Consumption
Reading through this update was an interesting experience:
- we see an increasing amount of countries realising that they need to get serious, more than before, in securing the
energy-resources for their economies and people,
- some realise they are using the energy not very effective and are starting a drive for greater energy
efficiency,
- other countries are doing research in substitutes for oil, in which bio-fuels and ethanol are rising to the
surface, although it is quickly becoming clear that to replace the oil in a substantial way it would need more land
than is available and that the net energy-balance of a lot of these substitutes is rather questionable,
- nuclear energy is of course also mooted, although it is clear that it will take decades before this will add in a
substantial way,
- secondary recovery with the help of CO2 is said, on paper, to help to raise recoverable reserves, although it is
not clear where the CO2 would need to come from and at what costs,
- the increasing regionalisation is also visible, notably in Latin America and Asia and in certain aspects also
Europe, where the local market and economy becomes of higher importance that the global economy,
- and so we see movements to secure resources for the future, we see a drive for more efficiency, but what is
completely lacking is the issue of reducing consumption of energy and resources by changing our way of living and
consuming. This is an issue only read on sites of so-called “tree-huggers” and similar people. But
isn”t it here where, especially the Western world should look at? We are a very wasteful society that squanders
energy and resources to sustain a certain “way of living”. But it is exactly this way of living that will
need to be addressed in finding a way towards the future, starting with the questions around education, expectations
and role-models, and of course around the question whether the way the human race has chosen the last 150 years,
increasingly being reduced and reducing ourselves to an economic consuming commodity, is the right one, and whether
that is the real purpose of human life and living: being born, work (or not), consume and die?
Maybe there is something else and consuming may not be that important anymore in the future. And that would save huge amounts of energy and resources.
Alexander
As always: comments are welcome at Alexander@gas-oil-power.com
