline use by 85 percent. It would also rejuvenate farm and ranch communities and shrink the U.S. balance-of-trade deficit. Even more important, it could cut automobile carbon emissions by some 85 percent, making the United States a model for other countries.\n\n[[10.4 - Converting Sunlight to Electricity]]\n\n[[10.5 - Energy from the Earth]]\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

Wind is not the only vast untapped source of energy. When a team of three scientists at Bell Labs in Princeton, New Jersey, discovered in 1952 that sunlight striking a silicon surface could generate electricity, they opened the door to another near limitless source of energy - photovoltaic (or solar) cells. "No country uses as much energy as is contained in the sunlight that strikes its buildings each day," writes Denis Hayes, former Director of the U.S. government's Solar Energy Research Institute.^^37^^\n\nSales of solar cells worldwide jumped by a phenomenal 57 percent in 2004, pushing the generating capacity installed during the year to 1,200 megawatts. With this addition, world solar-cell generating capacity, which has doubled in the last two years, now exceeds 4,300 megawatts, roughly the equivalent of 13 coal-fired power plants. (See Figure 10-2.) A decade ago the United States had roughly half of the world market, but this has now dropped to 12 percent as Japan and Germany have surged ahead with ambitious solar programs.^^38^^\n\nSolar cells are used either in stand-alone systems or in systems that can feed into the grid. In its early years, the solar cell industry was dominated by non-grid uses to supply electricity to communication satellites and in remote sites such as national forests or parks, offshore lighthouses, summer homes in isolated mountain regions, or islands.\n\n<<tiddler Figure 10-2>>\n\nOver the last decade, solar cell installations that feed into the grid have grown rapidly in response to incentives offered by governments, and they now account for more than three fourths of all new installations. Two-way meters that enable utility customers to feed surpluses into the grid for a fixed rate have spurred rapid growth in solar cell use. The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 established two-way metering for any customer requesting it. Some countries have established a fixed price for utilities to pay for electricity fed into the grid. In Germany, this has been set well above the market price to reflect the value of clean electricity and to get the fledgling solar cell industry off the ground.^^39^^\n\nThe residential use of solar cells is expanding at a breakneck pace in some countries. In Japan, where companies have commercialized a solar roofing material, the idea of making the roof the power plant for the home is increasingly popular. This, combined with Japan's 70,000 Roofs Program launched in 1994 to subsidize the installations, got the country off to a fast start, making it a world leader in solar-generated electricity.\n\nIn 1998, Germany initiated a 100,000 Roofs Program, which gave consumers 10-year loans for buying photovoltaic systems at reduced interest rates. This ended in 2003 when the goal of 100,000 solar roofs was reached. With this fast-growing market, solar cell costs now have fallen to where German manufacturers are quite competitive internationally.\n\nWithin the United States, California is also providing attractive incentives for the residential installation of solar cells. In a climate where peak capacity on hot summer days presses against the limits of the grid, solar cells are seen as an alternative to fossil fuel plants, mostly gas-fired, that operate only during the peak daytime demand. Happily, solar cells generate the most electricity during the hottest times of the day, making them ideal for satisfying peak power demands.^^42^^\n\nSolar cell installations may be even more economical in large buildings. In Manchester, England, a 40-story office building in need of renovation will be covered with photovoltaic material. With three sides of this 400-foot building covered with this material, the building has a huge generating surface. An official of the building owner and occupant, the Co-operative Insurance Society, noted with a smile that it would produce enough electricity each year to make 9 million cups of tea.^^43^^\n\nIn recent years, a vast new off-grid solar cell market has opened up in developing-country villages, where the cost of building a centralized power plant and a grid to deliver relatively small amounts of electricity to individual consumers is prohibitive. With solar cells costs falling, however, it is now often cheaper to provide electricity from solar cell installations than from a centralized source.