Our Renewable Future 3

It is manifest from the book we are examining (Our Renewable Future by Heinberg and Fridley of the Carbon Institute) that we have to rely on sun and wind as main sources for future energy.

Reasons are evident – we have urgently to stop further pollution of our atmosphere with temperature rising carbon emissions and the fossil based energy is finite and we have already burnt most of it (resulting in severe climate change). Time is up, we have missed earlier chances and are facing a last chance, obviously. The book is scrutinizing this last chance in an analytical way and we have to be serious despite the many economical, industrial and commercial high levels of wishful thinking based on a continued 6-8% GDP growth level forever into the future.
But this wont be easy – that’s mainly the message of the book and we are going on with some major findings, or rather major conclusions by a great number of scientists and researchers that is the basis for the authors message. In our opinion, it is highly interesting and important to the development professionals, architects, planners, engineers and the like, interested in a changing future, and we will now continue the presentation:
An illustration (and some text) from the book is clearly indicating the change from fossil to renewable energy and it follows here (it is based on the US situation in 2012) – and we here are trying following the same development concept:

Electricity constitutes only a portion of the energy the world uses daily. In the United States, 21 percent of final energy is used as electricity (for the world, the figure is 18 percent); of the U.S. electricity supply, 38 percent is generated from coal, 31 percent from natural gas, 19 percent from nuclear power, 7 percent from hydro, and 5 percent from other renewables.^[1]

Figure 3.1. US final energy consumption by fuel type, 2012. NGL = natural gas liquids. LPG = liquefied petroleum gas. Source: International Energy Agency and U.S. Energy Information Administration. Obs - blue is Natural Gas & NGL

Since most solar and wind energy technologies produce electricity (as do hydro, geothermal, and some biomass generators), replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy sources is happening fastest in the electricity sector. Further, this means that hopes for accelerating the energy transition hinge on the electrification of a greater proportion of our total energy

As you realize, a large section (3/4) of the energy consumption illustrated in the diagram will and must be changed to renewable energy in the form of electricity. And this is the bolts and nuts of the interesting chapter 3 of the book – the headings are: Renewable Electricity, Falling Costs, Variability/Intermittency and Scaling Challenges. The problems are not avoided and we will highlight a few of them:

Regarding the intermittency character (due to the sun and wind variability) regarding the production of solar and wind power, there will be a problem during an establishing period. When the renewable power is available, the existing grid cannot without severe problems take on an input of more than 20%. Then the existing grid and production cannot deliver as per contract. This means that the storage issue will come very early in the transitional process. Consequently, the redesign of the grid is an imminent problem and an expensive one. But never the less important – we might say that it is a timing/planning problem. Note – when we hear that Portugal just had four consecutive days on renewable electricity and Germany from May 2015 filled almost all its electricity needs on renewables for a month, it means that they at least have overcome the mentioned problem but also we must keep in mind that electricity currently represents only 20% of final energy use.

On the storage of electrical energy, the authors are very alert. It is a huge problem that varies a lot with the geography of the plants for renewable sun and wind electricity. The cheapest way of storing energy we find in mountainous regions with good sites for dams – we here can forget this but it is mindboggling.

It is about pumping water from a low lying dam to a higher lying dam and use the hydropower concept with water powered turbines to mitigate the intermittence problem – it is the most efficient storage of power we know so far! What about a country like ours, then, to get a more permanent input to the grid?

For us on the flats, the most feasible storage concept might be to store compressed air in underground caverns. A rarely used concept so far but vividly researched as it is theoretically effective for storage of intermittence energy as above mentioned hydropower. Energy can also be stored underground as hydrogen but losses are large, unfortunately. Hydrogen stored in tanks has a very short “best before” as the small atoms will seep through most tank materials. However, hydrogen can be very economic for immediate use in industries, manufacturing and even domestically as well as fuel for light vehicles.

Now to the storage of energy we are very well used to and used very often by the previous generation here (and we are returning to more and more often, actually – and you know why). That’s batteries and a perfect storage for energy that we all know about – and they are getting better day by day! Our grandparents used very primitive ones to store energy from wind pumps with small generators to have a few 12 volt lamps for a short evening plus listen to “the wireless”. Had the wind/ water/ generator pump been a bit more effective then, we are sure that the low volt system had still been around and with individual solar panels on the roofs, the 12 volt system might very well have a renaissance in the future.

