Maybe, for you - it's time to unplug.

Unplug what? Unplug - everything.

Yes, that's a drastic suggestion; but if you aren't feeling drastic today, you never will.

Nuclear power - is a thing of the past. But it's not going to die an easy death; the nuke profiteers will fight for their profits; which come, please note, never from actual profits made selling energy; but from subsidies paid by taxpayers. They fight to the death. Literally. So long as the deaths are not their own, they are already writing about how happy they are to see a few people die for their nukes. "Everything is dangerous!" they now cry; after paying expert pontificators for decades to pound home the idea that nukes are "totally safe!"

They're not; they never were, and those who said so (me, quietly, Nicole Foss with vast expertise) have been ignored (at best).

And let me say this, too - I'm of the opinion that safe nuclear power might have been a possibility, at one time. But at the outset, engineers who pushed for greater intrinsic safety were ignored because safer designs were also more expensive, up front. As recently as last week- while pushing "third generation" nuclear reactors, the industry once again chose to ignore- and ridicule- engineers pointing out safety flaws.

What's going on in Japan right now is much, much worse than the mainstream media is saying it is. That's partly because the news coming out of Japan is being specifically toned down to slow panic, and because the media feels compelled to repeat bs like "The outer building was destroyed in the explosion, and the inner concrete secondary containment vessel has collapsed - but the primary steel reactor vessel inside was not damaged, and there is no serious danger to the public at this time."

What leaks out, in dribs and drabs, are little bits of information like "we've found cesium outside"... and "US helicopter pilots flying 60 miles away were contaminated with radioactive particulate matter"...

The only way to get cesium outside is if the core of the reactor has melted, and the core is leaking incredibly hot vaporized metal into the outside world. No, it's not Chernobyl- but that really shouldn't comfort anyone. It's not Three Mile Island, either, it's vastly worse. (By far the best whole-problem analysis I've seen is from Nicole Foss, here.)

Public reaction against nuclear power is going to be huge. The push to develop nuclear anyway, will also be huge- and very powerful. In case you haven't noticed- powerful people are currently increasingly convinced they can and should ignore public wishes, "for our own good".

So. You feel you don't want any new nuclear power plants built around you? What can you do about it?

Yeah, sure; write to your Congress people. Call them. Go to the demonstrations; carry a sign. As all the public employees in Wisconsin will tell you - they're not listening much.

Something you could do- that would actually force them to pay at least a tiny bit of attention to you- is unplug. Quit using their electricity. Stop.

Yes; you could. I can tell you that with a little credibility; because I did; more than 30 years ago- and actually; for exactly this reason; nuclear power (as it exists) is an incredibly bad idea. It was the 3rd post I made on this blog. And I'm not dead, I've raised 2 children entirely this way, one of whom has moved back with his PhD in engineering to work with me, one of whom lights his house with LEDs; and am raising another.

Now; before you quit listening altogether, because 99% of you are thinking "sure, he could, but I really can't... just physically cannot." - you could actually make a difference if you just unplugged some of your "stuff".

Long ago, a very nice lady was writing on Dot Earth, Andy Revkin's blog on the NYT, and made the very common statement that "she'd really like to 'go solar', but she just couldn't afford it." Most people believe that, and repeat it so often it becomes "common knowledge", aka; "reality".

So I commented there that actually she could; anyone can; at any time. Here's how you go solar, on any budget. You go out and buy the solar system you can afford, no matter how small. Then- you only plug in the appliances that you have power for. If you don't have the power- then you can't use it. (A big part of why I have no refrigerator.) When you can afford more solar- you add it on. Then you can run more stuff. Not before. (And sure, solar is not the only game in town; just pay attention to the principle here.)

She did not, alas, go out and do as I suggested.

But just maybe- it's time for people to take that a bit more seriously.

So- if you find yourself concerned, and wanting to do something; think about actually, seriously and permanently, reducing your electricity consumption. That way; when the nuke pushers start saying "we must have them, or we will have no civilization"; they will have a little more trouble making that argument stick.

Over all electric consumption is down, in the "developed world". Most of the world has excess generating capacity, right now. But; the pushers are already pushing; claiming it's desperately essential to have more. If, however, civilized people are simply doing with less; one way or another; and general consumption fails to rise- it will be hard to make that stick.

How many electric clocks do you have in your house? How many do you actually need?

Do clocks use a lot of power? Hell, no; but they are the perfect example of our habits, which have resulted in the endless growth in demand. No, the clock uses "almost nothing"- but how many clocks that no one ever looks at do you suppose are running right now in New York City? I'd have to guess hundreds of thousands, since nice clocks, and clock radios, and an extra clock radio for the den, and the one your uncle gave you for college that is running in the baby's room- are a favorite gift, which we cheerfully give and receive and - plug in, somewhere. And never look at.

Ok; only an example of consumption that happens below our radar- and which adds up, over our 100's of millions of people; so that we probably need one whole power plant in the USA - just to run clocks no one looks at. Another example - just the "standby" features of all our gizmos are estimated to add up to 108 Billion Kilowatt-hours per year, just in the USA. If my math is right, that's more than ten 1,000 Megawatt power plants.

And how about the kids' Wii, that's never unplugged. The extra old fridge still running in the garage, that keeps fish bait and beer cool in the summer; but runs all year?

Truthfully; the easiest way to tackle the problem, if you are one who wants to, is to just unplug everything. Then plug things back in- only when you find you need them.

There's a million ways to cut your use. Put motion detectors in each room that control room lights. Etc.

And for a few. Go ahead. Unplug permanently. Go off-grid.

There are millions in Japan who just went off grid; the hard way. And millions more are cutting back; the hard way. It could go better for your household if you were making your own choices; not having them imposed by forces beyond all control.

re-pre occupied

Flooding.  Again; here.  For those not aware, last fall we lost our walking tractor in the floods (a 20 year old Mainline, worked fine).  But it wasn't on our farm; it was in town, undergoing pre-harvest maintenance; and the water came over the dikes, so that, and our other commercial mower (17 hp diesel) were totally underwater for 3 days.  Not worth fixing.

This time, the new Grillo is under a roof, on our farm; and oddly enough I didn't build anything here on flood plain; so it's perfectly safe.

Our neighbors are not, however; rain's still falling, scheduled to do so for another 24 hours.  We've had a measly 4" so far; to the south, they've had 10 so far-

We did spend an hour in the root cellar last night- tornado warning; the real thing, and tracking right towards us.  It missed, though I haven't been over the farm yet to see what-all happened. busy busy! Hey, the DSL is still working!