\n\nIn Andean villages, solar installations are replacing candles as a source of lighting. For villagers who are paying for the installation over 30 months, the monthly payment is roughly equal to the cost of a month's supply of candles. Once the solar cells are paid for, the villagers then have an essentially free source of power - one that can supply electricity for decades. Similarly, in villages in India, where light now comes from kerosene lamps, soaring oil prices mean that kerosene from imported oil may now cost far more than solar cells.^^44^^\n\nToday more than 1 million homes in villages in the developing world are getting their electricity from solar cells, but this represents less than 1 percent of the 1.7 billion people who do not yet have electricity. The principal obstacle to the spread of solar cell installations in villages is not the cost per se, but the lack of small-scale credit programs to finance them. If this credit shortfall is quickly overcome, village purchases of solar cells will soar.^^45^^\n\nThe future of solar cells is promising. Japan, for example, where residential installations exceeded 1,000 megawatts at the end of 2004, plans to get 10 percent of its electricity from solar cells by 2030. Germany now has 700 megawatts of installed capacity and is growing fast. The United States, a distant third, introduced a solar tax credit in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The first such credit in 20 years, it promises to rejuvenate the U.S. solar industry.\n\nThe cost of solar cells has been dropping for several decades and is expected to continue falling for the indefinite future. With each doubling of cumulative production, the manufacturing economics of scale drop the price an additional 20 percent. In addition, technologies for producing solar cells that convert more sunlight into electricity and do so at a lower cost are being worked on at numerous research facilities in several countries.^^47^^\n\nIn addition to generating electricity from solar cells, solar energy can also be concentrated to boil water and produce steam, driving a turbine to generate electricity. There are various designs used in solar-thermal power plants, including power towers, which consist of an elevated facility containing water that is heated by an array of mirrors, and solar troughs. Usually computer-controlled, the mirrors shift their position as the sun moves across the sky to maximize the sunlight focused on the boiler. Some 350 megawatts of generating capacity in California has been operating very successfully since nine solar trough plants were built in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. New initiatives to develop solar thermal power plants are now under way in Spain.^^48^^\n\nOne of the most popular ways of harnessing solar energy is the use of rooftop solar thermal collectors for both water and space heating. Janet Sawin of Worldwatch Institute reports that the global installations of 150 million square meters, excluding the one fourth that is used for swimming pools, supplies water or space heating for 32 million households.^^49^^\n\nFor years both Israel and Cyprus, countries rich in sunlight, have been encouraging solar water heaters as a way of reducing the need for imported fossil fuels. Germany, which has 5.4 million square meters of solar water heating panels, ranks second in installed capacity. This panel area totals 540 hectares or roughly 1,300 acres.^^50^^\n\nChina, far and away the world leader in this technology, is planning to quadruple its current 52 million square meters of collectors by 2015, reports Sawin. Spain, a leading manufacturer of solar thermal panels, is making a bid for industry leadership by requiring the inclusion of rooftop solar water heaters on all new buildings, residential and commercial, beginning in 2005. A two-meter panel on a single-family residence can reduce annual water heating bills by 70 percent. In effect, Spain is substituting its abundant sunlight for imported oil.^^51^^\n\nThe technologies for converting sunlight into electricity or using it to heat water and building space are now well developed. And the economics are falling into place. What is needed to accelerate this is a set of incentives in all countries that reflects the value to society of reducing dependence on oil and of reducing carbon emissions.\n\n[[10.5 - Energy from the Earth]]\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

