Yeah, from what I found, one thing that drove the increase in price back then was linked to difficulties in oil extraction: the combined production of the Middle East, Europe and North America declined by 4% between 2004 and 2007 (I have some elements on the financial crisis here).
There was more discussion on this issue back then, but then shale oil arrived and delayed the “all-liquids” peak oil by 10 years. I don’t see how that can last, though.
I’m curious about your take on conservation efforts, fuel efficiency, better conversion in energy plants, more human power, etc, etc. I keep the belief that smarter conservation measures could make up a lot of difference over the next several decades. How about you?
Also curious about your take on the implications of moonshot energy production coming through, that is, cheap nanotube solar cells paving roads,cheap nuclear fusion, so the thought experiment that energy production becomes potentially limitless. Is that valuable or dangerous?
Earth is an open system in terms of energy but a closed system regarding materials.
We receive from the sun much more energy than we are transforming today into usable energy. I think the limiting factor to create devices (be them renewal energies, fusion, …) that transform this sun’s energy into usable energy are land, materials, and available energy (mainly fossil) to build the devices in the first place. So, it would be impossible to create something on infinite scale.
But let’s assume we can create an energy transformation device that overweighs so much the energy we can consume that we can call it in practice an “infinite” energy source. Even in this (in my mind far away) scenario we would see then the bottleneck in materials and economic growth will not be able to go on forever.
At some point on time humanity will face the moment “OK, from now on we will be less humans and/or have less per capita”.
This is in addition to @Corentin Biteau concerns on whether keep growing the energy we can use is a good thing or not.
I talk about that in Post 2. There are many ways to improve how we use energy indeed, without necessarily making a dent in human well-being. However, this depends on 2 important things:
How the remaining energy is shared. If the 10-20% wealthiest still manage to get a good chunk of energy production for non-essential items (like using planes or eating meat every day), then less energy will come at the expense of the poorest.
Using only what we really need (and removing stuff like planned obsolescence or luxury items) would certainly damage economic growth. But a society without economic growth would certainly be very, very different—then again see post 2 on systemic risks.
I point the limits of nuclear fusion here—I think it’s best to see it as a “bigger and safer nuclear plant”. An interesting prospect (if it exists), but still dependent on complex supply chains, finite metals, alot of funding, and very slow and complicated to build.
I also think that having more energy would be dangerous. Indeed, we are already having a lot of trouble managing correctly the power we have—risks of nuclear wars, AGI, biorisks, and the ongoing destruction of the natural world. So infinite energy would be worse. More about that here.
Yeah, from what I found, one thing that drove the increase in price back then was linked to difficulties in oil extraction: the combined production of the Middle East, Europe and North America declined by 4% between 2004 and 2007 (I have some elements on the financial crisis here).
There was more discussion on this issue back then, but then shale oil arrived and delayed the “all-liquids” peak oil by 10 years. I don’t see how that can last, though.
I’m curious about your take on conservation efforts, fuel efficiency, better conversion in energy plants, more human power, etc, etc. I keep the belief that smarter conservation measures could make up a lot of difference over the next several decades. How about you?
Also curious about your take on the implications of moonshot energy production coming through, that is, cheap nanotube solar cells paving roads,cheap nuclear fusion, so the thought experiment that energy production becomes potentially limitless. Is that valuable or dangerous?
Earth is an open system in terms of energy but a closed system regarding materials.
We receive from the sun much more energy than we are transforming today into usable energy. I think the limiting factor to create devices (be them renewal energies, fusion, …) that transform this sun’s energy into usable energy are land, materials, and available energy (mainly fossil) to build the devices in the first place. So, it would be impossible to create something on infinite scale.
But let’s assume we can create an energy transformation device that overweighs so much the energy we can consume that we can call it in practice an “infinite” energy source. Even in this (in my mind far away) scenario we would see then the bottleneck in materials and economic growth will not be able to go on forever.
At some point on time humanity will face the moment “OK, from now on we will be less humans and/or have less per capita”.
This is in addition to @Corentin Biteau concerns on whether keep growing the energy we can use is a good thing or not.
I talk about that in Post 2. There are many ways to improve how we use energy indeed, without necessarily making a dent in human well-being. However, this depends on 2 important things:
How the remaining energy is shared. If the 10-20% wealthiest still manage to get a good chunk of energy production for non-essential items (like using planes or eating meat every day), then less energy will come at the expense of the poorest.
Using only what we really need (and removing stuff like planned obsolescence or luxury items) would certainly damage economic growth. But a society without economic growth would certainly be very, very different—then again see post 2 on systemic risks.
I point the limits of nuclear fusion here—I think it’s best to see it as a “bigger and safer nuclear plant”. An interesting prospect (if it exists), but still dependent on complex supply chains, finite metals, alot of funding, and very slow and complicated to build.
I also think that having more energy would be dangerous. Indeed, we are already having a lot of trouble managing correctly the power we have—risks of nuclear wars, AGI, biorisks, and the ongoing destruction of the natural world. So infinite energy would be worse. More about that here.
Excellent, I wondered after i wrote that if I was going to get a reminder to read your other posts.
Very cool.
Thank you, Corentin.