With gas prices at record highs and summer now in full swing, it's no surprise a recent survey of U.S. consumers found that 66 percent said they were changing summer vacation plans because of high gas prices, and 34 percent canceled their plans entirely.

Few analysts think that oil, now above $140 per barrel, will get back down to $100 (indeed, some are now talking openly of $200 barrel oil). So it's safe to say the US tourist economy is probably undergoing a big shift. But where is it shifting to, and what does it mean for local economies in the long run?  (read more)

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This is an excerpt from Daniel's blog. Read the full post, plus comments, at:
www.postcarboncities.net/blog

Photo credits:
Sarah Nichols

So, what do you do when you’re going nowhere? Millions of would-be vacationers are asking themselves this very question as the steep rise in gasoline prices and household staples is forcing them to forgo travel vacations.

And now there’s even a term the media has come up with to capture this phenomenon… one they can prattle on endlessly about: the staycation. But behind the cutesy play on language is the beginning of a very real shift—-one that promises to have some serious implications for both the economy and how Americans will (or won’t) spend their leisure time.

What People Are Doing
Across the country, news and television media stories tell the tale of three trends: people staying home for their family vacations, families cutting back on other vacation expenses in order to afford the travel costs or, often because of other financial pressures, families forgoing their vacations altogether.

On this Fourth of July holiday weekend, nearly a million people who traveled last year are staying home. And campgrounds all over the country are reporting larger numbers of visitors. According to a recent CNN poll, One third of Americans have canceled or shortened their holiday vacation plans because of gas prices. "72 percent said record gas prices have caused them to make changes in their daily lives, and 30 percent said those changes were major ones."

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported last month that Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April 2008 than the previous April, a decline of 1.8 percent. After six straight months of reduced driving, we're talking about 20 billion or so fewer highway miles driven in the States. At less than 2 percent reduction, that says more about how much Americans actually drive than how much their behavior has changed as a result of record high gas prices.

But consider just a few of the ripple effects on the economy and a 2 percent reduction doesn't seem all that small. For instance, the loss of government receipts from the $0.31/mile gasoline tax, which equates to about $167,000,000 less in federal tax dollars so far this year. (Let's ignore for a second the question of whether or not the government would make good use of that money.)

Impacts on the Economy
World tourism is arguably the largest service sector in the global economy. In 2007, tourism accounted for nearly 900 million international arrivals alone. In 2008, world tourism is expected to generate close to eight trillion dollars. International tourism is the U.S.’s largest service export—accounting for more than a quarter of service-industry exports and eight percent of exports all together.

And these numbers don’t account for domestic tourism, which are much harder to calculate.

Not surprisingly, industry groups are either in complete denial about the prospects for dramatic reductions in travel and tourism or just trying to paint a rosy picture.

Overall, the new TSA results reveal a moderate impact on the Travel & Tourism industry as a result of the global economic downturn, with its annual growth rate experiencing a slowdown in 2008, to 3%, in comparison to 3.9% in 2007.

Looking past this present cyclical downturn, the long-term forecasts point to a mature but steady phase of growth for world Travel & Tourism between 2009 and 2018, averaging a growth rate of 4.4% per annum, supporting 297 million jobs and 10.5% of global GDP by 2018.

WTTC President Jean-Claude Baumgarten explained "Challenges come from the US slowdown and the weak dollar, higher fuel costs and concerns about climate change. However, the continued strong expansion in emerging countries - both as tourism destinations and as an increasing source of international visitors - means that the industry's prospects remain bright into the medium term." (Source)

In either case, once you see the writing on the wall, it’s hard to take statements like those of the World Travel & Tourism Council seriously. And yet the impacts are very serious, indeed. Across the globe, governments are beginning to worry about the economic impacts of tourism.

Just this week, Caribbean leaders met to discuss the impacts of soaring oil prices on tourism, their core industry. In Australia, the Managing Director the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC), urged government assistance.

He said the federal government needed to give financial incentives for Australians to holiday in Australia in the next school holidays to help the industry recover.

It's got to happen or there are going to be thousands of small businesses across Australia who are going to go broke, they're on their knees at the moment," Australian Associated Press quoted Hingerty as saying.

