382. Ursa Ag: A Low-Technology Tractor for Localism

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Barry

Modern tractors have become extraordinarily sophisticated. They may incorporate computers, electronic sensors, satellite navigation, automated steering and proprietary software. Some can diagnose their own faults, but the farmer may not be permitted or equipped to repair those faults. A relatively minor electronic failure can immobilise a very expensive machine until an authorised technician arrives.

Ursa Ag, a small Canadian tractor manufacturer based in Alberta, is taking a different course. Its tractors are deliberately built without computer controls. The company removes complex electronics and returns to proven mechanical systems that can be understood, maintained and repaired by farmers and independent workshops.

This does not mean returning to the horse-drawn plough. Ursa Ag tractors are powerful machines. The present range includes models of about 150, 180 and 260 horsepower. They use mechanically injected Cummins diesel engines and conventional mechanical controls. The electrical wiring is kept to what is necessary. There are no proprietary electronic control units governing every movement of the machine.

The result is a tractor that an experienced mechanic can examine with ordinary tools. A fault does not necessarily require a laptop, a software licence or permission from the manufacturer. Parts can be repaired or replaced without the entire machine becoming dependent upon a distant dealer.

Low technology does not mean primitive technology

Ursa Ag illustrates an important distinction. Low technology is not the rejection of machinery. It is the selection of machinery that is sufficiently simple, durable and repairable for the work it must perform.

The best technology for a shrinking economy may not be the most advanced technology available. It may be the technology that delivers a necessary service while making the least demand upon money, energy, specialised knowledge and distant supply chains.

A purely mechanical tractor may perform fewer functions than a computer-controlled machine. It may not offer automatic steering or precisely vary the application of fertiliser across a field. Yet it can continue working when digital communications fail, when software support is withdrawn or when the nearest authorised dealer is many miles away.

Its useful life may also be extended by repeated repair. This matters because the energy and materials already embodied in a machine should not be discarded merely because an electronic component has become obsolete.

The right to repair

Localism depends upon local competence. A locality cannot be resilient if every essential machine must be returned to a national manufacturer or connected to a remote computer before it can be repaired.

Mechanical equipment supports a local network of engineers, welders, machinists, parts suppliers and agricultural workshops. Knowledge remains within the locality and can be passed from one generation to another. Money paid for maintenance circulates locally instead of being extracted through software subscriptions and manufacturer-controlled servicing.

This principle extends well beyond tractors. Pumps, sawmills, heating systems, food-processing machinery and small generating equipment should all be designed so that their operation can be understood. Standard components should be replaceable. Manuals should be available. Repair should be expected rather than discouraged.

Ursa Ag’s approach is therefore closely connected to the right-to-repair movement. It restores a measure of ownership to the purchaser. A farmer who has paid for a tractor should be able to maintain it without continuing dependence upon the company that supplied it.

A machine suited to economic shrinkage

The highly automated tractor belongs to an economy that assumes abundant capital, reliable global supply chains and permanently available technical support. These assumptions become less secure as energy costs rise and the discretionary economy contracts.

Farmers will have less money available for machinery. At the same time, food production will become more important. Agricultural equipment will therefore have to remain in service for longer. It must be capable of being repaired repeatedly, sometimes by adapting locally available components.

Ursa Ag claims that its simpler tractors are significantly less expensive than comparable machines from the large manufacturers. Independent reporting says the company uses proven mechanically injected engines and avoids the proprietary diagnostic systems associated with many modern tractors. The trade-off is that its machines are not intended for the most advanced forms of digital precision farming. They are working tractors rather than mobile computer platforms. OmniTrattore provides a useful description of the design and its limitations.

Limits to the example

An Ursa Ag tractor is not a complete model for future local agriculture. It remains a large diesel-powered machine. It depends upon imported fuel, industrial tyres, replacement parts and a substantial manufacturing system. Nor does the company currently appear to have an established British sales and support network.

In the longer term, smaller farms and more labour-intensive cultivation may require lighter tractors, walk-behind machines, electric equipment, horses and greater use of human effort. Heavy machinery compacts soil and can encourage farming on a scale that is poorly suited to local food production.

Nevertheless, Ursa Ag demonstrates an important intermediate step. A society cannot move immediately from highly industrialised agriculture to an entirely local system. Existing mechanical power will remain necessary, particularly for ploughing, harvesting, lifting and transport.

The immediate task is to make that machinery simpler, cheaper, longer-lived and more locally repairable.

Technology under Localism

Localism will not divide technology neatly into the modern and the obsolete. It will distinguish between technology that strengthens a locality and technology that creates dependency.

A useful machine should be understandable by those who operate it. It should be repairable near where it is used. It should perform an essential task without unnecessary complication. Above all, it should remain useful when the affluent, globally connected economy in which it was produced can no longer be taken for granted.

Ursa Ag is important not because it has created a revolutionary tractor, but because it has rediscovered an old principle: the purpose of a machine is to do useful work, not to make its owner permanently dependent upon its manufacturer.

That principle will lie at the heart of technology in the coming age of Localism.

381. The Inversion of Scarcity and the Coming of Localism

Posted on 31/08/2026 by Barry

In his latest article, “The Evolution of Inverting Scarcities”, Dr Tim Morgan identifies a fundamental change taking place within the economy.

For most of the industrial age, money was treated as scarce while energy and natural resources appeared to be abundant. We are now moving towards the opposite condition. Money and credit have become plentiful, but the energy and physical resources upon which the real economy depends are becoming increasingly scarce and costly.

This inversion of scarcity helps to explain why localism is likely to emerge as the natural form of the shrinking economy.

Money Is Not the Economy

Morgan begins by distinguishing between two economies.

The first is the financial economy of money, credit, assets and transactions. The second is the real economy of energy, materials, goods and practical services.

Money has no useful value in itself. It is a claim upon the products and services of the real economy. Creating more money does not create more energy, food, housing, water or productive land.

If the supply of financial claims grows more rapidly than the supply of real goods and services, each unit of money commands less. We experience this as inflation.

Since 2005, Morgan calculates that global debt has increased by 150 per cent and broader financial assets by at least 175 per cent. Over the same period, energy consumption increased by only 34 per cent, surplus energy by 26 per cent and material prosperity by 24 per cent.

The financial economy has therefore grown far more rapidly than the material economy upon which it depends.

Governments have tried to compensate for weakening material growth by borrowing and spending more money. This may increase measured GDP, but it cannot reverse the physical causes of economic contraction. It merely creates additional claims upon a limited supply of real resources.

The Growing Scarcity of Surplus Energy

The modern economy was created by access to abundant and inexpensive fossil energy. Coal, oil and natural gas enabled societies to replace human and animal labour with machinery. They also supported mass production, long supply chains, large cities and increasingly complex systems of government and commerce.

But not all energy obtained from nature is available for general economic use. Some must be consumed in finding, extracting, processing and delivering energy itself. Morgan describes this as the Energy Cost of Energy.

He estimates that this cost has risen from 2 per cent in 1980 to more than 11 per cent today.

As the energy cost rises, the amount of surplus energy available to the rest of society falls. Less remains to support manufacturing, transport, health, education, government, consumption and the maintenance of infrastructure.

The result is not simply that we will have slightly less of everything. The structure of the economy must change.

As I have argued, economic growth and economic shrinkage are not mirror images of each other. The economy will not retain its present shape while becoming uniformly smaller. The most complex, energy-intensive and financially dependent activities will become unaffordable first.

From Complexity to Simplicity

During the period of growth, the economy evolved towards greater scale, specialisation, centralisation and complexity.

Businesses became larger. Supply chains became longer. More intermediaries appeared between producer and consumer. Goods became increasingly difficult to repair. Ownership was often replaced by leasing, borrowing and subscription payments.

Complexity appeared efficient because cheap energy carried its hidden costs.

A supermarket can obtain food from around the world only while transport, refrigeration, packaging, warehousing and computerised stock control remain affordable. A centralised care system can operate only while society can meet the costs of buildings, management, regulation, finance, transport and administration.

These arrangements may look productive when measured in money. But a large proportion of their cost does not provide food or care. It supports the complex system surrounding the essential service.

As prosperity contracts, this complexity becomes a burden.

Morgan uses the modern motor car as an example. Manufacturers have added electronic systems which owners and small garages cannot repair. These systems allow manufacturers to retain control after the car has been sold and can create continuing income through subscriptions and dealership servicing.

But people whose discretionary income is shrinking will need vehicles which are cheaper, simpler, longer-lasting and locally repairable. The choice may eventually be between simpler cars and no cars at all.

The same principle will apply throughout the economy. Products and processes will have to become simpler because people will no longer be able to afford the cost of complexity.

Why This Leads to Localism

Morgan explicitly identifies this movement towards simplification and de-financialisation with localism.

Localism shortens the distance between production and consumption. It removes unnecessary intermediaries and reduces dependence upon expensive central systems. It replaces some purchased services with direct provision by families, neighbours and local enterprises.

Food provides a clear example. Between the farmer and the household now stand processors, wholesalers, distributors, supermarkets, transport companies, advertisers and financial interests. Each stage adds costs for energy, buildings, packaging, refrigeration, administration and profit.

A more local food economy would not eliminate trade or specialist production. It would reduce the number of stages between producer and consumer wherever this was practical. More food would be grown, processed, sold and consumed within the locality.

The same reasoning applies to care. Supporting elderly and disabled people in their own homes can avoid much of the cost of residential institutions. Public money could be concentrated upon training, respite care, equipment and direct support instead of being absorbed by property costs, corporate administration, borrowing and profit.

Local workshops could repair tools, machinery, clothing and household goods. Small businesses could make simpler products suited to local requirements. People displaced from discretionary and administrative employment could move into food production, care, maintenance, repair and other essential activities.

Human labour would begin to replace some of the external energy upon which the industrial economy has depended.

De-financialisation

Localism also involves a gradual reduction in the role of money.

This does not mean that money will disappear. It means that a growing proportion of useful activity may take place outside conventional commercial systems.

Families already provide care, childcare, cooking, gardening, maintenance and transport without recording these activities as financial transactions. Neighbours exchange help. Volunteers support community organisations. Small producers sometimes exchange goods and services directly.

Such activity contributes to real wellbeing even though it is largely absent from GDP.

During economic growth, many informal activities were drawn into the commercial economy. Tasks once performed within families or local communities became paid services. Property, insurance, regulation, management and finance were then added around them.

In a shrinking economy, this process is likely to reverse. People will have less money, but they will still possess time, practical knowledge and the ability to help one another. Informal and reciprocal activity will become more important because it can provide essential value without carrying the full financial cost of commercial provision.

The relative scarcity of money within households may therefore encourage arrangements which use fewer monetary transactions but provide more direct practical value.

The Limits of Centralisation

Large central systems depend upon reliable revenue, complex administration and substantial energy use. As the economy contracts, governments will struggle to maintain everything they presently promise.

This does not mean that central government will disappear. Some functions must remain national. These include defence, taxation, telecommunications, intercity transport and highly specialised medicine.

But many everyday needs can be provided more economically within the locality. Food, basic care, routine maintenance, some education, small-scale energy and many forms of transport need not always be organised through distant institutions.

Central government will increasingly have to support local provision rather than attempt to deliver everything itself. Its role may become one of setting basic standards, distributing limited resources and maintaining the essential national framework within which local economies can operate.

An Evolution, Not a Political Programme

The importance of Morgan’s argument is that localism does not depend upon governments being persuaded to adopt it.

It will emerge because the alternatives are becoming unaffordable.

Long supply chains will shorten when their energy and financial costs can no longer be carried. Over-complex products will lose their markets. Some large organisations will fail when falling sales leave them unable to cover their fixed costs. Commercial intermediaries will disappear when consumers can no longer afford their margins.