Modern batteries have a theoretical upper energy density of around 5 megajoules (MJ) per kilogram but the best batteries of the day are only around 0.5 MJ – but Tesla is working hard on that. Unfortunately, battery materials are scarce, already, as well as many materials for cell phones, pads and the like (including solar panels). Maybe gold is a fine surrogate!

Joking apart, recycling of what we have might be a right step – it is often totally out here in Africa and a kind of sustainable business in the old industrial countries. And by the way, the authors are putting our attention to waste as a “renewable energy” source. Mostly for making heat and we have already that in amounts but hot water can even propel generators via steam, our grandfathers say.

A re-design of our conventional power grid will step by step be most essential for the future. The first priority is to make less energy losses - about 1/3 of energy is today lost in the grid supplying power and, then another 1/3 is lost on the user side. And we still have to live with this antique delivery system during some decades when saving is the major thing. In fact, half of the energy we produce and use today is essentially “waste”.

The electricity grid is often described as the largest machine ever created by human beings – unfortunately invented at times of abundant cheap fossil fuel and little concern of feasibility and losses as well as impact o the environment. It is most often centralized and here comes an interesting note from the authors.

In the long run (with possibilities for 100% renewal energy) the energy will most probably be located in a dispersed pattern and thus, decentralized. That doesn’t mean that the “large machine” isn’t needed – on the contrary, much needed to connect all decentralized power farms and in that way becoming more resilient for unsuitable sun and winds and interchangeable. In fact, we are then storing sun and wind with…sun and wind! Here we have the question of demand management, and this involves changes in the current way of life, communication, living, culture and more – lifestyles in another word. Not to mention the trend towards self reliance regarding domestic power via individual solar panels and batteries in private housing. It’s already clear that most one family homes are possible to be self sufficient on power and most large energy farms will be needed for industrial production and heavy delivering trucks (maybe by hydrogen). Air traffic will contract to a level that can be based on bio-fuel and some sea transporters are already taking down speed (from 32 to 24 knots saving 1/3 of fuel) and, believe it or not, contemplating the help of sails! There will be changes indeed by time.

Some countries are lucky to experience the possibility of tidal and wave generators although the cost equation and EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) is not very positive. Not very interesting to a landlocked country but mentioned here that local/regional solutions are highly important for the future. On this issue, I remember that in the 80-ies a local architect (Ian Harley Marshall) designed a few public buildings here that were very energy friendly, unfortunately not appreciated but the ignorant users – too early, perhaps, but more of this local design is needed!

As the authors are stating that it is sun and wind that are the feasible energy sources for the future, we seemingly are a bit short of wind if I remember the planning answer book right. For instance, a colleague that wrote the climate chapter for a 1981 Development Plan stated: “The prevailing wind is northeast to southwest – but most days there is no wind at all”.

That was long ago and maybe modern wind turbines are more sensible to low and medium winds and we have that card to use, too. But I’m in the blue about feasible wind conditions here – maybe we have to concentrate on solar panels. Seemingly wind turbines are terrible expensive, about US$16 million each (of which Germany has about 28,000 in use since many years and now replacing about 1000 a year as the lifespan for such a one is only 20 years). Renewable energy doesn’t come cheap, that’s for sure but it is still regarded a better investment over time than conventional energy plants (that also have an enormous external costs environmentally).

“Our Renewable Future” is in our opinion very US/EC ethnocentric. Cost is discussed but not as seriously as we in the developing countries must do, often being forced to take substantial loans from Bretton Woods institutions with governments as guarantors. And when we look into the financial facts in today debt market, it’s frightening. This is the state of it in 2013:

 

 

As can be seen, world GPD in 2013 was c.60 trill or 1/3 of total debts 180 trill. Today ab 50 and 200 trill respectively. Debts are mostly oil exploration and countries with Britton Woods loans (UK is great here). 1/3 of the debts is finance based (overvalued bonds, hedge funds, derivatives and other artificial wealth related factors and thus, a bubble about to get bust (again). This time it is not possible that finance institutions can be bailed out, as we understand. It is a very dangerous situation for needed renewable energy projects and it is not a trouble free future for a renewable future when we are in a financial dive and debt burden globally.

