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COMMUNITY-BASED ENERGY AND THE REVITALIZATION OF CIVIC CULTURE

COMMUNITY-BASED ENERGY AND THE REVITALIZATION OF CIVIC CULTURE. Steven M. Hoffman, Ph.D. University of St. Thomas St. Paul, Minnesota USA Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development De Montfort University Leicester, England June 30, 2004. Acknowledgements. Dr. Patrick Devine-Wright

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COMMUNITY-BASED ENERGY AND THE REVITALIZATION OF CIVIC CULTURE

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  1. COMMUNITY-BASED ENERGY AND THE REVITALIZATION OF CIVIC CULTURE Steven M. Hoffman, Ph.D. University of St. Thomas St. Paul, Minnesota USA Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development De Montfort University Leicester, England June 30, 2004

  2. Acknowledgements • Dr. Patrick Devine-Wright • the staff and students of the Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development

  3. America’s Associational Life • organizations offered social and political life beyond immediate locale • followed a federalist model, i.e., a national office with local membership • served as a training ground for democratic citizenship • explicitly political in their activities

  4. Contemporary Civic Organizations • based on a management ethic • do things for people rather than doing things with people • ask people and members for money to build an expert staff capable of countering the arguments and policy papers offered by an opposing set of experts

  5. Exceptions to the Rule • the Christian Coalition, with its supporting think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute • mega-churches popular in the mushrooming communities of suburban America • self-help organizations modeled along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous • some organizations in the environmental movement, particularly those that come out of the environmental justice movement

  6. Reviving Civic Culture • Social capital, i.e., networks of civic and social relationships • Strong democracy or ‘politics in the participatory mode’ • Public spaces, i.e., deliberative polling and citizens juries

  7. What’s Wrong with Polls and Juries? • temporary and episodic, in existence only long enough to study a problem in a fairly shallow way • no sustained, on-going engagement in identifying or implementing community preferences • largely monastic process • not intended to create on-going connections with community institutions after the process is completed

  8. What Do THE PEOPLE Want? Sustained engagement, robust deliberative possibilities, and the clear ability to affect policy outcomes; or “stealth” democracy, an as-if citizenship, and non-deliberative deliberation?

  9. DISTRIBUTED GENERATION • small, modular power-generating technologies • generally using renewable fuels • potentially eliminates the transmission system by linking local generation with local consumption • would allow the grid to serve as a source of back-up power or as a purchaser of net-metered small-scale generators

  10. Locally-owned or operated CBE systems • more democratic • located closer to customer-citizen • therefore are more responsive to their values • is synonymous with a more sustainable energy system since they are based on DG technologies power by green fuels

  11. CASE STUDIES • the origins of each of the selected initiatives • a chronology of the relevant events • the objectives of the initiative as understood by the principal partners • the challenges facing the project’s organizers • an overview of an initiative’s main activities • a technological profile • a detailed financial accounting of the project to date • the relationship of the initiative to the existing electrical system

  12. The Variety of CBE Initiatives • objectives, i.e., technology-based programs such as wind, solar, biomass; energy-efficiency programs; educational programming; energy-efficiency or weatherization programs; community development • institutional options, i.e., volunteer-based, local utility, IOU-run, local government, NGOs or LLC • governance and the nature of citizen participation • ownership (which may or may not be the same as the institutional option) • scale and purpose, i.e., utility-scale, district-based, individual buildings, net-metered • geographic location (i.e., rural, small-town or urban center

  13. CONTENT ANALYSIS • examination of rhetoric and language to understand values, beliefs and core ideas animating each initiative • review of content that is internally generated and externally directed, i.e., newsletters, pamphlets, material on the website, speeches • review of content that is externally generated and externally directed, i.e., local print media coverage

  14. PARTICIPANT QUESTIONNAIRE • the relationship among stakeholder roles • the understanding that participants have about basic terms such as distributed generation, renewable energy, community, etc. • their understanding of the initiative and its effectiveness • personal priorities • why participants might join, remain with, or exit an initiative

  15. MINNESOTA: Land of 10,000 Lakes CERTs--statewide PCEC RENew Northfield

  16. CERTs: Clean Energy Resource Teams • a collaborative of the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the University of Minnesota’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships program, Rural Minnesota Energy Task Force, the Metro County Energy Task Force, and the Minnesota Project • teams include many stakeholders including farmers and other landowners, industry and utility reps, colleges, universities and local governments • the outcome of the project will be a strategic vision and a renewable and energy conservation energy plan for each region, reflecting a mix of energy sources, including biomass, wind, solar, and hydrogen • participant surveys particularly useful in this case

  17. CERTs PROJECT AREAS

  18. initaitive started with a “letter to the editor” in local newspaper • strategic plan states that the organization is guided by the values of environment, community, and social justice • clear emphasis on community participation • hosted a community wind conference to provide residents of |Northfield technical information • emphasis on process andtechnological shift to renewable sources of energy • has created an LLC to provide economic benefits to local family and for grid sales

  19. located in a large metropolitan area • community is a low-income, minority population • a cooperative whose professional staff: • -- delivers energy-efficiency services • -- is developing a waste wood-fired CHP facility • -- proposing a rooftop solar program for peak- shaving purposes

  20. Other CBE Projects • Clean Energy Now (CEN) • Midway Biomass Combined Heat and Power Project • Moorhead Public Service’s Capture the Wind • farmer-owned wind LLC projects: MINWIND I and II, Community Wind North and Community Wind South, and the TRIMONT project • City of Bovey

  21. Why Theory Matters • how citizens are brought into the process • the kind of work that is required of them • the incentives they are given to remain • the reasons for their loyalty and or exit

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