Honorable Mention
Overview of Fair Shares
By Phoebe Bright (Energy Scenarios Ireland)
Oil peaks by 2007, but the response to the shortage of oil is immediate. Governments realise that, without an international agreement to share out the limited amount of oil and gas on a non-market basis, over-high oil prices will threaten both oil-producing and oil-consuming countries with depression and financial ruin.
A system called Contraction and Convergence (C&C) is put in place which adopts the position that everyone has an equal claim to be able to use the atmosphere as a dump for his or her greenhouse gas emissions and issues permits for them to do so. These permits can then be traded on the free market but the effect is to control and limit the supply of fossil fuels.
Fair Shares Summary
Fair Shares eventually lead to economic decline as manufacturing and other associated industries turn lower scale. More localised small scale, less energy intensive, industries develop and the economy weathers the storm longer and far better than is the case for localisation.
Characteristics of Fair Shares
Government Policies
- The high energy prices and the certainty that they will tend to rise still further causes a rush of renewable energy projects to go ahead. Eirgrid is mandated to take their power. Net metering is introduced to encourage households to install small wind turbines and PV panels which supply power to the grid when it is not required for the household’s own use.
- Every building constructed after 2008 has to be built to ZED (i.e. Zero fossil Energy Demand) standards. In other words, the developers have to show that it can be lit and heated without the use of fossil energy and that its location will still be appropriate when the cost of transport, and running a car becomes very much higher than at present.
- No new contracts for major road-building projects or airport expansion are awarded. Instead, congestion charging is introduced where it is necessary to limit road or runway use and the proceeds are used to improve bus and rail transport.
- Except where there are acute skills shortages, the recruitment of labour from outside the EU ceases.
The Business Sector
- Business starts to make decisions on the basis of steadily rising energy costs if they are buying power, and steady rising energy prices if they are selling it. Because of Ireland’s favourable renewable energy potential. Some energy-intensive manufacturing companies move their operations here and develop their own supplies.
- Irish consumer demand falls because of the increased amount of everyone’s income going to pay for imported energy and for emissions permits. However, this fall is offset by increased demand from poorer countries who are now able to afford Irish goods and by demand from the renewable energy sector which is developing rapidly.
- Helped by government research contracts, Irish firms set out to develop and export new energy saving/generation technologies
- Air travel becomes steadily more expensive. The tourist sector reacts by offering longer-term activity and special interest holidays rather than weekend breaks.
Household
Education
- Third level education moves towards a distributed model with many lectures, particularly in regional colleges, being provided via video link. Students spend more time in self-directed study using internet based programmes.
- Links are established with Colleges and Universities across the world to provide complete courses using various electronic media. Lectures are transmitted live to students, wherever they are, at home or at their local college, and they can participate by submitting questions to the lecturer and in online discussions afterwards.
- Content of courses at third level is mainly vocational with particular focus in skills for growing energy sector.
- Primary and Secondary education takes advantage of the many services provided by the internet but is focused on providing an education for life.
Timeline for Fair Shares
2005 - 2015
- The cartel agrees a $50 per barrel price for oil with the producers, and prices for gas and coal based on their historic relationship with the price of oil. It is also agreed that these prices will rise by 3% a year, the rate at which the output of all three fuels is to be reduced, so that the producers are guaranteed a constant income into the future.
- Emissions permits are distributed worldwide for the first time, giving each person on the planet the right to emit the amount of carbon dioxide released by one tonne of oil or the equivalent in coal or gas a year. Recipients sell them immediately and receive over $200, making the effective price of oil $80 a barrel, since each tonne of oil is equivalent to 7.2 barrels.
- Electricity interconnector to Wales completed, allowing rapid increase in the number of windfarms connected to the grid as surplus power can now be exported and power from Britain brought in when wind in Ireland drops.
- Massive increase in demand for consumer goods and foodstuffs from the poorer parts of the world, where the sale of emissions permits has effectively doubled the incomes of the poorest people.
- Farmers benefit from higher food prices but cut back on fertilizer applications due to high cost.
- Inflation tops 10% as higher energy costs work their way through the European economy. Salaries and wages fail to keep up although demand for labour is high.
- House prices tend to fall as people have less money left over to pay rent or a mortgage once their basic needs are met. Energy rating, introduced in 2006, means that the price of big houses and poorly insulated ones fall by above-average amounts. So do the prices of houses far from employment centres and those of holiday homes.
- Activity in the house construction sector declines. Many small companies are established to assess exactly where a house is wasting energy and to undertake remedial measures.
- Car sales fall and the market moves to lower engine sizes.
- Home generated electrcicity can now be sold back to the grid but is taxed as income.
- Community buying systems develop, based on the internet, for goods that have to be imported.
- Car sharing schemes become the norm.
2016 - 2035
Energy prices still rising at 6% a year relative to incomes.
Number of cars on roads continues to fall. Bus and train services become more frequent. Cycling returning to levels last seen in the 1950s.
Network of regional factories set up to convert forest thinnings and other biomass into ethanol for use in cars. The yield is boosted by adding hydrogen made using surplus wind electricity.
Tidal lagoon developed in Galway Bay to feed electricity into the grid. Massive developments in offshore windfarms.
Horse breeders find that it is more profitable to breed heavy horses for use in city deliveries and on farms than to produce show-jumpers and racers.
