In 2008, The New York Times reported 56% of the energy generated in the United States was wasted. In electricity generation, 66% was lost as heat out the smoke stacks of remote power plants and another ten percent lost during transmission. Of transportation energy, 71% was lost from heavy, idling vehicles and cars carrying only a driver. Meaning, in a time when fossil fuel resources are declining around the world, over half the 100 Quadrillion BTU’s generated in the US consumed fuel without doing any work.
The first step to eliminating such enormous waste is of course compact, car-free, 3D eco-cities composed of mid-rise, mixed use buildings that incorporate urban farming and local agriculture. Cities themselves save energy by shortening transportation and energy transmission distances, trading horizontal movement snarled in traffic for moving people vertically in elevators. In New York City, for example, 75% of families do not own automobiles. Eco-cities take this a step further, seeking balance between the density necessary to walk or cycle to home, work, school, cultural attractions and entertainment and open green spaces for aesthetic beauty and urban farming to lure people away from sprawling suburbs by making cities highly desirable places to live.
I don't know if I can take future the the Chinese eco-cities projects seriously.
More from Warren Weisman:
Gas from the Past: Biogas 101
Related:
10 Audacious Ideas to Save the Planet
Sustainable Cities 2011 Conference
5 Eco Cities of the Future Coming to the Here and Now
Eco-City Movement
Eco-Cities: Sustainability at the Scale of a City
Norman Foster’s City of the Future: Sustainable, zero-waste and car-free
Video: Eco-Cities, Sustainable Cities for the Future
Sustainable Eco City Concept in Germany
Early Eco-cities
Tianjin Eco-City
China’s Grand Plans for Eco-Cities Now Lie Abandoned
Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or Shape of the Future
Ecocities Project
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