When I was little, we didn't conserve energy. There was so much of it and it was cheap. Then it stopped being cheap and we were forced to conserve. We're in the same position now in Europe, which made me wonder — wouldn't it have been better to learn to not waste energy instead of having to cut down now? And then there's John Kerry suggesting African people must basically reduce their energy consumption to help with emissions. He must be flogged for that but the question stands — is energy overconsumption an unavoidable consequence of progress and wealth growth?
If you ever meet someone who has lived in a very dry country just watch how they use water. Then you will understand about how to use resources frugally.
Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022Liked by Irina Slav
It all depends on quantification. Energy supply vs. demand. I would spend money on building insulation (correctly done) before windmills, solar panels and EVs but that all depends on the cost of insulation vs. energy at any given time and place. I see no inherent value in "reducing" consumption. The value only comes if supply is limited or some level of consumption has significant problems (environmental) compared to a lower level.
I saw an article recently that said the EU (including Bulgaria?) had more oil available for fracking than the US. EU cost is driven by politics. Angle Merkel's long love affair with Putin has driven up the price of natural gas in the US now.
Personally, I go for lower consumption primarily because I have more demand for my USD than I have supply and I prefer to be a bit cooler and spend my USD on other things.
The sub-heading says it all, although technology has advanced since 2013. Poland has quite a bit of shale gas, I believe, but extracting it is challenging, so the companies that explored for it years ago just quit. Not all shale was created equal, apparently.
No the EU does not have a great deal of oil available through fracking. Even if it were allowed, the rocks they have would yield primarily natural gas - not a bad thing, but there is nothing in the EU comparable to the good North American basins. Just the nature of the geology
Thanks Steve. Yes there is potential for fracking to tap into low-permeability reservoirs (shales and other rocks) in those areas. But because of their geological history and the nature of the organic material trapped in the rocks, they would produce primarily gas, not oil.
John Kerry telling Africans they must reduce their energy consumption to help with emissions. What chutzpah. The same John Kerry who owns 6 houses 12 cars 2 yachts and a private jet.
Kerry was the a-hole who led the decision to shutdown the highly successful zero emissions, super-safe IFR program in the USA that would produce a GW of electricity for a year from 1 tonne of natural uranium, depleted uranium or nuclear waste and generate 170 lbs of waste that need only be stored for 300yrs, fits easily down a borehole. Zero pollution, don't even need to mine uranium.
He wasn't wrong. He was corrupt. He didn't do it for logical or technical reasons. He did it because the PTB used him to end an energy supply they did not want. They are Malthusians, plentiful energy is antithetic to their goals.
Is it squandering - wasting something recklessly - or is it indulging in comforts that aren't essential to existence?
The harder it is to obtain something, the more carefully we use it. But if it's abundant (like natural gas) and easy to access and comparatively cheap, why should we act like it's none of those things?
And yes, there's a dangerous excess of emissions from John Kerry - a 50-year accumulation of self-righteous hypocrisy that threatens to choke all of us to death.
Excellent questions. I'm leaning towards squandering as a definition of overconsumption. For example, in the 80s everyone here brushed their teeth with the water running. Water was plentiful, water was cheap, so we turned on the tap and brushed away under the accompaniment of running water. Now we know better, at least, I hope, most of us. Nobody really needs tropical temperatures in December, it's actually bad for your health, such a big difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. And yet some do just that. Of course, it's their money, they can do whatever they want with it but I do see it as a mild form of squandering.
Energy conservation has been going on in developed countries for 20yrs or more. The USA primary energy per person peaked at 94,229kwh in 2000 and dropped steadily to 77,574 in 2021.
The best way to do energy conservation is energy efficiency. That's a way to conserve energy by not stupidly wasting energy by using it inefficiently. The #1 energy inefficiency, the #1 waste of energy on the planet right now is the gargantuan push for wind & solar power. That is energy inefficiency on steroids.
