4 ms·

Intuitively, that only applies when there's actually some pent up demand. At some point, availability of teacups really won't drive more demand.

bryanlarsen 9y ago
Energy is the principal or a major secondary input into food, transportation, housing, consumer and industrial goods, et cetera. In other words, just about everything we spend money on. So unless we start seeing a major drop in the demand for currency, I don't buy this argument.
- hrie282 9y ago
  Everything we spend money on is being manufactured more power efficiently, is more power efficient on its own, and grid demand drops as adoption of new efficient gadgets and individual solar expands? At home we went all LED lights. My office followed suit. Even my city swapped the night time street lights Sadly we had almost every appliance in the house die in the first 4 yrs we owned it. But they’re all new efficient models now Fewer desktops, more tablets and phones. Our big TV is only on 3-4 hrs a week (but it too is a more power efficient model) A lot of effort has gone into battery storage and efficiency this last decade. Little numbers add up to big ones real fast
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  Finance consuming ever greater proportions of our GDP probably helped keep that in check https://www.bis.org/img/speeches/sp081119_g3.gif https://www.bis.org/img/speeches/sp081119_g3.gif (if your rent doubles and home insurance goes up, your electricity consumption does not go up). Similarly, offshoring of manufacturing likely muted the demand for electricity too.
- gowld 9y ago
  Economic inequality means that the average person can't afford to keep consuming as much energy as in the past, meanwhile the wealthiest people have saturated demand, they have everything they can imagine wishing for.
- IkmoIkmo 9y ago
  A lot of energy is spent on things like transportation and heating though. At some point, the rooms you occupy and the time you occupy them hits a ceiling. I'm not going to heat my room above room temperature, I'm not going to be in my room more than 24 hours in a day, even if energy efficiency made it as cheap as my current pattern of heating. Similarly, there is a ceiling as to the amount of time I spend traveling in a certain day, I wouldn't drive to another country on a 5 hour trip on a daily basis for a better job, even if energy efficiency made it as cheap as my current travel pattern (1 hour a day). That probably wasn't always the case, but there are indeed diminishing returns to spending money. Just look at Bill Gates' energy expenditure. It's waaaay higher than any of us in absolute terms, but relatively speaking a fraction of ours. So I think the intuition you responded to is probably pretty solid. The other intuition I have, which is very much related, is that our gdp growth is increasingly service-oriented. i.e. it's not just that industries get more efficient, thereby seeing gdp growth and energy consumption decouple. It's also that the relative share of our gdp is possibly moving away from energy-intensive industries, which aren't really growing much at all, to low-energy intensive industries. With agriculture and manufacturing being quite energy-intensive compared to services industries like education, legal services, finance (ignoring proof of work) etc, a deindustrializing economy should also fuel a decoupling of energy consumption and gdp growth.
- galago 9y ago
  I intuitively agree with you. However, the decoupling that's observed can partly be explained by lag. For example, a farm might have diesel powered equipment, tractors, etc. that last 10 years. Eventually they might switch to electric equipment. However, the innovation isn't stagnate, so its holding consumption constant. What the electricity is used for is actually changing as new uses become economically viable.

bryanlarsen 9y ago

Energy is the principal or a major secondary input into food, transportation, housing, consumer and industrial goods, et cetera. In other words, just about everything we spend money on. So unless we start seeing a major drop in the demand for currency, I don't buy this argument.

hrie282 9y ago
Everything we spend money on is being manufactured more power efficiently, is more power efficient on its own, and grid demand drops as adoption of new efficient gadgets and individual solar expands? At home we went all LED lights. My office followed suit. Even my city swapped the night time street lights Sadly we had almost every appliance in the house die in the first 4 yrs we owned it. But they’re all new efficient models now Fewer desktops, more tablets and phones. Our big TV is only on 3-4 hrs a week (but it too is a more power efficient model) A lot of effort has gone into battery storage and efficiency this last decade. Little numbers add up to big ones real fast
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
crdoconnor 9y ago
Finance consuming ever greater proportions of our GDP probably helped keep that in check https://www.bis.org/img/speeches/sp081119_g3.gif https://www.bis.org/img/speeches/sp081119_g3.gif (if your rent doubles and home insurance goes up, your electricity consumption does not go up). Similarly, offshoring of manufacturing likely muted the demand for electricity too.
gowld 9y ago
Economic inequality means that the average person can't afford to keep consuming as much energy as in the past, meanwhile the wealthiest people have saturated demand, they have everything they can imagine wishing for.
IkmoIkmo 9y ago
A lot of energy is spent on things like transportation and heating though. At some point, the rooms you occupy and the time you occupy them hits a ceiling. I'm not going to heat my room above room temperature, I'm not going to be in my room more than 24 hours in a day, even if energy efficiency made it as cheap as my current pattern of heating. Similarly, there is a ceiling as to the amount of time I spend traveling in a certain day, I wouldn't drive to another country on a 5 hour trip on a daily basis for a better job, even if energy efficiency made it as cheap as my current travel pattern (1 hour a day). That probably wasn't always the case, but there are indeed diminishing returns to spending money. Just look at Bill Gates' energy expenditure. It's waaaay higher than any of us in absolute terms, but relatively speaking a fraction of ours. So I think the intuition you responded to is probably pretty solid. The other intuition I have, which is very much related, is that our gdp growth is increasingly service-oriented. i.e. it's not just that industries get more efficient, thereby seeing gdp growth and energy consumption decouple. It's also that the relative share of our gdp is possibly moving away from energy-intensive industries, which aren't really growing much at all, to low-energy intensive industries. With agriculture and manufacturing being quite energy-intensive compared to services industries like education, legal services, finance (ignoring proof of work) etc, a deindustrializing economy should also fuel a decoupling of energy consumption and gdp growth.
galago 9y ago
I intuitively agree with you. However, the decoupling that's observed can partly be explained by lag. For example, a farm might have diesel powered equipment, tractors, etc. that last 10 years. Eventually they might switch to electric equipment. However, the innovation isn't stagnate, so its holding consumption constant. What the electricity is used for is actually changing as new uses become economically viable.