I'm feeling bad for the neighbors.  All their newly planted corn and beans are going to be under water or washed out, with deep gullies cut in the newly plowed fields sitting there naked in the rain.  My own fields will be unaffected; but the creek down in our valley is now running high and dark brown, carrying the neighbors' soil away.

Traditional row crop agriculture is now going to be much less tenable, as global warming proceeds, for a flock of reasons.  You hear about drought, and change, as problems; but the one I see as devastating is the great increase in torrential rainfall- the rapid runoff cuts right through those nice "conservation tillage" practices; cutting gullies, stripping soil.  

Farmers find those gullies embarrassing; a sign of poor stewardship- so mostly they tend to hide them.  Plow over, pretend it never happened.  But that soil is now gone, forever.  And the fertility.

Farm exports!  For decades, we've crowed that we feed the world!  The strength of our wonderful farm economy! 

Apart from any quibbles about that- what we actually export, when we ship soybean oil to China is- our soil.  Our children's future.

Now, faster than ever; much faster.

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So, after getting out, during a break in the rain- hey, we've got a foot of water in the "root cellar"- also the storm cellar, and our seed cellar- not good.  Got a little electric pump running on the backup generator- but it's a major pain.  The cellar is like on the top of a hill- should it be flooding?  Heck no- but the ground is so wet it's sheeting off; and it is finding its way down the entryway (which was badly designed; long story).

Other than that- it's wet, the food garden is fine; we've got a ton of frogs singing in the pond that were quiet yesterday; trees are fine except for a few showing leaf damage from high storm winds hitting soft new leaves.

never a dull.

The water is back.

When we bought this farm- 160 acres- it had a "rough corner" - a steep rocky ravine, with a dry bottom.  About 40 acres of forest there, some good timber, but this bit is not even close to being tillable.  Brought the over-all price of the land down a little.

No water in the bottom, although just over the fence with the neighbor to the south, there is a spring that runs all year, most years; have only seen it stop running once, I think.

The ravine, which we call "the valley", looks like it might well have once had a full time stream running in it.  Typically, around here, when the original lands went under the plow, the water table dropped, and some streams went dry.

I've hoped, year after year, that what we were doing here might bring the water back.  Year after year- dry.

But.  This year: 

We have water.  And not just a little- there are seeps feeding this flow all the way through our land- ending, in fact, exactly at the fence with the neighbor to the north.  It's about a quarter mile of spring and seep fed creek, that wasn't there before.  (You can hear a chickadee singing "spring-soon" early on, and then a wild  jungle-bird call, quite loud.  It's not fake- it's one of our pileated woodpeckers; just lucky to catch it.)

This is a lot of water, up from nothing.  It's crystal clear- unless we've had heavy rain, then we get run-off from the neighbors' fields, and it's muddy as can be, until the next day.  There are green mosses and algae living in the clear water- making oxygen.

It's been 30 some years.  For me, this is crazy exciting.  And satisfying.  I think, maybe, we've brought something back, that was supposed to be here.  Is water important?  What a question.

Now the stream runs, and even babbles.  Middle Child says he can hear it, from the house, if the wind is still.  He says it really changes the feel of the valley.  I knew it would.  Running water hits the human heart, and hind-brain, directly.

I can't hear it; unless I'm close.  Too much time with tractors and chainsaws.  (Yes, I ALWAYS had ear protection of some kind- except once, helping out a neighbor... I don't think the standard ear muffs do enough, over time.  Now I wear ear plugs AND muffs.)  Yeah, that makes me a little sad, but seeing the clear clean water, and having it there for my kids, makes up for it.

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When we bought the farm, it had been managed in the locally normal fashion, since about 1845.  Three quarters of the land had been cleared and plowed.  About 1/4 of it had been savannah grass, that was all plowed.   Most of it was really too steep to be plowed, but it was anyway; these days 3/4 of the tilled land is technically classified as "highly erodible".  There had been cows, too; the forest had been grazed periodically, though luckily about every other owner had NOT put cows in the woods, so it wasn't totally degraded.  We had much better wildflower populations than usual.

But the land had been used very hard; there were several places where clearly it had been plowed at one time, but erosion gullies had cut so deeply that a tractor could turn over in them.  Now these places were pasture.  Before we bought the land, a soil survey done in 1956 said there were between 12" and 18" of dark topsoil on the north hill- in corn and hay strips.  In 1976- we found between 0" and 6".  A foot of soil was gone, in just 20 years.

The farm is hilly, and the soil is light, a "loess" type, technically silt-loam.  Good soil.  The truth is, most farms in the US have been used this badly, at some point.  Many, many still are.  Even good farmers are pushed by many forces to cut corners, get higher yields, more acres plowed- a few more dollars for the bank.  As long as you use a plow, the process only moves in one direction.  You will lose the soil.  I didn't like that.

How I got to that place, philosophically, is another long story; perhaps another time.  Right now, I just want to describe the directions we took.  Much of this was not fully formulated when we began- we learned as we went.

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Reader RC, in comments on the previous post, was kind of demanding an exegesis (careful, your academia is showing!) of my claim that the food we produce here is "Not Organic- It's Better!"

It all ties together.  

I wanted to focus on "tree crops", building first of all on J. Russell Smith's book with that title.  Mostly because of erosion here that I felt was really out of control- far beyond "unsustainable", moving towards "desertification", rapidly.  Did you know that there are cities in Italy- which were seaports for the early Roman empire- that are now 50 miles inland?  Plows.  And wheat.  What do they grow on those hills now?  Grapes and olives.

First- get rid of the plow.  Russell Smith documented many aboriginal peoples who harvested their staple foodstuffs from trees.  He, however, was not a biologist- he was a geographer.  I could see opportunities he could not, because of our different perspectives.  So I started focusing of some specific "tree crops", and some specific pathways of my own.

No, it's not "Permaculture®".  I never heard of Bill Mollison until things here were fully developed.  I'm interested in crops- and feeding cities; and I really don't think permaculture is.

Many "horticultural" crops, including apples and grapes, often include the plow still, or at least a periodic disc cultivation of the surface.  We only disturb the soil during the first year of establishment.  Then we have grass, which we manage in a number of ways.  The grass is a problem, more often than not at this point; but we're working on ways to integrate other practices, without going to cultivation.  Cultivation is bad because; it causes erosion, it destroys biodiversity, it costs huge quantities of fossil fuel, it costs money and time- year after year.

Second- No spray.  Ever.  Meaning, no pesticides; no insecticides, no fungicides, no general herbicides.  No toxins.  Not even "organic" ones.  Two exceptions; we use a little fly spray in the greenhouse (the same stuff used in dairies), and we have, in the past, used a little Roundup during year 1 of plant establishment.  But I've almost quit doing that, too; probably will.  Don't need it.  We do, rarely spray a little fertilizer, if the plants are starving.  I don't think the frogs like it though, so we try not to.

