To get a feel for how many energy slaves you have, imagine hiring 40 people to drag you and your car down the street at 3 miles per hour. Replacing the energy in a gallon of gasoline with human labor is imperfect, of course, because the people you hire to drag your vehicle down the street cannot run 70 miles an hour.

The gallon (or four liters) of petrol will push your car about 25 to 30 miles at high speeds at a market cost of about $4. Imagine how much it would cost to pay 40 people to drag your 1.5-ton car 25 miles–a lot more than $4. (Weight of 2012 Ford Fusion: 3,285 pounds. Weight of 2012 Honda Civic: 2,765 pounds.)

You get the idea: every bit of fossil fuel you consume is the equivalent of an energy slave. Correspondent David P. (Market Daily Briefing) describes the concept thusly: “Your personal standard of living is derived (largely) from the number of energy slaves you have working for you.” Energy Slaves – 5 charts

David kindly shared three of his five charts of energy consumption per capita (i.e. per person). This first is total energy consumption in the U.S. per capita.

The key takeaway here is how closely energy consumption tracks recession: notice how energy consumption cratered in the deep 1980-82 recession, and how it fell off a cliff in 2009, and has continued to weaken despite the official return of “growth.”

Clearly, improved efficiency of transport, furnaces, electrical appliances, etc. leads to lower consumption while delivering the same output (miles driven, refrigeration, etc.). Just as clearly, higher efficiency cannot possibly account for the steep declines in recessionary periods. People use less energy because they have less money and are feeling less wealthy:

Next up: energy consumption in the residential household sector of the economy.While the downtrend since 2000 (lower highs and lower lows) could be attributed to improved efficiency, that cannot be the reason behind energy consumption’s waterfall decline in 2011. That says one thing: recession.

How about the lifeblood of American life, transportation? Once again, the sharp decline in consumption says “recession.” Consumption rose slightly in post-recession 2010, but then resumed its dramatic plunge:

Here is David’s commentary on his charts. (The charts for the commercial and industrial sectors also show recessionary declines.)

Thank you, David. Other than a decline in the standard of living (otherwise known asrecession), what other dynamics could be in play? There are at least three, though their effects are on the margins of consumption:

1. Telecommuting/working remotely. Working at home eliminates commuting and many business meetings.

2. The “Brown Truck Store”: purchasing goods online and having them delivered by UPS, USPS, etc. saves energy by consolidating delivery to the end buyer.

3. Generational shift away from private auto ownership. Gen Y is far more comfortable with car-sharing (ZipCar, City Car Share, etc.), i.e. the access not ownership model: having access to a private vehicle no longer requires the immense expense of owning a vehicle.

This generational shift may be one reason miles driven per person has been declining: (via Doug Short): Vehicle Miles Driven: Population-Adjusted Fractionally Off the Post-Crisis Low. Adjusting for population growth, total miles driven in the U.S. is back to the levels of 1995, almost two decades ago.

While there are many positives to declining energy consumption, the question is: does this reflect a better standard of living or a lesser standard of living? In terms of replacing the ownership model with the access model and replacing long commutes with remote work, the answer is “better.” In terms of overall economic activity, these charts scream recession, i.e. a declining standard of living.

12 Comments on "Our Energy Slaves Are In Recession"

Arthur on Wed, 3rd Jul 2013 12:23 pm 



The virtual energy slave is a very important predictor of the wealth and power of a society. But it is not the only one. Many people here denounce technology, I do not. You can of course use your SUV to personally bring a message to your nephew 50 miles down the road. However, if your nephew and you have an internet connection, they can achieve the same information exchange via mail or skype at an extremely lower energy cost, making the SUV look old. Is there anybody here who still visits a bank? In Holland they are closing down most of the branch offices of banks, the bank is becoming a server. Shops are going the way of the dodo as well. Youcan judge stuff online, direct by viewing the product and indirect by reading the reviews. Bookshops, newspaperstands? Have not visited them for ages. All download. IT is a cushion that compensates for loss of virtual energy slaves: doing the same things at far less energy cost.

BillT on Wed, 3rd Jul 2013 2:47 pm 



Ah, Arthur, I know to whom you are referring…lol But, if you think the internet is forever…you are going to be unplesently surprised some day in the not too distant future. The world will soon not be able to waste energy on what are nothing more than toys that popped into existence and will fade into history when there is not the energy to support the world wide system.

It is NOT a necessity and necessities are going to soon be EVERYONE’s focus. It is not just your PC but the huge world wide network of energy gobbling hardware, data centers, manufacturing facilities, world wide materials sources, etc. I see it becoming a tool of governments and to eventually shrink back into the military use that it started from. It is too dangerous to have in the hands of the common folk. ^_^

Arthur on Wed, 3rd Jul 2013 3:33 pm 



Little is necessary to keep life processes going. But society aspires more than merely keeping life processes going. We are not going to be without energy in the future. A lot less, true, but not without. The internet is going to stay, because it provides a lot of useful services at extremely low energy cost. The internet in many cases makes it superfluous to move people around, usually in steel harnasses with a weight at least 10 times that of the transported human (car, train, boat, plane), where it makes more sense to send electrones/photons over a wire instead. It could be that global internet will be a thing of the past… the multipolar world I see coming would very much point in that direction… to prevent semi-hostile competing blocks from eavesdropping for starters… it is likely that globalist institutions like google and (z)/(s)uckerbook are going to be cloned continentwise. But from an energy perspective there is no reason why it should disappear, it won’t.

http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/energy-requirements-of-the-internet/

And now press “Submit comment” so it will be delivered even in remote places like the Philipines 😉

DC on Wed, 3rd Jul 2013 4:01 pm 



Another article that illustrates how car-centric we all are, slaves to the auto-oil-sprawl industrial complex. How about opening with,

How many energy slaves does it take to push a bicycle down the street?

