Energy Consumption And Progress

I've written lately that economists are the high priests of Progress. I don't subscribe to the doctrine of Progress, which is a faith-based view of our future. Apparently, for most people all of the time, the alternative is simply unthinkable. The truth is that we had wars 4,000 years ago, and we have wars now. The large majority of human beings were poor and disenfranchised 4,000 years ago, and the large majority still are today.

Human Nature didn't change one iota during all that time. Human folly then is the same as human folly now. We are what we—we're a species, what you see is what you get. There has been no "improvement" in our Nature, which is what they used to call it in the 19th century.

But you might respond: what about all the technological wonders we have today? At least for many people, and for a much greater slice of the ever-growing population pie, standards of living are vastly improved. What of that? You can't just dismiss Progress!

No, I can't ignore all that, and I don't. I would point out that all that technological improvement has led to much greater killing efficiency than we had in the 8^th century or the 18^th century. America's use of unmanned predator drones has made killing people—regardless of their "guilt" or "innocence" in our eyes—so much easier in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Henry Ford's assembly line, which made mass production possible, applied seamlessly to killing Jews & other undesirables during the Holocaust. And now we've got nuclear weapons, which give us a very nice burst of radiation and a beautiful mushroom cloud when they explode

In my discussion of the Law Of Civilization And Decay, I left out the sine qua non of apparent human Progress—the availability of vast quantities of energy provided by fossil fuels. For all human societies, growth in energy consumption is a necessary condition for economic growth. I am not going to defend that statement here, but if you want the details, see my long & technical online paper Economic Growth And Climate Change—No Way Out?

As if to remind us that energy makes the human world go round, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Department Of Energy (DOE) recently released their Annual Energy Review (AER). It's the government, so you get lots of acronyms. Ponder the following chart—

Primary Energy Consumption in the United States by source, 1775-2009, measured in quadrillion BTUs (British Thermal Units) 1 quadrillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000.

And now ponder this one—

Estimated 2009 consumption = 94,578 quadrillion BTUs, down from the 2007 peak of 101,527 quadrillion

Note the EIA's annotation: The United States was self-sufficient in energy until the late 1950s... In fact, the graph indicates that domestic fossil fuels energy production has been largely flat since 1970, which is the year U.S. oil production peaked. In 1970, America produced 59,186 quadrillion BTUs of fossil fuels energy. In 2009, the estimated total is 56,850 quadrillion. Total American energy production, including nuclear and renewables, has risen only slightly since 1990.

In other words, the United States has appropriated (purchased, accompanied by force majeure) more and more of the world's primary energy for its own use since 1970, and especially since the early 1980s, which is when I date the beginning of the end of the Empire. This fact alone would raise alarm bells in the minds of historians, who are used to thinking on longer time scales than economists and politicians (to name two shortsighted groups).

To make matters worse, the world's oil production is now at or near it's peak, and we have entered the Age of Resource Competition in which China and other developing nations will claim their fair share of the fossil fuel pie. (I am dismissing energy from renewables, whose contribution has been and will continue to be small relative to energy obtained from oil, coal & natural gas.) 

On energy grounds alone I could claim the Empire is in Decline and have a substantial argument. But when you combine the energy situation with all the other types of decay we find in the United States, the argument becomes, in my mind, airtight. 

The question sometimes arises as to whether the United States, which possesses far more Weapons of Mass Destruction than any other nation on Earth, will unleash its military might to appropriate more energy (especially oil) as the need arises. A wounded tiger is a very dangerous animal indeed. I would think the answer to this question is obvious: of course we will! Does a bear shit in the woods? More and more, the raison d'etre of our military has been to safeguard energy supply chains.

Thus, waging wars to guarantee our energy supplies appears to be a very likely scenario as time goes on.

Comments

[Gail]

Can you check the link to your paper Energy and Climate Change? It isn't working when I click it.

[Matt K]

I disagree that there will be more wars for energy - instead it will be complete environmental destruction to get at all of our energy "reserves" (mostly imagined reserves).

The U.S., especially multi-national corporations and wealthy investors, NEED the growth of other nations for good returns. The U.S. is washed up for quite a while in terms of growth, so they're looking elsewhere. If we threaten war with any of these growing countries - our multi-nationals and investors get kicked out - and I don't think they'll allow that to happen.

What I think we'll see is a continuation of environmental war - "we could have $1 gas if only we could drill everywhere offshore"... and when that doesn't work "well, now we need oil shale" and on and on.

