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Page added on March 3, 2014
Energy: Thriving On Five Percent?
In Sharing Energy In The City, EDF and the the French National Research Agency (ANR) have challenged designers to rethink the production, harvesting, distribution, use, exchange and consumption of energy in our everyday life. They asked me to submit this text as fuel for the discussion.
The modern city has been shaped by the availability of cheap oil and resources, and plentiful credit. Massive resource and energy flows have been used to build skyscrapers, heat and cool buildings, move and treat water, feed people, and move them and their goods around.
This expansion of cities involved the stupendous use of energy. Tom Murphy, a physics professor, calculates that U.S. energy use since 1650, including wood, biomass, fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear, etc, has grown at a steady 2.9 percent. Those 360 years of more-or-less steady growth help explain why most governments and industries assume that this growth trend will continue as it has for centuries.
But will it? 10,000 years ago, a hunter-gatherer needed about 5,000 kcal per day to get by. A New Yorker today, once all the systems, networks and gadgets of modern life are factored in, needs about 300,000 kilocalories a day That’s a difference in energy needed for survival, between simple and complex lives, of 60 times – and rising. Does that sound like a resilient trend?
If you have a job, and live in a city, the signals of change be hard to see. City centers bustle, restaurants are full, and shop windows sparkle. But, like ghost images on the television, other realities impinge: Eerily empty railway stations; new-built malls that never open; well-dressed people at soup kitchens. These small signs are evidence of a system under extreme stress.
The world is not in danger of running completely out of oil. A lot of oil and gas remain in the ground and under the sea. But those reserves cannot drive growth with the same gusto as before. Today’s thermo-industrial economy grew using oil that, if it did not literally gush out of the ground, was easily extracted using oil-powered machines. In 1930, for the investment of one barrel of oil in extraction efforts, 100 barrels of surplus or net energy were obtained for economic use. Since then, that happy ratio has declined ten-fold or more.
The calamitous decline in net energy is one reason renewables are not the solution. Green energy strategies suffer from an existential flaw: They take ‘global energy needs’ as a given, calculate the quantity of renewable energy sources needed to meet them – and then ignore the fact that it takes energy to obtain energy. In Spain, for example, the Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROI) of their huge solar photovoltaic intallations is a very low 2.45 despite that country’s ideal sunny climate.
Our capacity to think clearly about energy is further handicapped by driving blind. In most economic activities, the energy that you can measure – such as the electricity used by buildings, or in an industrial process – is only one part of the picture. A new technique called Systems Energy Assessment (SEA) estimates the many energy uses, that businesses rely on, that are hidden. Phil Henshaw, who developed SEA, describes as “dark energy” the four fifths of actual energy useage that conventional metrics fail to count.
Eighty percent at five percent
When pressed, technical experts I have spoken to tell me that for our world to be ‘sustainable’ it needs to endure a ‘factor 20 reduction’ in its energy and resource metabolism – to five percent of present levels. At first I believed, doomily, that Factor 20 was beyond reach. Then, by looking outside the industrial world’s tent, I realised that for eighty per cent of the world’s population, five per cent energy is their lived reality today – and it does not always correspond to a worse life.
Take as an example, healthcare. In Cuba, where food, petrol and oil have been scarce for of 50 years as a consequence of economic blockades, its citizens achieve the same level of health for only five per cent of the health care expenditure of Americans. In Cuba’s five percent system, health and wellbeing are the properties of social ecosystems in which relationships between people in a real-world local context are mutually supportive. Advanced medical treatments are beyond most people’s reach – but they do not suffer worse health outcomes.
Another example of five per cent systems that sustain life is food. In the industrial world, the ratio of energy inputs to the food system, relative to calories ingested, is 12:1. In cities, up to 40 percent of their ecological impact can be attributed to their food and water systems – the transportation, packaging, storage, preparation and disposal of the things we eat and drink .
In poor communities, where food is grown and eaten on the spot, the ratio is closer to 1:1.
My favourite five percent example – a recent one – concerns urban freight. In modern cities, enormous amounts of energy are wasted shipping objects from place to place. An example from The Netherlands: Of the 1,900 vans and trucks that enter the city of Breda (pop: 320,000) each day, less than ten percent of the cargo being delivered really needs to be delivered in a van or truck; 40 percent of van-based deliveries involve just one package. An EU-funded project called CycleLogistics calculates that 50 percent of all parcels delivered in EU cities could be delivered by cargo bike.
According to ExtraEnergy’s tests over several years, an average pedelec uses an average of 1kWh per 100km in electricity. Once all system costs are included, a cargo cycle can be up to 98 percent cheaper per km than four-wheeled, motorised alternatives. Some e-bikers reckon that electric bikes can have a smaller environmental footprint even than pedal-only bicycles when the energy costs of the food needed to power the rider are added.
