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What is a Human Being Worth (in Terms of Energy)?

Posted by Luis de Sousa on July 20, 2008 - 8:50am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: barrel of oil equivalent, human power, original [list all tags]

Days ago Euan got a ping from London based journalist Jonathan Ossoff:

We've tracked down a lot of statistics that demonstrate just how remarkable oil is as a resource, but we're having a bit of trouble synthesizing and contextualizing that data to get a usable understanding of how oil compares to, say, human labour, or a hydroelectric plant, as an energy source.

This query prompted an interesting discussion among the TOD staff on the comparison of human labour to oil.

Right: Bradley Wiggins, one of today's top endurance athletes. He can sustain a power output of about 500 watts for extended periods of time. But how significant is that number?

There's more… (1714 words) | 109 comments | | Permalink | Without comments

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Peak Oil Primers

“This order [i.e. capitalism] is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with the economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”

—Max Weber, 1905