He said high fuel prices had damaged tourism the same way the drought had hit the farming sector.

The pain will be felt most acutely in communities that depend on tourism as a staple of their local economy.

In Post Carbon Institute's little corner of the world, for example, tourism accounts for $1 billion annually—serving as a central component of Sonoma County’s workforce and revenue. Each year, the $23 million in tax receipts from visitors provides helps local governments fund much needed social services.

So how are communities responding?

It's early days yet, but some communities have shifted their focus to promote local attractions to those living nearby. Though I have to give the City of Burlington, North Carolina points for creativity, I doubt this strategy will be enough. Perhaps if high oil prices only impacted travel expenses, a shift to promote local tourism might work. But the truth is that vacation travel is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

One has to wonder how far down from its perch as the world's largest service sector the tourism industry will fall.

Since the summer solstice is now upon us, in this month's Relocalize, we thought to take a quick look at the solar landscape. Where do things stand with new technologies? What resources exist to help defray costs? Does solar work for everyone? Where can people get started?

Now, just two weeks ago, I might have struck a more optimistic chord. But then I was reminded that, in Washington, D.C., political grandstanding continues to take on more urgency than concerns over energy security, climate change or the economy.

On June 10th, opponents successfully blocked a vote on HR 6049 (The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008), which would have extended the solar tax credit, due to expire at the end of the year, until 2014. (I won't even bother to mention the other incentives included in the bill, including those for wind, geothermal, biomass and other promising renewable technologies.)

What's the big deal?

The ITC (investment tax credit) for solar not only serves as a major incentive for households to buy solar panels (up to $2,000 credit per residence), it plays a key role in business and government investment in photovoltaic systems (30% tax-break for businesses purchasing solar). It's estimated that 75% of non-residential solar installations are commercial power purchase agreements that rely on the federal tax credit.
Solar providers are warning of dire consequences to their business with the loss of this subsidy:

• "Arizona Public Service Co., for instance, has proposed what would be one of the largest solar-power plants in the world, capable of serving 70,000 homes or more. But utility executives have made it clear that they will kill the plans for the Solana Generating Station if the tax credit isn't extended past its Dec. 31 expiration date." (Source)
• The CEO of SunPower, one of the largest solar providers in the U.S., threatened to leave the U.S. market should the tax credit not be extended. "If the ITC doesn't happen, we can move our business elsewhere and make up for that. Is that a preferred solution? No. Does America lose jobs with that? Yes. But can we as a company hit ‘08 and ‘09 without the ITC? Yes." (Source)
• In California, Pacific, Gas & Electric's planned 550 megawatt solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert will likely be shelved without the tax credit: "With no ITC there will be no project," said Avi Brenmiller, CEO of Solel, the company tasked with building the plant. (Source)

And it's not just commercial solar projects that will be affected. While $2,000 may not seem like a lot when a typical residential system can cost tens of thousands, for many households like my own-with low usage or little capital-the solar tax credit can mean all the difference in the world. (Visit here to read about my own experience and to find related resources.

How? The ITC has been critical to the expansion of a number of creative financing programs that seek to attract the vast majority of residential home owners who can't afford to purchase a new photovoltaic system outright:

• SolarCity recently announced a program that would cut the average consumer's upfront cost from $25,000 to $2,000.
• SunRun effectively leases (with some upfront costs) their panels through power purchase agreements that provide consumers with a fixed rate (13.5 cents/kWh) for 20 years.

These are just a couple of examples of what's been a rapidly evolving industry. While a number of local municipalities are providing their own, tax-based incentives to spur adoption of solar (in my neck of the woods, for example, the City of Berkeley is financing the cost of solar panels for homeowners who agree to pay back for the system over 20 years through their property taxes), it's not merely government programs that would be hard hit by the loss of the solar tax credit. The examples cited above are for-profit enterprises.

Now, a common argument made by opponents of HR 6049 and other attempts to extend the ITC is that the government shouldn't be raising taxes to pay for the credits. This argument, frankly, is a canard. Previous attempts would have paid for the credits by rescinding tax breaks given to oil companies (which together made $36 billion in profit in just three months this year, twice as much as the entire credit package) back in 2005. HR 6049 would offset the credits by closing tax loopholes for those, like hedge fund managers, who work for certain offshore corporations and delays providing a tax benefit to multinational corporations operating overseas.

