How Cities Can Survive the Energy Crisis

Seventy percent of the oil consumed in North America is used for transportation ... whatever means we use to get around will have to find ways to leverage that [road] network : ... develop light rail systems for intra-urban transportation between distant points in the city ... transform existing highways into rail lines ... share city streets for pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders, etc ...

Low-density, use-segregated building guarantees that people will live far from the amenities and services they need to live ... public transit is not viable in sprawl, because the population density is too low to make buses or light rail cost-effective.

Governments must : throw out their zoning regulations that encourage sprawl ... change building codes to require more energy efficient building design ... ban drive-thrus and other building models that force the primacy of driving ...

Ways to stabilize the electricity grid : wind turbines have an important role to play, as the cost per kilowatt hour is becoming increasingly competitive ... encourage conservation. The easiest way to "produce" more electricity is to use less ... encourage intertie production. Buildings that generate their own power can tie it back into the grid. If a building produces more electricity than it uses, then the meter runs backward and the power company pays the producer ...

- The above is heavily excerpted. Urban dwellers should read it in its entirety. Not quite sure how much time there is to implement any of these things, given that the clock is ticking with accelerating rates of resource depletion, but Ryan McGreal seems to actually make somewhat of a case for vertical suburbia.

He did not really mention food though. That's where the "peak oil survivalists" seem to come in, like the "Y2K survivalists" before them, perhaps half a generation ago. But farming is not exactly easy either.

The community has been discussing many scenarios, mostly variants of "slow crash vs fast crash". Well, only time will tell. Let's hope that they do not have to suddenly call up the able-bodied males and start issuing out those M-16's ...

(2005-08-24 22:50:05 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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