The Fossil-Fuel-Free Cities of the Future Sure Look Weird

Here’s a cow in a public park with a tube surgically implanted in its stomach, collecting methane that powers a milking machine that dispensing fresh-from-the-teat moo juice into your to-go cup. The future’s looking good, right?

A city full of machine-enhanced dairy cattle was just one idea floated at Post-Fossil City, a competition imagining what the planet will look like once humanity ditches carbon fuels. Run by two researchers at Utrecht University’s Urban Futures Studio, the event recently concluded with an exhibition at the Utrecht Centraal railway station exploring speculative technology from angles like food, sound, smell, mobility, and performance art.