The Oil Drum

65 comments on Thursday's Open Thread

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PeakBeliever on December 15, 2005 - 12:21pm

On energy equality:

I've noticed this discussion pops up occassionally on TOD, but I haven't seen a long thread about it...I recently discovered Richard Smalley, who wrote a very interesting paper in which he discusses what the GLOBAL energy needs of the world would be if all humans lived at the standard of living that N. Americans/Europeans do:

http://cohesion.rice.edu/NaturalSciences/Smalley/emplibrary/120204%20MRS%20Boston.pdf

Of course, the amounts of energy the world would need for all humans to live like comfortable westerners are staggering. Yet, it seems most PO discussions focus on what WE in the west are going to do in the face of declining resources. In a sense, the world's PO predicament was exasperated by the west's voracious consumer appetite; and now most of our worry seems to be how WE are going to maintain some semblance to this standard of living - the rest of the world be damned! (Of course, nobody says rest of the world be damned - but one can argue that the lack of attention to how poor nations will fare creates this attitude anyway.) It seems grossly unfair, doesn't it? Of course I don't have any solutions here, although Smalley thinks it's possible to rectify the situation.

I find myself very preoccupied with the growing have/have-not division in the world. So what are your thoughts on this gross energy inequality? Sometimes I think that the humans will never get out of this feudal-type relationship with one other - that poor will always be around, to feed the needs of the rich...

(FYI - I discovered Smalley in one of Matt Simmons's presentations.)

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Twilight on December 15, 2005 - 12:42pm

Most people think about things in a relative sense - this is what my life has been like, and how will it be afterwards? Also, there is the fear issue. The big question comes down to population. If there will not be enough energy to sustain the present population (even if that is a "temporary" situation), then some percentage of the population must die. If it happens slowly, then low birth rates and natural death rates could keep it from being devastating, but I would not count on it. So how many will volunteer to be on the losing end? And truly, most Americans are only vaguely aware of the existence on the rest of the world. If you combine these things, then you get the situation you've observed.

Is it reasonable to expect that we would have a worldwide approach to the energy problem? I doubt that even the obvious basic steps will be taken in the US in time. A globally coordinated approach is probably fantasy. But look at it very long term - the American way of life is based on large quantities of cheap energy. We grew large and powerful because we had an entire continent to exploit. Having done that, we've now moved on to exploiting the rest of the world, but that requires even more energy. If it cannot be maintained, then the energy use disparity will be reduced.