At the same time, people will still need food, warmth, shelter, care and useful work. These needs will encourage the formation of simpler, more direct and more local arrangements.

Localism is therefore not an attempt to recreate the past. It is the likely economic response to a future in which energy and material resources are scarce while money and financial promises have become excessive.

Preparing for What Comes Next

Morgan concludes that the real economy may be capable of contracting in a reasonably manageable way. The greatest danger lies in the failure of the complex financial system built upon expectations of perpetual growth.

Preparation should therefore concentrate upon the real economy.

We need to strengthen local food production, practical skills, repair businesses, domestic care, small workshops and local sources of energy. Products should be durable and repairable. Systems should be understandable. Essential provision should not depend upon long chains of borrowing, transport and administration.

The industrial economy evolved towards centralisation because abundant cheap energy made centralisation possible. As surplus energy declines, the direction of evolution will reverse.

The future will favour the simpler over the complex, the useful over the financial, and the local over the distant.

That is the relevance of inverting scarcities to localism. Localism is not merely desirable. It is the form that economic life is likely to take as the real world reasserts its limits.

379. When Drought Becomes Normal: What Gardens and Farming Must Become

Posted on 29/08/2026 by Barry

The usual response to drought is to wait for rain. We protect what we can, watch the forecast and hope that next year will be better.

But suppose the conditions we have recently experienced become a recurring feature of life. Suppose dry springs and hot summers repeatedly interrupt the growing season. What should we do differently?

This is already a practical question. The Environment Agency’s report for 14–20 August 2026 recorded drought across 71 per cent of England’s land area. Recent rain had not restored normal conditions. Reservoir storage remained below average, and many rivers were running low. Environment Agency drought report

We need not assume that every future summer will be identical. The useful planning assumption is that prolonged water shortages will return often enough to change how we garden, farm and organise our food supply.

On that assumption, restoring everything to its previous condition after each drought makes little sense. We need to use each drought to discover what must change.

Begin with the land

Our first question should not be how to obtain more water. It should be how to make better use of the water that arrives.

A garden or farm needs to be understood as a particular place. Where does rain run off? Where does it soak in? Which ground stays moist longest? Which slopes dry first? Where do wind and reflected heat make matters worse?

These differences should guide what we grow and where we grow it.

We have often treated drainage as an unquestioned improvement. Yet land must now cope with both excessive rain and prolonged dryness. Getting water away quickly in winter can conflict with keeping enough for summer.

The aim should be to slow unnecessary runoff, encourage infiltration where appropriate and provide safe routes for surplus water. Ponds, planted margins and carefully designed water storage may have a place. But reshaping land is not a universal remedy. Soil, slope, buildings and neighbouring land all matter. A poorly placed bank or pond can create another problem.

We should begin by observing, then make changes that suit the ground.

The garden must change its expectations

The garden of the future can remain beautiful. But beauty may need to depend less on constant watering.

A green lawn throughout a dry summer should cease to be a requirement. Established grass often recovers when rain returns. Plants that repeatedly struggle in a particular position should prompt reconsideration rather than an annual rescue operation.

The Royal Horticultural Society recommends choosing plants for the soil, shade and exposure of the site. It also stresses that plants may need to tolerate wet winters as well as dry summers. Simply filling a garden with Mediterranean plants is not an answer for every British soil. RHS drought-resistant gardening

There is a place for fewer small pots, less thirsty seasonal bedding and more permanent planting suited to local conditions. Flowers still matter. So do insects, birds and the pleasure of sitting outside. Adaptation need not mean turning every garden into a vegetable plot or a gravel yard.

Where food is grown, however, scarce water should have a clear purpose. A manageable area of productive ground may be more useful than a large vegetable plot that cannot be maintained through six dry weeks.

This is especially important where age, disability or limited time restrict the work people can do. The best design is one that can actually be looked after.

Soil care becomes water care

Compost, suitable mulches and protection from unnecessary compaction deserve more attention than emergency watering alone.

Organic matter can improve soil structure and water retention. Mulching helps reduce evaporation. These are among the RHS’s central recommendations for using less water in gardens. They work best as continuing practices, rather than measures introduced after plants have begun to fail. RHS watering advice

But we should not make extravagant promises. Improved soil does not manufacture rain. Even carefully managed ground will eventually dry during a sufficiently long drought.

The purpose is to give plants a better chance and make available water last longer.

For food growing, this also means trying different varieties and sowing dates, keeping records and spreading risks. A single successful season proves little. What matters is which crops give a useful harvest across several difficult years.

Store water on a useful scale

A water butt is a beginning. It is not necessarily a summer water supply.

The arithmetic helps. Ten millimetres of rain falling on a roof of 100 square metres amounts to 1,000 litres before collection losses. But applying the equivalent of that same rainfall to 100 square metres of vegetable ground also requires 1,000 litres.

A modest tank can therefore fill quickly and empty quickly.

Storage should be planned around the area to be watered, the crops being protected and the likely length of a dry spell. Roofs on houses, sheds and farm buildings deserve attention. So do covered tanks, sound gutters and arrangements that minimise waste.

At farm scale, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board identifies storage and irrigation efficiency as important parts of protecting crop water supplies. AHDB water supply guidance

Yet storage has costs. Tanks, reservoirs, pipes and pumps require money, materials and maintenance. In a shrinking economy, the useful question is not simply what can be built. It is what can remain affordable to operate and repair.

Gravity may help where the site permits. Shared storage may help where holdings are close together. Neither removes the need to establish what water is actually available.

Farming for difficult years

A farm planned around an average year may become increasingly exposed if average conditions rarely arrive.

The objective should shift towards maintaining useful production through a succession of difficult seasons. That may mean more varied rotations, trials of different crops and varieties, improved soil management and a closer match between production and dependable water supplies. AHDB identifies these approaches as important responses to changing conditions on arable farms. AHDB climate adaptation guidance

For livestock farms, drought is a problem of drinking water and fodder together. Feeding winter reserves during summer merely moves part of the shortage forward. Defra’s recent account describes reduced grass growth, pressure on forage and stressed water supplies. Defra drought guidance

Where such conditions recur, stocking levels must be reconsidered against what the land can support in poor years. Maintaining numbers through repeated purchases of expensive feed may become untenable.

Different grazing mixtures, shelter and changed management may help on suitable land. None should be presented as a cure that works everywhere. Local trials and farmers’ experience will matter more than a fashionable prescription.

Localism must include water

Local food production offers opportunities, but it does not escape the weather.

If every garden, smallholding and farm in a locality suffers the same drought, being local is not enough. A useful local food system needs several forms of production, workable water arrangements, storage of harvested food and links with other places.

Localism should therefore mean greater local capability, not complete isolation.

Neighbours could share growing records, propagate plants that have performed well and organise composting. Landowners could make suitable ground available to growers. Farms and households could develop reliable trading relationships rather than meeting only through distant supply chains.

Some localities may be able to organise shared equipment or water storage. Others may find that their greatest contribution is processing and preserving seasonal surpluses.

Such arrangements will not appear automatically. Access to land, money, skills and physical help will determine who can participate. People without gardens must not be excluded from the benefits.

There is still a national responsibility

Households cannot compensate for failing public infrastructure with buckets.

Reliable public water supplies, leakage reduction, agricultural research and protection of rivers remain collective responsibilities. Local adaptation needs a functioning national framework.

Nor should access to water be settled solely by purchasing power. Drinking water, sanitation, food production and living rivers are fundamental needs. If scarcity becomes persistent, choices between competing uses must be made openly.

The danger is that adaptation becomes something prosperous households and well financed businesses can buy, while everyone else experiences higher food prices and fewer options.

A serious response must address that inequality.

What should happen next?

When rain returns, the work should begin rather than stop.

Gardens and farms should record what survived, what failed and where moisture remained. The next planting season should reflect those observations. Storage should be assessed before the next dry spell. Crops, cultivated areas and livestock numbers should be considered against realistic water and labour budgets.

At locality level, the first step could be a simple conversation between growers, farmers, landowners and residents: what can this place reliably produce, what prevents it, and what could we do together?

The deeper change is in our expectations. We cannot assume that enough water, energy and money will always be available to maintain any pattern of land use we choose.

If drought becomes normal, gardens and farming must be organised around the limits of the places they occupy.

That is also a foundation of localism: learning what a locality can sustain, caring for the resources it has, and building everyday life around that knowledge.

378. Water, Power and the Practical Emergence of Localism

Posted on 28/08/2026 by Barry

In his article Water as with power, Tim Watkins draws a connection between Britain’s water and electricity difficulties. He argues that political short-termism and inadequate infrastructure planning have left essential services vulnerable. His broader warning is that announcements and financial arrangements cannot substitute for the physical capacity to deliver.

This raises a question central to localism. What happens when the systems on which everyday life depends become too expensive, unreliable or difficult to maintain?

The answer will not be a sudden national decision to become localist. It is more likely to emerge through thousands of practical responses by households, businesses and communities.

Maintaining essentials in a shrinking economy

From the perspective of a shrinking economy, the challenge extends beyond correcting past mistakes. We must consider how much infrastructure society can afford to operate, repair and eventually replace.

Every network carries continuing obligations. Pipes, pumps, treatment works, cables and substations need materials, energy and skilled people. Borrowing can finance their purchase, but it cannot remove those physical requirements.

As the resources available for discretionary consumption diminish, protecting essentials becomes increasingly important. Yet essential services themselves must become affordable within the smaller economy.

The sensible starting point is to maintain useful existing systems, reduce unnecessary demands and develop local provision where it offers a practical advantage.

Water begins with the locality

A localist approach would start by understanding the water available in each locality and the demands placed upon it.

Where does rain fall? Where does it run off? What can be retained for dry periods? How much water is needed for households, food growing and other essential work?

Possible responses include collecting roof water for gardens, improving soils so they retain moisture, and providing suitable storage for growers. These are proposals to assess against local conditions. They are not substitutes for a dependable drinking-water supply.

Nor does localism mean assuming that a nearby spring or well is safe. Drinking water requires proper protection, treatment where necessary, testing and competent management. Local provision must carry those responsibilities with it.

The purpose is to reduce avoidable dependence while preserving public health.

Electricity requires practical choices

The corresponding question for electricity is what a locality needs to keep working.

Water supplies, refrigeration, communications and care may deserve priority over uses that can be postponed. Local generation and storage could contribute, but their value should be judged against essential demand, maintenance requirements and eventual replacement costs.

Localism should not promise that every household can purchase complete independence. That would leave those with the least money most exposed.

Shared arrangements deserve consideration. A dependable supply serving an essential community facility may offer greater benefit than numerous expensive household systems. The appropriate arrangement will vary between localities.

The guiding question should be simple: what can we sustain with the resources and skills available?

A continuing national role

There remains a strong case for maintaining wider networks. Connections between places allow resources to be shared and provide support when local provision fails.

The localist future I envisage therefore has two levels. A national core maintains functions that require coordination and scale. Alongside it, localities develop more of their own capacity to meet everyday needs.

Government would have an essential responsibility to protect minimum standards and prevent poorer places from being abandoned. Local initiative cannot compensate for every inequality in water, land, infrastructure or wealth.

Equally, national policy should make room for workable local arrangements instead of assuming that all provision must continually become larger and more centralised.

Localism grows through useful work

This is where localism becomes more than an argument about government.

Someone repairs a neglected water store. A grower adapts production to the water available. Neighbours organise help for vulnerable households during interruptions. A local enterprise develops the skills to maintain essential equipment.

As discretionary employment contracts, such work could become a larger part of the local economy. Its value lies in what it enables people to do: eat, keep warm, remain clean and care for one another.

Watkins’s article provides a reason to examine our dependence. Localism develops the next question: how can each locality strengthen its ability to provide the essentials of life?

The aim is not to reproduce the entire industrial economy in miniature. It is to build a more manageable relationship between local needs, available resources and the wider systems we can continue to sustain.

