Hawaii University of Sustainable Living and Ecovillage: The Sustainability Revolution Changes Everything

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How the Sustainability Revolution

Changes Everything

By Professor Lonnie Gamble, PECo-Director, Sustainable Living

ProgramMaharishi School of Management

Copyright 2015, All Rights ReservedLonnie Gamble & Chandas, LP

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Sustainability Challenges • 2 Degrees is Safe Global Temp rise• 575 Gigatons of carbon can safely be

added to the atmosphere• 2795 Gigatons of carbon in proven

reserves• 5 times more coal, oil, and gas in

proven reserves than is safe to burn.

We need to leave 80% of it in the ground

• The fossil fuel industry wakes up every day determined to burn it all

• It’s wrong to profit from wrecking the planet

• It’s time to divest from fossil fuels

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“We need a persuasive and visionary yes rather than a ongoing no.”

- Naomi Klein, UH Manoa, Feb 2015

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“Although the problems are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple”

- Bill Mollison developer of Permaculture Design Methodology

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“We are charged with designing the future,

not being victims of it”- R Buckminster Fuller

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If we get the design right, we get cascading side benefits

If we get the design wrong, we get cascading side effects

Sustainable Living:A New and Better Design for Living

The Renewable Energy Revolution is Here

Add stunning progressShow ad on stealing grease from

Notes

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Obama Solar Quote

“America is #1 in wind power. Every 3 weeks we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.” - President Obama, State of the Union, 2015

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GermanyOn Saturday, May 26, 2012 Germany got 40% of it’s energy from solar.On Sunday, May 11, 2014, Germany got 75% of it’s energy from renewables.

Energiewende, the innovative public policy around renewables has created 400,000 jobs in Germany

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Kauai

On August 31, 2014, during daytime hours, 57% of power on Kauai was from renewable sources. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Hawaii)

Once Anahola goes on-line, solar will approach 80% of the energy demand on some days. At some times solar output may exceed demand. Kauai is a laboratory for the world on 100% renewable energy.

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Solar Potential Germany vs Kauai

Germany (Berlin): 883 kwh per kw of PV panelsTotal Solar Installed in Germany: 38,359 mw

Kauai (Lihue): 1469 kwh per kw of PV panelsTotal capacity of the Kauai grid: 125 mw

(Iowa: 1310 kwh per kw of PV panels)

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Iowa

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

From 5% to 25% in Just 6 Years!

% Iowa Electrical Energy from Wind

5 Times Increase in Wind Energy Production in 6 years

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Solar in Iowa - 20042 kw

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Solar in Iowa - 2008Prairiewoods 10 KW

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Solar PV for Mayor’s HouseFairfield, Iowa

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Solar in Iowa - 2012Sky Factory 54 kw, 79,000 kwh

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Solar in Iowa - 2014 Farmers Electric Coop

800 kw 1,000,000 kwh

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Portugal at 58% Renewable Energy for 2013

(First half of 2013 was 75%)Population of 10.4 million

By 2020, Renewables will account for 35,000 jobs

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Distributed EnergyVS

Centralized Energy

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Community Solar

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The most progressive utility in the US:Farmers Electric Coop, Kalona Iowa?

• Students at Kalona Solar Garden with manger Warren Mckenna

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VW XL-1261 Miles Per Gallon - Tank is only 2 gallons

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Electric Transportation: Nissan Leaf

• Nissan Leaf Example

Assume 12,000 miles per yearLeaf gets 5.4 miles per kwh, 2300 kwh per yearCost for electricity at 12 cents (40 cents on Kauai) /kwh:$271Equivalent cost for gas @$3/gallon: $1200Cost of PV panels to produce this much annual energy: $1600Cost of system: $4600

Like having 70 cent per gallon gasoline

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But Consider Design Again:The better car makes the worse city

The surprising sustainability of city livingGoing beyond individual initiative

Richard Register Sustainable Living Department Distinguished Scholar

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The Need to Change(aka the obligatory hockey stick graph)

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The new hockey sticks

33Living Fully Rooted in the Abundant Flows of Natural Systems

34This presentation prepared on solar powered computers

Schwartz- Guich Sustainable Living Center Building that Teaches

35Schwartz – Guich Sustainable Living Center

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The Sustainable Living Center at MUM“The building is a living laboratory for what we teach.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luAKfFldhkY

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What Our Students are DoingDirector of Ecovillage in FijiDesigning water purification systems for the billions without clean waterWork with the government of Mongolia developing Organic StandardsStarted renewable energy company that employs 11 graduates (now 30)Solar engineerFarmerUrban agriculture coordinator, Chicago, NYCStarted another sustainable living programStarted farming non profit in Flint Michigan (Flintopia) Graduate School:

Masters Graduates in Sustainable Agriculture, Community Development, ArchitecturePhD candidate in international development