I didn't set out to go "no spray"; in fact in the early years, I just took the received wisdom, and used the "at least!" dormant oil spray universally recommended for fruit trees. (Turns out, it's a big mistake; don't do it.)  Little by little, over the years, I've experimented (I did do all that PhD work) - quite formally - and learned; and had a number of wildly useful and illuminating accidents happen.  I'd need a long book to go through them; maybe some day.

It was my new non-horticultural tree crops that taught me that dormant oil is a mistake.   Took about 10 years to figure that out; it was not a snap dogmatic decision, but an insight based on long trained formal observation.  No, it's not published- just haven't had time.

That worked this way: the first time I saw nasty caterpillars eating all the leaves on my young trees- I was outraged, of course, as one is.  MY plants, you vermin leave them alone!  But.  The scientist/ecologist/parasitologist/ethologist in me insisted that I wait, and watch; at least a couple of years.  This is a new planting here; perhaps this caterpillar is exploding just because it has a new food source; and given some time, perhaps a predator, or disease, will catch up with it, and control it without having to resort to poisons.  I was out on new ground, crops no one had grown this way, so there were no experts to tell me otherwise.

So I waited, for several ticks of the annual clock.  You have to give predators and parasites plenty of time to show up- they may be quite rare, and they don't reproduce at the high rates the herbivores do.

Here's the thing.  So far, in 30+ years - 100% of the time; outbreaks of this bug or that- fade.  Typically, in year one of a new bug, it'll look like slaughter, and over and over, I'd think "oh, boy, here it is, I'm finally going to have to spray."  But- scientifically; the only way to know that is to wait, and watch.  And I've had the luxury of being able to do that.  In year 2 - every time- the damage caused by the bug has dropped; away from the "where's my spray gun?" point to at least the "that's ugly- but not killing us" point.  In year 3 - it's less yet.

Every time.

Except once- and that pest was a foreign invader; we just needed some different genetics; it's over, now.

That's a really huge deal, in fact.  The rock bottom dogma of conventional agriculture and horticulture is that you MUST spray, because you're growing these plants in an intensive monoculture, and there is no alternative... oh, wait...

Third.  No monocultures.  All of our plantings have species mingled, a couple rows of this, then 8 rows of that.  We've specifically striven to include diversity in species and genetics and physical structure, just for the sake of the diversity.  More diversity means more critters can live here.  The more species living here, the more stable the entire system is.  That's an ecological dogma.  But humans have never acted like we believe it.

It's true, and it works.

For example; back to dormant oil spray.  The idea there is that you're suffocating the eggs and dormant forms of your pest insects, which overwinter right there on your tree, all ready to start eating come spring.  The scum.  Sounds good, and logical, and the oil is not really even a poison, so why not?  Everybody on the planet says it's a good idea.

I did dormant oil spray on our apples for 10 years, just like everybody.  Then- extrapolating from what I was learning in my other crops- it occurred to me, via my parasitologist/ethologist training.  If you were a pest predator-  where would you lay your eggs?  

In fact, I already knew the answer- they lay them right next to their food source; eggs or dormant bugs- right there on your tree.  We know this.  But we don't act like it.  Spray your dormant oil spray- and it kills off your predatory insects- better than it kills their prey.  Because of relative population numbers and reproductive dynamics- herbivores tend to be abundant and reproduce fast, predators are few, and reproduce slowly; even if they're minute wasps instead of wolves.

The field of agriculture is rife with embedded double-think; and food is so sacred (the staff of life!  the new oil!)  that we never examine basic and hidden assumptions.  All good farmers simultaneously believe, with all their hearts: a) they grow FOOD.  b) the world will starve if they don't produce all they can.  c) farmers never get paid enough for their work- because they over-produce so much it's dirt cheap.

Some of that has changed a little, just recently, but those are all rock solid core beliefs for farmers, any time in the last 50 years.  And, in case you didn't notice- they're contradictory.

So, when my little lightbulb went off, after a mere decade, and I realized I was doing something that I knew did not make rational sense- I quit spraying my apples.  At all.

Gasp!  You can't grow apples without spray!  Everybody knows it!

Well, I do.  Yes- I had to grit my teeth through several bad years, when bugs ate everything.  But- have faith, my children- if you feed them (and don't poison them) they will come.  Predators - birds, frogs, insects, shrews, mice- parasites- bacteria- viruses- oh, my.

Hey, it's an ecosystem.  

If you plow- you can't have one.  You go back to dead sterile soil- and nowhere for the ecosystem to live.  The wasp pupae need a safe, stable place to overwinter, and bare dirt is not it.  We have permanent, deep sod; everywhere between the trees, with many species of plants in it.  And a few pines, in the apples.   Among other things.

If you spray - you can't have one.  No sprays are species specific, the claims notwithstanding.  And in any case; if you wipe out the deer; you also wipe out the wolves.  Guess which comes back first?  Now- we've had multiple visitors, knowledgeable ones, who see our apples (about 60 standard trees) and ask what our spray regimen is.  "No spray."  "Wow!  You mean you're organic!?  I've never seen an organic orchard that looks this good!"  "No- no spray, at all."  ...  "What?" ...

The years do vary- sometimes, one bug or another comes up and is pesky.  Two years ago, the Minjon apples had a bad apple maggot fly problem.  Last year- trivial, really.  Codling moth- there's always a little, but it's no biggie, fairly easy to spot.  And- we have Amish neighbors who are happy to swap us something for the codling moth affected apples- they make great apple butter or sauce, or cider, if you can cut out the bad core; and they have the labor available to do that.

Fourth.  Genetics.  Most of our apples are "heritage"- old cultivars that were developed long before spray was so universal.  They've usually got the genetic tools they need to respond to pests.  One of our worst performing apples is "Haralson" - a big commercial favorite here.  Born and raised in the University, released in 1922.  Those were the days of dousing in Bordeaux mix- and lead arsenate sprays.  I kid you not.  Without spray- we get a few to eat once every 6 years, or so.

Finding plants with the appropriate genetics for your land is an absolutely critical part of this.  And it's a long process.  If you've ever bought fruit trees, you know how the catalogs read: "Absolutely hardy; huge crops of delicious juicy peaches, every year!"   The only words in that sentence that are not a big fat lie are "of", "peaches", and "year".   And "peaches" is questionable.

Basic hint- the cost of the trees, at planting, is the tiniest part of the investment you will make in a good food tree.  Plant lots- plant them thick; let nature sort them out.