377. Localism Takes a Holiday

Posted on 11/08/2026 by Barry

I shall now be off-line for a fortnight.

Localism, however, will not be taking a holiday. While I am away, I shall continue watching for those small but significant signs that the formal economy is weakening and local life is quietly beginning to change.

Normal blogging will resume when I return, hopefully with fresh observations and new ideas.

376. Food and the Return of the World’s Localities

Posted on 08/08/2026 by Barry

For most people in the industrial world, food begins in the supermarket. The shelves are always full, strawberries appear in January, bananas arrive from thousands of miles away, and few people ever stop to ask how this miracle is achieved.

The uncomfortable truth is that modern food is not simply agriculture. It is an industrial process powered overwhelmingly by oil and natural gas.

The Honest Sorcerer, in his recent essay No Oil, No Food, reminds us that food is really another form of energy. Before the Industrial Revolution almost all agricultural energy came from sunlight, human labour and animals. Today the situation is entirely different. Every stage of food production depends upon fossil fuels.

Oil powers tractors, combines, irrigation pumps and food transport. Natural gas provides the hydrogen used to manufacture nitrogen fertilisers. Fossil fuels are used to produce pesticides, plastics, packaging, refrigeration, food processing and distribution. Modern agriculture has become, in effect, a method of turning fossil fuels into food.

This matters because the industrial economy is now entering a period of contraction rather than expansion. As Tim Morgan’s work has consistently argued, shrinking surplus energy means shrinking economic capability. The Honest Sorcerer approaches the same problem from a different direction but reaches remarkably similar conclusions. As energy becomes more expensive and less available, the entire industrial food system becomes progressively less reliable.

The implications reach far beyond farming.

Every locality depends on food

Every town, village and city depends upon a continuous flow of food arriving from elsewhere. Few communities now produce enough to feed themselves. Many have lost their dairies, mills, bakeries, abattoirs, orchards, market gardens and local food processors.

Instead, food has become concentrated into a handful of enormous industrial systems serving millions of people simultaneously.

This concentration has delivered apparent efficiency during decades of cheap energy. It has also created fragility.

When fuel prices rise, transport becomes more expensive.

When fertiliser prices rise, crop yields become harder to maintain.

When diesel becomes scarce, harvesting and distribution become more difficult.

When international trade is disrupted, supermarket shelves empty surprisingly quickly.

These are not hypothetical possibilities. They are characteristics of a highly interconnected system whose complexity depends upon abundant cheap energy.

Globalisation separated people from their food

Globalisation encouraged every country to specialise.

One nation grows grain.

Another produces fertiliser.

Another manufactures tractors.

Another processes food.

Another provides finance.

Everything moves continuously around the world.

For many decades this appeared rational.

Yet every additional stage increases dependence upon transport, finance and political stability.

A locality which once produced much of its own food becomes increasingly vulnerable because it now depends upon systems over which it has no control.

The local butcher disappears.

The village mill closes.

The local dairy becomes uneconomic.

Knowledge accumulated over centuries quietly vanishes.

Meanwhile the food still arrives – until one day it does not.

Localism changes the question

Industrial society asks:

“How can food be produced as cheaply as possible?”

A localist society asks a different question:

“How can this locality continue feeding itself regardless of what happens elsewhere?”

The answers are naturally different.

Food production moves closer to consumers.

Seasonality returns.

Local storage becomes important.

Smaller farms become more valuable.

Traditional skills regain practical importance.

Community gardens, orchards and allotments cease being hobbies and become part of local resilience.

Farmers’ markets become infrastructure rather than lifestyle choices.

Every locality will develop differently

One of the strengths of localism is diversity.

A fertile valley may continue producing vegetables.

Hill country may specialise in sheep or cattle.

Wooded districts may develop agroforestry.

Coastal communities may depend more upon fisheries.

Some places possess abundant water.

Others possess excellent soils.

Others possess skilled growers.

No national blueprint can optimise all these different circumstances.

Each locality gradually discovers what works best with its own climate, landscape, culture and resources.

Instead of uniformity there emerges diversity.

Instead of central planning there develops local adaptation.

Food security becomes local security

Throughout history communities survived because they understood where their food came from.

Industrial civilisation temporarily allowed us to forget.

The shrinking economy will gradually remove that luxury.

Food security will become inseparable from community security.

The places that fare best are unlikely to be those with the largest supermarkets.

They are more likely to be those retaining fertile land, practical farming knowledge, local food businesses and strong community relationships.

In other words, successful localities will increasingly resemble functioning ecosystems rather than efficient supply chains.

Beyond resilience

Local food systems are often presented simply as a way of increasing resilience.

That is true, but it understates their significance.

Food is the foundation of every civilisation.

Without secure food supplies there can be no stable economy, no functioning institutions and no prosperous communities.

As industrial systems become progressively more constrained by declining surplus energy, food will once again become rooted in place.

The world is unlikely to divide neatly into successful and unsuccessful nations.

Instead, it may increasingly divide into successful and unsuccessful localities.

Those localities that can organise their land, skills, water, energy and people to provide much of their own food will possess an enormous advantage.

The future may therefore belong not to the biggest economies, but to the most capable localities.

That is not a return to the past.

It is the practical adaptation to a world where energy, rather than money, once again determines what is possible.

375. Global Migration in a Shrinking Economy

Posted on 06/08/2026 by Barry

For most of the industrial age, migration has been driven by a simple expectation. Life somewhere else would be better. There would be more jobs, higher wages, better services and greater opportunities for children. The movement of millions of people around the world has been made possible by expanding economies, abundant fossil fuels and increasingly affordable transport.

That world is changing.

As the global economy shrinks in real terms, migration will not stop. Indeed, in the short term it may increase. But over time it will become more difficult, more selective and increasingly local. The great age of mass international migration is likely to give way to an era of constrained mobility.

Migration Depends on Surplus

Migration is expensive. It requires transport, housing, employment opportunities and functioning public services. Every migrant depends, directly or indirectly, upon the surplus generated by the receiving economy.

When economies are growing, this surplus can absorb newcomers. New houses are built, businesses expand and governments collect rising tax revenues. Even where tensions arise, growth helps soften the impact.

In a shrinking economy the opposite occurs.

Jobs disappear. Housing becomes scarcer. Infrastructure deteriorates. Governments struggle to maintain existing services. Instead of expanding capacity, society begins managing decline.

Migration therefore becomes a competition for shrinking resources.

Why people will continue to move

Economic decline does not remove the pressures that encourage migration. In many parts of the world they become even stronger.

Climate instability reduces agricultural yields.

Water shortages make farming impossible in some areas.

Political instability increases as governments lose the resources needed to maintain order.

Young people continue to seek better opportunities abroad.

Some coastal settlements become increasingly vulnerable to flooding.

Initially these pressures will increase international migration.

But the countries that once absorbed large numbers of migrants are themselves entering economic contraction. The opportunities which attracted migration begin to disappear.

Britain becomes less attractive

For decades Britain attracted migrants because wages were relatively high, public services were dependable and employment was plentiful.

These advantages are steadily weakening.

Real wages struggle to keep pace with living costs.

Housing becomes increasingly unaffordable.

Public services face growing financial pressures.

Infrastructure ages faster than it can be replaced.

The United Kingdom will remain attractive compared with many poorer countries, but the gap narrows. Migrants may still arrive, yet many will find that the prosperity they expected no longer exists.

Increasing numbers may also choose not to come.

A changing pattern of movement

Migration itself may become more regional.

Instead of crossing continents, people may move shorter distances.

Migration within Europe may replace migration from much further afield.

People may move from large cities to smaller towns where housing remains affordable.

Families may regroup in familiar localities rather than disperse across the globe.

The enormous energy costs associated with long-distance migration become harder to justify as fuel prices remain structurally high and disposable incomes decline.

What happens to population?

Global population is unlikely to continue growing indefinitely.

Industrial civilisation allowed population to rise by providing abundant food, modern medicine, sanitation and mechanised agriculture. All of these depend upon high levels of affordable energy.

As surplus energy declines, population growth slows and eventually reverses.

Many developed countries already have birth rates well below replacement level.

Developing countries are also seeing fertility decline, although often from much higher starting points.

Population may continue to rise for a time because people are living longer and because of demographic momentum. Eventually, however, deaths begin to exceed births.

Migration cannot reverse this globally.

It merely redistributes people.

The world as a whole must ultimately live within the carrying capacity supported by available energy, soils, water and climate.

Britain will age

The United Kingdom already has an ageing population.

Governments have often viewed migration as a way of maintaining the workforce and supporting tax revenues.

This works while the economy continues expanding.

In a shrinking economy it becomes increasingly difficult.

More workers do not automatically create more prosperity if the economy itself cannot grow. Instead, additional demand for housing, healthcare, transport and energy may simply place greater strain on declining systems.

The challenge becomes one of adaptation rather than expansion.

Why localism becomes more important

As international systems weaken, communities become more important.

People increasingly depend upon nearby suppliers rather than distant ones.

Food production becomes more local.

Repair replaces replacement.

Neighbours become more valuable than distant institutions.

Migration does not disappear. People will still move between localities. Some areas may gain population while others lose it. Rural districts with productive land, reliable water and strong communities may become increasingly attractive.

Local resilience becomes more important than national averages.

The return of locality

History suggests that periods of contraction reduce mobility.

Before cheap fossil fuels, most people spent their entire lives within a relatively small area. Long-distance movement existed but involved only a minority.

Industrialisation reversed that pattern.

The coming decades may gradually reverse it again.

People are unlikely to become completely immobile. Digital communications will continue to connect communities. Some international migration will remain essential for specialised skills, family reunification and humanitarian protection.

But everyday life is likely to become increasingly rooted in place.

A different future

The political debate often assumes migration is simply a matter of border control or immigration policy.

In reality it is closely linked to economics and energy.

As surplus energy declines and economic contraction becomes permanent, migration patterns will change whether governments wish them to or not.

Some countries will become less able to receive large numbers of newcomers.

Others will become less able to retain their own populations.

Over time, mobility itself becomes another resource constrained by energy and affordability.

For localism, this presents both challenges and opportunities.

Communities will need to welcome those who genuinely become part of local life while strengthening their own capacity to provide food, water, energy, housing and mutual support. Success will depend less upon the size of the national economy than upon the resilience of individual localities.

In the shrinking economy, the future belongs not to places that rely upon endless growth, but to places that learn how to thrive within limits. Localism is not a retreat from the wider world. It is an adaptation to a world in which distance becomes increasingly expensive, resources increasingly constrained, and community increasingly valuable.

376. Food Inflation and the End of the Global Supermarket

Posted on 03/08/2026 by Barry

The latest warnings from the Bank of England and Britain’s supermarket leaders should not be seen as an isolated inflation story. They are another indication that the global food system, built during decades of economic expansion and abundant cheap energy, is becoming progressively less reliable.

The immediate causes are familiar enough. Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, disrupted harvests, war in the Middle East, higher fertiliser prices and more expensive transport are all pushing food prices upwards. Yet these are not separate events. They are interacting pressures acting on a system that has become increasingly fragile.

For many years Britain has relied on the assumption that food could always be obtained from somewhere else. If Spain suffered drought, another country would supply the fruit. If one shipping route became difficult, another could be found. If energy became more expensive, the additional costs could simply be absorbed by a growing economy.

Those assumptions are beginning to fail.

The shrinking economy described by Tim Morgan means that societies are no longer becoming steadily wealthier. Instead, there is less surplus energy available to support increasingly complex global supply chains. At the very moment when climate instability is increasing, the economic capacity needed to absorb repeated shocks is declining.

Food inflation is therefore becoming structural rather than temporary.