World primary energy was 80.3% fossil 10 yrs ago. Usher in well over $2.5 trillion on wind/solar (>$4 trillion incl ancillary transmission upgrades). Last year world energy was 80.2% fossil. That includes a big move from coal to high efficiency supercritical coal, CCGT & a fair amount of hydro in non-OECD countries. All of which are proven highly successful reductions in fossil consumption. As well a general increase in efficiency especially for Transportation. So what has wind/solar done? Answer: nothing or even less than nothing. $4 trillion down the sewer with zero results except more expensive energy.
An intermittent, fluctuating grid is a low efficiency grid as proven by a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. But electricity prices DO directly correlate with the level of wind+solar in a country. European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources, by Ken Gregory, P.Eng.
In France & Ontario (both largely nuclear electricity) increasing wind & solar has INCREASED emissions AND electricity cost. The Bentek study found that emissions INCREASED after the big wind energy builds in Colorado & Texas. In other words the massive expenditure in materials, resources, energy and capitol to build all those wind farms wasted more fossil fuel due to induced inefficiencies of the Grid than was saved. A total waste of capitol and valuable resources. Keep in mind the EROI (Energy Return on Investment) of Wind Turbines is very low. Best studies put it @ 16:1 compared to 75:1 for Light Water Reactors and 120:1 for CANDU reactors. The impact on Grid efficiency is so large for Wind & Solar that it pushes their overall EROI well into negative values.
“The best way to do energy conservation is energy efficiency.” Bravo! This used to be common sense that everyone agreed about. But, alas, it no longer fits the narrative.
Please read the book “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy” by Peter Huber and Mark Mills. We have plenty of energy, an unlimited amount actually. If we allow ourselves to access it, we do not need to worry about “conserving” it. In fact, the authors make the point that we should stop talking in terms of “conserving” energy because the First Law of Thermodynamics does this for us. We just need to stop playing politics with it and get to the business of extracting it. I think, actually, China is doing that regardless.
They wrote a follow-up book called “Hard Green”, which advocates for focusing on cleaning the environment we can “see, touch, smell” around us, and not get captured by bogus computer-generated, simulated ones. I agree. Too much garbage-in/garbage-out being used to leverage control.
Doomberg said it best: one’s quality of life is determined by how much energy they can afford to waste. Since all productive things require free energy to be expended in order to do useful work, energy must be wasted as entropy in the process. Increasing efficiency and reducing waste is generally smart (within reasonable ROI limits), but not if it reduces the productive ability of the person/system.
If buying a barrel of oil and setting it on fire in their front yard is what brings someone the most joy in life, then who are we to judge? I plan to buy an airplane someday, and I won’t consider that a waste because flying is fun. However you can be sure it won’t be a jet because I would never be able to afford the fuel costs!
But is "bringing joy" a productive activity? Does it do useful work? :D Joke aside, I do know happy people are productive people.
Doomberg is, as always, correct. Yet I still have misgivings about squandering energy just because you can and I don't think that's going to change. Make sure you swing by when you get your plane. I love flying, thanks in advance.
If you don’t let pyromaniacs play, then they will just find other things to burn 😉. Hard to say if that is “productive” but there would clearly be a societal benefit in that case.
I’m sure that by the time I get a plane I will be looking for any excuse to fly it, so happy to swing by Sofia!
We need to start thinking in terms of Entropy and Exergy. The exergy is the quality of energy (II law of thermodynamics) that is destroyed while energy is the quantity of energy (I law of thermodynamics) that is conserved. The fact that energy is conserved does not tell you much about anything. On the other hand, when you do exergy accounting of any industrial process, you will begin to see the the true value of energy streams and their value to economic productivity. If we understood exergy ("Elixir of Life"), we would not be wasting time and money on low-density, low-probability energy sources such as solar, wind, batteries, etc...this is a flaw in human understanding of life processes. What we are seeing is an incoherent approach to solve a manufactured crisis driven by greed and power. Unfortunately, we cannot escape entropy that destroys exergy in life or engineered processes. When we learn to work with this naturally occurring entropy, we can learn to apply rational methods to utilize exergy from carbon-based energy sources to create a coherent wealthy society. Considerable amount of exergy-based engineering research research has been done in Germany, Spain, UK, Portugal, Netherlands, etc....it is saddening to see their EU leaders not acknowledging any of these realities!
