One vision of post-carbon industry
From CFI
Local products and small-scale Industries for a sustainable but graceful life-style
Started by Robert Larson, based on certain premises.
This discussion (listing?) is primarily focused on non-agricultural production (although it assumes certain production of non-food agricultural materials) and is posed in terms of crafts, products, and industries, but of course they imply a number of things: skills, capital (including tools, equipment, and infrastructure), and sources of materials, which all adds up to business opportunities! It also represents possible future career paths, especially for young people.
Can you imagine a heritage crafts center devoted to teaching and developing old and new craft skills and even establishing small-scale industries? If we're serious about sustainability we should be willing to pay $200 or more for a locally hand-made pair of shoes now, so that the skills will be there(here!) when imports are no longer readily available (or no longer cheap in local terms or both.)
Food and water
Bakery
Dairy
Creamery/Cheese factory
Flour mill
Slaughterhouse / Butcher
Shelter
Housing
Building materials
[Much good work being done on "green" materials, but one petroluem
product I noted everywhere was asphalt shingles. So how about . . .]
Roofing
thatching
[perform as well or better than shingles in several ways]
slate
Apparel
Clothing
Textiles
Yarns, threads
Weaving
Tailoring / clothing factories
Footwear
Cobbler (leather shoes and boots)
Sabot or Patten making (wooden, or wooden-soled shoes)
car tire sandals (not sustainable, but current supplies will last a while)
Metals and Mechanical
Metalworking [tools and equipment for practically everything else]
basic
Blacksmith's shop
intermediate
forge
foundry
machine shop
advanced
rolling mill
pipe and tubing
wire drawing
ball bearing production
Transportation
Bicycle
repair shop
assembly and parts factories
Production tooling
Machine tools
Sewing machines
Industrial machinery
Agricultural machinery
Materials
Leather [footwear, horse harnesses, etc.]
tannery
[Why do they call those "trash" trees Tan Oak, anyway?]
Metals
General
Mankind has been mining and processing metals for at least 7000
years, and, in common with other resources, this process has
accelerated enormously in recent times. It has become
progressively more energy-expensive to extract fresh supplies
as we must increasingly resort to lower-grade or less accessible
ores. Unlike fossil fuels, however, these materials have the
advantage of being highly recyclable. In fact previously smelted
metals represent a form of stored energy. Existing stocks in current
use, laying around in plain sight, in scrap yards, and in landfills
will provide ample sources for a reduced material economy for the
foreseeable future. Energy will still be needed for reprocessing
these materials, but it will be much less than starting from scratch.
Iron and Steel
The basic tool-making material. How about donating your car to be
melted down after gasoline becomes scarce?
Aluminum
Requires a very large amount of premium electrical energy, but it's a
very useful material, and we may be able to recycle existing stocks for
quite a while.
Copper and other non-ferrous metals
Energy sources for high-temperature processing
General
A number of basic industries require high temperature processing.
These include forging and heat-treating iron and steel, foundry
work (casting metals), lime burning and Portland cement making,
glass making, and firing ceramics.
Wood
The original fuel, eminently renewable as long as the
the supply is managed for sustainability. One problem is that it
is useful for so many other things as both a raw material and as
a fuel for less demanding processes. It serves well enough for at
least lime-burning and firing basic pottery.
Can be considered as a form of biomass and trees (and other
crops) can be considered as low-tech solar collectors.
Charcoal
The original metalurgical fuel, based on the wood supply, with
all that that implies.
Coal
The traditional fuel of blacksmiths for the last several centuries.
Nasty, polluting, and dangerous and/or destructive to dig up,
but highly effective and probably worth considering for limited
usage as a transitional process fuel while forests are allowed
to recover. For the sake of local survival it might be prudent
to consider stockpiling a considerable amount while transport
is still low cost. Think of it as a band-aid.
The slippery slope problem: possible large-scale use of coal as
a transport fuel should be considered separately, as should its use
to generate electricity. These applications may be considered
to be respectively, progressively less justifiable.
Biogas
Can be readily produced using manure and other kinds of
biomass and amounts to a substitute for natural gas. It is not quite
as high-grade as fossil natural gas, but can probably accomplish
most of the same tasks. Most high temp processes can
be operated on gas if there is enough of it.
Solar furnaces
Large solar furnaces are capable of focusing megawatts' worth
of power at very high temperatures. In principle this should make
it possible to apply them to metal processing, and research is
being done to apply them to lime production and other kinds of
energy-intensive chemical processes. Additional research should
be done to find out how practical this would be on a smaller scale,
particularly for forge and foundry applications.
In addition it must be recognized that there is a time factor here.
The sun simply doesn't stay high long enough for a ceramic kiln
firing cycle, although it might serve to provide the initial energy
input, with some other fuel used to maintain the necessary
temperature overnight.
Rubber [bike tires, garden hoses, medical needs, etc.]
[much of the rubber supply still comes from natural sources. It may be
possible to produce the required latex in North America. A good
candidate is the guayule (wa YOO lay) plant.
Fibers [textiles, cordage, paper]
Wool
Hemp
Linen
Cotton
[these are all relatively straightforward agricultural products, but
(especially the plant fibers) are more efficiently processed using
some level of industrial infrastructure.]
Chemicals
Lime [building, food processing]
Paint
Salt -- basic for many kinds of traditional food preservation
Communications
Print
Paper
Handwriting supplies
Pens
Ink
Pencils
Printing
[anywhere from Gutenberg to laser printers, depending . . . ]
Postal service
Electronic [very helpful for emergency communications, etc.]
Telegraph (at a minimum) (via wire or radio)
Basic telephone service (via wire or radio)
see also High Technology
Electric Power
Production equipment manufacturing?
hydro equipment
wind turbines
photovoltaic cells and panels
Applications
Sustenance
Water pumping
Cold storage?
Lighting [much safer than candles and oil lamps]
Miscellaneous medical uses
Glass, ceramics, etc. [we've got enough plates and bowls for a while, but chamber pots might come back into vogue and various industrial ceramics might be needed . . . ]
Sheet glass [windows, solar collectors, greenhouses?]
Optics
Mirrors for solar concentrators
Abrasives [grinding wheels, sharpening stones, coated abrasives (sandpaper)]
Refractories [firebrick, crucibles]
Medical
Supplies
herbs [well, Duh! But what about . . . ]
pharmaceuticals & innoculations
surgical and orthopedic supplies
x-ray film and chemicals
laboratory supplies
dental materials and supplies
eyeglasses
frame making
lens grinding
contact lenses and supplies?
High technology (non-energy intensive or energy saving) [depending on your point of view quite a bit of it can potentially be valuable in terms of conserving other resources and improving quality of life, among other things. To what extent it can practically be maintained and carried forward in the immediate post-carbon era remains to be seen]
Electronic medical imaging [saves x-ray supplies]
Communications
Internet
e-mail
the Web, with as many information resources as possible
