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Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy



Jay Hanson opined,

>   There is NO substitute for energy. Although the economy
>treats energy just like any other resource, it is NOT like
>any other resource. Energy is the precondition for ALL other
>resources and oil is the most important form of energy we
>use, making up about 38 percent of the world energy supply.
>
>   NO other energy source equals oil's intrinsic qualities of
>extractablility, transpotability, versatility and cost. These
>are the qualities that enabled oil to take over from coal as the
>front-line energy source in the industrialized world in the
>middle of this century, and they are as relevant today as they
>were then.

What you fail to recognize, Mr. Hanson, is that the above statements must
be qualified by the time coordinate "Today,".

As you observe in the second paragraph above, oil only became the
"front-line" energy source in the industrialized world in the middle of
this century.  Before that, it was coal.  And before that, charcoal, peat,
wood, waterpower, wind, animal power, and human labor.  And each change was
the result of advances in technology allowing humans to harness energy
which hitherto had been useless.

Even today, we are able to harness only a tiny fraction of the energy that
surrounds us.  With current technology, our most efficient source of useful
energy is the bonds that hold molecules of petroleum to one another.  But
there is no reason to assume that this will always be the case.  There is
energy everywhere; indeed, as Einstein's famous equation shows, matter
itself is but a form of energy (and vice versa).  (Hey, look, I can cite
physicists, too!)

The qualities of "extractablility [sic], transpotability [sic], versatility
and cost" are not intrinsic to oil and exogenous to human activity, but are
functions of human technology and therefore endogenous.







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