I feel a bit like the street corner preacher in Central Park. I know most people don't take our energy problems as seriously as I do. And that is understandable. Most people have all they can do to raise a family, make a living, take care of kids, and maintain their standard of living. So I apologize in advance if some of this seems to be over the top. Our corporate and political leadership should be managing these issues, but they aren't. That's why I am making an effort to get them off their collective asses and do the right thing.

Today, I want to present the concept of energy usage necessary to produce our gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is what keeps our standard of living high. It is what we produce for our own consuption and what we use to buy foreign products (like more oil). The good news is we have been progressively using less and less over the last 40 years. Good ole Yankee ingenuity has allowed us to produce more and more on the same amount or less energy. Here is a graph I produced in excel for your info:


The green line is the plot of the data. The red line is a numerical approximation whose equation you can see produced on the graph. The R squared figure shows how closely the data fits the approximation. In this case, 0.979 is a very good fit.

This doesn't necessarily mean our energy needs are going down. Just the amount per $1 of GDP is going down. To maintain our standard of living and support our growing population, we have to grow our GDP. Below you will see a similar graph of just petroleum (in BTU's) used to produce our GDP.


This graph is a bit different because it is presented in chained 2000 dollars. But it depicts the same trend. We have been using less and less energy to produce our national livelyhood.

There are two reasons for this. First, technology has allowed us to use less direct energy. Things like video conferencing helps us to travel less. Energy Star appliances, as well as higher fuel efficiency in our cars, are helping us use less energy. The second reason is the shift in our economy to service and away from production. We are selling more things like technology, communications services, computing power, and intellectual material. None of these require massive amounts of energy.

RJ

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This is a really encouraging trend. Thanks for posting the graphs and explanations!

I'm really worried about Congress' lack of support for the renewable energy industry. A government policy such as a feed-in tariff now would allow the industry to really boom and reduce our consumption of fossil fuels even further.

I, too, am very concerned about Congressional inaction on this problem. I'm not familiar with a "Feed-in" tariff. Could you exand on that?

I also encourage you to contact your reps. You have two senators and a congress person. Please let them know your thoughts.

RJ

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As I understand it, a feed-in tariff sets a fixed price on electricity coming from a renewable energy source. Utility companies are required to purchase the energy at that set price, which is lowered each year as the renewable energy market increases. The feed-in tariff system worked incredibly well in Germany when introduced in the 1990s, making the Germany the world leader in wind and solar energy. Ontario is the first region in North America to install a feed-in tariff program.

Ontario:
Mixed Reviews for Ontario's Feed-in Tariff

Germany:
The German FIT for Renewable Energy -- A Bargain!
"The EEG [feed-in tariff] concept is simple — legislation obligates electric utility companies to purchase renewable energy at set rates (such as solar electricity at about 4 times the market price) over the next 20 years. At minimum, utilities must pay the market rate. So did the poor utilities get suckered? No, absolutely not. They are allowed to redistribute the additional cost to the general public in the form of higher electricity rates — call it hidden taxes. Just to address the obvious suspicion of the critical reader, note that the increase as of 2008 has been a mere EU € 0.007 [US $0.01] per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for German rate payers. It is a well-implemented approach that deserves recognition. The fact that many neighboring countries have adopted their own flavors of feed-in tariff models underscores the overall attractiveness of the program."