A:none, well one, YOU if you really want to get picky about it. And at what cost? Well, the cost of food and water, but there is no paying a corrupt amerikan global oilcorp a fee for doing so on a endless basis. Its clear from his classic energy slave example, that private gas powered cars are profoundly immoral, in addition to all there other faults.

I found this comment odd thought

2. The “Brown Truck Store”: purchasing goods online and having them delivered by UPS, USPS, etc. saves energy by consolidating delivery to the end buyer.

Couriers delivering mass-produced goods to a mass-consumer customer base cannot honestly be said to ‘save’ energy. How did people used to get goods in the past before distant big-boxes came to dominate the physical landscape? Well, they got off there asses and went to vast public markets, where all manner of goods and services could be obtained. These markets were located in such a way that they did not require 5000 pound personal transporters that need acres of ‘free’ parking to accommodate them either.

BillT on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 12:20 am 



Arthur, I’ll read that later, but I expect it will be slanted toward the internet considering who signs the author’s paychecks.

They seem to “estimate’ a lot. And take ‘standard’ figures into account often.

Then again, after the crash, how many will no longer be able to afford to be connected? A lot fewer. Then there are the countries that will be cutting it off or severely controlling, causing even more to disengage. And, like any service, when there are not enough ‘paying’ customers, the system collapses. And then only government/military use will exist.

Others on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 1:10 am 



GM, Ford, Audi, BMW, Landrover are looking at all sort of alternative materials like Aluminium, Titanium, Magnesium and Carbon fiber to reduce Steel in their vehicles and reduce the weight drastically.

Not everyone need to buy the vehicles with lighter materials, if the high traffic vehicles like Taxis alone use these models, then it will benefit every one.

This will help us reduce our Oil consumption.

Dmyers on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 1:36 am 



This article calls for a reconsideration of the Olduvai Theory of Richard C. Duncan. http://www.oilempire.us/oil-jpg/peak_per_capita.jpg

Charles Hugh Smith is invoking Duncan’s all important factor of energy use per capita. If you look at the graphic at the link posted above, you may find some similarities between Duncan’s predictions and the actual numbers coming out.

DC on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 2:26 am 



Others, all of those ‘alternatives’ you list are vastly more expensive both to purchase, and to produce in energy terms. And the oil-auto cartel has known for decades how to reduce weight, they have had the know-how and the materials. except CF for many years now. So what has been the hold up? Why do they need to ‘look’ into things they could have done 50 years ago? Was it cost?, corruption?, incompetence, lack of desire? all-the-above and then some?

If you were interested to learn about your point at all, you find amerikan cars over the last 4 decades have gotten heavier and less efficient-not lighter and more ‘efficient’. At best, you can expect US cars mass to remain the same and ‘efficiency’ may increase marginally on a few isolated models-but thats it. Lighter gas-burners while possible, wont be built or sold in any numbers and even if they were, it have no more than a cosmetic effect on amerikans and fuel wasters oil consumption.

As I am sure you know by now, the only thing knocking down US\OECD oil consumption is the economic depression, not mythical titanium and aluminum cars. Damn, how much one of those cost anyhow? And how much more ‘efficient’ would one be? 5%? LoL

GregT on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 2:59 am 



“The virtual energy slave is a very important predictor of the wealth and power of a society. But it is not the only one. Many people here denounce technology, I do not.”

Arthur,

Energy is what has driven technology. Remove energy from the equation, and technology disappears with it.

BillT on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 5:31 am 



Arthur:
“…How will the Internet die? The answer to that is: death by a thousand cuts…Creeping normalcy is the key to understanding the likely trajectory of the Internet. It refers to a situation where a system changes radically but only in small, barely noticed increments…The Internet, just like the Easter Island societies, is a system that is vulnerable to collapse. Unlike the Easter Island societies, however, it is complex to the point of abstraction. I’m not sure how many people realise just how astonishingly complex the system is, relying on everything from advanced communication protocols and encryption programs to giant trans-nationally interconnected industries spawning increasingly hard to manufacture hardware and the armies of trained technicians (aka geeks) needed to keep the whole thing growing. And, of course, you can’t talk about the Internet without also mentioning the inconvenient fact that it consumes more electricity than many entire countries (in the US alone it uses more energy than the auto industry)… In any rational analysis there is simply no room for the kind of Internet we are used to today to exist on anything like the level other than which it was intended: for military use…. the Internet, like any system, needs to pay its way….( 8 reasons follow)…So, for the above reasons, and no doubt many more will crop up in the years to come, I believe that the Internet’s glory years are well and truly over….”

http://22billionenergyslaves.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-12-31T15:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-03-13T22:24:00%2B01:00&max-results=18&start=7&by-date=false

Arthur on Thu, 4th Jul 2013 7:35 am 



Bill, thanks for the link. Later I will blog about that article, since the internet in my view is an essential ingredient of the energy starved future.

BillT on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 6:30 am 



Arthur, I know you do and it would be a big help, but … I see too many negatives to let that happen. The least of them is energy. Foremost is financial.