The Sustainable Energy Dilemma

[Milton Taam]

Hi,

I noticed many people from EIC attended the David Hughes talk on May 2 entitled "The Sustainable Energy Dilemma: Powering the Future in a Finite World."

For those on this list who were not there, I would summarize his presentation as predicting exponential growth in energy needs with no easy solution to meeting the demand.

My impression was the reaction to his talk was pessimism and gloom by many of the local community attending the presentation.

Afterward I thought about his presentation and reviewed some of his slides and arrived at a different view, which have attached below, for those who may be interested.

Milt

Of all the slides in the Hughes presentation at Cornell on May 2, I thought the above slide showed some very interesting trends:

1. Non-OECD energy usage is growing.

2. China energy usage is growing even faster.

3. USA energy per capita is declining.

Projecting beyond the Hughes chart, one can estimate that world per capita energy usage will converge around 5 TOE around 2050.

Some people in the developed world may feel gloom because of the increased total demand for energy and because they can't exploit the world resources the way they had in the past. However, a more optimistic and progressive view is that increased energy usage in the developing world is modernization and everyone will benefit.

Increased energy usage means increased education levels for more people and increased ability to innovate in improving old and finding new energy sources and solving environmental and other problems. And unlike energy usage, which will eventually plateau, knowledge in science, engineering and other areas of study will continue to grow exponentially.

One question for David Hughes: is there an explanation why Canada alone increases past 10 TOE/capita.

Milton Taam

milto...@gmail.com