Sustainability
SEES efficiency

TreeHugger ... What's wrong with this picture? ... on the matter of sustainability ... Tesla technology -v- lifestyle system

Burgess COMMENTARY
When you run the numbers (where numbers represent the technical reality of our socio-enviro-economic system) it becomes apparent that the US system is extremely inefficient while at the same time being very profitable (for owners). There are all sorts of opportunities to make the system more efficient, and in the process do a lot of good for people who want to work for their living. In some ways I think this is the basis of Lloyd Alter's essay. Peter Burgess truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess

What's wrong with this picture?

tesla roof tiles © Tesla

A quiet complaint from Mike, an architect I admire in Seattle:
mike elias🎁n @bruteforceblog
net zero energy homes and electric vehicles are mostly indulgences for wealthy white homeowners living in unsustainable environs
3:05 PM - 10 Dec 2016
8 8 Retweets 28 28 likes

A response from Sheena, an architect I admire in Toronto:
Sheena Sharp @sheenasharp
Oh, get a life. SOMEONE has to be on the bleeding edge. I applaud them, all colours of them. https://twitter.com/bruteforceblog/status/807677585513533441 …
6:02 PM - 10 Dec 2016
1 1 Retweet 3 3 likes

It is food for thought, a whole banquet in fact. I have always been a bit troubled with the obsession with electric cars, and always quote a decade-old piece Alex Steffen wrote in Worldchanging about a presentation he did to a group of Tesla engineers, where he said that the car (back then, the Roadster) 'though undoubtedly cool, went nowhere near far enough to be called sustainable.'

He wrote:

The response surprised me. After my talk, scores of people approached me or emailed me to ask, in generally polite tones, what the hell I was talking about? How could a car that gets 135 mpg-equivalent not be a major harbinger of sustainability? Because the answer to the problem of the American car is not under the hood, and we're not going to find a bright green future by looking there.

Steffen continued: 'The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car, but eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go.' In the decade since he wrote that, over 319,000 highway-legal plug-in electric cars have been sold in the United States. It's growing, but it is a rounding error compared to the number of SUVs and pickups sold, as America actually goes backward on average fuel economy.

Meanwhile, in 2015 alone, 12.5 million bicycles were sold. The number of cyclists commuting since 2008 increased by 68 percent to almost a million Americans. These are usually people who live within a few miles of where they work, usually at higher densities. And its not just your treehuggers saying saying this; Just this month, in its strategy for decarbonization, the White House wrote that we not only should be moving away from gasoline powered cars, but from cars altogether by embracing smart growth, where people can get around in other ways:

Transportation energy demand is influenced not only by available technology but also by societal trends. Improved and highly utilized mass transit, higher-density and mixed-use development, increased and efficient ridesharing, and walkable and bikeable neighborhoods can reduce the usage of passenger vehicles

benefits of smart growth ... Effect of smart growth on fuel consumption/Public Domain

They showed this remarkable graph that showed how much less traffic there would be, and how much less energy would be used, if we actually promoted these strategies. That's why this TreeHugger promotes radical building efficiency and changing the way we live so we don't need cars, instead of oohing over all this new tech made of lithium and silicon. But everyone is excited about Net Zero houses with solar panels on their roofs, even though, as I have said before,

Rooftop solar disproportionately favors those who have rootops, preferably big ones on one-story houses on big suburban lots. Those people tend to drive a lot.

this or this image © Bronwyn Barry

Or as Passive House architect and promoter Bronwyn Barry notes,

Electric vehicles are not a panacea either. While they may serve as a transitional technology, they still require massive infrastructure. Roads, freeways, tunnels, bridges and parking garages all require the use of asphalt and concrete. These materials generate carbon emissions during their manufacturing process – tons of it – and are never included in vehicle Co2 emission calculations. When all these added costs and emissions are finally included in the home energy equation, our current obsessive focus on right-sizing a home’s solar PV to zero out the utility bill will soon look quaintly myopic.

