Ten Principles of Post-Peak Planning
The end of plentiful and inexpensive fossil fuels is something cities need to consider in their long-term planning.
The first century of urban planning in North America took place with a certain set of background assumptions. Chief among these is that energy is cheap and abundant and there’s more of it every year. When that cheap energy is gone, the assumptions and the principles of planning are going to be turned on their ear.
"Peak Oil is expected any time from last week to 2020, and buildings last for decades. So anything built today is going to spend most (if not all) of its service life in an environment where energy in general and oil in particular is a lot more expensive and scarce than it is today. And it has to be evaluated on that basis, not on today’s conditions. So that big-box retail Power Center maybe seems like a good idea today, under current conditions when people can be expected to drive in from four counties to shop. But raise the cost of gasoline enough—double or triple it, let alone ten times—and that parking lot is going to be empty a lot of the time."
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After Peak Oil
I agree that this is a great presentation, but I want to mention two points that I think it misses:
First, when oil production peaks, not all fossil fuel production will peak. I think that greatest danger will be a shift to what Jimmy Carter used to call "synfuels" - gasoline made from coal. This would support our oil addiction for only a few more decades, and it would cause permanent environmental damage by emitting much more CO2 than the gasoline we now use. Nevertheless, when the economy moves toward a depression, and when people living in auto-dependent neighborhoods can't afford gasoline, people will be likely to back anything that relieves their immediate problems, regardless of the long term environmental consequences.
Second, Moerman anticipates a move from the city back to agriculture, since we won't have fossil fuels to power agricultural machinery. In reality, I expect that there will be enough alternative fuels to power agricultural machinery (such as biofuels or electric tractors), though there clearly will not be enough to support our current level of automobile use (as he shows).
Moerman says that he doesn't expect alternative fuels to be developed, since none have been developed since oil prices went up in the 1970s. He ignores the fact that that oil prices went back down in real terms during the 1980s and later. They have just gotten back up to the point where synfuel production is economically competitive with petroleum.
I think these are common problems with peak-oil writers. In one way, they are too optimistic: they assume that peak oil will mean the peak of all fossil fuel production and will automatically move us toward a more environmentally sound economy, ignoring synfuels and their the huge environmental dangers. In another way, they are too pessimistic: they ignore the sort of innovation that will begin when oil prices go way up, and so they think we will have to go back permanently to a poorer, more labor-intensive economy.
When peak oil comes, there will be a battle over our future between environmentalists and the coal/tar sands/shale/synfuels lobby. To win the backing of most people for environmentally sound planning, we need to present them with a positive view of the future.
If environmentalists tell people that they will have to go back to a poorer economy and labor-intensive agriculture, we will lose to the synfuels lobby. If this happens, the economic dislocations caused by higher oil prices will be dwarfed by the ecological dislocations caused by higher CO2 emissions.
Charles Siegel
Peak Oil
You are correct that other alternatives are available and will replace oil as it exhausts. However, all alternatives are more costly to produce both due to more expensive extraction and much higher energy requirements to process which produce less net fuel. The fact is, we'll never "run out" of oil, it will just keep getting increasingly expensive and likely in dramatic fashion (I'm not even touching on the added environmental costs or the expense of cleaning that up). Eventually what oil is left will be so expensive to extract (>1 energy unit to extract 1 unit of oil) that it'll just get left in the ground. This actually means that we'll "run out" of economically viable oil sooner.
The upshot of all this is that fuel for oil-burning vehicles, industry, and heating systems are going to get a lot more expensive and exponentially so once we pass the Peak. Moerman may well be missing the full array of other energy sources in his presentation, but I believe his core point is still valid. I think it will be gradual and not cataclysmic; though the exponential growth of energy costs will be more cataclysmic to those that don't prepare. We must start designing our cities and towns to deal with the kinds of changes he lays out.
Peak Coal
I also agree with his basic point - that we should design cities in a way that respects ecological limits - but I don't think peak oil will force us to do it, as he says.
Synthetic gasoline can be produced from coal at about the current cost of gasoline, so cost of fossil fuels will not force us to rebuild our cities until peak coal arrives - which will be several decades after peak oil.
But synthetic gasoline from coal emits much more CO2 than gasoline from petroleum. Global warming is the first ecological limit we will hit - not peak fossil fuel production.
Peak oil will not automatically make us live in more environmentally sound ways, as this article says. It is more likely to make us use fossil fuels that cause much worse environmental damage than oil. It will force us to make a political decision between economy growth and the global environment.
The world will have to decide whether it wants to create permanent environmental damage to keep the fossil fuel economy going for a few more decades.
Charles Siegel
Transportation
"It will force us to make a political decision between economy growth and the global environment. "
If you're right then the answer to that choice will be pretty clear.... We're a horribly short-sighted nation. If we're going to burn coal for transportation, we may as well encourage it be done by electric light rail.
Cheers,
Brandon
Planning for the long-term....
I agree that this is an excellent piece of analysis, but I would add one caveat. The author notes that "Anything built today will spend most or all of its life in a post-Peak world of worsening energy shortages." This may be true, but from a developer's perspective, that is irrelevent! The calculated return on investment from a big-box store is based on a much shorter planning horizon. If they can make their money back in their estimated time frame (say ten years), then the project will go ahead. From a developer's point of view, it is irrelevant what happens to the site afterwards. Dead shopping malls predate the rapid increase in energy costs.
The question is, how can we incorporate longer term sustainability costs into our development plans?
Excellent
Thank you, Mr. Moerman.
Regardless of one's opinions on the "validity" of the concept of Peak Oil, the principles set forth should be supported throughout the profession.
It is refreshing and invaluable to read such hardcore, insightful, thoughtful analysis. Light-years beyond the aesthete neotraditionalism so often mislabled to be cutting edge.