Timeline for Localisation

2005 - 2015

• Worldwide depression develops due to the failure of the oil and gas producing countries to spend their windfall profits back into the global economy.
• Ireland hit more seriously than most other EU countries because of its higher dependence on imports of fossil fuels and on export markets for its products. Unemployment soars.
• Rapid collapse of activity in construction sector. Housing market plummets. Banks in difficulties as house buyers are unable to repay loans and find themselves deeply into negative equity.
• World food prices drop because the marginal buyers cannot afford to pay as much as previously. Farms quickly start to produce locally required foods as they can get better prices for them. Farmers’ markets open in every town.
• Internet access is unreliable as many servers are no longer available 24/7.
• Oil prices peak and then drop back to around $12 a barrel. Exploration and reserve development projects are cancelled. Shell mothballs its Athabasca tar sands project. Ireland finds itself with excess electricity generating capacity. No further wind farms are permitted to connect to the national grid.

2016-2055

• By 2020, another 2-year oil price peak has happened, only to see prices collapse back to the $12 a barrel level.
• The world economy is contracting, with firms closing and their equipment being scrapped during each downturn of the cycle. A limited amount of investment takes place during the recovery phase of the cycle but previous output levels are never achieved again. Each peak in global production, and in total energy use, is lower than the one ten or fifteen years previously.
• People do what they can to meet their own needs. Energy is expensive in their own terms because their earnings are low.
• A transition to low energy, labour-intensive ways of doing things takes place because money (and energy) for capital equipment is not available.
• Households will need to repair possessions as they will not have the money to dump worn or broken goods and buy new ones. Machines will have to last a lot longer. Cannibalisation for parts will be common.
• Travel will be limited because it will be expensive and people will have less need to travel.
• Local and regional governments, strapped for money to pay their workers, will begin to issue their own currencies as happened in Argentina.
• The Internet will be an important source of information about ways of adapting to the new conditions. E-commerce will be almost entirely local except for the supply of rare parts to maintain equipment
• Local sources of energy such as biomass will be developed where possible.
• Little used, the national electricity grid may prove too expensive to maintain in view of the high cost of repairs and the loss of 10% of the power passing through it.
• Local energy supplies will develop that use the local electricity distribution system but not the grid. Slowly a new grid will develop from a web of interconnecting mini-grids.
• Almost no new building will be carried on. What construction activity there is will be the adaptation of existing buildings for new uses, usually by the occupants and local builders, using recycled materials. Big houses will be shared.
• The massive drop in energy use will remove the pressure to act to prevent climate change.
• Localised famines will develop because of the difficulties with long-distance transport
• Transport by sea will become more important - settlement patterns more coastal. Irish Rail will run its trains on rapeseed oil. Tractors will run on biodiesal and (a very few) cars will be run on methane from digesters.
• The government will find it increasingly difficult to maintain control because it will be harder for people to travel. This will give an impetus towards a real decentralisation.
• Very little production will be based on 'new' resources. Most materials will be recycled. For example, what little steel production is carried on will be based on scrap metal.

2055:

• New things becoming possible with the growing sophistication of local economies.