Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

[santafe2]

This is a repost of a discussion jk and I opened on an unrelated thread.

My opening response:
jk, when I began working in the solar energy industry I thought solar and wind could become a large part of our energy equation and through the use of this more thermally efficient energy source we could solve our issue with what is now clearly a warming earth.

What I understand now is that while solar energy and electric cars are much more efficient, all these and other efficiency improvements are doing is delaying the day humans will have to address our dependence on exponential economic growth. We can't get out of the box we're in by increasing efficiency in energy use. There are limits to efficiency.

Let's assume human population levels off in 2 more generations at about 10B people. Let's also assume we wring out an additional 1% in energy efficiency per capita every year for the next 40 years and pair that with an average 2% GDP growth.

With this combination of population growth, GDP growth and energy efficiency growth, we'll be using twice as much energy in 40 years as we use today. I don't see how that is feasible and that's the problem I'd like to better understand.

jk Response:
when you say that that is not feasible, what do you mean? that there won't be enough energy? that global temperatures will rise beyond some defined point? are you assuming energy use grows with gdp and/or with population? does the composition of gdp matter? with services and technology increasing in their share of gdp, the processing of material goods diminishes.

i just pulled up some charts of u.s. energy consumption per capita: it is roughly equal to that in the late 1960's. of course population is much larger now.

re growth- i think growth becomes less material as economies develop. if pieces of silicon can be major contributors to gdp it has very different environmental and energy-demand implications that if we generate that same bit of gdp by producing steel. is it possible that growth can continue but its energy content decline rapidly? but this ignores the problem of all the 3rd world people who want 1st world lifestyles.

getting back to your original point, why is the increased energy demand that you predict a problem? for example, is it because - in this country at least - we've taken nuclear off the table? or is it the heat generated? please specify why the energy demand you forecast isn't "feasible" and in what way that's a "problem."

[santafe2]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

when you say that that is not feasible, what do you mean? that there won't be enough energy?

There is plenty of available energy. What I meant to say more clearly is that I don't think we can feasibly double our energy use from this point and not expect negative outcomes. I could be wrong about that but if a doubling is OK, is 10X OK? Is 100X OK?
I'd like to work from a couple of assumptions: Nature cannot be fooled and thermodynamics is not a theory.
I find hope and magical thinking unreliable.

In the past I've made the argument that efficiency will save us from this problem but clearly it only delays the problem.

Here's the first postulation I'd like to discuss: Economic growth requires energy growth. I don't see how efficiency negates this issue. Possibly others do.

[GRG55]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

My own forward view is shaped by these beliefs:

1. There is no shortage of energy. Never has been, never will be.
2. The most valuable forms of energy will command a premium price over the least valuable. What's considered valuable today may not be tomorrow (wood to coal to hydrocarbons to ??). In some developing jurisdictions today, including the huge petroleum and coal producing region I live in, part of the value quotient includes a cost for the carbon effects - and I expect both the breadth and severity of that cost assignment to increase steadily.
3. The emerging market's energy intensity is going to exhibit the same trend as developing markets - lower energy per unit of GDP over the long haul, volatility in that measure in the short haul.
4. In Asia the growing middle class housing/schools/hospitals/standard-of-living fundamentals will outperform any further industrial/commercial investment cycle the governments attempt to promote. They don't need really to build any more energy consuming steel mills, for example. This view links to 3 above.
5. The incremental demand to grow the global economy robustly will continue to come from India and China (and all the satellite nations in that region), not from developed markets. In the interim, while economic restructuring occurs there, the USA is likely the greatest economic beneficiary.
6. With very select exceptions commodities and resource dependent nations may have to go through some form of Don Coxe's Triple Waterfall before things normalize - that's a time function process and if it occurs will be very painful - as we are witnessing already in the Middle East as the intensifying eternal-internal conflicts surface and supplant the externally created disturbances.

[lektrode]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

There is plenty of available energy. What I meant to say more clearly is that I don't think we can feasibly double our energy use from this point and not expect negative outcomes. I could be wrong about that but if a doubling is OK, is 10X OK? Is 100X OK?
I'd like to work from a couple of assumptions: Nature cannot be fooled and thermodynamics is not a theory.
I find hope and magical thinking unreliable.

