<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dear Jeffrey,<br><br>a wonder if you could present your concept of demand side reduction coops to both our blog and wiki audience?<br><br>Michel</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br><br>Jeffrey Sterling <<a href="mailto:teleboiski@gmail.com" target="_blank">teleboiski@gmail.com</a>></span>
Jul 23 08:36AM -0700
<a href="?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=ohhl4rw8mbn4#13159a1b83032385_digest_top">^</a><br>
<br>
I completely agree with you Michel!<br>
<br>
I would like to take sustainable communities as an example. On the
supply side a community may have a electricity company, a water company,
a gas company, oil companies (gasoline), and waste stream companies
(sewer, trash, recycle, compost). Each company is siloed and views their
job as maintaining and operating a supply chain for an ever growing
demand for their service. Some pay lip service to demand reduction at
times but it is a "fox in the hen house" situation.<br>
<br>
Now suppose community members created a demand side reduction
cooperative, that was funded through a performance based contract placed
on each of the supply side companies, that provided demand side
reduction services to it's members.<br>
<br>
Examples:<br>
<br>
- Catching rainwater in cisterns for graywater and freshwater supply
that eliminated the need for the next groundwater well or dam.<br>
<br>
- Superinsulating all homes in a community to reduce the number of new
powerplants or a new gas pipeline.<br>
<br>
- Creating a smart microgrid that will provide peaking power negawatts
as an independent power producer and provide solar collectors for peak
cooling as well as battery backup storage and essential power to
computers in the home.<br>
<br>
- Creating a community wide distributed generation system that provides
essential power to the community in case of disaster plus CHP (combined
heat power) to the local hospital/greenhouse/community pool.<br>
<br>
- Creating an on demand local ridesharing and shopping delivering
service using community members and their vehicles to reduce the demand
for cars/roads/gasoline and providing jobs for underemployed people and
reducing the demand for underfunding government services.<br>
<br>
- Creating community reuse services that reduce the demand for recycling
and waste removal that reduces the need for landfills.<br>
<br>
I could go on and on, but the basic idea is that siloed supply side
companies are not in the business of reducing demand they are in the
business of increasing supply which damages the environment and is not
sustainable. Creating community-run demand side reduction coops (that
are voluntary) will make a community resilient, sustainable and will
create work for community members. Having a community-owned cloud will
make the integration of demand side reduction services into the life of a
community possible. Also establishing performance based contracts where
demand reductions are measured with make it possible for demand side
reduction services to be cash flow positive because demand reduction
decreases the need for supply which keep the money in the community.<br>
<br>
Also, trying a demand reduction strategy as a government program is
perceived as big brother control and never works and usually involves
some kind of public/private partnership that siphons money out of the
community.<br>
<br>
>From somewhere over America,<br>
<br>
-Jeff Sterling<br>
<br>
<br>
On Jul 22, 2011, at 9:24 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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