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Absolutely there are thermodynamic limits to energy "use" on the planet. But isn't it obvious that we will expand into space stations and then eventually onto

by acchow 7y ago

Absolutely there are thermodynamic limits to energy "use" on the planet. But isn't it obvious that we will expand into space stations and then eventually onto other planets? > But if energy became arbitrarily cheap, someone could buy all of it, and suddenly the activities that comprise the economy would grind to a halt. This segment contained a number of logical leaps that I can't agree with. It is possible for energy cost to fall arbitrarily low without reaching zero. And you can imagine an arbitrarily low price that would skyrocket quickly if someone actually tried to buy all the energy. > So once our fixed annual energy costs 1% of GDP, the 99% remaining will find itself stuck. If it tries to grow, energy prices must grow in proportion and we have monetary inflation, but no real growth. I'm not able to follow the claim here. Can anyone shed some light?

dosy 7y ago
I think it's a condensed version of saying: If we have finite energy at a fixed price (of say 1% of GDP in total cost), then either the rest of the GDP (which is not energy) does not grow, and so the demand for that energy (and so its price) remains the same, or it tries to grow (and cannot "is stuck") because growth will increase demand for the energy and therefore drive up prices, but since it is energy and fundamental to everything, all prices will go up, so we will have inflation, but inflation is not growth.
- acchow 7y ago
  > but since it is energy and fundamental to everything, all prices will go up, so we will have inflation, but inflation is not growth. Oh ok... I see why I got lost. In my head I didn't hold the assumption that "all growth necessarily must consume more energy". This is assumed throughout the article until the Epilogue. But if you drop this assumption, then I don't think the "it's just inflation not growth" holds anymore.
  - dosy 7y ago
    I had to parse that part a few times to get it myself, when I saw you didn't get it too I could relate. Then I had to think a few times about what you gave in response! It seems this part of the topic is quite involved. I think I get some of it now. If you drop the assumption that grow takes energy, then no extra demand on energy from growth, then no price increase on energy, then no inflation, and so it's just growth, not inflation. Agreed. But when you and me are examining it like this...the whole situation described by that sentence starts to seem a little contrived to me. Seems there's a lot of error bars on each of the assumed connections in that causal chain, that could lead that path to branch at each of them into many other possible paths, rather than just the one path that condensed sentence proposes. I still have a hard time imagining a growth that doesn't use more energy (except the one defined in that article as "development", which seems to be a more sophisticated/involved use of existing resources, rather than extracting/creating more new (primary) resources.) If you could elaborate some more on your images of growth that don't consume more energy, I'd find it helpful to understand this whole thing better.
    - kgwgk 7y ago
      > I still have a hard time imagining a growth that doesn't use more energy (except the one defined in that article as "development", which seems to be a more sophisticated/involved use of existing resources, rather than extracting/creating more new (primary) resources.) Can’t you imagine efficiency gains leading to an increase in output (GDP) for constant inputs (resources)? That’s growth. (Note that the article talks about development as something different from GDP growth.)
      - dosy 7y ago
        Right, I think the article was saying development is GDP stagnation but increasing quality nonetheless, does that about match your understanding of it? I still can't really imagine the other scenario because when I see efficiency gains I think they will lead to growth and more energy usage. Examples like "increasing CPU power should have led to faster software, but instead it lead to slower languages and larger software". Same for memory and bandwidth. Our websites keep expanding to fill the next generation of network capacity. So the gains from efficiency are quickly consumed by increasing growth and energy use. Maybe you could help me imagine some that are not like that? I'd like that. It's easier for me to imagine the examples like in the article (more fancy dessert, same ingredients) that are there classed as development, distinct from growth. But growth as defined there, with static energy, I can't imagine right now.

by acchow 7y ago

dosy 7y ago

I think it's a condensed version of saying: If we have finite energy at a fixed price (of say 1% of GDP in total cost), then either the rest of the GDP (which is not energy) does not grow, and so the demand for that energy (and so its price) remains the same, or it tries to grow (and cannot "is stuck") because growth will increase demand for the energy and therefore drive up prices, but since it is energy and fundamental to everything, all prices will go up, so we will have inflation, but inflation is not growth.

acchow 7y ago
> but since it is energy and fundamental to everything, all prices will go up, so we will have inflation, but inflation is not growth. Oh ok... I see why I got lost. In my head I didn't hold the assumption that "all growth necessarily must consume more energy". This is assumed throughout the article until the Epilogue. But if you drop this assumption, then I don't think the "it's just inflation not growth" holds anymore.
- dosy 7y ago
  I had to parse that part a few times to get it myself, when I saw you didn't get it too I could relate. Then I had to think a few times about what you gave in response! It seems this part of the topic is quite involved. I think I get some of it now. If you drop the assumption that grow takes energy, then no extra demand on energy from growth, then no price increase on energy, then no inflation, and so it's just growth, not inflation. Agreed. But when you and me are examining it like this...the whole situation described by that sentence starts to seem a little contrived to me. Seems there's a lot of error bars on each of the assumed connections in that causal chain, that could lead that path to branch at each of them into many other possible paths, rather than just the one path that condensed sentence proposes. I still have a hard time imagining a growth that doesn't use more energy (except the one defined in that article as "development", which seems to be a more sophisticated/involved use of existing resources, rather than extracting/creating more new (primary) resources.) If you could elaborate some more on your images of growth that don't consume more energy, I'd find it helpful to understand this whole thing better.
  - kgwgk 7y ago
    > I still have a hard time imagining a growth that doesn't use more energy (except the one defined in that article as "development", which seems to be a more sophisticated/involved use of existing resources, rather than extracting/creating more new (primary) resources.) Can’t you imagine efficiency gains leading to an increase in output (GDP) for constant inputs (resources)? That’s growth. (Note that the article talks about development as something different from GDP growth.)
    - dosy 7y ago
      Right, I think the article was saying development is GDP stagnation but increasing quality nonetheless, does that about match your understanding of it? I still can't really imagine the other scenario because when I see efficiency gains I think they will lead to growth and more energy usage. Examples like "increasing CPU power should have led to faster software, but instead it lead to slower languages and larger software". Same for memory and bandwidth. Our websites keep expanding to fill the next generation of network capacity. So the gains from efficiency are quickly consumed by increasing growth and energy use. Maybe you could help me imagine some that are not like that? I'd like that. It's easier for me to imagine the examples like in the article (more fancy dessert, same ingredients) that are there classed as development, distinct from growth. But growth as defined there, with static energy, I can't imagine right now.