Energy growth

From Monday, September 26th 2011…

With much of the focus in clean-tech on the supply-side of the energy equation, i.e. how can we generate more kW-h?, I think we still don’t pay enough attention to the demand-side. This is changing, as investments are happening at the interface of IT/energy, such as the clever, consumer-friendly devices made by Nest. But more broadly speaking, I think there is still a pervasive notion that scaling back our energy needs means a loss in productivity, and this is driven by some pretty telling correlations, e.g. see energy use vs GDP. Yes, there is a correlation, but we are going to have to figure out how to get off that trendline soon.

There is certainly lip service being paid to the idea of energy efficiency, but the calculations by Tom Murphy (UCSD Physics Professor) in this post really highlight how increased efficiency and a consequent reduction in energy demand is really the only way we’re going to tackle what would eventually become an existential crisis. In a nutshell, if we don’t reduce our energy growth rate (~3% annually), the Earth will become a downright inhospitable place in a matter of a couple of centuries. This is just simple thermodynamics, never mind the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. Now the critic will of course jump on some of the assumptions made and tell us we’re smarter than “frogs in a pot of boiling water”, but it’s quite conceivable our climate system is more complicated than we imagine, with various positive feedback loops that could exacerbate the problem before we reach consensus that things are getting hot.

While not a perfect analogy here, the problem we face is reminiscent of Pascal’s wager. While our error bars on various predictions may be huge, this uncertainty must be normalized by the consequences of being wrong. One way of being wrong has us putting billions or trillions of dollars into a new energy infrastructure to reduce per capita energy usage and weans us off a finite resource, even if there is no climate impact; the other way of being wrong has the human race in 10-15 generations looking longingly at one of those recently discovered Earth-like planets.

Getting back to the original point, Prof. Murphy’s post really drives home the point that, while our efforts in supply-side energy solutions are clearly important in the near-term, a true long-term solution will require our energy growth rate to slow. Here’s hoping we find a way to do so.