Follow
Kenneth Trease @kptrease
@bruteforceblog sharing walls + sufficient density for frequent transit was decent solution many years ago. No need for bleeding edge.
2:57 PM - 11 Dec 2016 · Seattle, WA
Retweets 1 1 like

Really, I get so much flak when I complain about Teslas and even more when I complain about net zero, and here I am whining about both together. Superficially it is all very silly, complaining about electric cars and solar roofs as if they are not wonderful things. But they suck up so much air. While it is all beautiful and aspirational, and I wish everyone could have it, we spend far too much attention on the niche markets and not enough on the big picture.

Designing our future around electric cars driving to single family houses, even if they are net zero, is just not going to scale. I'm kind of with Mike, we have to stop hyping this stuff as the answer to our problems, its not. But it helps, I wouldn't mind having a Model 3 and hey, I happen to be lucky and rich enough to have a south facing roof. Perhaps I can happily write about both?

Who do you agree with
Mike: 'indulgences for the wealthy living in unsustainable neighborhoods'
Sheena: 'Someone has to be on the bleeding edge'
Fence-sitting Lloyd: 'Why not both?'
Other (in comments)

Show 2 New Comments Avatar freedomev • 37 minutes ago Lloyd, wrong on this as usual. You do realize most people live in the US where a bicycle isn't viable don't you? It was great in Key Weird/West but rather useless in Tampa. The future is in between with smaller homes with people working from home or close to work and lightweight EVs for any weather and no smelly, sweaty at work and getting fired if I kept I up as I got from riding a bike to work. Then people like me who can no longer pedal a bike now, even a pedal controlled one like I own now for more than a short distance. So you can take you opinion and, I'll be nice. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar tpolen61 • an hour ago Just getting people to switch from gas to electric for their car is difficult enough. There's no way that a large percentage of the population will ditch their car entirely. If you make it too expensive to own a car in the city, people will move somewhere cheaper and drive more miles. While conventional EVs are nowhere near the solution, they are the best we can achieve in the US on a large scale. If someone can make the jump straight to walking/cycling/telecommuting and eliminate the car, great for them. However, for a lot of people, this will not happen, either because of personal habits or needs. That being said, I picked the smallest and (at the time) most efficient EV that suited my needs. It's saved me about $5,000 in fuel over the last 4 years, and currently runs on solar power. I plan to keep it for quite a while, either until it no longer suits my needs or my needs can't justify a car. As for what's wrong with the picture, all I see are strange roof lines that waste a ton of space. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Mark Chapmon • 2 hours ago As long as there is such a thing as rural America, the above picture is a GREAT thing for those who, for whatever reason, don't live close to mass transit and don't have the option to telecommute. Living in a dense urban neighborhood is fine in some cases. In others, there is enough crime to make it intolerable. 1 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar jay hardy • 13 hours ago well, I believe strongly in DE-centralization in all aspects. So I'm into a solar array on every rooftop-- not just a centralized one owned by the power company. We live on a farm in rural Iowa so an electric car with 200 mile range is nearly a necessity. The types of employment that these two things alone would provide for our area is great. Add that to a permiculture agiforestry farm on every 40-80 acres and not an ag-business farming 1200 acres with 2 part-time helpers would be a sustainable and enriching life. See 'Dirty Life', 'Restoration Agriculture', 'Resilient Farm', 'Miraculous Abundance'. 2 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Bob Zielazinski • 13 hours ago A gentle reminder that the bus companies that used to serve this country were bought up by corporate raiders, stripped of all their assets, and ran into bankruptcy...about the same time as the development of the interstate highway system and the massive move to suburbia with its' corresponding need for multiple cars per household. Which is to say - In America, if you want to understand a problem, do not look at who suffers from it, but examine who makes money from it. The true savior of our environment will be the person who figures out how to make money from reconfiguring our society. Tons of money...he/she will need it all to fight of the leeches that are sucking us dry today. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar GCO • 18 hours ago What's wrong with the first picture? That sites like this one keep acting like only one company makes EVs — the least-efficient, highest-embedded-energy ones. A Model X doesn't quite fare the same, sustainability-wise, than an i-MiEV or Smart ED. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Kaslo • 18 hours ago '...electric vehicles are mostly indulgences for wealthy white homeowners living in unsustainable environs' While that may be true, these vehicles are made largely by blue-collar workers. With impending climate disaster and pollution issues in Asia, we are already seeing many oil&gas jobs not coming back. So why not let all the auto sector jobs go while we're at it? Really? And some wonder how we got to Trump...? In fact, many auto companies already are accepting the changes coming, that is with autonomous vehicles and the transition to a service industry model, vs an ownership one. But it won't happen overnight... (see http://www.edie.net/news/5/How... ) • Reply•Share ›