Conservation, would mean we actually have a shortage of something. We do not have a shortage of oil and gas. We have a shortage of political good sense. Price will make us conserve, because it hits us in the pocket book, but then again this is all about the money and the theft of our tax dollars, for something we did not vote for or want, or need - ie the wind and solar debacle. But when the trickle down effect of less industry hits us because of higher prices or like in Europe the shuttering of complete industries, then we will all have to know about conservation of everything from food, water and energy. Energy is the economy, less energy less economy... I think we are getting there, I went to the grocery store today... no need to say more.
Thanks for the comment - you made me smile again, we have to try to laugh! Being an ear for people who are being surrounded by solar facilities is a heavy load, but some times at the end of the day listening is all you can do, there is no other road to go down to stop them. Greed always wins at the end of the day with these land owners and solar companies, and stealing our tax dollars seem to trump good sense. Now all we can do it try to regulate an unregulated industry and make it even more unprofitable for them, but safer for the neighbors.
This is nothing more than Colonialism using money and influence instead of military intervention. African Countries have the right to determine their own destinies and what is right for the development of their country and resources. Tired old white men extolling their vision of how to sustain their standard of living by getting others to pay.
It takes energy to develop everything but overconsumption is a learned response. People can learn to live with the minimum and create better outcomes. Western society has been based on consumption, the more the merrier. Consumerism is the worst example.
Conserving energy is somewhat a mark of wealth. For any given task, the equvalent result but more energy efficient option almost always is more expensive (also read takes more resources, if it wasn't there wouldnt be a chiice for long). So it takes the ability to invest in the future to use less energy long term.
There are also technologic aspects to this as well.
What is energy overconsumption? A New York City resident will likely give a very different answer than a farmer in Chad. Are the definitions of 'progress' and 'wealth growth' universally agreed upon? Perhaps a more valid question is whether increasing the standard of living for the 3rd world can be accomplished without vastly increasing percapita energy use?
I am on the other side of this so-called shortage. Yell and scream at me all you like. I think the problem needs to be clearly defined first and currently we are allowing paid pundits to define the problems, including scientists. We in the USA know there is plentiful nat gas to last us for centuries. We know this!!! When the EU announced the thermostat temperature requirements the wife and I went Hmmm we already use that temp in the winter, but we do this on our own. What people do not understand there comes a point where you must have some heat source or your pipes in your structures will burst.
Simple energy savings are cheap, even in Europe. The problems in the USA and Europe is the cost of major upgrades like HVAC or Heat handlers. My home is paid for and we just replaced our windows and it was expensive but worth the cost. Americans , if you really want to save energy cut back on the size of your home, do not own a vehicle for every driving member of your family. The wife and I are retired so we now have one vehicle. I have so many friends that complain about living expenses and I tell them drop one vehicle if you do not need it, your children do not need to drive to school take the bus.
It’s totally arrogant, I spent the better part of 10 years in Africa working on drilling projects. Everyone is there telling Africans how to develop, China is using financed projects and debt, NGO’s are telling them to set ridiculous standards of operations. The resources belong to them, what’s good for thier own development is theirs to decide.
Irina, it's propably worth an hour of your time if you want to get a bigger picture of why hydrocarbons are being removed from use by 2030.
It takes a while to get around to the topic of touching on energy, but it may change you views on the media and why the Green New Deal is pushed so heavily.
I rarely link to videos because I prefer to read rather than watch. But this also illustrates why substack is such an important tool for avoiding the ever-increasing censorship.
