Ellen Bicheler joins Post Carbon Institute as Powerdown Sebastopol Coordinator. She will be based at and working with Richard Heinberg and New College, Santa Rosa, California. Ellen has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 30 years, but grew up in New York, receiving a Bachelor's degree in English in 1975 at State University College of New York at Brockport. A lifetime activist, Ellen has experience in freelance writing, non-profit work and sustainability education in local schools.

As Powerdown Sebastopol Coordinator, Ellen is working with students at New College to formulate a report for the city of Sebastopol. The students have chosen the categories of food security, water, sewer systems, police, fire, emergency agencies and transportation in which to assess current vulnerabilities and to identify alternative low-energy systems. The students sent their first report to Sebastopol earlier this month and will explain this work and answer questions for Sebastopol's council.

The task of the Sebastopol Ad Hoc Citizens Advisory Group on Energy Vulnerability is to provide the City Council with analyses and recommendations of their policies and practices. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to enable the City to continue fulfilling its primary mission (providing public safety, maintaining facilities and streets, supplying sewer and water services, and regulating land use) when energy interruptions and price increases become more prevalent. The group is also formulating recommendations for the greater Sebastopol community on how to develop a greater level of adaptability, in order for the community to be better prepared for future constraints in its energy supply.

In discussion of this Powerdown Project, supervisor Richard Heinberg has said, "The City of Sebastopol has taken an important step in appointing a commission to study its vulnerability to Peak Oil and identify mitigation strategies. The New College students are there to provide background information. As time goes on, the work of the Powerdown Project will no doubt be invaluable to other communities that have yet to come to grips with the perils inherent in our fossil-fuel addiction."

Ellen is also involved in planning a ‘North Bay Summit’, a five county regional summit of elected and appointed officials in the northern San Francisco Bay Area. Richard Heinberg will be the keynote speaker for the May 19, 2006 event entitled "Energy Vulnerability: Can local public policy support a competitive and sustainable economy in the face of rising energy costs?"