Fifth.  Fertilizer.  You have to feed your plants, one way or another.  The organic movement decided that chemical fertilizer is evil, bad for water, bad for worms, etc.  Yup, if you're putting it on bare soil, that's likely true.  If you're spreading modest amounts on top of permanent sod- getting to the trees, we hope, by timing the season right- or waiting (both work)- it's just not the same thing.  Most of the fertilizer used in farming is applied to naked soil- when the target crop has no roots to speak of.  It rains- it runs off into the Gulf of Mexico.  When we spread fertilizer, it falls on grass sod that has roots 2' deep; or trees that have roots 12' deep.  None of it ever gets away; we've tested.

Plain N-P-K fertilizer is an over-simplification of what plants need, of course.  But ours also get a steady rain of bird manure, from residents, and migrants; deer, raccoon, and whatsit manure galore- and- spider poo.  You'd be surprised at how much poo spiders put out.  If they're not dead, and there are bugs to eat.  We keep testing for micronutrient deficiencies, to keep track; so far haven't really got any, so far as we can tell.

And, as it turns out- well fed plants just kick off pests.  It's when they're starving that they get sick.

Sixth.  Tweak, don't Demand.  Way back there, I considered talking about "Pestapo" style agriculture.  Eradicate everything.  And contrasting it with my own "Tweakology".

But I decided that was just a bit too cutsey.  It does illustrate a basic attitude, though; pest "control" is not something we do- we do a little pest management.  But you will always have some pests, and pest damage...

And you WANT to.  If you have no prey- you will have no predators.  That's a setup for an epidemic outbreak.  Cheaper, easier, to tolerate low pests, and work around them.

Example: mice.  Mice are a big problem in some tree plantings; they can eat the bark and roots in winter, killing even big trees in bad years.  Lots of orchards put out mouse poison, on a schedule.  We do two things; we mow the grass down tight to the ground before the snow comes, and put up  "hawk-roosts"; big poles put up in the right places to attract hawks and owls.  It works.  We have mice.  We also have a resident pair of red-tailed hawks, who raise their brood feeding them mice, out of our plantings, every year.  Plus tons of owls, who take over the night shift.

We try to nudge a pest in the direction we want; never shoot for eradication.  That kind of total control is a trap; you'll have to do it forever, because, of course- you've also eliminated ALL the natural antagonists to the pest you're controlling.  There are dozens, at least- probably hundreds - (how many diseases do people get?) but if they have no place to live, they're gone.  Clean slate- ready for the pest to explode next season- unopposed.

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Ok, better stop, before you all fall asleep.  RC- our stuff is better than organic because it comes from highly biodiverse permanent plantings- no plow, no toxins.  And full of frogs (one spray of rotenone will wipe yours out for good) and bird nests.  Eco-system based pest management.

So far, for us it's working.  Which doesn't mean there won't be bumps.  Grit your teeth.

The water in the valley- is crystal clear, but may well have some chemicals in it from all the years this land was "conventional".  Atrazine, maybe.  But for years now, all the water soaking into the ground has been free of toxins.  That's hopeful.

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Haven't forgotten the hunger issue, but we all need a break.  There IS some progress; more are becoming aware- and some of it is as likely due to the noise we're making as anything.  Take a look at the articles and links here.  More before long.

Picking the right path...

Billy M left a comment on an earlier post asking for some basic opinions/advice- 

"The research I've done on heating for food has only resulted in seemingly balanced arguments from the two options I have at my hands. I have an old propane grill ($5 at a garage sale), as well as an electric stove that came with the place I am renting. The most convincing information I read said that propane actually releases a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere, since it is a natural gas, and that the methods of obtaining electricity have become efficient enough to surpass the carbon emissions of propane. However, other readings have said that propane may just be slightly more efficient than electricity, although the fact that it is a natural gas does in fact bring down the resourcefulness of the energy source.

I don't own any type of device that would allow me to burn wood...

So I guess what I'm wondering is if you have any facts/opinions straight out of how someone should go about heating food (if they did in fact have all three options -- wood, propane and electricity)

Billy, you're not alone in wanting to know "the right answer" for a question- I'd love to be able to give it.

What struck me immediately here though was the missing component- Billy, basically.

What kind of cooking do you do?  What kinds do you LIKE to do?  Are you allergic to woodsmoke?  Do you enjoy cutting, splitting, handling firewood, or are you really too busy?  How much "extra" time do you have- either to wrangle wood, or propane containers?-

Etc.  Hopefully you get the idea.  Who you are- what you need- and even what makes you happy- all these considerations are genuinely IMPORTANT to the answer.

You are important.  We need to remember that.

"Sustainable" practices WON'T be- if they make people miserable, and they won't stick to them.

  Which seems obvious, but quite a few enthusiasts will, in the excitement of the moment, adopt practices that they can't/won't - uh, sustain.  Because in their enthusiasm for the greater good, and the benefit to the planet, they forgot- WE are part of the planet we're trying to save here- and we matter, too.

The whole decision- what kind of fuel SHOULD I cook with - can get pretty crazy complex if you keep picking at it.

Propane is a fossil fuel- bad carbon.  It's mostly delivered on trucks- diesel fuel; more fossil carbon. Where does your local propane actually come from?  Natural gas is often moved in pipelines/pipes- pretty efficient, if available- but still fossil carbon.

Electricity is mostly coal (bad), and nuclear (BAD); with minor bits of natural gas (badish) wind (ok) and hydro (okish) - depending on where you live.  If you've got the option as some do to essentially purchase straight renewable electricity- that could make a difference in your decision.  

Wood is "current budget" carbon- good carbon; and it CAN be renewable, though like everything else wood can be done badly.  If you live in a city - it may not be legal- most available wood-burning stoves are much dirtier than they have to be, and wood smoke is pretty irritating for the neighbors.  Do you have a good supply?  The space to store it, the time?

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As an aside here- firewood is kind of dominating my life at the moment- because of the floods last fall, and global warming.  I cut and gather it myself; the floods made harvest much more difficult/much more time consuming- so I wasn't able to do my normal autumn wood cutting.

  And- the firewood we had cut from our own plantings; stacked, curing/drying - got soaked thoroughly by the 14" of rain in August/Sept- and is unburnable.  Given normalish weather- it wouldn't be nearly so wet, and we'd have had days of low-humidity sunny windy weather in Sept/Oct that would have dried it very well.   So in fact I'm cutting firewood every other day- and burning it fast, since it's cold this winter; lots of below 0 F nights.

There are a LOT of other things I need to be doing- but here I am.  The Little House has no backup heating system- it's firewood only (with a little passive solar boost- not useful at 1 AM).

