Fossil energy minimum viable scale.

The nascent global energy transition involves two parallel, mirrored processes: the retirement of existing fossil fuel–based infrastructure, and the widespread deployment of alternatives in its stead. Most energy transition research and policy have focused on the latter process of development, adoption, and buildout. Far less attention has been paid to the challenges and emergent behaviors associated with the decline of legacy fossil energy systems. We identify a risk of collapses in service availability as specific elements of fossil infrastructures reach what we term "minimum viable scale," a level of throughput past which existing physical, financial, and managerial infrastructures can no longer effectively operate as expected. We establish a framework of different types of constraint that can impose a minimum viable scale and identify such constraints in several example fossil systems within the US. Evidence of widespread minimum viable scales should motivate a paradigm shift in system and decarbonization planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]