Talk:Carrboro Energy Descent Action Plan

What about small informational evening discussions......
What about this idea.... Within neighborhoods, sort of on the oldfashioned model of the Tupperware party, getting groups of people together to show and tell about energy descent ideas such as converting all your lightbulbs to compact flourescents, or insulating your home more, or _____________(you fill in the blank for what idea you want to tell others about). I have been starting to tell others about compact flourescents, and I bought a bunch of them at wholesale price and have been selling them really cheaply. But I am amazed at how few people know about them, and also people have a lot of questions and confusion about them. So it seems like it would be fun to have a 'demo' party about these lightbulbs.


 * This is a good idea. Unfortunately, you have not signed your name to this entry so there is no way for me to follow up with you except by reponding here.  I hope that we can discuss this further. One idea is by enlisting the precinct democrats.  Orange county democrats are a grassroots organization and as such have the potential to be whatever the people who use it want.  One of their resolutions is to support precinct based energy descent action plans.  I can see the idea that you have expressed above as a potential action to be taken by your precinct.
 * --Sammy talk  04:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This is an excellent option for church groups and neighborhood associations to undertake. Students at NC Central formed a group that went into the neighborhoods near their campus and gave people FREE light bulbs that they bought in bulk at a discount rate. Local hardware stores might be willing to sponsor on-site demonstrations and workshops for rain barrel installs or solar collector panels that are easy enough for an HVAC crew to put in, just like a window unit AC. Even just painting roofs white to reflect heat away from the attic could be a neighbor-to-neighbor project.

Check this out
Solar hot water temperature statistics posted by a homeowner in Durham. http://www.nearto.us/OurSolarRoof/solar_water.htm

Other practical steps the same homeowner has taken, including Watt Stoppers and greywater reuse : http://www.nearto.us/

DRAFT Carrboro Energy Descent Action Plan
''This work has been moved from the main page as it is needing to get sorted throughout the sectors linked from the main page. A lot of this is skeletal, but there are some nuggets of information that should get extracted and included in the main article links.'' --Sammy talk  14:22, September 4, 2009 (UTC)

''gkb here. I took out the empty headings and dummy text squibs, leaving the factual info on Waste and Water that I collected earlier, plus the colorful Vision sections that project possible outcomes. I left the main headings for ease of reference and discussion. 5:40 pm EDT 06SEP09''

This report is not intended to be comprehensive. Please view it as a first draft being put out into the community for consultation. This is only the first step in a long process, offered to you warts’n’all for discussion, rather than a final and complete document. It is not the work of professionals.

It may occasionally be guilty of naivety, being misinformed or overly optimistic, But it is our attempt at starting this process rolling.

Please do follow up any areas that interest you, you never know where they might lead!

If you have any thoughts or views on what you have read, you can either edit the Wiki directly or post your thoughts on googlegroups. When this document is revised (revisions occur quarterly), your ideas can be included. We hope that you will enjoy reading what others have thought about and this plan will lead to the vibrant community it envisions.

Recommendation Timeline
Suggestions for practical steps to take in each action area are welcomed.

A realistic timeline helps. If one step depends on another, please put them in sequence.

For instance, getting a building permit before adding solar panels to a school, or raising money to buy rain barrels for a neighborhood garden.

Vision: Local Energy
Our idea of how Carrboro could be in 2021, if the steps suggested have been taken.

Summertime: and the 'Lectricity's Easy

It is the second quarter of 2021 in the Triangle, and for Carrboro, the energy problem has been solved.

For the past five years, excess production of electricity has glutted the NC mainline system's capacity to receive and transmit surplus energy to other states. The thousands of solar thermal installations, windmills, and microhydro turbines across the state have proved too efficient for our aging mainlines to keep up with.

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen was considering regulations specifying a summertime lottery scheme that would prevent 1 in every five private households from uploading energy to the main pipe. Households fingered by this scheme (called the "Not Lot" by detractors) would be obliged to forgo for three months out of the year the small but steady revenues from electricity sales they received in the past.

However, that problem is a thing of the past. As of April 4th, the Appalachian Electrical Network Node (AENN) is online and fully functional. Carrboro was one of the first leafnodes to latch onto the AENN tree. Now all the surplus energy we generate from household, farm, government building and commercial rooftops is relayed via AENN's network of booster stations up and over the Appalachian ridge into Tennessee and Kentucky and parts west.

The new AENN system is able to handle all the surplus power we can generate, and ship it economically to areas where demand has outgrown supply. AENN is a supplier to the national Emergency Electrical Network (EEN) that provides free power to areas hit by natural disasters and inner city locales that are undergoing infrastructure overhauls. EEN buys power at a price that covers AENN's costs of collection, transmission and booster revs, plus a small profit.

So, summertime can come on hot and strong here in car-free Carrboro. We get to sell our sunjuice to AENN; AENN sells it up to EEN and EEN fufills its national taxpayer determined mandate. And that means everybody's happy about something.

Pretty soon, the fish will be jumping and the cotton, high. AENN will get rich and EEN will be good looking. So hush, little Carrboro, let them 'lectrons fly.