Every disruption now exposes another weakness. A wildfire destroys olive groves. Drought reduces cereal yields. Conflict interrupts fertiliser supplies. Fuel prices rise. Transport costs increase. Supermarkets compete for scarcer produce. Consumers pay more.

Governments naturally respond by promising to reduce the cost of living. But governments cannot legislate for plentiful harvests, cheap diesel or abundant fertiliser. They cannot command rain to fall or shipping lanes to remain open.

The danger is that politics continues to promise outcomes that the physical economy can no longer deliver.

Britain has become heavily dependent upon imported food. Many products travel thousands of miles before reaching supermarket shelves. Such systems work well during periods of stability. They become progressively less dependable when confronted by repeated environmental, geopolitical and economic shocks.

Localism offers a different direction.

Instead of asking how global supply chains can be restored to their previous efficiency, localism asks how communities can become less dependent upon them.

This does not imply complete self-sufficiency. Few localities could produce everything they require. It does mean increasing resilience by shortening supply chains wherever practical.

The opportunities are numerous.

More locally grown fruit and vegetables.
Greater support for nearby livestock producers.
Local food processing.
Farmers’ markets and community food hubs.
Community orchards.
Allotments and productive gardens.
Better food storage and preservation.
Reduced dependence on imported seasonal produce.

Each step may appear modest, but together they reduce vulnerability to distant disruptions over which local communities have no control.

The coming years are likely to bring more frequent weather extremes across many food-producing regions. They are also likely to bring continuing geopolitical instability, rising insurance costs, higher transport costs and increasing pressure on agricultural inputs. None of these developments sits comfortably alongside a highly centralised food distribution system.

The lesson is becoming increasingly clear.

Food security can no longer be measured simply by the amount of food available somewhere in the world. It depends upon whether that food can still be produced, transported, financed and delivered at prices ordinary households can afford.

In a shrinking economy these conditions become steadily more difficult to satisfy.

Local food production will never replace international trade entirely. Nor should it. But every tonne of food produced close to where it is consumed reduces exposure to the growing uncertainties of the global system.

The cost-of-living debate therefore risks concentrating on symptoms rather than causes.

The deeper issue is that Britain has built its food system around assumptions that belong to the age of expansion. Those assumptions are being overtaken by physical limits, declining economic surplus and increasing environmental volatility.

As global supply chains become less dependable, local food resilience ceases to be an environmental ideal or a lifestyle choice. It becomes an economic necessary.

374. Batteries in a Shrinking Economy – From Global Growth Technology to Local Resilience

Posted on 01/08/2026 by Barry

Batteries are often presented as one of the great technologies of the future.

They are central to electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, home storage and the proposed electrification of almost every part of modern life.

The argument is straightforward. Fossil fuels provided society with abundant, concentrated energy. As those fuels become more difficult and expensive to obtain, electricity generated from renewable sources will take their place, with batteries providing the storage needed to make the system work.

Jeff Currie, the commodities economist, represents this view. He argues that electrification will create enormous demand for the materials required to build the new energy system – copper, lithium, nickel, graphite and other minerals. From this perspective, batteries are not a marginal technology. They are at the centre of a new industrial transformation.

However, Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics provides a very different starting point. His argument is that the world economy has not simply slowed temporarily. The era of economic expansion driven by increasing supplies of affordable surplus energy has ended, and the economy is moving into contraction.

From this perspective, the question is not how batteries will enable another century of economic growth.

The question is how batteries can help communities function in an economy with fewer resources available.

Batteries are not energy sources

The first principle is often overlooked.

A battery does not create energy.

It stores energy that has already been produced.

A battery is like a water tank. It can store water when supplies are plentiful and release it when needed, but it cannot create new water.

The same applies to electricity.

A battery charged from solar panels on a summer afternoon can provide power during the evening. It can help a house, farm or community manage short interruptions. It can smooth out the daily variations of renewable electricity.

These are extremely valuable functions.

But a battery cannot overcome a prolonged shortage of energy.

Several weeks of cold, calm and cloudy weather cannot be solved simply by installing more batteries. The challenge is not only technological. It is a question of scale, resources and the physical limits of energy systems.

The industrial problem

Modern batteries are remarkable achievements of industrial society.

They depend upon global mining, chemical processing, advanced manufacturing and international transport.

Lithium must be extracted and refined. Copper must be mined and processed. Graphite, nickel and other materials must be obtained and transformed into highly engineered components.

This requires enormous amounts of energy and industrial organisation.

The irony is that the technology intended to support a post-fossil fuel economy is itself a product of the high-energy fossil fuel economy.

As long as growth continues, this may not present a major difficulty.

But in a shrinking economy, every complex system comes under pressure.

From replacement to stewardship

A growth economy encourages replacement.

Products are designed, purchased, used and eventually discarded. New versions appear and consumers are encouraged to upgrade.

A shrinking economy works differently.

Resources become too valuable to waste.

Maintenance becomes more important than replacement.

Repair becomes more important than disposal.

This is where batteries become interesting.

They may no longer be viewed as consumer products with a limited life. They may become long-term capital assets requiring careful management.

Lessons from the wireless accumulator

This is not an entirely new idea.

When many households first owned radios, especially in rural areas before universal electricity supply, a wireless set often depended on a lead-acid accumulator.

The accumulator provided the low-voltage electricity needed by the radio valves. When it became discharged, it was not thrown away.

It was taken to a local garage, radio shop or electrical supplier.

There, it was inspected, topped up with distilled water and connected to a charging system. A controlled direct current slowly reversed the chemical reaction inside the battery and restored its charge.

The customer collected the accumulator and returned it to the radio.

The local supplier was not merely selling a product. It was providing an energy service.

The community understood that stored energy required management.

Battery husbandry

This older approach provides a useful model for the future.

Previous generations practised what might be called equipment husbandry.

A farmer maintained a tractor because replacing it was expensive.

A village maintained a water pump because it was essential.

Tools were repaired because they represented accumulated knowledge and resources.

The same principle may apply to batteries.

Battery husbandry means treating batteries as valuable assets rather than disposable objects.

It involves:

extending battery life,
careful charging and discharging,
repairing damaged packs,
replacing individual components where possible,
recovering useful materials,
sharing specialist knowledge locally.

A community skilled in battery husbandry would be less dependent on distant manufacturers and fragile supply chains.

Batteries as local infrastructure

In a shrinking economy, batteries may become part of local infrastructure.

A village might operate shared battery storage connected to solar panels.

A farm might store electricity to maintain refrigeration, water pumping and essential machinery.

A community workshop might repair battery packs and recover components from older equipment.

The important question changes.

It is no longer:

“How many batteries can we produce?”

It becomes:

“How can we obtain the greatest benefit from the batteries we already have?”

A different hierarchy of use

A shrinking economy will require different priorities.

Some uses of batteries may become difficult to justify.

Large battery packs moving heavy vehicles carrying a single person may appear wasteful when compared with other needs.

The same battery capacity used for water systems, food storage, communications, emergency services or local workshops may provide much greater community value.

The issue is not whether batteries are useful.

They clearly are.

The issue is where they should be used.

The future of batteries

Jeff Currie is right that batteries represent a major industrial demand for minerals and that electrification requires enormous investment.

Tim Morgan is right to ask whether the economic system required to build and maintain that technology can continue expanding in a world of declining surplus energy.

The localist answer lies between these two views.

Batteries are neither a magic solution nor an unnecessary technology.

They are valuable tools.

But in a shrinking economy their greatest contribution may not be enabling unlimited consumption. It may be helping localities preserve essential services, maintain resilience and make careful use of the energy resources that remain.

The future of batteries may therefore look less like a technological revolution and more like a return to an older principle:

Energy is something to be managed, maintained and husbanded carefully.

The battery may become the modern equivalent of the village mill, the water pump or the well – a vital local asset whose value comes not from novelty, but from dependable service over many years.

373. Localism, truth, and why small systems remain viable as the formal economy weakens

Posted on 31/07/2026 by Barry

Many of the pieces on this blog start from the same observation. The formal, industrial system that shaped the last two centuries is no longer expanding. It is becoming more brittle, more abstract, and less able to describe the conditions it is meant to manage. One consequence of this is rarely named, but it matters greatly. Large systems are increasingly poor at telling the truth about what is actually happening.

This is not because people have become less honest. It is because scale weakens feedback.

There is strong evidence that small, local systems generate fewer invented facts than large, top-down organisations. This strengthens the case for localism, not as a lifestyle choice, but as a structurally viable way of organising society in a period of contraction.

In local settings, most interactions are direct and repeated. People know one another and share overlapping knowledge of the same places, activities, and outcomes. Claims are made in the presence of others who can test them against lived experience. If a harvest is considered good, the fields are visible. If a scheme is said to be working, its effects are felt locally.

This produces tight feedback loops. False claims are rarely exposed through formal processes. They are exposed through everyday contradiction. A person who repeatedly invents facts does not simply lose an argument. They lose trust, cooperation, and standing. In an informal local economy, that loss has immediate practical consequences.

Large organisations operate oppositely. Information moves upwards through layers, losing detail as it goes. Reports replace observation. Targets replace judgment. Responsibility is dispersed to the point where no one wholly owns the accuracy of what is being said.

In such systems, invented facts usually arise without malicious intent. People adapt their descriptions of reality to what the organisation can tolerate. Bad news is softened. Ambiguity is resolved in favour of approved narratives. Over time, internal coherence becomes more important than correspondence with lived conditions.

This is a structural outcome of scale, not a failure of individual character.

In small communities, knowledge is redundant. Many people know the exact facts through different routes. This makes sustained fabrication difficult. In large systems, knowledge is siloed. Falsehoods can persist simply because those closest to reality lack authority, while those with authority are distant from reality.

This pattern is well supported by the work of Elinor Ostrom, who studied how local groups successfully managed shared resources such as water systems, fisheries, and grazing land. Across thousands of cases, she found that small, self-governing groups shared information openly, detected rule-breaking quickly, and maintained higher factual accuracy than centrally managed systems.

These groups did not function because people were unusually virtuous. They functioned because dishonesty was visible and costly. Everyone depended on the same resource. Everyone could see when claims diverged from reality.

This connects directly to the wider argument of this blog. As discretionary markets shrink and formal institutions struggle to adapt, systems that depend on abstract reporting and distant control become increasingly fragile. They require simplification to function, and simplification drifts into distortion. Targets replace reality. Invented facts become a way of keeping the system moving.

Local systems do not scale, and that is precisely why they remain viable. Their small size anchors them in observation, shared experience, and rapid correction. Errors surface quickly. Misjudgements are owned locally. False claims cannot be institutionalised or passed endlessly upwards.

Localism does not eliminate deception. People remain human. But in a local setting, deception is short-lived and self-limiting. It damages trust quickly and cannot be embedded into the structure of the system.

As the formal economy contracts and informal systems take on a larger role in meeting everyday needs, this matters. A society that cannot accurately describe its own condition cannot adapt to change. Localism remains viable not because it promises harmony or moral improvement, but because it preserves feedback.

And feedback, more than scale or efficiency, is what keeps a system connected to reality.

372. From Mordor to the Long Repair

Posted on 31/07/2026 by Barry

Nate Hagens has published a thought-provoking essay entitled Mordor to the Long Repair: How Might Daily Life Feel in the Next Decades? It can be read here:

https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-mordor-to-the-long-repair-how

Rather than attempting to predict the future, the essay explores a series of possible futures and asks a much more useful question: what might everyday life actually feel like as industrial civilisation encounters increasing economic, energy and ecological constraints?

The central argument is that there is no single future waiting ahead. Instead, society may travel along several different paths depending upon political choices, resource availability and human behaviour. Some futures are darker than others, but all acknowledge that the era of abundant, cheap energy and perpetual economic growth is drawing to a close.

