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The
Context
These
days almost everyone has something to say about
energy conservation. Recently, there have been
statements on the Bacon’s Rebellion Blog that
engender misconceptions about the relationship
between energy conservation and human settlement
patterns. (See End
Note One.)
A
place to start:
In
spite of these facts, almost all the discussion
of energy conservation ignores settlement
patterns or grossly under estimates the energy
consumption impact of settlement pattern
dysfunction. (See “Soft
Consumption Paths,” 7 Aug 2006.)
The
reason that settlement pattern impact is ignored
is simple:
To
address the energy consumption / settlement
pattern nexus is to demonstrate the imperative
of Fundamental Change. Far too many are far
too comfortable with Business-As- Usual to
embrace reality and come to grips with what is
required to achieve Fundamental Change. (See
End Note
Two.)
One
cannot blame those who are trying to protect
their Business-As-Usual turf and their
ideological icons for attempting to obfuscate
the issues. However, the time for smokescreens
is past. The inevitability of Fundamental Change
is well settled. Now protagonists are just
quibbling over price and terms. With respect to
energy conservation the questions are: How long
the inevitable can be denied and who will bear
the burden of past misdeeds?
What
follows is the briefest of brief summaries,
intended to define the territory and not to
explore reality in depth.
Background
The
settlement pattern implications for energy
conservation are not new topics for
SYNERGY/Planning. Between 1977 and 1979,
while serving as director of planning for Burke
Centre, we coordinated developer input into a
research project titled, “Case Studies of
Project Planning and Design for Energy
Conservation,” sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Energy, Community Systems
Division, Office of Buildings & Community
Services. The final report, published in 1979,
was prepared by a nationally recognized team of
landscape, energy and engineering consultants. (See
End Note Three.)
The
study was “state of the art” but the
projected energy savings were “modest.” This
was due in part to the study assumptions – aka,
conventional wisdom with respect to the impact
of such topics as flat fees for energy use.
Also, savings were modest because the basic plan
was for an orphan Alpha Village that was already
energy efficient from a land use mix
perspective.
After
the study, parcels were sold by Burke Centre
Partnership to builders along with the energy conservation plans for each land bay. Following
consideration by the builders, most of the ideas
were rejected as not being “marketable.”
A
major consideration was that the cost of
energy was so low that the savings would not
be cost effective for the builder and not
particularly attractive to the end users.
Prior
to this study, between 1969 and 1976, we had
supervised the design of an energy conserving
Alpha Village scale development on land owned by
a university, and participated in the design of
several Alpha Neighborhood scale projects
intended to utilize Modular Integrated Utility
Systems (MIUS) in New York, New Jersey and
Georgia. We were retained also to prepare the
conceptual plan for an energy self-sufficient
Community scale project on 28,000 acres in North
Carolina. This project was a joint venture of
Ford Motor Co. and Weyerhaeuser, which owned the
land.
This
settlement pattern / energy consumption
experience provided the background for more
comprehensive assessments of the energy
conservation potential of alternative settlement
patterns outlined below.
Policy
Energy
over-consumption and the looming economic impact
of energy waste is a direct result of past
governance policies and actions. From at least
from the election of Andrew Jackson, land
exploitation and cheap energy have been seen as
a way to foster economic growth and prosperity.
Since World War II “growth and prosperity”
has evolved to become Mass OverConsumption. The
resulting trajectory is unsustainable in large
part due to the pattern of energy consumption.
When
the current energy policies were last seriously
examined following World War II, the US of A was
a net exporter of energy. There appeared to be
vast petroleum reserves and a virtually
unlimited supply of coal and hydro power for the
damming. (See End
Note Four.)
Beyond
the supposed unlimited conventional resources,
unlimited energy was on the horizon when --
not “if” -- the atom was “harnessed.”
With
the US of A leading the charge, urbanizing
humans across the globe have burned through
energy supplies and exposed energy supply
assumptions to be gross misconceptions:
The
US of A is consuming more energy per capita than
any other nation-state and has failed to provide
leadership in achieving a sustainable trajectory
for energy consumption. Both public and private
sectors continue to provide counterproductive
incentives that encourage Mass OverConsumption
of all resources, but especially energy
resources.
As
we have noted in “The
Conservation Imperative,” 19 June 2007:
All
the renewable, sustainable sources of energy
derived from the sun as well as geothermal,
gravity and water cycle sources are
“thin.” However, humans have evolved a
high technology civilization that is dependent
upon a demand pattern that is “thick” aka,
focused. (See End
Note Five.)
This
is why the human settlement pattern that
supports contemporary civilization must become
the focus of every energy consumption and
energy conservation discussion.
