(”Energy” segment that I put together for a Permaculture Basics Weekend)
• “Renewable energy” typically refers to solar power (which can be further divided into photovoltaic and passive solar); wind; biomass (wood, dung, etc.); hydroelectric; and human power. Because energy goes into everything we make or do, its on-site/local generation and wise use should be a focal point of permaculture design.

• Nature creates no waste. Outputs of one organism, system, or process become food/fuel for other organisms, systems, or processes. Recycle “waste” on-site whenever possible. A public bath facility in Tokyo uses heat generated by a trash incinerator to heat its water. Conventional light bulbs give off more energy in the form of heat than in the form of light — figure out how to capture that heat.

• The energy that goes into producing, transporting, marketing, and other steps involved in creating a product or service (from a head of lettuce to a sheet of roofing material to a newspaper to a catered banquet) and conveying it to its end user, is known as the embodied energy of that product or service. Just about everything we see around us in the industrialized world has very high embodied energy. Mark Sardella, who teaches renewable energy and runs a nonprofit called Local Energy in Santa Fe, has commented that the amount of cheap energy at our fingertips amounts to each and every modern-day American owning 80 slaves.

• Some people who identify as “green” view nuclear power as a clean, infinite energy source. But nuclear violates all of the permaculture ethics. The mining of the uranium used for the reactor core is an eco-disaster. And the overall infrastructure requires a police state to maintain it, and when problems occur, they are potentially deadly and far-reaching.
• “Peak Oil”: Nobody knows for sure when (or even if) the “crash” will be, and opinions differ widely even among experts. But even if fossil fuels were infinite or renewable, there are many arguments for drastically curtailing or eliminating their use:
– Their extraction and transport damages the environment and living things. One graphic example is mountaintop removal, the main method now used to extract coal (which is the main fuel used to generate electricity).
– Using fossil fuels as our main energy source keeps us tied into a system that is riddled with Type 1 design errors: too much space devoted to cars and roads as opposed to habitat and food-growing; the “job-car loop” (I have to have a car to get to my job; I have to stay in this job (that is not my true calling) to make my car payment …); too much geographic separation between the basic functions of everyday life, leading to social isolation/alienation and consigning people of all ages to the automobile for hours a day; air and water pollution; obesity; large, complexly designed homes that make homeowners dependent on building/remodeling experts and force them into debt for decades; poorly designed buildings that have to be climate-controlled, which cuts us off from nature and in turn causes us to keep perpetrating poor design… The list goes on and on.
– Cutting fossil-fuel consumption reduces one of the key motivating factors for war.
– It also curtails the power of mega-corporations whose actions (or inaction) we view as damaging and morally wrong. Many don’t realize it, but everyday citizens are positioned UPSTREAM of the big corporations and government bodies that we think of as “the top.” We as consumers are their lifeblood. To take back our power, we should “vote” with our actions every day. Organize your daily routine to make use of natural light whenever possible. Donate that desktop computer to a worthy organization and make do with your old laptop. Put on a sweater (DUH – but all too often, people crank up the heat instead because it’s convenient to do so.) Use a solar oven. Refuse excessively packaged foods and beverages. I could cite a hundred little examples here, and if we all start by picking our personal “low-hanging fruit” and keep going from there, it will have more impact than screams of public outrage or our votes at the ballot box. (This doesn’t excuse us from civic engagement, however.)
– By reducing consumption of fossil fuels, we reduce a major living expense. This frees us up to invest more time/money in our education; travel; acquiring skills that lead to right livelihood.

