By Lawrence A. Gamble, P.E.

(this article is available on the web at

http://www.iowasource.com/home_garden/home_renewcomm_1105.html)

“We are charged with designing the future, not being victims of it”
- R. Buckminster Fuller

I was listening to a public radio show about energy recently, and one of the guests (Vijay
Vaitheeswaran, energy editor for The Economist magazine) said that it is a mistake for the
environmental community use the disaster surrounding hurricane Katrina to tut-tut the
American public into guilt about energy use. His message was this will surely fail – it would be
much better instead to present a bold new positive vision for an energy policy based on
renewables.

This is my attempt to sketch out a bold new energy plan for Fairfield. As Cedar Falls city
councilor, UNI professor, and local foods activist/guru Kamyar Enshayan pointed out at the
2005 Iowa Renewable Energy Association annual conference, there is much that can be done at
the city level, both in the design of cities and in public policy, that compliments and extends the
efforts of individuals to use energy wisely and convert to renewables. The local-vs-global
economy ideas in this article could be applied to food, water, transportation, how we deal with
wastes, the materials and design we use to make our buildings, and how we make our livelihoods.
Implementing these ideas make a city more self reliant and locally dependent, and give a big
boost to the local economy. Taken together, they represent a whole new economic base for
rural America.

Iowans spend about 6 billion dollars a year to heat and cool their homes, heat hot water,
buy electricity, and fuel their cars. At least this much is also spent to fuel commerce and
industry. Most of this money leaves the state soon after it is spent. (97 percent of the
electricity we use in Iowa comes from out-of-state coal, oil, and nuclear fuels) Here are some
things we could do at the city level to keep more of these dollars circulating in our local
economies:

Cogeneration – When fuel is burned to make electricity, only 1/3 of the energy in the fuel is
turned into electricity and 2/3 is wasted as low temperature heat. This waste heat can be
utilized to heat and cool homes (think gas refrigerator), commerce, and industry, or to heat
greenhouses to grow warm season crops in the winter. Generating electricity and capturing
the waste heat is called cogeneration or CHP (combined heat and power). A cogeneration plant
located in Sakskobing, Denmark burns baled straw (energy plus more money for local farmers)
to provide electricity, heat, and hot water for 12,500 homes and businesses. In Iowa,
switchgrass is a native perennial prairie plant that has been burned to supplement coal at Alliant
Energy’s Ottumwa Coal Plant. A 10 megawatt switchgrass plant (the Ottumwa coal plant is 700
megawatts) could supply all the residential electrical energy needs of Jefferson county and
would have these characteristics:

Annual energy produced: 75 million kilowatt-hours (kwh)

% of Jefferson County residential energy requirement: 100% of current usage
Heat produced: equivalent to 5,000,000 gallons of oil
Cost to build:$15-20 million
Amount paid to local farmers for fuel: $2.5-3 million/yr
Land area needed to produce crop: 5200 acres
Jefferson County land area: 261,000 acres

Wise use of energy – Cities could assist residents in using energy more wisely. The average
home uses 1000 kwh of electricity per month. Most of this energy is wasted, and could be
profitably saved without a decrease in the level of comfort the energy provides. With wise use
of energy, you still get hot showers and cold beer, often with a 70-90% reduction in use of
electricity. As an example, the Isbell family in Vinton, Iowa, made a concerted effort to use
energy wisely, without reducing quality of life. They used about 1200 kwh initially, and after
implementing common sense off-the-shelf efficiency measures like compact fluorescent light
bulbs, they used less than 100 kwh to provide the same or greater level of services. The
payback on these energy saving improvements ranged from immediate to several years, with
returns on the money invested as high as 75% (compared to 3% at a bank). It was then easy
for them to switch to solar and wind energy to supply their modest needs.

Wes Birdsall, the general manager of the Osage, Iowa municipal electric company,
realized one day that each dollar saved by residents was no different than a dollar brought into
the community by a new business. He began looking on saving energy as an economic
development strategy for his community of 3,600. For a one-time investment of $250,000,
Osage residents and businesses save more than $1,200,000 every year on energy bills. Every
ten years that’s 12 million dollars added to the local economy.

Energy efficiency can be viewed as a source of energy. If you cut your energy
consumption, then the energy that you saved can be made available to someone else. The cost
of making energy available through efficiency improvements is much less that the cost of
making electricity available by building new power plants. Building a new factory to make energy
efficient light bulbs is on the order of 1/10 to 1/100th the cost of building a new coal power
plant to make the same amount of energy available. The overall cost of making energy available
through efficiency, using a wide variety of off the shelf technologies, is often less than one
cent per kwh, equivalent to $5 or $10 per barrel oil (the current price of oil is around $60 per
barrel). This is far cheaper than coal at 4 -5 cents or even wind power at 3-5 cents. If we use
the savings generated by using energy wisely to build power plants that run on renewables, then
we would never have to build another fossil fuel power plant.

