Relocalizing

A POST CARBON GUIDE Relocalize

Now!Getting Ready

for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil

by Julian Darley, David Room, and Celine Rich New Society Publishers, Autumn 2005

A POST CARBON GUIDE Relocalize

Now!Getting Ready

for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil

Chapter 8Community Supported Manufacturing

RelocalizingRelocalizing

Relocalizing• means a return to community

self-reliance instead of corporate compliance and dependence;



• has villages, towns, cities, counties, and regions see their purpose as provisioning themselves with their core needs for durable goods and food—



• has villages, towns, cities, counties, and regions see their purpose as provisioning themselves with their core needs for durable goods and food—

• and only then looking further afield for what cannot easily be produced locally.

Barriers to relocalizingBarriers to relocalizing

Barriers to relocalizing

• Loss of knowledge

• Loss of infrastructure

• Loss of tools




• Loss of tools

o in food production, as farming became the occupation of a minority;




• Loss of tools

o in food production, as farming became the occupation of a minority;

o in manufacturing capability, as globalization of production created specialized centers of manufacturing.

Parallel public infrastructureParallel public infrastructure

Parallel public infrastructure

• Will come about in the effort to nearly totally remake the present infrastructure;



• Will be a system to help integrate the many disparate efforts that are now starting to bridge the transition, the “carbon chasm;”



• Will be a system to help integrate the many disparate efforts that are now starting to bridge the transition, the “carbon chasm;”

• Will require training, analysis, knowledge, energy, and local currency;


• Will also require the active and prolonged financial support of the community, as in community supported agriculture (CSA);



• Will encompass a mixture of ownership structures



• Will encompass a mixture of ownership structures

from municipal ownership and operation

through cooperatives and mutual aid organizations

to family businesses and other smaller, locally owned firms.

Transition = CompromiseTransition = Compromise

Transition = Compromise

• The transitions to a post-carbon world and low-impact human society will require compromise.


• The transitions to a post-carbon world and low-impact human society will require compromise

• We don’t know how short nor how abrupt the transition, the “carbon chasm,” will be.


• The transitions to a post-carbon world and low-impact human society will require compromise

• We don’t know how short nor how abrupt the transition, the “carbon chasm,” will be.

• We shall assume a middle path regarding the transition — that it is painful but possible to “get off” big energy, particularly fossil fuels.


• We hope to avoid the most painful transition by thinking, planning, action.



• Since we are so over-populated and so dependent on external energy, we cannot humanely just stop using all external energy —



• Since we are so over-populated and so dependent on external energy, we cannot humanely just stop using all external energy nor quickly reduce the amount of food that we are producing.



• Since we are so over-populated and so dependent on external energy, we cannot humanely just stop using all external energy nor quickly reduce the amount of food that we are producing.

• We have to work out transition strategies that take clear account of our present position and population.


• We’ll need to continue some small-to-medium-scale mechanized production—


• We’ll need to continue some small-to-medium-scale mechanized production—

• developing local manufacturing to produce and repair some of the necessities of life.


• We’ll need to continue some small-to-medium-scale mechanized production,


• Relocalized manufacturing is then, from the outset, a compromise.


• We’ll need to continue some small-to-medium-scale mechanized production,


• Relocalized manufacturing is then, from the outset, a compromise.

• Medium-scale mechanical production will be needed until our population is at the earth’s carrying capacity.


• A practical transition strategy means community supported manufacturing, CSM, along with relocalized food production.



• Relocalizing production means a reversal of decades of global economic policy and the rebuilding of regional supply lines.



• Relocalizing production means a reversal of decades of global economic policy and the rebuilding of regional supply lines.

• The details will be developed over time as we return to local self-reliance.

Community-supported manufacturing

Community-supported manufacturing

CSMCSM

Community-supported manufacturing,

CSM, will involve thinking

about energy from start to finish, both practically

and theoretically.

What should Community Supported Manufacturing concentrate on making?

• We need to make what is necessary for our daily needs.

What should Community Supported Manufacturing concentrate on making?

• We need to make what is necessary for our daily needs.

• To identify what is necessary, imagine that your town is cut off for a week from outside communication, from outside energy . . . . .

The CSM essentials• Machines which harvest energy

to make electricity;



• Machines which store the harvested energy;




• Devices which warm water using direct solar rays;





• Ways to pipe and store water;






• Small, light electric vehicles;






• Small, light electric vehicles;

• Tools for growing our own food and for other obvious local specialties that require tools.

1. Fabrication: making the things that last

2. Fire: high-temperature operations

3. Fibre: fabric, clothing, rope, paper

4. Food

5. Fuels and chemical reactions

6. Fixing: repairing and maintaining

The CSM workshops

The Fabrication Workshops: making the things that last

• are where finished, durable goods will be designed, refined, machined, made, assembled and tested;

• will need to start small and be carefully planned;

• will be a source of apprenticeships and employment.

The Fabrication Workshops: making the things that last will make devices for energy

harvesting, including

– small turbines for water or wind;

– solar PV devices—although due to the complexity of manufacture, these devices won’t be among the first attempted.

will design energy storage, including– mill ponds;

– batteries.

