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109 comments on What is a Human Being Worth (in Terms of Energy)?
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I fully agree, Euan. The best analyses I've read on these from oil all the way down to distilled products used in a vehicle are here at TOD, of course with materials referenced from elsewhere. I didn't want to rehash those, because I wouldn't have done them justice.
The challenge is with "how much useful work does X amount of primary fuel Y contain"? This boils down to what Chris brought up above: "what is the task?" and what I think Glenn touched further upon: "What is the tool/method?" (paraphrased).
My point was that from the maximum thermal potential of 6119MJ/barrel we can easily get below 1% useful work out of that potential - once we go through the "oil -> logistics -> gasoline distillation -> logistics -> ICE -> wasteful car -> wasteful driving -> single passenger" cycle - just to use the driving example.
Or in other words, we could theoretically improve this ratio an order of magnitude for many a task/tool/method.
Most TOD visitors know this, I wrote nothing new here.
My personal doubt comes from whether we have enough economic/energetic foresight to actually to radically - not incrementally - improve upon this wasteful use in practice - not on paper.
I believe (cannot prove), based on history of oil consumption, that we lack this foresight when faced with abundant availability and ridiculously cheap prices.
So, we need price rises that drive us towards more efficient use. My hypothesis is: radically more expensive prices for radically more efficient use.
After that happens, what happens to the price of human manual labor?
My assumption is that it also has to rise, but by how much and how will this affect our daily dealings? This is more of a useless systemic WHAT IF question, and does not by any means exclude your more practically oriented and useful "how equivalent in practice to activity X" question.
SamuM - my question was really a general one - I'm hoping that Luis or Chris or Nate turn up to answer.
I'm increasingly convinced of the inverse of this statement which is:
And the conclusion that those societies / countries that use energy most efficiently will be able to pay higher prices and win the bidding war.
Great point.
The more value we can get out of a barrel of oil, the more we can pay for that oil, and the better we will do in the global auction for a fixed or declining supply of available oil.
Incomes being equal, a driver of a 50 mpg econo-box, can (and will) afford to pay a lot more per gallon than a driver of a 10 mpg SUV.
However, if the driver stops going to work, his income drops, he will be less able to afford fuel.
This is the risk posed by using energy taxes to change behavior, individuals will make decisions based on the cost of those decisions, but if their decisions result in less GDP (especially exportable GDP), and/or if the government spends those tax dollars on activities that do not make our economy more productive (in terms of exports), we will be worse off than before.
Forrest
Efficiency: Maximizing production (profit) in combining labor, capital, raw materials, and technology.
We can modify the production process to use more or less of a specific input in response to changes in the relative cost of each input, only a reduction in the cost of a specific input can increase (total) production or reduce cost / unit.
Great point. For instance, if we use a velomobile w/ a small gas or electric engine for assist to commute, it may be more inefficient, strictly speaking (BTE), than using a diesel truck with 30 tons in the back, but it certainly uses far less fuel. There's a sweet spot wrt utility given the majority of use, efficiency, and overall consumption. Modern transportation via the auto has become something of a luxury/entertainment, and as such is grossly inefficient. Can we do better? Sure. Equipping vehicles in the states with properly geared manual transmissions and the drivers with knowledge regarding conservative fuel efficient driving could cut world oil consumption by a good ~5%. Saying there's plenty of room for improvement would be an understatement.
I have said this before on the Oil Drum, efficiency is not really a valid measurement for transport. Essentially all transport has an efficiency of zero since on a two way journey the average work done in the transportation exercise is zero, but fuel is used to overcome friction. The term efficacy is more appropriate as this compares the MPG.
As for the consumption of energy, we have a god given right to consume the stuff. The CEO of Centrica has just made a very sensible suggestion that we wear two jumpers, and in doing so has created a storm. Folk just don't get it.
I once estimated that it would take an athlete 30 minutes to heat enough water from 10 deg C to 100 deg C just to make a cup of tea. It was only an estimate and if my figures arn't quite to the mark it would still be hard graft and a well deserved cuppa!
All of this thread is so frustratingly nerdy. The oil is there, people have found fun ways to use it-- gazillions of trinkets of no essential value other than novelty-- and not-so-fun ways to use it, making bombs and warplanes and the like.
The entire western industrial economy is all about converting oil into money. To be sure, some of it is used for food, some for shelter -- but most of it is just useless fluff that a nerd (like me) has no way of understanding or appreciating the value of.
My theory is that the total volume of nerdiness in the world is inversely proportional to the amount of oil available.
And idleitis is directly proportional to the amount of oil avaiable.