The Technics of Decentralization

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

How much of the three-quarters of a billion horsepower of this country which is now employed in transportation will be made superfluous by decentralization and well-rounded regional development?

How much of the hundreds of millions of tons of coal consumed annually in this country for the refining of steel and iron; for the building of locomotives, railroads, trucks, autos and their attendant machinery; for the maintenance of our energy-gluttonous transport system—will also be made superfluous by that decentralization and regional development?

Even today the ridiculously low proportion of something like three or four per cent of our total mechanical horsepower is employed in actual manufacturing—and but seven per cent in agriculture. It is obvious where the most striking savings in power consumption are to be made through a better balance of our social economy. One hesitates to guess just how low the "total horsepower" requirements of our nation could be so reduced, so much depends on the degree of decentralization consistent with a high standard of living, and this in turn on modifications in technology and in technique of living.

Yet it is difficult not to believe that the ultimately practical solution of the power problem lies in this direction. With a drastic reduction of ton miles of transportation, power income from feasible sources other than oil and coal has some chance of covering an important sector of our energy budget.

Our potential fifty million horsepower of hydroelectricity (of which about a quarter is now utilized) could even today come near to meeting the demands of agriculture and industry.

And these very demands, through a progressive refinement in technique, can be and are being lightened. For example, the recently developed Partansky-Benson process for generating methane gas from the waste sulfite liquors which now poison our streams, makes the paper-pulp industry practically self-sufficient as far as energy requirements are concerned, and removes the necessity for mining and shipping some fifteen million tons annually of coal or its equivalent.

BIOTECHNIC ENERGY SOURCES

Hydroelectricity is almost the lifeblood of the modern trend toward decentralization and a biotechnic economy. It breaks down the old coal-and-steam concentrations, distributes modern technology through the countrysides, and makes possible industries adapted to a healthy non-urban environment. And its mode of generation, as opposed to coal extraction, demands a policy of conservatism and life protection. A mine too often means a blighted countryside; a dam connotes control of flood, drought and erosion, as well as preservation of animal and forest life.

Aeroelectricity, although still in the embryonic stage, is giving promise of becoming an important source of energy in the coming technology. Within the past few years approximately a million small wind-driven electric plants have been erected on farms and isolated homes throughout the United States, extracting a possible total of two hundred thousand horsepower from the inexhaustible winds. These plants deliver one or two watts per dollar of investment, which compares not too unfavorably with the capital investment of central power plants, when the absence of upkeep costs is considered. Due to the variability of aeroelectricity and the necessity for storage, it is better adapted to light domestic or domestic-industrial uses than to the needs of centralized industries requiring unfailing power supply in large volumes. Hence this source of energy is likely to play an important part in a distributist-decentralist technology.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print