Industrial symbiosis and the successional city : adapting exchange networks to energy constraints

Abstract

Industrial ecology offers models for hybridizing technology and natural processes, human desires and the capacities of ecosystems in an effort to reconcile the expanding conflicts among them. Industrial symbiosis applies this thinking to the scale of the city and its supporting industrial operations. Case studies of industrial symbiosis, which is the changing of linear, open-loop production to closed-loop systems through the reuse and exchange of waste materials, energy, and knowledge, showcase advantages in waste and energy use reduction within the United States. What are the major limits holding back the widespread development of industrial symbiosis in this country and how can they be overcome? Secondly, what tools can foster its large-scale implementation once the constraints are overcome? Methodologically, the successful study of the future capacity of industrial symbiosis within the American context must address the future consequences of resources that are no longer cheap nor abundant, as well as the current state of their production, distribution, and consumption.

(cont.) The major constraints facing industrial symbiosis in America are: current extremely high subsidies in transport and resource costs, low symbiosis visibility, non-existent data collection standards, undeveloped communication networks, and no unified regulatory mechanisms. Future limits and cost changes in transport and resources will become the ultimate push to make exchange habits a widespread practice in the United States, enabling the above issues to be effectively addressed. The timing of these limits is uncertain. Yet, planners must be in the right place at the right time with the proper tools to facilitate a transition to the widespread implementation of industrial symbiosis. This thesis provides a framework for how planners can foster the successful large-scale implementation of industrial symbiosis in the U.S. through a variety of interventions. It suggests four distinct tools: increased visibility of industrial symbiosis through marketing outlets; a new web-based "social-networking" tool for industries to share information and expand communication; a multiple-tiered regulation structure to facilitate standards development; and lastly physical planning that intelligently responds to future trends in energy, resources, mobility, and spatial patterns of industrial development.