[Joy]

@ Matt K - I think some sort of hostile takeover of Venezuela is still on the agenda. Other than that, I agree. The US has openly been fighting wars for energy since 1990 based on the Carter Doctrine of 1980. The ability of the empire to fight any more energy wars is just about spent.

[TonyWeddle]

"For all human societies, growth in energy consumption is a necessary condition for economic growth. I am not going to defend that statement here"

Nor do I think you have to. The two most common refutations of that statement involve either a non-functioning economy where everything is a (non-energy using) service or a collectors item, or a belief in the impossible - that energy efficiency alone can continue growth indefinitely.

Those who put forward weak arguments like that (and usually forcefully) will not be swayed by reason or logic, from their belief centred views.

[TonyWeddle]

Dave, I think your figures on the amount of energy produced, by the US, in 1970 and 2009 are wrong. The figures you quote are for fossil fuel energy, not overall energy. Also, I'm not sure that energy production could be described as "largely flat", since 1970. True, it's been slow growing and was essentially flat during the 70s but since then it reached 73 quads in 2008, almost 16% more than in 1970. According to EIA figures, of course.

I don't think it changes the story much, if at all, but critics would jump on those "errors".

[Dave Cohen]

Yes, Tony, you are right. The numbers I cited are from the EIA's table 1.1 for fossil fuels, and didn't (in the original) include (predominantly) the energy from nuclear power.

However, I think we could say the overall trend is entirely clear, and the text has been amended accordingly to be accurate with respect to the data.

best, and thanks for the correction,

-- Dave

[Jason]

I'm not an expert at all, but it seems the US military is unusually active these days. I've read reports we are consolidating control in Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines along with our ongoing involvement in countries surrounding Iran. Sure Venezuela looks like an easy choice, but its running low on oil. I would guess that China get fed up with being blockaded and tries to push us out, Israel provokes a mid east conflict, or there is blood shed over the arctic as oil scarcity ramps up.

Dave: I couldn't find that you mention thorium in any article. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote about it today: "'Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free'": is one of the quotes.

[MrEnergyCzar]

Great article... I've made some short videos showing what my family has done to prepare for peak oil...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmXhgBhtWk

MrEnergyCzar

[Greg Pinelli]

The idea that Human Nature has to change for Progress to take place makes no sense...Progress is a social based phenomena that is earned thru the use of aspects of human nature (reason, perseverance, etc)..What is being proposed in this series of articles is some kind of biological litmus test that fails to recognize that that is NOT how humans pass knowledge thru generations...in fact, it's an outdated Lamarkian notion that dies with gene theory development in the 19th century...

Humans still do lots of destructive things they used to do...so what? That many still live in squalor and poverty hardly negates the achievements of millions of others and the capacity of that achievemnt to be socially trnasmitted as Progress...in fact, it's the only lifeline the less well off have. A concocted notion that Progress is illusory is a flimsy argument for pushing the overarching "horror" of less oil, gas and environmental problems..Of course we can't solve those problems..or make progress solving any others..because our biology hasn't been altered. Incredible!!

[John Mack]

The Western World has shown for many centuries a clear desire for individual self-aggrandizement, what otherwise is called Capitalism. For many centuries one path to achieving this was by appropriating what others possessed, either through individual or group conflict. With the development of nuclear weapons, such a path had rapidly diminishing returns. So, the human energy wasted in previous centuries on conflict was directed toward exploiting the environment.

The point I'm making is our exploitation of the environment is simply a different side of the same coin, the same impulse that led people to wage conflict with one another.

So in a sense, the present material success of the world is an anomalous situation because it is based on the artificial constraint of nuclear weapons on human behavior. In others words, if it were not for nuclear weapons, our material success most probably would have inevitably led to our society's destruction, as it almost did prior to the development of nuclear weapons with World War One and World War Two.

Am I saying all the effort since 1945 was a waste of time? No, of course not, but it could have been conducted in a more rational manner so that the world need not have to confront declining oil production.

[Bruce Berry]

If you are not already familiar with it, you really need to be acquainted with Climate Wars, Gwynne Dyer's 2008 book, which is a high quality survey of geopolitics and military strategies as we head down the other side of peak energy and into an uncertain climate. Dyer is very well appraised of US and NATO military thinking from a long career focused on it. Or you could check out a synopsis of the ideas here (3 podcasts): www.gwynnedyer.com