So this is not about a tax increase, it's about how we and to whom we choose to extend tax breaks. And what do most Americans think? A recent poll found that:

nearly three-quarters of Republicans (72 percent), Democrats (72 percent) and Independents (74 percent) favor an extension of the federal investment tax credits (ITC) as a way to encourage development of solar power and fund continued development of the technology. In contrast, only 8 percent of Americans believe the ITC should not be extended.

Another argument is that the government should allow the market to drive itself, conveniently forgetting the role that federal subsidies and research & development have long played in the development of the fossil fuel industry. Even in 2007, more than twice as much money was spent by the federal government on R & D for coal than solar.

I won't bother to mention other tax expenditures, but if you want to put federal investment in solar development into some context, take a gander here (warning for those with a sticky mouse, carpal tunnel syndrome or a queasy stomach).

Word has it that Senate leaders plan to reintroduce the bill this week on the floor. Who knows, perhaps by the time you read this, the sun will be shining again on the solar tax credit. In the meantime, if you want to share your thoughts about the Investment Tax Credit you can:

• Contact your elected official(s). You can find and contact your Representative here and Senator here.
• Write a letter to the editor. The Vote Solar Initiative helps you find your nearest newspaper and even provides some talking points for those who wish to support the solar tax credit.

The peak oil balloon, it may appear, is finally going up. Not only have we seen obvious signs like the highest oil price rise in history on June 6 (coincidentally the anniversary of D-Day which began the liberation of Europe in the Second World War), but Gordon Brown, accidental Prime Minister of a former oil exporting (1980-2005) country, may also be one of the unlikely envoys of truth.

At the end of May, in the UK Guardian newspaper, a left-leaning organ that the right-listing New Labour normally avoids like the plague, Brown says in no uncertain terms that the world is in trouble – we are "facing the third great oil shock", and it is now time to find alternatives to oil. "We must all act together" is the headline. A noble sentiment indeed. This is a most generous 'all', because it includes the OPEC cartel, who are no doubt thrilled to be called upon in this way, notwithstanding the fact that calling someone a nasty name ('cartel') is an unusual method of procuring favours from them.

In case the term 'balloon goes up' is unfamiliar, it derives from the First World War, when it was found that sending a balloon up was a good way of signaling over a long distance so that everyone could get synchronized in whatever it was they were trying to do. This was before text messaging and Facebook of course. I should admit that the purpose of this synchronization was not swimming or dancing but the launching of an artillery barrage, but that was not the balloon’s fault.

If the peak oil balloon really is going up, we should expect to see world leaders, politicians, business chiefs and the mainstream media in general realizing and admitting that something new is happening. Years of dismissing the rising oil price as part of the normal economic cycle should now suddenly give way to an understanding that cheap oil is dead. We should also see business leaders and the UN begin to grapple with the implications of a permanently declining oil supply.

When this happens, it might well be called the tipping point. And like the balloon going up, it really ought to be a trigger too. If we really are at these new points, which surely will be looked back on as extraordinary moments in history, it might be instructive to consider the nature of such changes and look for some of the signs that we are indeed tipping, triggering or ballooning.

A tipping point is the moment when a large change takes place as the result of a seemingly small change. What is often actually happening is that a long period of incremental change has brought us to a threshold, so that one further small change of the same type then suddenly causes a big shift. The metaphor refers to the plank on a fulcrum like a teeter-totter or a see-saw.

Metaphors and analogies can be both useful and misleading, but one thing that we won’t be doing is tipping the see-saw back the other way once we really start going into energy decline. It is quite possible that there will be self-reinforcing mechanisms which will tend to speed the decline up though there will also be tremendous efforts to slow the decline down. There will doubtless be some surprises in both directions and firm predictions will be hard to make with any certainty.

But are we really at the tipping point for peak oil? Well, yes, no and maybe.