One of these futures is described as “Mordor.” Here, societies become increasingly authoritarian as governments struggle to preserve existing institutions despite declining resources. Living standards fall, inequality widens, public services deteriorate and social tensions become commonplace. Industrial systems continue to operate, but with increasing difficulty and at ever greater cost.

At the other end of the spectrum lies “The Long Repair.” This is not a return to some imagined golden age, nor is it a technological miracle. Instead, it is a gradual adaptation to a world with fewer resources, lower energy availability and reduced complexity. Communities slowly rebuild resilience by becoming less dependent on fragile global systems and more capable of meeting their own needs.

This vision resonates strongly with the principles of localism.

The Long Repair is not simply about surviving decline. It is about reorganising society around what is practical rather than what is merely efficient. Global supply chains give way to regional and local production wherever possible. Repair replaces replacement. Skills become more valuable than consumption. Communities rediscover cooperation because it becomes economically necessary rather than socially desirable.

These ideas are entirely consistent with the concept of a shrinking economy. As surplus energy declines, discretionary spending contracts and the economic landscape changes fundamentally. Many industries that flourished during decades of growth gradually disappear, while activities meeting essential human needs become increasingly important.

The essay provides an excellent explanation of why this transition may occur. However, it says relatively little about how communities might organise themselves once the transition begins. That is where the practical ideas of localism become important.

A resilient locality needs more than goodwill. It requires practical systems. Local food production, local water supplies, community energy, workshops, repair skills, local communications, community ownership of assets and neighbourhood governance all become essential components of everyday life. These are not nostalgic ambitions but rational responses to a world of increasing uncertainty.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Hagens’ essay is its emphasis on imagination. Much discussion about the future focuses on economic statistics, politics or technology. Far less attention is given to how daily life may actually change. What work will people do? Where will food come from? How will homes be heated? What skills will children need? Which institutions will remain important?

These are the questions that deserve serious attention.

There is, however, another perspective that helps explain why a Long Repair may be more than simply one possible future. Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics provides a compelling underlying mechanism.

Morgan argues that prosperity is determined not by the total amount of energy produced, but by the amount of surplus energy remaining after the energy sector has supplied its own needs. As the Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE) rises, less surplus energy is available to support the wider economy. The result is a gradual decline in discretionary prosperity, slowing economic growth, increasing financial instability and growing pressure on governments, businesses and households.

From this perspective, many of the trends described by Hagens are not isolated problems. They are symptoms of a deeper physical reality. Modern industrial civilisation has been built upon abundant, inexpensive surplus energy. As that surplus diminishes, society is forced to simplify. Complexity becomes increasingly expensive to maintain, while localisation becomes increasingly attractive because it reduces dependence upon long, energy-intensive supply chains.

This interpretation also explains why many current policies appear unable to restore sustained economic growth. Governments continue to pursue growth because the existing financial system depends upon it. Yet if declining surplus energy is the underlying constraint, policies alone cannot reverse the trend. They may delay the adjustment, but they cannot remove its physical causes.

Seen in this light, localism is not a political ideology or a nostalgic movement. It is an adaptive response to changing economic and energetic realities. Communities that can produce more of their own food, energy, water, goods and essential services are likely to prove more resilient than those dependent upon increasingly fragile national and global systems.

The Long Repair is therefore much more than an interesting scenario. It represents the gradual rebuilding of society around the resources that are actually available rather than those that were once assumed to be limitless.

For those seeking to understand the decades ahead, Nate Hagens provides an insightful picture of what the transition may feel like, while Tim Morgan offers a persuasive explanation of why it may be happening. Together they point towards a future in which local resilience, practical skills and strong communities become not simply desirable, but essential.

375. Declining Wages in the Shrinking Economy

Posted on 30/07/2026 by Barry

For over two centuries, most people have assumed that each generation would enjoy higher wages than the last. This expectation became part of everyday life. Productivity rose, businesses expanded, and governments could distribute some of the benefits through higher incomes, pensions and public services.

A shrinking economy changes this picture. Declining wages are not simply the result of greedy employers or poor government policies. They emerge because the economy itself can no longer produce enough surplus to maintain previous levels of income.

The key is to understand where wages come from.

Wages come from surplus

An employer does not pay wages because people need money. Wages are paid because workers produce goods and services that customers are willing and able to buy.

In an expanding economy there is sufficient surplus energy, investment and demand to support rising productivity. Businesses compete for labour and wages tend to rise.

In a shrinking economy the opposite occurs. The amount of economic surplus available to distribute becomes steadily smaller.

Businesses therefore face difficult choices.

Reduce profits.
Raise prices.
Reduce wages.
Employ fewer people.

Initially they try every other option before reducing wages. Eventually, however, lower labour costs become unavoidable.

The hidden decline

The first stage is rarely an obvious wage cut.

Instead workers find that annual pay increases no longer keep pace with inflation.

If prices rise by 5% but wages rise by only 2%, purchasing power has fallen by 3%. The payslip looks larger, but it buys less.

This process can continue for many years without people fully appreciating what is happening.

Fewer secure jobs

As conditions worsen, employers become cautious.

Permanent positions are replaced by temporary contracts, part-time work and self-employment.

Many jobs become “zero-hours” or freelance positions with little security.

Workers compete with one another for fewer opportunities, weakening their bargaining power.

Automation cannot solve everything

Some believe automation will maintain wages by increasing productivity.

Automation certainly replaces some labour, but it also requires investment, maintenance, skilled technicians and complex supply chains.

In a shrinking economy capital itself becomes scarce. Businesses cannot endlessly replace workers with machines if customers cannot afford the products or the finance is unavailable.

Automation therefore slows the decline in some industries while accelerating job losses in others.

Government employment

Governments employ millions of people.

When tax revenues decline while demands on public spending increase, governments encounter growing financial pressure.

Initially they borrow more.

Eventually borrowing reaches practical limits.

Public sector recruitment slows.

Vacant posts remain unfilled.

Services become stretched.

Real wages fall.

Some departments are reorganised or closed altogether.

Pension pressure

Older workers may postpone retirement because pensions no longer provide sufficient income.

This increases competition for employment.

Younger people entering the labour market find fewer vacancies available.

Generational tensions may increase, even though both groups are responding rationally to declining incomes.

The disappearance of discretionary work

Many occupations depend upon discretionary spending.

Advertising.

Luxury retail.

Tourism.

Entertainment.

Fashion.

Professional sport.

Consultancy.

As households devote more of their income to essentials such as food, housing and heating, demand for these sectors gradually weakens.

The jobs disappear long before essential occupations.

Local differences

Not every locality experiences wage decline in the same way.

Areas dependent upon finance, technology or government spending may initially appear protected.

Industrial regions may suffer earlier.

Eventually the underlying economic forces affect every part of the country.

The differences become matters of timing rather than direction.

Inflation changes everything

Persistent inflation creates an illusion.

People may receive larger salaries every year.

Yet they can afford less food, less travel, fewer holidays and fewer household improvements.

The important figure is not the number printed on the payslip.

It is what the wages will actually buy.

Real wages become the critical measure.

Localism offers another response

Localism cannot prevent national wage decline.

It can, however, reduce dependence upon wages.

A household producing vegetables, fruit, eggs and firewood requires less cash income than one buying everything.

Neighbours sharing skills reduce the need for expensive commercial services.

Repair replaces replacement.

Community enterprises keep more value circulating within the locality.

Barter and mutual assistance supplement money.

The objective is not to earn ever larger wages.

It is to require less money in order to live well.

Looking ahead

The great assumption of the industrial age was that wages would always rise.

If the economy enters a prolonged period of contraction, that assumption will no longer hold.

Real wages are likely to decline slowly, unevenly and often almost invisibly. People may continue receiving annual pay rises while becoming steadily poorer.

Understanding this process is essential because it changes the question society must ask.

Instead of asking how to restore continually rising wages, we may need to ask how people can maintain secure and meaningful lives when the economic surplus that once supported continual income growth is no longer available.

That question lies at the heart of the transition towards localism.

374. Data Centres, Electricity and the Shrinking Economy

Posted on 29/07/2026 by Barry

Ofgem’s decision to require developers of data centres to lodge substantial deposits before securing a grid connection has been presented as a simple administrative reform. Too many speculative applications are clogging the queue for new electricity connections, delaying projects that are actually ready to proceed.

But beneath this bureaucratic change lies a much bigger story.

The problem is not really the queue. The problem is that Britain is beginning to discover that electricity is no longer an unlimited resource.

For generations we have assumed that economic growth simply required more investment. If demand increased, more power stations would be built, more transmission lines erected and more capacity made available. The industrial economy was founded on this assumption.

That assumption is now breaking down.

The country is attempting to electrify transport, heating and much of industry while simultaneously expanding artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital services. Every one of these developments demands more electricity, yet the energy system itself is becoming more expensive and more difficult to expand.

This is exactly what a shrinking economy looks like.

A shrinking economy is not one in which everything suddenly stops. It is one in which physical limits gradually replace financial ones. Money may still be available, but energy, materials, skilled labour and engineering capacity become increasingly scarce. Instead of asking, “Can we afford it?” society begins asking, “Can we actually build it?”

The queue for electricity connections is one manifestation of this transition.

The race to build AI data centres illustrates the problem perfectly. The world’s largest technology companies are investing hundreds of billions of pounds in facilities that consume astonishing quantities of electricity. Some proposed British developments would require as much power as a medium-sized city.

Yet every megawatt devoted to a data centre is a megawatt that cannot be used elsewhere.

As surplus energy declines, these choices become unavoidable.

For most of the industrial age there was enough surplus energy to support almost every new activity. Today that surplus is steadily shrinking. More of society’s effort is required simply to obtain and distribute energy itself. Less remains available for discretionary activities.

This changes the nature of economic decision-making.

The important question is no longer how rapidly we can expand electricity generation. It is how wisely we allocate the electricity we already have.

From a localist perspective the priorities are obvious.

Communities need reliable electricity for homes, water supplies, food production, workshops, healthcare, communications and local businesses. These are the foundations of everyday life.

By contrast, much of the electricity demanded by large AI data centres supports activities that are geographically distant and economically concentrated. The benefits accrue largely to global corporations, while the costs are carried by national infrastructure and local communities.

This is not an argument against technology. Digital communications, local computing and information systems have an important role to play in the future.

It is an argument against believing that every new technological possibility deserves equal access to increasingly scarce resources.

The industrial age encouraged centralisation because energy appeared abundant and cheap. Enormous generating stations supplied electricity across national networks to ever larger centres of population and industry. Scale appeared to solve every problem.

The emerging age of contraction points in the opposite direction.

Local generation, local storage and local resilience become more valuable as national systems become increasingly stretched. Solar panels on roofs, community batteries, small-scale wind generation, micro-hydro schemes and neighbourhood energy systems cannot replace the national grid, but they can reduce dependence upon it while strengthening local resilience.

Most importantly, they encourage communities to think differently about energy.

Electricity is no longer something that can simply be assumed to exist in unlimited quantities. It becomes a resource to be managed carefully, directed first towards essential needs before discretionary wants.

The debate over data centres is therefore about much more than planning applications or connection fees.

It is one of the first visible signs that Britain is entering an era in which physical limits matter once again.

The shrinking economy will increasingly require difficult choices over where scarce energy should be used. Those choices will determine whether communities become more resilient or more dependent.

Localism provides one answer. Rather than chasing ever greater concentrations of energy and economic activity, it seeks to build capable localities that can meet more of their own needs with fewer external resources.

The queue for electricity connections is not simply an administrative inconvenience. It is a glimpse of the future.

The age of unlimited expansion is drawing to a close. The age of careful allocation has already begun.

371. Surplus Energy Economics and the Localist Future

Posted on 28/07/2026 by Barry

Dr Tim Morgan’s latest essay, #327: Surplus Energy Economics, is perhaps the clearest and most complete summary yet of the ideas he has been developing over the last thirteen years. Rather than introducing new theories, it draws together the evidence into one coherent explanation of why the era of economic growth is ending and what may follow.

