A great Sunday experience: Thompson's Mills State Heritage Site

Image by Koocheekoo via FlickrI'm kinda partial to entertainments that you can walk or bike to from within Salem, but there are times I'll make an exception, such as the always amazing Oregon Garden. And this one. Here's what I wrote to a friend after our visit last Sunday to "Thompson's Mills," in what was (briefly) Boston, Oregon.

Went to above named state park yesterday just south of Tangent, Oregon (near the booming metropolis of Shedd, formerly Shedd's Station, named after the station built after the railroad bypassed Boston, causing most of the town to be moved about a mile west to straddle the tracks, leaving nothing but the Mills behind, necessarily unable to move while dependent on water power).

Fascinating tour of the world made by hand. Mill established in 1858, run to produce human food (flour from local wheat) until about 1940 or so (unclear date) then they shifted to making animal feed mixtures and pellets (which uses steam, I forgot to ask what they made steam with). They were processing soy at the end, when in 1986, they converted to making just electricity (100 kW) for 20 years under contract to Pacificorps. The state bought it in 2004 and has made it a park.

They employed 12 men at peak. They first electrified in 1906, when the owner put a generator on the mill so he could run power to his house. The land originally was bought for $50 and the water rights for $75, and those rights essentially made them kings of the valley and enemy of the neighbors during summer months of no rain. It had to have been a hellish place to work in some respects, pleasant at other times. I imagine they were all deaf as posts after a few years.

The millstones were from France, the machines from Chicago and Saginaw and such places. You get the idea that we will soon be looking at those machines the way the south sea natives looked at airplanes, wondering how they worked and what magic we could call on to get them to work again.

With some money, the mill could be rebuilt to work, but the state is selling the water rights to ensure more water for salmon in the Calapooia River, which I didn't even know salmon could reach, since it ties into the Willamette above Oregon City, and I didn't think salmon got above the falls there.

Anyway, next time you come down, you should come down to Salem and we can go see it. It's worth a trip.

Doubtless there is no amount of money you could pay to get the Amtrak Cascades to stop in Shedd -- too bad, it would make a great day trip if you could buy an Amtrak ticket, go up and down the valley and walk from Shedd to Thompson's Mills with your lunch.

Saturday is chore day -- need a tool? Why not borrow one?

Image by takomabibelot via FlickrSalem Public Library has taken the first step in this direction, offering the "Kill-a-Watt" home energy consumption devices for loan. Now it's time to ramp up the offerings.

Our Finite World -- another must-read post

Image by -Mandie- via Flickr"Gail the Actuary" writes some of the smartest, easiest-to-read, plain-English explanations of why we're in for a world of hurt in her blog, "Our Finite World," which is mainly about our collective failure to recognize that finite nature. Another must-read is here.

A momentary ray of sunshine or an aberration?

Image by sroemerm via FlickrFinally, some great news. We're going to stop subsidizing the insane process of turning 40% of America's corn crop into 3% of our motor fuel supply (while making the climate much worse off).

Not that we're going to stop doing the insanity, but at least we won't be both hanging ourselves AND paying a juicy subsidy to those selling us the rope.

Comment from Friends of the Earth, one of the few major enviro groups to beam onto the disaster that is ethanol early:

We scored a victory this afternoon! Senators voted by a margin of 73-27 to end a major giveaway for dirty corn ethanol.

This vote is major progress in our fight to end subsidies for environmentally harmful industries -- progress that the pundits, as well as the powerful biofuels and agribusiness lobbies, would have called impossible just two years ago. But Friends of the Earth has been working with a diverse coalition of environmental groups, fiscal conservatives, agricultural interests, food producers and anti-hunger advocates to amass congressional support for ending ethanol giveaways -- and today we won bipartisan support from every corner of the country except the Corn Belt.

You -- Friends of the Earth members and activists -- own a big piece of this victory. Over the past two years, nearly 30,000 Friends of the Earth activists have taken action to educate policymakers about the environmental costs of corn ethanol and to call on Congress to end these subsidies.

Today, our voices were heard -- and senators sent a decisive message that the days of the biofuels industry living high off the taxpayers' hog have come to a close.

There is still more work to do -- the House still needs to vote to end the ethanol giveaway -- but today, join me in celebrating this win for the public and the environment.

WORD: The only way forward is by rebuilding the middle class

Join with "Move to Amend" to plan July 4 Teach-In on Corporate Personhood

Image by takomabibelot via FlickrSalem's chapter of Move to Amend is meeting at Clockworks Cafe & Cultural Center tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 22) at 5:30 p.m. to help plan events for July 4, with the intent of helping educate people about the dire need to reclaim our democracy from the machines (corporations) that have taken over the exercise of most political power and who are marginalizing real people at a breathtaking speed.

