The Mordor Economy

Description

This week, Nate walks through the path we are currently on en route to the Great Simplification - a path towards a “Mordor Economy”. Based on data from colleagues Art Berman and Carey King, Nate untangles the complex relationship between biology, GDP, and net energy. How is an economic metabolism based on a need for growth creating a pathway for increasing amounts of energy to be directed to the energy sector itself? Why hasn’t the rapid growth of renewables satiated our energy appetite? How is the use of credit masking the full energetic-cost of energy?  Can we proactively take the necessary steps to reset the balance between energy efficiency and energy consumption to pass through Mordor unscathed and arrive at the Great Simplification?

Show Notes

PDF Slideshow with the graphs used in this segment

00:19 - 2021 Earth day talk

00:25 - Art Berman TGS Episode #54

01:22 - Maximum Power Principle

01:46 - Kleiber’s law

02:40 - Tim Garrett

03:14 - Energy and GDP are 99% correlated (fig. 2), Materials and GDP are 100% correlated

04:08 - The Bank of Japan owns 50% of its national bonds

07:30 - In 1999, the energy sector only used 5% of energy, which has been rising since

09:30 - Destruction and interference of ecological processes 

10:08 - PFAS chemical pollution

10:57 - *Graph made with historical data and future projections of GDP*

11:47 - Since 1995 we’ve become 33% more efficient with energy, but also 50% more energy