Will rainy autumns happen more often?  Don't know.  This wet autumn, though, may be the thing that pushes me over the edge into adding a layer to my firewood process- a drying/storage shed.

There have been many years where a rainy week in November got my wood a little wet- making me aware that if all the winter stacks had been under a roof, I'd be burning less wood; doing less hauling- but- it's always been a fairly minor factor.  And every time that happened, I've done mental calculations- what would it cost me- money, time, and new habits- to design and build a wood drying shed?  A bunch.  How big would the benefits be?  Considerable.  Balance?  Kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other.

This year is the first where all the stacked wood is so wet it's nearly useless.  I can make it burn, but it gives little heat, and clogs the chimney fast.  The balance may have shifted- instead of being a minor improvement, the shed may now be a necessity, up-front costs or not.  

It strikes me that this kind of shift may be another major aspect to global warming- tiny local processes/technologies may no longer be reliable.  Pushing people over all kinds of edges.

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Maybe the best I can do for an answer to Billy M's very sensible question is to describe my own answers.  More than one answer, since I've changed, over time.

When I first moved to the Little House, a major factor in the calculation was money- we didn't have any.  We DID have wood- 40 acres of hardwoods.

With that in mind, I designed the Little House to use wood both for heating and cooking- all year.  Including our sultry hot continental summers.  (It's a huge advantage to be able to design a dwelling from the ground up- with all the integration factors being considered.  I still missed a few, of course.)

The House can essentially be tweaked to function like a big chimney/cooling tower in the summer - the downstairs has big windows in all 4 walls; the upstairs/loft has one huge window (floor to ceiling) on the north, and a normalish window on the south.    All the windows but the small one upstairs open on a hinge- so unlike a sash-window, where the actual opening can only equal half the window area at best, the hinged windows when open make holes equal to the entire window area- huge, in our case.

And- there's a BIG opening between upstairs and down- so if all the windows are open, any heat from the stove is quite free to rapidly move up, and out.

It works fine, too- we did all our cooking with wood for probably the first 5 years or so.  

Then several things changed- we had children (available time and energy vanished), we got involved in other projects that were important too; and we got a little money coming in.

  Suddenly it became more sensible to use propane for cooking in the summer.

And that's what we still do.  The stove that heats the house is a modern Canadian stove designed for both heating and cooking.  If we need heat- it's on, and we cook with wood.  If we don't need heat- we cook with propane.  The time required for the propane is a small fraction of time needed to cook with wood in the summer- and no question, July and August are a little more comfy if we don't have to crank up the woodstove to make a cup of coffee, or soup for lunch.

One departure from that practice can be canning- if we're canning tomatoes or whatnot- we will usually use wood- canning takes a lot of heat; and ergo a lot of money.

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One more aside- cooking in China.  As part of my work, I've hiked well up into the mountains in a number of places there, out into nearly untouched countryside.  These are ancient communities, long in "balance" with their environment.  Chances are, this clan has lived here since these people were Homo erectus, not Homo sapiens.  That long.  

They long ago hit the limits of their environment; and adapted, in many ways.  Only the rich can afford to burn wood- there's just not enough of it, and mostly it's needed for other uses, tools, furniture, housing.  They burn- rice straw, and pine needles.  Under a wok.  That's exactly what a wok is for- cooking over a very quick, hot fire.  Their whole cuisine is adapted in that direction- because of the primordial shortage of fuel.

I'll bet you could cook entirely on - junk mail.  If you had the will, and someplace outdoors for the smoke to go away.  :-)  You'd need something like a ventilated 5 or 10 gallon steel can for the fire to burn it, and the wok to sit on- (I'm kidding- mostly... probably too many toxins in junk mail smoke to be good cooking fuel...)

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So.  Answers to questions like this are going to be highly variable, I think.  Forever.  Because one of the most important components in the decision making algorithm is always going to be personal.  How does this fit your life, your finances, your region?

If it makes you miserable- in the long run, it's not a good answer -

The good answers should leave you - solvent, not overworked, and satisfied.

Getting Them Involved

I started answering Caroline's very nice comment on the previous post; it got longer; and longer- so I finally realized it would be best dealt with here.

She said; "I don't know how we're going to teach our kids to see those limits other than by living in a way that shows sensitivity to the fact that there isn't infinite amounts of anything."

Teach the kids. That's absolutely one of the most important things we need to focus on. There's an awful lot of older folks who will never learn; never understand, never change. It's the kids.

And thinking about "how", and how this can relate to the real world (ie. NOT little houses in the woods, but Little Tiny Apartments In The Incredibly Huge City) - I found myself starting to tell this story. It does turn out relevant, I think.

Aeons ago, my son Beelar was asked as a school exercise to "write down your favorite food recipe". This had to be 3rd grade, I think. An assignment teaching both handwriting, and the beginnings of composition, and story telling.

We got called in to talk to the Principal about it. No, really- the teachers were in an uproar about his recipe/essay.

Man, I wish I had a copy of it- but it happened back before computers. Paper disappears; if it's in the computer, I can find it.

He chose "Spaghetti" as his recipe. Ok, how weird can that be? Then he started off: "First, you plant the tomatoes..."

You have to understand, he was UTTERLY serious; not a bit of smart mouth going on. This was his answer- this is how you make spaghetti.

The part that really freaked the teachers out though, was when he got to "Then, you add some ground Bambi..."

Ok, now THAT was smartmouthing; he knew that "regular folks" don't talk about ground venison that way. But WE did. Not in any attempt to be callous- we still loved the lovable parts of the movie; and deer- but in an attempt to be HONEST about what we were doing. We're eating deer. Right here, in the spaghetti; not hiding the fact from the kids. You have to shoot the deer- and gut it, and butcher it, and store it- to get this. All wrapped up in that wiseacre "ground Bambi".

The teachers really didn't know what to make of this; was our child being warped? Abused? What the heck?

We managed to convince them the boy was not in danger; and not really warped- just with a different viewpoint; but it took some fancy dancing, and put us on the FBI's permanent "Watch" list, I think.

He KNEW what goes into spaghetti. You plant tomatoes; and weed them; and can them; and you kill animals; and butcher them. He knew because he'd seen it; and helped do it. I really don't think he can see a can of tomatoes on the shelf at Walmart without seeing also.... the tomato plant- in Florida- the can, on a truck... etc. Likewise with the package of hamburger.

He knows.

How is this relevant to the City? I'm not suggesting you should go out and shoot pigeons, or squirrels, for your soup- just a bit impractical, never mind the legalities.

