Energy IS the Economy
Energy is the lifeblood of the economy, and natural resources are its food.
Our global economy uses energy to process limited natural resources into heat and waste. Energy drives the economy. There is no substitute for energy. This chapter will show that on average in 2022 each $1 of economic production, gross world product (GWP),
demands 1 kWh of heat energy,
uses 0.27 kWh(e) of electric energy,
emits 0.21 kg of CO2, and
requires 0.96 kg of mined minerals.
Learn how to quantify these energy flows and resources consumed in driving the global economy in this chapter, Energy IS the Economy.
Mathematics, physics, and thermodynamics can not be denied.
The first law is conservation of energy. Energy is never lost. The useful gravitational potential energy of an apple becomes kinetic energy as it falls from a tree, then heat energy from its impact on the ground. The energy conservation law also includes matter, a static form of energy, related by Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation.
The second law means energy in a system always degrades its usefulness to do work. Without external supply of energy, a closed system’s disorder, entropy, always increases. As orderliness decreases, utility value decreases.
Entropy increases when you dissolve a cube of sugar in a cup of tea and the sugar molecules disperse throughout the water. Undoing this dispersion would be difficult and require external energy. Mathematically, entropy is proportional to the number of bits in the very large binary number counting all the possible micro states of a system.
Read the whole chapter to understand Energy IS the Economy.
Hello Doc,
One of the issues that you are missing is that SMRs or even regular reactors, are going to take 5-10 years. Even with yours, it will take a long time. In the mean time, utilities are being forced to add thermal power plants. So what are they adding? Nat Gas.
What is needed is to push these utilities to quit building nat gas power plants and instead build thermal power plants that can use 2-3 thermal sources, starting with Nat Gas. From there, it is easy enough to add the reactors as they get certified, tested, and built. This allows a utility to build the power plant TODAY, even though it will add to GHG, but also knowing that they will be able to easily convert to clean nuclear down the road.
Of course it is. The universe is transactional. All economies fundamentally exchange resources for resources. It’s when the statists omit this basic rule that things go awry.