Post-Oil Energy Futures — or — How Fiction and Research can Inspire us

Tobias Robinson
Jul 30, 2017 · 5 min read

The following article was first published on Thursday, April 12, 2012 whilst I was a young architect working at PIDCOCK, a firm commited to a sustainable future. It appears in a severely edited form, the original can be seen here.

Fiction

Artwork for the cover of “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi

A good novel is fun and entertaining, but I define a great novel as one that makes you question what you’re doing, or how you’re leading your life. In 2009 and 2010 “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi took out pretty much all of the top honours for science fiction that any one book can, it won the Hugo, Nebula, Crompton Crook and Locus awards, along with a few more. The story follows a number of different characters in Bangkok in a “not-so distant” future. The struggles of the characters, some Thai, some foreign, some who drink too much and all who constantly overheat because of humidity and climate change, are played out in a fundamentally different, but familiar world.


Strangely though, it’s a future and a context that I’ve visited before. I can sympathise with one of the characters who, as a foreigner, finds it increasingly frustrating living within a culture that he doesn’t fully understand.

As an exchange student in Germany, I didn’t speak the language, at a university where I didn’t understand the systems and cultural nuisances. After many strange conversations, distant office doors and blank, flat academic faces, I was happy when I found myself enrolled in an English speaking class entitled “Planning in the International Context”.

Culture

Cultural differences and frustrations weren’t the only familiar element operating between my student days and this novel. The class touched on elements of cultural differences and how that influenced the way people worked together and communicate.

The focus was more on the word “international” and its history. Our class covered it from the first European expansion until the impending doom of the westernised global economy, caused by the peak oil fallout.

OK, so it was dramatic and in 2006 electric cars and solar farms weren’t yet a serious thing, but the lessons I learnt were important ones - and ones that Bacigalupi explores in his book. The success of economies and countries were, and still are, fundamentally linked to energy sources. Access to energy has grown exponentially over time; from things like camel trains and boats, to boats with improved sails, then steam powered engines, and finally oil and nuclear powered ships covering greater distances much faster. The civilisations that had access to the best and most productive energy sources would triumph, whether it was in trade or in the spoils of war. The crux of the subject matter was thus laid out in a question — “In the future where crude oil was no longer avaible what would successful cities and economies look like?”

Transport in the Western World over time — source “The Geography of Transport” Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue

Paolo Bacigalupi didn’t just answer this question with his novel, he bought it to life. In Bacigalupi’s future a new kind of climate means that people build their houses differently, cars aren’t guzzling gas, and a thriving genetic manipulation industry employs thousands — all shaping the face and culture of Bangkok. Energy and the consumption of it is a prime concern to all characters, food is scarce, and everyone is aware of both its nutritional value and potential joule output.

What we imagine

In 2017 we are bearing witness to changes in the way the world is working. Bacigalupi has understood what I was taught — dwindling coal and oil supplies with increased demand reshapes the way business is done; they also have the potential to bring forth entirely new industries and technologies. In 2017 we are all aware of the rise of electric vehicles — but how will the leaps and bounds being made in AI change our world? How will innovative product designers employ our growing understanding of genes and biology?

The answers are evident in the past. We know that the invention of the steam engine in the UK put Britain well ahead in the industrial revolution, paving its way as a global leader into the 20th century — we know that the dicsovery of oil in the USA helped build its power through the 20th century.

When we understand the past, what drives technology and what gives cultures power over others – our visions of the future are more informed.

BMW employees were shown images of Elon Musk to coerce them into the electric car develoment — follow this link for credit,

But where to now?

I’m encouraged by the rise of design thinking and service design, it reorientates the development of products and services back to individuals and places empathy as the centre value.

The future will be unlike the past because the desire to contribute positively to the environment and make sure that we reduce our reliance on things like crude oil and carbon has developed. In my home country of Australia the conservatives still hold the power when it comes to legislation, but the private industry is making leaps and bounds. There are too many initiatives to reference here, but you can’t deny the shift.

Whatever you imaigne one thing remains – the future will be both unlike and like the past. Like the past, because people and countries will still be driven to trade, we’ll still fall in and out of love on a backdrop of cultural, economic and political events.

Again, the future will be unlike the past because the access to peer-to-peer services has already disrupted traditional models. New services have meant that I’ve done away with my car, driven in strangers’ cars and slept in the homes of people I don’t know — and the same is happening to people all over the world.

Fiction and Empathy go hand-in-hand

Service design and UX are developing new approaches to business and services that have reshaped my daily routine — and these industries are successful because they’ve learnt that at the centre of all prospering businesses are people.

I keep coming back to fiction for what Bacigalupi has done, he’s given the broader picture a personal story; and when we understand the day to day implications of these broader shifts, suddenly our present is re-orientated.

The future will be the same; we’ll still fall in and out of love, build up and knock things down, but I’d like to think that I’ll help make that future a better one. These new directions place empathy and the natural environment at the heart of what we do. These are the values that drive my position in the world.

Tobias Robinson

Written by

Service Designer, Strategist, former Architect. Sydney, AUS.

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