Technology Factor
Contemplation of the future starts by looking at the past. Let's look at humanity, civilization and energy. Before humanity came along, that is, before the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens, people used zero energy and had no civilization.Eventually people lived on planet Earth. Just to survive, they needed energy. This biological need was satisfied by fruits, vegetables and meat. People, as omnivores, can eat many other living organisms to get their necessary dietary requirements of energy, protein, carbohydrates and vitamins. At this level of civilization, people consumed only the energy they needed to stay alive. Therefore their full energy requirements were just a product of the number of people multiplied by their dietary energy needs.
| Total Energy = Number of people * Personal dietary needs |
While people went about their lives, they got smarter. They learned about levers, ropes, sails and fire. Many of their tools were to control energy for their own purpose. Perhaps fire most of all represents the transfer of energy from a natural flow (decomposed wood returning to the dirt for other plants to use)to a human contrived flow. Humans used this chemical reaction to release the energy stored in the wood. They wanted the resulting heat and light. Technological knowledge gave people a decided advantage in the struggle for life. Energy requirements for knowledgeable people was thus greater than those without knowledge. The overall energy is then the number of unknowledgeable people multiplied by a person's biological needs plus the number of knowledgeable people multiplied by the biological need and multiplied by a technology factor. The technology factor is the increase in energy needed to keep a person at their desired technological level. The following equation represents this relationship.
| Total Energy = | Number of unknowledgeable people * Personal dietary needs |
| + | |
| Number of knowledgeable people * Personal dietary needs * (1 + technology factor) |
The increase in energy usage as a function of technology is dependent upon the amount and type of technology. For example, consider all of Canadians as technology experts. This country's population is about 32 million people. Their dietary need, and every other adult male, is 10 MJ/person/day. In the year 2003 Canadians consumed 11.5 x 1018 joules of energy (page 10 of report ). From this, we know the technology factor is 100. That is, Canadians use nearly 100 times the biological needs of energy to sustain themselves at their technology level. Today's technology experts are certainly energy hungry.