For anyone interested in localism, it is an important document because it describes the physical limits that make a more local society not simply desirable but increasingly inevitable.

The economy runs on energy, not money

Morgan begins with a simple observation. The economy is not fundamentally a financial system. It is a system for supplying goods and services. Money merely records claims upon that production.

This seems obvious, yet modern economics often behaves as though money itself creates wealth. Governments, banks and investors increasingly judge success by GDP, stock market values and financial assets rather than by the economy’s ability to provide food, housing, energy and essential services.

Morgan argues that this is the wrong way round. Wealth comes first from energy and physical resources. Money only has value because it represents claims upon those resources.

The importance of surplus energy

Every energy source requires energy to obtain it.

Coal must be mined.

Oil must be drilled, transported and refined.

Wind turbines and solar panels must be manufactured, installed, connected to the grid and eventually replaced.

The energy left over after obtaining energy is what Morgan calls surplus energy. This surplus powers everything else in society – farming, manufacturing, healthcare, education, transport, entertainment and government.

His central argument is that the Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE) has been rising steadily for decades. More of society’s total energy is now consumed simply in obtaining more energy, leaving less available for everything else. According to his estimates, average ECoE has risen from around 2% in 1980 to more than 11% today.

This is not simply an energy problem.

It becomes an economic problem.

Why growth has stalled

Traditional economics assumes that growth can continue indefinitely through technology, finance and innovation.

Morgan disagrees.

He argues that technological improvements have not been able to overcome the steadily increasing energy cost of obtaining usable energy. As surplus energy falls, so does the ability of the economy to expand.

Debt, quantitative easing and financial engineering have delayed recognition of this reality but cannot remove the underlying physical constraint.

From this perspective, many of today’s problems begin to make sense.

Falling living standards.
Increasing inequality.
Rising government debt.
Asset bubbles.
Political instability.
Competition for resources.
Declining affordability of essential goods.

These are symptoms rather than separate problems.

The connection with localism

This is where localism enters the picture.

Many people still think localism is a lifestyle choice, a political preference or nostalgia for village life.

Morgan’s work suggests something much deeper.

As surplus energy declines, highly centralised systems become progressively harder to maintain.

Long supply chains.

Global food systems.

Just-in-time distribution.

Mass commuting.

Disposable consumer goods.

International tourism.

Large bureaucracies.

All depend upon abundant surplus energy.

As that surplus declines, societies naturally begin shifting towards simpler, shorter and more local systems.

Essential replaces discretionary

Morgan distinguishes between essential and discretionary activities.

Essential activities include food production, water, housing, healthcare and basic transport.

Discretionary activities include much of modern consumer culture – endless product choice, fast fashion, frequent flying, luxury consumption and many financial services.

As energy becomes scarcer, society increasingly directs resources towards essentials.

This is exactly the direction that localism has advocated for years.

The future economy is likely to become less concerned with consumption and more concerned with resilience.

A more labour-intensive society

Another conclusion follows naturally.

Where abundant fossil energy once replaced human labour, declining surplus energy means more work will again be done by people.

That does not necessarily imply hardship.

It may instead mean more gardeners, growers, builders, repairers, foresters, craftspeople, carers and local manufacturers.

Many activities abandoned because fossil fuels made them uneconomic may once again become worthwhile.

Small farms become viable.

Repair replaces replacement.

Local food processing returns.

Community skills regain their value.

What local communities should be doing now

Morgan ends on a remarkably optimistic note.

He argues that a post-growth economy is entirely manageable if societies begin developing local, bottom-up institutions before centralised systems weaken further.

That observation deserves careful attention.

Waiting until national systems fail would be a mistake.

Communities can begin preparing now by:

rebuilding local food production;
protecting agricultural land;
developing local water resilience;
encouraging repair and maintenance skills;
supporting local businesses;
strengthening community organisations;
creating local energy where practical;
reducing dependence upon long supply chains.

None of these requires waiting for government.

A different understanding of progress

The greatest value of Morgan’s work may be that it changes the question.

Instead of asking:

“How do we restart growth?”

we should perhaps be asking:

“How do we build good lives with less surplus energy?”

That is precisely the question localism seeks to answer.

The transition will not be easy. Many existing institutions were built during two centuries of expanding fossil-fuel energy and assume that growth will continue indefinitely.

But if Morgan is broadly correct, then localism is not an alternative to the future.

It is the future already beginning to emerge.

The sooner communities understand this, the more orderly, resilient and humane that transition can become.

370. Europe’s Gas Warning – Another Reminder to Build Local Resilience

Posted on 27/07/2026 by Barry

Europe is once again discovering the weakness of depending on distant energy supplies. Gas storage levels are unusually low for this time of year, and analysts are warning that the continent could enter the coming winter with significantly less reserve than normal. Even though fighting in the Middle East has eased for the moment, the underlying problem has not gone away.

The immediate cause may be conflict affecting global gas markets, but the deeper issue is that Europe has become increasingly dependent on imported energy carried across oceans and through vulnerable international supply chains. Every geopolitical crisis now has the potential to raise prices and threaten supplies.

For Britain, this is another warning that energy security cannot simply mean finding another overseas supplier. It means reducing dependence on fuels that have to be imported from thousands of miles away. A localist approach looks instead to producing as much energy as possible within each locality – using solar power, wind, small-scale hydro where appropriate, biomass from sustainable woodland, and above all reducing demand through better building design and insulation.

No single local energy source will replace natural gas. However, a diverse collection of local resources can make communities far less vulnerable to international events. Every kilowatt-hour generated locally is one that does not have to be bought on volatile world markets.

The lesson is becoming increasingly clear. Whether the disruption comes from war, sanctions, financial instability or simple resource depletion, our highly centralised energy system is becoming more fragile. The answer is not merely to build bigger storage facilities or search for new imports. It is to rebuild resilience from the ground up, so that every locality is able to meet a greater share of its own essential energy needs.

Each new energy crisis reinforces the same message. Local resilience is no longer an environmental aspiration – it is becoming an economic and social necessity.

369. Gardening for a Hotter Britain

Posted on 27/07/2026 by Barry

Building the Localist Landscape

The recent heatwaves are not an isolated event. They are part of a trend. Whether one attributes them mainly to climate change, natural climatic variation or a combination of influences, the practical conclusion is the same. Britain is becoming warmer, summer droughts are becoming more frequent, and water can no longer be treated as an unlimited resource.

For those embracing localism this is not simply another gardening challenge. It is an opportunity to redesign our homes, farms and localities to become more resilient.

The traditional English garden evolved during centuries when summer rainfall was usually dependable. The future may demand something closer to Mediterranean thinking, while still respecting Britain’s winter rainfall and occasional cold spells.

The objective changes from growing plants that need watering to creating landscapes that rarely need it.

Water is the New Currency

Every drop of water becomes valuable.

Instead of asking how we can water more efficiently, we should first ask why water is needed at all.

Healthy soils rich in organic matter can hold several times more water than depleted soils. Deep-rooted plants survive long dry periods because they reach moisture unavailable to shallow-rooted species.

Rain that falls during winter should be regarded as income saved for summer.

The localist approach is therefore:

Build soil rather than buy fertiliser.
Capture rainfall rather than extract groundwater.
Grow drought-resistant plants rather than thirsty ones.
Shade the ground rather than leave bare soil exposed.

Rethinking the Land

Perhaps the greatest mistake is assuming the existing landscape should remain unchanged.

For generations fields have been flattened, hedges removed, streams straightened and water drained away as quickly as possible.

The future may require the opposite.

Land should increasingly be shaped to slow water.

This may include:

shallow swales following contours
ponds connected by overflow channels
small reservoirs
terraces on slopes
restored hedgerows
shelter belts of trees
wetlands in unsuitable corners

Instead of flooding in winter and drought in summer, rainfall can remain within the landscape for months.

Every farm becomes a water storage system.

Every garden becomes a miniature watershed.

The Soil Comes First

Soil is Britain’s greatest water reservoir.

Adding compost, leaf mould, well-rotted manure and wood chips greatly increases water retention.

Bare soil should become rare.

Mulches reduce evaporation dramatically while suppressing weeds.

No-dig methods disturb soil organisms less and allow fungi and earthworms to build underground channels that carry water deep below the surface.

Healthy soil feeds healthy plants.

Choosing Food Crops

Future gardens may contain fewer thirsty vegetables and more reliable crops.

Good choices include:

broad beans
climbing beans
peas (early season)
onions
garlic
shallots
beetroot
chard
kale
spinach beet
Jerusalem artichokes
globe artichokes
squash
pumpkins
courgettes
sweetcorn where moisture is available
herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano and lavender

Perennial vegetables deserve renewed attention because their deep roots tolerate drought better than annual crops.

Examples include:

asparagus
rhubarb
sea kale
Good King Henry
sorrel
perennial onions

Many traditional Mediterranean vegetables may become easier to grow than they once were.

Grain and Protein

Smallholders should consider crops that provide calories rather than simply vegetables.

These may include:

field beans
peas
oats
rye
barley
heritage wheats suited to local conditions

Local milling and baking become increasingly valuable community skills.

Fruit Trees for Tomorrow

Fruit trees remain among the wisest long-term investments.

However, species and rootstocks deserve careful thought.

Deep-rooted trees generally outperform shallow-rooted bushes during drought.

Reliable choices include:

apples
pears
quinces
mulberries
walnuts
sweet chestnuts
medlars

Some traditionally southern species may become increasingly successful.

These include:

figs
apricots
peaches in sheltered sites
almonds in favourable districts

Olives may eventually become practical in southern Britain, although severe winters will occasionally remain a risk.

Young trees need watering while establishing themselves.

Once mature they should survive with little assistance.

Around each tree the ground should remain permanently mulched.

Grass should not be allowed right up to the trunk.

Soft Fruit

Soft fruit can struggle during prolonged drought.

Nevertheless:

blackcurrants
gooseberries
autumn raspberries
blackberries
jostaberries

remain worthwhile if mulched well.

Blueberries require acidic soils and regular moisture and may become increasingly difficult without irrigation.

Flowers Still Matter

Localism is not only about survival.

Beauty strengthens community life.

Flowers celebrate births, weddings, anniversaries, harvest festivals and remembrance.

The future garden should still provide abundance.

Reliable drought-tolerant flowers include:

lavender
echinacea
yarrow
verbena bonariensis
gaura
rudbeckia
cosmos
salvia
sedum
eryngium
agapanthus
helenium

Traditional cottage garden flowers can still flourish if planted into improved soil and deeply mulched.

Many herbs provide both flowers and food for pollinating insects.

Flowers for the Home

Cut flowers should become part of everyday local life rather than an imported luxury.

Grow plants with long vase life.

Excellent choices include:

dahlias
zinnias
snapdragons
sweet peas where moisture allows
sunflowers
chrysanthemums
asters
statice
strawflowers for drying

Dried flowers may regain popularity because they require no refrigeration or constant replacement.

Seasonal arrangements using grasses, seed heads, berries and dried stems celebrate the changing year.

Pollinators Become Essential Workers

Without insects there is little fruit.

Gardens, farms and roadside verges should provide nectar throughout the growing season.

Avoid sterile ornamental plants.

Allow some wild corners.

Accept that perfect tidiness may become the enemy of resilience.

Greenhouses Must Change

The traditional greenhouse becomes increasingly difficult to manage.

Summer temperatures above 45°C may become common inside.

Plants stop growing.

Pollination fails.

Water demand soars.

Future greenhouses may need:

external shading
removable shade cloth
white reflective coatings
roof ventilation
side ventilation
solar-powered extraction fans
rainwater-fed irrigation
thermal mass such as water tanks
grape vines trained over roofs
deciduous shade trees nearby

Some growers may discover that a shade house is more useful than a greenhouse during midsummer.

