This is the final installment in a three-part series about personal finance for the conscious green Edmontonian. It covers:

1. day to day finances
2. retirement
3. investments

The above picture is the world oil consumption curve. It is often displayed as just data, allowing what will happen on the down slope to our imaginations.

Peak oil is just one of many ways in which we are reaching the limits of our growth as a species. I find it highly absurd, then, that adults (you know, the ones who are all grow’ds up)  cannot rationally discuss the end of growth in polite company. And it’s virtually never discussed by anyone with any power. The fact of the matter is, infinite growth is impossible in a finite world. Let me repeat that:

Infinite growth is impossible in a finite world

Yes, it sucks. Yes, it’s inconvenient. But it’s true.

Maybe it’s a facet of denial, but it is easy to “understand” on one level about growth ending, and then turn around and invest our money in mutual funds and stock markets.

In my humble opinion, investing your money in stocks/mutual funds means one of two things:

1. The Unicorn Option - You believe that infinite growth is possible in our finite ecosystem. If this describes you, stop reading – the unicorns will deliver your fortune when the time is right.

   OR

2. The Playa Option - You recognize that growth will end, but you think that you’re smart and ruthless enough to get out of the stock market before all the suckers do (you know, your children and all those those other weaklings).

Option one speaks for itself, and I personally wouldn’t be counting on option two if my retirement was more than a couple of years away.  read more... »

The link video above is the first in a series of six that document an April 2010 talk by Peter Amerongen about how to build a Net Zero residential house, at the lowest possible cost, in a cold climate like Edmonton’s.

Peter is Edmonton’s foremost authority on energy efficient residential building, and his talk gives details about his experience as the project manager on Edmonton’s first three net zero houses. This stuff is pure gold.

All of the videos can be accessed right here on youtube.

 (fire-rated door, Mill Creek Net Zero Home)

Every interior door in the Mill Creek Net Zero Home was once used in a different application. There are thousands of doors thrown in the landfill every year in this city, which is a real shame.

Both Home Re-use-ables and Architectural Clearinghouse will come to you and pay you to pick up doors if you are tearing down a house or you’ve removed them for some other reason.

We saved a few doors from the old house that we deconstructed before building. For the rest, we paid $30 for old fir doors plywood doors, and $50 for solid core doors. That’s well under what they would cost new, but with two catches: they’re all different sizes, and they’re not pre-hung. Because of these two reasons, we paid more for the carpenter's installation labour.

We also bought antique hardware for the doors, including glass handles for $50/set. That may seem expensive, but it is competitive with brand new, mid-range door hardware.

I do have a few projects to complete (stripping and refinishing the more “rugged looking” doors), but I feel good every time I notice the character and beauty of the old-timey doors in our house.

(antique doors with glass knobs. They don’t make them like this anymore.)

(it’s tough to find reused 16” closet doors. Oak veneer? Hey, they’re reused, I’ve grown to like them!)

(bedroom closet doors. The blue one is from the old house that we deconstructed and tore down.)

Last year we took possession of a new home that surpassed an energy rating of Energuide 86. Because of that, Climate Change Central, an arms-length government organization, mailed us a $10,000 cheque.

What we really need is a carbon tax. Economists (the good kind) and environmentalists agree, putting a price on carbon is the simplest, most effective way of changing people’s earth-destroying ways. And I don’t buy the argument that Stephane Dion’s doomed election campaign proved that Canadians don’t want a carbon tax. The nerdiest, least competent Liberal leader in a generation lost that campaign for reasons other than his Green Shift idea.

Since a carbon tax is a political hot potato right now, one behaviour-changing alternative is the green subsidy. I have to give the Progressive Conservatives credit, this is no longer Ralph Klein’s Alberta. Stelmach’s government recently enacted an excellent net metering policy, and they also introduced the new home rebate policy.

With the right builder, we estimate that the incremental cost to building a house to meet Energuide 86, which would include excellent windows (triple-pane, low-e coating, insulating spaces, etc.), at least R40 walls, R60 in the ceiling, and a very tightly-sealed envelope, is $20,000-$25,000. With the $10,000 incentive, that cost is now ridiculously low.

Build a house that is extremely cheap to heat, much more comfortable in the winter, and cool in the summer. And get paid ten grand to do it - it’s a no-brainer.

Climate Change Central has another three years of funding in place (it may be extended beyond that time). Ask your builder to save you $10,000 today. If your builder can’t build an Energuide 86 house, find another one.