Tag Archives: eco-friendly

170. Steel and Timber: A Tale of Two Lifecycles

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In the first part of this series we asked how we might escape the Iron Age, this part asks what might replace it.

Steel and timber offer two very different pathways into the future. One depends on vast global systems; the other draws strength from locality and renewal.

1. The making of materials

Steel begins its life in the ground. Iron ore is mined, transported, smelted in blast furnaces, mixed with coke made from coal, and then rolled, forged, and shipped across continents. Each stage demands heavy machinery, high temperatures, and long supply chains. A tonne of new steel typically produces around 1.8 tonnes of CO₂ before it reaches a construction site.

Note: One tonne = about one metric ton

Timber starts with sunlight, rain, and soil. Its energy source is the sun itself. The conversion from raw tree to beam or panel requires cutting, drying, and shaping, but the energy inputs are a fraction of those of steel. A cubic metre of sawn timber can store roughly one tonne of CO₂ absorbed during growth. Properly managed, forests can provide a renewable feedstock rather than a mined one.

2. Durability and repair

Steel’s great virtue is strength and predictability. It resists bending, carries high loads, and lasts for decades. Yet it rusts, fatigues, and fails if maintenance lapses. Protective coatings and paint systems require periodic renewal, often using petrochemical products. Once corrosion takes hold, repair can be costly or impossible.

Timber decays in damp conditions but can be protected naturally—through design, ventilation, and maintenance rather than chemicals. Traditional carpentry allowed parts to be replaced, patched, or scarfed in. A timber bridge or hall can last centuries, provided its joints stay dry. In a shrinking economy where labour is plentiful but energy is scarce, repairable materials gain new value.

3. Embodied energy and recycling

Steel can be recycled almost indefinitely, but recycling itself requires heat—usually from electricity or gas. The world already recycles about 30–40% of its steel, but as De Decker notes, there isn’t enough scrap to meet ongoing demand. Recycling is useful but cannot expand faster than old structures wear out.

Timber recycling is simpler. Offcuts can be re-milled, reused, or burned for heat. In an informal economy, where waste and fuel merge, every scrap can serve a second purpose. And because timber’s embodied energy is low, even one reuse cycle dramatically improves its lifetime carbon profile.

4. Scale and land

Timber has one serious limitation: it grows slowly and needs land. Converting the entire industrial system to wood would be impossible. But that is not the point. A shrinking economy does not require steel and timber on equal industrial scale. It requires balance—small wooden structures locally made, with the remaining steel reserved for essential heavy tasks: railways, tools, and key machinery.

In this way, contraction becomes an ally. As material demand falls, the renewable capacity of woodlands can begin to match human need. Forestry becomes a cornerstone of local resilience rather than a global commodity.

5. Localism as a lifecycle

In industrial thinking, a material’s lifecycle ends at the scrap yard.

In a local economy, the cycle loops within walking distance: trees become beams, beams become buildings, offcuts heat the workshop, and ash returns to the soil. Each step feeds the next.

Steel belongs to the age of extraction. Timber belongs to the age of regeneration.

6. Living well within limits

Steel’s story is one of power: how humans mastered fire and ore. Timber’s story is one of relationship: how we work with what grows around us.

As the economy contracts, the balance shifts from extraction to stewardship. The materials we choose will shape not only our buildings, but our way of life.

A timber economy will not replace steel in every task. But it can replace the mindset that built the Iron Age in the first place.

126. The Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE): Understanding the Core Constraint of the Modern Economy

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  • The Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE) is a vital but often overlooked concept. It refers to the share of energy output that must be used to extract, process, and deliver energy itself. In other words, it’s the energy we spend to get energy. The lower the ECoE, the more net energy remains to power the rest of the economy—everything from farming to hospitals to mobile phone factories.

A Brief History of ECoE

In the early days of fossil fuels, ECoEs were remarkably low. For example, early oil wells in Texas could produce 100 barrels of oil for every barrel of energy invested—an ECoE of just 1%. Coal, oil, and later natural gas allowed industrial economies to expand rapidly because they delivered massive net energy surpluses.

However, over time, the low-hanging fruit was picked. Oil reservoirs became harder to access. Deepwater drilling, tar sands, and shale fracking emerged as substitutes, but they required far more energy input. ECoEs began to rise.

Today, according to analysts such as Tim Morgan and the Surplus Energy Economics model, ECoE for fossil fuels is far higher than it was in the 20th century and continues to climb. Renewable sources like wind and solar may offer lower ECoEs in the long term, but their intermittency and reliance on complex, high-energy infrastructure mean their true ECoEs are not trivial.

ECoE and the Structure of the Economy

As ECoE rises, the surplus energy available to do everything else in society falls. This shift hits the economy in a particularly telling way: it squeezes the space available for discretionary activities.

The economy can be divided into two broad zones:

  • Essential sectors: food, healthcare, heating, basic transport, water, sanitation—these are the foundation of civilised life.
  • Discretionary sectors: tourism, high-street retail, entertainment, aviation, luxury goods—these depend on surplus wealth and energy.

When ECoE was low, there was enough energy to expand both sectors. But as ECoE rises, essential needs take priority. The discretionary sector—vulnerable to even small energy and financial shocks—begins to shrink.

This helps explain why ordinary people experience a sense of stagnation or decline even as official GDP figures show modest growth. Their access to discretionary consumption is quietly evaporating, not because they are lazy or mismanage their finances, but because there is less surplus energy to support those activities.

What Happens When There Isn’t Enough Net Energy?

If the ECoE rises so high that even essential activities cannot be fully supported, societies face a more severe crisis than a financial recession. Essential services such as food production, public health, and critical infrastructure begin to falter.

This is not theoretical. In some parts of the world today, power outages, water shortages, and food insecurity are symptoms of systems under stress, financially and energetically.

At this stage, governments are forced into triage: rationing, blackouts, collapse of discretionary sectors, and perhaps nationalisation of vital energy sources. Inflation may rage as real goods and services become scarcer, while money loses its anchoring function. Social unrest becomes likely.

A Glimpse Ahead

Unless the energy system can deliver a lower ECoE—either through new technologies, a renaissance in nuclear power, or a radical simplification of living standards—the modern, consumption-driven way of life will continue to contract. This contraction is not a policy choice; it is a physical necessity. The real economy follows the laws of thermodynamics, not economics textbooks.

In the long run, societies will need to relocalise, reduce their dependence on high-energy discretionary consumption, and prioritise basic needs through more resilient, informal systems. Communities may rediscover older, slower ways of meeting needs through shared labour, seasonal diets, and low-tech tools. The future may not be bright, but it can still be liveable—if we accept the limits imposed by energy reality.

Localism provides an evolutionary way of seeing the future.