Water Harvesting

Every roof should become a catchment.

Rainwater tanks should become normal.

Overflow should feed ponds.

Grey water from baths and showers may irrigate trees where regulations and suitable biodegradable products allow.

At community level, local reservoirs and ponds may become as important as village halls.

Farms of the Future

Large monocultures become increasingly vulnerable.

Mixed farming offers greater resilience.

Livestock return nutrients to the soil.

Trees provide shelter.

Hedges reduce drying winds.

Agroforestry may become one of Britain’s most productive farming systems.

The farm becomes a living ecosystem rather than a factory.

Learning from the Mediterranean

Many regions around the Mediterranean have survived dry summers for thousands of years.

Their lessons include:

white buildings reflecting heat
courtyards creating cool spaces
thick walls storing coolness
shaded outdoor living
drought-tolerant crops
water stored through winter
planting for shade before ornament

Britain need not copy these exactly, but their underlying principles are increasingly relevant.

Communities Working Together

No household needs to face these challenges alone.

Neighbouring gardens can exchange seeds.

Smallholders can share equipment.

Villages can establish communal orchards.

Local nurseries can propagate plants already adapted to local conditions.

Seed saving becomes a valuable community activity.

Knowledge becomes every bit as important as water.

A New Vision

The localist garden of the future may look different from today’s.

There will be more trees, deeper soils, fewer lawns, more mulch, more shade and more perennial plants.

There will be ponds where there were once dry corners.

There will be fruit where there were once ornamental shrubs.

The landscape will hold water rather than shed it.

Above all, it will work with nature instead of constantly struggling against it.

That is the deeper lesson of a hotter Britain. Localism is not simply about living closer to home. It is about reshaping the places where we live so they become capable of sustaining us through whatever climate the future may bring.

368. Batteries, Complexity and the Case for Localism

Posted on 26/07/2026 by Barry

The transition to renewable electricity is often presented as a simple replacement of one source of energy with another. Replace coal and gas with wind turbines, solar panels and batteries, and little else changes. The reality is very different. Every additional layer of technology needed to compensate for the shortcomings of intermittent generation makes the electricity system more complex, more expensive and potentially more fragile.

A recent warning from government technical experts illustrates the problem. Britain is rapidly installing large-scale battery storage systems to help stabilise the electricity grid when wind and solar output fluctuates. These batteries can respond almost instantly, making them valuable tools for balancing supply and demand.

However, the experts have identified an unexpected danger.

When the National Energy System Operator (NESO) issues a Capacity Market Notice warning that electricity shortages are becoming likely, battery operators have a commercial incentive to ensure their batteries are fully charged. If many operators respond at the same time by drawing large amounts of electricity from the grid, they could actually create the shortage they are preparing to prevent.

In other words, the solution itself could become part of the problem.

Complexity Creates New Risks

This is a classic example of what happens when increasingly complicated systems attempt to solve problems created elsewhere in the same system.

For over a century Britain’s electricity supply relied on large power stations producing continuous, predictable electricity. Demand varied throughout the day, but generation could usually be adjusted in a controlled way.

Renewable electricity changes that relationship. Wind turbines produce electricity when the wind blows, not necessarily when consumers need it. Solar panels produce their maximum output at midday rather than during the evening peak.

To compensate, we now need:

enormous battery installations
sophisticated forecasting systems
automated trading algorithms
reserve generating capacity
expanded transmission networks
increasingly complex control systems.

Every additional component introduces another possible point of failure.

None of these technologies is necessarily unreliable on its own. The problem is that the overall system becomes so interconnected that small events can trigger much larger consequences.

The Cost of Chasing Stability

Large batteries are impressive engineering achievements, but they are not free.

Consumers ultimately pay not only for the batteries themselves, but also for:

construction
maintenance
replacement
grid upgrades
control systems
reserve generating capacity
market payments that keep backup systems available.

Much of this expenditure exists because renewable generation is intermittent. If electricity production were naturally predictable, many of these additional systems would not be required.

As the grid becomes more complicated, household electricity bills inevitably reflect that complexity.

Bigger Systems Need Bigger Solutions

National electricity networks have always been large engineering projects. But the increasing dependence on intermittent generation pushes centralisation even further.

The grid operator must monitor thousands of wind turbines, millions of rooftop solar panels, hundreds of battery installations and countless automated control systems.

Artificial intelligence, advanced forecasting and increasingly sophisticated computer control become essential simply to keep everything operating safely.

The irony is striking. Technologies often promoted as decentralised require unprecedented levels of central coordination.

What Localism Suggests

Localism approaches resilience from a different direction.

Rather than asking how to make one enormous national system increasingly sophisticated, Localism asks whether every community needs to depend so completely upon that single system.

Local electricity does not mean abandoning the national grid. Instead, communities could gradually develop complementary local energy systems that reduce dependence upon distant infrastructure.

These might include:

local solar generation
small-scale hydro where appropriate
biomass from local woodland management
combined heat and power schemes
carefully managed community battery storage
reduced overall electricity demand through efficient design.

The crucial difference is scale.

A community battery serving a village or neighbourhood is managed to meet local needs rather than participating in national electricity trading markets. Local users understand local demand patterns and can adapt their consumption accordingly.

If one local system develops problems, it affects hundreds or perhaps thousands of people rather than millions.

Resilience Rather Than Maximum Efficiency

Modern infrastructure has been designed to maximise efficiency.

Localism places greater emphasis on resilience.

An efficient system may perform extremely well under normal conditions but fail dramatically when unexpected events occur.

A resilient system may appear less efficient but continues operating when conditions become difficult.

Nature follows this principle. Healthy ecosystems contain redundancy, diversity and overlapping functions. If one species declines, others often compensate.

Highly centralised technological systems tend to eliminate redundancy because redundancy appears inefficient.

Unfortunately, redundancy is often what keeps systems functioning during crises.

Living Within Natural Limits

The battery warning is not really about batteries.

It is about the increasing complexity required to maintain an industrial energy system that is becoming harder to balance as high-quality fossil fuels become more expensive and renewable generation expands.

Each new technical solution creates further technical challenges.

More batteries require more control.

More control requires more computing.

More computing requires more infrastructure.

More infrastructure requires more investment.

The cycle continues.

Localism suggests a different path.

Rather than continually expanding technological complexity, communities can gradually reduce dependence on vulnerable national systems by producing more essentials locally – food, water, some energy, repair services and basic manufacturing.

This does not eliminate the national grid. It simply reduces the consequences when that grid comes under stress.

The future may belong not to the most technologically complicated societies, but to those that build the greatest resilience. True security comes not from ever more elaborate systems designed to prevent failure, but from communities that can continue functioning when those systems inevitably encounter their limits.

367. Local Electricity

Posted on 24/07/2026 by Barry

In the early days, electricity was generated mainly by simple mechanical methods that turned dynamos or generators. The principle was discovered in the 1830s by Michael Faraday, who showed that moving a magnet near a coil of wire could produce an electric current.

The earliest electricity supplies were very local. A factory, mill, large house, or street lighting scheme would often have its own generator.

Here are the main early methods:

Steam engines

By the late 1800s, most electricity was produced by steam engines. Coal was burned to boil water into steam, and the steam drove a piston engine or later a steam turbine connected to a dynamo.

Typical uses:

Street lighting
Tramways
Factories
Wealthy homes
Public buildings

Early power stations were small and local because electricity could not easily be transmitted long distances.

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/klmarnHktG8q_onZLGTsiGkebl_32JHJzyXia7ZaE1oTrs0WygIO5jyRsdXaEaqfeFUmSoao6jz1SOwFnNApZdJ1gtSrVF6XfP3_a7C0meUt6I2wbMkIVl7p0Mlh7Hpa56F6nduvFOLqUEaPrEUYs4frHOjaCpuKnnsWDgibmt8EVXNMRovNkGP5nj5o1u3j?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/e11HYbQaNYwMjQYQRmnb73d3hMMEG4wpXr2zTbFZGj4SLUEOably9ztllrgOUNbKvmMDJ6ITO4Rxq3wWbQeSFIsywxS2JXekIpzKlBNKRfmXIKp5qy09SSXmypXGbTqI9mvsxKZJnslAaBRB9vaYZhevtWcuw3oG3xiG6e0KMlFWW3QBdJZ4Q09jOnCy2li3?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/MLyoMZ4sSAfNzlrZU3j3sKtSCGDAMz9LmCpDxXklhQ7Mrcyvf9kMSYIjTHr98ETwbYq6V7-NEhQmjZvWJll0awBnEIMWkDo_mbfT-kHcyaMqCcVvdE0GvMcxnGOjKn4Q2i2beF-ZY__ghWxbSSqc3gkkxyHPtpUMcv1-58mEtqzfs-BtB2cvksOaWfvidsKG?purpose=fullsize

Water power

Some early electricity generation used water wheels or water turbines, especially in rural areas and mountainous districts. Existing mill streams were adapted to drive generators.

This was one of the first forms of hydroelectricity.

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/79Oo0vbvuyaKpHAvWuBb2D8H9WCbVqBWa0430rLq2DVxzsQTpCSxxNVryA1HST0WHlC0nA6zdg_tc3spmncwVkG5_vd0Lv6PLg_3KLq8pstIQuMa-pFwhHrOsiEVwlgG00nCsC3bblihGGjWIl7NKKo9FQKoDU8gMl4ygjspte0PVv5n7QzfNFECKVqbK2U5?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/tBGorueSor-p6lXbQifkstppYtAuB5QdUwl5KjFblPfGJWGyT-ls2TEgbD3dgvtj1nDYcsGzXhjL-EFCH6Ut87fuLOIyfe4UAQnz8ZKq3852np6BAUKM2ZjRSfKHhtr3Lz5Y0NdTpzYk3TeJBSuQuAucjSEofof612HWOtjW0540kTsUE2XTU3I8tRTckdvc?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/UGWDgVda5Td5OMO3fjezVVdoieX-lQ2xwLdG7-Pc0Kg4Bwf7-HVLaKV4h4ZTIPgYcUuMvDVafbEM_1rTVk9n757twdIy35ONVb6HOwGfnZHDKAD6z5KUidgniJUmSatILVfqWtJWXrE-eWeg2jituJLyMpfeHH6b1-y9G9gRYApamFsBDs0Uood3oOpSVUjU?purpose=fullsize

Gas engines

Before large national systems existed, some towns and businesses used gas engines fuelled by “town gas” made from coal. These engines drove small generators.

Wind and small local systems

A few isolated farms and estates used small wind generators or private systems with batteries, especially before rural electrification.

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/Uby0V3Wa65Hb2MfODZbSXj-LA6czuTMgMd3ZiYh4rGeD1hKidcJ9S4fr3heanKrG1oKhN9hMsccrjQc7WrYo-xge8N-VrdYIra98o6Ei3IhfOPmfNe5c-8YIZkCphzWwPTOXmxjJPqZ5QOU6NSlITpUaJLn2RmB1xyjH3bv37UtA6hysIEVWYwa4D5wZ9b9n?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/hl9GDF60jvH4pGBRY4cldvJW6NvCg5MmuY1l_SQi--sVtVyraaIMsJrYA0EMtQcfdb-A9arrSjBWEuOOpJRRR5Jky3mkql4YXKBZyQbw6ZQX3A7Mhyv6NXcbhDxFfimll8aZJjUhcRKQcLYQYi_aAu9Jo8m0CezO5Xi8P1fIM1IkBfI6sTWNhCFRFKRxhwJw?purpose=fullsize

https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/RIfoWfuCzM-u8UyTWZt7chI-lDTEraNmLb7y2GMYsZQ6XI-daHpj50x0jfxNHZWnYX9QxRIIUGxAF_2UTlGdC35-N3mcrCSD41e9Ja9lsx_x3OeHnIrkMPxHI52USKtaneuEYzTMAWw56Boeicroa5xc_Rg5fZ-NduZAoX6f5cIwiX9Wo-Vijdn9zGSOyUTe?purpose=fullsize

Direct current (DC)

The first systems usually used direct current, associated with Thomas Edison. DC worked for nearby lighting but could not travel far efficiently.

