[Graeme]

Bacteria Can Build Better Roads for Our Peak Oil Years

Local jurisdictions in Red state America, increasingly unable to agree to taxes to jointly afford repaving at peak oil prices are simply letting roads decline – in the same way as after the fall of the Roman Empire, in the dark ages there, many roads in Europe returned to mud tracks.

But an innovative new oil-free way of surfacing roads could be on the way to save us from peak oil. This “sandstone” road surface is built by bacteria just using sand, so it’s cheaper. The idea from Thomas Kosbau + Andrew Wetzler is the winning entry in the Korean green design iida awards, announced by designboom.

cleantechnica

[PrestonSturges]

I read about this....we might make free form houses or entire cities.

[dolanbaker]

after the fall of the Roman Empire, in the dark ages there, many roads in Europe returned to mud tracks.

The main reason for this was because the local people didn't need to travel to the same places the Romans did, many Roman roads were simply abandoned and the dirt tracks went between the new places that replaced the Roman empire.

Anyway, Tarmac is simply a byproduct of oil refining, were it not for roadbuilding/maintenance it would probably be dumped. As it is, iirc the more frequent use of "heavy" oils will have a higher percentage of bituman produced per barrel than the sweet crude.

[The_Toecutter]

The amount of oil used to pave roads is next to inconsequential compared to the amount used to drive our automobiles. Paving roads in a post peak scenario would be the least of our problems...