home » Mining peak oil preps literature for business ideas, Part I

Mining peak oil preps literature for business ideas, Part I

by Paula | 13 November 2008 | permalink | comments
Tags: peak oil, entrepreneurship
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Currently peak oil preparations literature is heavily skewed against business. Building intentional communities, and replacing business activity with something as yet undefined, is pretty much the only option anyone will find.

My own view is that intentional communities are socially workable for only a tiny fraction of people and politically palatable in only a handful of geographic areas. Everywhere else, people will modify their behavior as necessary to adapt to changing economic conditions, and business will adapt to meet demand. Business, in other words, is the mechanism by which most people will evolve into lower-energy lifestyles — and that means entrepreneurial opportunity.

But that is not to say existing peak oil preparations literature is without value. A lot of smart people have endeavored to divine the broad outlines of our economic future and to identify impacts on the lives of everyday people. This work is largely in consensus across the genre, as are the proposed solutions. This cause-and-effect documentation is an excellent basis for identifying business opportunities to help ensure one’s own survival and to contribute to the sustainability of one’s own town or neighborhood.

One example is Community Solutions’ proposal for a neighborhood called “Agraria,” a low-energy, sustainable, intentional community. Many, if not most, of Agraria’s specifications will almost certainly be necessary for everyone in a low-energy economy and will be subject to rising demand in all temperate climates. Positioning one’s business ahead of time to provide these things as demand rises means a jump-start on the competition or even first-mover advantage.

Agraria’s home specifications include a lengthy list of standards with which its homes must comply. Many of these can form the basis of a contracting business specializing in retrofitting existing homes for reduced energy costs and/or increased self-sufficiency, or for individuals specializing in some aspect of retrofitting, for example window replacement or changing out water toilets to composting ones:

• [Homes] must meet R20-30 wall thickness, R50-80 roof/ceiling/floor
• A maximum 8-foot ceiling will be standard
• Window sizes will be small and triple-glazed
• Insulated window coverings (interior or exterior) will be used to reduce heat loss at night
• 50-amp or lower electric service
• One bathroom — composting toilet and water toilets
• Solar panels and wind turbines with battery backup systems — individual and/or central
• A variety of energy gathering and storage methods will be used: passive solar, active solar, conventional, heat storage by water, rock and Thombe walls, and greenhouse extenstions
• A single heat source (rather than forced air), using a combination of wood/coal/gas
• No air conditioning — temperature/humidity variations are assumed
• Goal — be able to maintain a 50-degree temperature in winter without external heat sources
• Root cellars for storing food to minimize use of freezers
• Thick-wall, SunFrost-type refrigerators and freezers — can be run on a single solar cell each
• Rain water catchments and storage (cisterns)

Likewise, grounds specifications can form the basis of a landscaping business specializing in increasing the self-sufficiency of existing homes and/or public spaces:

• Clustered parking at periphery of dwellings – cannot drive cars directly to houses
• Pathways for walking, biking, utility vehicles
• Minimal lawns mowed by push mowers
• Concentrated housing — 10-20 buildings per acre; some multifamily/townhouses
• No street lights
• Fenced area around neighborhoods for child safety
• Clotheslines for drying clothes
• Edible plantings
• Gardens, crop fields, orchards
• All lawns, gardens, and fields will be maintained organically

The “concentrated housing” specification might be modified into something like turning McMansions into duplexes or triplexes to pool energy and housing costs, as well as increased resiliency among two or three families.

Agraria’s financing is specifically divorced from bank debt financing, which I really like: “There are numerous possibilities, including financing by founders, sweat equity, town bonds, phased development and move-ins, occupation of buildings before completion, financing of foundations and site work by founders with completion by owner, and possibly rental availability while self constructing the homes.” These suggest opportunities for entrepreneurs with backgrounds in finance to arrange new kinds of equity agreements between homeowners, contractors, and possibly municipal governments to forward the project of local resiliency and which help keep money flowing in the local economy.

The Agraria description goes on to state that:

The occupational implications are that high tech, high energy consumptive jobs will decline. More labor intensive jobs with a high level of manual skills will replace them. Less fossil fuel energy implies more human labor. In addition these jobs will tend to be local because high gasoline prices will encourage working locally rather than commuting.

Craft products will replace low cost manufactured goods and this implies an increase in trade and craft skills. As plastics decline and wood reappears, classic woodworking skills will be reborn on a local level. The same will occur for mechanical metal materials and local custom manufacturing will prevail.

Personally, I don’t see this happening on a large scale for quite some time — it took us the better part of two centuries to arrive at this point and it may take just as long before it unwinds.

However, on an individual level, I can more easily imagine craft skills being of use in repairing things or for adapting existing items to new uses. There’s an awful lot of junk floating around out there and it will be quite a while before it is no longer available at all, such that replacements have to be made by hand. There are numerous entrepreneurial possibilities inherent here:

• Becoming a sole proprietor specializing in fixing wood, metal, or electronic items
• Organizing a repair service that employs, or contracts with, individuals skilled in such repairs
• Organizing workshops and classes that teach these skills
• Procuring and selling the tools necessary for such repair
• Organizing classes and workshops that teach tool repair or tool creation

As conditions deteriorate, all the skills related to repair can easily be adapted to full-blown creative craft skills. Also, classes and workshops that teach creative crafts directly can include a repair component, giving everybody a jump start on economic deterioration in the event things actually do go direly wrong.

Community Solutions’ “Agraria” document is only one of many, many similar documents available. Anyone hoping to carve out an economic survival niche can mine a plethora of ideas in these documents, ideas that fit with one’s interests and skill set. I’ll be going through some of these documents of the next few weeks in hopes of demonstrating how others can do the same.

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