Sep 17, 2022·edited Sep 17, 2022Liked by Irina Slav
Remember Patty Hearst and what happened to her during her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Front?
She became one of them. She even participated in one of their bank robberies.
That's what has happened to society in general today. We've been "kidnapped" by the powerful and wealthy through their constant messaging via academia and the media into believing that we over-consume energy or that we waste energy.
We don't.
What's really happening is a Malthus-like panic occurring amongst the powerful & wealthy, especially amongst those who don't put their trust in God but put trust in self.
As a consequence, they've become terrified that this Earth will run out of "energy" much as Malthus was terrified that the world would run out of resources to feed a growing human population.
A more current example of that panic is Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb". Too many people!!!
And then "Peak Oil".
Remember how Margaret Sanger was terrified that the black man would ruin her "world"? The powerful & wealthy are equally terrified that the average person will ignorantly over-consume and/or waste energy, thus ruining their "world".
"Yes, but one day we WILL run out of (fill in the blank)!!! And then what?"
How did the people of Israel not only survive but prosper in a wilderness for 40 years without the usual access to food and water?
Who fed thousands of people in a countryside from a few fish and some bread, not once but twice? How many baskets of food were left over after everyone ate their fill?
The primary reason why this panic is infecting people's minds these days about resources is because they're turning their backs to God.
One of the names of God in the Bible is "YHWH Yireh" or "[God] provides". And when he provides, he provides in abundance, far more than we need.
Actually God will provide in abundance even if we don't trust him and for one reason and one reason alone: Because he loves us as a father loves his son.
Therein lies the root of all of our problems Irina. We place wants above needs and here in America many families struggle just because they need to keep up with their neighbor or friends. The West has moved away from God and now worships at the altar of consumerism. Even if you're not religious nothing changes.
It is funny at how much stuff you accumulate over a lifetime and once you hit SS age you get rid of most of it and downsize your home if you can afford it. Some advice for all of you young people look at how your parents and their friends are living. Most elderly in the USA do not have anything but SS and end up poor. You do not want to go down this route. You do not want to retire and still paying off debt and your home. I could go on and on, but Irina summed it up better than I could.
Energy consumption is a requirement for progress and wealth growth.
Just like in everything else, we must strike a balance between using energy to improve people’s lives and wasting energy beyond some reasonable standard. The problem is we cannot agree on the reasonable standard!!
I tend to think Americans are crazy trying to have a house bigger than their neighbors:
“In 1973, the earliest year for which U.S. Census data is currently available, the average square footage of a house in the U.S. was 1,660 square feet. By 2015, the average square footage of a home increased to a whopping 2,687 square feet, although since then, it’s begun to drop.”
I know a lot of retired couples living in 2,500 sq. ft. homes. Heating and cooling that much space for two people seems wasteful to me, but I have not been given the responsibility of setting the standards.
Good analogy. It not just the distance that the litre of petrol takes the car it is the speed.
Cost and speed, the engines of modern civilisation. I hadn't seen things from this perspective, to be honest.
Jevon’s Paradox
If you ever meet someone who has lived in a very dry country just watch how they use water. Then you will understand about how to use resources frugally.
I've met me and my memories of days-long water outages. And that's nothing compared to what actual lack of water is. Excellent point, thank you.
It all depends on quantification. Energy supply vs. demand. I would spend money on building insulation (correctly done) before windmills, solar panels and EVs but that all depends on the cost of insulation vs. energy at any given time and place. I see no inherent value in "reducing" consumption. The value only comes if supply is limited or some level of consumption has significant problems (environmental) compared to a lower level.
I saw an article recently that said the EU (including Bulgaria?) had more oil available for fracking than the US. EU cost is driven by politics. Angle Merkel's long love affair with Putin has driven up the price of natural gas in the US now.
Personally, I go for lower consumption primarily because I have more demand for my USD than I have supply and I prefer to be a bit cooler and spend my USD on other things.