We must ask ourselves if the needed very expensive and probably upfront financed projects will be implemented in a global financial crash? Fortunately Botswana has a fat reserve of about P85 billion and not much of loans but the private markets are more or less counted out due to their heavy loans. It’s an understatement to say that the thing is volatile.

How it goes with the finances, one thing is evident – the development professions (architects, planners, engineers, surveyors and realtors) will be the ones shaping the renewable world and the lifespan of what is created is 50-100 years. Mistakes can easily become serious hurdles for a renewable future which must be considered and starting now!

This “negativism” as the ignorant (even “green” people) will say is not any criticism of the book – it clearly indicates a way to our renewable future! The authors will have the last words:

“Cities and suburbs will need to be redesigned so that all people have good alternatives to private car ownership, with a focus on mixed use and clustered development. Transportation priorities will need to shift profoundly, with new road building coming to a halt and investment shifting to infrastructure for public transit, bicycling and walking…. and… electrified public transit between and within communities.”  And further on:

“…the renewable energy transition will not consist of a simple process of unplugging coal plants and plugging in solar panels and wind turbines, it will imply changes in how we live, how much energy we use, and how we use it. Historic energy transitions (the harnessing of fire, the advent of agriculture, the fossil fuel revolution) changed societies from the bottom up and from the inside out. There’s no reason to assume the renewable energy revolution will be any less transformative.”

Jan Wareus 28/06/2016                                                       

 janwareu@yahoo.com                                                                                                                                               janwareus.blogspot.com

Our Renewable Future 2

Let’s start with a mind blocking illustration from the book we are penetrating:

Combine harvesters in 1902 and 2014

What we will discuss now is not putting horses in front of the modern tractor or the harvester – instead how we will go on with as much as possible of what we have today. The old picture is based on the fact that ¼ of the farmer’s production or fields must be set aside for the horses – and in the food system we have, that is not possible. But we must find other ways of pulling the machinery than fossil fuel!

And some malicious readers thought the ending picture last column was to indicate that wind power doesn’t work – oh, no! It was only to indicate that we possibly need some thinking about how solar and wind technologies must develop further – maybe away from, expensive and very vulnerable (esp. in a changing climate) modern super high technology. We find in the book such questions about “appropriate technologies”. And, actually, we are not new to wind power, for instance, but formerly it was more local, domestic and simple than today’s high tech.

To be brief when presenting an important and mind setting new book isn’t easy or not even intelligent. You might loose more supporters than gain some. The authors are very balanced and only trying to open our minds for a necessary switch from fossil to renewable energy. Fossil is finite and soon out – what sustainable substitutes do we have and what levels of sustainability can be reached (and what the costs)? What changes to our infrastructure must be made and what can we afford both environmentally and economically (with receding finances due to climate change and end of cheap energy)?

So let’s see what the authors have come up with, but unfortunately briefly – the interested reader will have to find the book OR use the internet to find the newly released free on net version.

The book’s introduction is very interesting and was used by me intensively for the first part of the about 3 planned. It is extensively illustrated by pictures, tables and diagrams, most of them up to latest findings from involved agencies and researchers. Depending on space, I’ll be happy to give some examples now and then. The one below is basic – if we want to know what has happened since 1950/60 when we were somewhat in balance with extraction and use of energy – well, enough to start thinking about what to do if we exceeded limits (and many researchers was warning in books like “Limits for Our Existence” already in 1962). As you see from the diagram, the global tipping point (100 exajoules) was passed about 1960 – we missed that chance and cannot survive missing our last chance, for sure!

Figure I.3. World primary energy consumption by fuel type, 1850–2014. Primary electricity converted by direct equivalent method.

The author of the book mentioned above, Prof Georg Borgström, gave us architecture/planning students a lecture in 1963 or 64 and his conclusion never left me – “we have just a few years to decide our future – you better start thinking how buildings and towns should look like for the future”.

Chapter 1 – Energy 101 starts with a statement: It is impossible to overstate the importance of energy. Without it we can do literally nothing. And further – modern civilization’s energy use (including climate change), together with the inevitable energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables will be the defining trends for this century.