The
distribution of demand is why Big Grid power
systems characterized by long transmission lines
and power generation far from end users are not
only insecure but grossly wasteful, to say
nothing about their impact on the Countryside
where they are located.
The
“thin resource / thick demand” reality will
be examined below in the context of individual
structures and in terms of the settlement
patterns in general.
Who
Is to Blame?
When
one points the finger at “governance
policy,” it is not because it is a
“political party” issue.As documented in
Chapters One and Two of "The Shape of the
Future," both “major” political parties
are to blame.
But
citizens and “professionals” are to blame
also for egging politicians on. In a democracy
the buck stops with citizens, and they have
failed to protect their own long term
self-interest. (See Backgrounder “New
Metric for Citizen Well Being,” and End
Note Six.)
Failure
to change the US of A’s energy strategy
after October 1973 demonstrated a fundamental
weakness of nation-states' governance
processes.
Cheap
energy results directly in energy waste and
unreliable energy sources. Cheap energy
indirectly results in dysfunctional human
settlement patterns. (Cheap gasoline and
dysfunctional human settlement patterns are
explored in the forthcoming Backgrounder “The
Problem With Cars.” See Again End
Note Two.)
But
it is not just cheap gasoline that has generated
dysfunctional settlement patterns. Electricity,
coal and other energy sources have been
produced, priced and subsidized to maximize
consumption, minimize conservation and scatter
urban land uses across the Countryside.
Big
Grid electric generation, transmission and
distribution is the epitome of waste. Over half
the energy consumed in the production of
electricity is wasted by the time it reaches the
end users. The more dysfunctional the human
settlement pattern, the greater the waste. The
more remote the power generation – as in the
heavily subsidized hydroelectric power
facilities in Western US of A – the greater
the waste.
Pricing
strategies have provided discounts that
encourage consumption. For a good example of
waste, observe the how much is spent to lighting
up the night sky. To see graphic evidence, tune
into the ESPN broadcast of Monday Night Football
from Denver this evening (29 October 2007). It
is not just Monday Night Football, it is Friday
night, Saturday night, Sunday night and Monday
night and every night in every sport that the
waste of energy is put on display. The waste
of energy on earth is visible from beyond the
Moon.
Before
leaving the issue of “blame” there is one
other group to put in the spotlight. WaPo
headlines say it all: "Energy Traders Avoid
Scrutiny: As commodities Market Grows, Oversight
Is Slight. Energy Price Manipulation Is Hard to
Detect,” by David Cho. (WaPo, 21
October 2007). Futures traders and hedge
fund managers are the Robber Barons of the 21st
Century but they do not leave behind railroads
or steel plants much less libraries – just
Mass OverConsumption.
Buildings
Some
buildings are energy hogs. The technology exists
to conserve far more energy; it has been available
for decades. There is good news and bad news
about “green” buildings.
The
good news is that big building projects have
large budgets and could afford to bring together
the best design and engineering strategies. In
addition, owner / developers have a stake in
lowering the costs for the entire life cycle of
a building. This means there is a great
potential for energy conservation in buildings,
and there are scattered examples very efficient
buildings.
The
bad news is that cheap energy discourages
innovation because the return-on-investment does
not justify the expense in the design process or
in construction. Raise the price of energy, and
you'll get far more energy conservation.
A
recent announcement by Virginia Tech throws new
light on energy conservation in buildings. (See End
Note Seven.) An investor is going to raise
$500 million and Virginia Tech will oversee a
process to upgrade 100 buildings in the National
Capital Subregion. The investor will recover the
$500 million by lowering operating costs and
receiving payment from a share of the savings.
Everyone wins and VA Tech gets a gold star.
Something
is wrong with the market here. Why do the owners
not just borrow the money and pocket the cash
and goodwill that these outside parties are
reaping? The bottom line must be that the
building owners do not think the cost of energy
will go up as fast as the investor and Virginia
Tech do.
This
seems like a perfect place to apply the
“mechanism design theory” for which three
economists will share to 2007 Nobel Prize in
Economics. The problem is that unless the
economists understand human settlement patterns
at the multi-building scale and above, the
“solution” may not make much difference
beyond the PR benefit and could make matters
worse, not better.
One
last thought: Building energy efficiency is a
place where we could learn a lot from our
friends in the European Union, especially the
Germans, who have made good use of the time
since the October 1973 energy supply wake-up
call.
Multi-Building
Complexes
There
is apparent confusion in the market concerning
the economics of energy conservation at the
building scale but when one considers multiple
buildings, a mix of land uses and more than one
owner, the issues become far more complex.