Avatar peted66616 • 18 hours ago Bottom line: it takes a revolution to fix all the problems at once. Revolutions are extremely painful, and usually come with new problems. The electric car is an excellent step in the evolutionary process of weaning ourselves off the motor vehicle teat. Even if the ideal future involves fewer or even no personal vehicles, we'll want the rest of the transportation infrastructure to work. The technology developed for EVs can be a big part of that. Heck, even for bikes…as regenerative braking and other EV technologies trickle down to bikes, the constraints on using bikes for transportation get significantly reduced, even for someone's '83 year old mom'. In any case, we're clearly not on the verge of a major shift in housing and transportation habits. While we work on that, the EV provides a much more environmentally sound approach to powering transportation. Oh, on the question of housing: high-density housing is a great idea, and solves a lot of efficiency issues. That said, it creates other issues that need to be addressed, if high-density housing it going to be a major part of future culture. Putting a large number of people in close proximity to each other creates stress and conflict, and housing design needs to take this into account. In addition, municipalities need to enact and effectively enforce good regulations to minimize this stress and conflict (e.g. noise limits, rules for shared spaces, etc.) Unfortunately, I'm not able to wait for those kinds of improvements. I admit to being part of the problem, by constructing a large house in a rural area (two strikes!) to satisfy the perceived needs of our family and my own sensitivity to inconsiderate neighbors. The house's size and cost fit what I think many people would consider 'ridiculous', and frankly our efforts to mitigate the impact of the construction and maintenance of the house (e.g through energy efficiency measures) could be perceived as hypocritical (i.e. some might say 'if you really care so much about the environment, then build a smaller house closer to public services instead of wasting your money on the big house in the rural area'). To that, all I can say is that, everyone makes choices about their impact, and this is always balanced with a desire to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. We're doing the best we can, and reject the notion that there is only 'one right way' to reduce one's impact on the environment. It's a team effort, and while individual efforts are important, without cultural changes taking decades to achieve, the goal won't be reached. And to the extent that seemingly off-target technology and designs can and will contribute in the long run to those larger cultural changes, they are worthwhile even if they at first glance seem to miss the point. see more 2 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Mathew Michel peted66616 • an hour ago I just want to add that ride-sharing services would be able to improve 'most' styles of living. I think that would benefit the majority of people the most without requiring as many 'changes' on a personal level. I enjoyed reading your perspective. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar lugger11 • 19 hours ago Yeah, i wish I could walk or bike or take a short bus ride to work. Of course that would be nice. But I don't want to have to live in a dense urban environment to do it. You'll never convince me otherwise. Sorry. How about instead of all the businesses centralized in a dense core leading to our commuter hell, they were to decentralize and go out in to the suburbs and or small-medium sized towns. That's my dream: good jobs outside of the city, with short manageable commutes, clean air and parks, and the kids play outside on grass instead of pavement at school.. 3 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Flatlander lugger11 • 18 hours ago Shorter: I wish I could live a more sustainable lifestyle, 'but I don't want to.' 1 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Lloyd Alter Mod lugger11 • 18 hours ago that is happening in a lot of places, I see it in Raleigh NC and suburban Washington like Silver Spring. It doesnt have to be one or the other. 3 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Ian Watson lugger11 • 19 hours ago To add to my first point, I think the best you can probably hope for is a European-style model (e.g. the UK, Germany) where many people live in smaller towns, but commute to central jobs (e.g. London, Munich) every day by train. Of course, that depends on having ubiquitous, reliable public transit. 3 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar freedomev Ian Watson • 32 minutes ago Hate to tell you but lightweight EV's can cost a lot less than buses, trains. My EV trike pickup and 14' boat/ cargo trailer only costs $300/yr to run everything included. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Mathew Michel Ian Watson • an hour ago This is what we need the most...'ubiquitous, reliable public transit'. It can't come soon enough. Driving a car (while enjoyable at times), is definitely a waste of time. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar freedomev Mathew Michel • 29 minutes ago Waiting for buses, trains is a waste of time. My E trike at 15mph regularly beat buses by 2 hrs going downtown from Riverview to Tampa. And the buses don't run after 7pm and barely on weekends. • Reply•Share › Show 1 new reply