But even in the City- you have a windowsill. It can grow SOME of what goes in to your food. One pepper plant? One tomato plant? A pot of sage, thyme, oregano- chives?

Each child can have their own- it's their job to care for it, water it, grow it, harvest it- add it to the ... pizza. You can have a special meal where most of ingredients come from the window; and the family shares- harvest; cooking, sharing.

They'll start to get the idea. Wow; just growing the peppers was a LOT of work. Hm... You can nudge them into understanding a little more.

Of course, in the burbs, it's easier. 10 tomato plants- and canning the crop. You DON'T have to do industrial quantities. What you DO want to do is get the kids INVOLVED - on a comfortable level. Actually, my own father having grown up on a truck farm, he always planted vast food gardens, and dragooned the kids into "working" in them. I hated it. He was astonished when I started planting my own; me too. I think it's possible to get kids involved without making it into something to be avoided.

This kind of thing can be done in school, too; get the 4th grade to grow their own spaghetti/pizza/soup. (I think we can let them buy the pasta, or flour, don't you? Maybe the High School kids can mill their own flour...)

It's an old situation; and an old answer. Look in Laura Ingalls Wilder's book "Farmer Boy". Chapter 16, "Independence Day". Almanzo asks his father for a nickel (5¢) - because the other boys dare him to- they don't think his father will, since boys rarely had money at all. His father is talking to an adult friend- they're amazed at this forward child. "What for?" his father says. Almanzo stutters out a story about needing to buy lemonade... Father is not dumb, and sees more of what's really going on. He pulls out - not a nickel; but a half dollar; 50¢; ten times as much. Then he makes Almanzo answer a long series of questions- for the benefit of the adult friend. "You know how to grow potatoes, son? What do you do first?" Almanzo knows; he's been helping grow potatoes since forever, and he actually loves it. It takes all year- including storage, selecting/preparing the seed; plowing, planting, weeding, digging, sorting, hauling, back to storing- the selling- and what is a bushel of potatoes worth? Hauled in to town? Half a dollar. Father gives Almanzo the entire 50¢, to do with as he likes. As long as he understands- all the work, the whole year long, that went into a bushel of potatoes, is in that half dollar.

Almanzo gets it.

But only because- he knows what good work is; and what it's worth.

There is a connection between understanding work, and understanding limits. If what you have is the result of your own work- it IS limited. You can't work to an infinite extent- it will kill you to try. Eventually the connection comes- no one else can work "infinitely" either. Everything has limits- you can know this in your bones.

But not if all you've ever done is plug in a toy.

We CAN give that comprehension to our kids; but in this world, you have to make the effort to give it to them. Otherwise, it's TV and video. And if you haven't seen No Impact Man's post today, that's where you should go next, because he clearly "gets it."

The Power of Limits

This post came to mind because a commenter over on Crhuncky Chincken was asking "how much water use is 'normal' ? Where should my target be?" - and my own answer was far far from the answers they were finding.

Humans have spent the last couple centuries striving to make life easier and easier. It's been a major goal of the species; the reduction of "drudgery", also called "soul killing drudgery". Lots of philosophical discussion about it; art works, poetry, and everything.
Millet's "Man with a hoe." Soul killing was generally agreed to be bad.

Why chop wood, and carry it inside every hour to keep your children from freezing? Ben Franklin came up with a stove that cut down on the volume- then there was coal- then oil furnaces that didn't have to be stoked- etc. All most 1st worlders ever do now for heat is check the thermostat, and pay a bill. Back when somebody had to GATHER and CARRY the firewood; they were probably a lot more careful about waste.

Same is true with water. In the Little House, we have to CARRY it. So - do the teenagers just let the faucet run while they brush their teeth? Not on your tintype; they scream bloody murder if somebody is wasting water- and they have to carry extra. So- instead of the "normal" 60 gallons a day for 2 people- we use about 15 gallons a day in the summer, for 3. Showers and all. Actually, it just becomes second nature for everyone in the house to not waste water. No arguments. Why would you do that??

Electricity? Plug the new whatever into the wall; pay the bill; it's infinite, right?

If you take a look at my "green principle #2" - it's "Limited power- house electricity has 4 golf cart batteries."

It's NOT AN ACCIDENT that the power system is so limited. We use electricity for :#1 Light; #2 Computers (work) #3 Entertainment (radio; DVDs- sanity maintenance). Those are the priorities; pretty obviously sensible to anyone. There's just not enough power to run a fridge, or a dishwasher, or a washing machine. Acquiring enough solar panels or other sensible generation capacity; and the STORAGE for that energy; would be many thousands of dollars. So; I've got $4K here- what shall we do with it? There's always something more urgent; or more desirable.

My first crop of kids remember kerosene lights; and candles made from deer tallow (yuck! stinky!) When we got solar panels, and A battery, and A fluorescent light bulb for the kitchen/dining room/living room - it was a BIG BIG deal. Wow. No stinky kerosene in the house; no fire hazard; VASTLY more, and better light. What a wonderful thing!

Which of course everyone takes totally for granted these days. You have to LIVE without it to appreciate it (rustic vacations don't really count).

A couple years later- we really needed to have a computer in the house, for my work. So. Money for a) computer, b) more solar panels, c) more batteries. Took a while to get there.

Zowie! Computer. Besides my work, there was sometimes enough power for computer GAMES- a little bit. They were slightly beyond "Pong" at this point; 1984; not much addiction potential.

The reality of solar power; and wind; is that the availability is VARIABLE. It's the nature of nature. 8 sunny days in a row? The batteries are FULL - actually you may be in danger of damaging them unless you use some of it up, or cut the input- you have to DO something. Boiling batteries are not funny - I've done it, and I don't do it any more.

So; we added a TV. Part of that was a conscious parenting decision NOT to keep our kids isolated from the rest of the world. Look, they're already weird enough to their peers- living like this; why should they also be missing all the normal cultural references? Big Bird? What's that? So we plugged them in to Sesame Street. And a few other things.

Inevitably, they discovered - SATURDAY MORNING - CARTOONS. Now there IS addiction potential; those programs are designed to grab and hold kids, from the bottom up. Not healthy. We DID allow a little - Bugs Bunny, for example. But then, when the next show came up; Asinine Mutant Vegetables On Crack At War, or its twin-

The REALITY was there. And easy to present. "You guys NEED to watch AMVOCAW? All your friends do? I understand. Go ahead." "what, really??" "Sure. You just have to remember- if you watch that now- it's using up electricity, right? From the batteries. There won't be enough energy tonight for the lights. Your choice."