• The “Gas Crack”: (a term used in the Peak Oil awareness community): refers to our window of opportunity to channel the remaining supply of fossil fuels into creating durable capital for a sustainable society. For the aforementioned reasons, even if fossil fuels were infinite/renewable, we would do well to use the “Gas Crack” concept to guide us in setting our manufacturing and development priorities. Durable capital for a sustainable culture might include earthworks (berms/swales, root cellars, etc.); greehouse glass; windmills; solar panels (BUT NOTE: panels only last 25-30yrs); bicycles & bike parts; roofing material and other durable sheet materials; high-quality food canning and storage containers and other food preservation supplies; good hand tools; hand-powered pumps and mills; solar ovens; high-efficiency biomass stoves; etc.
• We want to generate power as LOCALLY as possible, a couple of reasons being 1) centralized, remotely located power generation and transmission has unacceptable environmental and human costs (that are all too easy for us to ignore because they’re not in our backyard); 2) local power generation strengthens local economies. (In our current setup, the dollar that you spend on energy leaves your community faster than any other dollar you spend).
• The ultimate renewable energy source is the sun. It’s is the source of all other energy sources. The cleanest, most efficient way to meet our energy needs is to harness the sun’s energy as directly as possible. (Plants are the ultimate masters of this.) The term for using the sun’s energy directly, as opposed to generating electricity via solar panels, is passive solar. Examples of passive solar technology include home heating using a glass wall or greenhouse; water heating using a solar collector (heating element that consists of coiled pipe in a large flat black box with a glass front) or breadbox heater; and solar ovens.
• Solar panels (photovoltaic) convert the sun’s energy to electricity. The same as for all electricity, energy is lost at each step of the conversion, transmission, and storage process. One advantage of solar PV is that it can generate power even on a white-overcast day — there’s still enough UV getting through to the panels. Passive solar devices require direct sun (though a solar oven, once warmed, will continue to cook the pot of food as long as the sun comes out from behind the clouds for at least 20-30 minutes per hour).
• Wind power is up-and-coming but still meets only a tiny percentage of our needs. Texas is the #2 state, after California, in terms of wind-power capacity.
• Hydroelectric power on a large scale requires the construction of massive dams that carry heavy costs of building and maintenance, and are damaging to ecosystems. Micro-hydroelectric systems, such as the one in use at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, can be used to meet modest electricity needs of a community situated along a stream.
• It’s naïve to think we can just “switch over” to renewables without making any changes in our American lifestyle. (Permaculture design consultants routinely get calls along the lines of, “I just built a 5,000 square foot house in the country, and I want to go solar.” [sound of eyes rolling loudly in head]) My monthly electricity consumption of around 30kwh (summer) to 50kwh (winter) is less than 5% of the average US household’s. Even so, generating my electricity photovoltaically would require a 10 x 10 solar panel. (I arrived at this by using information freely available online to calculate my electricity usage, then asking a guy at Meridian (solar PV company) how many panel’s I’d need.) A 10×10 panel is a large expensive object, which of course has its own embodied energy of manufacture, transport, installation, etc. Intuition and common sense tells me it’s more sustainable for me to continue to use electricity from the grid (the infrastructure that’s already in place — its embodied energy of manufacture and installation already expended), while continuing down the path of weaning myself off electricity. For most of us, conservation is the easiest, cheapest, most effective way to reduce fossil-fuel consumption. (In a similar vein, “the greenest house is the one that’s already built” — the one you live in now.)
• The fuel-water connection: it takes fuel to transport water, and it takes water to extract fossil fuels. By reducing water consumption, we reduce fuel consumption; by reducing fuel consumption, we reduce water consumption.
• Heating and cooling: Cooling (removing the heat from air, water, or another medium) is more energy-intensive than heating.
• Energy costs account for 48% of the lifetime cost of a building. The most energy-consuming areas of a home are refrigeration, air heating and cooling, and water heating. Through zone and sector planning, and through the building techniques described in the Natural Building /Greenbuilding segment, we can reduce or eliminate our need for artificial heating and cooling. Ianto Evans (cob builder and stove guru) describes how to build household fixtures such as cob benches that are heated from within by wood fires. Homemade wood-fired saunas (with cold showers adjacent – or located alongside a cold creek, like the one at Earthaven Ecovillage) and hot tubs offer an alternative to heating large quantities of water for personal bathing. Added benefits are social enjoyment, and a glowing sense of cleanliness and well-being.

• Examples of low-tech home heating and cooling abound. The Kerr-Cole Sustainability Center in Arizona keeps cool with earth tubes (passages that channel cool air from the ground into a house). Swamp coolers, which work by the evaporation of water, work well in dry climates (contrary to their name). Russians pile hay on the roofs of their cottages to keep warmer in winter.

• Cooking, particularly with electricity, is another significant energy user. (Note: In countries with climates similar to ours, but where the population doesn’t have access to cooling, heating, refrigeration, and other modern conveniences, cooking-fuel costs can account for nearly 100% of a household’s energy costs.) Solar ovens, hayboxes (retained-heat cooking), and high-efficiency biomass stoves are good additions to the home. A prime example of a high-efficiency biomass stove is the Rocket Stove, which runs on small twigs or wood chips. The stove was developed by engineers at the Aprovecho Research Center, a permaculture and appropriate-technology center in Oregon.
• Seemingly trivial modifications can add up. At the Kerr-Cole Sustainability Center in Arizona, a couple cooking on a daily basis were able to make a 5-gallon propane tank last 17 months by putting a reflective skirt around the cookpotpot and a hood in back of the stove; using the haybox for slow-cooking of beans, rice, and other dishes cooked in liquid; and making extensive use of the solar oven.
• In many countries where wood is the primary fuel source, deforestation has become a problem. (This could happen here in the U.S. again — deforestation inspired Ben Franklin to invent the high-efficiency Franklin Stove in the 18th century.) Conservation, together with the systematic planting of fast-growing fuelwood species, are called for.
• Remember: Conserving energy and using local & renewable energy increases your FREEDOM and POWER. Enjoy!