The chapter is very educational and ought to be among the texts for our younger students as it explain the ”Basics of Basics” of what is energy. I’m sure the Boidus readers know the laws of thermodynamics, net energy and EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested), LCA (life cycle analysis) and operational and embodied energy (carbon footprints). Consequently I don’t have to repeat those basics (as I have written about them in earlier Boidus columns) but for the new readers, this chapter is basic.

Chapter 2 about our current energy system is also very basic for the observant reader and very much a lived experience due to the confidence we have/had for so called “colonial sciences”. But we are given some interesting figures, indeed:  the world is presently using about the equivalent of 100 billion barrels of oil a year!

If that is translated to human muscle energy ( and an average human can generate around 100 watt-hours of energy). Working 8 hours 5 days a week for a year (no holidays), a hard worker would produce 208,000 watt hours (or 208 kilowatt-hours). World annual energy usage thus equals the annual energy output 734.4 billion humans. Then you understand how many “energy muscle slaves” we would need to keep todays standard for the developed, industrial countries. Up to the industrial revolution, we were basically depending on feudal serfs and slaves and we don’t want to go back to those times for some “progress”, do we?

On Energy Rich – Energy Poor the authors note that some countries use a lot more of energy than people in others. In fact, there is an obvious connection between energy inequality and economic inequality (not a self evident note from US writers, sorry to say). Even in between highly industrialized countries- for instance, Germany enjoy a high standard of living, yet use only a little more than half as much energy (per capita) as citizens of the United States and Canada.(see below):

Figure 2.3. Per capita gross domestic product and energy consumption of various countries, 2012.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators

Well, in short, the end of the fossil fuel era does not simply imply the era of energy inequality! To make it more serious, the middle to poor income countries will have a huge problem in raising finance for the evident need for renewable energy. We have to read further in the book we have for another part 3, planned for the August issue of Boidus Focus.

Now we are going to Sweden for the marriage of my child boy, now 30 years old! What kind of future will he and his family have? A fossil fuel empty world or a renewable energy world, I’m worried.


Jan Wareus 28/06/2016

Our Renewable Future

This picture from a modern solar farm is borrowed from a very interesting new book:
“Our Renewable Future” by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, Fellows of the Post
Carbon Institute in the US.

I find the book so important that I like to share some of its narrative with the
development professionals and readers of Boidus – very condensed and abridged, of
course, but hopefully enlightening for its readers.

Ugo Bardi, professor at the University of Florence in Italy and vividly writing and
blogging about resource depletion, system modeling, climate science and renewable
energy writes about this book:

“The future of renewable energy is obscured by ignorance, noise, ideology, and all
sorts of misconceptions. Our Renewable Future describes the reality: the transition is
possible, but it wont be easy.”

According to the authors they have been ‘tiptoeing’ through the renewable minefield
and consequently they are presenting the mainstream (boosters) as well as dissident
views (critics) on the renewable energy complex that we must handle when heading
to a renewable future, whether we are ready or not. Depending on how quickly and
intelligently we move the transition along, daily life could improve or deteriorate
significantly, but will never be the same, we understand from the authors analysis.
Energy is embedded in so many aspects of modern life and we need serious
discussions about the future of economy, consumerism and economic justice and
equity. And new skills and concepts are needed for the development professionals
and physical planners re. buildings, construction, infrastructure, urban design and
communication. It is also important to revise, change and transform contemporary
technologies and its problematic footprint in the developed world - a tremendous task
to reach a sustainable post-modern future. It must be remembered that all we in the
industrialized world have built so far is to suit the characteristics of fossil fuel and a
change of mind is needed!

Apart from these general basics, we have to make the transition away from fossil
fuels that are soon depleted and on the way out (and nuclear power is not a realistic
substitute) and successfully re-think and re-tool how we use energy – and how much
we use – not just its source. When bio-fuel is basically out (except for aviation and a
few farmers with suitable waste) - you remember the report that stated the simple
fact that even if every tilled field on earth is producing bio-fuel instead of food, it will
only be enough for our present communications and fracking also soon out as hyped
up way of “scraping the drums” (as oil professionals say – and delusions about Saudi
America), leaves renewable solar and wind, for better or for worse, as society’s
future energy sources. The inevitable transition of technologies and the fact that
renewable energy will not possibly meet future ‘eternal growth’ but possibly a
restricted but decent standard level of what we now have, will also force us to live
differently – more sustainable and in accordance with the resources he have and can
recycle for the future.

