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> cherry-picked group of countries is special pleading It's hard to disentangle the rise of wealth in the world from increased consumption caused by cheaper en

> cherry-picked group of countries is special pleading It's hard to disentangle the rise of wealth in the world from increased consumption caused by cheaper energy. Certainly in the west capacity has become larger and... > the link doesn't show that even that cherry-picked measure is falling If you look again, they absolutely are. Peak vs now in Mwh: US: 105 (2005) vs 97 Norway: 93 (2008) vs 78 Sweden: 69 (2001) vs 57 Australia: 80 (2011) vs 55 Germany: 63 (2006) vs 59 France: 61 (2005) vs 54 I could manually do this for the rest, but I shouldn't need to. You can see it for yourself. Here's the chart as line graphs (this option isn't obvious in the UI) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-energy-per-capita?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-energy-... The only outlier I see here, in terms of developed countries, is South Korea, but that's perhaps as the country is still unevenly developed. In terms of developing countries, we of course see the uptake of HVAC, refrigeration, vehicles and other automation appliances to match the living standards of the developing world. But crucially, developed countries are showing that at the highest living standards, energy consumption is coming down.

kragen 2y ago
> Peak vs now in Mwh: US: 105 (2005) vs 97 that's the chart i was looking at. you're cherry-picking years as well to get that answer. looking at all the years instead, the usa starts out at 94, peaks at 104, dips down to 87, and then rises back up to 97, with lots of wiggles in between. that isn't a picture of a secular decline in energy use, it's a picture of random fluctuation around an average. the others are largely similar. the main outlier among 'developed' countries is not south korea but the people's republic of china, though slovenia deserves a mention for falling 40% why? what holds the usa line so steady? probably partly the usa has lost the ability to build not only high-speed trains, subway tunnels, highways, and leading semiconductor fabs, but also electrical infrastructure, but two thirds of energy use is non-electric, and other countries are succeeding in building trains and whatnot the price of energy has not been holding steady during this time but rather going up, although in the last decade that is starting to reverse. perhaps the reason consumption-oriented energy use has gone slightly up rather than way down is the efficiency improvements you mention [the following paragraph is completely wrong, and i appreciate the correction from h0l0cube. therefore so is my claim that the measure itself is cherry-picked. i had just misunderstood it] this measure, incidentally, doesn't count energy used for exports at all. so if the us and japan are producing an energy-intensive good independently at the beginning of the chart, and then in the middle the us starts importing it from japan, the usa's line will go down while japan's remains steady, because japan's added energy use is for export rather than for consumption. that's what i mean about it being a cherry-picked measure even for those cherry-picked countries
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  > this measure, incidentally, doesn't count energy used for exports at all Literally, it does. It's consumption-based energy usage. It's trade adjusted > the usa starts out at 94, peaks at 104, dips down to 87, and then rises back up to 97, with lots of wiggles in between. that isn't a picture of a secular decline in energy use, it's a picture of random fluctuation around an average The trend line is at best a flat line. Here's a picture of energy usage per capita over a longer timespan (inc. prior to the 80s when offshoring of manufacturing and cheap shipping came into play) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab... > the main outlier among 'developed' countries is not south korea but the people's republic of china As I mentioned this is due to it's growing wealth, not the greater economy of power. Even though China has been growing phenomenally in GDP, it's GDP per capita vs consumption-based energy usage is going down (or yet to exceed 2011 levels): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-capita?country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap...
  - kragen 2y ago
    > Literally, it does. It's consumption-based energy usage. It's trade adjusted thank you for the correction; i had misunderstood what the trade adjustment was > The trend line is at best a flat line i think that is an excellent description of it, as well as of the expanded and less debatable chart you link here, at least over the last 50 years, since the energy crisis began. before that we were seeing a much different trend i agree about wealth being the primary driver of energy use. but that's precisely the story jevons tells: you improve your steam engine to use less coal, so now you can build a railroad, which is a form of wealth. previously a tonne of coal cost £100, say, and produced 30 megajoules of work, which had a value of £200 in pumping out a mine or £50 hauling goods on the railroad. with your new engine you improve efficiency to 0.3,% and get 100 megajoules, so pumping out the mine now costs £30 per £200 produced, but now the railroad is viable because it produces £50 - £30 = £20 net. the railroad consumes much more coal than the mine did, so you're using more energy more efficiently at the level of the machine, raising your gdp, but producing less value per tonne of coal well, i got the numbers a bit wrong, but hopefully you can see what i mean