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Ideal Energy VideoSolar Company Start-up Success

• Navy SEAL veteran Troy Van Beek and his wife, Amy, own a growing renewable energy and energy efficiency business in a small town in Iowa. Their company, Ideal Energy, saves consumers money and puts local people to work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoEi7wggkLs

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The Next GenerationBen Katz

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Emphasis

• Agriculture – soil food web and advanced forms of organic agriculture like biodynamics

• Energy – renewable energy • Fundamentals – core theory and philosophy of

sustainability • Policy and change making • Buildings and the built environment

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Dr ThimmiahPhD , Biodynamic AgricultureBoard Member, Demeter USAAuthor of the Manual of Organic Agriculture

for Bhutan, Bhutan Organic Standards

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Dr John IkerdPhD, EconomicsDeep sustainability ,

sustainable economicsRecent work: Author of the

chapter on Canada, US and Mexico in the UNFAO book for The Year of the Family Farm

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Better U Foundation Jim Carrey/John Jollife

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John Jeavons, Biointensive

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Dr Elaine Ingham

PhD Microbiology Soil Food Web

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Richard RegisterFounder, Ecocity Builders

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Convening National and International Conversations

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International Outreach

• Finca Luna Nueva, Costa Rica• Angoon, Alaska• Nepal • Bhutan• South Africa• Uganda• India• Mongolia• Hawaii

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Distinguished and Visiting Scholars

John Ikerd (sustainable economics)Elaine Ingham (soil food web)Richard Register (ecocities)Dan Chiras (Green Building)Soren Hermanson (Samso, Denmark)TS Powdeyl (former Minster of Education, Bhutan)Kevin Rowel (www.natural building.com)Fred Kirschenman (sustainable agriculture)John Fagan (anti – gmo research)Jeffrey Smith – GMO activist

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Surya Nagar FarmClimate responsive buildings

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Fresh Organic Food – Even in Winter

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Rainwater Harvesting

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Local Economy: Biodiesel from local renewable resources and used / waste cooking oil

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Abundance Ecovillage• Picture of sign

New photo with sunset

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• Ecovillage Aerial view

61“That house doesn’t look weird, it looks nice! I would live in that!”

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Local Renewable Resources provide energy for local ecovillage

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Local Economy: Lumber

• Typical Lumber from Pacific Northwest, costs $1 per board foot, only 10 cents goes to local economy

• Local trees into lumber, costs $0.50 per board foot, all 50 cents stays in local economy

• Half the cost for homebuilder, 5 times the benefit for local economy

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Local Economy:Water

36 inches of rain = 1,000,000 gallons per acre

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Ecovillage Constructed Wetland/Living Machine

• This small size processes sewage for 30 homes

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Maharishi Sthapatya Ved:Buildings that create positive effects

for the occupant and the environment

SitingOrientationPlacement ProportionDaylightingMaterials Sustainability

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BEDZED Project Beddington, England (2006)

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SustainabilityStandard Definition: Meet the needs of the present

without diminishing opportunities for the future

A world view with a set of supporting infrastructure, technologies, institutions, and ways of relating to each other

and to nature

A Better Future In Process: The next generation growing up with sustainable living – my son watering the greenhouse attached to our home.

We eat fresh organic produce from our own greenhouse every day, even throughout the winter in VERY cold Iowa!

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Shallow Vs Deep Sustainability

Shallow Sustainability• Using efficiency and substitution to ameliorate

the effects of the existing system without doing much to change the worldview the system is based on. Motivated primarily by economic value.

• One Line Summary: “We’ll do incremental improvement if they don’t hurt our bottom line profits or change things too much.”

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Deep Sustainability

Efficiency and substitution are in service to radical redesign based on a worldview that uses ecology as a metaphor rather than the machine, holism rather than reductionism, complements science with many ways of knowing, and is grounded in an experiential and intellectual understanding of the unity that underlies the surface diversity of life.(continued next slide)

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Deep Sustainability (Continued)

• This worldview leads to a society that has an ethic of regeneration and renewal of human society and nature. Deep sustainability gives priority to ethical and social values while recognizing the necessity of economic viability.

• One Line Summary: “Let’s figure out the best we can do, and how we can afford to do it.”

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Perennial Philosophy& Practical Procedure:

Transcendentalist, Huxley, Houston Smith,ALL Major Wisdom Traditions Share These Ideas:

• There is a unity that underlies the surface diversity of life

• People can directly experience this unity, in addition to intellectually exploring it as just an idea

• This experience of unity is the same across cultures and time

• To reconnect with this unity is the ultimate purpose of life

• Names for Unity: Being, Source, Pure Consciousness, etc.

