Energy Inequality (James Conca, Forbes)

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/06/15/energy-inequality-trumpversus-the-common-man-or-medieval-lord-versus-peasant/#437b7e7b73ce See link above for original article and embedded hotlinks.

Jun 15, 2016

Energy Inequality: Trump Versus The Common Man, Or Medieval Lord Versus Peasant

James Conca , Contributor I write about nuclear, energy and the environment Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Growing inequality has become one of the major political and economic concerns in the world as well as in America. The growing disparity of wealth today has many parallels with the unequal societies that emerged in the Middle Ages, where wealth and power resided primarily in the hands of a few feudal lords including kings, dukes and assorted noblemen.

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At the same time, energy issues, supplies and environmental effects have also been growing. It is easy to think that most things track evenly with wealth – the more money you have, the more of everything you can have, but that is not true for energy.

In other words wealth inequality is not the same as energy inequality. And that is the primary difference between economic inequality in present-day America and Medieval Europe.

Energy is essential for having what we consider a good life. Without abundant energy, we struggle just to survive. Growing or gathering your own food with your own hands is time-consuming, dangerous and dubious at best. This concept of access to energy versus quality of life is embodied the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), which relates per person energy use to quality of life (see figure below). Access to energy is the key to prosperity, education, health care, and long-life.

Energy use per person is one of the most accurate indicators of what is considered prosperity and happiness. It also trends with life span, peace and democracy. The United Nations has developed a measure of the quality of life called the Human Development Index. Above 0.8 HDI is a really good life. Below 0.8 HDI is less so. Below 0.5 is pretty bad. Note that China is really a sum of two parts – there are 500 million Page 2

well-above 0.8 and 800 billion well-below 0.8. Almost all of China’s policies are geared to raising the other 800 million into the middle class, which is why they are planning on doubling their energy production by 2040. California is shown as CA as it is now the sixth largest economy in the world. Of course, it’s also pretty warm. Data from the United Nations An HDI of 1 is as perfect a life as one can have. An HDI below 0.5 is very bad indeed. It takes about 3,000 kWhs per person per year to have what we consider a good life, what many call the middle class, with an HDI above about 0.8. The United States and the industrialized world are in the energy fat region, with average HDIs well over 0.9 and per capita energy use between 6,000 and 16,000 kWhs per year.

But over 70% of the world’s population of 7.5 billion people are below 0.8 on the HDI. About 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity whatsoever, and 2.4 billion people still use wood and manure as their main source of energy. It is no coincidence that these people also live with the world’s greatest social problems and political unrest. It is imperative that we get the entire world into the zone shown as ethical and sustainable – ethical because it will eradicate global poverty and sustainable because we have enough energy resources to meet the energy needs of 10 billion people for 30,000 years.

Today’s super-rich, such as Donald Trump, certainly have access to many more things, including energy, than the normal person, but even the super-rich cannot personally use more than about 50,000 kWhs per year by themselves. Yes, they have their own airplanes, yachts and multiple estates, but the energy use of their staff and employees are their own and don’t enter into the rich individual’s personal use. And using more than 20,000 kWhs per year doesn’t really increase one’s quality of life that much more, as the HDI curve turns over and flattens out above about 16,000 kWhs/person/year.

Total energy in the world today, power plus transportation, is still mostly fossil fuel (29% coal, 31% oil and 21% natural gas), with about 10% biomass, 4% nuclear and about 5% percent renewables, mainly hydroelectric with a little solar, geothermal and wind, although the relative amounts of each fossil source seem to change almost monthly.

But before coal was developed beginning in 1850, energy was generated primarily by human labor plus some domesticated animals. Burning wood was used for heat, and wind and water could be harnessed in some cases to grind grain, move water, power ships and for other limited uses, but human muscular energy was the main source of energy for those societies.

A medieval nobleman and his family were able to have a good life by owning or controlling a certain number of people plus a number of domesticated animals.

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Before 1850 and the advent of coal, burning wood was used for heat, and wind and water could be harnessed in some cases to grind grain, move water, power ships and for other limited uses, but human muscular energy was the main source of energy for those societies. Photo credit: John Charlton, Kansas GS After the human body takes most of the food-generated energy for metabolic maintenance, cellular repair and growth, the remaining energy can be used to fuel useful work. A healthy well-fed laborer over the course of an 8-hour work day can sustain an Page 4

average output of about 75 watts, totaling about 200 kWhs per year. A not-so-well-fed slave can generate maybe 100 kWh/yr. A healthy horse, donkey or ox can provide up to 1,000 kWhs/year.

Not all of this energy can be harnessed directly for use by one person, but a medieval nobleman who owned 10 slaves, 20 indentured servants and farmers, seven horse, seven oxen and an abundant supply of wood, received the equivalent of about 20,000 kWhs/year. The peasants had only about 50 kWhs/year for themselves, or about 400 times less.

Using someone on the edge of poverty today, the Common Man, as similar to a medieval peasant, today’s super-rich, such as Donald Trump, as analogs to the nobility, and historic comparisons for the wealth (in 2016 dollars) of a nobleman or a king, we can roughly estimate how wealth and energy inequality has changed over the last millennium: Medieval Energy Inequality - 400X Nobleman/Peasant – 20,000 kWhs/50 kWhs Medieval Wealth Inequality - 2,500,000X Nobleman/Peasant – $1,000,000,000/$400 Today’s Energy Inequality - 10X Trump/Common Man – 50,000 kWhs/5,000 kWhs Today’s Wealth Inequality - 1,000,000X Trump/Common Man – $4,000,000,000/$4,000 While wealth inequality may not have changed much since the Middle Ages, energy inequality has improved dramatically. Energy inequality is now only a factor of 10, or less, because energy has never been so cheap and plentiful in the history of humankind as it is today. And, for most of humanity, the quality of life that comes from so much energy is extraordinary.

You might wonder why there is no comparison with today’s middle class, the group that uses between 6,000 and 16,000 kWhs/year, has an annual income between $30,000 and $250,000, and that is the hallmark of modern society in the developed world. It’s because there was no middle class before 1850. There was a small merchant class, but the middle class arose after 1850 as a result of the development of coal and, later, other energy sources like oil, gas, hydroelectric and nuclear. With access to non-humanproduced energy, one no longer had to own or control a number of people to get plentiful energy and have a relatively good life.

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And this trend is only continuing. Every year for the past decade, energy use in the world has increased by about 500 billion kWhs, and lifted another 200 million people up out of abject poverty. In fact, the only way to eradicate global poverty is to provide everyone on Earth with over 3,000 kWhs per year. While this will require a lot more energy, the important question is what mix of sources we want to pursue. But we certainly have enough energy resources to do it.

The take-away from this discussion is that, while the rich and powerful are still rich and powerful, most of us who would have been peasants a thousand years ago have a much better life than we could have imagined, directly as a result of the energy sources we have developed and continue to develop.

Energy inequality is being solved with abundant energy.

Tackling wealth inequality is a different kettle of fish.

Dr. James Conca is a geochemist, an energy expert, an authority on dirty bombs, a planetary geologist and professional speaker. Follow him on Twitter @jimconca and see his book at Amazon.com

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