Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on November 2, 2013
Peak Global Energy Efficiency
Fossil fuels are finite and eventually their global production will peak and decline. Since our global economic growth has a nearly perfect correlation with global energy consumption, a decline in global fossil fuel energy availability could mean “the end of growth.” The argument on the other side is that we will simply become more efficient with our use of energy. The argument goes that we will become less energy-intensive consumers and the energy intensity of our global economy will decline.
So are we on the right track? Are we becoming more energy efficient with our global economy?
To answer this question, I took data from the World Bank and from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
First, we see that on an absolute energy basis (in Joules) our global fossil fuel consumption continues to increase.
Once we multiply this consumption by the nominal price of each fuel, we can get a global “fuel bill” and compare it to the value of global trade each year.
Finally, when we take our global fuel bill and divide it by our value of global trade we get an estimate for how much value of trade we get for each dollar we spend on fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, this analysis shows us that the value of global trade we get for each dollar spent on fossil fuels peaked in 1998 and has been declining since. In essence, we are becoming less and less efficient in our use of fossil fuels at a time when we should be getting more and more efficient. This is bad news for cornucopian economists who believe that energy efficiency will save our global economy from peak oil. Despite ever-higher oil prices over the last decade, it seems that we have become unable to increase the energy efficiency of global trade. If we can’t increase our global trade per barrel in the face of higher oil prices, perhaps this shows that reaching “peak everything” will indeed lead to “the end of growth.”
2 Comments on "Peak Global Energy Efficiency"
DC on Sun, 3rd Nov 2013 12:34 am
Of course we are becoming less efficient. We keep adding more gas-burning cars, more leaky homes, and keep building car-dependency into everything we make. More energy is being consumed for less marginal gains with every passing year, how can it be otherwise?
‘Efficiency’ has been chucked out the window because ‘efficiency’ costs money. And in the long emergency, everyone outside the 1% do not have money to burn. So we keep using what we have, until it breaks, then we replace it something barely more efficient that it was 50 years ago-possibly less-YMMV.
Of course, not spending money on efficiency may be seen as a good investment too, because we tend to rate efficiency by how many dollars it costs. And as relentless marketing keeps informing us, saving* ‘money’ is the most ‘efficient’ thing anyone can do. In this age, the most inefficient and heavily subsidized systems and technologies receive pretty much blanket support. Low-impact truly efficient alternative modes of living are marginalized, ridiculed, or simply ignored.
*I use the term ‘saving’ in the sense our market totalitarian rulers mean it. ‘Save’ it so you can spend it on some other useless corporate ‘goods or services’-not save it for yourself or for the future. In our culture, you are supposed to spend your ‘savings’ right away in some other area of the discretionary economy.
Ankur on Fri, 15th Sep 2023 10:13 am
Hello there we here a right website get help file explorer windows 10 so,just follow the basic information.