4 ms·
Great discussion. My favorite definition of energy is that it is a replacement for the labor and time of human beings. Energy gives us freedom to choose how to
by acidburnNSA 7y ago
Great discussion. My favorite definition of energy is that it is a replacement for the labor and time of human beings. Energy gives us freedom to choose how to live our lives because it does stuff for us that we don't want to do. This is why so few of us are farmers. Energy leads very directly to high quality of life.
As such, per capita energy usage isn't just linked to GDP, but also to Human Development Index (a composite index to quantify quality of life that includes GDP).
Here's what HDI vs. per capital electricity usage looks like: https://i.imgur.com/8otdGxP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/8otdGxP.jpg
Bubble size is proportional to population. While correlation does not imply causation, it's quite clear that as quality of life improves, so does energy usage, to a point.
The striking thing is the knee. The knee is mentioned in the parent article from a GDP point of view but I think that's only part of the story. On the low-energy side, you can see that a little bit of energy can dramatically improve your quality of life. At the very low end is where people are cooking with indoor stoves and dying to the tune of 3.8 million per year from indoor air pollution.
Then you see for places like the USA, we could cut our per capita energy usage in half and probably not be affected from a quality of life standpoint. We're saturated.
There is a worldwide moral imperative to increase per capita energy usage of people at the low end of this curve for quality of life reasons. They deserve the ability to choose how they spend their time. Doing so requires about a 2-4x increase in total world energy production.
Energy sources that can enable that kind of gain without causing more air pollution deaths and without causing climate change are well-known. Here they are as a function of carbon emissions (equivalent) per kWh generated: https://i.imgur.com/8LQFVMO.png https://i.imgur.com/8LQFVMO.png