It is true that the mainstream media are certainly in a lather about oil prices. On Friday, 6 June 2008, oil ended at $138.54, after leaping nearly $11 in one day, on the back of a $5 hike the previous day. Speculators were blamed by many, but this explanation is rather weak in any longer timeframe since if one buys an oil future then in the end it will be delivered to you unless you sell it to someone else. Ultimately that 'someone else' must be a refinery, since crude oil is virtually useless to anyone else.

The highest jump (0.5%) in U.S. unemployment figures for 22 years to 5.5% (exactly what it was this time four years ago – another U.S. election year1) has also been blamed for the oil leap, though it is a curious driver: higher unemployment should mean that the U.S. economy will weaken so that it will reduce demand which should in turn reduce the price of oil (the U.S consumes just under a quarter of all oil produced); but with the mess that the US economy is in, ironically a weaker economy also pushes the price up. Some mishtake, shurely?

In fact it is all quite logical: higher unemployment constrains the US Federal Reserve from raising interest rates (higher rates equals yet more unemployment), which means that the dollar weakens against the euro (and often against gold), which raises oil prices, since oil is priced is dollars, which are consequently worth less to those living outside the dollar zone, which includes most oil exporters. Two things make matters worse for the dollar: the Europeans are seriously considering raising their interest rates and the market is betting that the Fed won’t raise interest rates before the US presidential election (on November 4th).
One of the things that has greatly excited Americans lately is the glow derived from understanding European culture much better. It is not that there has been a sudden desire to listen to Wagner and Ravel, but rather that the average price of petrol or gasoline has just risen above $4 a gallon for the first time in U.S. history. This is causing Americans to drive less for perhaps the first time ever without there being a direct military trigger.

What concerns fewer North American drivers is the price of diesel. In many parts of America, this is now above $5. We know that Europeans would love to pay such low prices for petrol and diesel, but the two diverse continents do have one thing in common - the price of diesel has shot up much faster than petrol, and since diesel powers so much of the freight network in so many countries, this really should be a cause for anxiety everywhere.

In Europe, it is not just trucks and lorries that use diesel, but many passenger cars too. Currently over half of all new cars are diesel. So diesel hitting $10 a gallon in Europe is starting to cause personal behavior change in motorists in Europe as well as in the United States, where gasoline consumption has actually been falling markedly since late 2007.

Two other major causes of the price leap were literally just words, showing how powerful rhetoric really is – rhetoric being the art of persuasion, in some ways perhaps the most important tool in human life.
On this newly historic June 6th, a well known banking house, Morgan Stanley, opined that oil would hit $150 by July 4th, which few will need reminding is US Independence Day. I suspect that the irony of hitting a new milestone in oil dependence on that day was not lost on the troubled bank. Why should a few words from a bank make any difference? It turns out that several of the larger financial houses have quite a good record in predicting general oil price rises, and it is very likely that the market was responding in part to this forecast.

Finally, perhaps the most powerful overt driver of the historic price leap was generally the least mentioned, namely the potential for an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations by Israel. Media reports varied rather wildly, but there is no doubt that a storm erupted when Israel’s transport minister said in an interview that "If Iran continues its nuclear arms program — we will attack it." The Israeli government backed away from the statement, which was apparently the minister’s personal opinion, but the Israelis did bomb an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, so such threats are not to be taken lightly. This might be shaking the cage (mainly inside Washington DC) rather than real sabre rattling, but it certainly had a powerful effect.

So all in all, it is evident that oil is getting plenty of attention.
However, with the honourable exception of a good article in Canada’s Macleans magazine, very few of the mainstream media that I looked at had any mention of the geological fundamentals, even some of the most realistic business media, such as the radio programme Marketplace. Once the mainstream media – particularly television news 'shows' – and global leaders talk of peak oil and decline the way they now do about greenhouse gases (such as CO2) causing global warming, then we can be more sure that we are really at the tipping point, and possibly ready for the trigger. When that balloon goes up we must be ready to synchronise an enormous effort to adapt to a world that one day rather soon will be playing musical oil chairs. That musical appears to have begun: the consumption of petroleum has actually been falling in the United States since 2005. But it is not clear that we have reached our 'causal CO2 moment' yet for global petroleum supply.

