{"id":137446,"date":"2019-07-15T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=137446"},"modified":"2019-07-11T11:19:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T10:19:40","slug":"why-stimulus-cant-fix-our-energy-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/07\/why-stimulus-cant-fix-our-energy-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Stimulus Can\u2019t Fix Our Energy Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>10 Jul 2019 &#8211; <\/em>Economists tell us that within the economy there is a lot of substitutability, and they are correct. However, there are a couple of not-so-minor details that they overlook:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>There is no substitute for energy<\/strong>. It is possible to harness energy from another source, or to make a particular object run more efficiently, but the laws of physics prevent us from substituting something else for energy. Energy is required whenever physical changes are made, such as when an object is moved, or a material is heated, or electricity is produced.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Supplemental energy leverages human energy<\/strong>. The reason why the human population is as high as it is today is because pre-humans long ago started learning how to leverage their human energy (available from digesting food) with energy from other sources. Energy from burning biomass was first used over one million years ago. Other types of energy, such as harnessing the energy of animals and capturing wind energy with sails of boats, began to be used later. If we cut back on our total energy consumption in any material way, humans will lose their advantage over other species. Population will likely plummet because of epidemics and fighting over scarce resources.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Many people appear to believe that stimulus programs by governments and central banks can substitute for growth in energy consumption. Others are convinced that efficiency gains can substitute for growing energy consumption. <strong>My analysis indicates\u00a0that workarounds, in the aggregate, <em>don\u2019t keep energy prices high enough for energy producers<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0Oil prices are at risk, but so are coal and natural gas prices.\u00a0We end up with a different energy problem than most have expected: energy prices that remain too low for producers. Such a problem can have severe consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s look at a few of the issues involved:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_60338\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/renewable-energy-solar-wind-power-europe-environment.jpeg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60338\" class=\"wp-image-60338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/renewable-energy-solar-wind-power-europe-environment.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/renewable-energy-solar-wind-power-europe-environment.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/renewable-energy-solar-wind-power-europe-environment-300x180.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-60338\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Renewable energy to grow from current levels of providing around a quarter of Europe\u2019s energy to supplying half, leaked paper says. Photograph: Alamy<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ourfiniteworld.com\/2019\/07\/10\/why-stimulus-cant-fix-our-energy-problems\/\" >TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original \u2013 ourfiniteworld.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10 Jul 2019 &#8211; Economists tell us that within the economy there is a lot of substitutability, and they are correct. However, there are a couple of not-so-minor details that they overlook: There is no substitute for energy. It is possible to harness energy from another source, or to make a particular object run more efficiently, but the laws of physics prevent us from substituting something else for energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[232,331,354,401,1098,1020,591],"class_list":["post-137446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-capitalism","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-environment","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sustainable-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}