258 comments on The Slavery of Oil
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258 comments on The Slavery of Oil
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I take it the $0.37/kWh is for the gross oil inputs to the country. If you figure in useful energy, assume that only 20 percent of the input oil is turned into some kind of useful energy (after being ran through an engine, chemical energy to mechanical energy). That turns it into $1.48/kWh. Also, not all the inputs are used specifically for energy production. Figuring in useful work will give you a better idea of when the economy will not be able to support the energy. I would think somewhere around 6%-9% of GDP spent on energy would be too much for modern societies.
It is the price at which we acquire primary energy, but it is more than just the energy that we consume directly in the form of energy (heat, electricity, fuel). It also includes the energy that we use for the production of materials, such as the energy used up in the production of cement.
What is the highest percentage of our GDP that we can spend on energy is indeed the 500 Dollar question. Assuming that we can spend 100% of our GDP on energy is evidently silly. We need health-care, for example. This alone already consumes more than 10% of our wealth in some countries. We need schools. We need housing. Traditionally we were used to spend up to one third of our income on housing.
Your suggested numbers of 6%-9% are too low. We are using already more right now. You find a useful graph in the paper by Charlie Hall that was referenced already further down in the thread:
Over the years, the percentage of our wealth spent on the procurement of energy will undoubtedly rise further. It may rise to a value of 20%. Any number above 30% is probably unrealistic.
Good article, thanks Francois.
I remember reading a study (by Soc Gen?) that showed oil prices would have to rise to around USD 180/barrel to match the same share of GDP as in the previous oil shock and may have posted this on TOD.
Also I seem to remember that Euan has shown a much higher percentage was spent on energy in the past.
Growing up on the edge of the Appalation coal mines in SE Ohio, we knew the song "Sixteen Tons" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons
all too well. Especially the phrase "I owe my soul to the company store" was used in daily speech. I was educated on the system before I was 10..
"You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store..."
Cheers from Munich,
Dom
Ever read the treatise below
http://www.ohgen.net/ohathens/coal.htm
Quite interesting 1980 analysis of the Hocking County Coal fields.
Nelsonville native here.
FF
Well God bless you 'Flow! Grew up 20 Miles upstream on Rush Creek, the "bigger" branch of the Hockhocking River, near Bremen, Ohio. South of Logan (where we did our Christmas shopping) was noman's land for all my doings. Pappy worked at South Central Supply for a (short?) while. I'll be at the homestead from 27th of May to 9th of June.
If you want to reminis, send me a note..
Cheers, Dom
ps Great article. Gives a good sense of what was going on while the mines were producing. My sister (Lives near New Lexington) says the trains are trucking out the coal once again. !!