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AN ENERGY SYSTEMS ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Citation:
Campbell, D E. AN ENERGY SYSTEMS ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. 2nd International Workshop of Advances in Energy Studies: Exploring Supplies, Constraints and Stategies, Porto Venere, Italy, May 23-27, 2000.
Description:
There is a strong linear dependence of economic activity as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) on both the fossil fuel energy and the total emergy consumed by nations. Conceptual models of global and regional environmental systems were developed to examine the factors controlling this relationship. Data from 21 nations showed that, at present, economic development as measured by the purchased empower m-2 does not have a simple relation to the renewable empower m-2 of the region. Regression analysis of GDP on total emergy consumption using 13 nations demonstrated that the GDP produced for a given quantity of emergy consumed increased by 50% between 1980 and 1998. An analysis of the position of seven nations greater than 1012 m2 on a family of actual regression lines revealed several possible constraints on the continued increase in the slope of the regression lines or the GDP multiplier. The position of the former Soviet Union on this plot shows that when fossil fuel or total emergy use decreases below a threshold a precipitous decline in the GDP multiplier may follow. A working hypothesis to explain the continuing increase in the GDP multiplier over time is that it is a function of advancing information technology which increases the speed with which useful goods and services can be exchanged times the number of people that have sufficient wealth to be actively engaged in using the new technology. An ultimate theoretical limit on the rate of economic exchange will be the transaction speeds made possible by the development of atomic scale computing. The net energy available from global fuel supplies will determine the capacity to develop, operate, and maintain such new technologies as well as the number of people that can be supported as technology users.