Waste Management
A brief look at the waste management systems and volumes of waste generated in Carrboro. Volume by Weight of Household Waste generated by the town of Carrboro 7608 Tons approx. = Yearly total of Carrboro household trash and food waste 637 Tons approx. = Monthly total Carrboro household trash and food waste --- NOTE: These figures refer only to the 3500 households in Carrboro, excluding the 120 commercial buildings such as apartment complexes and multifamily units. As of 30Mar 2009 Source: phone conversation with the Public Works Dept. of Carrboro See pworks@townofcarrboro.org or call: 918-7425

Composition of Carrboro Household Waste (rounded to nearest whole number) 35% = Organics 28% = Paper 15% = Plastic 6% = Glass 5% = Wood 4% = Inert (bricks, dirt, asphalt) 3% = Rusting metals 2% = Yard waste 1% = Electronic goods 1% = Non-rusting metals .5% = Special & hazardous waste - NOTE: Waste composition data are from a 2005 scheduled waste sort. See: http://www.co.orange.nc.us/recycling/stats.asp - Waste Generated by Origin 2007-2008 (includes all materials brought to Orange County Landfill) Origin              Tons                   Percent  Orange County           14,486                        17% Town of Carrboro     7,608                      9% Town of Chapel Hill     20,956                        25% Town of Hillsborough     1,909                         2% UNC                      5,384                         6% UNC Hospital(trucks only)   30                        <1% Privately hauled        33,312                        40% --- Total                   83,501                       100%

Vision: Waste Management
Our idea of how Carrboro could be in 2021, if the steps suggested have been taken.

By 2021, solid waste landfills created before 2009 have already been used as sources of methane for 12 years, generating energy for UNC hospitals and the Carrboro fire department. They are now largely depleted of gases and are being mined by independent small businesses on a contract basis to extract ferrous metal ores, non-ferrous metals and rare metals that are valuable as an export product for the cell phone and electronic goods markets.

Composting toilets have replaced water-based sewage in 50% of city households and 75% of rural septic systems. Sewage, yardwaste, and other organic wastes are pooled in private and public lagoons for use as an active source of methane. Duckweed ponds are used to rapidly break down and purify the waste and the holding tank water which can be reused for several cycles of waste treatment. Urban solid human wastes are cycled through two- or three-year holding pits (depending on how "hot" the waste is). The well-cooked sludge is hauled in closed cars by federally-funded trains to the yellow poplar and bamboo plantations in South Carolina for the last cycle. Yellow poplar uptakes any remaining heavy metals and the bamboo growing downstream of the poplar woods does not seem to be affected by residual organo-synthetics such as artificial sweeteners and improperly disposed of medications. Thus Carrboro is doing its part towards our sister state's second-growth industries depending on hardwood, river cane, sawgrass and biofuel crops.

The separation-at-source principle of waste-streaming recently got two big boosts.

First, the BlueStar MedBoxes for collection of discarded medications have been placed at 24-hour grocery store pharmacies, fire stations, and urgent care clinics throughout the city as well as the usual HazMat waste sites.

Second, a new process that uses plastic-digesting fungi is helping recycling centers turn decades-old plastics into a rich source of burnable biofuel. The smoke scrubbers for this new fuel source have not been worked out; but hopes are high enough to make the share prices of the Carrboro Recycle Center jump up a hefty notch.

Paper reclamation industries (including collection, shredding, recycling, and local paper production) are now one of the mainstays of the local economy, employing 1800 people on a part-time basis. Paper is so valuable to the economy that the proportion of paper as landfill composition is statistically zero. Certain grades of high fiber dung (cattle, goat, llama) and the harvested duckweed are valued as paper pulp, along with wood waste, textile lint and rags. Kudzu and other woody vines that are used as nitrogen-fixing cover crops have also bulked up the paper pulp recipes, thus sparing our tall Carolina pines for more profitable uses.

Water
A brief look at the water situation in Carrboro. --- Water Source  University Lake Water Area    2.9 % Land Area     97.1% Total Persons 21567 Pop.Density   3276.89 /sq mi  window Width   2.69 mi Window Area   6.725 sq mi --- SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census, by block YR = 2000 URL: http://iaspub.epa.gov/wme/i3_embedded.open_links These data were generated on APR-06-2009.

Surface, groundwater, and precipitation (rain, snow) are the three categories of water supply.

Cooling power plants in our state account for 80% of daily surface withdrawals from lakes and rivers. (much is later returned to rivers and lakes). (See: http://ncconservationnetwork1.org/campaign/water09)

Drinking, Sanitation, and Industrial use share the other 20% of the surface supply

A new bill, S907/H1101, Water Resource Policy Act of 2009, would establish a new water withdrawal permitting program for large withdrawals (over 100,000 gallons per day, or roughly the amount used by 1,000 people).

The bill would also provide advance planning for each basin to prevent conflicts over water.