When we think of renewable energy, we typically think of those sources that derive directly or indirectly from the sun. But the earth itself is a source of heat energy (mostly from radioactivity deep within the earth), which gradually escapes either through conduction or through hot springs and geysers that bring internal heat to the earth's surface. Geothermal energy is inexhaustible and will last as long as the earth itself.\n\nAside from being an ideal source for base load (continuous) power, geothermal energy is environmentally attractive for several reasons. Its carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions are negligible to non-existent. Water use for geothermal electric generation is 1 percent that of natural-gas-fired power plants.^^52^^\n\nThe potential of geothermal energy is extraordinary. Japan alone has an estimated geothermal electric-generating capacity of 69,000 megawatts, enough to satisfy one third of its electricity needs. Among the countries rich in geothermal energy are those bordering the Pacific in the so-called Ring of Fire. These include (on the east) Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, all the Central American countries, Mexico, the western United States, and Canada and (on the west) Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand. Other geothermally rich countries include those along the Great Rift of Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. Fortunately, many countries now have enough experience and engineering capacity to tap this vast resource.^^53^^\n\nLike solar energy, geothermal energy is used both to generate electricity and to directly heat buildings, greenhouses, and aquacultural ponds. It is also used as a source of heat for industrial processes. After Italy pioneered the use of geothermal energy to generate electricity in 1904, the practice spread to some 25 countries. The global capacity of 8,400 megawatts in 2003 represents a 44-percent growth over the 5,800 megawatts available in 1990.^^54^^\n\nTwo countries - the United States with 2,000 megawatts and the Philippines with 1,900 megawatts - account for almost half of world generating capacity. In the Philippines, geothermal provides a world-leading 27 percent of the country's electricity supply. California, the most populous state, gets 5 percent of its electricity from geothermal power plants. Most of the remaining geothermal power generation is concentrated in five countries: Italy, Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and New Zealand.^^55^^\n\nThe direct use of geothermal heat for various heating purposes worldwide is even larger, equivalent to 12,000 megawatts of electricity generation. Its use in heat pumps, which extract and concentrate heat from warm water for various uses, is the largest single use. More than 30 countries tap geothermal energy for heating.^^56^^\n\nIceland and France are the leaders. In Iceland, 93 percent of the country's homes are heated with geothermal energy, saving over $100 million per year in avoided oil imports. Geothermal energy accounts for more than one third of Iceland's total energy use. Following the two oil price hikes in the 1970s, some 70 geothermal heating facilities were constructed in France, providing both heat and hot water for an estimated 200,000 residences. In the United States, individual homes are supplied directly with geothermal heat in Reno, Nevada, and in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Other countries that have extensive geothermally based district-heating systems include China, Japan, and Turkey.\n\nGeothermal energy is an ideal source of heat for greenhouses, particularly in northern climes. Russia, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States all use geothermally heated greenhouses to produce fresh vegetables in winter. With rising oil prices boosting fresh produce transport costs, this option will likely become more popular in the years ahead.^^58^^\n\nSome 16 countries use geothermal energy for aquaculture. Among these are China, Israel, and the United States. In California, for example, 15 fish farms produce tilapia, striped bass, and catfish with warm water from underground. This warmer water enables fish to grow without interruption during the winter and to mature more quickly. Collectively these California farms produce 4.5 million kilograms of fish per year.^^59^^\n\nThe number of countries turning to geothermal energy both for electricity and for direct use is increasing rapidly. So, too, is the range of uses. Once the value of geothermal energy is discovered, its use is often quickly diversified. Romania, for example, uses its geothermal energy for district heating, for greenhouses, and to supply hot water for homes and factories. With heat pumps, the earth can serve as both a heat source and a sink to provide heating in winter and cooling in summer.^^60^^\n\nGeothermal energy is widely used for bathing and swimming. Japan, for example, has 2,800 spas, 5,500 public bathhouses, and 15,600 hotels and inns that use hot geothermal water. Iceland uses geothermal energy to heat some 100 public swimming pools, most of them year-round open-air pools. Hungary heats 1,200 swimming pools with geothermal energy.\n\nIndonesia, with more than 222 million people, could easily get all of its electricity from geothermal energy. Situated on the western edge of the Pacific, with 500 volcanoes, 128 of them active, Indonesia has a master plan for 11 geothermal power plants with a generation capacity of just over 300 megawatts each - a total of 3,400 megawatts. This plan was derailed by the Asian financial crisis of 1997, but supporters are now attempting to revive it. With its oil production falling, Indonesia needs to quickly develop alternative sources of energy. Unlike investments in oil, those in geothermal energy are tapping an energy source that can last forever.^^62^^\n\n[[10.6 - Cutting Carbon Emissions Fast]]\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

