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CONFERENCE: International Cities Town Centres & Communities Society Conference - Victoria, Australia, October 2009
 
ABSTRACT:
Currently we live in a society high in energy consumption. In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 Exajouls with about 90% derived from the combustion of hydrocarbons. We demand this enormous volume of energy not only to feed and heat ourselves, but also to maintain the overall standard of living currently available in our great cities. This uncontrollable demand for energy is directly affecting its supply. At the moment about forty percent of world’s energy demand is fulfilled by oil, which energy experts estimate has either already reached its peak production or will be at the peak within the next 5 to 10 years.
In this context, the purpose of this paper is to identify an alternative city design approach, which will be required to prepare our urban environment appropriately for the period, when the current energy system will be forced to transform into a renewable energy arrangement due to a dramatic and significant reduction in the hydrocarbon energy supply. The paper examines progressive development in city design approaches from the firewood to the coal age and then to the oil era. Then the paper analyses the nature of the alternative energy sources and their effects on the performance of our current city models. At the end the paper illustrates an alternative city design approach based on recent developments in hydrogen fuel cell research, intended to combat any dramatic fall in our quality of life beyond the oil era.

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