Pennywise and Poundfoolish

My Time at an Oil Refinery

Well, I just came back from a two-week bender working for Matrix Services and being stationed at the Anacortes, Wa oil refinery.  I did this for two reasons:

1. A crapload of money-- $18.50 per hour and a 70 hour workweek.
2. An inside look at a refining operation.

I have this to say about working for Big Oil:  it’s impossible to know everything about what’s going on.  If there’s waste, I didn’t really see any more than any other type of industrial operation.  As a matter of fact, I would venture to say, that the process of oil refining itself (including all of the energy used to make the product and by-product wastes generated) was definitely less than the average consumer.

What does this mean?  It means that you and I are worse environmental process offenders than even the oil companies!  They work within economical constraints, comfort is not an issue (safety is a BIG concern at this facility—they seem to have one of the best track records of any refinery out there right now), and they are forced to comply with environmental laws.  Average Joe, by contrast, is free to drain society of whatever resources they choose.  There’s plenty of people out there that complain about high gas prices while commuting 50 miles to and from work each day in an SUV or truck (note—these are not construction workers, who often require the use of a truck—these are soccer moms and people who like “toys”).

Think about it: if you were to run your house the way you run an industrial process, would you fire yourself?  I sure would.  I am missing huge streams of revenue with not composting most of my wastes and selling/trading the compost to gardeners or re-using it in my own garden; I’m missing out big-time on not having an intelligently designed house that utilizes the sun’s rays to heat it in the cool times, and the shade to cool it during the hot days; I am only poorer for having two vehicles on a single income—and further a poor man because it costs me $6,000 per year to operate these vehicles (it would be more, if I were making payments and didn’t own my vehicles outright); I am simply stupid for buying bottled water and not refilling the containers, and when done with the containers, turning them into planters or the like.

Anybody who runs their houses like an industrial process is bound not only to be richer and more frugal, but also much more environmental.

So why don’t we?

That’s the question I want to ask people.  Why aren’t we trying to be as cheap with our own money as we are with a company’s?  Why do we blow our savings on stupid stuff, or just increase our overall consumption, thinking that this is how rich people live?

I’d like to think it’s because people just haven’t been taught.  As a matter of fact, my observation is that people are taught the exact opposite.  It seems as though you’re an outcast for not watching television, driving, eating out often.  People admire those who adhere to those rules, but they don’t seem to want to admit that they can be any fun.  When I announced that I was giving up the car in favor of public transportation, even my wife (whom I love to death and don’t expect her pregnant ass to get on a bike anytime soon, even if the world’s at stake . . . I certainly wouldn’t if I’d passed a person out of my—erm. . . nevermind) sounded skeptical that this could be a safe, practical solution.

So again, readers and guests—what is stopping you from breaking unsustainable habits?  Further, what steps are you going to take in the next year to improve your ecological footprint?

Ginny-inspired Links to Love

More evidence that owning a car outright is begging to be screwed.

Ginny wanted to know a little more about bicycle-riding safety.

She also wanted to know more about making cities more bicycle-friendly (<----there's a lot of cool info here!).

Also, I have below, draft letter that I plan to send out to several dozen city government departments all over the bedtime communities of Portland, Oregon (I live in Gresham).  I think that such a letter could apply to several dozen cities around the nation and would love your input as to what I can do to make this letter more effective.

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Good Morning,

I am a concerned citizen who is interested in creating some economic incentive for alternative transportation in Gresham without incurring excessive government or social cost.  I would like to see some social and economic change and was wondering if you could point me in the right direction.

I am looking for some transportation planners to discuss the potential benefits of government incentives for employers who employ people that have alternative means of transportation.  For the following reasons:

• I believe this is something that is not only good for local communities, but it will go a long way towards turning each city into an economic hub, as opposed to a "bedtime community".

• Further-- it is my belief creating car-free incentives would slowly shift the demand of the population to work closer to home, creating gaps in the workforces of all involved cities.  These gaps will have to be filled, which means more people getting hired and more opportunities for careers locally. 

• I believe that a locally based workforce (within car-free limits) will strengthen the fabric of the local communities and necessitate change.

• As with any system as dynamic as our economy, there is not a single solution for everybody.  This means that our public transportation infrastructure (and the new jobs that will be created from the increased demand) will become a great source of revenue for the local cities.

I would like to be a part of a sustainable, economical, and smart method of transportation and believe that by working together, we can create a tighter community (which should lower crime and increase public service), increased job growth, and raise the bar for general health in the cities.  I believe the people that I would need to talk to are the city transportation planners, but need some help pointing in the right direction.