By far the cheapest and fastest way to cut carbon emissions is to raise the efficiency of energy use. Not only is it cheap, it is often profitable. The other option is to develop renewable sources of energy. Within this framework, perhaps the most complex question is which alternative automotive fuels to develop. Until recently, the only widely considered alternative to oil since the initial oil price hikes in the 1970s was biofuels. Now with the advent of gas-electric hybrid plug-ins, wind-generated electricity becomes an appealing option because of its abundance and low cost.\n\nThe frugal use of land by wind is impressive. Within the United States, a quarter-acre of land in the corn belt can be used to site an advanced-design wind turbine that will produce $100,000 worth of electricity per year or it can be used to produce 40 bushels of corn that will yield 100 gallons of ethanol worth perhaps $200. If the goal is to minimize competition from the automotive fuel economy for food resources, wind-generated electricity is the obvious choice.^^63^^\n\nAmong the various ethanol sources, sugarcane is by far the most efficient in both land and energy use. The ethanol yield of sugarcane per acre is roughly 650 gallons, whereas for corn in the United States it is 350 gallons, scarcely half as much. The net energy yield of 8 for sugarcane offers an overwhelming advantage over that of the 1.5 for corn.^^64^^\n\nThe palm oil yield of over 500 gallons of biodiesel per acre compares very favorably with 56 gallons per acre for soybeans. The downside of sugarcane and palm oil as feedstocks is that both are grown in tropical and subtropical regions, which means their production will likely be expanded by clearing tropical forests.^^65^^\n\nThe most efficient automotive fuel option appears to the gas-electric hybrid with a plug-in capacity and wind energy as the principal fuel. Since nearly all the basic food commodities can be converted into automotive fuel, either ethanol or biodiesel, there is a risk that rising oil prices will stimulate massive investments in biofuels production, using food staples as the feedstock. This could set up direct competition between affluent motorists and low-income food consumers for the same foodstuffs, including wheat, rice, corn, soybeans, and sugarcane. Avoiding this potential competition between supermarkets and service stations for the same food commodities will depend on governments establishing policies to protect food consumers.\n\nIn a world facing disruptive climate change, each country will need to fashion its own carbon reduction strategy in light of its unique complement of renewable sources of energy and its most promising potentials for raising energy efficiency. Yet, many technologies for cutting carbon emissions, such as energy-efficient household appliances and gas-electric hybrid vehicles, are common to all societies.\n\nAmong countries, Iceland may be the only one that currently has a strategy to phase out the use of fossil fuels, including oil, entirely. Currently it heats 85 percent of all its buildings, residential and commercial, with geothermal energy. In addition, 82 percent of its electricity comes from hydropower, with most of the remaining electricity geothermally generated. It is now using its cheap hydroelectricity to electrolyze water and produce hydrogen. With its first hydrogen station in operation in Reykjavik, the country is turning to fuel-cell-powered buses. Next it plans to convert its automobiles to fuel cells and then eventually to do the same with its fishing fleet, which lies at the heart of its economy.\n\nThe biggest single gain in carbon emission reductions could come in the U.S. automotive sector where, as described earlier, the potential exists for cutting gasoline use by a staggering 85 percent. This model applied worldwide could help the world adjust to the coming decline in oil production.^^67^^\n\nFor the United States, its rich endowment of low-cost wind energy suggests that wind will likely emerge as the centerpiece of the new energy economy. It can supply electricity for heating, cooling, cooking, powering automobiles, and even producing steel, using energy-efficient electric arc furnaces for steel smelting. The United States, which gets 7 percent of its electricity from existing hydroelectric facilities, also has a substantial geothermal potential in the western states and an enormous solar cell potential throughout the country.