In a Policy Forum, Joshua Lappen and Emily Grubert discuss the unseen infrastructural threats that may arise as fossil energy systems are phased out. According to the authors, acknowledging and planning for limits in the “minimum viable scale” of fossil fuel systems is essential to achieving a safe, just, and credible transition to a low-carbon energy future. The global energy transition relies on two parallel processes – building new low-carbon systems while carefully winding down the fossil-fuel infrastructure that has long powered humanity. To date, research and policy have focused great attention on growth and replacement and far less on how firmly entrenched legacy fossil fuel-based energy systems behave as they shrink. According to Lappen and Grubert, this neglect is risky because such systems may fail once they fall below a minimum viable scale, the point at which their physical, financial, and managerial foundations can no longer operate as expected, triggering service collapses, safety hazards, economic shocks, and environmental harm. This could erode public trust in the energy transition itself.  Minimum viable scales may be much larger and closer than commonly recognized, say the authors. Here, Lappen and Grubert evaluate the constraints that underlie the minimum viable scale of several key components of the fossil fuel economy, including petroleum refineries, natural gas pipelines, and coal-fired electric services. They highlight how the failure of a single component can cascade across these highly interdependent networks. The authors argue that improved modeling and coordinated planning can mitigate these risks.

Podcast: A segment of Science's weekly podcast with Joshua Lappen and Emily Grubert, related to this research, will be available on the Science.org podcast landing page [http://www.science.org/podcasts] after the embargo lifts. Reporters are free to make use of the segments for broadcast purposes and/or quote from them – with appropriate attribution (i.e., cite "Science podcast"). Please note that the file itself should not be posted to any other Web site.

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