{"id":472,"date":"2004-08-04T07:31:51","date_gmt":"2004-08-04T07:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:44","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:44","slug":"well_sometimes_no_means_maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=472","title":{"rendered":"Well, Sometimes “No” Means “Maybe”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Joe notes below<\/a>, Den Beste lays the smack down<\/a> on those who suggest that we can conserve our way to energy independence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If we went all-out, I imagine that we could (over twenty years or so) cut our energy needs by at least 25% and 50% isn’t out of the question. In the long run it would save us money and it wouldn’t hurt the environment any, either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m afraid not. It is impossible to achieve that much gain solely through technological changes like that.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean “infeasible” or “impractical”, I mean it is physically impossible. To get a 50% gain solely through technology improvements we’d have to revoke the laws of thermodynamics and figure out how to change the universal electrical constant. I don’t expect to see that happen in my lifetime.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He makes a good case, which is kind of depressing.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, off the debating floor – in the real world – he’s wrong.If you define the question narrowly, to say that the sole change is fixing the technology underlying our economy, he may have a point (although I might be motivated enough to argue it at some point). But on my planet – Planet Reality – people change their technology and their behavior in response to scarcity. Have you noticed any new Excursions on your local Ford dealer’s lot lately? Notice the signs on the Expeditions? You know, those big SUV’s – they’re so 90’s.<\/p>\n

Let look at some economic facts for fun. The folks at DOE have a wonderful site – www.eia.doe.gov<\/a> – that’s just chock-full of buttery good data. One piece, an Excel file<\/a>, has the gross energy consumption by country by year per dollar of GDP. Let’s go to the numbers…<\/p>\n

In 1980, the US consumed 16,297 BTU per dollar of GDP<\/b>. In 2002, we consumed 10,575<\/b>.<\/p>\n

In 1980, Sweden consumed 10,839<\/b>, and in 2002 7,405<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The average energy consumption per dollar of GDP in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Japan is 5,593<\/b>. Japan is an outlier, at 3,876 BTU per dollar<\/b>, so let’s just look at the UK, Germany, and Italy – their average is 6,165<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Now, clearly, there are issues that make us different – our pattern of sprawl versus their more urbanized, transit-dependent lifestyle. <\/p>\n

But we cut 35.1% out of our energy budget in 22 years. Our major industrial competitors are 47% more efficient than we are; the European Big 3 are 42% more efficient than we are.<\/p>\n

Do you think that if paid some attention, we could have a significant impact here? And do you think it would change the nature of our relationship with the Middle East?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Den Beste lays the smack down on those who suggest that we can conserve our way to energy independence. He makes a good case, which is kind of depressing. Fortunately, off the debating floor – in the real world – he’s wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}