So this is what I mean by yes, no and maybe: Yes, oil is in the news and people are getting anxious about it, but No, we are not yet at the peak oil tipping point, because the real and 'fundamental' underlying cause of the growing energy crisis is hardly ever mentioned. Maybe however we have entered the peak-oil-tipping-point plateau, from which we shall more easily be able view the peak oil balloon when eventually it does go up good and proper.

1^. The Unemployment Level in May 2008 was 8,487,000 according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics – see http://postcarbon.org/us-unemployment-level-1998-may2008

Because the US has the world's largest coal reserves, it has sometimes been called "the Saudi Arabia of coal." It is the world's second-largest coal producer, after China, but surpasses both the number three and four producer nations (India and Australia) by nearly a factor of three.

Wood was this nation's primary fuel until the mid-1880s, when deforestation necessitated greater reliance on abundant coal resources. Coal then remained America's main energy source until the 1930s, when it was overtaken by oil. Today coal fuels about 50 percent of US electricity production and provides about a quarter of the country's total energy.

The US currently produces over a billion tons of coal per year, with quantities increasing annually. This is well over double the amount produced in 1960. However, due to a decline in the average amount of energy contained in each ton of coal produced (i.e., declining resource quality), the total amount of energy flowing into the US economy from coal is now falling, having peaked in 1998. This decline in energy content per unit of weight (also known as "heating value") amounts to more than 30 percent since 1955. It can partly be explained by the depletion of anthracite reserves and the nation's increasing reliance on sub-bituminous coal and even lignite, a trend that began in the 1970s. But resource quality is declining even within each coal class.

While there are coal resources in many states, the main concentrations are in Appalachia, Illinois, Wyoming, and Montana (see map below). The 53 largest coalmines in the US, located in just a few states, account for almost 60 percent of total production.

Read more

(Note: This article is a draft chapter from a forthcoming book, currently titled Coal's Future/Earth's Fate, to be published by Post Carbon Press in spring 2009. The author wishes to thank Werner Zittel, David Rutledge, Jean Laherrère, David Strahan, Julian Darley, and Jason Brenno for assistance with this article.

Previous MuseLetters on global coal supply issues are archived on Global Public Media (www.globalpublicmedia.com) at MuseLetter 193: It's Happening, MuseLetter 190: The Great Coal Rush (And Why It Will Fail), and MuseLetter 179: Burning the Furniture).

Wanted: Director of Development
Are you concerned about the energy and environmental
crises we face? Interested in living more locally and less dependently on
fossil fuels? Post Carbon Institute is looking for a seasoned professional
Director of Development who can help take our dynamic, entrepreneurial
organization to the next level. The ideal candidate has extensive
experience in nonprofit fund development, an entrepreneurial spirit and
the courage to take on the major challenge of our times.

More details at: www.postcarbon.org/jobs

Responding to a recent blog post of mine, a reader made this comment:

This raises an essential point about retrofitting our cities and suburbs for low-energy transportation. I've often thought that trying to make American / Canadian cities and suburbs less car-dependent simply by adding more buses, streetcars and light rail is like trying to make a bowl of chicken soup vegan simply by picking the chicken out. Dependence on private vehicles powered by gasoline is ingrained in nearly everything we've built over the last sixty years -- like the chicken broth in my chicken soup, car dependence is an inherent property of our settlements...

That said, it's not necessarily impossible to quickly scale up public transport across the US and Canada. Cities and, yes, suburbs throughout Western Europe have proven for decades that many people will opt for a mix of walking, bicycling and public transit over personal cars if the price is right and, especially, if the trip quality is superior. For local buses and rail, that means headways well under fifteen minutes, and a whole experience that is safe, reliable, fast, and clean. For bicycling that means extensive networks of dedicated, wide, uninterrupted paths with minimal stops, and secure, covered parking at destinations...

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This is an excerpt from Daniel's blog. Read the full post, plus comments, at:
www.postcarboncities.net/blog

The last few weeks have been a particularly interesting time to follow reactions to surging oil prices. In addition to the spate of news stories about cities struggling with energy costs in their transit services, school districts, and even police departments, we're now hearing about shifts in urban land values and cutbacks in airline service. Perhaps the biggest canary in the coal mine: General Motors is moving to dump the Hummer in favor of subcompact and electric vehicles.