I hope to talk to you soon.

Zach Folwick

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What do you guys think?  Should I go with it?  It's general enough that I could use it in almost every city and town, which is the hope.  Any thoughts?  I hope that you get your friends to view this as well.  I want as many opinions as possible.  If you run a blog yourself, you might even ask your readers to evaluate it-- if appropriate.

Step Number 1 in Changing America

The options open to us are all the technologies and methods developed in the past, as well as the modern solutions.  People often complain that they simply can't cut their resource use because they can't afford the luxury-- often that luxury is time.

I wasn't aware that some people were magically born with less than 24 hours in their day.  The truth is, if your life is filled with gadgets and a long commute instead of family, friends and healthy living, you're not only choosing to live that way, but you're also prioritizing family and friends and health lower than commuting, consumption and sedentary lifestyle (note: I was going to say "lower than money, but then I remembered that money can only buy us stuff to fill our lives-- something which can easily be done for free).

Let me try to explain this better-- in fact, I'll us my mom's words(in honor of mother's day??); whenever I'm feeling like I have no control over my life, she always tells me:

You're born, then you die, everything in the middle is just details.

This statement is quickly becoming one of the most profound and useful bits of "mommy-wisdom" I've ever heard.  It can mean different things in different situations.  In this article it means that no matter how you live your life, if you were to change your lifestyle to help those around you as well as yourself, you'll still have the rest of your life to change back to a resource-hogging schmuck.  Ever seen somebody resist change and laughed at them?  How about seeing somebody getting frustrated by "life" (i.e., newlyweds, teenagers, new parents, etc.)?  Isn't it resistance to becoming more sustainable just instance of stupid resistance to what will need to be done? 

Step no. 1 in changing America

Why change?  That seems to be the question implied in people's resistance to cutting back on things and activities that-- when done in excess-- don't enhance your life, and take a lot of resources.  So why modify our habits?  "It's hards", one woman said to me, "too hard to live sustainably for me".  I can sympathize with their plight; I traveled 230 miles to work at an oil refinery for a couple weeks, then I'll return to my regular job-- 17 miles away from where I live.  Not exactly the carfree lifestyle that I preach, is it?

Well, the fact is that it's a long process to change old habits and in order to do it, you first have to be willing to change.  Scratch that-- you have to be driven to change.  You have to hunger for it and find such value that you can't pass up the opportunity to live sustainably.

So what is step number 1 for changing America's profile?  We have got to shuffle off this coil of lies that we are consistently sold; we are told that we will be happy if we just "buy this" and "covet that".  We are a society that is not just materialistic, but we are often happy to pick only from the options told to us.  Very often we get caught up in picking our options that we lose track of moments that could truly make us happy, but now annoy us: a child blowing a tuft of dandelion seeds goes from a picturesque moment, capturing the beauty and simplicity of childhood-- to an abominable act, set out to destroy perfectly homogeneous laws around America; the American middle class's desire to save their money becomes a severe blow to some market sector, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs instead of the proactive solution to their shrinking class and a solution to "the rich get richer" idea.

Step 1 in changing America is changing our Values.  We need a middle-class culture that ceases to undervalue creativity.  We have got to encourage our youths to try anything new and charge ahead into the unknown.  Forget waste-- that is no longer the indicator of affluence, the currency of the future will be resourcefulness.

You *will* change your life

Do you think you can't lower the miles that you drive?  Do you have conditions that make it impossible?

The following is a post I made on Noimpactman:

"Change.

I guess the other 6 billion people are just luckier than you (an absurd thought!)? Or perhaps they're just placing other things first? Perhaps your great great grandparents generation had some kind of magic that allowed them to survive without SUVs and Americun Idolz and the jobs that were 50 miles away?

Total frickin' cop-out and it's a horrible excuse. You may not be able to live sustainably now, but to simply say "I can't because .. . (insert blank here)" isn't an option. It's a little like saying you're going on a no-food diet-- it's absurd. Stop it with the excuses.

What would it take for people to change? You've had a year of the noimpactman project and decades of environmentalists and an entire world history to model yourself after. You don't *have* to be some pot smoking, tree hugging hippie to do it. Hells bells-- I'm a pro-business, average joe, can-do guy; I *try*, and I have a plan to modify my lifestyle to make it more fulfilling. And you're a liar if you say that the 50 mile drive is worth it every day. No job is worth that. Apparently the planet that your 5 children will inherit isn't worth it to you either.

Think. Try *something*

And stop insulting the 5 billion (yes BILLION-- that's more than 10 times the population of the United States!) by saying that you don't have the *ability* to not drive 50 miles. Most people would love to feed themselves on a piece of land no bigger than your backyard; perhaps your neighbor's as well.

