[Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

[David Morelli]

On Jan 26, 2007, at 10:15 AM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> David wrote:
>
> "We have sun, tide, and ground heat that will last for thousands  
> of  centuries... What energy is available?  A flat, black steel  
> plate will maintain  170F to 250F all day...
>
> The question of "how much do we need?"  can miss the whole solution."
>
> Okay, that's where we have a fundamental disagreement. When the  
> human population was been small enough and our technology primitive  
> enough that, in spite of our best efforts to devastate the  
> environment, we could not; we didn't need to know how much we  
> needed to take from our environment or what the impact of our  
> choices might be.
>  ...
> I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get my point. Until we  
> establish how much we need, we don't know which solutions come with  
> acceptable costs and we don't know which possibilities for the  
> future offer the most promise.
> ...
> Few people today make those sacrifices thinking they are providing  
> for a better future. Indeed, everything we hear today is that, in  
> spite of best efforts, we're losing the energy battle. We'll  
> eventually live in the dark and the cold while our food crops  
> wither and die under the effects of global warming. If we want  
> people to react positively, they need to know what to do to  
> succeed, and that begins with answering the question, "How much  
> energy do we need to thrive?"
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire

Ron,

Perhaps, we are not communicating.  And in the process of writing  
this my opinion is moderating.

I have said that I believe that there is sufficient energy for our  
species to thrive.  I believe that we need to start by determining  
how much energy consumption can be sustained.  When we have done  
that, I fully expect that we will find that we need to reduce total  
human energy consumption.

All the hydro, solar, tidal, wave, wood, coal, oil, nuclear, and  
geothermal energy that is available to us is not sufficient for us to  
continue to do "business as usual".  That is bad news.  And we can  
destroy the planet if we ignore that bad news.  Which is terrible news.

As a member of the world we need to adjust our perspective.  Rather  
than using the expansive word "much" in the sentence "How much energy  
do we need to thrive?  we need to think in terms of limited resources  
and ask "How little energy do we need to thrive?  But, that is really  
only part of the question.

When we know how much sustainable energy is available we can look at  
how little energy we need and decide "how many of us will fit on this  
planet?"  and then work to keep the population under that limit.  By  
the way, as we improve the efficiency of our energy process the more  
people we can have on the planet and the more gadgets we can each have.

The good news is that we have great technology, expansive technical  
information, and intelligent people.  We can thrive in this Garden Of  
Eden, but we cannot survive if we insist in continuing to foul our  
nest.  We have the capacity to do "more with less", but there are  
limits and we cannot do "everything with nothing".  Consumers and  
voters must be part of the solution.

If you wish to motivate consumers, turn to the free market.  It does  
work.  If we are using our energy sources in a profligate fashion,  
there is a simple reason, ... they are underpriced for their value.   
Do we want to induce people to reduce consumption and "value" our  
limited energy sources, ... raise the price.  What price shall we  
choose?  The cost of an economic good is the cost of producing the  
good.  Oil and coal are not "produced" they are "extracted".  The  
cost of producing a pound of oil from hydrogen and carbon is much  
higher than the cost of pumping a pound of oil from the ground.  If  
the price of oil was anywhere close to the cost of producing more  
coal, we would do a better job of conserving our oil.

Consumers don't have to be motivated to save the planet, they don't  
even need to know if global warming is real or not.  When the price  
goes up the consumption goes down.  Get a realistic price on energy  
based upon a realistic price of producing the energy and much of this  
issue is resolved by the free market.  Or, we can continue to under  
price energy resources and the consumption of energy will continue to  
exceed our sustainable levels.

Here is where I am coming around to part of your perspective.

Extractive resources are controlled by governments.  And our  
government is supposed to be controlled by voters.  So, voters need  
to be motivated to get energy consumption in line with reality.  That  
is a hard one.  Seeing the death and damage done by a war over oil  
does provide some incentive.  But, until people can actually feel a  
connection between population levels and resource consumption,  
between resource competition and war, and a general understanding  
that finite resources actually mean "limits", we won't have the  
political will to price our resources fairly.

Tonight at dinner I saw an example why the question "how much energy  
do we need?" is so difficult to answer.  Potatoes can be stored for a  
year in a root cellar with no energy input.  Frozen potatoes require  
a constant energy input to keep the package frozen.  So, if the goal  
is having potatoes for dinner, do we need to have the freezer or  
not?  How much energy is actually needed?

David