Free Chainsaws for All!; Republicans for Renewables
And more about the human and environmental costs of renewable energy and digital technology —and how we can do better.
Free Chainsaws for All!
Roaming around an unfamiliar part of town a few weeks ago, I was delighted to stumble across a little storefront housing something called the Vancouver Tool Lending Library. It’s just what it sounds like: a place where you can borrow everything from power drills to hedge trimmers to chainsaws. Just like taking out a book from a regular library. It’s a beautiful concept with big implications.
Most of us only need such tools once in a while, but when we need ‘em, we need ‘em—and so we often buy them, though they’re not cheap. It makes all kinds of sense for neighbors to share tools instead: cheaper for everyone, and easier on the planet. The more people borrow instead of buying, the less metal, plastic and energy that gets used to manufacture, package and ship new tools.
Neighbors have been loaning each other tools probably since cave dwellers started exchanging sharp rocks, of course, but the idea of doing it on a large scale seems to date from the 1940s. During the Second World War, the American military devoured such unprecedented quantities of metals and other materials that the home front suffered a shortage of basic kitchen and yard tools. “To fix this problem, local communities pooled their tools and freely borrowed from the public stockpile,” writes researcher Samantha Hamilton in this fascinating research paper. Some of those stockpiles ended up in regular libraries. Michigan’s Grosse Pointe Public Library established the first (and for a long time, only) formal tool lending library in 1943. It’s still in business, offering everything from faucet handle pullers to binoculars.
The post-war consumer boom seems to have dampened Americans’ enthusiasm for tool libraries, though. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea came back into vogue, presumably borne upwards by the era’s social and environmental idealism. America’s second tool library opened in Columbus, Ohio in 1976, followed shortly by another in Seattle, Washington, started by a professor who collected hardware left behind by students. Berkeley, California launched one in 1979 that was integrated into the regular public library system. (I borrowed a bunch of power tools from this very institution somewhere back in the 1980s, when I was converting an old Volkswagen bus into a temporary residence.)
Over the years, many of those 70s-era libraries fizzled out. But the Great Recession in 2008 launched a fresh wave. With so many people out of work, and digital technologies making it easier to manage memberships and inventories, tool libraries took off. By 2015, America was home to more than 60. Vancouver’s tool library, the first in Canada, opened in 2011, and now has counterparts all across the country and around the world. Some also offer things like games and camping gear. Most run on a membership basis, costing between $40 and $110 per year, but some are programs run by regular public libraries and charge nothing at all. The tools are often donated. (I went back to the Vancouver library to hand over a box of old wrenches and a power sander I’d bought when I was repainting our kitchen almost 20 years ago, and haven’t used since.) The US is also home a nationwide organization, ToolBank, that loans everything from extension cords to electric jackhammers to community groups, especially in places hit by disasters.
It’s hard to quantify the benefits these places bring, but researchers have taken a shot. A 2014 study of the North Portland Tool Library found that its 5,000-odd members had loaned out tools more than 7,000 times in the preceding year, which the researchers estimated saved members about $60 each, for a total savings of $447,205. Of more direct importance to the rest of us: Two-thirds of those members say they would have bought a new tool were it not for the library. That translates into energy savings that equate to 200 fewer tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Communal tool-sharing is such an obviously good idea that I’m only surprised it isn’t more common. If you ask me, we should extend the concept. Think about big apartment buildings or suburban condo developments where residents already share swimming pools or fitness rooms stocked with exercise equipment. Those things are expensive to own and a nuisance to maintain. Owned collectively, though, the cost per user is much lower, which means many more people get to use them. Plus they get access to a much wider range of equipment than would fit in their individual places.
Why not also put communal tool depots in such places? They could also loan out things like games, camping equipment, e-bikes, even cars. Any durable product that you only need once in a while, and for a short time, fits the bill. Less buying + more borrowing = benefits for everyone.
Republicans For Renewables
It’s a start: At least 21 House Republicans have signed a letter urging their party not to kill Biden-era subsidies for renewable energy, according to Politico. It’s not climate change that seems to concern them, but rather the economic impact on their constituents. Reports Politico: “The lawmakers warn that repealing certain tax credits ‘would increase utility bills the very next day.’ They said the incentives are helping to boost manufacturing and energy production that will help meet the growing power demand from a fleet of planned artificial intelligence data centers.”
Those are legitimate issues, and it’s not surprising to see them come up, considering that, according to a new report from the American Clean Power Association, “nearly 80% of the nation’s operational clean power capacity is located in GOP congressional districts, and 85% of newly commissioned clean energy manufacturing projects were in states that went for Trump in the 2024 election.” (Here’s a handy chart.) That report echoes others that have come out in the last couple of weeks showing how solar, wind and battery storage are absolutely booming across the US.
That surge will likely slow down, though, if Trump and his team have their way. Last week, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told an oil and gas conference that his goal is “reversing what I believe has been a very poor direction in energy policy,” shrugging off climate change as “side effect of building the modern world.”
Republicans in Texas, Arizona and other states that are building renewables might want to look outside the US for moral support. Worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency, all countries invested about $1.2 trillion in wind, solar, batteries and electric grids—topping the $1.1 trillion they sank into oil, gas and coal.
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The VTL is amazing! We can do more with less ~ we just need to focus on building the world we want, instead of trying to maintain the one we don’t want.
Hi Vince, did you know that Gabriola has had a tool sharing building at the Commons for years, and that we also have a regular fix it program where people bring in broken things for knowledgeable others to repair? It’s great! Cheers, Renée