Begin Table of Water Concentration in Food Production Quantity Food Product     Amount of Water to Produce 1 pint      Beer              20 gallons 1 glass     Wine              31 gallons 1 pound     Beef            1500 gallons

SOURCE: NC Conservation Network See: http://www.ncconservationnetwork.org/mainblog/archive/2009/03/26/how-much-water-do-you-use

Additional Sectors for consideration
These sectors may be folded into the orginal twelve, or not, as the plan develops

Vision: Light Industry
Our idea of how Carrboro could be in 2021, if the steps suggested have been taken.

Walker Family Industries (WALKFAM on the NC State Stock Market) the well-known fiber processing, sacking, and rope-making concern, has just announced that they will be adding a new production line to their Siler City plant. A proprietary blend of jute, reclaimed plastic bottle thread and other fibers will be made into an especially strong and mold-resistant canvas suitable for the Conestoga Wagon, temporary shelter, river coracle and mobile barn markets. Carrboro Community College was selected as one of seven sites, statewide, to provide worker training in the new textile's weaving process. Congratulations, CarrCC!

Vision: Heavy Industry
One idea of how Carrboro could be in 2021, if the steps suggested have been taken.

As of the third quarter 2021, capital-intensive manufacturing in NC has risen overall in the past ten years by about 31%. The largest proportion of these new industries (69.2%) has been financed via creative mixes of WIC (Worker-In-Common) capital equipment purchasing agreements with TIC (Tenancy-In-Common) building ownership investment clubs.

Limited liability concerns are also multiplying. The number of LLCs registered in Carrboro alone has tripled over the past seven years.

However local banks are gaining a piece of the heavy industry pie by offering attractively low interest rates on multigenerational loan packages for rapid brownfield reclamation, infrastructure expansion, on-site power plants and building rewiring projects.

Locally, Spinoza Machine Works is leading the pack with a range of spinning frames, from industrial-sized Ring & OpenEnd, down to cottage-sized E-Charkas that also generate electricity, directly or via regenerative switching.

Boxwood's, the furniture and pre-fab greenhouse manufacturer reported an increased profit of 2% net over each of the past two years. They attribute the gains to their new furniture repair and recycling division.

Third in line is 4-Square Mills, the customized gear and cog foundry, that supplies a seemingly endless stream of replacement parts to the thousands of revitalized NC mills (furniture, grain, lumber: you-name-it-they-gear-it) and bicycle repair shops statewide. 4-Square is one of the few physical plants in the region capable of sustaining 24-hour activity on call. Redundant power sources include solar thermal, geothermal, solar PV, microhydro, VAWT, waste-burning and even oxen teams! Some clever people out there at 4-Square.

All three industries--textile, furniture, metalworking--have been greener than ever, thanks to Carrboro's new regulatory policies that out-EP the EPA.

Red Clay Pipers had a strong second quarter selling their porous "sweat pipes" used by many commercial greenhouses instead of soaker hoses. Apparently the self-fitting tapered two-tone pottery pipes (bottom glazed, tops unglazed) last longer, attract fewer insect freeloaders, and lose less water to evaporation. RPC now has orders in hand for their field refrigeration vats: low-tech, no-energy cooling units that have a glazed pot inside a porous one with watered sand between. These "refrigJARators" (as they call them) can keep produce cool for up to three weeks, duirng the late summer heats. Most community gardens use them for only three days till the next Farmer's market is open. RCP will shut down production on the jars in June and switch to their fall product line--earth oven inserts and above-ground rootcellars: pre-fab brick structures with handy shelving that allow homes without cellars to have their own earth-cooled storage for root crops and apples.

Spin-off company SheetSheds will build you a winterized, covered walkway from the back door to the brick cellars and take it down again in the spring. Reclaimed tin, plexiglass, reclaimed auto windshields and snow-peaked canvas are among the creative and not so bad-looking options that SheetSheds offers the backyard gardener. Put a Clydeosaur on top if you have one!

Constructed Wetlands [CWs] and/or stormwater "pretty-perc" ponds have been completed around every major shopping mall within an eight mile radius of downtown. Crews are not being laid off, however. In fact, companies are hiring. State money for ringing farms with CW and SW catchments is finally coming forth in a steady flow. The drought and trickle stage seems to be over where non-point pollution control is concerned.

Mining is down but timber is up (naturally!). Many a former Christmas tree farm is now producing high quality walnut, cherry, and other hardwoods to a market mad for hard. Pines are a perpetual source of profit, being usable from needle oil to pitch to sawdust. Also, North Carolina's appetite for bamboo everything seems as ubiquitous as kudzu used to be before the Goatherders Association took on the green leafy champ and won. True balsam firs are providing some extra cash to tree farmers. The resins in the bark make a a superior adhesive as well as a much sought-after fragrance and medicinal oil. After the oil-distiilation process, the remainder of the shredded bark is still useful for anti-moth sachets.

An upsurge in the manufacture of barges and other large cargo watercraft reflects investors' eagerness to take advantage of state seed money and tax incentives to expand NC's intra-state shipping fleet.

This may be the reason that timber and bamboo are up. Analysis on contributing factors has not yet been released. See you next quarter with the goods on woods!