It worked. There was nothing distant or incomprehensible about it. The electricity comes from the sunlight. It's stored in the batteries. There are only 4 batteries. That's all there is. They KNEW it. Has it been cloudy for a week? The batteries are low. No TV at all today; we'll read instead. (No problem there.)

You can extrapolate this experience to your own house- and also to the world. The vast majority of 1st worlders have been raised to KNOW that "leisure" and comfort are their absolute right; as it is their right to go out and buy the biggest outboard motor they can, for fun on weekends.

There are no limits in sight. The supply is endless- and the system has been set up to encourage that belief. At the moment, China and India, and everyone else in the developing world is busy buying into this same illusion.

You and I and Al Gore KNOW it's an illusion- but the huge majority of humans DO NOT; and they cannot SEE - the limits. All they can see is that YOU have two SUVs, and they want theirs.

We have to find ways to make the limits tangible; and ways to encourage people to see them; live with them. I think my proposal on energy pricing; where The more you use, the more you pay is a step in that direction. The reason for moving to that kind of pricing is comprehensible; the visible "limit" would be the "annual allowance" of very inexpensive energy. Beyond that; society says you must pay steeper and steeper prices- because- it's a limited resource, and we all know it. It's visible; palpable- accepted.

The problem we must tackle: All our supply systems are designed to work "on demand". Turn it on- the whole world supply of elecricity/water/gas/waste handling/whatever is plugged in and at your command, your majesty.

It's a design guaranteed to CAUSE waste. It cannot fail.

We need to fix this in our own homes, first of all. I've found ways- mostly by just being unplugged from the big delivery systems. There have to be more ways- easier to put in place, more adaptable to cities- etc. We- you and I- need to find them. Put your thinking caps on.

Part of what generated this entry today is my... fan. It's 94°F outside right now; or "10 degrees above suffocation" as we say. There's no breeze today in the Big Woods. It's stifling here. But- the sun is shining brightly; the batteries are nearly full; I've got a little 12VDC fan designed for a boat- and the decision is quick and easy. I need it today; and I can afford it. So the fan is on. (There's even a little added joy from the fact that under these circumstances, the electrons moving the fan blades will be coming directly from the solar panels; no detour through the batteries, and no 10% storage loss- I'm getting discounted wind! Ahh.)

You can bet your little booties I'll turn it off as soon as I get this posted and leave the desk, though.

I'm wondering if ColinAKANIM has a little fan; or is going to get one soon? It's going to be stifling hot in that NY city apartment, if it isn't already. And a little fan can make a huge difference in livability. I bet that solar panel, and battery, he's got - would support SOME fan use.

How do you teach your kids to SEE and honor the limits? How do we get the rest of the world to see?

I think this is all a pretty big deal.

Home again

People have no idea what I sacrifice for the work I do. Grump grump grump. This time- it was apple blossom time. I was gone for a week. The apple orchard I planted and grafted decades ago was just bursting into full flower as I drove out. Coming back- the blossoms are all, all gone. Sigh.

Partly the weird weather- 3 days ago we had high winds and 95°F. Really. Took the flowers fast, I'm sure, though I wasn't here. Now- last night- we had frost. Gosh, I wonder what's going on?

Vanessa - I'm delighted!! You've made up for the missed apple blossoms.

Hopefully Fridgeless

For those of you who missed the original conversation on unplugging your refrigerator (which we haven't actually finished) it basically started here, and went on for a couple posts: Unplugging. I do think you'll find it easier than everyone expects- particularly once you're a bit used to it.

One more quick bit, then I gotta go do chores. The NYT has a business section story today- basically an INSTITUTE has announced that "energy standards" for, well, everything, are inadequate, and need to be fixed. Golly, must be serious. Then they go on to say how taxing this, and that, could help- but gosh, it's a big mess. Energy Standards

Very seriously - this is a perfect example of the quagmire we always tend to descend into when something is "out of whack", and we try to fix it with governmental tweaks. The tweaks always cause new problems- so the tweaks get tweaked..

Very, very seriously - HERE IS A BETTER ANSWER: A Possibility. If energy cost more- the MORE you used- for everyone- then EVERYONE would find ways to use less. Universal motivation. Vastly easier, faster, cheaper, permanent, and more effective than taxing.

Pass it on- there ARE folks already trying to get movement in this direction into legislation; but it'll take a lot of people doing a lot of talking, and pushing, to get there.

Tomorrow- last post for a while on the Planet Picnic - and other options. Next post- summary on the Potty House. Then- on to a new topic. Whew.

A Possibility.

I'm in favor of action. A very large part of why I'm not in a university. Pose a problem for them- and they will cheerfully host meetings; forever. Our government, in case you hadn't noticed, has adopted this method.

So when a good solid observation hits me, my tendency is to look for a way to turn it into a positive action; something actually feasible, in this world.

A serious shortcoming to my desire for action is the plain fact that people HATE to change. Whenever a major change is suggested, or demanded by circumstances, history is absolutely clear on what to expect- most folks will say a) it's not possible, and b) you're wrong, and c) I won't do it. History, however is also clear on another point- change IS possible, and does happen.

A little parable as an aside. Spouse (not Spice) taught piano for several years; often in the Little House, where I'd designed the floor specifically to hold the weight of her grandmother's upright. I got to hear a lot of lessons. I'm really NOT quick to draw conclusions about any observations; only after long repetition of this pattern did I admit it IS a pattern. And it still astonishes me. Universally- and I do mean universally; every time a piano student was presented with a new piece of music; one slightly more challenging than the last - their reaction was/is ALWAYS - "I can't do this. I CAN'T." And they seem to believe that. Each time. Segue to 2 weeks later- whatever aspect of that piece of music seemed impossible to them- is now second nature; they accomplish it and don't even notice they've done it. So they get a new piece of music to tackle; and the cycle starts over. "I can't do this. I CAN'T."

Eventually I experimented with a couple of the more accessible students- and pointed this out to them. It didn't really help. It now seems to me there may be a hardwired basic biological reaction here - amounting to "look, you're alive now; don't change what you're doing." The critical part being - "don't change."

The world we've now created requires extensive change. And we're really quite bad at change, as a species.

All this is supposed to make YOU the reader a little less likely to think "oh, that's just crazy talk" (thank you, Vanessa); and a little more likely to listen to the scheme below and think; "hm; that might be worth trying. How do we do it?"

Continuing from the last post- one of Friedman's incontrovertible truths was "He’s dead right. The market alone won’t work. Government’s job is to set high standards, let the market reach them and then raise the standards more."

This being at least a partial contradiction of his previous dogma "the only way ... — is by mobilizing free-market capitalism."