• Higher states of consciousness are progressive degrees of unity

• Proven Way to Reconnect with Unity: There is a scientifically validated way (meaning a well defined procedure that works for everyone, not just a special few) to reconnect with and directly experience this unity

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Perennial Philosophy3 Examples

1) The first peace, which is most important, is that which comes from within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the great spirit, and that this center is really everywhere — it is within each of us.” — Black Elk

2) “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality . . . Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” — Martin Luther King

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3) “Everything is so intimately connected with every other thing in creation that it is not possible to distinguish completely the existence of one from the other. And the influence of one thing on every other thing is so universal that nothing could be considered in isolation. We have already mentioned that the universe reacts to an individual action…Therefore, the great responsibility of right and wrong lies in the individual him[or her]self on the level of his[or her] consciousness.”—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living p. 219-223

Hydrological cycle

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Sustainability, Entropy, Energy

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Energy is Essential for Sustainability

• 1st law – energy is neither created nor destroyed – it is eternally cycled from one form to another.

• 2nd law – energy loses usefulness each time it is transformed – same quantity of energy but it can no longer do the same kinds of work.

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Energy is Essential for Sustainability

• Examples– Coffee– Car Engine

• Materials Cycle • Energy flows from source to sink

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Energy is Essential for Sustainability

• For Sustainability: We need a continuous source of high quality energy to offset the effects of entropy, we need solar energy

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Sustainability: Regeneration and Renewal

The human body and spirit are also subject to their own laws of entropy and are in need of

regular renewal and regeneration.

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Video of concentrated sunlight setting wood on fire

Parabola Video

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The Economy of Nature

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This

Can power this

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Sustainable Economics

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100% Renewable Energy for Kauai?

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Mark Jacobson’s 100% Renewable Energy Plan

From: http://thesolutionsproject.org/

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PV 25 % Solar Thermal 3%

Wind 65%

Hydro 1%

Biomass 6%

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Source Diversity

January

Febru

ary

March April

May

JuneJuly

August

September

October

November

December

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Monthly Wind and Solar - Fairfield

WindSolar

Wind and Solar Have Same Annual Output

KWh

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For Kauai?

Wave PowerOcean Thermal

Energy Conversion (OTEC)

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Storage

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Electric STORAGE: Nissan Leaf

• Nissan Leaf Example

Assume 12,000 miles per yearLeaf gets 5.4 miles per kwh, 2300 kwh per yearCost for electricity at 12 cents/kwh:$271Equivalent cost for gas @$3/gallon: $1200

Like having 70 cent per gallon gasoline

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Vehicle to Grid (V2G)Energy Storage Using Electric Cars

Each Leaf has a 24 kwh battery and electronics capable of producing 80 kw.

If 40% of passenger vehicles in Kauai were like the Leaf:Capacity of those vehicles: 1400 mwCapacity of the Kauai Grid: 125 mwStorage of these vehicles: 420,000 kwhAvg Daily Residential Energy Use on Kauai: 432,000 kwhUsing just 40% of cars like Leaf, could store whole day

of Kauai energy use

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Luddington Pumped Storage 1872 MW(Lake Michigan)

Kauai Grid – 78 MW all time peak peak

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Pumped Storage

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Load Shedding

Shut off loads for short durations (1-30 minutes)

Many loads can be shut off with minimal diminishment of service

Water heatersHeating/Cooling

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Surplus Energy to Hydrogen

• Hydrogen as a fuel – only water vapor as a byproduct

• Store as Ammonia (NH3) Similar to natural gas (CH4)

• Ammonia can be used as a transportation fuel – Combustion Engines– Fuel Cells

• Ammonia can be used as a peaking fuel

• Norm Olson and the Iowa State Biomass Energy Conversion Lab is a world leader in Ammonia as a renewable fuel

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The Vemork Hydro Plant in Norway made much of Europe’s Nitrogen Fertilizer (ammonia) from 1919 until WWII

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Ammonia Fueled Bus, Belgium 1943

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Biomass

Combined Heat and Power

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Iowa State Biorefinery Concept

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Fossil Fuel Spill = Disaster

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Solar Energy Spill = Just Another Nice Day in Paradise

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Four Season Harvest"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”- Thomas Edison (1931 in a letter to Henry Ford)

This presentation prepared on solar powered computers

“Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tide and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” - Teilhard de Chardin

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A New Story

The changes we need to make for sustainability – stronger, more vibrant communities, rich social connections, a sense of purpose and meaning, less industrial work, renewable energy, ecocities, coproducing and making, organic local foods, connection to nature and to our own inner being - are also the changes we need to create a better world, the world of our best dreams and aspirations.

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Sustainable Living for Kauai?Can we build on the great work

that is already being done here by:

* Opening a College of Sustainable Living?* Building a Sustainable Ecovillage?

Hawaii is a rich living laboratory for an academic program that explores sustainable living, deep sustainability,

& the development of consciousness.

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END OF HAWAII

PRESENTATION SLIDES

Copyright 2015All Rights ReservedLonnie A GambleAnd Chandas, LP

[email protected]