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can begin to construct energy storage systems for individual buildings;
systems which draw from central supplies at a steady, low level, and
store energy for use during short-term peaks. Systems of this sort make
individual buildings more independent while reducing the capacities
required by central plants. Still other systems for resource balancing
can be found in small-scale versions of the great power grids, which will
link all of a community's resources to meet peaks with shared capacity.
Closed water systems can recirculate most water, the way HVAC
systems now recirculate air. The little fresh water needed for periodic
topping off can be supplied by local wells, rainwater, precipitation of
moisture from the atmosphere or truck delivery. The additional cost of
local hardware would be balanced in the savings realized through the
elimination of public water systems, savings which are not only mone–
tary, but visual and ecological as well. Work of this sort has been under
way for some time as part of recent programs for naval vessels, space
vehicles and aircraft. Large aircraft manufacturers have increased the
time required between toilet waste removal and input to water supply
from eight hours to hundreds of hours by introducing techniques which
separate drinking and wash water from waste water through recircula–
tion and solid waste removal and compaction. The space program has
developed systems to sustain life with recirculated fluids for trips to
Mars. (Other systems are under study which include the waste as a
source of heat, hot water or power.)
Closed systems of this sort are more than more efficient ways of
doing what needs to be done. They reflect the development of a new
synthesis, in which the family unit will have moved from the early
freedom of its earth-related, closed system (the land, a well, septic tank,
compost heap and fireplace) through the linear development of public
utilities to a new level of independence. High technology products will
supply human needs without the constraints created by our present view
of utilities.
But can existing industries reorient themselves to provide these
new tools? Can they turn their energies from metropolitan power gen–
eration -with its related problems of air and thermal pollution, oil
spills, blackouts, congestion and inflexibility - or from the construction
of thirty million gallon per day desalinization plants and even larger
canals and reservoirs? Can they begin to concentrate on the new
dispersed package? Experience would indicate that they will not. Just
as the railroads could not move into the emerging automobile industry,
the telephone companies did not enter radio, the photographic estab–
lishment did not discover polaroid photography or dry copying and
