I recently sat down and had a chat with Rob Eales who runs the very interesting sidelong magazine. We were talking about design futures and the possibilities of what might happen in manufacturing after we hit peak oil. So below is a short design futures article on Seasonal Manufacturing – Manufacturing Post Peak Oil.
The last day of the summer dawns, the sun peeks through your window as you rise to head out to begin a long day of molding your latest plastic (corn starch based plastic of course) design. Maybe its a bucket or some kitchenware. You walk down the garden path and remove the heavy canvas covers from your solar furnace. You load in the raw plastic, seal the furnace and head back inside to finish your latest design and wait for the suns rays to heat your furnace and the plastic inside to the required 250˚C. Around midday the furnace finally reaches the required temperature.
You don your leather protective gear and prep the molds. Making sure they are clean and then running clay around the outside so that once they are clamped together and the plastic is poured, they will be completely sealed. You are hoping that this round of molding won’t have anymore quality issues like the last four, as this is the last day of summer that will be hot enough for your solar furnace to reach the required temperature. Meaning that until next summer comes around, you will be unable to create anymore plastic moldings. As you pour the molten plastic, the moisture in the clay evaporates, enveloping you in a cloud of steam as it hisses and spits from the sides of the mold. As the molds cool, you begin to wonder whether you should setup a solar kiln in readiness for next year, as you have been considering a new range of dinner plates.
This batch has turned out perfectly, you load them into your electric car, check the car is plugged in for charging so it will be ready for the delivery tomorrow morning and head in to prepare your meal from the veggies grown in your organic garden.
Could this become the reality of local manufacturing? Will it become seasonal, the ability to mold plastics limited to summer? Will plastic bucket season only be in the hottest periods of the summer? Metal and plastic smelting & molding only possible in the hottest parts of the planet?
What are your thoughts on potential design futures? Share them with us in the comments.
