I picked up a few loaves of bread today at our bakery, a third generation family business with the fourth generation having just joined their team. Last year our baker changed his use of flour, working with a German farmer to abolish any additives. He recently changed his product range more drastically, no longer baking tin loaves and only baking floor breads, which is something he can do throughout the day ensuring less waste and unsold bread. Today he told me how these steps will help him fully switch to renewable energy. Abolishing baking tins reduces the amount of energy he needs significantly. “Now I don’t also have to heat up many kilos of steel in every baking run, I only need to heat up the loaves.” That reduced energy need allows him to switch from gas heated ovens to fully electric ones. The switch to only electric energy makes it possible to switch to solar in turn. He’s now calculating if his own ample and neighbour’s roofspace will be able to generate enough electricity for him to (store and) use for his baking, taking into account his now reduced energy need. He realises it will mean a difference in his day rhythm as well, and in the size and demands made of his team. I was quite impressed how casually he talked about these plans, and I doubt it is known to e.g. regional government who are always talking about the importance of energy transition that there are artisans and entrepreneurs out there already leading the way on their own accord.
What a sad and disheartening story!
Technical progress was supposed to be about empowering people, expanding opportunities, enabling more options. Here, the baker had to drastically reduce his baking options, completely getting rid of a baking technology that allowed him to do things that he can no longer do with the technology he has left (or there would be no need for the drastic change in his product range).
Instead of having more and more cheap energy year after year, people take desperate measures to get rid of energy-hungry processess. Our civilization has definitely chosen the wrong path and some point in the last 60 years!