Bulgaria might have some oil in the Black Sea and some more gas in the north. No major discoveries yet.
Here is a link to the map I saw for EU shale fields.
https://www.economist.com/business/2013/02/02/frack-to-the-future
The sub-heading says it all, although technology has advanced since 2013. Poland has quite a bit of shale gas, I believe, but extracting it is challenging, so the companies that explored for it years ago just quit. Not all shale was created equal, apparently.
No the EU does not have a great deal of oil available through fracking. Even if it were allowed, the rocks they have would yield primarily natural gas - not a bad thing, but there is nothing in the EU comparable to the good North American basins. Just the nature of the geology
Here is a link to the map I saw for EU shale fields.
https://www.economist.com/business/2013/02/02/frack-to-the-future
Thanks Steve. Yes there is potential for fracking to tap into low-permeability reservoirs (shales and other rocks) in those areas. But because of their geological history and the nature of the organic material trapped in the rocks, they would produce primarily gas, not oil.
High prices make me conserve.
John Kerry telling Africans they must reduce their energy consumption to help with emissions. What chutzpah. The same John Kerry who owns 6 houses 12 cars 2 yachts and a private jet.
Kerry was the a-hole who led the decision to shutdown the highly successful zero emissions, super-safe IFR program in the USA that would produce a GW of electricity for a year from 1 tonne of natural uranium, depleted uranium or nuclear waste and generate 170 lbs of waste that need only be stored for 300yrs, fits easily down a borehole. Zero pollution, don't even need to mine uranium.
He has in recent years acknowledged that he was wrong about the IFR.
He wasn't wrong. He was corrupt. He didn't do it for logical or technical reasons. He did it because the PTB used him to end an energy supply they did not want. They are Malthusians, plentiful energy is antithetic to their goals.
Proven US and Canadian reserves of natural gas are functionally infinite: 473 *Trillion* cubic feet and 83 Tcf, respectively.
That means North America could produce enough for itself and the world for hundreds of years
We could move to nuclear long before then.
How do you define overconsumption?
Is it squandering - wasting something recklessly - or is it indulging in comforts that aren't essential to existence?
The harder it is to obtain something, the more carefully we use it. But if it's abundant (like natural gas) and easy to access and comparatively cheap, why should we act like it's none of those things?
And yes, there's a dangerous excess of emissions from John Kerry - a 50-year accumulation of self-righteous hypocrisy that threatens to choke all of us to death.
Excellent questions. I'm leaning towards squandering as a definition of overconsumption. For example, in the 80s everyone here brushed their teeth with the water running. Water was plentiful, water was cheap, so we turned on the tap and brushed away under the accompaniment of running water. Now we know better, at least, I hope, most of us. Nobody really needs tropical temperatures in December, it's actually bad for your health, such a big difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. And yet some do just that. Of course, it's their money, they can do whatever they want with it but I do see it as a mild form of squandering.
Energy conservation has been going on in developed countries for 20yrs or more. The USA primary energy per person peaked at 94,229kwh in 2000 and dropped steadily to 77,574 in 2021.
The best way to do energy conservation is energy efficiency. That's a way to conserve energy by not stupidly wasting energy by using it inefficiently. The #1 energy inefficiency, the #1 waste of energy on the planet right now is the gargantuan push for wind & solar power. That is energy inefficiency on steroids.
World primary energy was 80.3% fossil 10 yrs ago. Usher in well over $2.5 trillion on wind/solar (>$4 trillion incl ancillary transmission upgrades). Last year world energy was 80.2% fossil. That includes a big move from coal to high efficiency supercritical coal, CCGT & a fair amount of hydro in non-OECD countries. All of which are proven highly successful reductions in fossil consumption. As well a general increase in efficiency especially for Transportation. So what has wind/solar done? Answer: nothing or even less than nothing. $4 trillion down the sewer with zero results except more expensive energy.
