Blueprint
for Sustainability
Fossil fuels will be depleted to a
catastrophic point within 50 years. No combination of known energy sources can
produce the 95 quads of energy presently being used in the
There are several figures of merit for
Sustainability:
1 The ratio of
population to arable land.. Therefore we must restrict
immigration to Academics and stop Urban Sprawl.
2 The average radius of
essential travel. This means that living clusters must be designed so that
walking and bicycling are the predominant transportation modes.
3 The ratio of volume of
buildings to surface area. This means that all single family structures and
strip malls must be demolished and replaced with general purpose buildings that
are larger and taller. The ratio of underground space to above ground space.
Underground space is easier to heat and cool.
4 The percentage of the
population working in agriculture, manufacturing, and the essential work of
Sustainability. The percentage of the population with a
strong technical skill.
5 The percentage
materials recycled. Such materials must include sewage, manure, biomass ashes,
all metals, and all combustibles.
6 The percentage of
buildings which are heated by Cogeneration or Comanufacturing.
7 The percentage of the
population working on tree and other biomass plantings. A tremendous amount of
reserve energy can be stored in biomass.
8 The percentage of the
national budget that is spent on Sustainable buildings and energy machines.
9 The total
inventiveness, technical skill, and diligence in solving the survivability
puzzle.
Emergency measures that must be taken
quickly are the diversion of funds from military and social programs to
investments in buildings, industries, technologies, energy producing equipment,
biomass production, and food production. We must stop investing in houses, new
roads, military and commercial aircraft, airports, cars, and single floor
buildings. Ideally every new building would have many functions and should be
as large and as tall as possible. Each apartment or general purpose building
must live on self generated power a much as possible. There must be factories,
farms, and schools associated with every housing complex. We also must design
underground buildings which use mirrors and light pipes to bring solar energy
underground. Personal transportation must be eliminated by building only
apartment houses and designing towns which make it possible to walk to
factories, farms, stores, schools, churches, and all of the other necessary
places. Bicycles, trains, foot, and horses must be the principle modes of
transportation. Each region, town, or building must produce as much as possible
of its own food or goods in order to eliminate the cost of long distance
transport.
We must have an emergency program to
plant 100 billion fruit and nut trees which will furnish food, lumber, and
heat. Since biomass is the only dependable energy and is used usually with 30%
efficiency at best, it should be principally used in winter months. All space
heating should come from cogeneration and comanufacturing.
The design of comanufacturing systems should be a
principle preoccupation for engineers. An example of comanufacturing
would be to operate a wood fueled aluminum foundry in the basement of an
apartment building. All of the waste heat would be used to heat the building.
In warm weather the foundry would cease operation and the workers would engage
in farming. Another example would be to make liquid fuel or charcoal from
biomass within the building only in winter. Since this is an inefficient
process there would be a lot of waste heat for space and hot water heating.
There must be catastrophically large
investments in Solar, Wind, and biomass energy. Much design work must be done
on solar mirror boiler systems because they have a better payback than photo
voltaic cells. We must also experiment with processing of biomass and coal to
liquid fuels using solar mirrors for heat energy.
Kermit Schlansker
PE kssustain@provide.net >http://www.provide.net/~kssustain<