Unfortunately, we're also hearing more of the same old short-sighted solutions, now in their latest repackaging. In just the last few days I came across the same three talking points in four different publications (not to mention one presidential contender's speech):

Plenty of folks have explained already why points 2, 3 and, yes, 4, are pipe dreams, so I'll focus instead on the much more interesting solutions that some sensible local government leaders in the US and Europe recently started pursuing:

• We recently learned that Alachua County, Florida (county seat: Gainesville) created an Energy Conservation Strategies Commission last year, charged with reviewing the potential effects of global oil decline and recommending actions the County can take -- report due by September of this year. This marks the first official response to peak oil (which is our criteria for listing on our ever-growing Peak Oil Responses page) we've heard of from the US Southeast.
• Two weeks ago, Whatcom County, Washington and its county seat of Bellingham created the second task force in that state, following Spokane a few months ago. This marks the first (as far as we know) joint city-county task force established to address peak oil.
• This week we learned that a resolution is underway within the parliament of German city-state Hamburg to establish various bodies for identifying the local vulnerabilities created by peak oil, develop suggestions for responding to them, and coordinate activities to mitigate them. While this is not yet an adopted resolution, it's the first major peak oil effort by sub-national government officials in Europe that we've heard about. Ausgezeichnet!

This month I'm spending nearly two weeks total in my old stomping grounds of the New York City metro area. I'm excited to be doing presentations at three institutions that have important roles to play as we plod through the peak oil years: the New York Institute of Technology, the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. Economically, this is one of the most dynamic and resilient parts of the United States -- communities, businesses, institutions and governments here have centuries of experience in dealing with crisis and change, and time and again they've pulled through and the region has come out the better for it. I predict it won't be too long before we see some truly sensible and clever solutions to peak oil emerge from this most urban corner of the United States.

At tonight's Sonoma County Drupal User Group meeting, someone raised a question about migrating legacy content into Drupal CCK nodes. I figured that the question is best answered with an example, so I've cobbled together a contrived scenario with working sample code.

Imagine a table containing custom content, looking like so:


mysql> select * from custom_profile;
+-----+----------+------------+
| id | first | last |
+-----+----------+------------+
| 1 | Bilbo | Baggins |
| 2 | Frodo | Baggins |
| 34 | Peregrin | Took |
| 300 | Meriadoc | Brandybuck |
+-----+----------+------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)


We are going to map the above table onto the CCK content type 'profile' shown here:

First, we import the custom table into the Drupal database, side by side with the Drupal tables. The main reason for this is to make it easy to access that table using the Drupal API. One way to do this import is from the command line:


mysql -u [user] -p [drupal_database] < custom_profile.sql


To actually run the code, we write a Drupal callback that executes the migration - this might be more cleanly done as a standalone PHP script that bootstraps a Drupal instance, but for the purposes of this example, it works fine.

We load up each row from the table (though the same ideas can work in a more complex scenario), build out a Drupal node, and save it to the database. And that's about it!

To actually run the migration, you invoke it through the browser by navigating to http://website.url/drupalroot/legacy_migration - this outputs some status information and also writes progress to the watchdog logs.

Working sample code is attached. I'd love to hear suggestions for improvements to this method.

As gasoline rises past a record $4 per gallon in the United States^*, we're hearing more and more about people leaving their cars for public transit. In the first few months of 2008, transit ridership has increased 5% on New York City's commuter trains, 8% in Denver's system, and a full 16% on Minneapolis-St. Paul light rail, compared to the same time last year. Miami's commuter rail saw a whopping 28% year-over-year increase just for April.

The ability of people to switch from cars to transit (or bicycling or walking, for that matter), however, is directly tied to the past planning and investment decisions made by local government. People can only choose to use transit where transit exists -- and even where transit systems are built and operating, they will only last as long as they are funded in a sustainable way...

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This is an excerpt from Daniel Lerch's blog at our Post Carbon Cities program. Click here to read the full article at postcarboncities.net.

^* Gasoline/petrol, of course, is already well past this mark elsewhere, with prices above the equivalent of $8 per gallon in Germany and $9.50 per gallon in the UK.