Legacy of Energy Usage
Humanity has had exponential growth in population, knowledge, achievements and hope over the last 40 000 years. We have built wonders of the modern and ancient world. All achievements needed energy. Any achievements set forth in plans for the future must also consider the energy expense. The following table shows some of our progress to date.
| Event | Date | Cost | Manpower | Effect |
| Egyptian Pyramids | ~4000 BC[1] | |||
| Stonehenge | ~2000 BCE | |||
| Assyrian invasion of Egypt |
671 BC | Over-extended nation | ||
| Greek Acropolis | 500 BC | |||
| Alexander the Great | 400 BC | Half a ton of silver talents a day for army pay | Needed to continue conquering to pay for army | |
| Roman Expansion | 200 AD | 1 legion = 1.5M denari per annum | 30+ legions | Over-extended nation. Coinage debasement led to inflation,annual budgets, and income policy |
| Teotihuacan | 200 | |||
| Danegeld | 800 | 40M silver coins | Prevented invasion. Forged single national currency | |
| Crusades | 1180 | 150 000 silver marks ransom | Funded by taxes on all moveable property and all income | |
| Chinese Flotilla | 1405 | 27 800 crew, 1180 ships | Political stoppage caused China to receive European sailors rather than vice versa. | |
| Spanish Armada | 1580 | 4M ducats | 130 ships | South American plunder was squandered. English drew Genoan bills to reduce available loans |
| War of the Spanish Succession | 1694 | English invent ‘national debt' and create Bank of England. Initiated perpetual loan at defined interest rate. | ||
| American Revolution | 1776 | General acceptance of paper money. Hyperinflation as no control of printing presses. | ||
| Napoleanic Wars | 1815 | £15M loaned by Britain to allies | Commercial banks main source of funding. Britain's national debt grew from £273 to 816M | |
| U.S. Civil War | 1860's | $5.2B | Created state and income tax for federal revenue. Inflation reduced value of money by half. | |
| Suez Canal | 1869 | $80M | Facilitated economy | |
| Fanco-Prussian War | 1871 | 5B Franc indemnity | Money raised through lending | |
| Schloss Neuschwanstein/ Linderhof /Herrenchiemsee |
1886 | 31.2M Marks | Bankrupts nation | |
| Canada's cross country rail line | 1886 | $150M, 59% by taxpayers | Joint private/public funding | |
| Trans-Siberian line/ BAM | 1905 and 1991 | Trans-Siberian ? / BAM=$30B | Rail lines connected country | |
| World War I | 1914 | 10'sM £ | 1st billion £ loan | |
| Panama Canal | 1914 | $400M | Facilitated economy | |
| Hoover Dam | 1935 | $165M | 21 000 | Fully paid by power production |
| World War II | 1930's-40's | $288B for US | millions | 3% loan rate set as maximum in GB. US national debt grew from $40B to 260B at 2.5% |
| Manhattan Project | 1945 | $2.2B | 130 000 staff | Expand technology |
| Apollo moon landing | 1960's | $9.3B | 300 000 staff | Expand technology |
| Channel Tunnel | 1993 | £9B | Facilitate economy | |
| Troll/Kollsnes | 1996 | 35.5B NOK | Resource acquisition | |
| 3 Gorges Dam | 2003 | $25B+ US | Resource acquisition | |
| International Space Station | 2005+ | $100B | Expand technology | |
| Lunar Development | soon | $250B | 100's of thousands | Facilitate economy, expand technology, acquire resources |
Telling is the increasing amount of energy and effort being now allocated to recovering stores of energy. Gone are the simple days of energy stores, petroleum, bubbling up out of the ground. Now it is pried from more and more difficult and hazardous places. Hence, the greater effort to obtain it. Eventually we will need more energy to obtain stores of energy than the amount of energy in the stores. At this moment, our supplies of energy stores will be effectively gone.
[1] Some people postulate that the pyramids were built by an agrarian community during the previous inter-glacial warm period about 40 000 years ago. If true, this is an example of a human civilization that rose to greatness and then completely vanished.
Strategic Planning and Humanity's Future
Humanity needs energy to power themselves into the future. Energy fuels bodies and enables technology. Insufficient energy necessitates an inability to sustain people at the desired technological level. A sufficient energy supply means that the expected number of people will live a full life at a desired technological level.