In preparation for the meeting Wednesday at 5:30 at the Clockworks, I am sending along this link: http://movetoamend.org/July4

Its from the Move To Amend website - ideas for 4th of July action(s). I don't have the agenda ready just yet, but it will be dominated by discussion and perhaps break-out sessions to brainstorm about ways to educate the public about the current state of our 'democracy' on the anniversary of our nation's founding. The link above is filled with ideas.

See you Wednesday!

Kerry

Another giveaway to oppose, quick!

Yikes! Hundreds of teachers and librarians laid off in Salem, many more across the state. Meanwhile, the Lege is seriously considering pumping money into a for-profit School-o'-Matic dealie that would profit one particular legislator greatly?!

URGENT ACTION: Stop Matt Wingard’s Bill From Coming Back From The Dead

Today, after much public outcry, legislators stood up for Oregon students and narrowly voted down Rep. Matt Wingard’s pet bill--House Bill 2301, which would divert tax dollars away from our public schools to for-profit virtual school vendors. The bill would have been a boon to Wingard and Connections Academy, the for-profit online charter school corporation that pays him.

Wingard’s self-dealing on this bill drew strong criticism from many Oregonians, who were angry that this bill was negotiated behind closed doors, all for the financial benefit of one legislator. This opposition kept the bill from passing today.

But now, some legislators are feeling pressure to change their votes. The Oregon House is likely to bring back the bill for another vote, as early as tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.

Click here to take action and tell legislators to vote no--AGAIN.

In a legislative session when critical bills can’t even get one vote in the House (BPA Ban, Tuition Equity, Foreclosure Protection), we’re seriously going to give Wingard a second vote on his self-dealing bill that would do real harm to our public schools that are already suffering? A second chance to line his own pockets with taxpayer dollars?

We’ve asked a lot of you in the past few weeks, and it’s made a big difference. With this important bill on the line, we need you to join us once again in telling our legislators to stand up for Oregon students and say NO to Matt Wingard’s self-serving bill—again.

Go here or call 1-800-332-2313 to be connected by phone.

A Summer Solstice Warning: for every person with a child or grandchild who will inherit our planet

Commentary: Slam on the brakes!

Reading all these price predictions by peaksters, I'm reminded of the Austrian economist Murray Rothbard who said, "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

We know that the media (government / business / religious leaders) are giving very little attention to Peak Oil, but I would like us to consider what we, the Peak Oil community, are not talking about:

We're not talking about slamming the brakes on fossil fuels.

Even as our contribution to creating Peak Oil awareness begins to see a little light (at least in some circles), I am concerned that we will be so worried about saving our own bacon or appearing to be rational that we will fail to take posterity into account. If we are to save just a little oil for our children, we need to just plain stop using oil (gas, coal).

"Conservation" doesn't capture the urgency of our existential moment in history. In fact, conservation is like a salve to assuage the conscience of well-meaning people who are stuck in “business as usual.” We can be conned into thinking that we are doing our part by swapping out incandescent light bulbs.

Why can't we just use less oil? If you are drowning, drowning slower isn't going to save your life.

If you are in the know (Peak Oil), it's not about telling others to slow down. We have to abandon the artifacts of the oil-based economy and retool.

It requires a fundamental shift. It's about transforming society from oil to ingenuity. We must slam on the brakes and turn about-face.

Nuclear power swirled down into the ocean in March and humanity's perceived energy options narrowed sharply. We are back to where our great-grandparents were their whole lives: figuring out from-one-day-to-the-next how to live within a solar budget. They did it (or we wouldn't be here having this conversation). We can do it too.

But we have to shift gears.

We are sliding down the back side of the peak, and just like with most mountains, the dark side is steeper than the sunny side. Will it be a soft or hard landing? Well... it depends:

If we have already used up too much of our natural resources, it will be a hard landing. (Time will tell.)

If we "conserve," I don't see how we can avoid a hard landing. Going slower sliding off the cliff is still sliding off the cliff.

We are aiming at the tail feathers of the goose that passed by here already a while ago. We need a word somewhere between conservation (voluntary) and deprivation (involuntary, Mother Nature's decision) - something to make it obvious that we aren't stuck promoting the same old baggage. The ship is going down. I repeat: we must jettison the artifacts of oil. If we hang onto them, they will sink us for good. (Some of Cortez' men loaded their pockets with gold as they were escaping the Aztecs. When a causeway collapsed, many of them sank like stones and drowned.)

What legacy are we leaving for our children? What robust assets will they have at their disposal to climb back out of the hole we put them into? Why are we postponing this radical change? By waiting even one day, we are willy nilly leaving the solution up to our children. But what advantage are we giving them by drilling for more oil, mining more coal, fracking more gas? We are handing them a polluted world, a mountain of debt, hobbled with depleted resource deposits, and blindfolding them - all the while talking seriously about the price of oil for the next year.

