Bibliography
Bibliografia

Energia e progetto, Maggio, 1980

20 anni dopo la crisi del Kippur, Aprile, 1992

Utopia and Environs, September, 1995

Beyond Sustainability, March, 1998

Crude and Dangerous, April, 2000

City Futures, May, 2002

Federico Butera, Dalla Caverna alla Casa Ecologica, Edizioni Ambiente, Milano, 2007.

Frances Cairncross, Costing the Earth,The Economist Books, London, 1991.

Giorgio Ceragioli e Massimo Foti, Sviluppo e Società a Confini Aperti,Harmattan Italia, Torino, 1998.

Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality,Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Andrea Compagno, Intelligent Glass Facades,Artemis Verlag, Zurich, 1995.

Herman D. Daly & John B. Cobb jr, For the Common Good, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994.

Herman D. Daly, Beyond Growth, Beacon Press, Boston, 1996.

Al Gore, An inconvenient truth, Bloomsbury, London, 2006.

Mario Grosso, Il raffrescamento Passivo degli Edifici, Maggioli Editore, Rimini, 1997.

Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Little Brown and Company, Boston, New York, London, 1999.

Douglas Kelbaugh, Common Place, University of Washington Press, Seattle, London, 1997.

Alberto Magnaghi, Il Progetto Locale, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2000.

Lorenzo Matteoli et al., Azione Ambiente, Cortina , Torino, 1977.

Lorenzo Matteoli, Cityfutures, in Nuova Cultura della Città, pag. 189-199, Accademia dei Lincei, Roma, 2003.

Donella H. Meadows & Dennis L.Meadows & Jorgen Randers, Beyond the Limits, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., Vermont, 1992.

Gabriella Peretti, Verso l'Ecotecnologia in Architettura, BE-MA Editrice, Milano 1997.

La tecnologia invisibile, Nicola Sinopoli, Franco Angeli, Milano, 1997.

David Suzuki & Holly Dressel, Good News, Stoddard, Toronto, 2002.

Daniel Yergin, The Price, Simon & Shuster, New York, Lodon, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, 1991.

Walter Youngquist, Geodestinies, National Book Company, Portland, Oregon, 1997.

Franco Battaglia, various essays, inhttp://www.ilgiornale.it/la_aut.pic1?ID=5750

List of scientists opposed to the global warming theory:

http://globalwarmingscare.wordpress.com/category/scientist-who-oppose-global-warming-theories/

Energy, sustainability, environment:
some thoughts
35 years after the Kippur crisis (1973),
ideas for the “transition”
click for the Italian version

Lorenzo Matteoli
For the ICCI Magazine Perth
March 2008

Abstract.
The essay discusses the three pillars  of energy transition (a. eliminate waste, b. save energy, c. tap alternative energy sources) and the conditions for the feasibility of an alternative project to the “more of the same” line.
The basic contradiction between the traditional economic paradigm and an environmentally consistent economic order is spelled out and compared to the present lack of competence and vision of the decision makers. A simple tool for assessing the cost of conserved energy is discussed. The technological progress in various fields is perused with specific reference to the field of alternative energy sources. A paragraph  deals with a “different opinion” on global warming, climate change and the feasibility of alternatives. The stunning results of prof. Ernst Beck's research on CO2 measurements for the last 130 years that contradicts the tenets of the International Climate Change Commission is quoted. The short essay analyzes what should happen to cars, houses, mobility and culture if the human settlement on the Planet wants to negotiate the coming epocal shifts of energy availability. The first priority is information of the public and of the decision makers.
The conclusion is pessimistic but, in some way, positive: let’s do something anyway.
It is the Utopian dream that makes life’s journey interesting.

Background.
I have been dealing with the subject of energy, the environment and sustainability for approximately 35 years. In 1978, with my research group, I wrote the first comprehensive 500 pages Italian manual on environmental technology, entitled “Environmental Action” (Azione Ambiente) which consisted of technical information on a variety of renewable energy sources including solar, wind, biomass, integrated systems and the economy of the alternatives. It also included methods for solar heating calculations and specifications for building integration of solar collectors. In this book (for the first time in Italy and maybe elsewhere too) I spelled out the basic rules for energy transition which revolved around three pillars:

A. Eliminate waste (i.e. upgrading technologies, controls, boosting efficiencies of 1st and 2nd order)
B. Save energy (i.e. changing behavioural paradigm of users, lowering temperatures, putting on a sweater)
C. Input alternative energy

Obviously, the first pillar "eliminate waste" is essential: one would not introduce expensive new energy to a system which is wasteful and does not use the available energy in a sensibile way. This is a basic and simple idea, still, it seems to be ignored by a lot of politicians responsible for energy/environmental decisions.
In 1978 the research group was (1) responsible for, and completed the largest European project (at that time) for solar-assisted low-cost housing with a financial contribution from the European Commission. This comprised 500 dwellings in the Piedmont Region with solar air collectors which, heating the air needed for ventilation, carried a consistent share (25-40%) of the thermal load, the system still functions today. We were responsible to the European Commission for many other projects including schools, agriculture and chicken farms.
The research group dealt with energy modeling and planning, with two studies that became references for the discipline: Sardegna 2010, a model for the future Sardinia based on alternative energies, and Solar Pantelleria, a project to serve the Island of Pantelleria (South of Sicily) with only solar, wind and biomass. The methodology adopted was then used by the ENEA for other Italian regions. We learned from those experiences that energy-flows in a region are dictated by the cultural paradigms of the people who live there - and viceversa. The project for Solar Pantelleria was terminated by the forced sale of a multiflash desalination plant to the island by a State owned corporation (EFIM). The desalination plant is no longer in use because the brackish water-well feeding it became completely salted after a few months of pumping. The well was too close to the sea.
In 1981, with my group, I started dealing with urban climate pathology and decay: sick cities. The studies have been published in a CNR report “Technologies to control pathologies of urban climates” (Tecnologie per il controllo della patologia dei climi urbani).
In 1993, after three years in Indonesia as a science attacché, I retired and came to live in Perth where I lectured at UWA and Curtin. In 1998 I gave a lecture at the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) with the title “Beyond sustainability” and in 2002 I proposed to the Royal Australian Institute of Architects the topic Cityfutures for their annual conference, with an extensive paper on the subject. The proposal was not accepted by the RAIA Chairman of the time, who was, rightly, anxious not to lose a particular sponsorship. The project became an essay and was later published by the Italian Accademia dei Lincei in their 2002 Rome Seminar “Nuova cultura della città”.