kragen 2y ago

> Peak vs now in Mwh: US: 105 (2005) vs 97 that's the chart i was looking at. you're cherry-picking years as well to get that answer. looking at all the years instead, the usa starts out at 94, peaks at 104, dips down to 87, and then rises back up to 97, with lots of wiggles in between. that isn't a picture of a secular decline in energy use, it's a picture of random fluctuation around an average. the others are largely similar. the main outlier among 'developed' countries is not south korea but the people's republic of china, though slovenia deserves a mention for falling 40% why? what holds the usa line so steady? probably partly the usa has lost the ability to build not only high-speed trains, subway tunnels, highways, and leading semiconductor fabs, but also electrical infrastructure, but two thirds of energy use is non-electric, and other countries are succeeding in building trains and whatnot the price of energy has not been holding steady during this time but rather going up, although in the last decade that is starting to reverse. perhaps the reason consumption-oriented energy use has gone slightly up rather than way down is the efficiency improvements you mention [the following paragraph is completely wrong, and i appreciate the correction from h0l0cube. therefore so is my claim that the measure itself is cherry-picked. i had just misunderstood it] this measure, incidentally, doesn't count energy used for exports at all. so if the us and japan are producing an energy-intensive good independently at the beginning of the chart, and then in the middle the us starts importing it from japan, the usa's line will go down while japan's remains steady, because japan's added energy use is for export rather than for consumption. that's what i mean about it being a cherry-picked measure even for those cherry-picked countries

h0l0cube 2y ago
> this measure, incidentally, doesn't count energy used for exports at all Literally, it does. It's consumption-based energy usage. It's trade adjusted > the usa starts out at 94, peaks at 104, dips down to 87, and then rises back up to 97, with lots of wiggles in between. that isn't a picture of a secular decline in energy use, it's a picture of random fluctuation around an average The trend line is at best a flat line. Here's a picture of energy usage per capita over a longer timespan (inc. prior to the 80s when offshoring of manufacturing and cheap shipping came into play) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab... > the main outlier among 'developed' countries is not south korea but the people's republic of china As I mentioned this is due to it's growing wealth, not the greater economy of power. Even though China has been growing phenomenally in GDP, it's GDP per capita vs consumption-based energy usage is going down (or yet to exceed 2011 levels): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-capita?country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap...
- kragen 2y ago
  > Literally, it does. It's consumption-based energy usage. It's trade adjusted thank you for the correction; i had misunderstood what the trade adjustment was > The trend line is at best a flat line i think that is an excellent description of it, as well as of the expanded and less debatable chart you link here, at least over the last 50 years, since the energy crisis began. before that we were seeing a much different trend i agree about wealth being the primary driver of energy use. but that's precisely the story jevons tells: you improve your steam engine to use less coal, so now you can build a railroad, which is a form of wealth. previously a tonne of coal cost £100, say, and produced 30 megajoules of work, which had a value of £200 in pumping out a mine or £50 hauling goods on the railroad. with your new engine you improve efficiency to 0.3,% and get 100 megajoules, so pumping out the mine now costs £30 per £200 produced, but now the railroad is viable because it produces £50 - £30 = £20 net. the railroad consumes much more coal than the mine did, so you're using more energy more efficiently at the level of the machine, raising your gdp, but producing less value per tonne of coal well, i got the numbers a bit wrong, but hopefully you can see what i mean