Serious about Energy Efficiency, part two.

One of the major sources of greenhouse gases is automobiles. In America, in 2022, there were 283,400,986 automobiles registered in America, including corporate and government vehicles. Clearly, as we all know, Americans rely heavily on automobiles to go everywhere. Only in certain urban areas, and not even very many of these, have usable public transit. Also, much of America is simply not walkable for everyday purposes. To go to a large store, an American usually has to drive. Americans who have given up the use of automobiles have had to prepare carefully and greatly alter their daily schedules. I have known exactly one such person outside of New York City. But in urban areas in France, it is not unusual for people to simply not own cars.

And American cars are big. The average fuel efficiency in America is 6.7 liters per 100 km (35 mpg), down from 905 in 2004, which is an improvement, but is still less efficient than the 4.1 liters per 100 km in Europe. There are all kinds of consequences for this. In America, we have to have wide lanes and multiple lanes to accommodate the numerous big cars and pickup trucks. In Strasbourg, France, where I live, even major streets usually have just one lane each direction, and the lanes are narrow. I have seen five pickup trucks in two years in Strasbourg. Even panel trucks used for repair and delivery are smaller than those in America. In France, bicycle parking lots are larger, and every urban area has well-developed, reliable, and cheap public transit. People in France without cars, like me, can save the money and inconvenience of car payments, licenses, registration, driving school (mandatory in France), finding parking spaces, etc. That adds up to a lot of time and money.

One result of excessive car ownership in America is traffic jams. Most major cities, and even minor ones, have huge traffic jams at certain times of day. Even Tulsa, where I used to live, which is far from being among the largest American cities.

Traffic jams cost a lot of money for cars idling, and create headaches for governments that feel the obligation to build new roads. At least in America.

The traffic problem in Strasbourg seems ridiculously small to me, who has just moved from America. But the government of the Eurometropole of Strasbourg sees traffic as a problem. Too many cars? In America, no level of government would think that there are too many cars. A few American cities have provided incentives to not drive downtown. But in Strasbourg, there are incentives to actually get rid of your car.

According to the municipal website, if you sell your car (and can show the city officials your paperwork), you can receive a debit card (from MasterCard) with between 2,000 and 2,500 euros of funds, depending on your income. You can only use these funds for certain things. You can get tickets for buses, trams (trains within the metropolitan area), trains (between cities), official car-sharing services, or to rent, buy, or repair a bicycle. It would take a lot of tram rides (over 1,300, in fact, or 650 round trips) to use up 2,500 euros.

The trams in Strasbourg are quite efficient. They almost always run on time, and at intersections the trams get the right of way. Cars (and municipal buses) must wait for the trams to pass.

In America, municipal governments might try to encourage people to take public transit. But in France, they will pay you to do so. It seems like a good deal to me.

Suppose Tulsa, my previous home, checked into building a tram service. It would be so expensive that it would not get seriously considered. But most cities in France have had tram service for decades and have simply maintained and expanded it.

It is a nice day today (rare enough in the rainy, chilly autumn of northeastern France). I think I will take a hike in one of the forest preserves. If I had a bicycle, something I’m still working on, I could ride there safely on paved trails and dedicated bike lanes. But instead I will take the tram to the bottom of the hill in La Robertsau, hike into the Parc de Pourtalès, then on the paved walking/biking trail to the Cascades, and back. Or I could walk all the way to the Rhine River and look into Germany. Suppose I had more time. I could take the tram to the train station, and take a bus up to a medieval monastery in the mountains, where I could look across the Alsatian plain to the Rhine River, and hike back down to catch a train home.

When I retired to France, I said there were two things I would not do: drive a car, or tie my shoes. They have both been equally easy investments: walking shoes with straps, and tram/bus tickets. Life is good in this socialist paradise.

Serious about Energy Efficiency, part one.

France is an ecologically imperfect society. One writer called it “the light green society.” But at least it is trying to decarbonize its energy production and use energy more efficiently than the United States. I described this in a previous essay, and provide a little more detail here.

France relies heavily on nuclear power. Many ecologically-oriented citizens dislike this. But it does mean that France imports less natural gas from Russia. The existing nuclear plants seem to be operating safely, although France has not yet fully thought through a plan for eventually dismantling them when they are old. But at least France has no plans to build new nuclear facilities. Instead, France wants to rely more on sustainable energy, an important component of which is solar energy. Here in Strasbourg, we have solar panels all over the place, especially the roofs of parking structures—at least, those parking structures that do not have gardens on the roof.

Alsace, in eastern France, has a lot of hydropower electricity. Much of this comes from water that flows from the Vosges Mountains down the Ill, Aar, Muhlwasser, and other rivers, and the canals, such as the Marne-Rhine canal very near where I live. As it flows downhill, the water runs electrical turbines. There are no major dams, just small barriers. Also, electricity is used to pump water to higher levels, and the water generates electricity as it descends back to the canal or river.