Today, when I attend seminars and conferences on energy, sustainability and environment in Australia, Canada, Italy and the US, I am wistfully amused. It’s like a return journey on the nostalgia trail of my academic youth. It is difficult to understand why, whatever we said, wrote, taught and foresaw over thirty five years ago, did not eventuate and if anything happens it’s a very slow and fragmented process.
So, the question is - what did we do wrong? My generation and I - how did we manage to fail in such a dramatic way on such a huge problem which seemed so obvious. Did we really get it wrong? When and where did we fail? Was it actually our failure? A failure at all?

It may be interesting to reconsider what has been happening in the last thirty five years, to check the debate again and study what is happening now, so that we may re-define the agenda. An agenda for a possible transition…or for an impossible one.
I believe that a critical perusal of the past is always useful to get a glimpse of the future.

The feasibility of an alternative project.
According to current conformity, the basic tenets of a feasible project are supposed to be:

a. Comply with the current economic paradigm, competitive profits and consistent time of returns;
b. Manageability and feasibility by available professions and trades;
c. Easy to understand for financial and administrative beaurocracies;
d. Use tested and reliable technologies;
e. Clear short-term and long-term environmental implications;

All the points seem to be pure common sense. Or are they? Absolutely not!

If each of the tenets were true, nothing would ever happen. No change, no development of any kind. In fact they are not conditions available in the real world where things are less certain or defined.

a. The current economic paradigm must be fully stretched, to the limits of current acceptability, if not beyond. There is always resistance, sometimes understandably.
b. When dealing with new technologies, profits and returns may imply more risk than current standards for banks and investors;
c. Available professions do not usually have the knowledge and capabilities to deal with new technologies and innovative products. Processes should be assisted by proper educational services;
d. When environmental advantages are expected, the private investor should not be required to carry the whole burden of the innovative technology. It is a responsibility of the public authority to give adequate incentives to pay for the social advantages.
e. New technologies cannot give full warranties: Appropriate insurance should cover unknown risks;

This second set of conditions is more realistic, less clear and more difficult to manage (2) and to deal with.

The economy of transition.
Energy and environmental health of a post-industrial society is a multigenerational problem. This generation has to set out the conditions for a decent future and must invest now for returns which will only become available after 60 to 70 years. Unfortunately we must operate within an economic paradigm that does not take into account environmental costs, either present or future. The founding fathers of modern economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Leon Walras, Karl Marx, fino a John Maynard Keynes) thought environmental and energy resources were unlimited. There would be no current crisis if these resources had been taken into account since the beginning of the modern economy. This generation has enjoyed a lot of privileges as a result of the environmental theft of the last few centuries. Now it is payback time, and is a matter for society as a whole, not just individuals. There will be no “transition” until the problem has been tackled.
Substitution of fossil fuels, obviously partial, with more environmentally friendly alternative sources cannot take place if the latter have to compete with subsidized prices of natural gas, oil and coal. The price of oil per barrel today US$106.63 (March 17, 2008) may seem very high but it is not. In fact, the purchasing power of US$30 in 1973 would today (2008) be approximately US$144.00 (Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson) (3). The incentives, tax exemptions and special rate loans available do not match the incremental expenditure of those who, willing to respond to the environmental call, invest in solar collectors, photovoltaic panels, or wind generators. Here there is another conflict of interest: governments (the Italian one being particularly rapacious) enjoy a huge revenue from taxes (and royalties) on fossil fuels and resist the idea of promoting alternative energies, a resistance always denied politically, but true nonetheless - a subtle way to protect “big oil”, or “big coal”. If the price of fossil fuels took into account the environmental, social, health, war and geopolitical costs necessary to procure them and consequent to their combustion, conversion and digestion of their residues, solar energy and wind energy would have been securely established long ago. Such costs are now elegantly qualified as “externalities” and charged to future generations and will be environmentally and economically catastrophic. The discussion on how right, appropriate and convenient this is, does not belong here: It is a matter for philosophers and experts on ethics (or non-ethics). Unfortunately, religions and priests meddle with it, with devastating consequences. Albeit, this generation has enjoyed huge privileges derived from the systematic environmental rip-off of at least ten previous generations - assuming that the pre-industrial revolution Planet was sustainable.
Payback time?

