May 4th, 2009
Peak oil and the end of economic growth?
“American Scientist” has a provocative article on peak oil and what that means for the chimera of unending economic growth. The authors remind us that population growth and increased food production have both literally been fuelled by ever more energy use, much of it wood or fossil fuel. This is not sustainable.
The authors are Hail and Day, and here’s how “American Scientist” describes their thesis, “They have re-examined some of the data that led to the discrediting of the ‘limits to growth’ theory and have shown that both resource use and costs have only risen, and are no longer being mitigated by market forces. Although new sources of energy have been found, they are much more expensive to extract, a declining return on investment that Hall and Day think could lead to large societal problems in the near future.”
You will have to pay to read the whole article.
Let us remind ourselves that unlimited growth dogma went hand-in-hand with the manufacturing of phoney “wealth” by financial finagling in major investment centers around the world. There is NOT unlimited cheap energy nor is there creation of unlimited “wealth.” Duh.
One friend who knows a bit about the petrol biz tells me the Saudis may now be pumping a barrel of seawater into the earth for every barrel of petroleum they extract. Does this sound like an unending fuel source to you? Yet, Saudi allegedly has the world’s greatest crude oil reserves. That’s what they tell us. Wanna buy a bridge?
Another knowing correspondent says this about the Hall and Day piece: [the authors describe] “Energy Return On Investment [EROI],” and I found their Figure 10 interesting: It shows that the EROI for petroleum in the USA has dropped from 100:1 in 1930 to 20:1 in 1970 and to 14:1 today, and compares those values to EROI values for other fuels. They mention in the text that EROI for new petroleum in the USA may soon fall to 1:1.” Now that’s starting to sound more like solar or wind, isn’t it. The authors are saying the era of cheap energy is over, no matter what the source.
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A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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