\n\nGermany plans to cut its carbon emissions dramatically by continuously raising energy efficiency and harnessing renewable energy resources, with an emphasis on wind. By 2050, Germany plans to reduce overall energy use by 37 percent as it uses the latest technologies to raise energy efficiency. Of the remaining 63 percent, 45 percent will come from renewables. This means a cut of 65 percent in overall carbon emissions. Germany will rely heavily on wind and solar cells for electricity generation and solar thermal panels for water and space heating.^^69^^\n\nIndonesia's energy future lies in its vast resources of geothermal energy. With more than enough geothermal energy to satisfy all its electricity needs, Indonesia can also develop its abundance of solar and wind resources and use electricity to fuel hybrid vehicles. With 11 percent of its electricity coming from hydro, Indonesia has a wide range of renewable energy sources.^^70^^\n\nFor Spain, bathed in sunlight year-round, solar cells and solar panels will figure prominently in supplying electricity, heating, and cooling. Spain is also moving fast to develop its rich endowment of wind energy.\n\nBrazil is unique in that self-sufficiency in automotive fuel in the form of sugarcane-based ethanol could be only a few years away. Along with a generous supply of hydropower, wind and solar cells will also supply electricity. Solar panels will heat water. Brazil could be one of the first large countries to substantially phase out fossil fuels.^^72^^\n\nFor China, hydropower already supplies 15 percent of its electricity, but the big potential lies with wind. China could easily double its current electricity generation from wind alone. Like the United States, a combination of gas-electric hybrids with a second storage battery and a plug-in capacity and a heavy investment in harnessing its abundant wind resources can minimize the use of gasoline and reduce dependence on coal.^^73^^\n\nIn the United Kingdom, wind-generated electricity, primarily from offshore wind farms, holds enormous potential. This, combined with wave power (of which it has an abundance) and solar panels for water heating, can meet much of the country's energy needs.^^74^^\n\nFor Argentina, where hydropower already supplies 42 percent of electricity, wind could easily supply the remainder. Its large Patagonian region has some of the richest wind resources found anywhere. Argentina also has the potential for solar electricity and solar panels.^^75^^\n\nDuring the last century, the world became increasingly dependent on a small handful of countries in the Middle East for its energy. During this century, the world is turning to local energy resources. The last century saw the globalization of the energy economy, while today we are seeing its localization. Whereas "one size fit all" in the last century, in the twenty-first century each country will fashion an energy strategy that fits its own renewable energy resources and its potential for raising energy efficiency.\n\nFor countries everywhere, particularly developing countries, the economic good news in the energy transition is that it is much more labor-intensive than the use of fossil fuels. Even though Germany is still early in the energy transition, renewable energy industries already employ more workers than the long-standing fossil fuel and nuclear industries. In a world where unemployment is widespread, this is welcome news indeed.^^76^^\n\nFurthermore, in contrast to investments in oil and gas fields and coal mines, where depletion and abandonment were inevitable, the new energy sources are inexhaustible. While wind turbines, solar cells, and solar thermal panels will all need repair and occasional replacement, the initial investment can last indefinitely. This well will not go dry.\n\n[[10.7 - Additional Resources]]\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

Alliance to Save Energy, http://www.ase.org\n\nAmerican Solar Energy Society, http://www.ases.org\n\nAmerican Wind Energy Association, http://www.awea.org\n\nBailie, Alison, et al., //The Path to Carbon-Dioxide-Free Power: Switching to Clean Energy in the Utility Sector//, A Study for the World Wildlife Fund (Washington, DC: Tellus Institute and The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, April 2003), http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/publications/power_switch.pdf\n\nEuropean Wind Energy Association, http://www.ewea.org\n\nGlobal Wind Energy Council, //Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World's Electricity from Wind Power by 2020// (Belgium: European Wind Energy Association and Greenpeace, 2005), http://www.gwec.net/fileadmin/documents/Publications/wf12-2005.pdf\n\nLovins, Amory B., et al., //Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs, and Security// (Snowmass, CO: Rocky Mountain Institute, 2004), http://www.oilendgame.com\n\nMaycock, Paul, //Photovoltaic News//, http://www.pvenergy.com/news.html\n\n[[10.8 - Notes]]\n\n[[11 - Designing Sustainable Cities]]

