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Sustainability is a Mirage
I was listening to Moira Gunn interview Mary O’Hara-Devereaux about her book Navigating the Badlands : Thriving in the Decade of Radical Transformation. The “badlands” are, in O’Hara-Devereaux’s analogy, the rough times of transition in the world’s history. She makes a case that we’re going through the badlands now.
I was struck, however, by what seemed to me a glaring incongruity in some of the things she said. She said (I’m paraphrasing) “strategy disintegrates in the badlands. You need to be flexible and agile.” This resonates with my experience. But, through some disconnect, the next topic was sustainable energy.
So I was left to wonder, how can you create a plan for sustainability in the face of uncertainty? Whenever you hear someone talk of sustainability, you get the feeling that the lack of sustainable energy sources is a recent problem. Its not, of course—burning forests for wood wasn’t sustainable. So, we found something else (coal in that case) and stopped doing it.
Don’t get me wrong, sustainable energy would be nice, but sustainability makes the problem much more difficult. Rather than looking for the next stone to step onto, we’ve got to somehow find the answer for all time. We don’t. There’s no doubt that we have to find something other than petrochemicals to serve as an energy source, but finding the next stone will be hard enough without looking for Nirvana. Personally, I think nuclear energy has a lot going for it.
Posted by windley on March 18, 2005 9:34 PM
Comment from AJ Kandy at March 19, 2005 11:38 AM
Sustainability is only half of the equation. Reducing demand at the source is the other half.
As writers like James Kunstler and scientists like Richard Heinberg put it, oil seems to be peaking around now, as we enter decades of oil decline, sustainable energy will work only if we concurrently reduce demand to something like 20-25% of what we use now.
I agree, it's pointless to try to create a "now and forever" solution, but it's equally important not to back technologies that don't have a future in them either. A small buildup in nuclear capacity is possible, to be sure, but there's no way you could build enough to replace, say, all the energy from oil burned in cars and trucks.
In addition, it was revealed this week that under pressure, geologists researching the stability of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear fuel repository had falsified data. So the question of where do we put the waste is still up for grabs!
At the rate we currently use energy in North America (mostly from oil), we'd deplete coal and coal-derived oil substitutes fairly rapidly, and even nuclear fuel sources wouldn't last very long. So reducing demand is critical to getting us through the transition to a "post-carbon" world.
An American group, The Community Solution, Inc. held a conference on Peak Oil last November; one presenter gave a very interesting talk on how Cuba survived its oil crash of 1991. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its subsidies and most of its cheap oil imports - it had to adapt, after a difficult decade, to completely changing its agriculture system. First, they de-collectivized the system and encouraged private enterprise. Simultaneously, they had to transition from Green Revolution agri-chemicals to a totally organic model. Urban agriculture was aggressively pursued - former parks and parking lots were turned into community gardens. The focus, overall, was switched from export crops to domestic consumption. In the sudden wake of the crash, individual motoring gave way to carpooling and improvised mass transit. Even donkeys and oxen are making a comeback, as a replacement for farm equipment.
Perhaps it will not be that drastic, but I'm encouraged by how they managed to get out of that situation. We have the benefit of foresight; we know our turn is coming, maybe sooner than we think, and I think it would be irresponsible to not at least consider "the worst-case scenario" and hedge our bets a little.
Ideally, replacement energy sources will be "forward compatible" with future conditions, and will provide adequate energy return on energy investment (EROEI). At the moment, that makes a massive nuclear ramp-up, or a transition to a hydrogen economy, pretty unrealistic.
Even with solar, windmills, green roofs, etc. we will have to make very big changes in our lifestyles: industrial agriculture, jet travel, and the "individual motoring drive-in utopia" we currently enjoy will simply become uneconomical.
I see the future as being a lot like 1920 but with wi-fi and broadband -- fewer cars, more public transit. Economics will shift from fossil-fueled globalism to very local and regional concerns. Communities will, out of necessity, become more dense and self-sustaining. As Kunstler writes, there's no more "3000-mile Caesar salads" in our future; there simply won't be the fuel to ship things 'just in time' on a global basis anymore.
All of this presents some pretty hard challenges, but also some remarkable opportunities to use this Interweb thing for knowledge-sharing, to get us through it with good ideas, high-tech and low.