Wind Power


 The best sites surrounded the city could be identified and fitted with wind turbines. In
many cities it is difficult to site small wind machines on individual homes, but large wind
machines could be sited on the edges of cities and the energy used to power the city or sold for
profit. In many villages in Denmark, a few large wind turbines provide the bulk of the electrical
energy used by the residents, and the turbines are owned by the retirees of the village and
provide retirement income. The state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany is similar in many ways
to Iowa- rural, flat, with lots of row crop farming. The population is 2.7 million people, similar
to Iowa’s 2.9 million. One difference is that Schleswig-Holstein currently gets 18% of its
yearly electrical needs from wind power (Iowa gets less than 2 % of it’s electricity from wind).
In February 2002, the state got 50 % of its electricity from wind, and on one day in that month
wind energy provided 100% of the electrical energy used by the whole state. Iowa has one of
the best wind resources in the world, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Iowa has more potential for
wind power than Schleswig-Holstein. There are 60,000 people employed in the wind power
industry in Europe, and the world leaders are in Germany and Denmark.

Wind power is currently the fastest growing source of electricity (and in most cases the
cheapest) on the planet (Wind farms in NE Iowa sell power for 3 cents per kwh – in Fairfield,
we pay about 12 cents per kwh.) The Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities is putting together
a group of cities to build large scale energy storage so that wind generated energy could be
available even if the wind isn’t blowing. Excess wind energy will be stored as compressed air
underground and converted back to electricity as needed.

The wind potential in Fairfield, while not the best in Iowa (for example, turbines in
Fairfield would get about 20% less annual energy than Cerro Gordo county in north central
Iowa, which has one of the best wind energy resources in the US), is greater than much of the
rest of the country. Jefferson County would need 19 1650 kw turbines (the Danish made with
NEG-Micon NM-82, with an 82 meter blade diameter on 165 foot towers was used in this
example) at a cost of $25,000,000 ($4800 per household) to supply all of the annual residential
electrical energy needs at the current average usage of 1000 kwh per month. However, most of
this energy is wasted. If we implemented off-the-shelf cost effective energy saving measures
like the Isbell family mentioned earlier (at a cost of $9,000,000 or $1500 per household), then
we could slash the number of turbines required to 3, at a cost of $4,500,000 (a one-time cost
of$712 per household, about what many families spend per year on cell phone service).

Eight Iowa public schools have installed large scale wind machines, some costing as much
as $800,000. They have been financed by a combination of local bank loans and the Iowa
Energy Bank. There are also several municipal electric utilities in Iowa that have installed large
scale wind. Some of these projects are financed by voluntary extra 1-2 cent per kwh payments
by utility customers.

More local economic benefit could be gained by getting wind turbine manufacturers to set
up shop in Iowa. Cities could use the incentive of an order of wind machines to entice turbine
manufacturers to locate in their cities. Recently, Clipper Wind Power has announced that it will
begin production of a new wind turbine in Cedar Rapids.

Solar Hot Water – Getting hot water from the sun is often the most cost effective way
to use solar energy. Solar hot water systems have proven themselves in Fairfield for more than
15 years. In contrast to solar electric panels, which are high tech devices, solar hot water
panels are low tech and could be (and have been) built in shops all over Iowa. I’ve participated
in workshops where unskilled people build themselves a solar hot water system in a weekend.
We could have a program to fit homes, schools, the pools, laundries, car washes, restaurants –
anywhere there is a demand for hot water – with solar hot water panels. The cost for fitting
homes, schools, and municipal facilities in Fairfield would be approximately $14,000,000 ($2000
per household) and at current interest rates would pay for itself in less than 10 years out of
savings, and then continue to provide essentially free hot water for an additional 10-20 years
more. This $14,000,000 investment would create lots of work installing and maintaining these
systems. Even more benefit could be gained from establishing a manufacturing facility for these
systems, which could be as simple as training some of the existing metal fabrication shops in
building these systems. The Iowa Energy Bank, funded by a tiny tax on utility bills, has money
available to loan to projects like this at a discounted interest rate (about ½ the current rate),
or the city could issue low interest municipal bonds to finance a project like this. There are
many examples of US cities that have successful municipal solar programs.. San Francisco
recently issued more than a hundred million dollars of municipal bonds to finance solar electric
systems in the city. Other cities (Sacramento, California, for example) have even established
municipal solar utilities to implement solar electric and hot water projects like this. The city
of Santa Clara California has had a solar utility program since 1975. The town of Soldier’s
Grove, Wisconsin, faced with severe flooding several times in this century, moved the town out
of the flood plain and rebuilt the whole town to utilize solar energy to heat buildings.