After thirtyfive years of talks on energy, environmental fights and economic, academic challenge, it is disappointing to see that the tools for the “transition” from oil to beyond oil are still far away and that the “transition” is also conceptually and politically terra incognita. I can see no evidence of a “project” for the transition, as the recent UN Conference on Climate change in Bali dramatically exposed. (4)
Decision makers have no technically feasible sequence on the table, on which to build a political and financial committment. There is no draft, not even a coarse one, of the technologies, or list of the priorities for even an approximate strategy. There is no credible project, assisted by a clear vision, by plausible political tools and by a financial funding strategy. The political and planning vacuum is even more alarming if one considers the exponential growth of all the antropic systems and processes on the planet: population, agriculture, urbanization, transportation and industrial transformations. The very real possibility of a World population in 2030 of 8 billion people (9 billion, according to the highest projection of the United Nations, 7 billion according to the lowest) compared to the present day 6 billion, makes everything even more dramatic.
Every once in a while some smart or ignorant journalist misquoting scientific sources, proposes the “hydrogen age” (5) without knowing (or willfully neglecting) that to produce one energy unit of hydrogen you need three to four energy units of fossil fuels. Recently, an authoritative Italian daily newspaper (La Repubblica) let one of its contributors (6) propose the compressed air car, as a miracle solution. The journalistic butterfly wrote that you could “fill up” your compressed air tank for one or two euros while the other guys were paying 70 to 80 Euros for their petrol fill. It is a bit of a worry that the guy should qualify himself as an “esperto di motori”. With what energy is the air compressed and with which system efficiency - small details that did not bother him at all. Not to mention the other problems like weight of the tanks, safety in case of accident, freezing in the motor and mileage before refueling. Tatra’s initiative (the automobile manufacturer that recently announced an interest in compressed air cars) is a stunt with some other agenda. He did not even bother to check Wikipedia, like any good boy-scout would do.
A lot of people believe, or have been encouraged to believe, that nuclear energy will be the ultimate and radical solution: This is not so. Acording to the NPC (National Petroleum Council 2007 Report) forecast nuclear energy by 2030 will only be sufficient to cover 5% of the demand, even assuming strong development. To have an idea of the Italian situation - a few numbers on the back of an envelope: ten 2000 MW plants (20 thousand MW would be 25% of the installed power and 40% of peak demand) would substitute approximately 15% of electric energy demand. Electric energy is only 30% of total demand so 15% of 30% (0.15 x 0.30 = 0.045) would be 4.5% of the total Italian conversion (source Mattioli & Scalia on Manifesto). The time required to build 10 plants would be, optimistically, 12 years, with a capital investment difficult to assess, but which certainly would make nuclear energy the most expensive of the alternatives (source US Department of Energy). Nuclear energy would be late and marginally useful. If the same amount of capital was invested in system restructuring and energy saving, energy returns would be consistently higher, available in a shorter time, with much safer technologies. Also, without the nightmare of future decommissioning of nuclear plants still an unknown technical problem: another environmental rip-off that this generation would inflict on future generations. Somebody should explain this to the honourable member of the Italian Parliament, Mr. Casini, who speaks of nuclear energy with appalling naivity and incompetence. Another specific problem for an Italian nuclear project would be to find the technical personnel to design, build and manage the plants.
Transition time is another interesting problem area. Two centuries ago it took approximately 100 years to shift from coal to oil. The technical revolution for the shift from oil to flowing energies (wind, solar, hydro, ocean thermal and waves) is at least ten times more complex on a system which is at least 100 times larger than the system operating in 1850, with a total population of 5 times the population of 1850. It is true that technology innovation and the tools available today are much more powerful and sophisticated than the tools available in 1850. Nonetheless, the time needed for the shift would not be less than 70 years: three generations – to be on the safe side. We must find the energy and the engineering to feed the intermediate stage.

The transition.
So it is that fossil fuels will carry us beyond the oil age: certainly converted in a different way and at much higher costs. The difficult task today is to explain to political decision makers, who generally think in a window of 3 to 4 years ahead, something that compels them to think in a window of 20 to 30 years ahead – a task we failed to accomplish for the last thirty years, or met only in a very inadequate way. One thing must be conceded: the availability of politicians willing to learn has been scarce, to say the least.

Transition profits.
If we consider and analyse the three pillars for energy transition: (eliminate waste, save energy, set in alternatives) we can draw an interesting conclusion. First of all the priorities within sequence must be organized: it is true that one must not put alternative energy on an energy wasting system. It is also true that some energy technologies require a long lead time before reaching the grid. Other technologies (if not all of them) need radical changes in the supporting network, in the logistics and in the cultural attitude of the users. Photovoltaic electric energy is supplied as a continuous current so it needs inverters before feeding it into the grid, or custom designed appliances. Solar electricity as wind electricity have time implications for supply which cannot easily match demand time models. Storage problems have to be solved for grid balancing and dispatching. Today the problem is brilliantly solved using the grid itself: users/producers send their energy into the network when it is available from the sun or from the wind and then take energy from the network when they need it. Users/producers will be charged according to the clearing balance, after having paid for the balancing and dispatching costs. Clearly this is possible when you have a small solar or wind energy input and a huge conventional load. When the ratio is the other way around there will be conflicts to be solved by appropriate technology. Interfacing demand and supply will be a specific “transition” problem that may require radical solutions to adapt the grid partially, thoroughly or gradually and will also require consistent capital. It is not something that can be left to the accident of the market, as now seems to be fashionable, yielding to an obsolete idea of neo-capitalism and economic rationalism. There must be a new political vision, a new political scope, a new financial strategy, and a new technical project. Each one of the pillars for energy transition has vast entrepreneurial potentials and implications. There are great commercial potentials and profit opportunities yet to be tackled.
It is a clear responsibility of governments to open these spaces to enterprise and to the intelligence and shrewdness of individuals. Governments must have the vision for the transgenerational project, a vision that cannot be left to specific companies and individuals. Once the vision has political and financial support and a proper budget structure the market will not withdraw. A challenging agenda.

