Post Oil #

There is an interesting passage in ‘English Farmhouses’ where the author notes that iron bolts or nails were uncommon in the (xxth) century due to their high cost.  Instead ‘heart  of oak’ ‘xxxxx nails’ were used.  X hundred years on, with basic steel prices running at £200 a tonne, the circle is nearly complete – a resurgence in the use of wood for construction and a corresponding decline in the use of metals is inevitable. 

 

            The end of oil will profoundly impact every aspect of our lives.  Oil literally and metaphorically lubricates the wheels of most modern ‘industry’.  Modern industry in turn supports a vast infrastructure including “logistics”, banking, advertising, insurance, legal services, accounting and a host of ‘service providers’ and ‘professionals’.  The basic essentials of living – food, shelter, education and culture are thought of as being made possible by employment provided by ‘business’.  Post oil this will inevitably be reversed.  There will be little or no ‘business’ to do.  Life will focus instead on the core human needs: shelter, food, companionship, culture and entertainment.

 

            The ‘new localism’ that will result from the extreme difficulty and cost of long physical journeys will bring about a renaissance in all things small: community and family will be the focal points of life post-oil.  The factory and the office will be found in our grandchildren’s history books.  The farm will be inseparable from life.  Farming will be synonymous with living.

 

            I’m not against the use of oil based materials like plastic, or even against ‘consumer goods’ per se.  In fact these goods perform a valuable service by locking up large amounts of fossil-based carbon for hundreds of years, thus preventing it from being accessible for use as a fuel.  This simultaneous carbon consumption (meaning the material is removed from the ‘fuel chain’) and sequestration are in fact excellent news for one who longs for the world to change positively ‘post-oil’.  I NEVER bring my own carrier bags!

 

            Wooden objects are a brilliant example of human-utility and carbon capture.  Buy or make the very best that you can.  Aim to pass objects down to your children and grandchildren.  Reduce your consumption.  Embrace the inevitable and position your children to thrive in a world post-oil.  Provide them with the skills they will need to survive and succeed.

 

            Centralisation is always wrong.  300m^3 of good Welsh rainwater fall on my roof each year.  I currently buy 200m^3 treated rainwater from a giant, inefficient, capital hungry ‘utility provider’ which owns a large tank (reservoir), pipes and pumps.  Mini-rainwater storage and treatment plants, either at individual home or small community scale will be the norm in the future.  As an important aside, having mentioned pumps, a staggering fact is that pumps consume 25% of the world’s electricity.  Driven I guess very much by centralization of water supplies, the oil and gas industries, and domestic applications.

 

            Centralisation is always wrong.  We currently use 5000kw of electricity each year.  Due to centralization and indirect generation, a further 10000kw are wasted, approximately 50% through conversion and 50% through distribution.  A staggering fact.  The economies of home-scale external combustion engines (e.g. Stirling or steam engines) (probably combined with wood boilers for space and water heating) for electricity generation should be explored.

 

            Centralisation is always wrong.  Centralisation drives large scale.  Large scale drives engineering complexity exponentially.  A 3kW wind generator can be made easily, at home, using largely found or cheap materials and human-scale technology like hand tools.  A mW scale turbine requires an army of engineers and workers, usually abroad, consuming vast amounts of energy (almost certainly not itself ‘sustainable’), and then proceeds to waste 50% of it through distribution losses!

 

            Travel in the cheap and easy form that we currently know it won’t exist post oil.  Pre-industrial revolution people still traveled globally, just without the use of fossil fuel.  Sailing boats circumnavigated the globe in xx weeks (compared with xx weeks for a container ship today).  Intra-country land based travel, where it continues to be necessary, will be human or animal powered or via a revitalized canal system.

 

            As Schumacher observed, small is beautiful.

 

            Large transformations can be achieved through the combination and integration of many small things!

 

            Global brands with their ubiquity and homogeneity succeed because of the basic human need for comfort and reassurance.  When you’re far from home some familiarity can be a nice thing.  That makes sense to me, and in my former career, when I had to travel to distant places, just like everyone else I sometimes breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a McDonalds, or drank a glass of Carlsberg.  However, what is more interesting is why, as a native of the South West of the UK, I think of McDonalds or Carlsberg (or any one of another 100 brands) as reminiscent of ‘home’.  This is the true genius of the global brand.  Instead of choosing something genuinely from ‘home’, and genuinely delicious, we choose alien, generic, value-engineered, transported, warehoused, often tasteless, often expensive alternatives because they are familiar, habitual, and (I have to admit), usually adequate.  These ‘incumbent’ brands, which have become automatic choices through constant exposure and habit, are a great target to focus on when we think about the ‘new local’ paradigm.  These are the first and easiest habit which we must give up if we are to survive and thrive in the future.  Even more interesting than the brands themselves is the products.  Why do I automatically choose to drink beer for example, when no grain is produced within 50 miles of my home http://www.adas.co.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=5wPvBHWxBXg%3D&tabid=268, and any beer which is produced in that area must necessarily be imported from further afield?  A better alcoholic choice would be cider, which was historically produced on our farm, and probably all the farms in the area.