Energy fills our bodies and powers our machines. When the energy supply has no bounds, we can do what we want with near impunity. An exact accounting would sum muscular effort and engine activity. We can use expenditures as a comparative corollary. Consider the following, all in billions of 2010 US dollars;
Supply World GDP $58140
Entertainment Macau casinos $33
Movie production $1.1
Spiritual Catholic church annual income $0.115
Infrastructure Canada power generation $20
Canada transportation $17
China rail $40
Knowledge Wikipedia $0.016
Expansion NASA $18.7
Debt Global $38695
It is difficult to see the future based upon these expenditures. Where is the focus of energy expenditure? Also, for how long will we manage to support that (energy) debt?
Blue Fin Shushi
Food is the energy source that powers the human body. On average a person needs 10MJ a day. Multiply that by 365 days a year and the nearly 7 billion hungry people and that’s a huge amount of energy.
Consider the recent auction of a blue-fin tuna. One fish sold for $396000US. That’s 342 kilograms going likely for a lot of sushi meals. For another indicator, the United Nations food price index is at an all time high. This quantifies the higher cost for the same meal world-wide.
How do we balance our hunger, our reliance upon natural food stocks and the diminishing quantity of these resources? Our population increases inexorably while the available, edible energy supplies decrease. What does this say about the future of our civilization?.
Where To Go ?
Planning for the future is a hallmark of humankind. Few if any other animals can project trends into the future. With this, people can plan over decades to build an orbiting space station. With this, we can also identify activity prejudicial to our future well being and perhaps do something about it.
Given an ever decreasing ready access to primary energy sources (coal, oil and natural gas), we’re now considering replacements via natural processes. Options focus upon solar power, whether directly onto silicon cells or indirectly through vegetation and into ethanol.
Wanting to use great amounts of energy far into the future means having access to primary and solar energy sources. A measure of availability of energy is the human population over solar receptors, that is over arable land. Many city states have densities well above 100 people per hectare. Moving there wouldn’t be a good idea. Australia and Canada lie at the opposite end both with less than one person per hectare. Perhaps this is why both these countries maintain high immigration levels. But, the population density increases in these countries, and the energy availability per person decreases. Will these countries still be a favoured destination far into the future or will other factors come into play?.
Coal Fire
Planning for the future is a hallmark of humankind. Few if any other animals can project trends into the future. With this, people can plan over decades to build an orbiting space station. With this, we can also identify activity prejudicial to our future well being and perhaps do something about it.
Given an ever decreasing ready access to primary energy sources (coal, oil and natural gas), we’re now considering replacements via natural processes. Options focus upon solar power, whether directly onto silicon cells or indirectly through vegetation and into ethanol.
Wanting to use great amounts of energy far into the future means having access to primary and solar energy sources. A measure of availability of energy is the human population over solar receptors, that is over arable land. Many city states have densities well above 100 people per hectare. Moving there wouldn’t be a good idea. Australia and Canada lie at the opposite end both with less than one person per hectare. Perhaps this is why both these countries maintain high immigration levels. But, the population density increases in these countries, and the energy availability per person decreases. Will these countries still be a favoured destination far into the future or will other factors come into play?.
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is mostly one island. Becasue of this, the people within its shores effectively tabulate the amount of ingress and egress of material. For the last 40 years the North Sea oil fields have enabled the United Kingdom to be nearly energy independent. Now though, the extraction of oil from the fields has peaked and they recover less and less oil over time. This has made the island state again dependent upon foreign nations for its energy needs.
As the oil fields were developed and energy swelled the nation’s coffers, the United Kingdom followed an aggressive foreign posture. They could send a strong naval force almost anywhere in the world. They designed and built their own defence weaponry. As well, they expected their voice to be heard and their requests considered at international forums.
Without a source of abundant energy, the United Kingdom must follow another path. For one, they have taken a step on the road of austerity. They’ve greatly lowered their military budget. Their research and development will likely decrease as more funds are used to maintain infrastructure and purchase off-shore energy. Will another consequence be a decreaes in their international image? Will they become more insular and reflective? Will the loss of readily available energy make humanity less of a global village and more a collection of small, self-centered states? If so, how will we ever continue improving upon our civilization?.
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