4 ms·
But even within those examples, the energy use per dollar of value generated varies by large orders of magnitude. A Simpsons SD card uses a tiny fraction of a
by nostrademons 5y ago
But even within those examples, the energy use per dollar of value generated varies by large orders of magnitude.
A Simpsons SD card uses a tiny fraction of a watt hour for a half hour of entertainment (valued, in theaters and DVD rentals, at maybe $3-5). Watch the same episode on an old-style CRT TV and you're looking at 50 or so watt-hours.
A Google Search uses about 0.3 watt hours to get you the answer you want. The economic value of it varies based on topic, but if you divide estimated total yearly searches (a couple trillion) by Google's revenue ($257B), you get about $0.12. (Note that at average annual U.S. electricity prices, this electricity costs about 1/300th of a cent, showing the profit involved in turning energy into information retrieval.)
A car commuting to work for an hour consumes about 4 kWh (about 200x a laptop watching the Simpsons, and 12,000x a Google Search), but what's the economic value added? Arguably it's economic value destroyed, compared to if we could just live closer to work, because of the lost time and productivity.
That's why it doesn't really make sense to say that 'the "economy" is indistinguishable from "energy" consumption'. There are many things that generate large amounts of dollars and use very little energy, or even save energy. There are also things that destroy dollars and use lots of energy. By equating the two, you gloss over any distinction or ability to make things more efficient.
- TrispusAttucks 5y agoYou can't ignore energy inputs to required processing components. Those servers at Google required energy to build and humans to operate. Maybe that person in the car was driving to Google to fix a server that processes 1 million queries a day. I'd say they value added to get him there was huge. I'll just ask this: Is it possible to create economic value with out using energy? If it's not, then we're just haggling over efficiency.
- bko 5y ago> Is it possible to create economic value with out using energy? Of course. Find a cheaper way to do something. For example, create a motor that is more efficient. It might cost you energy up front, but presumably the reduction in cost would more than make up for the cost (otherwise why would someone do it?)
- TrispusAttucks 5y agoAgreed. Unfortunately this leads to the Jevons Paradox [1] where we end right back to increased consumption again. We can't escape. Economy is energy consumption. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- bko 5y agoI don't know. US energy consumption has stayed relatively flat over the last twenty years (down if you exclude renewables) despite economic and population growth https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/
- TrispusAttucks 5y agoYou can't look at the US alone. The economy is gobal. https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/world-total-energy-and-real-gdp.png https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/world-...
- nostrademons 5y agoThe answer to your question is "no", but it misses the point. Of course it's not possible to create economic value without using energy, because living requires energy, and dead people don't spend money, except on cemetery plots. However, "haggling over efficiency" is the entire economy. Basically all of the interesting questions are about trade-offs needed to produce goods & services more efficiently.
- snowwrestler 5y agoOf course things take energy; this is so obvious, it’s a straw man. The question is how closely economic value correlates with raw energy usage. The answer is: they’ve been diverging for years. A Simpsons SD card does not take any more energy to use than an SD card full of Pauly Shore movies. A Mercedes sedan uses about the same amount of energy as a Honda sedan.