Message-ID: <000601bd770c$acea6fc0$53745ecc@jay95> Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 17:28:14 -1000 From: Jay Hanson <mailto:j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: THE END OF CHEAP OIL To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
From: tom abeles <mailto:tabeles@tmn.com>
>The first article, while pointing out the potential end or "cheap oil"
>ends by also pointing out that there are a number of alternatives, other
>than conservation or radical changes in lifestyle which would permit
>humans to continue to be energy gluttons. These alternatives are not the
>sustainable ones of conservation, solar, wind and biomass as the
>dominant players.
This is really not a possibility. There is no way the consumer society can survive the depletion of oil.
I will post "Net Energy" which goes into more detail.
>Second, the Odum article was written in '76 and assumes that money is
>tied to productivity when in fact, today, 20+ years later, in the age of
>instant electronics, money has been decoupled from the material
>production of goods. We have a fudge factor which trys to fix the
Not true. Per capita energy use in the US has been rising since 1991.[23] World oil consumption rose by 2.4 percent in 1996 to 69.55 million barrels a day[24] with OPEC output hitting an 18-year high of 27.39 million barrels a day in August of 1997.[25] Global oil production is expected to "peak" sometime around the year 2005.[26] As oil is depleted and replaced by lower quality fuels, energy efficiency will also decline and take the economy with it:
If one considers the last one hundred years of the U.S. experience, fuel use and economic output are highly correlated. An important measure of fuel efficiency is the ratio of energy use to the gross national product, E/GNP. The E/GNP ratio has fallen by about 42% since 1929. We find that the improvement in energy efficiency is due principally to three factors: (1) shifts to higher quality fuels such as petroleum and primary electricity; (2) shifts in energy use between households and other sectors; and (3) higher fuel prices. Energy quality is by far the dominant factor.[22]
References at www.dieoff.org
Jay