12 Comments on "Energy: Thriving On Five Percent?"
Northwest Resident on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:38 pm
The reasons why America would lose large portions of its population if (when) we went to “five percent energy”:
1) Millions of Americans are only alive today because of advanced medical treatments and drugs. In a “five percent energy” reality, those advanced medical treatments and drugs would not be available.
2) Millions of Americans that do not fit into #1 above are weak, out of shape, exceedingly overweight, and couldn’t do an hour’s worth of medium to hard physical labor without dropping dead from exhaustion. They were born into a world dominated by Big Macs and frozen pizzas. They have been raised on junk, and it shows. In a “five percent energy” world, you’re going to have to do some work, some real work. Some of those weaklings will man up and get make the cut, but I suspect most won’t.
3) If we’re going to return to “social ecosystems in which relationships between people in a real-world local context are mutually supportive” in America, we have a long way to go. At heart, we’re all a bunch of cowboys, disconnected from each other, dependent on no one, probably not well suited for sharing work loads and limited resources. It isn’t in our nature to settle for what we have and settle down to nurture that small plot of land — we are more likely to go on the warpath, looking for lands and peoples to exploit the same as we have always done. The fact that there is much less left to exploit and fight over might slow us down a little, but don’t count on it.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:44 pm
I have always liked Tom Murphy’s energy discussions. He sold me on the Energy trap analysis he did in the TOD days. I totally agree with his ideas on energy reductions. There are so many examples of waste and redundancy in our energy requirements as modern humans. My view comes from the systematic and financial damage that will occur from any attempt to manage energy de-growth. It just will not be possible to turn this ship around from its present course. We can try to make changes around the fringes and in niches but the big picture is committed to the present course. There are many unintended consequences of reforming our system at this point. If you try to change Big AG to a permaculture based system you risk bankrupting a huge segment of the economy. If you try to change the banking system away for its current economic state the system will crash. Our complex interconnected system is too brittle at this point to change. It will have to contract to a point of collapse then change will be possible. It is just like in an ecosystem that must be destroyed to reinvent itself. Forests give way to savannahs. Swamps give way to forests. Trees move into what was once fields. Tom’s ideas are great in a local setting and with individuals. As individuals we should be looking to these ideas for greater personal resiliency in a time of energy instability. As for the whole picture peak everything is also peak entropy. It is the nature of the beast to waste when so much is available. When the plenty is taken from us we will be unable to change the system we have invested in for multiple generations to accommodate this energy decent. It may have been possible 20 or 30 years ago but we are out of time, money, and probably luck,
J-Gav on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 11:11 pm
Interesting article but it doesn’t mention the cost of an electric bicycle – They’re rather expensive where I live, kind of like a motorcyle but a lot slower …
Sad but true, I pretty much agree with the two comments above, apart from a few quibbles – the sheer inertia of the system will probably take us to the brink. Not that it couldn’t be otherwise, but the time needed for bottom-up change to take hold without provoking a systemic crash seems limiting. Qui vivra verra.
rollin on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:06 am
I could easily argue a couple of points in this blog but won’t because overall he is on the right track and hits hard on several points.
A few changes in our mental perspective, a few changes in how we operate and we could quickly drop to the 50% level of energy use. After that it will take more serious system changes and method implementations.
A long time ago I concluded that using 20% of the current oil production could be achieved in a couple of decades. Same goes for the other fossil fuels. The shift completely off fossil fuels could take a bit longer and a whole new way of living.
Instead, society has chosen to listen to the great cornucopian hope of inventing our way out of this and avoiding real change. That is the more painful route, but we learn from pain.
Joe Clarkson on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:18 am
Since FORTUNA FORTIS PARATUS, one might want to get busy during the wait.
Makati1 on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 1:21 am
“…Green energy strategies suffer from an existential flaw: They take ‘global energy needs’ as a given, calculate the quantity of renewable energy sources needed to meet them – and then ignore the fact that it takes energy to obtain energy…” Nuff said.
As a person living in the 3rd world and it’s 15th largest city, I can tell you that anything that can be moved by manpower is moved by manpower. The traffic is bad here but it is people traffic: buses, jeepneys, taxis, motorcycles and cars. Pickups are rare. trucks on the street during the day are either small, van sized ones moving heavy stuff like beer or water and large semis delivering steel and prefab concrete panels to construction sites.
If it can be put on a push cart, it is. If it can be put on a bicycle (human powered, not motor) it is. If it can be carried on your back, it is. Obesity is almost unknown here, and when you see an obese person, he/she is most always a Caucasian. I used to drive the 5 blocks to the grocery store when I lived in Philly. Now I walk the 3 blocks to the grocery store and carry my purchases home, 3-4 times a week, for exercise. When I am on the farm, I will not need that exercise as hand tools require work and I am looking forward to it. ^_^
Sobotai on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 5:14 am
Well, I’ve ridden an electric bike for 5300 miles now. They’re fun and carry lots of cargo, but heavy and not cheap. Key parts wear out at 4000 miles in the wet Northwest climate. Trip reliability is about 97%. The 97% is great. The 3% means you’re standing along the road with a 55 lb bike.