An intermittent, fluctuating grid is a low efficiency grid as proven by a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. But electricity prices DO directly correlate with the level of wind+solar in a country. European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources, by Ken Gregory, P.Eng.
https://friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
In France & Ontario (both largely nuclear electricity) increasing wind & solar has INCREASED emissions AND electricity cost. The Bentek study found that emissions INCREASED after the big wind energy builds in Colorado & Texas. In other words the massive expenditure in materials, resources, energy and capitol to build all those wind farms wasted more fossil fuel due to induced inefficiencies of the Grid than was saved. A total waste of capitol and valuable resources. Keep in mind the EROI (Energy Return on Investment) of Wind Turbines is very low. Best studies put it @ 16:1 compared to 75:1 for Light Water Reactors and 120:1 for CANDU reactors. The impact on Grid efficiency is so large for Wind & Solar that it pushes their overall EROI well into negative values.
“The best way to do energy conservation is energy efficiency.” Bravo! This used to be common sense that everyone agreed about. But, alas, it no longer fits the narrative.
Please read the book “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy” by Peter Huber and Mark Mills. We have plenty of energy, an unlimited amount actually. If we allow ourselves to access it, we do not need to worry about “conserving” it. In fact, the authors make the point that we should stop talking in terms of “conserving” energy because the First Law of Thermodynamics does this for us. We just need to stop playing politics with it and get to the business of extracting it. I think, actually, China is doing that regardless.
Sounds fascinating. I'll add it to my TBR pile, thanks!
They wrote a follow-up book called “Hard Green”, which advocates for focusing on cleaning the environment we can “see, touch, smell” around us, and not get captured by bogus computer-generated, simulated ones. I agree. Too much garbage-in/garbage-out being used to leverage control.
I so miss the times when we worried about our actual environment, trees, animals, and pandas. Good times.
Doomberg said it best: one’s quality of life is determined by how much energy they can afford to waste. Since all productive things require free energy to be expended in order to do useful work, energy must be wasted as entropy in the process. Increasing efficiency and reducing waste is generally smart (within reasonable ROI limits), but not if it reduces the productive ability of the person/system.
If buying a barrel of oil and setting it on fire in their front yard is what brings someone the most joy in life, then who are we to judge? I plan to buy an airplane someday, and I won’t consider that a waste because flying is fun. However you can be sure it won’t be a jet because I would never be able to afford the fuel costs!
But is "bringing joy" a productive activity? Does it do useful work? :D Joke aside, I do know happy people are productive people.
Doomberg is, as always, correct. Yet I still have misgivings about squandering energy just because you can and I don't think that's going to change. Make sure you swing by when you get your plane. I love flying, thanks in advance.
If you don’t let pyromaniacs play, then they will just find other things to burn 😉. Hard to say if that is “productive” but there would clearly be a societal benefit in that case.
I’m sure that by the time I get a plane I will be looking for any excuse to fly it, so happy to swing by Sofia!
We need to start thinking in terms of Entropy and Exergy. The exergy is the quality of energy (II law of thermodynamics) that is destroyed while energy is the quantity of energy (I law of thermodynamics) that is conserved. The fact that energy is conserved does not tell you much about anything. On the other hand, when you do exergy accounting of any industrial process, you will begin to see the the true value of energy streams and their value to economic productivity. If we understood exergy ("Elixir of Life"), we would not be wasting time and money on low-density, low-probability energy sources such as solar, wind, batteries, etc...this is a flaw in human understanding of life processes. What we are seeing is an incoherent approach to solve a manufactured crisis driven by greed and power. Unfortunately, we cannot escape entropy that destroys exergy in life or engineered processes. When we learn to work with this naturally occurring entropy, we can learn to apply rational methods to utilize exergy from carbon-based energy sources to create a coherent wealthy society. Considerable amount of exergy-based engineering research research has been done in Germany, Spain, UK, Portugal, Netherlands, etc....it is saddening to see their EU leaders not acknowledging any of these realities!