Many communities set up ESCOs – energy supply companies, to provide themselves with heat, light, cooling and vehicle fuels from local resources. Legislation passed which enables local authorities to take over the electricity distribution networks in their areas for use by ESCOs so that the latter do not have to install their own sets of wires.
Air travel becomes too expensive for casual use. Sections of Dublin airport are taken out of use. Excess capacity in the hotel sector. Many hotels close.
Out-of-town shopping centres with poor public transport links suffer declining sales. Ireland turns out to be seriously over-shopped and many outlets close, particularly those selling inessentials. The rentals charged on retail properties plummet. All shops now offer delivery services because of the growing number of customers without cars.
Bakeries distributing over wide areas replaced by local ones. Local breweries and brew-pubs flourish.
The number of people employed in horticulture begins to rise as Irish produce replaces imports. Most livestock farms have biogas digesters.
Plastic packaging becomes progressively expensive. Non-returnable glass containers are banned. An EU directive standardises the sizes and shapes of glass bottles and jars, limiting the total number to 60. An Irish law is passed making it compulsory for a returnable deposit to be charged on glass containers and several small companies are set up to collect glass containers from shops, sort and wash them, and supply them to local food and drink manufacturers.
2036 - 2055:
Energy prices still increasing at 6% a year in relation to wages. As a result, by 2042 it takes eight times as long to earn enough money to buy a unit of electricity than in 2006. Petrol and diesel prices have risen by even more as alternative ways of powering road vehicles, trains, ships and aircraft are still inefficient and expensive.
Sail-wing ships increasingly used to carry freight around the world. Airfreight now too costly for all but exceptionally high value items. IKEA goes into liquidation. Production becomes smaller scale and more local but computer-controlled machinery gives the flexibility for a wide range of products to be made economically in one factory.
Jobs are still plentiful as people are increasingly being used instead of machines. Range of consumer durables becomes more limited and customers look for long-life products which can be readily repaired. When non-EU products are offered, they are suspicious because they worry about the availability of spare parts in a few years’ time.
Sales of processed food fall as more preparation work is done at home. Richer people take on servants. Fewer and fewer people live alone because of the cost of running a house. It becomes common for older, unattached people to share a house just as young people do today.
Many isolated houses are boarded up and abandoned. However, most people want a garden to grow some of their food and councils are compelled to provide allotments.
Arable farmers switch to no-till methods of production and use horses rather than tractors for field work. Many more people are employed on all farms and a more diverse range of crops and animals are kept.
Very few people can afford their own cars. Instead, older people belong to car clubs and hire electrically-powered models when they need to go somewhere without adequate public transport. Younger people cycle.
FairShares Life
Key Fair Shares Facts in 2015
Government Policies
- Maintaining economy on even keel the priority
- Little money to invest as being used to purchase energy permits.
- Home generated electrcicity can now be sold back to the grid but is taxed as income.
Economy
- Energy prices have grown at 6% per year since 2005
- Petrol prices have increased by 80% since then
- Electricity prices have also increased by 80%
- Inflation tops 10% as higher energy costs work their way through the European economy. Salaries and wages fail to keep up although demand for labour is high.
Business
- Renewables are now 30% of energy generation, much of it individual or locally generated
- Resurgence of local business with lower overheads than global corporations
Households
- Plastic packaging becomes progressively expensive. Non-returnable glass & aluminium containers are banned
- Dramatic decrease in number of cars on the road
- Decline in number of single person households
Culture
What are we eating?
- More local & seasonal due to increase in transport costs.
- Semi-organic cabbage (fertilizers and pesticides expensive)
- Irish farmed fish
- Pasta (dried) produced in Ireland
- Oranges from Spain (by boat)
What are we watching?
- Ground Force are now converting gardens for vegetable growing
- Community TV
- Neighbours from Heaven
Most popular Websites
- www.sharensave.org
- www.c&c.gov.ie
- www.bus&rail_timetables.ie
What are we selling
- Cold press for rapeseed.
- Wood burning stoves for sale, conversions from beer barrels add style.
- Turnips in exchange for 1/2 ton of topsoil
- For sale, 10 boxes of Organic Apples.
Headlines
- Census shows poverty halved in last five years - Those previously on the povery line are well suited to making the best of tight times and do better than the middle class unprepared for making do with very little.
- Out of town shopping centre bankrupt - People can no longer want to make a special journey just to do the shopping - they want to combine many tasks for each journey so prefer going to a town or city.
- Crack down on loan sharks intimiation of pensioners for their permits - Everyone has permits to sell and older people do not always understand their value or how to sell them.
- Kilkenny farmers market raided - Farmers Markets are now found in all towns but this makes it hard to check everyone is paying their taxes!
- Tenant farming is new form of slavery - The rich are always with us. The rich have land and use tenant farmers to work the land. In some cases they offer very little to the tenant farmers.
- Salmon caught in Liffy again - Lack of waste has reduced the pollution going into the river that flows through Dublin, enough that salmon are now using the river again.
- 100mpg family car launched - There are still people who can afford new cars but there has not been significant development in car technology because of lower demand.
- Return to sail - Sailing ships are a cheap form of transport and ships are being retrofitted with sail to to used when conditions allow.
- Road deaths fall again - Less cars, less danger.
Copyright © 2006 by the author
