Comment 68367

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted August 23, 2011 at 14:01:49 in reply to Comment 68365

Once I hear the energy intensity argument being brought up, big red lights start flashing in my head. It's one of the points which really worries me about the National Energy Board publication above.

Over time, technology will (tend to) improve, yielding increased energy efficiency. Over that same time, the quality of resources those technologies will tend to decrease, providing the opposite effect. Higher ore concentrations will be mined first, larger oil-fields closer to the surface will be drilled before smaller fields, as well as those most conveniently located near trade centres. As the iron and Bauxite (aluminium) examples above show, these later factors have the capacity to totally swamp technological increases.

Add to this the second important factor - the way that increasingly efficient technologies tend to be used more than their predecessors (the Jeavons Paradox), and the benefits all but vanish.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds