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Tag Archives: complexity
Can India come out ahead in an energy squeeze?
The slower the growth, the more sustainable an economy is over the moderately long term.
Energy consumption and the use of complexity tend to rise together.
Too much complexity can lead to collapse.
In general, the most “efficient” economies can be expected to do best.
Over the long term, all economies will collapse.
There have been shifts in which economies get a major share of available energy supplies. Shifting patterns are likely again in the future.
India may come out ahead in an energy squeeze because its warm climate and conservative culture allow its energy consumption per capita to remain low. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged complexity, fossil fuels, limits to growth, sustainability
2,991 Comments
When the Economy Gets Squeezed by Too Little Energy
When people forecast ever-rising energy prices, they miss the fact that market fossil fuel prices consider both oil producers and consumers. From the producer’s point of view, the price for oil needs to be high enough that new oil fields can be profitably developed. From the consumer’s point of view, the price of oil needs to be sufficiently low that food and other goods manufactured using oil products are affordable. In practice, oil prices tend to rise and fall, and rise again. On average, they don’t satisfy either the oil producers or the consumers. This dynamic tends to push the economy downward. Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications, oil shortages
Tagged collapse, complexity, dissipative structure, high oil prices
4,563 Comments
Ramping up wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles can’t solve our energy problem
Many people believe that installing more wind turbines and solar panels and manufacturing more electric vehicles can solve our energy problem, but I don’t agree with them. These devices, plus the batteries, charging stations, transmission lines and many other structures necessary to make them work represent a high level of complexity.
A relatively low level of complexity, such as the complexity embodied in a new hydroelectric dam, can sometimes be used to solve energy problems, but we cannot expect ever-higher levels of complexity to always be achievable.
According to the anthropologist Joseph Tainter, in his well-known book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, there are diminishing returns to added complexity. In other words, the most beneficial innovations tend to be found first. Later innovations tend to be less helpful. Eventually the energy cost of added complexity becomes too high, relative to the benefit provided. Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged complexity, economic growth, electricity cost, EROEI, EROI
3,434 Comments
Spike in energy prices suggests that sharp changes are ahead
Now, through several iterations, the economy has become increasingly complex, with less and less redundancy to provide stability. The energy price spike that is being experienced today is a warning that something is very, very wrong. As I see the situation, the trend toward complexity has gone too far; the economic system is starting to break down. Sharp changes appear to be ahead. The world economy is shifting into contraction mode, with more and more parts of the system failing. Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged collapse, complexity, economic models, high oil prices, Seneca cliff, stability
4,474 Comments