As I see it, a transition to a renewable future is necessary for the existence of
humans and most life on earth. We are already experiencing the climate change with
all its consequences, created by the blindfolded industrial society and already many
limits are reached or are very soon reached – so called tipping points for continued
safe life on earth. Unprecedented hurricanes, flooding and droughts are everyday
happening where it shouldn’t happen, distress, calamity, hunger and death are
everyday news and all created by burning of fossil fuel. We have a responsibility to
arrest as much of this as possible. At least not enhance the problems we have
created. But this is not an easy task as the decisions are political and unfortunately,
the debate is already quite polarized and politicized. As a result, realism and nuance
may not have much of a constituency. I guess it’s time for emergency committees
and political crisis coalitions instead of the usual party overbids on eternal growth
and progress.

However, everything is not well in the renewable energy field – the majority of the
solar and wind supporters are delusive albeit they disdain fossils and nukes and are
convinced that solar and wind have unstoppable momentum and will eventually bring
with them lower energy prices and millions of jobs, contrary of those who say that
intermittent energy sources are inherently incapable of sustaining modern industrial
societies and can be build only with massive government subsidies as being “not
bankable” any longer.

Despite the conclusions stated above, the authors didn’t set out to support or
undermine these two messages. Instead they made a thorough account and analysis
of what renewable energy sources are capable of doing and how a transition toward
them is going – there were only two basic assumptions. Fossil fuels are soon history
and nuclear power unrealistic in the long run.

It is interesting to examine the large scale use of solar and wind power as basis for
industry and national power grids. I will in coming columns highlight some disturbing
facts among many positive developments that I happened to find on various sites like
e.g. Resilience, Post Carbon Institute and many personal blogs by dissident energy
experts.

It is positive that that a few countries have taken the first steps on the “renewal
road”. We will have a quick look in coming columns and now I like to conclude this
text with some basic points from Our Renewable Future book we are dealing with:

•  We have developed much during the industrial period and most was undertaken

with the tacit assumption that societies always have more fossil energy with which
to maintain and operate its ever expanding infrastructure – without any long-
range planning guiding. The fossil-fueling of the economy happened bit by bit,
each new element building on the last, with opportunity leading to innovation.
What was technically possible became economically necessary…and hence
normal;

•  There is a problem with the mindset with most of modern (voting) man – the ignorance of the realities of changing conditions for the future. Solar, wind, hydro and geothermal generators produce electricity, and we already have an abundance of technologies that rely on electricity. So why should we need to change the ways we use energy? Presumably all that’s necessary is to unplug coal power plants, plug in solar panels and wind turbines and continue living as we do currently, they seem to think;
•  But the next few decades are forced to to see a profound and all-encompassing energy transformation throughout the world. Whereas society now derives the great majority of its energy from fossil fuels, by the end of the century we will depend primarily on renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass and geotechnical power.
•  How would a 100% renewable world look and feel? How might a future generation move through a typical day without using fossil fuels either directly or indirectly? Where will the food come from? How will they move from place to place? What will the buildings they inhabit look like, and how will those buildings function? Visions of the future are always wrong in detail and often even in broad strokes; but sometimes they can be wrong in useful ways. Development professionals, architects and planners must start thinking about this to avoid too many mistakes done now that will constitute hindrances for a well functioning renewable future!

Our renewable future will have many problems and a few energy projects are already after some years indicating massive over-cost implications, doubtful environmental consequences and failures not predicted after just a few years of testing. We have to deal with these as well as the positive experiences in the next column.

After 19 years of facing the wind, this German turbine fell to it. It’s starting to happen a lot. It is estimated that more than 1000 turbines of the existing 25000 must be decommissioned every year at an enormous cost due to aging.

Jan Wareus       16/06/2016
janwareu@yahoo.com

On Alchemy, Economics and Infrastructure

Oil times are changing, and not in a good way. (Photo by AZRainman/Flickr)

This photo is a very dramatic metaphor of what might happen when we run out of oil. Of course, it’s a exaggeration. We might not need many oil-tankers but we will certainly not be back to the Silky Road with camel caravans. And unnecessary tankers will be broken up and recycled. (Recycling will be an important issue for the future, I’m sure!)