In France, each electrical consumer can log into a website. In the middle of the day, 65 percent of the electricity came from nuclear power, and 25 percent from solar power. Four percent of the electricity was from hydropower, and three percent from wind. When the sun set, of course, solar electricity went to zero percent. The most expensive part of solar electricity is storing the energy, something in which France has not invested. At sunset on October 2, nuclear power provided 75 percent of the electricity and hydropower provided 14 percent.

Coal, at least here in Alsace, comes in consistently at zero percent.

A quick comparison to America is irresistible. Is there ever a time, anywhere in America, where solar energy provides 25 percent of the electricity, or coal provides zero percent? And yet President Trump wants to make America more dependent on fossil fuels and to discourage the development of wind and solar energy. He is leading America boldly back into the twentieth century, a century of war and waste, while France is moving meekly into the twenty-first.

The news outlets that reported Trump’s $8 billion in sustainable energy cuts made it sound like Trump was taking revenge on the blue states (according to one source) or the states that Harris won (according to another). While I believe Trump was, in fact, intending retribution (he has an ego that is almost unparalleled in recent history), the facts do not prove it. This may be what we could call a false correlation. Of course most of the sustainable energy projects are in blue states; those are the only states that want sustainable energy. Maybe Trump just hates energy production that is not based on coal and oil, and this explains the pattern, rather than antipathy towards Democrats or Harris.

The energy system in Alsace is so efficient that it generates a surplus of electricity, which is sold primarily to nearby Germany. There is a surplus despite the electricity used to pump the water.

There are a number of advantages to this system.

• First, there are few electrical interruptions—none in the nearly two years I have lived here—because nuclear energy is absolutely constant and predictable.
• Second, there are few interruptions because the electrical cables are all underground, except for the ones that provide voltage to the electric trams. There are no tornadoes to knock down power lines or twist them up in tree branches. France does have a few major storms, but is less vulnerable to them.
• Third, the various sources will share their electricity with one another. This does not happen as much in America, especially in Texas, where the power grid is mostly independent of the rest of the country. 

Back in America, our family was very unusual. We used less electricity than not only the average household, but even the average energy-conserving household, according to information provided on our monthly bills. But here in France, our energy use is about average.

An energy-efficient economy, even if imperfect, is attainable. France is doing it. According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, France is the most energy-efficient country in the world. America comes in at tenth, which is not bad, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Forgotten Landscapes: Native Americans and Cool Shade

I have just published my sixth book, Forgotten Landscapes: How Native Americans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn from It. I am starting a series of essays and videos to promote portions of this book. The video that goes along with this essay is here.

In this book, I describe one ecological problem that white European and American villages had that Cherokee and other Native villages did not was the problem of how to stay cool in the summer.

The video shows my neighborhood in Alsace, France. It is densely populated, and there are hundreds of condominiums right next to my building. Our condominiums are very energy-efficient, even the ones built a long time ago, such as mine. Our windows and walls are thick, which keeps our units quiet as well as insulated. And this is how that efficiency is achieved:

• Sources of energy. Instead of each condominium having its own individual heating units, as is often the case in America, these buildings get their heat from hot water going through radiators. The hot water comes from a network from a centralized power plant where furnaces burn methane to heat the water. The methane (as I described in the previous video) comes partly from food wastes.
• Required energy efficiency. Whenever one of the condominiums is sold, the building owner has to meet new standards of energy efficiency, e.g. through improvement of insulation; the building owners pass the costs to condo owners who pass the costs on to renters.
• Little but deliberate things. In the middle of our courtyard there are a lot of trees, which provide cool shade. There are two reasons for this. First, the leaves absorb sunlight energy and emit the heat straight up into the air, away from where we live. Second, transpiration (the evaporation of water) uses up some of the heat energy. These îlots fraîcheurs (cool islands) are a deliberate part of urban planning. Some American cities do this also. Las Vegas recently decided to plant trees to help deal with the over-110-degree summer heat. The problem is, where are they going to get the water for the trees? It can be done, but has to be planned.
• Air conditioning. Very few French apartments have air conditioners. We are just lucky to live 48 degrees north latitude where we can get away with not having air conditioners.

In my book I describe Cherokee villages that were filled with trees that kept them cool. Meanwhile, white cities would, at the time, cut down all the trees. The Cherokees were probably puzzled that white people would work so hard to cut down the trees and then get, literally, hot under the collar about the summer heat.

I doubt that the Native Americans knew more ecology than white Americans. They just thought cutting the trees down was a lot of hard work with nothing to show for it.