"Can't". Stop telling *this* crowd what you "can't" do something that you *must* do. You make it sound like it's an option. You know less about what you "can't" do than countless others who've been in your shoes and *have* made the necessary adjustments (and are living quite well on moderate to lowere incomes. . . with families. . . and house payments. . . and every other excuse anyone can think of).

Simply put, you're wrong. You not only *can*, but you *will* change your habits. Again, what's the necessary price? $5/gal? $8/gal? (<--the current European price). Not only will you change your habits, but if you don't do it now/soon, you'll be wasting this opportunity to pocket some of that gas money in savings. You want to tell this crowd you "can't" do such and such because of this or that reason-- we all know they're just excuses because we all used to be that way. You'll be able to find an alternative, else how the hell did people SURVIVE UP UNTIL NOW??? I guarentee you that you *will* change-- how much money you choose to save over your peers in the process of changing, and how much of a "victim of circumstance" you feel like is up to you.

But don't. . . *ever*. . . say you "can't"."

Car-free dreams

Everybody, I'm sorry I haven't been as active for this week as I would like to be, I'm working 10 hour days at a refinery and trying to make some money and get kind of an "inside scoop" on the real deal behind Big Oil.

Wish me luck, tonight I have a fight (and another one next Saturday) at Kalahi Martial Arts in Mount Vernon, Wa.  Hey, a guy's gotta do SOMETHING to keep himself sane, right?

I recently decided to eliminate my cars from the family budget and pocket the savings. My personal effect on the environment will be huge. As will the effect on my pocketbook and retirement plan.

For right now, we’re only getting rid of my wife’s gas-guzzling truck. I’m still going to be driving 17 miles a day to my security job. When I get back from Iraq, though, I’m going to get rid of the other car as well. We’re going to be spending our tax return on bicycles to get us around town. I think this will really go a long way toward making our lifestyle sustainable both financial and environmental.

To find out if you really need your car, you should do a couple of things.

1. Map out your dollar cost per day of running your car, and also alternatives.

2. Map out the time cost of driving and the time cost of alternatives.

3. Try it! For one week try using the bus to get to work. That’s 5 days, no car (I would say 7 days, but most people don’t ride the bus for work because they don’t seem to “have the time”).

4. Add the cost of insurance for the each driver into your cost of driving. Most people don’t do this, but it’s very important to add in all the costs associated with each plan.

So how am I going to get into bus-riding when I am driving more than 10 miles away? Well, I plan on switching to a completely car-free lifestyle when I come back from Iraq, which means I have the better part of a year to look for a job closer to home or find a good job somewhere else to move to.

I really think that that’s what it’s going to take—a change in lifestyle. I believe that “sustainable” means that you need to change your practices to suit a lifestyle of “minimal inputs, minimal waste, maximal re-use”.

I hear a lot about bio-fuels (currently a very trendy thing, which I have denounced for years) contributing to the global food crisis. In many gas stations they dilute their gasoline with an ethanol-gasoline blend. I don’t think this is a good enough (or even a halfway-decent) solution- people simply need to get rid of one car. This will put most Americans back in the situation they were in when they had to share a car.

Noimpactman does a great job of explaining why you cannot “buy your way to being green”.

Eliminate waste and become rich

When I visit my friend’s places, I often find that they are living an unsustainable life because they waste a lot. The chief thing that they waste is often money. True, they live within their paycheck-to-paycheck needs, but anybody who wants to retire one day understands that this is not enough—they know that they need to put a good portion of their paycheck towards building assets.

Eco-Hack: cook. Plain and simple.

By simply cooking at home, you can cut down on

• Money spent on packaging made from cardboard (saving trees) and plastic (reducing our dependency on foreign oil).

• Money spent on processing mediocre raw product

• Emissions from processing mediocre raw product

• Total food costs. These savings can be over 50% in some cases. Possibly even more if you were to join a CSA.

And you can increase

• Your bottom line. You will have more money to spend on cool stuff.

• Your health. It’s pretty much certain that eating pesticide-free products are better for your health.

• Your family time. In many countries cooking is the center of the family life. This is particularly true with my wife and I (who are always trying to outdo each other), and we intend to make sure that our baby will have the opportunity to spend time with her parents cooking. I could write a book on this, but luckily Barbara Kingsolver already did. Look up “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” for a look into what you probably wish your family life was like.