The professions for the transition, the human capital.
Within the next ten years, 60-70% of the staff working on energy systems and related technologies (supply and demand) will be retiring. Even now there is an acute shortage of this kind of personnel and the time needed to train these competences is in the range of 10-15 years. One of the problems in this field is to set up consistent curricula with great anticipation: engineering and architectural schools have to teach students who will be active in the professions in the next 10 to 15 years and who will design buildings and processes that will be operating for 20 to 30 years. Given the fast rate of innovation which is peculiar to the field, teaching structures must radically revise their modus operandi. Permanent education may become more important than the initial course, staffing the faculties will be difficult, teaching institutions already have a problem with faculty ageing and turnover.
Investment in education and formation has strategic urgency, if the bottleneck of understaffed structures is to be be avoided.
There is another conceptual problem: Whereas disciplines related to upstream processes are clearly defined, less clear is the field of discplines related to alternative energy sources solar, photovoltaic, wind, biomass, ocean thermal, geothermal, waves and ocean low speed streams. Even less explored is the field on the demand side: energy is a transdiscipline related to every field of human activity, agriculture, industrial processing, transportation, education, dwelling, health care, prevention. Any project requires a systemic vision.
Optimizing the energy flows on transportation just by working on the efficiency of cars and trucks, without dealing with the general mobility logistics and organization, or with infrastructural planning, would be useless. Technology innovation induced by energy requires a system approach: energy knowledge and design and engineering knowledge must be associated, possibly in the same operator. An energy conscious engineer or architect is needed. To see the extent of the problem one must read the curricula of architectural design courses or of urban and land planning courses: energy is not in the paradigm. The results of such teaching can be seen in the products of the “masters” (Daniel Libeskind, Frank O.Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenmann, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelblau). Even “deconstructing” their stunning buildings it’s difficult to find energy consciousness, and these buildings will probably have to operate way beyond 2040, when energy will not be a cheap commodity. I can see some interesting deconstructivist retrofit problem in the making.
Here we also have a problem with the education of the clients.

Assessing the economics.
One method to measure the economy of energy technologies is the Cost of Conserved Energy (CEC) that can be calculated as the ratio between the energy saved in one year and the amount of money that has to be paid each year to return the capital invested in the energy technlogy, with the interest at the given rate

Era
Cec = ---------------
Cxr

Era energy saved or substituted every year
C capital
r annuity factor takes into account the interest and the number of years for which the technology will operate (duration).
A very simple method devised by. Prof. Arthur Rosenfeld and presented at the EEE (Energy, Economy, Environment) Conference in Santa Cruz (California) in 1978.

If the conserved energy is more expensive than the substituted energy, the technology is not competitive. If it is less expensive, the technology is competitive.
If all environmental costs of fossil fuels are taken into account, almost anything is competitive. If such costs are not taken into account, a lot of alternative technologies will not be competitive. Incentives and subsidies will have to be devised so that individuals do not have to pay for the burden of a social advantage.
How such a burden can be shared by the community is an interesting area of debate.

The culture gap.
As in 1973, what is lacking today is “vision”: The generation now in control grew up with the culture of consumerism. A city mayor understands transportation, bridges, tunnels, freeways, but pays little attention to environmental and energy strategic investments. He can decide on bridges, tunnels, and freeways, and build in time-windows that will grant him electoral returns. He can finance environmental and energy strategies, but their time window does not allow him to see any electoral advantage. Except for a very few instances, the media are unhelpful with the incompetence of editors and their focus on easy scoops. An informed public will elect informed politicians. Thus, competent information is a required condition for any possible qualification of the political class; those who will eventually decide. What is frightening in the U.S. is not so much George Bush as the “system” that puts him in power. On a different scale, the same worries apply to Bassolino-Mastella-Pecoraro Scanio-Berlusconi et al. in Italy.

What has changed since 1973. Assessing the field on a wide set of values the following points can be identified:

A. Huge progress in technology has occurred, with both supply and demand.
B. Energy and environmental consciousness of the public has grown, unfortunately promoted more by predictions of doom than competent information.
C. There has not been a consistent growth of competence in the political class: administrators and strategic decision-makers seem naïve or biassed - Bush, Cheney or the modest Italian representatives Casini and Prodi. When they talk about energy or the environment they exhibit no more knowledge than twelve year old boy scouts.
D. The intuition we had in 1975 has been confirmed: We have run out of space for burning more fossil fuels. Pollution makes cities unlivable. We may have passed the point of no return. But CO2 seems not to be the problem (see Ernst Beck paper at: http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf)
E. Except for afew biassed areas, the nuclear dream is dead. Nuclear is not proposed as “the” solution any more due to the capital intensity, the long-lead time, the limited availability of fossile fuels and the unknown problems related to decommissioning the plants when obsolete.
F. Information by the media is still disappointing and superficial, if not wrong, (as with the hydrogen promotion or the compressed air car).
G. The problem of water has become gigantic. Many cities are processing their sewage, many are building plants to do that. Irrigation water is already the cause of military confrontation in many regions of the World.
H. Congestion of metropolitan areas, urban climate pathology, unsustainable technologies for heating and air conditioning and mobility were problems thirty-five years ago. Today they are daily tragedies for millions.

Bruno Caudana defines a harder line on this subject and I put it in the footnote (7) as a token of the complexity of the debate and of Bruno’s sharp vision which is always a challenge. I am no optimist either, but I believe that today we need a constructive pessimism: it will be shit but, hey, guys, let’s do something anyway!

Technology answers.
Search for new oil fields and the exploitation of existing ones to the limits of recoverable oil have been greatly enhanced by the technology tools and methods (Enhanced Oil Recovery methods EOR) so much so that the dreaded Hubbert peak has been postponed by most experts. But still peak oil is a very unclear forecasting subject. Most studies place peak oil anywhere between now (yesterday?) and 2040. For some studies the peak time is “unknowable”. For some the peak window extends from 2020 to 2120. Some analysts think that oil has already peaked.
This is GAO Peak Oil Research Study (8) opening statement:

"Most studies estimate that oil production will peak sometime between now and 2040. This range of estimates is wide because the timing of the peak depends on multiple, uncertain factors that will help determine how quickly the oil remaining in the ground is used, including the amount of oil still in the ground; how much of that oil can ultimately be produced given technological, cost, and environmental challenges as well as potentially unfavorable political and investment conditions in some countries where oil is located; and future global demand for oil. Demand for oil will, in turn, be influenced by global economic growth and may be affected by government policies on the environment and climate change and consumer choices about conservation."

