The Oil Drum: Europe | UK Population Grows To More Than 60m

UK Population Grows To More Than 60m

Posted by Chris Vernon on August 27, 2006 - 11:28am in The Oil Drum: Europe

On 24th August 2006 the Office for National Statistics published updated population information for the UK:

In mid-2005 the UK was home to 60.2 million people, of which 50.4 million lived in England. The average age was 38.8 years, an increase on 1971 when it was 34.1 years. In mid-2005 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 and one in six people were aged 65 or over.
The UK has a growing population. It grew by 375,100 people in the year to mid-2005 (0.6 per cent). The UK population increased by 7.7 per cent since 1971, from 55.9 million. Growth has been faster in more recent years. Between mid-1991 and mid-2004 the population grew by an annual rate of 0.3 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per cent.

Source: National Statistics

The baby-boomer spike approaching their sixtieth birthday is clear to see.

The growth is being driven by migration rather than net births with the CIA World Fact Book stating:

Birth rate: 10.71 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate: 10.13 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Net migration rate: 2.18 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)

We don't always fully trust the official statistics when it comes to energy reporting but how reliable are these population numbers? Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research suspects these figures are in fact a serious underestimation:

There are four reasons why the official estimates of the population are too low. The first is that the figures are out of date. The figures released in the past week relate to "mid-2005". With the population rising by 375,000 in a normal year, timing matters and the figures also suggest that the critical 62m figure will be reached in 18 months' time.
The figures also fail to include illegal migrants, of which even the government says there are 430,000 in the UK. The official figures also only include migrants who say they are definitely planning to stay for more than 12 months. So they include only 100,000 from the EU accession countries even though the latest data show 412,000 from accession countries who have been granted National Insurance numbers since accession in May 2004.
Finally, the numbers are based on the infamous 2001 census, which estimated a population about 900,000 too low compared with what the Centre estimated from alternative sources and from what the government's own data had estimated from earlier censuses, births, deaths and migration data. There is some overlap between all these categories so the crude total is not an additional 1.9m but only 1.4m, which brings the total population up to 61.5m from the official estimate of 60.1m.
UK population is 1.4m higher than officials claim

Population density is another way of looking at this data.

This graph shows national population densities ignoring countries with populations under 1 million and Singapore which is basically a city of over 4 million people on a small island (population density = 6,333 per sq km!).

Source: United Nations World Populations Prospects Report (2004 revision), via Wikipedia

Whilst it can probably be shown that recent economic migration has a net benefit on UK the economy one has to wonder about the impacts of a growing population moving forward as energy supply starts to decline. Total energy supply hasn't yet started to fall in the UK but it can only be a matter of time before North Sea depletion and infrastructure decommission reduces total supply.

UK Population Grows To More Than 60m

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15 comments

mididoctors on August 28, 2006 - 10:10am Permalink | Comments top

How does this correlate with growth in demand? Is demand been driven up per capita or just by additional population?..

demographically? is a aging population more energy intensive? Intuitively Ii would say yes?

I was surprised by England's population density in comparison with other countries

Boris
London

doctorbob on August 28, 2006 - 4:51pm Permalink | Comments top

The above bar chart looks like bad news for self-sufficiency in food, as much land in England in hilly/wet - unlike in Netherlands, the only major European country with a higher population density. How is England - and indeed UK, with its other components of Wales and Scotland being even more hilly/wet - going to feed itself in the second decade of this century with the current farming system which depends so much on machinery and fossil fuels? At present, it does not as about 60% of food is imported. How is this to be afforded when we will be importing most of our energy 10 years from now, at huge cost? At present we export mainly "services" rather than material goods - which in a post-peak world may be mainly irrelevant and unwanted by the rest of the world.

Reform of agriculture and land ownership to address these problems before they become crises, looks unlikely. I would conclude that in order to feed ourselves after the end of this decade, many if not most people in UK will need to look towards producing a good proportion of their food themselves or as part of small local community groups, not unlike as in WW2. Unfortunately, unlike that time, most people now have no experience of growing anything edible, having gardens composed of lawn, patio, shrubs, etc.

Overall, it does not look good under present structures. What is needed is some organisation to undertake a programme which aims to get ordinary urban/suburban dwellers to take the first steps in this direction.

Chris Vernon on August 28, 2006 - 5:48pm Permalink | Parent | Comments top

The Soil Association are now specifically looking at the impact peak oil will have on the UK food system: Soil Association: Peak Oil

They seem to have the right idea:

Focussing our 2007 National Conference on the theme of 'Food and Farming - Post Peak Oil'
Producing practical research to enable cities, towns and communities to re-localise their food supplies
Launching a national campaign, alerting public and politicians alike, to the urgency of this challenge
Promoting re-localised food systems in schools, hospitals and businesses
Investing in our local groups as key catalysts to build a new resilient food culture at the grassroots

It's a good start.

doctorbob on August 29, 2006 - 3:03am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

"It's a good start." It is indeed, though we have a long way to go in a short time. Millions need to take this up, not thousands, with a corresponding investment in promotion and education. Home growing of healthy food would also help tackle the obesity timebomb, which will otherwise lead to an epidemic of illnesses that UK will not be able to afford to treat in 10-20 years time.

MUDLOGGER on August 29, 2006 - 11:00am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

The effect of PO on the UK may act like the other two recent crunch points in UK History.

The U Boat blockade of 1914-1918 and the even more effective U Boat Blockade of 1939-1945.