Avatar Ian Watson lugger11 • 19 hours ago That's a nice dream, but a decentralized company will have a really hard time finding employees. Sure, you could place your head office in a small town instead of a city, but what are the chances that small town has enough qualified people to fill your company's employee needs? Sure, some people from the town will be qualified, and some employees will move there, but more likely most employees will just commute to the small town. Also, businesses need to be by other businesses. 2 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar m. graham • 19 hours ago Without reading the other comments first, rich suburbanites are going to be the people driving the innovation needed to bring clean technologies to everyone. Public funding for these efforts are nominal and cities are already leveraged to the hilt providing current infrastructure improvements. It's perhaps sad but true that we're going to all have to gush over the electric cars and solar rooftops for a while longer until thinking about decentralized power and alternative transportation seep through the rest of society. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Flatlander m. graham • 18 hours ago Rich urbanites and rich urban developers bring a lot of sustainability innovations too (including the simple fact of making walkable cities with livable density). Of course, they don't innovate on electric cars because they take the more effective route of making cars unnecessary. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Antony Ingram • 20 hours ago While getting people out of cars is a sensible idea, it's also not always realistic. While electric vehicles still represent a small segment of the market, it's also a growing one - and while all vehicles require significant energy to produce, it's ultimately better that a growing proportion of the vehicles being built are electric, since the impact of use over the average car's lifecycle (on fossil fuels) is greater than the impact of its construction. This does mean of course that an EV's construction makes for a greater proportion of its lifetime impact... but ultimately it's better overall in the long run. And going back to my first line - it's the only option for some. I don't think the 'I manage cycling everywhere just fine, why can't everyone else?' attitude is a healthy one - the goal should be supporting improvements in all areas and for all lifestyles. 4 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Lloyd Alter Mod Antony Ingram • 18 hours ago I am not saying that it is, I have a nice new Subaru and I am of the age that cycling won't always be the right thing for me. I just really do think that we devote too much attention to the low density suburban model with rooftop solar and not enough to denser forms that can actually support transit and cycling. 1 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar jay hardy Lloyd Alter • 13 hours ago we lived in both Seattle and just south of San Francisco and both have great ways to get around via public transit with bicycles in tow. And some way to really double-down on combination of zoning/land lease/zero-lot-line development without 'developers' and the rentier class would be ideal. Don't see it happening short of a revolution however. So denser forms with supporting transit and cycling which doesn't make them money is a hard-sell Lloyd. 1 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Bugsnuffer • 20 hours ago Wow, what the world really needs fewer of is unqualified critics who sit around and carp about why the world hasn't reordered itself around their ideas of how things should be. The goal of Tesla is to make electric cars that are affordable. Quoting bicycle sales while also mentioning that trucks are selling like crazy and we are backsliding on mileage is ok, but an electric car is not. Because no one wants to hear about your stupid bicycle story. Which isn't a story. You built this whole dumb thing on the 'don't focus on the wealthy,' but let's talk about bikes. Do they not favor the fit? (a dwindling minority in the US) and the young? Should I tell my 83 year old mom that Treehugger thinks she better get on a bike or face the scorn of her hugging peers? I am going to save this article as a prime example of how little thought goes into most people's professional progressive fantasies. 3 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Flatlander Bugsnuffer • 18 hours ago Totally agree that bicycles favor the ultra-fit minority. They also favor the rich to some extent, considering the cost of bicycles today. But cars and suburban living are simply unsustainable. I see grandparents on the subway every day, and I'd wager that mode of transport is more comfortable and safer for them than driving their own cars. And it is massively more sustainable. 2 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Mathew Michel Flatlander • an hour ago I disagree with 'ultra-fit' minority (especially since you can get electric assisted models). However, the bikes do cost quite a bit but if you can ditch your car for a decent portion of the year and commute I think the price is worth it. • Reply•Share › Show 1 new reply

