Think Tank

The Post Carbon Institute has an ambitious set of program and
policy areas. Our program areas and the corresponding projects are selected
to make a near-term postitive impact on local communities, prepare them for
times of energy scarcity, and/or raise the awareness of Peak Oil and Gas. Our
policy areas are reflect the key issues and opportunities facing humanity as
we transition into the Post Carbon Age.

Featured Program Area: Community Supported Manufacturing

Excerpt from the "Getting Started" chapter of "Relocalize Now! Getting
ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil":

We have discovered in visits to countless towns in North America that most
places are totally reliant on outside deliveries for practically everything
except oxygen. Time and time again we hear about workshops and light
manufacturing plants that have shut down, leaving the young, middle-aged and
old with no work, no money, and in the particularly barbarous case of America,
no health care either.

At the infrastructure level, the factories that once made the machine tools
to supply the end-user manufacturers, have also largely disappeared. This story
will surely find resonances across the world. Even in places like Germany, which
still does make things, including machine tools, unemployment is reaching post-war
records. Thus, almost everywhere it will be difficult to start making local
daily necessities again because the complex infrastructure and vital tools,
small and large, which were built painstakingly over time, have disappeared
and reappeared in the places of the cheapest, most exploitable labour and lowest
environmental standards. That used to mean places like Mexico and Taiwan, but
nowadays means China (with India waiting in the wings). Furthermore, the whole
economic system, as we have already described, is designed to eat the eggs and
babies of any community creature foolhardy enough to try go it alone and produce
even some of what it consumes.

When we first approached the idea of returning to making our daily needs, the
problem seemed insurmountable. Everywhere we turned it appeared that the means
of production were missing and that the free market, economists, and the MBA
malaise would mean that no product would ever make it even to the business plan
stage because everything can always be made more cheaply (in rotten conditions)
offshore. The only entry point would be by replicating the same techniques of
quasi-slavery and corporate ruthlessness we find so despicable. If only there
were some way of shielding the local production system from the rapacious lunacy
of globalization.

We think that there is, but it is not simple or easy. That should be no surprise,
otherwise many people would already be doing it. What is required is a near
total remaking of the infrastructure, what we have called the parallel public
infrastructure. We have spoken of it earlier and said that it will be a system
to help integrate the many disparate efforts that are now starting to bridge
the carbon chasm. In the case of the ‘non-grown’ items, the parallel
public infrastructure moves from being vital to continuation and scaling up
of operations, to being the very womb and mother system, without which no egg
will get implanted, far less grow.

The key parts of the parallel public infrastructure that will allow local manufacturing
to begin again and be sustained, are the training, analytic, knowledge, energy,
and local currency elements. Yet even this will not be enough to start a new
local production venture; this will require the active and possibly prolonged
financial support of the community. The model we look to is that of community
supported agriculture (CSA), which we already know works in the matter of growing
in soil. Now we want to transfer community cultivation from the land to the
workshop. Developing different and varied techniques of community support will
require different kinds of production organisation and different ownership structures.
We envisage a mixture of everything from municipal ownership and operation through
cooperatives and mutual aid organizations to family businesses and other smaller,
locally owned firms. In all cases, stress will be laid on local ownership and
control, whether it is attempting to be obviously democratic in some way, or
privately owned but locally responsible. It should be clear that all these many
formulations, and some that may yet be invented, utterly and completely exclude
the global corporations, for all the reasons that we have already made clear,
especially in the chapter on corporate disobedience.

Featured Policy Area:
Relocalization Platform

Post Carbon Institute is developing a relocalization platform for candidates
for city council, mayor, commisions, school boards and other elected officials
in municipal government. Cosnistent with our Relocalization Statement, the Relocalization
Platform advocates local food, energy, money, manufacturing of essentials, media,
ownership, etc.. as well as rebuilding cities for much less transport and energy
consumption. Due to the inertia and beauracracy in the political system and
the fact that the platform is all about localization, municipal government will
be the most effective entry point for candidates with this platfom. Julian Darley
says “It is imperative that people who understand our energy predicamant
and the need for relocalization take over municpal government; the alternative
is painful to imagine.” We encourage all of you who have the stomach for
politics to consider running for municipal office and begin preparing immediately.
Regardless of outcome, your voice will be heard and reported on local media
further propogating the seeds of transformation. Take a look at our Relocalization
Platform.