One peak has already been reached and that is the Oil Discovery Volumes which was recorded in 1970 (North Field, Gas and Oil in Qatar). Since then the volume of discoveries has been steadily decreasing. Part of the decrease is due to lower investments by Oil Companies which were strung up by the low price of the barrel, but is also partly due to the actual limit of geological resources.

I will list some of the EOR tools. The interested reader should refer to specific literature, which is abundantly available on the WEB.

For existing wells and fields:
* controlled reservoir contact
* Horizontal/multilateral/fishbone wells
* Arthroscopic-well construction
* SWEEP: see, access, move
* Smart well: injection and production
* Reservoir characterization and simulation
* Mission control
* CO2 flood mobility control
* Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD)/ steam and alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) technology
* faster, higher definition 3D seismic

For near term (2020) exploration:
* High density seismic data and rapid data processing
* Subsalt imaging (seismic)
* Fast controlled source electromagnetism (CSEM) 3D modeling and inversion
* Integration of CSEM with structural information from seismic surveys

New extraction technologies have made feasible the exploitation of heavy oil shale fields.
a. The heavy oil field is heated and the heated oil flows to a drainage well.
b. The field is injected with solvent (Vapex) and the heavy oils washed by the solvent to the drainage well.
These two methods may be combined.
Clearly these are expensive extraction methods and must be supported by a consistent price for the recovered barrel.

The most important and diffuse innovation took place in the field of “process control technologies” up-stream and down-stream. Intelligent electronics have significantly increased the efficiency of all the processes and conversions (industrial, residential, transportation, agriculture, heating and cooling). The closer demand and supply models are, thanks to intelligent controls, the higher the system efficiency will be.

Alternative sources.
Wind generated electricity is now commercially competitive with oil or coal-generated electricity. In the last thirty years, wind turbine blades optimization and various design features (self furl) have been streamlined in order to get as close as possible to the theoretical top mechanical efficiency of a wind generator (59%). Electronic inverters brilliantly solve the problem of transforming the wind generated electricity into commercial current with steady frequency and voltage. The grid is used as a storage system and that will be possible until the wind originated load will exceed a certain percentage of the grid supply. Technologies are available to cover the needs of the single building, small cluster of buildings or for huge wind parks that feed the grid. It is not true that wind generators are environmentaly unfriendly. They do not kill birds (no more than electric cables, pylons, cars or buildings - in fact less, because birds can detect their movement) (9) and they are not noisy: A set of comparative examples is available at the website in the footnote (10). Photovoltaic panels that in 1975 had very low efficiencies (3%) are now on the market at a considerably lower price with efficiencies in the range of 15-17%. Energy payback time is 8 to 11 years (ref. Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering Department, Australian National University). According to some sources the energy payback time is even shorter (3-4 years). With rising costs of electricity and a proper incentive policy there could be a booming market in the next ten years. Both wind generators and photovoltaic have great potential for integration with electric cars. Some design problems (batteries) must be solved in order to have an easy and viable interface. The electric car can be feasible only if recharged with home solar or wind generated electricity: otherwise, the load on the network would be an impossible problem to solve, when electric cars will be running in signifcant numbers.
Solar thermal collectors have also made huge progress in terms of cost, durability and efficiency.

Tubular vacuum collectors have efficencies between 60% and 80% within output temperatures of 60°C to 80°C, which means they can more easily be linked to space heat exchangers. Wood or pellets-fed (or multifuel) heaters designed to host hot fluid coming from solar collectors are available on the market, and they certainly were not 30 years ago. 80% of domestic space heating technologies available today were not available in the eighties and, most important, none of the software and hardware for the complex management and fine tuning of solar integrated heating systems was available either. What existed was very rudimentary compared to the up-to-date equipment on the market in 2008.

Technologies suggested by energy conscious design are now available for the building envelope: new glazing materials, movable electronically-controlled internal and external screens, insulating materials and ventilated facades to enhance the passive behaviour of buildings. There is now a whole catalogue of tools available to increase the “intelligence” of the building envelope and its ability to continuously change in order to negotiate the external climate to optimize internal conditions of comfort, with minimal use of fossil fuels. The general rule is that to reduce energy demand, one must increase the “information” content of design and technology. What is still lacking is the competent attention of designers for the application of these tools and the environmental and energy commitment of clients and of controlling authorities. Quite often they prefer to spend money on contrived architectural shapes, functionally arguable and environmentally disastrous. Many architects, some of them very popular, actually use technologies and building shapes apparently dictated by energy constraints, but they push them beyond reasonable limits with negative results for comfort and for environmental consistency.
As far as the energy infrastructure (grid and networks) is concerned, a radical shift has to take place: The systems have been conceived and designed to dispatch energy from power plants to the diffuse galaxy of users. They will have to be changed in order to dispatch energy from the million producers/users to the million producers/users with power plants managing the balancing and compensation task. This is not a simple problem and requires a huge investment.

A Different Opinion.  With regard to alternative energies (solar thermal, wind-electric, photovoltaic) there are many people who have reservations and point out the quantitative irrelevance and qualitative (power) inadequacy. They also question the need for the great numbers of wind turbines and the thousands of square kilometers of PHV panels necessary to supply the energy demand of a post industrial country.
This is the consistent view of those who accept the present energy/environmental paradigm, without question.
However, within a multigenerational strategy over 70 to 100 years the potential for cultural and technological changes cannot be overruled and the issue has to be addressed in a less radical way. It is true that the plausibility of such changes is arguable and in the domain of Utopia, but this is not a good reason to dismiss it. The potential of diffuse, pervasive, enduring action over several decades must not be discounted.
The comments of Prof. Franco Battaglia on this matter make interesting reading. He makes his point in a rigorous, non conformist way, opposing the often foolish, fashionable, or ideologically motivated, views of the environmentalists. But sometimes he does not tell the whole story: it is true that you cannot light a bulb with low entalpy solar energy, but you can easily heat water at 50 °C, water which is now heated with electricity that could be saved and used elsewhere and for consistent conversions.
Prof. Franco Battaglia is certainly right. If this is the way we are going to use the Planet now and in the future, there is no hope for any alternative. The Planet is "finite" and any growth (linear, geometric or exponential) is not negotiable and, sooner or later will clash with this undeniable reality.
Not even the nuclear choice, strongly sought, both politically and financially, can solve the problem of uncontrolled demographic growth. Eventually the fragility of the systems will increase with further, strong polarization and fissile fuels are a finite resource. Any energy source seems ridiculous when you calculate the number of plants needed to cover 100% of the demand with that source only, which is what Franco Battaglia sometimes does.
Franco Battaglia has made an interesting statement:  “To burn oil to produce electric energy is like burning antique furniture to heat the house.”

