Sustainability articles in Sept/Oct issue of Hopedance
Hopedance
Several articles of special interest (see original article for complete list):
- Report on the 7th International Permaculture Convergence
- Report on the Car-Free Cities Conference in Hungary
- Cars
- A Peek Beyond the Peak: Heinberg in Venice
- Willits, CA comes to terms with Peak Oil
- The War Garden Victorious
(September/October 2005 issue)
If a gas-buying panic sets in, we should recall the plan from McCall
Russell Sadle, Eugene Register-Guard (commentary)
Oregon has more experience than most states in successfully coping with panic buying and gasoline lines. Rewind the videotape to 1973: “The Winter Gov. Tom McCall Turned Out the Lights.”
Even before the 1973 oil embargo, a prolonged drought threatened the West Coast with an hydroelectricity shortage. In Oregon, McCall urged conservation because most homes and business were heated with electricity, and the approaching winter brought electrical usage to a peak.
McCall issued a constitutionally dubious, but very effective, executive order prohibiting the use of electricity for “nonessential” purposes. This included billboards and electric signs.
The Oregon Department of Transportation dimmed some street lights at freeway interchanges. Stores and gas stations pulled the knobs off the hot water faucets in public restrooms – questionable from a public health standpoint, but very effective publicity.
In late October, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries prohibited sale of crude oil to countries that sided with Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This boycott quadrupled the price of crude oil, to $12 a barrel.
OPEC’s action triggered spot shortages that reinforced more panic buying and long gas lines.
While the Nixon administration dithered over whether to impose national gasoline rationing, McCall met with his staff to come up with an plan. The staff erupted with ideas – including flying green flags when the station had gas, red flags when tanks were dry and yellow flags for sales only to regular commercial customers.
But it was a young staffer from the Oregon Department of Energy who came up with the idea McCall finally embraced. “We could cut the lines in half overnight,” the staffer assured McCall. “People whose license plates end in an even number can buy gas today, people with odd numbers can buy tomorrow.”
McCall had as much visibility with the National Governors Association in 1973 as did California Gov. Ronald Reagan. McCall’s odd-even plan was so simple to administer, and so free of bureaucracy, that a number of governors adopted it; the need for national gas rationing melted away. OPEC ended its embargo in March 1974.
… Fast forward to late August 2005. The media – especially the cable news channels – are creating a climate that will once again trigger panic buying and long lines at the gasoline pumps. Outside the Gulf Coast, there is just as much gasoline available today as there was before Katrina hit. It is in transit from refineries to oil distributors’ tank farms to the underground tanks where you fill up.
Most Americans let their gas tanks get close to empty before they fill up, so most gasoline is stored in the distribution network, not in vehicle gasoline tanks. But if the melodramatic media convince enough people shortages are imminent, Americans will line up to top off their tanks.
That will shift much of the nation’s stored gasoline to vehicle tanks, triggering spot shortages that will produce media coverage that will cause more panic buying. The long lines will appear at the pumps, as occurred in 1973.
If that happens, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and other state governors can simply impose McCall’s odd-even plan and reduce the number of drivers bellying up to the bar to fill up by half.
There is no need to trouble the incompetents in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
(6 September 2005)
A teachable moment has arrived
In the aftermath of Katrina, the nation faces critical questions about oil consumption
Seth Zuckerman, Tidepool
…The answer is easy in concept but challenging in practice: Use less fuel. U.S. policy has sought that goal by demanding that each automaker achieve a minimum average fuel economy for the entire fleet it produces. Those standards have stagnated for 20 years.
If the government had continued raising the standards in the 1980s, the results would already be felt, as older autos were retired and new ones took their place.
The second-best time is now, as it becomes increasingly obvious that building our lives around cheap, abundant petroleum is a chancy proposition. As a country, we have arrived at a teachable moment of our own.
It is painful to see the Bush administration squandering this opportunity. Under its fuel economy plan for SUVs and light trucks, marginally better gas-guzzlers would begin rolling off the assembly lines in about five years. Truly gargantuan SUVs would be exempt entirely. Others wouldn’t even be expected to attain the same gas mileage that comparable models are already achieving.
With 20 years’ hindsight, it’s clear that the previous generation should have mandated more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. We can’t turn back that clock, but we can learn a lesson. If we don’t take steps today to improve the efficiency of tomorrow’s auto fleet, the next generation will wonder why even a Category 4 hurricane and its terrible aftermath couldn’t kick us into gear.
Seth Zuckerman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an environmental writer who lives in Petrolia, California.
(7 September 2005)
Tall grasses set to power Europe
Jonathan Amos, BBC
The fields of Europe could soon take on a shimmering silver colour as farmers grow giant grasses to try to mitigate the effects of global warming.
The latest studies suggest one form of elephant grass would make a productive “energy crop” to be burnt in power stations to generate electricity.
Scientists told a Dublin conference the 4m-high Miscanthus needs little fertiliser to produce very high yields. A breeding programme would improve its economics still further, they said.
“There’s no reason why in 10 years’ time this shouldn’t be widely exploited,” commented Professor Mike Jones, an Irish expert on plants and climate.
“If we grew Miscanthus on 10% of suitable land in [the 15-member] Europe, then we could generate 9% of the gross electricity production,” he told the British Association’s Festival of Science.
Burning biomass is broadly neutral in terms of its emissions of carbon dioxide, the major gas thought responsible for warming the planet.
“As the plant grows it is drawing carbon dioxide out of the air,” explained Professor Steve Long, from the University of Illinois. “When you burn it, you put that carbon dioxide back, so the net effect on atmospheric CO2 is zero.
“Whereas, if you take coal out of the ground and burn it, you are adding a net gain of carbon to the atmosphere.”
(7 September 2005)
Also covered by Reuters
Call for Government to impose petrol price cap
Daniel Dasey, The Sun-Herald (Au)
Petrol station owners have called on the Federal Government to consider placing a cap on the cost of fuel to stop record prices squeezing low-income earners out of the market.
Chief executive Ron Bowden said an artificial cap or other intervention could be in the national interest to ensure fuel remained accessible to a wide range of Australians, including pensioners.
“The Government needs to engage in a review as to whether petrol and diesel should be deemed essential services and hence receive some special consideration, like electricity and gas,” SSA chief executive officer Ron Bowden said.
“The review might include measures such as rationing together with some sort of cap.”
(4 Sept 2005)
This scrapes into ‘solutions’ headlines because it reports independent servo operators defending consumers (and themselves) by daring to point the finger at profiteering multinationals.-LJ