The danger with this kind of metaphors is the life or death situation that it illustrates. It’s no coincidence that it is from an US-based blogger. Over there, believers and deniers of the energy crisis more or less agree that it’s now life or death at stake – believers praying for a Green future and deniers taking the Rambo Road.

So there’s two extremes against each other – not an unusual American situation, we’ve seen, but we have to find our own way kind of middle way to the future – my essay for today:

Modern economists are now at risk of sharing our silly jokes about lawyers.

Serious writers are referring to them as “so called economists” in our even papers (Roman Grynberg – thank you). And they only have to blame themselves taking the Reagan-Thatcher road some decades back. Becoming some kind of modern alchemists making wealth of junk bonds, sub-prime loans etc. (very much posh cars, here – visitors are amazed) recommending overseas investment rather than investing profits in the mother country (and forcing governments to look for alien investors). It is a sad story – nothing but medieval kind of alchemy!

As we know, alchemy was the game of making gold out of other metals and stuff in times not too distant to our industrial epoch. Medieval wizards often died of unforeseen “externalities” as lead fumes and sudden bursts of retorts. Very similar to the bursting ‘bubbles’ we now and then have, apart from seldom causing physical harm to the banking CEO’s. But the suicides among them are on the rise, we hear!

However, there are clever economists and, not surprisingly, of an older school of economy. The most influential was John Maynard Keynes of the Bloomsbury Society. He already in the early 1920-ies realized what the outrageous conditions for Germany (after WW1treaty) would create. Something similar what the West today is imposing to Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria and, why not, Russia. And his general ideas about how to keep a working class in production with decent earnings (to secure sales) was widely accepted by so called “welfare” countries – and obviously an inspiration to Sir Seretse Khama.

Neo-liberalism (dogma mostly from the Chicago School of Economics and seconded by a Nobel Prize to Milton Freedman) stopped that with the help of Reagan and Thatcher - we got “reaganomics”, instead - free trade, free markets, no economic/custom hindrances, restrictions on government spending and so called economic globalization. Remarkably, globalization had been tried by many former empires and never worked! But we know that economists of today are/were not interested in history, for sure!

(Well, I added “were” above as we know from Prof. Grynberg’s recent article that there is a kind of rethinking among IMF and World Bank economists today. An interesting development, indeed!)

There is high anxiety in the world, pondering about externalities, and time to get the economic balance books in proper Italian double order. Important here is to try and see what must happen when extrapolating a modest 3-4% rate of industrial growth for the distant future. Let’s go…

After 4 centuries, the economy will have grown by a factor of 136,424 and consequently a hundred thousand times as much energy will have to be generated as for today. The impossibility of endless growth is even more clear if it should go on for 8 centuries – the growth factor is then 186 million at a modest 3% growth a year!

I’m here quoting from a recent article “by Prof. John Scales Avery’s (former advisor to WHO and once leader of the Pugwash Group that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995) and will continue some more quoting from him.

When heaping insults on modern “so called economists”, we also have to mention a few exceptions. Prof. Avery’s is pointing out Frederik Soddy, Nicholas Georgiescu-Roegan, Herman E Daly, Aurelio Pecci and Thorkil Kristensen. My own favourite is Keynes, who put the few ‘welfare states’ in order.

“Frederik Soddy and Nicholas Georgiesco-Roegan introduced the concept of entropy into economics. They visualized economy as the digestive system of society. It “eats” resources and derives from them the strength to drive the machinery of society. Later, it excretes the resources in a degraded form. Obviously this is not a circular process, since the degraded resources simply cannot be “eaten” again. For example, fossil fuels, once burned, cannot be burned again. Since only cyclic processes are sustainable, only renewable processes energy is sustainable. Furthermore, cyclic processes can use only materials that are renewable, like natural fibers. Today those ideas are very ably advocated by Georgiescu-Roegans’ student Prof. Herman E Daly. (See his Steady State writings on The Daly News site/JW).