A
peek at the potential for multi building energy
conservation was provided by comment on the 18
October 2007 Bacon’s Rebellion Blog posting
“Data
Centers and Green IT” by Jim Bacon. Data
centers and server farms are energy hogs and
throw off waste heat that has to be pumped into
the environment via air conditioning. Well, not
really. We suggested in an 11:07 AM comment:
The
“answer” is functional settlement pattern
(at multi-building scales). Put the data
center in the Zentrum of the Alpha Village
near the MIUS (Modular Integrated Utility
System) to get cheap energy during off peak
hours, store the energy in batteries and use
the waste heat from operations to heat and
cool the Jobs / Housing / Services /
Recreation / Amenity functions of the Zentrum.
In
theory this configuration works like a charm for
many functional land uses that consume a lot of
energy but do not have a noxious or toxic impact
on the immediate surrounding area. Steel mills
and airports need not apply. But many “new
technology” land uses – like data centers
– provide good jobs and heat that can be
recaptured and be put to good use as part of a
functional Village.
Some
snide comments were posted on the Zentrum
solution for data centers but they reflect the
Geographic Illiteracy of the commentor more than
a problem with the strategy. Our experience with
Modular Integrated Utility Systems (MIUSs) is
that the failure to recognize the organic
components of human settlement patterns and the
failure to evolve a governance structure at the
Cluster and Neighborhood scales condemned MIUS
projects. How to manage them and how to secure
capital investment at this scale was beyond the
kin of project participants. If the
“project” was not owned by a single entity
or covered an entire municipality no one knew
how to deal with it.
How
can failure to understand organic components of
human settlement patterns possibly be an issue
here? The chilled water / heat exchange
system in the Zentrum Neighborhood of the
Village of Lake Anne in Reston is a perfect
example. The condominium / homes association
governance structure of Reston, which is free
floating and not a component of the municipal
government of Fairfax County, provides a perfect
example of why the failure to establish a
context for governance of the public utility is
critical. The Lake Anne Plaza utility, which is
not owned by those who must buy its services,
has been a technical, political and economic
millstone around the neck of the citizens who
live, work and own property in the Lake Anne
Plaza Beta Neighborhood for 40 years.
The
next result of a failure to understand how to
manage components of human settlement pattern
– especially at the Cluster, Neighborhood and
Village scales – has led to scatteration of
“projects.” These scattered projects seem to
avoid externalities but in fact prevent the
evolution of synergies that would support energy
conservation and other benefits.
The
“thin resources / thick demand” conundrum
comes into play at multi-building scales ranging
from multi-Units to Village- and
Community-scales. If there is a use that
consumes significant amounts of energy, it needs
to be paired with uses that can consume the
byproducts of this energy. This same principle
is applied in synergistic manufacturing and
agricultural complexes where the waste from one
process is used as the feedstock for another
process.
Human
Settlement Patterns
The
link between human settlement patterns and
energy conservation is based on the “Thin
resources / Thick demand” conundrum discussed
above and on the research upon which the Five
Natural Laws of Human Settlement Patterns are
based.
As
noted in The Shape of the Future,
the five Laws were derived from the patterns of
land use actually developed between 1960 and
1990 in the US of A. As suggested below,
following publication of TRILO-G,
we plan to revisit these laws. Because the
built environment was driven by cheap energy,
the quantities associated with the Laws may
change. They are likely to go up but not enough
to modify the “order of magnitude”
relationships now reflected in the titles.
While
each of the Five Natural Laws has a roll in
defining the energy conservation impact of human
settlement patterns, the most important in this
discussion is The 10 X Rule. (See End
Note Eight.)
Early
research that led to the 10 X Rule was carried
out by graduate planning students in Fauquier
County, Va. They started by collecting data from
developers, builders, contractors, utility
companies and end users on the actual cost of
delivering a kilowatt of electrical service to
customers in differing configurations. They
calculated line loss due to a range of variables
such as voltage difference to determine the true
total cost of patterns established between 1960
and 1990. They then moved on to list and examine
the other 40 +/- location variable costs. The
result of this work was publication of The 10 X
Rule in 2000.
Not
a single person who had the ability to identify
the actual numbers and then took the time to run
the calculations has suggested that the 10 X
Rule is not well founded. Many do not like the
result and they may try to avoid discussing
reality, but no one has demonstrated that the
10 X Rule is not an accurate reflection of
reality.
Undertaking
the same process 15 years later with different
energy costs will in all likelihood result in
different quantities but still support the same
general principles. How much different? Perhaps
the 10X Rule will be the 10.7 X Rule or the 12.3
X Rule but, as noted above, it will not change
the order of magnitude relationships established
by the Five Natural Laws. (See End
Note Nine.)