Energy efficient new construction – There are many examples of low cost, high
performance buildings in Iowa that use little or no energy for heating and cooling, yet cost little
more to build than conventional buildings. Earle Mason of Habitat for Humanity in Mason City
has designed and built a 1700 square foot residence that heats for $175 per year and doesn’t
require air conditioning. Production builder Perry Bigelow of Chicago has built thousands of
homes with guaranteed less than $100 per year heating bills. In Fairfield, the homes of John
and Judy Salerno and Ken Walton in the Abundance Ecovillage have achieved this kind of
performance. The cost for this kind of performance, if integrated into the design up front, is
often less than $5,000. We could encourage this kind of building with a “fee-bates”, where
high performance homes get a rebate paid for by fees charged to high energy use homes. 80
percent of the lifetime energy required to heat and cool a building is fixed by design decisions
made in the first few hours of design. Cities could help with critical early design assistance.
 Transportation

Redesigning our cities on the scale of people rather than cars would have a huge impact
on the amount of energy used in transportation and an even greater impact on quality of life.
Even without redesign, towns like Fairfield are perfectly set up to use current technology
electric vehicles. Current electric vehicle range is 50-100 miles per charge, and 50 miles could
drive you around Fairfield all day long. Range can be greatly extended if you can recharge
everywhere you park. If cities in Iowa banded together and bought Iowa manufactured electric
vehicles for municipal use, it would create a modest electric vehicle industry in Iowa. Electric
vehicles would then be readily available for use by residents as “around town” cars. Innovative
vehicle purchases could be encouraged by a “fee-bate” system, where buyers of gas guzzling
vehicles pay a fee, which pays for a rebate given to those who purchase innovative vehicles.

We could also develop locally grown biofuels like biodiesel and ethanol. Biodiesel is made
from vegetable oil (even waste oil from fast food can be used) and can be used in unmodified
diesel vehicles. A dozen or so Fairfield residents already use biodiesel or straight veggie oil
(straight veggie oil can require vehicle modifications). In Brazil, millions GM, Ford, and VW
vehicles run on 100% ethanol. Ethanol can be made from a wide range of crops. In Iowa, billions
of gallons of gasoline are sold that contain ethanol. Any car can use the 10% ethanol blend
found at most gas stations, and many cars come equipped with a special computer chip that
allows use of up to 85% ethanol (e-85). Check to see if your car is a flex-fuel vehicle. The state
of Iowa has $25,000 grants available for gas stations that install e-85 pumps.
There is some controversy about whether biofuels require more energy to produce than
they contain. Few in this debate mention that regular gasoline takes more energy to produce
that it contains. The simple answer is that biofuel production can be a net energy gainer.
According to the US Department of Energy and the Rocky Mountain Institute, for every one
unit of energy available at the gas pump 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to produce gasoline,
0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy
are used to make cellulosic ethanol. The enzymatic reduction hydrolosis method for ethanol
production can produce ethanol at $1.30 per gallon. The use of 100% “neat” alcohol (alcohol
that still contains a small amount of water) would greatly reduce cost and net energy. Engines
run well on “neat” 180 proof alcohol, but “neat” alcohol cannot be mixed with gasoline.

Cities can provide biofuel or electric public transportation solutions. Cities can run their
fleet of school buses, municipal vehicles, and construction equipment on locally produced ethanol
and biodiesel.

We could also redesign our cities on the scale of walking and biking. Fairfield has a great
system of rural recreational trails – what if we had a similarly well-designed system of trails
within the city, making transport by bike more convenient than by car? In some cities in Europe,
bikes account for 40% of all trips within the city, even in cold rainy northern countries like
Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. The mayor of Paris recently announced a goal of eliminating
cars from the center of Paris, and the city rents bikes for in-town trips at very low rates.
What do Madison, Wisconsin and Grinnell College have in common? They both have free bike
programs. How about free bikes for use in the downtown Fairfield? They could be obtained
from the large number of bikes that the police department accumulates every year.

We could integrate more trees into our public urban spaces, and capture and use the run
off from urban areas. What if the square and the roads surrounding it were always 20 degrees
cooler in the summer than the rest of the city, and 30 degrees cooler than the Walmart parking
lot? This would reduce cooling bills, increase comfort, and increase business in the downtown.
Designers like Wayne Petersen with Soil and Water Conservation Service and organizations like
Iowa based Trees Forever could help make this happen.

This article gives you a flavor of what could be done at the city level to save energy,
reduce our dependence on oil, increase our dependence on the sun, and make our communities
more interesting places to live. The statistics and analysis presented here are rough and back-
of-the-envelope. The next step for Fairfield would be to fund detailed feasibility studies of
some of these ideas - $10,000 spent on feasibility and preliminary design work could yield
millions of dollars in benefits to the city. Over the next decade, hundreds of millions of dollars
will be spent in Jefferson County on energy. Why not spend these dollars on energy that is
renewable, creates local jobs, and keeps money in the community? I believe that this vision of
a more locally dependent and self-reliant city has great appeal to both liberals and
conservatives. I continue to be surprised that some enterprising politician has not brought
forth a bold new vision for rural America based on these ideas.
This article originally appeared in the Iowa Source and is available on the web at
http://www.iowasource.com/home_garden/home_renewcomm_1105.html)