Prof. Battaglia is not alone in this fight against the "global warming tide" if you want to have a wide set of "anti" documentation and statements go to:http://globalwarmingscare.wordpress.com/category/scientist-who-oppose-global-warming-theories/
Lord Christopher Monckton is a particularly documented paper. Some of the papers are quite impressive.

Anyway the most compelling paper is that of prof. Ernst Beck:
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
which proves in a rigorous way that there is NO correlation between CO2 content in the athmosphere and global warming, thus dismantling one of the basic tenets of the Kyoto agreement.

Buildings.
Buildings (heating, cooling, ligthing, appliances) need roughly 25-30% of the total energy converted in an industrialized country. Retrofitting buildings for energy optimization (elimination of waste, energy saving, alternatives) is a process that has to be associated with maintenance and must be programmed over a time frame of 10 to 20 years. Buildings at the end of the process should become either active producers of energy (with PV panels or wind generators) or end up with an even balance. The set of components that can be used deal with the external envelope (insulation, double glazing, special glazing, external screens, internal screens), roofs, solar passive components (attached greenhouses) solar active components (thermal or PHV and possibly wind generators), lighting fixtures are next and then appliances. Different programs and sequences will be designed for different building types (office, commercial, residential, hotels, industrial, processes)

The car.
The car is indeed a very special item: so important in the quality of life and lifestyle of the postindustrial societies, such a huge environmental responsibility, such a huge industrial structure for its manufacturing processes and such an important employment opportunity. Second only to the “home”, the car is the dominating feature in the daily schedule of life of the “modern Cros Magnon”.
There were 200.000.000 cars in the whole world in 1970. The number was 590.000.000 in 2002, and there may be approximately 650.000.000 today (11). The number of cars in the year 2030 is anybody’s guess and frightening to contemplate. The map shows the planet mapped against the number of cars in each country . If they average 30.000 km per year, that is 20 trillion km a year, if they burn 10 litres every 100 km, that is 2 trillion litres of fuel per year, that’s 2 billion tons per year etc.
This huge fleet is scrapped over a twenty years cycle and substituted with a new fleet within the same time. Which would be 32.5 million cars (plus) every year.
This means that in twenty years time (approximately) we could have an environmentally friendly world fleet of cars, starting the shift tomorrow. Taking into account a debatable increment of the total number, and if we get there, anyway.

Any transition strategy must take the car into account as a very serious problem and design ways and means to:

reduce the number of cars,
reduce the yearly mileage,
reduce the daily trips,
reduce the fuel consumption,
increase overall efficiency,
increase the number of passengers per car
reduce maintenance costs
reduce the weight per unit
increase the average life of the fleet

Jobs and employment must be protected at the same time, as much as possible diversifying the sector and through appropriate and organized interindustry mobility.
Some of the points imply design and technology changes; some imply management changes; some of them imply lifestyle changes some imply town planning and logistics rethinking and, possibly, the whole set implies a basic cultural shift. All in all a great set of challenges.
Some of these changes are already happening hidden in the chaotic daily dynamics. Others are not. To have some information on what has been going on over the last 35 years it is worthwhile reading the study by Lee Schipper of the World Resources Institute EMBARQ "Automobile Fuel; Economy and CO2 Emissions in Industrialized Countries: Troubling trends through 2005/2006."

Fuel consumption data, yearly mileage, trips per day, power of motors, weight, average life of single units and of fleets can give a good picture of what is going on, but data have lots of implications which make their interpretation difficult. Meaningful differences between Europe the US and Japan give an idea of the different attitudes of users, regulatory authorities, population density, land form, urban form, road system, traffic, availability of parking spaces and last, but not least, driving style and habits.
According to Lee Schipper’s diagrams (12) listed below are some of the car trends. They may be useful to suggest what has to be encouraged and what has to be resisted:

1. on the road fuel consumption in the US has plummeted from 18 litres per 100 km in 1970 to an average of 11.8 litres per 100 km in 2005 where the most important drop happened between 1975 and 1985. In Japan road fuel consumption has increased from 9 to 10.2 litres per 100 km after having reached almost 12 litres per 100 km between 1995 and 2000. In Europe on the road fuel consumption was in a bracket that went from 8.1 to 11.1 in 1970 and dropped to a bracket between 7.0 and 8.1 litres per 100 km in 2005. Italian cars seem to be the ones that have the lowest on the road consumption, Swedish cars the highest.
2. Weight at the curb: the average European car went from 900 kg per unit to 1250 kg a 38% increment which is the highest in the world. American cars dropped from 1800 to 1600 kg per unit a 12.5% drop.
3. Average power: in the US went from 120 kW to 150 kW (+25%) after a limited drop between 1970 and 1990 whereas in Europe the average power went from 60 kW to 80 kW (+33%). For italy the number is from 48 kW to 54 kW (+12.5%)
4. Fuel consumption to weight (liters per 100 km to kg): quite a meaningful drop for the whole world fleet from 0.0095 in 1975 to 0.0050 in 2005. Cars are heavier and guzzle less, or guzzle less for the same weight. Whichever.
5. Fuel consumption to power (litres per 100 km to kW), another significant drop from 1975 average values of 0.15 to 2000 average values of 0.09 a stunning 60% reduction. Cars guzzle less and are more powerful.

