Alvin Toffler: Rural Bioconverters as an Alternative to Urbanism

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The great American futurist Alvin Toffler gives the countryside a chance. His forecast is that the countryside will be covered by a network of "biotransformers" where biomass waste is converted into food, feed, fiber, bioplastics and other goods. The domestic bioeconomy of the United States will be able to meet 90% of the country's need for organic chemical fertilizers and 50% for liquid fuel. Every million liters of bioethanol produced creates 38 direct jobs. Therefore, jobs are created not "near the oil pipe", but in agricultural regions.

American philosopher and futurist Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi Toffler published Revolutionary Wealth in 2006. There was still no power of the Internet, the flourishing of alternative energy and robotization, but Toffler was already looking beyond the horizon of our time. For example, he not only draws attention to the fact that "time has become denser" (the same processes a hundred years ago and today go at different speeds), but that traditional institutions - family and education, bureaucracy and political parties - are increasingly lagging behind growth rates production, from new values, communications and from the process of globalization. And this discrepancy between the old institutions and the processes of the new time is the source of the coming crisis.

In the foreword of the book, the Toffler couple writes:

"Wealth arises not only in fields, factories, in offices. Revolutionary wealth is associated not only with money. Nowadays, even the most dull observers can not help but see that the economy of the United States and a number of other countries is transforming, turning into an intelligent economy controlled by reason. The full impact of this transformation both on the fate of an individual and on the fate of all countries and even continents is yet to be felt. The past half century was only the prologue of this transformation."

Nevertheless, the Tofflers in their book pay attention to the transformation of old institutions - for example, rural production, assuming that it, having transformed, will give people an alternative to urban lifestyle. We are citing an excerpt from the book "Revolutionary Wealth" about the new life of the countryside.

"In a stunning document that has not received much attention, the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security Policy paints a picture of a world where" agricultural fields will have the same meaning as oil fields."

Even the managers of oil companies started talking about the "last days of the oil century." Dr. Robert Armstrong, author of the National Defense University report, expands on this idea, arguing that we are moving towards a biology-based economy, where "gasoline will replace genes" as a key source of not only various raw materials, but also energy.

At the beginning of the 21st century, American farmers produced 280 million tons of waste leaves, stems and other plant waste per year. Some of this material is already being used, turning into chemicals, electricity, lubricants, plastics, adhesives, and most importantly, fuel. This is, however, only the beginning. Armstrong foresees that the countryside will be covered with a network of "biotransformers" where biomass waste is converted into food, feed, fiber, bioplastics and other goods. He quotes from the 1999 National Research Committee's report that the US domestic bioeconomy "will be able to meet 90% of the country's need for organic chemical fertilizers and 50% for liquid fuels."

And this applies not only to America. In such an economy, Armstrong continues, "genes will be the basic raw materials, and unlike oil, they can be found everywhere." Thus, he predicts a gigantic geopolitical power shift from desert oil powers to tropical regions with a rich and diverse biosphere.

"In the biotech world," writes Armstrong, "our relationship with Ecuador (which is a representative country) will become more meaningful than our relationship with Saudi Arabia." Reason: Ecuador is distinguished by a much greater diversity of the biosphere, and therefore also a diversity of genes, which has potential value for the whole world. If this is true in the case of Ecuador, what about Brazil? Or Central Africa?

The Eden Project in Cornwall, England, started by Tim Smith, is the largest greenhouse in the world. Smith believes that “we are on the eve of a great revolution. Vegetable raw materials can be used to produce composite materials that are stronger than steel and Kevlar. The applications are phenomenal. Every country in the world can have modern materials derived from its own plants.

Moreover, Smith continues, "Bioconverters should be built close to sources of raw materials. Regional agriculture is likely to develop and special crops will be grown in certain regions to supply local bioconverters. This process will create non-agricultural jobs in agricultural areas."

Armstrong concludes: "An economy based on biotechnology can ultimately stop urbanization."

North America plans to sow empty fields with miscanthus, a giant elephant grass. Research shows that one hectare can produce enough fuel by burning to replace 40 barrels of oil.

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An example of Russia.

On the territory of Russia, it is technically possible already now to annually use about 800 million tons of woody biomass, which is not used for timber harvesting at present, and about 400 million tons of dry matter of organic waste, with 250 million tons of them of agricultural origin, 70 million tons of forestry and woodworking industries, 10 million tons of wood and deciduous waste (collected annually in cities), 60 million tons of solid household waste (mainly pulp and paper products and plastics) and 10 million tons other waste (for example, municipal sewage sludge, etc.). Their processing potentially makes it possible to obtain 350-400 million tons of standard fuel per year and open up to 500 thousand new jobs.

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Example of the USA.

Every million liters of bioethanol produced creates 38 direct jobs. Therefore, jobs are created not "near the oil pipe", but in agricultural regions. Sugar (glucose), starch (sugarcane) or cellulose (straw, sawdust) are used as raw materials for most bioeconomy products. One of the most modern bio-plants is the Dupont plant, which annually produces 100 thousand tons of bioplastic from corn. This bioplastic is superior to nylon in terms of cost and consumer qualities.