We aren't calling enough attention to carbon-based boondoggles ("shovel-ready" projects). Anyone who designs a system or artifact (highway, bridge, tunnel, airport, automobile, bus) that depends on imported oil is a traitor. After all, eight presidents in a row have proclaimed that imported oil is a threat to national security. Promoting a construction project to convey vehicles operating on mostly imported oil is now an act of treason.

I hear the question, "What percentage of our energy demand can be replaced by renewables?" There are two unchallenged assumptions that frame this question and illuminate our fossil-fuel mindset.

1. One good answer is none. "Replacement" suggests doing things the same way. We can't "replace" oil with sunshine any more than we were able to "replace" horses with high-speed 4-legged robots shaped like horses. We jettisoned horses and made devices with engines and wheels. Now we must jettison devices with engines and wheels that are 1% efficient, that weigh 2 tonnes to move 100 kg.

For example, what about biodiesel? Consider this thought exercise. Define inefficient = stupid. A car engine is 13% efficient (per RMI); the average car weighs about 4000 lbs (per DOE, DOT) and carries an average of less than 200 lbs; that's 5% efficient. So 13% (engine) * 5% (mass) = 0.65% < 1% efficient = stupid.

Now how do we get biodiesel? Photosynthesis can convert 3-6% of sunshine into soybean plants. Then we take the oily portion of the plant (you can't make oil out of the stems) so even assuming that it takes zero energy to harvest and process that plant material into oil, your net efficiency is <<1% = stupid. (Using 100 gal/acre/year, I estimated that 0.05% of the sun's energy is converted to soy biodiesel. I've heard of yields as high as 600 gal/acre/year for "next-generation" biofuels. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and we're at 0.3% efficient, still <<1%. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Now put that <<1% efficient biodiesel (stupid) into a car that is <1% efficient (stupid) and you get << 0.01% efficient. The result? Compound stupid."

2. Another answer is 100%. Built into the question (remember the question, "percentage of energy ... replaced by renewables") is the curious assumption that we have a choice. We don't.

Most of humanity lived within a solar budget until World War II.

As near as I can tell, we have no option but to return to 100% renewables, whatever that may look like. (I'm all ears if you think you have found something else.) With the incredible amount of knowledge and skills we have gained during the fossil fuel era, we are much more capable than our grandparents to take on the task. If we are to avoid becoming a dead branch on the evolutionary tree, we will switch to renewables now so we can leave something for our children to work with.

It's not "practical." We will face skepticism and ridicule. But those who embrace renewables now will be the sellers in the post-oil economy, and there will be plenty of buyers who postponed the inevitable shift.

Slam on the brakes! Save the oil!

======================

Ron Swenson, ASPO-USA Board of Directors (Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent the position of ASPO-USA.)

Editorial Note: Ron Swenson's call to reconsider the tenor of our debate in its entirety is the full version of his excerpt originally found here in the third edition of “ASPO-USA Asks: What are we missing?" from early June 2011. The first two parts of that series are available here and here.

Watch for the Sausage Being Made in the Rush for the Exits

Image via WikipediaA real Oregon heroine, Jody Wiser, founder of Tax Fairness Oregon, sends this warning about an insanely stupid measure being jammed through at the last minute:

Another Bad Idea Gets Passed – Please Help to Stop It

Thursday was a deeply disappointing day in Salem.

The last two months have been good. I’ve watched as the Joint Tax Credit Committee, whose work this session has been so arduous, cut excessive tax code spending in place after place. They’ve done difficult and excellent work.

But as their final act of the year, they turned around and passed out of committee SB 817, creating the ironically titled “Oregon Low Income Jobs Initiative,” a bill that will actually give $78 million to an out-of-state money management firm and others like it, because they in turn agree to loan no more than $66 million to businesses in Oregon. Think what the Oregon State Bank might have done with that lost $78 million.

The travesty in this ill-considered bill is that if the state itself loaned the whole $78 million out, it could not only be more selective about what businesses it supported, it would get back the $78 million plus interest, and be able to loan that money out again and again. But with SB 817, Advantage Capital and a few other financial management companies will get the $78 million, loan out $66 million for six years or more, and after that, the whole $78 million plus all interest earnings are theirs.

The businesses that will receive the loans set up by SB 817 need not be anything special, need not hire any new employees, need not serve needy Oregonians. They do need to place themselves in lower income areas in Oregon--but the legal definition in the bill includes every acre of several counties and much of downtown Portland, Medford, Eugene, Beaverton and many other communities.