The Fabrication Workshops: making the things that last will make devices for transport,

including

– small, light electric vehicles, which can be charged from our local energy harvesting devices, which do not depend on the main grid, and which use batteries;

– metal-rail electric trams, which use electricity efficiently, and do not need batteries.

The Fabrication Workshops: making the things that last• Will make vital tools, including

– small, mundane tools and furniture of wood and metal for daily use

– devices to measure wind and rain

– solar water heaters

– solar ovens

– equipment for producing biofuels, including biogas digesters

– ground-source heat pumps for space heating

The Fabrication Workshops: making the things that last

• Will provide the energy units for local energy banks which in turn will serve to back local currencies.

The Fire Workshops: high-temperature operations

• match the right level of technology to the needs of a given a locale,

• including use of used, slightly older, slightly simpler equipment.

The Fire Workshops: high-temperature operations

• Difficulties include

– the great amounts of energy required by large, high temperature processes;

– the issue of storage as related to controllability and metering;

– reclaimed input materials’ toxicity;

– process problems: toxic waste, noise, which in turn lead to siting problems.

The Fire Workshops: high-temperature operations• Fire workshop projects include

– Metal-working;

– Foundries and metal-forging;

– Pottery, fired in high-heat kilns;

– Glass, also fired in high heat;

– Solar PV, requiring high temps as well as high degrees of expertise (which will not make this the first area that CSM Fire workshops tackle).

The Fibre Workshops: fabric, clothing, rope, paper

• At present, most industrialized countries have neither the raw materials nor the skills to make their own clothes or shoes.

• Fibre workshops will have to use production machines for fibre, sewing machines, devices for rope twisting.

• Paper manufacture is a huge consideration.

The Food Workshops

• Growing food locally for local consumption;

• Storing by canning, preserving, pickling, drying;

• Locating food storage of grains and other carbohydrate crops in medium-sized dry storage spaces and granaries;

• Medicinal herbs;

• Soap making.

The Fuels and Chemical Reactions Workshops• How many of the chemicals and

materials we really need will be a process of discovery.

• The details of what should be done will vary from place to place and with different conditions.

• For transport, storage, and processing, some chemical engineering will be required.

The Fuels and Chemical Reactions Workshops• We shall need to discover what is the

smallest size that makes practical sense for the production of such things as •salt •caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) •baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) •soda ash (sodium carbonate) •several other basic reagents which are used in everything from pulp and paper, to textiles, soap and detergents.

The Fuels and Chemical Reactions Workshops• Some of the many chemicals involved:

– biofuels, which all require some processing with the possible exception of straight vegetable oil;

– biogas, which is burned at the production site;

– soap and medicines;

– chemicals for processing of metals;

– glues, paints, solvents.

The Fuels and Chemical Reactions Workshops• Biofuels can be produced renewably, but

quantities will be limited. Liquid fuels will be priority items, in demand during the transition to a post-carbon world.

• And what about plastics? There may be a place for a small amount of biomass-fed plastics manufacture in CSM, but much care will need to be paid to the toxicity of the processes and the product.

The Fixing Workshops: repairing and maintaining• The post-carbon world will not have

a “throw-away culture.”

• In its place, there will be a lot less stuff, and a lot more fixing, repairing and maintaining.

The Fixing Workshops: repairing and maintaining• To remove the barriers to establishing

Fixing workshops we need– a wholesale change in mainstream education

and training;

– ways to maintain and repair devices with embedded computers;

– plans and designs of devices available to the workshops;

– very strong community support to outweigh the present economic situation in which it is much more expensive to repair devices than to buy them new.

CSM in practiceCSM in practice

CSM in practice• CSM is in the early stages.

• CSM implies some staggering changes.

CSM in practice• CSM is in the early stages.

• CSM implies some staggering changes.

• Staggering changes are coming anyway, and unless we confront and to try to retrofit our pathological provisioning system, we shall find our goose is well and truly cooked, whether vegetarian or not!

CSM in practice• The global market in all its ruthless,

monopolistic and mindless ways prevents local efforts from being successful.


monopolistic and mindless ways prevents local efforts from being successful. The CSM concept exists to counter global market forces.


monopolistic and mindless ways prevents local efforts from being successful. The CSM concept exists to counter global market forces.

• Starting CSM will probably not be easy anywhere in the industrialized world, except perhaps in Amish communities, which are more or less doing it anyway.

CSM in practice• Nevertheless, manufacturing needs to

be relocalized.


be relocalized.

– Yes, it will need exceptional help from the community,

– and will need a local currency system and a community banking system.


be relocalized.

– Yes, it will need exceptional help from the community,

– and will need a local currency system and a community banking system.

• To help with all aspects of the post-carbon transition, we have created the relocalization network. See <relocalize.net>.

CSM in practice• Production is the way that the global

corporations make and take so much wealth, which local government and communities struggle to get a tiny share of.



• But it was our money in the first place!



• But it was our money in the first place!

• Why should we keep giving it to unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, ruthless global corporations who owe no allegiance to any living thing, besides the tiny group of billionaires at the top?

CSM in practice• We can and must take back the means

of production—

CSM in practice• We can and must take back the means

of production— or those who predict a return to the Middle Ages or one of the Stone Ages, will surely be proven right.

Relocalizing

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