1. United Nations, //Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change// (New York: 1997); S. Pacala and R. Socolow, "Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies," //Science//, 13 August 2004.\n\n2. European Commission, "Commissioner Piebalgs: Europe Could Save 20% of Its Energy by 2020," press release (Brussels: 22 June 2005); "Europe Tries to Replace Fossil Fuels With Sustainable Energy," //Environment News Service,// 18 July 2005.\n\n3. European Commission, op. cit. note 2; "Europe Tries to Replace Fossil Fuels With Sustainable Energy," op. cit. note 2.\n\n4. James Brooke, "Japan Squeezes to Get the Most of Costly Fuel," //New York Times//, 4 June 2005.\n\n5. Ibid.\n\n6. Ralph Torrie, Richard Parfett, and Paul Steenhof, //Kyoto and Beyond: The Low-Emission Path to Innovation and Efficiency// (Ottawa: The David Suzuki Foundation and Climate Action Network Canada, October 2002); Alison Bailie et al., //The Path to Carbon-Dioxide-Free Power: Switching to Clean Energy in the Utility Sector//, A Study for the World Wildlife Fund (Washington, DC: Tellus Institute and The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, April 2003).\n\n7. Ontario Ministry of Energy, "McGuinty Government Unveils Bold Plan to Clean Up Ontario's Air," press release (Toronto: 15 June 2005); EIN Publishing, "Ontario Unveils Plan for Replacing Coal-fired Power Plants," //Global Warming Today,// 28 June 2005; Gibbons quoted in Martin Mittelstaedt, "Putting Out the Fires," //Globe and Mail// (Toronto), 15 March 2003.\n\n8. Ray Anderson, writing in Torrie, Parfett, and Steenhof, op. cit. note 6, p. 2.\n\n9. Per capita energy consumption in U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Administration (EIA), "France," "Germany," "Spain," "United Kingdom," "United States," //EIA Country Analysis Briefs// (Washington, DC: updated at various times between November 2004 and July 2005).\n\n10. Bill Prindle, "How Energy Efficiency Can Turn 1300 New Power Plants Into 170," fact sheet (Washington, DC: Alliance to Save Energy, 2 May 2001).\n\n11. Howard Geller, "Compact Fluorescent Lighting," //American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy Technology Brief//, http://www.aceee.org , viewed 1 May 2003.\n\n12. Gasoline savings based on Malcolm A. Weiss et al., //Comparative Assessment of Fuel Cell Cars// (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 2003); 2004 sales estimate from "Sales Numbers and Forecasts for Hybrid Vehicles," at http://www.hybridcars.com , viewed 29 August 2005; 2008 sales projections from David L. Greene, K. G. Duleep, and Walter McManus, //Future Potential of Hybrid and Diesel Powertrains in the U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Market// (Oak Ridge, Tennessee: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2004).\n\n13. Figure 10-1 from Worldwatch Institute, //Signposts 2004//, CD-Rom (Washington, DC: 2004), updated by Earth Policy Institute from Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), "Global Wind Power Continues Expansion: Pace of Installation Needs to Accelerate to Combat Climate Change," press release (Brussels: 4 March 2005); American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), //Global Wind Energy Market Report// (Washington, DC: March 2004). Oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power from British Petroleum (BP), //BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2005// (London: Group Media & Publishing, 2005), pp. 9, 25, 33-34.\n\n14. Worldwatch Institute, op. cit. note 13, updated by Earth Policy Institute from GWEC, op. cit. note 13; Danish Wind Industry Association, "Did You Know?" fact sheet, at http://www.windpower.org , viewed 1 August 2005; BTM Consult ApS, "International Wind Energy Development: World Market Update 2004: Forecast 2005-2009," press release (Ringkøbing, Denmark: 31 March 2005).\n\n15. GWEC, op. cit. note 13; GWEC, //Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World's Electricity from Wind Power by 2020// (Belgium: European Wind Energy Association and Greenpeace, 2005); European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), //Wind Power Targets for Europe: 75,000 MW by 2010// (Belgium: October 2003).\n\n16. GWEC, op. cit. note 13; GWEC, op. cit. note 15; Garrad Hassan and Partners, //Sea Wind Europe// (London: Greenpeace, March 2004).\n\n17. British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), "Statistics," fact sheet, http://www.bwea.org , viewed 8 August 2005; "Big Boost for Offshore Wind Power," //Reuters//, 19 December 2003.\n\n18. Estimate of heat wave deaths across Europe compiled in Janet Larsen, "Record Heat Wave in Europe Takes 35,000 Lives,"