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Energy Independence & Emergency Preparedness, Part I December 21 2006

A massive windstorm swept through Western Washington early last Friday morning, knocking down power lines and leaving 700,000 of Puget Sound Energy's one million customers without electricity. That's right: Seventy per cent (70%) of the PSE grid was knocked out. In Seattle, City Light's grid lost power for 175,000 customers. (I'm assuming customers means "accounts," or households.) A week later, many people are still without power, as Seattle City Light and Puget Sound Energy crews scramble to restore service.

Centralization of Utilities and National Security
The centralized electrical grid is subject to disruption by storms, floods, earthquakes and, dare we say it, terrorist activity. Our centralized water supply is similarly vulnerable. (As is waste treatment...although the effects of disruption of our sewage treatment system might be more unpleasant than immediately dangerous....) I vividly remember Jim Bell, a ecological designer from San Diego, doing a slide presentation in 1992 or so for the then-fledgling EcoBuilding Guild. He first put up on the screen a map of San Diego, showing the six or seven aqueducts that supply the city coming in east to west down from the mountains. Then he added the five or six main electrical trunk lines, following similar east to west lines. And then a final slide that showed known earthquake fault lines, such as the San Andreas, all running NORTH and SOUTH, crossing every single water and power line. Seeing that convinced me on the spot that decentralized utilities was a concept that could garner support on both sides of the political fence.

First Easy Baby Steps
There are things that can be done to ameliorate the effects of outages. In our projects, even where clients have not "gone the extra mile" and installed off-the-grid electrical systems, just having a well-insulated house with a supplemental heat source that can operate without electricity (like a gas or wood fireplace), and appropriate circuitry for easily plugging in a gasoline-powered generator can make the difference between inconvenience and major disruption. Here's what one of my clients, for whom we recently designed a new house in an outlying area, had to say:

We don't have power back yet, but we're keeping warm. . . . Right now [our daughter's] room is a balmy 69F, our bedroom is 65, and the rest of the house is 57 and warming. . . . Once it's warm, the house retains heat AMAZINGLY well, but I'm sure that's what you and [the contractor] had planned :-). The fireplace warms the living room nicely and extends a bit into the dining room but we're definitely at some point going to want to do the work that we "postponed"--to get it hooked up to some sort of system that can distribute its heat more effectively. One of those "we need to stay within budget cuts that we made that I don't think we would have done differently but would definitely have been a "nice to have" right now." Still, without it, we're faring pretty well.
 
Because of the generator outlets you put in we're able to keep the computer on in the kitchen so we can stay "connected", power the TV, some basic lighting in each room as needed, keep the phones charged, and  power [our daughter']s entire room which was a GREAT decision - it means very very little changes for her and with the heat, makes for easy evening diaper changes and book reading, and she'll sleep soundly in her own room tonight as if there was no power outage at all.

Imagine however if you will, another scenario....in which power is generated, water is supplied, and waste is processed on a neighborhood or household scale. Stay tuned for Part II.