Visit
our Speakers page

Publications

2005-05-20After CarbonDavid Room2004-09-20Creating a Post Carbon CityDavid Room2004-07-21High Noon For Natural GasJulian Darley2004-04-29Is Saudi Arabia Still the King of Oil? (download PDF)Julian Darley2004-03-17Tale of Two Planets (download PDF)Julian Darley2003-08-13When markets fail – America leaps off the gas cliff without a parachuteJulian Darley2003-01-01Letter From Earth #1Julian Darley2002-11-10General Knowledge in the Post Carbon AgeJulian Darley

Download The End of Oil booklet - a 16 page synopsis of the The Party's Over

Relocalization Platform

Sound municipal governance for the transition into the Post Carbon Age requires:

Nimble government that rapidly reconfigures for energy scarcity
Active support for relocalization, worker owned cooperatives, locally owned
businesses, and ecological city design
Innovative municipal tools to affect land and energy use such as zoning
ordinances, transfer development rights, tenancy agreements, and community
benefit agreements
A contingency plan (or “Plan B”) that addresses how essential
systems will work with less energy
Pressure on national leaders for support of local efforts, including demands
for a global carbon tax to support local initiatives and experiments.

As we consider solutions and policies that will mitigate our energy predicament,
we must adhere to the following guiding principals:

Reduce energy consumption
Reduce materials throughout
Comprehensively non-violent

The foundation of the platform includes the following components:

0) USE MUCH LESS AND MAKE LESS MESS

Everything featured in Einstein's famous little equation (E=mc2)
should be on our list for reduction. if we use less energy and mass as inputs,
we'll produce less material outputs that nature has no use for, such as heavy
metals, pcbs, co2, etc... ad infitum. Using less light is very important,
since lights, though less energy intensive than say heaters, are left on so
much longer that they are highly significant energy users. They also encourage
us to work longer hours. We can and must work less, and with less oil around
we won't be able to do as much work anyway, so we may as well get used to it.
The best way to get used to anything is by planning for it. The alternative
is invariably ugly and painful.

1) Rules on local ownership and local operation of food production

Much more urgent steps should be taken to relocalize food production. Yes,
CSA is helpful, but much organic agriculture is still too dependent on oil
and gas (tractors and drying for example), and also organic is becoming co-opted
by agri-business. Local rules must be put in place which explicitly (if possible)
or implicitly enforce local ownership and local operation. The easiest thing
to do would be to do this by regulation. More subtle methods will be perverted
by the corporations. Explicit rule making will certianly face great hostility
from agri-business and every other multi-national - at some point these battles
will have to come into the open.
Strongly encourage biointensive techniques of food production which build
the soil, and consequently need much less water. Biointensive techniques also
require lots of people, by definition. As the industrial economy decays, this
will soon be seen as a good thing by more and more people.

2) Access to locally produced food

It is vital that small food shops be reinvented or started from scratch,
as well as the old-fashioned wholesaler and street markets. Otherwise it will
remain virtually impossible for the new professional food grower to get their
product to market. This will include deliberately creating:

European style street markets on regular days, or indeed everyday when things
get going. This will mean closing streets to cars. This can be a beginning
towards getting rid of all private cars completely. Copenhagen has done amazing
work in this regard.
Small food shops to be encouraged in every possible way:
- Implement tax breaks or total holidays for a long time to help them
  fight supermarkets (which should be driven to extinction with all speed
  and vigor)
- Charge minimal or non-existent property rents for small shops
- If one-story strip malls dominate the old high street or town center
  and if they cannot be quickly bulldozed, then explore whether housing
  can be placed on top of them (beware Egyptian experience - the job must
  be done with enough structural strength). Best to get rid of strip malls
  altogether, and build something with two or three stories of housing on
  top of the shops. It is vital that this looks as beautiful as possible,
  and that is designed to last a reasonable length of time. We just won't
  have the resources to keep rebuilding the kinds of wretched garbage that
  developers are throwing up now. This high quality building work, which
  should have a strong vernacular flavor, and if possible involve the development
  of a tradition of vernacular builder-designers, should try to avoid all
  the normal patterns of architect-developers. These people have helped
  wreak destruction on cities and communities across the planet. There may
  be some resistance to this notion. All this work will be very helpful
  for increasing employment. Local materials should be used, and systems
  of collecting discarded materials should be developed, so that such things
  can be re-used or re-fashioned into something useful. Until the wasteful
  age of petroleum, this was ordinary and natural practice. It must become
  so once again (see artisans below).

3) Transport

Urgently get public transport (publicly owned) into the village/town/city
area, especially to feed the traditional high street and (if they existed)
pre-petroleum main shopping areas. If such centers never existed, look at
European models, and the American towns that were built before petroleum,
and designed to foster some sense of community and identity. Almost all post
war (1945) planning and design should strongly avoided, including of course,
suburbia and all modern shopping malls, which will one day be torn down or
simply abandoned. It would be better to dismantle them now, whilst we still
have the energy. There are at least some things in them can be re-used, such
as glass, metals and wood.
If remotely possible try to put in trolley buses or even better trams.
This will be a huge bonus in the decades to come. But even rubber-wheeled
buses are much better than nothing. Obviously they must not be natural-gas
powered. If internal combustion engines are the only short-term option, then
look at making the buses biodiesel compatible (though note that biodiesel
is no panacea). Trolley buses and trams will require electricity, which must
be produced locally, and they will require wire and rails. Both these use
commodities which are already becoming much more expensive. It is possible
in the future, that dismantled suburbia and malls may furnish some of the
resources.
Strongly encourage car co-operatives or non-profits, or indeed, make them
public car share operations. Interesting examples exist in Vancouver and San
Francisco. The mitfarhgelegenheit system in Germany is very successful at
coordinating ride sharing for ordinary private cars.

4) Create or re-create the pre-industrial revolution system of artisan
production and reinstate selected light manufacturing capacity

Deliberately develop an economy based on artisans producing as much
as possible of local vital needs. This will require similar measures to helping
small stores. Policymakers should think very seriously about metal and vessel
makers, e.g. blacksmiths, potters. We must drastically reduce the amount of
packaging that we use, especially plastic. We need to return to using permanent
containers such as pots and baskets for holding and transporting things. Basket
making is a special and very important art and craft, but it takes time to revive.
Other vessel making, such as metal, clay and glass, takes a lot of energy -
where is that energy going to come from? In the past it was from coal, charcoal
and trees. Natural gas has become the source of choice for industrial process
heat. Any tendency to use these will have to be vigorously resisted. Public
research (which means publicly funded and publicly accessible) will need to
be done now, to start experimenting with what works for a given locale. For
instance, solar appears to be quite impractical for firing the high-temperature
kilns needed for many types of glaze. Biogas may be a substitute but there will
definitely be problems. How are we going to make glass? There is plenty of glass
to be recycled, but it is a notoriously energy intensive. However, life without
glass will definitely be difficult, if not downright brutish.