Business-As-Usual
flacks dismiss the high-end estimates of energy
conservation with comments such as, “People will not live that
way,” or the even more silly, “An allocation
of true costs takes away my freedom.”
In
summary, dysfunctional scatteration of a
specific use increases the energy consumed and
the energy lost in transmission. Further flat
fees for large areas average costs and
subsidizes disaggregated end users.
Islands
in the Sun
Next,
we move to a discussion of “Heat Islands.”
Heat islands are real but they are also tossed out
as a red herring to dismiss the idea that
compact urban agglomerations are energy
efficient. There is a vast amount of flammable
underbrush to clear away on these islands.
First,
a superficial application of the “Thin
resources / Thick demand” dichotomy might
suggest that urban areas are energy hogs. Such a
conclusion is valid only if one thinks that the
issue is “energy consumption per acre”
rather than “energy consumption per capita”
– or per Household.
Second,
there are great opportunities for wasted energy
from one use to become an input for other uses.
The example of data centers and server farms is
noted above. Also see “All
Aboard,” 16 April 2007.
Third,
large buildings present, as noted above, great
opportunities for conservation and reuse of
energy within the structure.
Four,
much of the energy waste emanating from the
Zentrums of New Urban Regions to date is
entirely avoidable. Solar sinks include parking
lots, roadways and bare rooftops. These heat
sources emanate from badly designed buildings,
inefficient building complexes and dysfunctional
human settlement patterns, not from the flux of
human activity pe se.
Urban
agglomerations are not endemic inefficient
concentrations of human activity. In fact they
are just the opposite, as suggested by the
discussion in “All
Aboard” cited above concerning
shared-vehicle system station areas.
Finally,
very little of the area within the Clear Edge
around the Core of a New Urban Region is “high
density” in the sense that, say, Manhattan is.
For a discussion of this fact see The 95% / 5%
Guideline Two in Percentage Guidelines in
GLOSSARY.
As
noted by Joel Kotkin in the article discussed
below, Alpha Community scale developments that
meet The 10 Person Rule (aka, Planned New
Communities) have canopies of trees that
cover not just roofs but streets and some roads.
In addition, up to 40 percent of the total area
of an Alpha
Community and an additional 50 percent of the
land within the Clear Edge can be natural area
if intelligently designed.
Vocabulary
Last
but not least, we come to the topic of
intentional and unintentional use of Core
Confusing Words to mislead those concerned with
the energy conservation / human settlement
patterns nexus.
Joel
Kotkin’s latest contribution to a long list of
stellar examples of word and phrase misuse is “Hot
World? Blame Cities,” published in the
Sunday 14, Oct. 2007, WaPo Outlook
section. For a refresher on Joel’s misuse of
words see “The
Foundation of Babble,” 28 Nov 2005, “Deconstructing
the Tower of Babel,” 12 Dec 2005, “Babble
Postscript,” 3 Jan 2006, and “Words
Matter,” 20 Mar 2006.
Kotkin
works for clients that relish his “man bites
dog” op eds and books. He apparently gets a
bonus for spinning stories in ways that
aggravate doctrinaire Smart Growthers. He also
gets a bonus for unjustifiably bashing Portland,
Ore.
There
is, however, a useful antidote for Kotkin’s
intentional confusion. If one goes through
"The Hot World" sentence by sentence and takes out the
Core Confusing Words, it turns out that many of
his statements have a factual base. On occasions
he makes very useful observations. There are
also some terrible errors in the “”Hot
World” op ed but most of the energy
conservation points have a basis in fact. (See End
Note Ten.)
It
does not matter what words are substituted for
“city,’ “local,” “suburb,”
“burb” and other Core Confusing Words that are
used in different contexts to mean different
things. They key is to use words and phases consistently and
in ways that reflect the meaning that
Kotkin probably had in mind.
Joel
Kotkin and Ali Modarres make many good points in
the article and repeat many things we have been
saying for years, but you would not know it
because of confusing Vocabulary they
intentionally employ.
Repairing
the Kotkin op ed underscores an important point:
It is hard to overestimate the power of
Vocabulary.
Whether one is building a
“tower to Heaven” or attempting to create
functional human settlement patterns the same
problem exists. If one cannot understand what
others are saying, the result is bad.
When
Kotkin and others use words in the
manner of Humpty Dumpty -- “When I use a word,
it means exactly what I intend it to mean” -- the results are dismal.