Fuel consumption has dropped in Europe, not so much in the US, and that is a consequence of the voluntary agreement among European producing countries brokered by the European Commission. The environmental technology is there for better performance and heavier cars but the market does not seem to care, whereas the market seems to appreciate performances (weight, volume, speed and acceleration).
Intergovernmental agreements seem to be effective, but they need a stronger political support. Automobile culture is changing, but the shift is still weak and slow. The new mini cars (Smart, Micra, Nuova 500) and with the hybrids (Honda and Toyota) may induce some stronger trend. The task ahead is gigantic.

Energy geopolitics and trends.
China and India have grown enormously since 1970 as energy-thirsty countries, and they will overtake the US in a very short time. The struggle to acccess Central Asian oil and gas fields is the structure of the present “big world game” and Putin’s Russia seems to be calling the shots. The recent confrontation between Nursultan Nazarbayev (autocratic president of Kazachstan) and the Oil companies (among them the Italian ENI) jockeying to get the drilling rights on Kazachs oil fields was an interesting moment in the “big game”.
After a short pause between 1975 and 1980, the rest of the World resumed the historic trend. The Gulf always the most important oil region and the Caspian Sea “’Stans” getting into the picture, given their proximity to the future huge markets of China and India. In 2030 US dependence from Canadian and Venezuelan oil will increase substantially, Chavez should be very careful and employ trusted bodyguards. Russia, which until the year 2000 was supplying only Western Europe, in 2030 will supply China and India in equal volumes. Global demand for energy in 2030 will grow by 60% compared to 2000 (source NPC 2007 report) in brackets 2000 demand.

2030
33% oil (38%)
26% LNG (24%)
27% coal (24%)
5% nuclear (6%)
9% renewables (8%)
These numbers actually support my assumption: 60% of growth is the only significant change and not in the direction we would like. The real failure is the very minor shift from 8% to 9% of the renewables. Most of the increment is due to the demographic growth of world population and to the new affluence of India and China, but a great responsibility for it is also to be found in the indifference or neglect for the problem of Governments and of the International Community, and in the strength of the Oil Corporations and Oil Lobby. NPC projections may also reflect the culture of Big Oil Corporations.

More about beyond oil and transition.
Mobility and transportation: higher capacity factors will be sought. The present day luxury of one man one car will be history. The number of trips per day will be reduced. Today’s usual accepted walking distance, which is now around 50 meters, will gradually reach two km. Kids will walk to school or use the school bus. Rich mothers with one spoiled child per car (usually a two ton SUV) will be history. Obesity in youngsters will plummet. Bikes will become popular for 3-4 km distances. Electric solar fed bikes will cover 4-6 km distances. The current Danish, Norwegian and Dutch year-round biking habits will become fashionable throughout Europe and the US, with their necessary clothing implements, baby seats and baskets. Nursery schools will collect babies with small electric carts holding ten children each. There will be a lot less babies. China will revert to the bicycle, they will be smart bikes (designer bikes). Small cars, solar electric and hybrid will gradually substitute the present fleet of medium sized sedans. Hybrid electric LPG cars, integrated on Photovolatic decentralized electricity production will systematically substitute present day petrol and diesel fuelled cars. The yearly amount depends on incentives and petrol costs (possibly 10 dollars per liter in 2030). Urban mobility of persons now accounts for approximately 20% of the total conversion in post industraial countries: This should be cut to 8%. The percentage of the average family budget for the car should be kept within 20%.
Integration of transportation on depolarized solar (wind or phV) should ease the dispatching and balancing problem of the grid heavily fed by depolarized production.
Smaller cars, ride-sharing and car-sharing (and bikes) should ease the parking problem in congested cities and reduce energy (and time) spent looking for parking spots! Public transportation should become more friendly and more efficient. Buses, minibuses, shared taxicabs, bike-sharing in downtown areas, will allow easier use of city centers compared to the present-day congested traffic situation.
Car-sharing, Zip car (http://www.zipcar.com/how/) will be an established institution in modern cities, sponsored, supported and promoted by the public traffic authority as well as ride-sharing (http://www.goloco.org/) and Robin Chase will be acknowledged and revered as the founder of this brilliant system. Cell phones, plus computers, plus logistic software, plus methods to guarantee safety will win the case for easy and safe urban mobility. Pedestrians with infrared prompt will easily interface cars with infrared receivers to share friendly and secure rides. Evil-doers will be immediately spotted and appropriately dealt with. The embryo of this modus operandi has already been working for years in many cities in Asia (Jakarta, Manila, Manado, Ujung Padang, Solo, etc.) without cell phones and without computers: just supported by a different culture. Goloco is a computer assisted association of users, the software of which solves the logistics (who wants to go where, who is going where, when) and guarantees the friendliness of members and even manages cross compensation and money clearing transactions through Paypal; cyber safe hitchiking. Again more information in the system equals less energy: the basic tenet of low energy strategies.
In a few years the family budget for the car will reach 25-30% of the total family income. Clearly economically unsustainable: a cultural revolution is on the cards. At present, there are many intiatives in the field and they do indicate the trend towards a different culture of urban mobility and transportation. Euromobility is one of them in Italy (http://www.euromobility.org/) good advice and sometimes strange and amusing information like this: “a car riding on a highway for one km at 100 km/h with a steady regular pace emits 60% less particulates, 80% less CO2 and saves 75% fuel compared to a car that rides at 15 km/h in the frantic driving style typical of congested downtown areas”. No big news! Euromobility promotes ecodriving courses that teach how to drive with energy and environmental consciousness and supports bike-sharing in downtown areas. All good.