Conservation, would mean we actually have a shortage of something. We do not have a shortage of oil and gas. We have a shortage of political good sense. Price will make us conserve, because it hits us in the pocket book, but then again this is all about the money and the theft of our tax dollars, for something we did not vote for or want, or need - ie the wind and solar debacle. But when the trickle down effect of less industry hits us because of higher prices or like in Europe the shuttering of complete industries, then we will all have to know about conservation of everything from food, water and energy. Energy is the economy, less energy less economy... I think we are getting there, I went to the grocery store today... no need to say more.
The deficit of good political sense is so severe I don't even know if we have some to conserve...
Thanks for the comment - you made me smile again, we have to try to laugh! Being an ear for people who are being surrounded by solar facilities is a heavy load, but some times at the end of the day listening is all you can do, there is no other road to go down to stop them. Greed always wins at the end of the day with these land owners and solar companies, and stealing our tax dollars seem to trump good sense. Now all we can do it try to regulate an unregulated industry and make it even more unprofitable for them, but safer for the neighbors.
This is nothing more than Colonialism using money and influence instead of military intervention. African Countries have the right to determine their own destinies and what is right for the development of their country and resources. Tired old white men extolling their vision of how to sustain their standard of living by getting others to pay.
I thought it was exceptionally arrogant.
It takes energy to develop everything but overconsumption is a learned response. People can learn to live with the minimum and create better outcomes. Western society has been based on consumption, the more the merrier. Consumerism is the worst example.
Conserving energy is somewhat a mark of wealth. For any given task, the equvalent result but more energy efficient option almost always is more expensive (also read takes more resources, if it wasn't there wouldnt be a chiice for long). So it takes the ability to invest in the future to use less energy long term.
There are also technologic aspects to this as well.
Can we depopulate rhe WEF?
To save the world, of course.
Maybe John Kerry could give up his private jet and said Jet travel as a wokeeffort to help lessen energy consumption and global warming.
I believe there is a direct correlation between overall living standards/progress, GDP and energy consumption.
Back in the 1970’s 4/5 households in N America had one wage earner and could sock away 10% in savings every year for retirement.
Energy wasn’t cheap long ago, the currency was stronger and the taxes lower.
I agree it’s good to be wise and frugal with tangibles, just not things of the heart.
What is energy overconsumption? A New York City resident will likely give a very different answer than a farmer in Chad. Are the definitions of 'progress' and 'wealth growth' universally agreed upon? Perhaps a more valid question is whether increasing the standard of living for the 3rd world can be accomplished without vastly increasing percapita energy use?
I think the short answer to this question is no.
See below for the link, but basically if you graph on a log scale energy intensity versus GDP, you get a straight line
Energy is economic life, the only way to grow wealth is to consume more energy in the grand scheme of thing
Efficiency change the angle of said straight line and is desirable, but do not change that fact
Short of more nuclear or efficient geothermy, stagnant energy is likely to be stagnant global wealth. And declining per capita if population grow.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-use-per-person-vs-gdp-per-capita
I am on the other side of this so-called shortage. Yell and scream at me all you like. I think the problem needs to be clearly defined first and currently we are allowing paid pundits to define the problems, including scientists. We in the USA know there is plentiful nat gas to last us for centuries. We know this!!! When the EU announced the thermostat temperature requirements the wife and I went Hmmm we already use that temp in the winter, but we do this on our own. What people do not understand there comes a point where you must have some heat source or your pipes in your structures will burst.
Simple energy savings are cheap, even in Europe. The problems in the USA and Europe is the cost of major upgrades like HVAC or Heat handlers. My home is paid for and we just replaced our windows and it was expensive but worth the cost. Americans , if you really want to save energy cut back on the size of your home, do not own a vehicle for every driving member of your family. The wife and I are retired so we now have one vehicle. I have so many friends that complain about living expenses and I tell them drop one vehicle if you do not need it, your children do not need to drive to school take the bus.