A pdf paper on the effects of the U Boat Blockade is available here:

http://www.jmss.org/2003/spring-summer/documents/rev-weir-cdfai2.pdf#search=%22uk%20imports%20during %20the%20u%20boat%20blockade%22

BTW: Census figures for the British Isles 1911 42 m, British Isles 1941, 48 m. and the UK struggled to feed itself with these levels of population, let alone 61-62 m as guesstimated in 2005.

The paper is worth a look, lots of tables and you can get an understanding of how agriculture switched in production patterns in only five years. This occurred during a well understood fight for national survival. Today, We cannot even get an energy consensus up and running.

Two Thirds of calories were imported into Britain before the start of the second world war.

UK Decline in food imports (Dry Cargo), millions of tons

1940    19.3
1941    14.7
1942    10.6
1943    11.5
1944    11.0

Imports of Rice, Maize, Peas and beans were much reduced. Home production of Potatoes represented the single largest method of offsetting imported calorie losses.

Peak Oil may behave in a way similar to the effects of the U Boat blockade. Except that even at the height of the blockade, other countries (Mostly the US and Canada) were willing to supply food. After peak oil, a global reduction in available food may make this unlikely. They may be interested in feeding themselves.

And anyway, what will we have to trade for food?

And what will be more essential - bio diesel crops or staple foods?

And who is to say our climate may continue to be relatively benign for crops?

Blue Peter on August 30, 2006 - 9:41am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

The report also says that the intensive farming activity eroded the agricultural value of British soil. Which suggests that it's not a long term strategy.

Peter.

MUDLOGGER on August 30, 2006 - 5:00pm Permalink | Parent | Comments top

That is correct. I suppose that the short term considerations of maintaining enough food to survive and fight trumped all other considerations. The loss of agricultural fertility became a problem after 1945.

Also , I noticed that the health of the poorest segment of the UK population exhibited a general increase in dietary health with the advent of rationing...

doctorbob on August 31, 2006 - 3:53am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

On the subject of productivity of agricultural land, see NaturalHomeAndGarden.com article "Pasadena Paradise", where a family in California grow 3 tonnes of food from a 1/10 acre (that's about 40m x 10m), using intensive organic gardening techniques. That compares with conventional California farms producing 0.2 to 0.5 tonnes per acre in monoculture, such that each American needs 1.2 acres of land to provide their food. That's 50-100 times more productivity per acre. The difference is in intensive, manual cultivation, growing crops in several levels from the ground up, in the immediate vicinity of their own dwellings.

So, IF land is used in this way there is no need for anyone to be short of food, even though the UK climate is a little less conducive than that of California. If people can be persuaded to take up these ideas the country need not have a food supply problem. At the moment it's too easy to stop by the supermarket, pick up what you need and put the bill on the credit card. Hence my fear that economic collapse and inability to import food and fuel (as in Cuba) will be an unfortunate pre-requisite for such a widespread change.

Chris Vernon on August 31, 2006 - 9:12am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

For sure. This is often the case, technically there is a solution but the challenge is behavioural and policy. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho from Science In Society has been working on what she calls the "Dream Farm":

"Dream Farm is exactly what we need to feed the world, mitigate climate change and let everyone thrive in good health and wealth in a post-fossil fuel economy"

Details here in this very encouraging article: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/DFHTBCC.php

skeptic on September 1, 2006 - 4:59am Permalink | Parent | Comments top

Mudlogger wrote:
"And anyway, what will we have to trade for food?"

Same as we always have - weapons of mass destruction, weapons of small scale destruction, defences against the above. People who know how to use the above. Insurance. Game show formats. New product research and development. GCSE, A-levels and degrees. The world most famous auction houses (Sotherbys and CHristies), merchant banking,...I could go on all day...

and if you want to get a bit more physical...

of course , most of that is made in China, but its all sold in Windsor - and the retailer makes the most profit out of it. No reason why most of it shouldnt be made locally. Theres plenty of clay directly under the shop which could be used to make figurines. Not that I think that will be neccessary. Theres always going to be an international trade in high value tat that doesnt go off. Things like fresh apples from New Zealand are going to be the problem.

"Where there are castles, there will be tourists. Where there are tourists there will be fudge"

MUDLOGGER on September 1, 2006 - 7:14pm Permalink | Parent | Comments top

But we wont be trading Airfix kits.

Also,

Does the esteemed W F Deedes, erstwhile editor of the telegraph, hook up with TOD UK?.....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/09/01/do0103.xml&sSheet=/opinion /2006/09/01/ixopinion.html

rgds

Nick Rouse on August 29, 2006 - 8:32am Permalink | Comments top

What matters from a global perspective is that many of the immigrants are coming from places with a low fossil fuel consumption per capita, to the UK, with a high fossil fuel consumption per capita and adopting our ways.

If they did not change their ways it would only mean that the oil that would have been shipped to their places of origin would now be shipped to the UK. This would have a detrimental effect on the balance of payments (somewhat offset by any increase in exports due the increased economic activity). It would not, however, exacerbate the increasing squeeze between oil supply and demand.

This effect is much worse in America as the contrast in fossil fuel consumption between poor Latin American countries, where most of their immigrants come from, and the USA is greater than that between Eastern Europe, where most of our recent immigrants have come from, and the UK.

copelch on August 29, 2006 - 10:55am Permalink | Comments top

Chris,

A pretty ominous picture -- especially if one extrapolates to mid-century. Here's a website that might be of interest to your readers in this connection: Optimum Population Trust

copelch on August 29, 2006 - 11:01am Permalink | Comments top

P.S.:

It's also pretty frightening to compare Optimum Population Trust's "World Population Clock" with Chevron's "Global Oil and Gas Consumption Clock".

One wonders which is ticking faster.