The NICE

I am so excited to get this years effort off and running!  I have had an amazing time with the NICE for the past 2 summers and there are a variety of possibilities on the horizon for the NICE this year.  The partnership with Grand Aspirations to host Summer of Solutions programs was a great learning experience and continues to grow.  Grand Aspirations is working to develop a series of local hubs across the country and is working to create a mutually beneficial partnership with the NICE.

Our local programs experienced a variety of struggles and successes.  The major success of the NICE-Summer of Solutions ‘09 for me was in developing a better understanding of the real value of engaging in these types processes as an active participant in an ongoing and self-determining learning experience.   I often find myself gauging success in terms of self imposed deadlines met and tangible improvements in peoples’ lives created.  While these types of successes are truly valuable, they are not the limit to the value of our efforts.   Sitting here and looking at where we are now compared to where we were in the spring of 2008, or even 2009, I am seriously blown away by our bold tenacity and ability to make progress toward materializing a somewhat hazy and beautiful vision.

I feel like some possibilities are beginning to clarify within this vision.  Local programs are ongoing and thus there is a need for year round involvement in these efforts.  Summer of Solution (SoS) programs are a powerful tactic when utilized as the continuation or catalyst of student involvement in local solutionary efforts.  I would like to see the NICE develop into a hub for learning, innovation, entrepreneurship, community building, and solutionary action throughout the year through coordinating programs such as SoS.  In order to accomplish this, the regional team is tackling the process of identifying organizational, business, and legal models that fit our aspirations (no pun intended).

Today, I am feeling the extreme urgency and excitement that comes from chasing these types of dreams.  As I snoop around the internet community and sift through my various list serves, to avoid the homework pile of my third week of the term, I am reminded of a thought I had over the summer.  It seems that the argument for renewable energy vs. fossil fuels is often set in a difficult framework for the proponents of renewable energy.

If I strip all value from the arguments, I find the fossilites’ side saying, “Hey we have been serving the population for 200 years!  Yeah, we might have a few problems, but we can fix them.  We can be cleaner.”  The renewable energy side gets stuck trying to prove that the current system is so broken that we need to develop something completely new and relatively untested (compared to the amount of time we have invested into fossil fuel combustion as an energy source).  This is a hard argument to make.  But it is one that must be won!

I feel we need a surge of community based solutions to socio-eco-economic challenges which support the argument that something completely new is possible and preferred.  These community solutions will also reduce the demand for fossil fuels by beginning to tangibly transition neighborhoods and cities onto more sustainable, prosperous, and just alternatives.  A solutionary effort improving living situations and creating jobs  in the district of every elected official would be a huge step in creating a more favorable political landscape.  The NICE is capable of playing an important role in the creation of these community solutions in the northwest.  Its time to roll up our sleeves and get solutionary!

I look forward to all of the learning and innovation that this community will share as the NICE organization, community solutions,  Summer of Solutions, and our partnerships strengthen and grow.  This is going to be a year to remember!!!

~nathan jones

NICE Regional Organizer

In the spring of 2008, a couple of students from the Cascade Climate Network (cascadeclimate.org) designed and carried out a plan to create summer jobs for students to help with a community supported renewable energy project. Propelled by the Slingshot grant from Focus the Nation and Cliff Bar, and some great student and community member support, the Northwest Institute for Community Energy (NICE) was born. This Institute was designed with two purposes in mind. To create hands-on contextual learning experiences for students through meaningful summer jobs, and to help transition communities into a more sustainable energy infrastructure by moving a community supported renewable energy project forward.

The energy project that was chosen for the NICE was Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy or SunNE for short. SunNE is an effort to create a community owned thermal energy utility that would be based around a K-8th grade environmental school in the Sunnyside Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. This project would utilize multiple sources of renewable energy to create thermal energy and store it in water. The water would then be distributed throughout 35 square blocks of residential and business property in the Sunnyside Neighborhood. This thermal energy could be used for heating and cooling of buildings as well as for all the typical applications of hot water, and has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the energy used by the community by 70-80%.

The NICE ended up nothing like what we had imagined when we sat down to design it, however, it was a great success in terms of still reaching the overarching goals of learning and progress. Four students were able to find funding for summer jobs as NICE coordinators and had one of the most powerful learning experiences of their lives. Also, the SunNE was moved forward through production of widespread community support, a SunNE Report, and a weekly meeting working group in the community.

Here is a video we made at one point.   Cheers!