A number I'd like to know...

qtq wrote:

gwhite wrote in
:



qtq wrote:


gwhite wrote in
:



The empirical evidence shows
that world energy consumption will grow, and always has as
productivity grows. The macroeconomic argument helps shed light on
why this is so, and helps us get real. Why not just think about it
for awhile?


The obvious explanation for why world energy consumption grows as
productivity grows is that the extra energy is fueling the
productivity.


Yes, exactly. And it will continue. The only way government
intervention can really "do something" is to take a bite out of
productivity (or contract the money supply), which more or less will
mean recession/depression. This is not politically possible. As a
note, it is also outside my "all other things equal" simplification.



That doesn't follow.

Labor productivity has been increasing through the application of
technology and energy - by having a machine harvest the grain, I have
exploited the IP in the harvester as well as the energy in its petroleum
to make one person (the driver) more productive than the army of people
who previously harvested the grain.

Energy productivity can increase through the application of technology in
the same way - by having a more efficient engine, the same harvester
(well, a very similar harvester which has a more efficient engine) can,
for the same labour and energy input, harvest more grain.

Government intervention can do several (among many) things:

1. It can drive the cost of energy up to the point where only highly
productive uses of energy are feasible. This is equivalent to setting
the minimum wage at a point where only semi-skilled or skilled workers
need enter the workforce. It can fail in the same way as labour market
regulation - in a globalised economy, industry can move to a place where
the energy (labour) cost is not artificially raised. It can succeed
because the higher cost of energy drives the development of more
productive uses for that energy.

2. It can directly invest in research and development of productivity
improvement for energy, just as it directly invests in productivity
improvement for labour.



Your answers are partially correct.

1. We've gone from investing one calorie of energy invested to get ten
calories back, to using fossil fuels to investing ten calories of energy
to get one calorie back. Technology has increased the scale at which we
can do things, but only by consuming orders of magnitude more energy
than we used to require. And in doing so, we've degraded the quality of
soil and water, making a return to a one to ten relationship likely
impossible on a large scale.
2. Efficiency isn't the measure of our ability to use 100% energy of the
energy available to convert to 100% work, but instead is how close we
come to a theoretical limit in how much work we get from the energy. So
big changes in efficiency can mean very small changes in actual energy
consumption.
3. A fixed quantity of energy provides us with a relatively fixed
quantity of work. A barrel of oil for instance provides a fixed BTU
quantity, which provides a relatively fixed quantity of work. So the
rising price of a barrel of oil represents that fact that purchasing the
same fixed quantity of work is becoming ever more expensive. A drop in
oil production and consumption will mean that there is a declining
quantity of work available to a rising population.

Making cars more fuel efficient is one argument proposed to solve our
energy problem. But the quantity of fuel saved will only delay the peak
in world oil production by months or a few years. As has been pointed
out, cars are much more efficient than they were in the 1970s. But
thanks to Jevon's Paradox, we just became more dependent on them and
drove consumption up along the predicted path anyway.


Jack Dingler

gwhite wrote:

...
Actually, the private firms that own the plants (and their customers) can pay
the costs themselves. The spent fuel rods are a problem because radioactivity
is so hazardous. The government *wants* the waste because it is, for one thing,
a national security issue. I have no problem of the users paying the cost of
the federal storage. Yes, nukes should compete based on actual costs. Nuke
costs may be higher, or may appear to be so, depending upon how costs are
accounted for....

Mr. White,

As a libertarian, do you agree that Price-Anderson should be revoked and
nuclear power generators should cover their full liability by purchasing
insurance on the open market?

--
Tom Sherman