Furthermore, the Club of Rome was founded by Aurelio Pecci and Thorkil Kristiansen and a few more farsighted economics. A club/organization of a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for humanity. A study of future availability of resources was commissioned and published in 1972 under the title “Limits of Growth”, It predicted that that many resources, such as metals and fossil fuels, will be exhausted by middle 21st century, that pollution will increase markedly, and that industrial production and population will begin to decline. The book was greeted with anger and disbelief by the community of economists and these emotions surface today whenever it is mentioned. “

The late 60-ies and early 70-ies had a lot of careful, cautious and intelligent economists, probably as they early had been part of western countries industrial development and experienced a few economic bursts. They saw the risks with what we now call “externalities” and became what we now call “whistle-blowers”. They were political economists, food researchers or agriculturalists, geologists, physiologists……… fill in the blanks! They certainly warned about ongoing predatory exploitation of finite resources – be it oil, gas, coal, water, unsustainable lifestyles as well as uncontrolled air and water pollution. But the new, modern so called economists didn’t listen and, worse, not elected leaders (with Finance Ministries filled up with gratis Chicago Boys), either.

During my last university year in 1965, we students of architecture (town planning was a voluntary sideline, then) were recommended by our history professor to read “Limits for our Existence” by Georg Borgström, later professor at Michigan State University. We read his book (years before Club of Rome, actually) and listened to his lectures but already then it was too late for us ’modern’ students. The “eternal progress train” had started and to earn money we had be on to be on the train, sad to say.

Consequently, I cannot but understand the situation that most developing countries are in today. There was hardly any coherent alternative to the massive neo-liberal economic concept from western development institutions and charitable donors for newly independent developing countries then. The “hidden” conditions were just as important as the job was for new architects and town planners.

But there were serious consequences when the developing countries applied this kind of outdated, high cost, western, somewhat outdated technology (an

inheritance from the colonial powers, I insist) – mostly concerning infrastructure and utility service that we more or less copied from the west. Obviously not considering the problems developed countries had with aging infrastructure networks and service delivery and the end cost for it when energy became expensive.

By the late 60-ies it was obvious that the infrastructure sector was falling apart in the west – maintenance was neglected and cost of delivery escalated quickly - esp. after the first oil bubble burst in early 70-ies. There were huge external costs never assumed, and environmentalists started their whistle-blowing. For some economists things were written on the wall – for example E F Schumacher (with his famous book “Less is Beautiful”) advised that developing countries must find ‘appropriate technology approach and localized production and delivery of service. But the ‘appropriate’ development authorities were handcuffed by its former colonial masters. And the western infrastructure warehouses were full of stuff to send to new “independent” countries often almost gratis. The producing of outdated, conventional stuff could go on and supporting the workers at home. in full swing. And developing countries were ever so grateful until they had to pay the full price. I know this game – when I was young, the welfare people got water and power almost gratis, esp. pensioners like my grandmother (even a flushing toilet). But 25-30 years later, the situation changed and people started to pay real costs – possible in countries of full employment and alert unions.

Thus, we have outdated (and not appropriate) infrastructure and service delivery systems in Africa and elsewhere among developing countries - more than century old infrastructure models from densely populated European countries even in sparsely populated areas in Africa.

When I arrived to Gaborone in early 1979, Gaborone had its own electricity plant. And there is no economy flight for 300MV from Morupule to Gaborone. The delivery system lost 1/3 of its energy on the way here and another 1/3 was lost in imperfect western wiring in the consumer’s home. And now we must pay for it!

We also discover that there is no quality in delivered coal burners for Morupule B – actually we didn’t know that our low quality coal was never meant to be used in modern steamers (according to many engineers). Most of Chobe River will be needed to clean and upgrade the coal we now have to produce to export quality. And most of the world is moving away from burning coal as externalties are too expensive. It’s a sad story of jumping onto the wrong train, indeed.

When we experience power and water on/off and blocked sewers, we mustn’t put all the blame on our utilities and its staff. The technology was wrong for a start and not appropriate – leading me to realize that the physical planning was also very wrong. But on this I remember that Gaborone was never meant to be more than for 25-30,000 people. And then more “gaborones” needed to be built and connected with communication. To me, that had been appropriate planning!

In short – we jumped onto the wrong train a few stops from the end station. There is an immense task for planners and utilities in the close future. But moving to Palapye on the same conditions we have now is not a solution. That’s an ostrich reaction. De-industrialization is ongoing and we have an important discussion ahead!

- JW
March 20, 2015