Avatar Bugsnuffer Flatlander • 17 hours ago I agree, I was mostly lampooning the presentation of bikes as a simple solution. And I am not saying the roof or the electric car is a magical bag of beans either, it's a step on a journey. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Joel Taylor Bugsnuffer • 18 hours ago Because no one wants to hear about your stupid bicycle story. Which isn't a story. You built this whole dumb thing on the 'don't focus on the wealthy,' but let's talk about bikes. Do they not favor the fit? (a dwindling minority in the US) and the young? Should I tell my 83 year old mom that Treehugger thinks she better get on a bike or face the scorn of her hugging peers? Thing to remember about Lloyed and most of the other very vocal pro-bike writers is that their point of view is heavily urban focused where bikes, trikes, quadracycles*, velomobiles and their e-bike counter parts make tremendous sense. Like with electric cars, solar panels and other less then mainstream tech, someone needs to be there to push for it, to be an early adopter. E-assist is there for those of us who are older and/or out of shape. There are a lot of older folks riding around my small town on e-trikes lately (the last 2 years or so). Having said that I've butted heads with him a few times on the 'behind the handle bars' view (nod toward 'behind the windshield') and butted heads with others when they start promoting the 'replace all cars with bikes' line. Reminding them that there are places and jobs that bikes simply can not do with our current population distribution and transit systems. * I learned that Ohio actually made quadracycles legal this year by amending their bicycle definition to drop the wording about the number of wheels. Which I applaud as my state doesn't recognize adult trikes (tadpoles or deltas) as being bikes. Our local definition for bike specifically includes the words 'two wheels in tandem' in it, so more then two wheels or non tandem (google - 'Mutant Big Wheel') and it's not a bike. >_< 1 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Lloyd Alter Mod Joel Taylor • 18 hours ago I have never said that I am against cars, I have a brand new Subaru. I have never said replace them all either. But people who live at higher densities than are shown in that picture do not have to drive their cars all the time. I think we pay far too much attention to cars and not enough to making it possible for people to live without them. Perhaps my problem is that I am not an unqualified critic, but an architect who has been involved with urban design for 35 years and have seen what has happened with the explosion of car dependent suburbs. My problem is far less with the Tesla than the house it is parked in. The air is improved if all the cars are electric but almost everything else stays the same. And as for the 83 year old mom, read this post about what happens when she loses her licence. We cannot keep designing our cities around cars, particularly with an aging population. http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/... I am 64. I ride a bike and walk everywhere instead of using my car in the hope that when I am 84 I still can. I am not being doctrinaire about this issue but really, any time I question the brilliance of Tesla I get attacked, so I shouldn't be taking Mr. Bugsnuffers comment so personally. 3 • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Bugsnuffer Lloyd Alter • 17 hours ago I was not attacking you because you said something about Tesla, criticize away, I have my own criticisms. I was attacking the pat dismissal of the path they are trying to take. Their concept, like it or not, is that you have to sell to the top of the pyramid to move costs down. I looked at a row of TVs last night while I was at the store buying something else that BLEW my mind. And my own 47' still looks fantastic after 7 years. Those sets were a. not available 7 years ago, and b. are a fraction of the cost of what a good set was then. Meanwhile, the car industry, and the energy establishment, have ground along whining about how raising cafe standards is a horrible hardship. Then we get water guns on peaceful protestors, and Porter Ranch. Frankly, my strategy is a simple one: I will die before I give another dollar to them. I have a similar strategy with factory farming, and I'm 15 years in on that. At least you got a Subaru. I owned 2 Priuses. The story about their source code having 200K global variables and the fact that their trucks have gotten bigger and bigger as they have been selling Priuses made me put them on the kill list as well. • Reply•Share ›

Avatar Joel Taylor Lloyd Alter • 18 hours ago Sorry Lloyed, I was worried about the wording on that and was about to edit it. You haven't been among those who are vocal for replacing all cars. • Reply•Share ›