There is one consequence of cooking at home that may be a bad thing or a good thing depending on how you handle it. You will have plenty of kitchen scraps to fill up your garbage with. This means a higher garbage bill for you. Not exactly a good idea if you’re trying to cut your budget, right? Well, fear not! Kitchen scraps make great compost. I know—you’re probably thinking “no compost! I don’t have the time!  It's gross!” Well, fear not—I’ll bet that if you just post on freecycle or craigslist, you’ll probably find somebody near you who’s willing to pick up your kitchen scraps for their own compost. I’m willing to be that there’s even companies that make a living off of neighbors scraps.  Anybody know of any?

Visiting other people’s homes taught me that a poor person with a sense of creativity often has more potential for wealth than a person with a decent job, but poor spending habits. But let’s examine what it is that we work for:

• Covering the necessary bills. This doesn’t mean luxuries like a cell phone (yes. . . it really is a luxury)—it means stuff like rent/mortgage, health, food, entertainment, debt.

• Financial security for the future.

I have to ask—how secure are you if you are relying on a system that guarantees you will have utility bills that will increase with time (ever heard of a rate increase?). By taking control and installing solar or wind power and a rain catchment or grey/blackwater retrieval system, you never have to suffer from a rate increase ever again.

With two of the principles our economy is based on being that idea that people will spend what they make, and increases in pay cause increases in consumption spending, most of budgeting is a game of “hiding” money from yourself. The net result is that your future requirements are minimized. When you take control of your food and utilities, you maintain control for the rest of your life. Your requirements shouldn’t increase with time, as most people’s consumption stays relatively constant—there’s just more people drawing upon the system. The advantage of taking control of your utilities is not only never paying utility bills again, but you can also pocket the energy savings (and the extra equity in your home as this becomes a more and more desirable trait due to future energy crunches), and put this little bonus into your retirement..

I recently posted about the fact that I’m getting rid of my cars as a part of an effort to save a ton of money each year and do something good for the environment. Well, by not spewing out tons of pollutants, I am also cutting my expenses by a minimum of $3,600 per year with additional savings as gas prices rise (you don’t really think they’re going to fall, do you?).

The carfree thing is probably the biggest lifestyle change that I will really have to deal with. Installing solar panels and/or wind power and a water system is a one-time deal that will not require any additional energy from me to maintain year to year. So the potential savings could be thousands per year after everything is said and done.

I wonder how many millions of dollars is being missed by corporations and businesses that refuse to “go green” and save redesign their products to be cheaper to manufacture, and more energy efficient to build?

Working at an oil refinery day 1: orientation

Today we had a safety orientation working at the Refinery.  Man, are they ever picky about safety.  They also seem to be picky about how they handle their waste.  In their safety manual they list dozens of nasty chemicals that they deal with and their "waste streams" (read: how to "properly dispose" of these contaminates).  Refinery work is without a doubt dangerous, lucrative, and severely oriented towards safety.  I would like to hear some numbers from the Shell guys and from independent reviewers regarding their pollution controls, and areas that need to be further improved upon in the refinery process.  If anyone has any numbers for me, please feel free to post those with links.

Again, sorry for the abbreviated posts, I'm dealing with a lot of irons in my fire.  Any user-contributed information would be very useful to the discussion.

Gone on a "little vacation"

Today is an incredibly hectic day.  I will be gone on a business trip for two weeks to work for an oil refinery.  If I can't get respond to your emails and comments, I hope you'll understand that I'm out carousing with the devil.  I trust I'll get plenty of juicy tidbits from these guys for you all to see.

keep posted, digg my articles, post on reddit or whatever social networking sites you choose, tell your friends.  I will be back at posting when I can.

Have a great weekend!

zach

Gone on a "little vacation"

Today is an incredibly hectic day.  I will be gone on a business trip for two weeks to work for an oil refinery.  If I can't get respond to your emails and comments, I hope you'll understand that I'm out carousing with the devil.  I trust I'll get plenty of juicy tidbits from these guys for you all to see.

keep posted, digg my articles, post on reddit or whatever social networking sites you choose, tell your friends.  I will be back at posting when I can.

Have a great weekend!

zach

"green" is out?

By next year "the next big thing" will be manufactured by the marketing, advertising, and production companies.  For those of you who think that their lifestyles are stable, they may want to remember that it took decades for the entire concept of "green" to come about.  People have been debating global warming, and man's effects on this environment for a very long time.  Remember that it wasn't until oil prices went out of control and we had the science to explain the effects of unsustainable living on a world-wide scale that money began to be dumped into "green" products.

Remember that the key to a better world is reducing our consumption, and that by doing this on a massive scale, we end up taking billions of dollars out of the economy.  Where does that money go?