It's so easy to start taking your desires for needs and then if you need to quit them it could be painful, I imagine.
It’s totally arrogant, I spent the better part of 10 years in Africa working on drilling projects. Everyone is there telling Africans how to develop, China is using financed projects and debt, NGO’s are telling them to set ridiculous standards of operations. The resources belong to them, what’s good for thier own development is theirs to decide.
Peak arrogance.
http://www.timgielen.com/
Irina, it's propably worth an hour of your time if you want to get a bigger picture of why hydrocarbons are being removed from use by 2030.
It takes a while to get around to the topic of touching on energy, but it may change you views on the media and why the Green New Deal is pushed so heavily.
I rarely link to videos because I prefer to read rather than watch. But this also illustrates why substack is such an important tool for avoiding the ever-increasing censorship.
Welcome to my world views.
Please do feel free to disagree.
Thanks, Tom!
Remember Patty Hearst and what happened to her during her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Front?
She became one of them. She even participated in one of their bank robberies.
That's what has happened to society in general today. We've been "kidnapped" by the powerful and wealthy through their constant messaging via academia and the media into believing that we over-consume energy or that we waste energy.
We don't.
What's really happening is a Malthus-like panic occurring amongst the powerful & wealthy, especially amongst those who don't put their trust in God but put trust in self.
As a consequence, they've become terrified that this Earth will run out of "energy" much as Malthus was terrified that the world would run out of resources to feed a growing human population.
A more current example of that panic is Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb". Too many people!!!
And then "Peak Oil".
Remember how Margaret Sanger was terrified that the black man would ruin her "world"? The powerful & wealthy are equally terrified that the average person will ignorantly over-consume and/or waste energy, thus ruining their "world".
"Yes, but one day we WILL run out of (fill in the blank)!!! And then what?"
How did the people of Israel not only survive but prosper in a wilderness for 40 years without the usual access to food and water?
Who fed thousands of people in a countryside from a few fish and some bread, not once but twice? How many baskets of food were left over after everyone ate their fill?
The primary reason why this panic is infecting people's minds these days about resources is because they're turning their backs to God.
One of the names of God in the Bible is "YHWH Yireh" or "[God] provides". And when he provides, he provides in abundance, far more than we need.
Actually God will provide in abundance even if we don't trust him and for one reason and one reason alone: Because he loves us as a father loves his son.
Trust God and trust IN him that he will provide.
Therein lies the root of all of our problems Irina. We place wants above needs and here in America many families struggle just because they need to keep up with their neighbor or friends. The West has moved away from God and now worships at the altar of consumerism. Even if you're not religious nothing changes.
It is funny at how much stuff you accumulate over a lifetime and once you hit SS age you get rid of most of it and downsize your home if you can afford it. Some advice for all of you young people look at how your parents and their friends are living. Most elderly in the USA do not have anything but SS and end up poor. You do not want to go down this route. You do not want to retire and still paying off debt and your home. I could go on and on, but Irina summed it up better than I could.
Status signalling is just as bad as virtue signalling. I was lucky to have parents who taught me frugality and reason, in good times and bad.
Energy consumption is a requirement for progress and wealth growth.
Just like in everything else, we must strike a balance between using energy to improve people’s lives and wasting energy beyond some reasonable standard. The problem is we cannot agree on the reasonable standard!!
I tend to think Americans are crazy trying to have a house bigger than their neighbors:
“In 1973, the earliest year for which U.S. Census data is currently available, the average square footage of a house in the U.S. was 1,660 square feet. By 2015, the average square footage of a home increased to a whopping 2,687 square feet, although since then, it’s begun to drop.”
I know a lot of retired couples living in 2,500 sq. ft. homes. Heating and cooling that much space for two people seems wasteful to me, but I have not been given the responsibility of setting the standards.