[Pil-pc-oceania] [Fwd: Is Burning Wood Really A Long-Term Energy Descent Strategy?]

[RussGrayson]

On 19/05/08 11:30 PM, "Deb Guildner" <bocor at bigbutton.com.au> wrote:
 
> Well, urbanity certainly won't have much appeal if everyone is reduced to
> burning fuels to heat water, food and just to stay warm in winter.

Such a situation suggests a number of things.

First, people in apartments built after the late 1920s or so have no
opportunity to burn anything on an open fire.

Second, the situation in which people in cities burn wood fuel over open
fires could signify a partial civilisational collapse. This means a collapse
of the economies and opportunities in rural areas as well, because cities
are the markets for rural products, rural credit and rural goods and
services. Rural areas are not islands sufficient unto themselves.

Third, such a situation would probably occur during a deep economic
depression, so there would be little option for anyone to buy one of these
super-efficient wood heaters, even if the manufacturers were somehow still
in business.

Fourth, the situation would see the denudation of bushland reserves and
national parks within and on the edge of cities as people harvested fuel
wood. It would also probably see people move into these areas to set up
shanty towns, being no longer able to afford urban accommodation... like the
shack villages that grew up during the depression of the 1930s.

Fifth, assuming that the development of this type of scenario was of the
order of a number of years, I expect you would see substantial public
pressure on government to facilitate the rapid and emergency construction of
nuclear power stations to supply heat, electrical cooking and energy to the
cities and to rural areas.

A worse case scenario - related to peak oil and other challenges - for the
USA is explored in James Kunstler's somewhat alarming 'The Long Emergency'.

Assuming that rural areas will somehow be exempt from energy drawdown might
be erroneous. In some ways they are better placed but in others they are not
so. Rural residents, for example, use more fuel in transportation because of
their distances from the towns upon which they rely for their needs. As they
eat much the same food from much the same supermarkets as city dwellers,
their food miles are most likely correspondingly longer than those of city
dwellers, assuming they do not buy local produce from farmers' markets. From
what I have read, extremely few rural residents grow even a portion of their
own food.

In contrast, the part of the city in which I live is medium density, with
many people living in low-rise and a few high rise apartments (lots of steps
in those high rise if there's no electricity... and what happens if there's
none to power water pumps?). It's easy to live without a private vehicle
here (we don't, because we have to transport materials for courses and the
like but we do have a somewhat old, low-fuel consumption car, however we do
not use much it for commuting and the like [maybe a modern car would be
environmentally cleaner]). The city is a pleasant 30 minute ferry ride away
and bus routes radiate out from here - the local council also operates a
free minibus service around the municipality. This you don't get in the
country.

Ideally, medium density living surrounded by open space for natural systems
and farming suggests an urban ideal. It's not a new idea - just take a look
at those traditional Italian and Greek hill villages. Unless such
settlements were surrounded by substantial open space, it's probable that
there still would not be sufficient area to grow fuelwood crops, but I could
well be wrong here.

...Russ