Later, alternating current (AC), promoted by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, allowed electricity to be transmitted over much greater distances. That led eventually to large national grids.

In Britain, one of the earliest public power stations was the Holborn Viaduct power station in London in the 1880s. At first, electricity was mainly for lighting rather than for the huge range of appliances we use today.

The interesting point is that early electricity was often highly localised. Many places generated only what they immediately needed. The later national grid system came after engineers learned how to interconnect many power stations and transmit electricity over long distances.

368. How oil has become a drain on other resources

Posted on 24/07/2026 by Barry

How the pursuit of ‘energy dominance’ put the final nail in the coffin of electrification

The Honest Sorcerer

Drilling for oil, you might tempted to believe, will always pay for itself as it produces the fuels needed for its continued extraction. The more oil we lift, the more fuel (and energy) we have, right? Wrong. Let me explain. A barrel of oil would produce 5.9 Gigajoules of energy when fully burned, which might sound like a lot. Considering the fact, however, that only 27% of what we call ‘oil’ can be turned into diesel—the most vital fuel of all—on a global average¹, and that diesel engines burn fuel at an average 35% efficiency, only a tiny fraction of the energy stored in a barrel of oil can be used to drill more wells, mine minerals, harvest fish/wood/crops, build infrastructure, power militaries or to transport goods across large distances. That roughly 10% of energy derived from a barrel of crude is what keeps billions of people and a globalized world economy alive. The rest remains embedded in products (plastics, solvents, lubricants, asphalt, wax etc.) or simply get burned for our convenience in cars and jets. Unlike in the US it’s perfectly possible to live a decent life without a car or flying around with jets in many other parts of the world. The same could not be told about diesel, without which perpetuating modern, high-tech civilization would be impossible.

Trying to squeeze more diesel fuel out of a barrel of oil, on the other hand, would not only cannibalize the output of other fuels (mostly jet and fuel oil) but would also increase the energy cost of getting the raw power we need, thereby defeating the very idea of getting more useful energy out of a barrel of oil. Thus, when a study on Energy Return on Energy Invested (Delannoy et al., 2021) concluded that we use up a little more than 15% of energy stored in a barrel of oil to explore, drill, lift and deliver the next barrel of oil, they pointed out something profound. We need more energy to extract oil than what we could obtain by burning it in tractors, trailers, trucks and all kinds of heavy machinery to maintain civilization as it is. Again: no oil well was drilled using gasoline nor any mineral was extracted or fish caught with airliners—not in any meaningful quantity at least. What’s worse, as the authors found, the energy cost of oil is projected to reach 50% by 2050 as low cost conventional reserves continue to deplete, and get increasingly replaced by unconventional oil and energy intensive methods required to push what remains to the surface. That’s clearly not going to work on a global scale. But then how does the math work with even today’s numbers?

Simply put: we use the rest of the global energy system to subsidize liquid fuel production. Many wells and pumps are now running on electricity, and much of the energy used in refineries comes from natural gas. Sure, when taking all fuels together, producing oil is still net positive in energy terms but extracting petroleum long ceased to be a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating process. Half a century ago when the energy cost of oil was a mere 3% (or less), the 10% useful work derived from the diesel portion of a barrel was more than enough to power the oil business AND provide 7% “free” energy to the economy. Now its the other way around: we are using more and more electricity, natural gas, and in some cases even “renewables”, just to keep diesel flowing and the world economy ticking.

The electrification of transportation, ahem, isn’t going as fast as many of its advocates thought. Source: Ember Energy

‘Then why don’t we shift to other fuels or electrify transportation?’—the question poses itself. You see, batteries and hydrogen, the most often touted “alternatives” to oil, are a way of storing energy at a loss, and not a source of energy. Thus, in order to replace oil we would not only need to dig up all the raw materials required to build these technologies—by using diesel fuel, what else?—but we would also need to multiply the electric grid’s capacity in order to cater for battery charging and hydrogen production demands. Even when considering engine inefficiencies, and calculating with the net energy portion of diesel, jet fuel and gasoline only² we would still need to produce at least 395 kilowatt-hours of power for each barrel of oil replaced. For the 103 million barrels humans burned every single day in 2025—that energy amounts to 40.7 Terawatt hours per day, or 14,850 TWh for an entire year… And we haven’t even taken electric engine and AC/DC conversion losses (10%) or battery recharge cycle inefficiencies (another 10%) into account—let alone the enormous energy cost of generating hydrogen… Not to speak of transmission losses over the grid which could be as high as 60% in the case of America or 40-50% everywhere else. All in all, as this back of an envelope calculation shows, we would need to generate around 36,600 TWhs of electricity on top of the existing 32,600 TWhs produced annually—just to electrify every machine which currently burns oil products globally. And then we haven’t even mentioned electrifying the industry which would take a similar amount of electricity. Triple that grid Mr. President, please.

In order to achieve our current grid expansion goals (which are far-far lower than we calculated above) the US alone would need to install 5,000 miles of new high-voltage lines annually, yet actual additions have collapsed from nearly 4,000 miles in 2013 to a historic low average of just 392 miles between 2022 and 2025. During the same time period China has doubled it’s electricity generation and now consumes nearly 33% of all electric power generated globally, while America’s share has fallen below 15%. Yet, expanding the grid and generation capacity is not even the biggest concern here, no matter how insurmountable a challenge it might seem in the West. It’s not even battery manufacturing capacity, much of which was going into electric vehicles already, and has surpassed 1.5 Terawatts of storage created annually. It’s the global scale of the change, combined with the rapid depletion of resources needed to make the shift, that will eventually put the energy transition into death.

“I have to finish this sweater before I run out of yarn!”

As a 2024 (but now removed) study by Rystad found: we have no more than a couple of years before we max out global oil supply, facing a long decline afterwards. And while green energy fans might rejoice, while envisioning a smooth ride into an electrified utopia, they have to be reminded that we are still mining (and thereby destroying) the planet with diesel fuel. And without mining, there is no aluminum, nickel, copper etc. needed to build batteries and to expand the electric grid with. Nor food… Or long distance transportation… Let alone construction. The coming peak in supply is not a matter of investment decisions either: we are no longer able to replace those oil reserves we have used up³ and now have to live off of our legacy fields—much of which have already passed their production peak. Making matters worse while these older larger fields deplete slowly at first, their depletion rate accelerates with time. (These results were later confirmed by the IEA as well.) The oil economy faces a double whammy from worsening energy returns on investment on one side, and an absolute depletion on the other; leading to a precipitous fall in net value delivered to society.

That, my friends, is a mighty big peak in global oil production. Source: IEA

And it’s not just oil, but copper as well. Independent from what happens to oil, or whether we manage to electrify mining or not, the world is rapidly approaching an inflection point where mined copper supply begins to fall—irrespective of demand or investment decisions. So, even as global mined copper output reached a record 22.8 million tons in 2024, the IEA expects global supply to peak later this decade (at around 24 million tons) before falling noticeably to less than 19 million tons by 2035, as ore grades decline, reserves become depleted and mines are retired. Despite the potential contribution from African copper, new greenfield supply will struggle to make up the difference, as it takes 17 years on average till a mine starts production from discovery, and as new mines cost more and more to open. Simply put, we have run out of time, capital, reserves and energy to prevent a massive shortfall in copper production by 2030.

On the demand side, at the same time, achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would require a whopping 460% increase in copper production, which would necessitate the opening of 194 new large-scale mines over the next 32 years; tapping into imaginary reserves which are simply nowhere to be found. I think it’s not a terribly risky bet to say: it probably ain’t gonna happen… What you see here is what your ‘grandma running out of yarn before she finishes’ means in real life.

366. Land Ownership and Localism – Not a Return to Feudalism

Posted on 23/07/2026 by Barry

A move towards localism is sometimes misunderstood as a return to the past – perhaps even a return to feudalism, where a small number of landowners controlled most of the countryside and ordinary people had little say over how land was used. That is not the intention.

Localism requires the opposite. It requires that ordinary people have a greater connection with the land on which they live and the ability to produce at least some of the essentials of life.

Land ownership should not mean that a few individuals or corporations control a finite resource that everyone depends upon. Land is not simply another financial asset. It is the foundation of food, water, biodiversity and community life.

A localist society would seek a wider distribution of access to land. This does not mean that everyone needs to own a large farm. A small plot, allotment, community garden or shared local holding can provide valuable food production and reconnect people with the natural systems that support them.

The aim is not ownership by a privileged few, but stewardship by many.

What Kind of Farming?

The farming system required for a localist future would be very different from the industrial model that developed during the period of cheap fossil energy.

Industrial agriculture depends heavily on machinery, long supply chains, artificial fertilisers, pesticides and global markets. It has achieved very high yields, but it has also created problems – soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, dependence on imported inputs and vulnerability when energy becomes expensive.

Local farming would focus more on resilience than maximum production.

This could include:

Market gardens producing vegetables close to where people live.
Mixed farms combining crops and livestock rather than separating them.
Agroforestry where trees, crops and animals are integrated together.
Permaculture systems designed around natural cycles.
Small orchards and community food growing areas.
Traditional crop varieties that are adapted to local conditions.

The emphasis would be on producing nutritious food with fewer external inputs and using local knowledge.

What About Fertiliser?

Modern agriculture relies heavily on nitrogen fertiliser produced using natural gas. This has been one of the major drivers of increased food production over the last century. However, it is also an example of how the industrial economy depends upon abundant energy.

A localist future would need to reduce dependence on synthetic fertilisers and rebuild natural soil fertility.

Possible approaches include:

Compost made from local organic waste.
Animal manure from local livestock systems.
Green manures, where crops such as clover and legumes are grown to fix nitrogen naturally.
Cover crops to protect soil and improve fertility.
Biochar, produced from organic material, to improve soil structure and retain nutrients.
Careful crop rotation to prevent soil exhaustion.

This does not mean abandoning all modern knowledge. Science and technology will still have a role. The difference is that technology would support natural systems rather than attempting to replace them.

Land as a Community Asset

In a localist economy, land would increasingly be viewed as a community asset rather than simply a commodity.

This could include:

Community-owned farms.
Shared equipment pools.
Local food cooperatives.
Small parcels made available for new growers.
Long-term leases that encourage stewardship.

A young person should not need to inherit wealth or buy hundreds of acres to participate in food production. Access to land is as important as access to education or housing.

The Scale of Farming

The future is unlikely to be a return to the small farms of the past exactly as they existed. Those farms often involved very hard physical labour and low productivity.

Nor is the answer simply to continue with ever larger industrial farms.

The likely direction is a mixture:

Larger areas producing staple crops efficiently.
Smaller local farms producing fresh food.
Communities growing some of their own requirements.
More integration between town and countryside.

The key change is that food production becomes less distant and anonymous. People understand where their food comes from and participate in maintaining the systems that produce it.

Land Ownership and the Post-Growth Economy

As the economy moves away from the era of unlimited growth based on cheap energy, land will become increasingly important.

The question will not simply be “how much money can land make?” but “how can land support the survival and wellbeing of communities?”

Localism is therefore not about going backwards. It is about adapting to a different economic reality.

The industrial age allowed humanity to separate itself from local resources. Cheap energy made it possible to import food, transport goods across the world and concentrate ownership.

A post-growth future will require a closer relationship between people and place.

Land should belong to people – but ownership must come with responsibility. The purpose of land is not only to generate wealth. Its deeper purpose is to sustain life.