In the past I've made the argument that efficiency will save us from this problem but clearly it only delays the problem.

Here's the first postulation I'd like to discuss: Economic growth requires energy growth. I don't see how efficiency negates this issue. Possibly others do.

the solution has existed since the 1950's and its truly The Energy Ace in The Hole for The US -

and its already been developed/ready for primetime.
we OWN OUTRIGHT all of the know-how, technology, raw materials, skilled workforce to build it out on a massive scale

that is...
whenever we might finally get some clear headed leadership out of the political class (esp when - more like IF - the dem aristocracy finally decides that their political future does NOT revolve around certain slivers of the electorate at the expense of the vast majority of The Rest of US)

[lektrode]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

My own forward view is shaped by these beliefs:

1. There is no shortage of energy. Never has been, never will be...

+1
mostly what there is, is a shortage of leadership within the political class, who are mostly focused on one thing and one thing only:

the own re-elections - so - like the gutless wonders most of em are, they kow-tow to the loudest and smallest slivers of the electorate, who are mostly focused on whatever the 'cause du jour' is, to the exclusion of near everything else (see: pert near everything thats happened since the elections of 2008-12)

[santafe2]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

+1
mostly what there is, is a shortage of leadership within the political class, who are mostly focused on one thing and one thing only:

the own re-elections - so - like the gutless wonders most of em are, they kow-tow to the loudest and smallest slivers of the electorate, who are mostly focused on whatever the 'cause du jour' is, to the exclusion of near everything else (see: pert near everything thats happened since the elections of 2008-12)

We're not discussing politics in this thread lek. Nuclear as an energy option is a fine subject.

[lektrode]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

We're not discussing politics in this thread lek. Nuclear as an energy option is a fine subject.

'the real problem' however - as eye see it - is purely political, NOT TECHNOLOGICAL.
(but i'll defer to the request)

[jk]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

even if we source our energy from nuclear it will still produce heat. that's what i take your "thermodynamics is not just a theory" to mean. thus if energy use rises substantially, so will the heat produced. if greenhouse gases continue to accumulate, we end up with a venus-like scenario. otoh if greenhouse gases are limited then more of that heat can be radiated away into space, but to do so the temperature of the earth must rise. either way, eventually it gets very hot.

there is some temperature at which life will no longer be possible. so there is an upper bound on the heat that we can and will produce. this analysis applies only to the deep future, but nonetheless it's worth saying that there IS an upper bound.

as countries become wealthier fertility declines. many oecd countries are reproducing a below replacement rate levels. their populations will only be maintained, let alone rise, by immigration.

global population will level out at some point, hopefully because everyone is relatively rich, but possibly for other reasons. if the end stage population requires ever-rising gdp ["growth"] and energy use rises with gdp then either we [that is, our descendents] witness the heat death of the earth or our species becomes extinct before we reach that point.

i think it more likely that we become extinct. homo sapiens sapiens has only been around 200,000 years. i think it unlikely we'll last the millions of years that t. rex did, let alone the scores of millions of years of the cockroach.

so i guess as keynes said, in the long run we're all dead. what were we discussing again?

maybe we ought to define a time frame for this thread's discussions.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

...even if we source our energy from nuclear it will still produce heat. that's what i take your "thermodynamics is not just a theory" to mean. thus if energy use rises substantially, so will the heat produced...


.

Thanks jk.
I have honestly never considered waste heat as important at all.
A quick google just now finds a reputable source noting that incoming solar over the U.S is about 1.6 watts/ sq meter.
If you divide total U.S. annual energy consumption over the same land area, you get 0.3 watts/ sq meter.
That means waste heat is 18% of sunshine across a continent.
To me, that's significant.
As you point out, thermodynamics insists that all energy eventually becomes heat.

That's a damn startling revelation to me.

UPDATE:
My "reputable" source grossed over a very important detail, which I found digging back to source documents.
That 1.6 w/sq meter is NOT total sunshine. It 's the estimated contribution of greenhouse gases.
The total sunshine (insolation) is 100 times that much, so we are, in fact, back to negligible for waste heat.
Check and verify, check and verify....
Rather than just deleting this post, I leave it as a reminder to us all to be careful what we accept as fact.