Stephen on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 10:39 am
Matt Simmons made this statement before he died to reduce energy consumption, and I beleive him:
1) Flex work hours. Pay by productivity. Don’t require all people to congregate at the office 9-5. Doing this would reduce the traffic jams where most of the Gasoline is wasted.
2) Assemble goods locally. There is no need to waste energy shipping goods to the cheapest labor country to assemble.
3) Tax Gasoline in the USA up to European prices. This would reduce unnessecary driving.
4) Mandate that all long distance freight shipments be by rail or boat and not by truck. According to BNSF, one train can take 280 trucks off the road and trains are far more fuel efficient than trucks.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:11 pm
Stephan, these are great mental ideas of course but as concrete ideas they would be very difficult to implement. Flex hours are being tried here and there but until we get a serious energy supply disruption we are not likely to see this more than current. Some industries it works well others not so well. I don’t see the top down policy push either. There is still far too many “lobby of Plenty” individuals that don’t believe we have a problem. Comparative advantage of labor is a global phenomenon that will not change much as long as we have a complex global interconnected system. It is a pillar of the current global system and the global corporate structure. If you enforced it from the top there would be crys of protectionism. The only way this will happen is through necessity from a coming correction, contraction, and or collapse. It is a pillar of many on here that see local production as vital to the sustainability and resilience of our local support system. Yet, localism time is not possible at the moment except around the edges or in niches. The whole gasoline tax issue is very complicated. It sounds like a good move on the surface and does have advantages. It is just hard to implement. There would have to be some kind of help to the poor in the US who barely afford driving now. Driving in the US is pretty much required for survival. I might add Europe is more reliant on cars then many claim. Their public transport is great but nowhere near enough to eliminate many more cars that are now in use. Good luck getting any kind of new tax or tax changes through a divided congress. Freight by rail or boat could be made more attractive but it is not feasible to transition away from truck freight in the current economic climate. This is true just as much in Europe. Truck freight is essential because rail on boat very rarely can get to the end user. So there is no substitute for final delivery. This is not only short term we are talking nowhere near enough rail or water freight to far flung production locations. The rail and water transport are already running at near maximum for the current infrastructure in places of comparative advantage for example the Mississippi. There are a few instances of under used rail or water ways but few. The problem is the current complex interconnect global economy is committed in structure for significant truck use. The only way truck transport will be reduced is by necessity in a much smaller and more local economic world that is a world of contraction and or collapse.
kervennic on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 4:43 pm
“An EU-funded project called CycleLogistics calculates that 50 percent of all parcels delivered in EU cities could be delivered by cargo bike.”
Yeah,but it is infinetely cheaper and faster to continue to deliver with truck because oil is still cheap enough.
Besides when it will become competitive than margin will be so small that there will be no money to pay those heavy taxes that pay those euro buraucrats.
So they make report to show they are nice and make people dream, but their stomach tell them to protect trucks and cars that have higher profits per worker and generate more taxes.
This is why in reallity we still have more and more trucks and more and more of these bullshit reports.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 5:21 pm
Kervennic, when shortages start ideas like cyclelogistics will have a place at the buffet of options that will be needed to mitigate the many shocks to the system ahead. Distribution and trade will need alternatives that are low tech, dispersed, and energy efficient. Currently as with so many great ideas of sustainability, resilience practices, and efficiency practices the status quo BAU economics make them uneconomic per BAU standards. This means the criteria for needed capex is often not there. The status quo BAU is geared more and more towards centralized energy intensive corporate structures connected to the power elite. Many times the energy intensive nature of these structures is promoted as energy efficient but in reality it is nothing more than energy intense economic efficiency, in other words “profitable”. An example is Walmart’s warehouse on wheels. A very efficient system on paper per BAU economic criteria’s hugely wasteful by an analysis of energy per “real” benefit to society. We know a spoon made locally from local material is more valuable to society then one made across the ocean. This BAU trend is heading into the brick wall of the predicament of diminishing returns of the limits of growth. Any good ideas however small need to be promoted as options for the future. Most of these plan B options will have a bottom up delivery point. There will be very few top down plans. A few top down plans will coincide with bottom up plan B’s. These top down plans will try to strengthen and preserve the staus quo BAU but will indirectly help the bottom up plan B’s. An example of this would be support for alternative energy systems for residences and small communities. In most cases the top down plans will be a vain attempt at preserving the status quo. In many cases these investments will only make societies problems worse.
Makati1 on Wed, 5th Mar 2014 12:54 am
Guys, 90% of what is in those trucks will no longer be produced, so the trucks will also fade out. Then there will be the potholes that do not get repaired and the roads that return to gravel and then mud. When? Well, the roads to gravel have already started in the West and the shrinking production of unnecessary goods is also beginning. We are on our way the 1850, IF we don’t destroy ourselves in war first.