Teleworking, telecommuting. Millions of hours of driving time or commuting time, millions of fuel and CO2  tons could be spared if using fast computer connection (broadband) all those who could work at home could actually do that. A logistics shift the delay of which is a disturbing sign of the corporate mind “thickness” and conformity.
The Australian Labour Government is now approving a strategic investment (4.7 billion Au$) that will allow every Australian  to have access to a state of the art broadband network across Australia.

Cities will not be able to depend on “transplanetary” food supplies and the globalization paradigm will meet some very tough challenges. A local/regional economy will grow again for most of the food necessities. Dietary habits will change accordingly. No more cherries from Argentina in winter for Milano, or blueberries from New Brunswick or Maine in December for Sydneysiders, or Dutch greenhouse hydroponic salad year round. Packaging styles will change (see Toepfer Law in Germany). Plastic bags will be history and collectors items, we will go back to the good old tough fabric bags of our mothers and grandmothers. The Australian Government is planning to tax plastic bags 25 cents each to discontinue their usage - radical changes in urban waste management. Considerably more recycling will start in the home and there will be proper household implements to facilitate it.
Video conferences will cut the need for business trips and the associated fun: Big corporations and public institutions will start this relatively soon.

Action.
I personally think that humans will not be able to set out a transition path towards a sustainable coexistence with the Planet in an acceptable time frame, with the possibile exception of a few privileged enclaves where climate, geography and local integrated resources combine to make that path easier. For many things it is too late. As Caudana points out, some are culturally impossible and others are economically unfeasible. The slow catastrophe which started over fifty years ago will continue, slowly in some regions and faster in others. Third World countries are already in a low energy paradigm. Their transition towards sustainability may be easier than for industrialized and post-industrial regions. They will not need to give up so much, but they will be crushed by the water tragedy and health problems. In these regions many families are already capable of producing their own food. An industrial urban manufacturing family, is unable to do this and the city they live in would not allow it. In Turin and in Milan they still have memories of the Calabrese migrants keeping chickens in their bathrooms and raising tomatoes on the balconies of their low cost social dwellings.

Pessimism does not mean that one has to give up. In fact it is a good reason to face and accept the challenge.
To design and to control the ongoing catastrophe could be useful, in any case - to
moderate its cruelty on the weaker and more exposed, or to increase the privilege of the stronger.
For some of us, it is the Utopian dream that makes life’s journey interesting.
For others it is the money: but what’s the use of money in a crumbling World?
It can be useful but only in the short-term.

Lorenzo Matteoli

Scarborough, March 2008.

NOTES
1) The young researchers who worked with me from 1973 to 1985 in a more or less formalized group were: Gabriella Peretti, Roberto Pagani, Bruno Caudana, Andrea Ketoff, Luciana Conforti, Antonella Marucco, Paola Caccia, Gianvincenzo Fracastoro, Marco Masoero, Marina Gariboldi, Gabriella Funaro. All of them are at the top of the academic or real world careers today. Paola married Gianvincenzo and most certainly contributed to his brilliant career.

2) When I taught to students I used to say that it does not take a rocket scientist to choose between shit and ham. Also a dog can do that. Choices in the real world are never that clear: it is usually shit with some ham, more ham less ham, shit now, ham later. How much ham, how much shit, how much later? This, I used to say, is the reason managers are needed.

3) http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/result.php

4) George Monbiot on the Guardian December 17, wrote: After 11 days of negotiations, governments have come up with a compromise deal that could even lead to emission increases. The highly compromised political deal is largely attributable to the position of the United States, which was heavily influenced by fossil fuel and automobile industry interests. The failure to reach agreement led to the talks spilling over into an all-night session. (Bali Nusa Dua 1-14 December 2007)

5) Hydrogen is environmentally clean only when produced with solar or wind energy, but even then one has to take into account the environmental implications and the costs of those technologies.

7) This is Bruno’s position:
* Number one problem for me is progressive fossil fuels depletion. This will call for a progressive and quick structural change of what the manufacturing-economic machine should produce. For instance it could become mandatory for a wide section of the population to resume production of their own food. But the present urban structure (ratio city/country) makes the inversion of the pre-1950 trend very difficult to achieve. Even more difficult because the incremental population have lost their pre-industrial agricultural know-how. The manufacturing system can produce useless things and is helpless in the production of things that might be useful. Civil conflict conditions and real poverty will set in due to lack of food and other vitals (medicines, drinkable water, etc.) and so on towards degradation.
* CO2 does not become a problem for lack of time
* electric cars on flowing energy will not be ready in the quantity needed to make anb difference, and even this could happen the substitutiion of the car fleet will not be affordable
*a more extensive agricultural paradigm could not yield the amount of food needed to support present population and the incremental population due to demografic inertia. .
* climate change will not set in in time to affect the population
*Even in Turin we are recycling sewage water: we drink the the purified water of the Po river.
* Out of desperation we will burn all the available coal with the obvious consequences
*Drinkable water will be a problem in some places and not in others.
*People will move about desperately .
* The rule of law will be history.

8) GAO: US Government Accountability Office

9) http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html

10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0v9_zV2uk

11) http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=31

12) Diagrams courtesy of EMBARQ, Lee Schipper, Automobile Fuel; Economy and CO2 emissions in Industrialized Countries: troubling trends 2005/2006, figures are approximate because derived from visual reading of the diagrams.

Acknowledgements: I thank the following  for their  critical reading and useful suggestions:
Andrea Ketoff, Bruno Caudana, Alfonso Messina, Gabriella Peretti, Roberto Pagani, Antonio Sanminiatelli, Lee Schipper, Mauro Rinaldi;  Robin  Chase from whose site I took the suggestions for the new transportation logistics (goloco.com).

Editing of the English translation Wendy E. Charnell