A 15 Minute Walk To Unsustainability

Batteries Not Included

Smart cities, 15 minute cities, both terms used to describe the sustainable city vision proposed by global organizations like the UN, World Economic Forum, Billionaire Globalists and others. Detractors claim these cities will entrap its inhabitants, restrict travel, centrally control and ration the distribution of essential resources. Fact checkers deny this and proclaim that these smart, 15 minute cities will save humanity and the climate and everyone in them will be free. But what are the facts, really?

The official smart, 15 minute city architecture imposes centralized control of the production of energy, transportation modalities, food distribution and other essential services. Inhabitants work and live within a 15 minute walk perimeter. Energy production relies on wind and solar energy stored in batteries. The use of gasoline powered transportation is restricted, if not prohibited. These cities will rely on supply chains to deliver essentials. Local governments monitor and control the population, linking every aspect of life to smart city networked devices, sensors and cameras to insure safety and efficiency.

What could go possibly wrong aside from loss of individual sovereignty and freedoms? My spiritual self cringes at the thought of the absolute affront to the sovereignty of the human spirit. My engineer self sees a system so reliant on multiple single points of failure, it is fraught with vulnerabilities and therefore inherently not as sustainable as it claims to be.

Water becomes a major challenge as water sources, sufficient to supply distributed and densely populated smart cities would need to be located and transported. We already see less densely populated residential developments experiencing water sourcing challenges. Moving populations into 15 minute, smart cities only exacerbate public water challenges.

These cities would rely on supply chains that are already strained. The pandemic shut downs of 2019 demonstrated just how fragile supply chains are. Assuming trains and trucks transition to battery powered vehicles, their ranges and efficiency will be significantly impacted, putting even more strain on supply chain distribution of essential products, not to mention non-essential products.

What happens to food production in these models? As nation states and billionaires buy up farmland and independent farmers and ranchers face economic devastation, it is not a stretch to assume the plan is to transition food production into large conglomerates, who will decide what is produced and who has access. This by and large is the situation today.

Reliance on renewable energy requires large, remote, utility grade wind and solar farms to produce sufficient electricity for these centralized communities. This will rely on unreliable generation sources that requires an electric grid infrastructure that cannot support this today.

The unreliable nature of renewable energy sources will rely on batteries to meet peak demands. Batteries that are not included with the smart city architecture. No mention of battery production, which relies on destructive mining, located far from the purview of these idyllic cities. There is little discussion or plan for disposing of spent batteries which contain toxic materials. We are no where near the capacity to supply sufficient batteries to offset renewable energy sources. No realistic plans exist for large scale battery production, distribution and disposal.

There lots of talk, but little urgency to address the existing, outdated and vulnerable electric grid infrastructure which would supply the electricity to charge batteries. 2030 is only a few years away. The goals set out by the UN’s agenda 2030, if implemented with the current infrastructure plans, would be challenging at best, more likely disastrous.

Batteries are not included the 15 minute, smart city vision and architecture. This is due to the complete lack of a believable plan to meet the needs of battery dependent energy infrastructure. Efficiencies are improving, however energy is lost with every battery charge and discharge. This can be 25% or more in some cases. Again, not very sustainable.

The likely reality if these cities are implemented in the near future, is a rationed supply of batteries, restricted times to charge them and restricted energy use. What IS in the plans espoused by smart city proponents is the central control and monitoring of energy usage. Electricity will be rationed if need be through centrally controlled, “smart” network infrastructure, limiting use of appliances, restricting charge times for vehicles, controlling thermostats. This is not a foreboding conspiracy theory. This is already happening today and widely promoted at smart city conferences.

Restrictions will likely extend to water, long distance travel and other things we take for granted. It cannot be implemented without a total loss of privacy – something we’ve been increasingly conditioned to tolerate with our cloud Internet services and mobile apps.

Needless to say, the entire concept is bad architecture and inherently unsustainable. The slightest disruption results in a tragic set of circumstances for smart 15 minute cites. Weather, economics, worker shortages, government imposed lock downs, supply chain crises, all put stress on one or more of the single points of failure in this grand vision of the future. It amounts to a fish bowl for humans, living at the mercy of city administrators, utilities and corporate food production. All consumption of resources monitored and regulated. The fact checkers claim that 15 minute cities will not restrict our freedoms or privacy, but the 15 minute architects are building infrastructure that amounts to constant surveillance, control and rationing of increasingly limited resources.

History Repeats

We must learn from history if we are not to repeat it. The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley thrived for generations until they became unable to sustain their population centers. It is speculated that drought and climate change was the cause of their failure. It is likely that people in these communities were faced with disease and starvation if they did not disperse to a more sustainable environment. As a result their culture and wisdom spread throughout the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Their plight is all but lost to unwritten history.

In my book “Is-Ness” I describe decentralized architectures as the best approach to sustainability. This requires that communities establish self sufficiency by taking control of their own energy and food production locally, locating themselves where water is easily accessible. They establish their own communications networks that honor the privacy and sovereignty of individuals. Lastly, they establish a currency based on the value of trade within their community, not printed by a central bank and loaned to the government.

Networks of these communities can trade, share excess resources, interconnect their communications networks and establish digital currency exchanges. The technology is possible today, however this vision is not popular with the “command and control” crowd. Their vision will ultimately crash and burn, and like those who survived the collapse of ancient civilizations, we need to begin to create decentralized infrastructure that can survive the inevitable collapse of our top heavy, unsustainable civilization.