SUSTAINABLE COMMUNIT ROUND TABLE STUDY GROUPS
This is a public forum for education and work sessions created to meet the needs of the community and environment through sustainable practices in economic development, ecological preservation and social and public health.
For the Goldstream Area
February 13th, Wednesday evening 7:00 – 8:30 pm — Ken Kunkel Community Center Goldstream Rd, past Ivory Jack’s restaurant and Goldstream General Store look for the Goldstream Lions Park – or if you take Sheep Creek Rd, drive past R&R tracks, past Murphy Dome Rd and look for the park!
* AGENDA:
7:00 pm Welcome & Announcements
*Latest developments of sustainable practices in Fairbanks – grassroots efforts, borough developments, private & public organizations
7:15 pm Presentation of “The Natural Step for communities” by Suzy & Kraig
7:45 pm Each table will have a topic (see below) for discussion – please take notes! Questions for discussion: How does the four systems conditions of sustainability apply to the topic at your table? What is one action your table or you individually can take towards sustainability? Please decide on a regular meeting time & date.
8:15 pm Each table gives a very brief report, action to take and next scheduled meeting suggestion. READ “The Natural Step for communities” by the next meeting. Books will be available to purchase from Suzy Fenner & Kraig Smyth.
8:30 pm Closing comments, see you next meeting!
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For the University Area, 3rd meeting – UAF, Gruening Building, Rm. 208 (near Signer’s Hall)
*February 17th, Sunday afternoon 1:00 – 5:00 pm (free weekend parking)
AGENDA 1:00 PM Welcome and announcementsLatest developments in sustainable practices for our community1:30 Discuss “The Natural Step for communities” by Sarah James & Torbjorn Lahti *Available at Gulliver’s (order 5 or more for a 20% discount) 2:00 Focus on your table’s topic, consider 1 – 3 issues, and decide on a concrete action to take after the meeting (short-term and long-term goals for the visioning process).4:00 Table reports, action plan and decide date and time for nest meetings.
4:45 Closing comments.
5:00 See you next meeting.
TOPICS
Transportation Green building Land use Sustainable agriculture Public education Economics/business Social concerns Renewable energy Clean air & water (protecting biodiversity) Recycling & resource management
contact: Suzy Fenner or Kraig Smyth 479 – 2345 / 460 -1130
email: polarsolar@gmail.com
blog: scanfairbanks.wordpress.com has available the agendas for these study groups, directions and links
SCAN Fairbanks 
This is an article to be published in the News-Miner sometime in March, 2008.
FOCUSFairbanks
ENERGY PRICES GOT YOU DOWN???
Retrofit your home and save $ foreever
Borough energy costs for 2007, excluding Ft. Wainwright, Eielson AFB, and the airport, were $465 Million. Projected costs for 2008 are over $640 Million, not from more demand, but from increased fuel costs. Personally, many of us are having a hard time keeping the fuel tank filled this winter. The Cost of Energy task force of Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation’s Interior Issues Council has been meeting to determine what we might do as a community to lower the cost of energy.From the very start, the task force determined the underlying principle behind any program to lower the cost of energy would also be the simplest, easiest, quickest, least expensive, and most important aspect we studied; energy efficiency and conservation, now, and forever. The cheapest unit of energy is the one we do not use.
OK, so energy conservation and efficiency saves money, but, how do you do it??? Coming this summer, to a tv near you, a locally produced video of an energy retrofit on a typical Fairbanks home! We have put together a volunteer army consisting of television station owners, builders, videographers, energy raters, appraisers, bankers, weatherization and retrofit experts, materials experts, marketers, graphic artists, sponsors, and workers to conduct an energy evaluation and retrofit on the Northern Alaska Environmental Center building located at 830 College Road. Our reasons for choosing the NAEC building, from worst to best, are; 1. Because it was my idea. 2. it is consistent with NAEC’s mission, “…(to) promote conservation of the environment…through advocacy, education, and sustainable resource stewardship”. And, 3. the NAEC building is very visible and is as “typical” a Fairbanks area home as you can find,
built at a time when oil was cheap and little thought was given to saving energy. NAEC’s monthly fuel bills are going up, and the building needs help.
Our plan is to walk you through a complete analysis of your home and what to do about it to start saving lots of money quickly. From things you can do for under a hundred dollars, to what you can do for $30,000, we will go through the steps, from determining the shortcomings of your building to developing a plan around your budget, to finding incentive programs or loans, to picking the right contractors and suppliers, and determining in advance the savings you can expect. Jim Lee, of Interior Weatherization, has worked on hundreds of homes like this in the area over the past 15 years. His data indicate that for an average investment on $7500, you can expect a 38% reduction in fuel usage. In the case of the Northern Center building, which currently uses 2100 gallons of fuel yearly (at $3.25/gallon, that equates to $6825 a year) a savings of 38% will lower our average monthly fuel bill by $216 / month! If we borrowed even $10,000 to do the retrofit, (10 yr loan at 7%) we would have monthly loan payments of only $180/ month. THE MONTHLY SAVINGS PAY FOR THE LOAN!
We need to talk about the significance of that statement. Where is the payback for a $30,000 kitchen or bathroom remodel? A new truck, snowmachine or 4-wheeler, a trip to Hawaii. If you are looking to put some money where it will count, and will keep on counting, this show may be for you.
You will have a healthier, more comfortable home, with fewer drafts and iced up windows and doors.
You will have the monetary savings. In the above scenario we have $36 extra in our pocket each month…a bag or two of groceries, maybe a night at the movies or a show, a light dinner for two, a trip to Hawaii (well, at least you could get half way down the runway), or, in our case a little extra money to put toward more public education programs..
After the loan is paid off you continue to save forever, you get a home with higher value when you go to sell it because of the lower operating costs, and like it or not, you help slow down global warming. By reducing NAEC’s fuel usage by 38%, we save almost 800 gallons of fuel oil. If half of the 35,000 homes in the FNSB could do that, we could save a almost 14 million gallons of fuel oil a year. In our little town alone. Forever.
Check out the retrofit website at http://fairbanksenergywise.wordpress.com/