Part of what I pull out of that- along with some obvious truths available to us all - is that the "free market" is NOT working to help solve society's energy problems. And the "government standards" are not working either. Yet.

History is priceless for multiple reasons. Certainly it can show us past mistakes, and teach us not to do them again- Vietnam, for example. But it can also, less obviously, show us how we got into current messes; and consequently suggest ways to get out of them.

The way the world energy markets work at the moment is a big fat catastrophic mess. How did we get here?

Our energy economy didn't come into being until pretty recently- a couple hundred years for coal; less for oil and electricity. There are lots of records available to explain how the "market" grew up.

Here's the problem; as ALL our markets operate today-

THE MORE ENERGY YOU CONSUME- THE LESS YOU PAY FOR IT.

I get a great deal of amusement out of every neophyte pundit "discovering" that "the cheapest power plant is the one you don't have to build." Cutting our consumption of energy is by far the cheapest, fastest, biggest, and lowest impact pathway to a non-toxic economy. And how many big businesses are focusing on energy conservation as their new path to profitability? Maybe it's not zero; but it's dang small. The great majority are busy figuring out fantasies where nobody has to give up anything, and their new "energy source" is amazingly clean, saves our SUVs, and, incidentally, the planet.

THE MORE ENERGY YOU CONSUME- THE LESS YOU PAY FOR IT.

If we are going to survive- I think we have to get that statement inverted - to:

THE MORE ENERGY YOU CONSUME- THE MORE YOU PAY FOR IT.

See, here is where your automatic pilot kicks in with - "you CAN'T do that." and "that's just crazy talk." :-)

But it isn't just crazy talk; because all the reasons that combined to make the markets this way - no longer hold true. We COULD invert it- and rather easily; because in fact most energy sales rates are already controlled by governments; not the free market. WE control them.

Let's just run through electricity- which of course is generated by coal and oil, etc. I'm going to toss out some "example" numbers- please don't comment here that your rates are different- of course they are. These are just approximations- but DO check out the relationships. They're accurate.

You have a home, owned or rented. You pay something like 6-8¢/kWh (kilowatt hour). There are lots of schemes out there for making costs reflect reality a little better- like cheaper "off peak" charges, etc. But they all still work the same way- the more, the cheaper.

Down the road from you is a Super WalMart. They run 24 hrs a day; all lights and refrigerators and freezers and TVs on.
They pay something like 3-5¢/kWh.

Further down the road is a steel mill. They melt metals- sometimes using electric blast furnaces. They pay 2-3 ¢/kWh.

Look it up- your rates are a matter of public record; usually available on the internet with little work searching.

There are at least three historical reasons for these kinds of rates.

1) In the early days of the electrical industry, there was no real power distribution system in existence- you had to build new powerlines for nearly every customer. Arguably; hooking up your house is about as expensive as hooking up WalMart. Arguably. Not in reality, of course- they need much heavier connections, which cost more. And the steel mill is off the charts, there; they have to have their own high-tension lines and substations.

2) In the early days of the electrical industry, there were no big customers already buying power. In order to extend the benefits of clean power to them, operations like the steel mill had to be seduced from coal- arguably, they wouldn't/couldn't change unless offered outrageously cheap power.

3) "Progress" clearly demanded we "grow the electrical industry" - all society would benefit from this new, convenient, clean, cheap, adaptable form of energy.


None of these reasons, I maintain, are at all sensible today; if they ever were. The truth behind why the steel mill pays so little contains the fact that they might, if not given really cheap rates, just build their own power plant. Can't have that.

The power distribution system is mostly "built", though in constant need of repair. At this point, clearly the needs of the large consumers put the most load on the power grid. They should pay more.

There is no shortage of large customers for electric power.

There is no benefit to society, or the world, from electric consumption, per se, being increased; quite the contrary.

What could work instead: electric rates for homes should start low- power for a "normal" amount of annual electric consumption should be very inexpensive.

Just for example- according to the US Dept. of Energy- average US household electricity consumption in 2001 was 10,656 kWh. DOE Power Consumption

We know perfectly well that few of us are as careful with energy as we could be. So let's set the bar a little lower; say the first 8,000 kWh per year should cost 3¢/kWh. Then the next 2,000 should cost 4¢. The next 2,000 -5¢. Then I'd make it steeper; because you're getting into stuff like - lights for your swimming pools; lights for your landscape, tv's in every room- costs that have nothing to do with survival; which is what we're talking about protecting here. So the next 2,000 should cost 8¢; and the next 2,000 should cost 12¢, and the next 2,000- 20¢. You get the idea.

This would give all homeowners a tangible incentive to pay attention to their power consumption. Would they cut back? Not a doubt in the world.

And, incidentally, it would protect the power companies' profits- which is a major concern here if such a change is to happen. They'll scream like stuck pigs if anybody suggests anything that would cut into their sacred profits. All the widows and orphans who own their stock would suffer and die of starvation, don'tcha know. There's no reason why they should. Power company income and profits can stay the same- they will just come to a larger extent from the biggest consumers; not the smallest.

And the steel mill? They don't have to go out of business. Rate changes can be phased in- so they have plenty of time to make adjustments in their operations. No reason it can't be done intelligently, and compassionately.

Sure- their product will then have to cost more. The fact is; it should, and MUST.

We have to get to a world where the actual energy expense for an item is PAID for in its cost. At the moment, our consumer product prices are fantasies; full of weird subsidies and leftover false pricing.

Quite a large part of this is psychological. The Board at the steel mill just never realizes how wasteful they are- power is so cheap they don't even think about it. If they get a little jolt here- they WILL think about it, I guarantee. Will they find ways to economize? Of course. And the potential gains for society are very large indeed- getting households to cut 10% of their power consumption would be nice. Getting the oil refineries and steel mills to cut 10% of THEIR power consumption would be ENORMOUS.

At the moment, they have no incentive to do so. None.

Could this be done? Oh, yeah. Not without a fight, for sure; but the power is already in the hands of citizen power rate boards, in most states. And we could even get the power companies on our side- by allowing their profits to rise just a tad, for every zillion kWh's conserved. That would be a real societal benefit.

My point here. Have you ever heard this idea discussed/suggested? I doubt it. So far as I know, I thought it up; though I'd not be at all surprised if others are thinking similar thoughts. Is it simple? Sure. I'd even say "obvious" - but then I've been thinking it for a year or more now. Doable? Yes. Worth discussing more widely? Yep. And not included in the "the ONLY way..." kinds of calculations. There are LOTS of ways.

It's another example of "we have not yet begun to think", and an example of an action- not a discussion - that is within our reach. Just writing about it all - and mouthing new catch phrases - doesn't cut it.