Those
who benefit from Business As Usual know if
citizens realize the need for a new Vocabulary
they lose power to make short-term profits. It
is amusing to see “well meaning” blog
commentors suggest that the evolution of an
understandable Vocabulary is not worth the
effort. (“You have some good ideas but
confuse the issue with attempts to introduce a
new Vocabulary.”) Sorry, there is no
alternative to a robust Vocabulary with
everyone on the same page.
There
is a need to understand the relationships
between energy conservation and human settlement
patterns. That is possible only if the Core
Confusing Words are abandoned.
--
October 29, 2007
End
Notes
(1).
Due to requests by readers of the Bacon’s
Rebellion Blog who have been confused by
unfounded comments concerning energy
conservation and human settlement patterns, this
column provides a brief primer on the topic.
This column will become part of Chapter 5 of BRIDGES, the second book of
TRILO-G forthcoming.
Several recent comments on energy conservation
and human settlement patterns have confused
readers who thought they had a good grasp on
reality. Readers have suggested that, by not
responding to these comments, we we are
conceding that these commentors (rhymes with
“tormentors”) have a basis for their
postings beyond short-term self-interest.
See 16 October Blog Post "ENERGY
CONSERVATION AND HUMAN SETTLEMENT PATTERNS."
(2).
We explore this issue at length in the
Backgrounder “The Problem With Cars”
forthcoming.
(3).
“Case Studies of Project Planning and Design
for Energy Conservation,” sponsored by the US
Department of Energy, Community Systems
Division, Office of Buildings & Community
Services. 1979 Land Design / Research, Inc.
Columbia, MD 1979. Also see End Note Two in “Soft
Consumption Paths,” 7 August 2006.
(4).
As it happens, my father farmed and worked on
oil rigs during World War II. Our family lived
in a “lease house” on an oil field just
after World War II. My father was offered
lucrative work in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia but
choose to move to Montana where we lived near
the Bonneville Power Administration's Hungry
Horse Dam in the late 40s and 50s. It is
surprising how much direct early experiences can
provide a framework for later understandings of
complex topics. (See End Note Three in “The
Conservation Imperative,” 19 June 2007.)
(5).
By “thick” we mean that the settlement
pattern most highly valued in the market
(including by the “creative class”) and best
supporting contemporary economic, social and
physical reality is a conterminous, synergistic
mix of Jobs / Housing / Services / Recreation /
Amenity. These compact settlement patterns
are found within Clear Edges, organized in
Balanced Communities. To be sustainable,
these Balanced Communities must be aggregated
into New Urban Regions with significant amounts
of Countryside and in Urban Support Regions
primarily made up of Countryside. For a
discussion of each of the Capitalized words in
the prior sentence see GLOSSARY.
(6).
As spelled out in Chapter Two, President
William Jefferson Clinton made unfounded excuses
for high per capita energy consumption in his
first State of the Union speech.
(7).
See “Va. Tech, Investor Aim To Cut Area Energy
Use. 100 Properties to Get Upgrades,”
David Fahrenthold, WaPo, 16 October 2007.
(8).
The 10 X Rule is noted in the GLOSSARY
under "Natural Laws," and the
derivation is provided in Chapter 4, Box 6 of The
Shape of the Future. Here is a Cliff
Notes version of Then 10 X Rule: Assume two
groups of 3,000 persons each live in two
Neighborhood-scale sets of 1,000 dwellings
(1,000 households) in different configurations.
One set is randomly scattered across 10,000
acres on lots that average 10 acres each. A
second group with the same size dwelling and
carrying out the same daily and weekly
activities is located in functional Clusters on
100 acres. Under these conditions, the location-
variable costs of the first group is ten times
(that is ten times, not ten percent more or 110
percent more but 10 times or "10 X")
the cost of the second group. note that
Neighborhoods of 30 persons per acre are the
most common configuration of Neighborhood-scale
groups of dwellings in Alpha Communities of 10
persons per acre. This is the case in Reston,
Columbia, Burke Centre and Fairfax Center.
(9).
The other Natural Laws ( A= BR2, The Cost of Services Curve, The 10
Person Rule and the 87 ½ Percent Rule) also
come into play but a discussion of these Rules
is beyond the scope of this column. For
discussion of the rules and their derivation see
The Shape of the Future, Chapter
Four.
(10).
Using the name James Rouse in same sentence as
Frank Lloyd Wright with respect to understanding
human settlement pattern is a gross injustice to
Jim Rouse. See The Shape of the Future,
Chapter
18, “The Planned New Community – Almost
Nothing is as Old as the Planned New Community,”
for an extensive discussion of Rouse' wisdom and
Wright's foolishness -- "Broadacre
City."
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