The Oregon New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) piggybacks on the unsuccessful Federal NMTC. According to a GAO report last year based on NMTC’s own data, it’s impossible to know whether its projects would have taken place even without the tax credit. Under the guise of helping needy communities, the Federal NMTC has funded projects like Portland’s Gerding and Schnitzer theaters and the Nines Hotel atop Macy’s.

In the hearing Thursday only one legislator, Rep. Phil Barnhart, asked a single substantive question that showed careful reading of the bill. He rightfully identified the full cost of the bill as $78 million. Reps Bailey and Brewer insisted he was wrong, that it was only $16 million. But Barnhart was right. When they later learned that the cost of the bill was nearly five times more than they thought, Bailey, Brewer, and every other committee member except Barnhart voted for the bill. It now moves to the Senate and House with a “do pass” recommendation.

There is still time to stop this travesty on the Senate and House floors. It may be taken up as soon as Monday. Please contact your State Legislators today and tell him or her that Oregon doesn’t need a tax giveaway that has already been discredited at the Federal level. Instead, let’s use our limited tax revenue for essential services.

Do it, just act:

If you need more guidance on what to ask, consider these points:

Questions for SB 817-1 proponents of the New Market Tax Credits:

· Why would you vote for legislation that passes out tax credits on a first come first serve basis? Don’t you believe the Oregon Business Development Department should choose amongst applicants, funding only those that will provide the best benefits to the low income communities? (Original bill, page 4 lines 33)

· Why would you pass out tax credits for $78 million but say that only 85% of it must be invested in Oregon? (Original bill, page one, line 29) What happens to the nearly $12 million that doesn’t need to be invested in Oregon?

· On page five, lines 28-32 there is another 15% that doesn’t need to be invested in an Oregon qualified low-income community investment. Is that an additional $12 million or the same $12 million as on page one? Can this money be taken as advisor fees for the money management businesses called “Community Development Entities”? The bill has no limits on fees.


· Ten states have had or currently have state side NMTC programs as in SB 817. If this mechanism is expected to bring more Federal NMTC dollars to Oregon, why has it not worked for 9 of the 10 states which have to date received fewer federal NMTC dollars per capita than Oregon receives without a state side program?

· Wouldn’t investing in a state bank be better?

· Without further amendment, it appears that as much as $4.8 million of each year’s $16 million doesn’t need to be invested in an Oregon qualified low-income community business, and that Oregon has no say in which businesses get up to $4 million each.

We note that the Oregon Business Development Department (OBDD) is not advocating for SB 817. This could be because:

1) Oregon already has other loan programs wherein the interest and principal return to the state rather than being lost to “Community Development Entities” (CDEs)

2) Where the costs for managing the programs are far below those collected by CDEs; and

3) Where the OBDD is able to target the loans.

If the Legislature wants state investments targeted to actual job creation in low income communities (as differentiated from moving jobs from one building to another as is typical with NMTC projects) then they should write that legislation.

For the Record: Oregon per-student spending LAGS the nation

Image by Paradox 56 via FlickrThere's a bizarre current of debate in Oregon where the know-nothings allege that Oregon spends a bundle on schools, with lots of it going to "illegals" (the preferred term among the anti-public-schools crowd for the children of non-citizens, whether their parents are here with proper documents for entry or not).

For the record then, here's a link to a very important piece worth filing away for the next time you're trapped with some gasbag who tells you that we would be fine if we just "got back to basics" and stopped providing so much lavish education, especially to the "illegals." An unusually good article in the local paper, by Betsy Hammond:

Oregon School Spending Trails National Average

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon has firmly established itself as a state that spends 7 percent less per student in public schools than the nation as a whole, according to federal data released last week.

Nationally, U.S. public schools spent $10,500 per student in 2008-09, the most recent year for which statistics have been nailed down for every school district. In Oregon, schools spent $9,800.

Oregon's pattern of spending 93 cents for every $1 spent nationally has become entrenched since 2002-03, when the Legislature slashed school funding as the economy tanked, prompting Hillsboro to lop 17 days off the school year. . . .

What is clear, Tapogna said, is that all trends suggest Oregon schools will continue to have to cut offerings, raise class sizes or shorten the school year in coming years.
"It is going to be, fiscally, a very challenging decade," he said.

Corrections and health care costs are growing faster than the economy, crowding out public schools and particularly higher education from their normal share of state spending, he said. The cost of employee benefits, particularly for the state pension system, is expected to surge in coming years, he said. . . .

A huge infusion of federal stimulus dollars blunted the impact on schools during the past few years, he said, but that money is gone. For next year, "the numbers are going to look really bad. We're not just talking about not climbing very much, we are talking about dropping. ... This will be the worst year that your school districts will have, even though the recession ended a while back."