[BK]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

sateliite.jpgRemember the good ole days when world re-known scientist claimed Congress must approve spending on the Space Shuttle because of risk of coming Ice Age...
https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,5007359&hl=en

see last paragraph to find the money grab statement
What did PT Barnum say...there is a sucker born every minute. ;-)

[BK]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

Pollution to lead to ICE age... https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,5052207&hl=en

[GRG55]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

even if we source our energy from nuclear it will still produce heat. that's what i take your "thermodynamics is not just a theory" to mean. thus if energy use rises substantially, so will the heat produced. if greenhouse gases continue to accumulate, we end up with a venus-like scenario. otoh if greenhouse gases are limited then more of that heat can be radiated away into space, but to do so the temperature of the earth must rise. either way, eventually it gets very hot.

there is some temperature at which life will no longer be possible. so there is an upper bound on the heat that we can and will produce. this analysis applies only to the deep future, but nonetheless it's worth saying that there IS an upper bound.

as countries become wealthier fertility declines. many oecd countries are reproducing a below replacement rate levels. their populations will only be maintained, let alone rise, by immigration.

global population will level out at some point, hopefully because everyone is relatively rich, but possibly for other reasons. if the end stage population requires ever-rising gdp ["growth"] and energy use rises with gdp then either we [that is, our descendents] witness the heat death of the earth or our species becomes extinct before we reach that point.

i think it more likely that we become extinct. homo sapiens sapiens has only been around 200,000 years. i think it unlikely we'll last the millions of years that t. rex did, let alone the scores of millions of years of the cockroach.

so i guess as keynes said, in the long run we're all dead. what were we discussing again?

maybe we ought to define a time frame for this thread's discussions.

The sole purpose of using energy for mechanical processes is to generate heat. Heat is work and work is heat I think the old phrase from my first year thermo course went.

I thought the problem was greenhouse gasses trapping increasing levels of heat in the atmosphere, not the generation of heat itself?

[jk]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

The sole purpose of using energy for mechanical processes is to generate heat. Heat is work and work is heat I think the old phrase from my first year thermo course went.

I thought the problem was greenhouse gasses trapping increasing levels of heat in the atmosphere, not the generation of heat itself?

i went down the rabbit hole pointed to by santa fe's reference to thermodynamics. sorry, but i like reductio ad absurdums and couldn't help myself.

back to the greenhouse problem that is already affecting us. what's to say? i think it's real, i think we're not about to do much about it, and i think what we do will be too little too late to prevent a rise in global temperatures much greater than the 2o centigrade that is the straw man tolerable limit.

i guess one issue is timing- how long to get how bad? and, this being a financial website and all, i guess we should ask whether there are investment and/or life choice implications. i think the bunker is pretty far above sea level, grg, so it will be some time before the ocean is lapping at your door. my home is at elevation 42 feet. i don't think the ocean will get here in my lifetime.

just did a quick search and came up with this link: an article published in the atlantic [irony there] earlier today: "preparing for the inevitable sea-level rise." i'm going to hit "post" take some time to read the article.

[jk]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

back with the report: who knows? 1 foot, 3 feet, 3 meters, 9 meters. i'd say the sky's the limit but it seems like the wrong metaphor.

[santafe2]

Re: Can the world economy grow without equivalent energy requirements

The sole purpose of using energy for mechanical processes is to generate heat. Heat is work and work is heat I think the old phrase from my first year thermo course went.

I thought the problem was greenhouse gasses trapping increasing levels of heat in the atmosphere, not the generation of heat itself?

Certainly good enough for our current discussion.

The point I will again try to make while avoiding either a political or global warming argument is that the current ~3% rate of increase in energy use itself will boil the surface of the planet in roughly another 350 years. That's simply a thermodynamic issue. Pick your power source, solar, nuclear or coal, clearly we're toast long before that time.

For me, there are a few simple takeaways:

• Growth in energy consumption has a, human scale, finite limit.
• At current growth rates I suspect we'll reach that limit this century.
• With amazing gains in efficiency possibly we'll gain another generation or two.
• If we continue to burn coal and oil at current rates we'll likely have to deal with this a generation or two more soon.

So if we are coming to the end of our period of exponential energy growth, how do we grow the economy? Or do we grow the economy? Do we settle in to a steady state or only incremental growth based on gains in efficiency?