5) Energy harvesting machines

In general, encourage a highly diverse, localized energy harvesting
web, with a strong emphasis on storage to avoid the inevitable problem of intermittency
which attends all solar harvesting, be it direct (photovoltaic) or indirect
(wind). Urgent attention must be given to short-term storage (overnight) and
long term seasonal storage to balance the lower insolation of winter. Therefore

Strongly encourage public research and development of energy harvesting
and storage machines. The U.S. was once the leader in solar cell research.
Reagan destroyed all that. However, instead of encouraging the usual brutal
and empire-oriented notions of being the 'leader,' relocalization encourages
being very good (rather than best, which after all may still be terrible)
and some-sufficiency, since total self-sufficiency is not a practical short-term
goal, and may be demoralizing. Also, encouraging regional co-operation and
sharing will be vital.
Not only will be engaging in R&D and production of small-scale energy
machines be good for employment at every level of mental and physical ability
and engagement, it is the ONLY way to achieve energy security. Universities
must somehow be pried away from their terrible path of corporate capture,
and return to or start doing research in the public interest, instead of corporate
research, almost all of which, being bound for the military or the mall, is
designed either to destroy the planet or people or both, as fast as possible.
Given the utterly craven state of universities this will be perhaps the most
staggeringly difficult undertaking of all. Given that de-corporatizing universities
may be impossible, municipalities should urgently investigate setting up small-scale
public laboratories.
Rebuild a local wind turbine industry. Denmark is the clearest example.
Note however that they are having difficulties as they reach towards 20% of
electrical capacity.
Encourage research and production of small-scale biogas digesters. India,
Turkey, and some places in Europe have decades of experience. The large biogas
digesters are designed for industrial hog and cattle farms. This should be
strongly discouraged. Ideally, such factory farms should be driven from the
face of the planet with all speed.

6) Ground source heating or geo-exchange space heating

Businesses should be vigorously encouraged in this area, and great
help given to replace natural gas home and office heating with geo-exchange.
However, at the same time, care must be taken to make sure that there is enough
renewable energy & storage, to run the heat-exchange pumps, otherwise this
will exacerbate the problems with electricity generation.

7) Local energy centers & local energy banks

Look at the possibility of setting up local energy centers which will help disseminate
and coordinate information about all of the above, and also, in combination
with local energy banks, help administer loans and other services devoted reducing
energy usage and waste in houses and offices. This includes the retrofitting
of geo-exchange mentioned above, and also the fitting of insulation. Local energy
centers and local energy banks will be a key part also, in helping start car
co-ops, develop bio-diesel co-ops, and install co-generation, biogas digesters,
and as soon as possible, introduced municipally-backed local currency experiments,
most likely tied the public generation of renewable electricity.

Services

Awareness and Education
Most businesses are not aware that oil extraction is peaking nor the ramifications for their business. Our services in this area are designed to raise awareness and provide the urgency for beginning to think about contingency and transition planning.

Guided film screenings - We can provide your organization a license to screen the new documentary films "The End of Suburbia" and "Peak Oil – are we ready for the Decline?" plus a trained speaker to handle questions and answers after the film.
Workshops, presentations, and executive briefings - Our custom workshops and presentations on relocalization, peak oil and gas are tailored to meet the needs of your audience, be they management, employees, partners, and/or customers.
Executive Reports - We will research, analyze, and complie reports on peak energy and its likely impacts in a specified area as well as ways local communities can begin provisioning for themselves.

Strategic Planning

Contigency plannning - Examines various realitic energy supply scenarios, the impact on the business, and alternatives to mitigate the impact under various scenarios
Transition planning - Develops a plan for to the orderly transition of the firm to a new structure such as cooperatives, community corporations that can plan a viable role in the post-carbon future
Decision analysis - Structred process for making complex business decisions in the face of uncertainty

Relocalization Services

Operations analysis - Develop opportunties to relocalize aspects of the business to reduce supply lines, distribution costs, and waste streams
Renewable energy - Develop renewable energy generation and storage to ensure power needs are met
Energy reduction and curtailment - Reduce energy consumption in anticiaption of much higher prices and lower availability.
Community building - Develop opportunities to strengthen the local community that will help ensure stability and solidarity in a time of crisis.

For more information on our services, contact David.