From this description we see that we can undertake an assessment of the future of humanity using just three parameters; energy availability, number of people and technological level. We know the number of people on Earth continues to increase. The level of technology and its associated energy consumption equally increase. The limits to energy supplies on the finite Earth mean limits to both technology and number of people. Choosing an energy intensive future whether with large numbers of people1 or enhanced technology requires access to energy resources. Increasing the number of people or the amount and level of technology increases the demand on energy. Decreasing the supply of energy will decrease the number of people and/or their practicing level of technology.
People do live at different levels of technology. However, defining technological levels is more difficult than counting the number of people. Assuredly people are knowing and using a lot more technology than our erstwhile cavemen ancestors. However, aside from fictitious examples set in civilization styled computer games, there aren't any definitive levels. Further, there are various degrees of technology in use throughout the world. In large cities of the developed countries, people drive cars, communicate over cell phones and often have a computer or robot aid them in their work. In developing countries there are villages where people exist in a manner that is little changed from their predecessors of thousands of years ago. Hence, aside from knowing that the knowledge and utilization of technology by some people increase, definitive levels don't exist.
Nevertheless we can define qualified levels of technology. Further, we can estimate the number of people who live at this level. Last, we can estimate the energy factor2 associated with the technological level. The result is an estimate of the current energy demands for the current population. From this, we have an estimate of the total energy demand for all the people and all their technology levels.
Knowing the number of people and the levels of technology is interesting. Why is it pertinent to strategic planning for the future? The answer is twofold. One, it is people who perform the actions and do the work to complete projects3. Large projects like building the pyramids of Giza or unraveling the DNA structure of humans require thousands of people. Two, energy is needed both to power people's body but also to power the technology. Sailboats, barges, levers and wheels were technological achievements likely employed in pyramid construction. Computers, microscopes and scanners are symptomatic of the technological aids for the DNA researchers. If we want to construct space stations or find a cure for cancer, we will need energy. Energy powers the workforce and the technology. Energy is critical in any strategic plan.
Making plans in a world with infinite energy and people is trivial. This situation is one extreme for planners of the future. It is a nice extreme as anything is possible. Here, happenstance can direct the choices as any wrong choices can simply be corrected. The other, more telling extreme is when the amount of energy is limited and can diminish to zero. In this extreme, plans are worthless as nothing is possible because no work or action is achievable.
We know energy on Earth is finite4. We also know that today we are bathing in a largesse of energy preserved from vegetation that captured the Sun's rays over hundreds of millions of years ago on Earth. We will soon consume all the supplies of this non-renewable energy source5. Thus, any strategic plan for the future must consider not only the finite amount of energy stores available on Earth but also the fact that with today's rate of energy consumption, we are living at a non-sustainable technological level. That is, the Earth's renewable energy supplies cannot maintain the current number of people at their current level of technology. This shortfall in energy supplies will sorely affect the future so that planning may very well be an exercise in minimizing drops than supporting growths. At least this will be true until people return to using an amount of energy that is sustainable.
Given this prognosis we can proceed into postulating various strategic plans. We can decide on a plan that forsakes technology. We know that in the past there were millions of people who consumed no more energy than their biological needs. This was sustainable and perhaps we can return to this level if the associated supporting ecosystem can return to its previous level. Yet, this would obviate the progress of the previous tens to hundreds of thousands of years of advancement of our species. This is a possible plan but gives little credit to our species.
Aficionados of science fiction stories know well of another future. This one is dedicated to technology. All life on Earth is bent to promote an increased human population which uses their numbers to advance technology. In this future, all competitors to the human species, all other energy-using non-beneficial living things, are exterminated. This future optimizes humanity's energy availability but leads to a sterile planet with little room for errors in ecology. With little knowledge or experience in deciding on the efficacy of other species, this future is hazardous but quite possible for humankind. However, if wrong choices are made, there is every possibility of ending humanity's future.
The optimum future likely lies somewhere between these two extremes. A future without technology or a future with only technology leads to too great a risk of no future for humanity. Any strategic plan for our species must take into account the supply of energy, an achievable level of technology and the survivability of our species. A strategic plan which accomplishes all this just may be the best route for survival. At least, it will be better than letting happenstance decide our future.
by Mark Foster Mortimer
