Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

and it is clear that it simply will not be possible to supply enough energy to increase energy
consumption by a factor of almost four hundred million using only the resources available
on and to a finite planet.
The argument is not fundamentally changed even if we assume that we manage to increase
the energy efficiency of the economy so that we cut the amount of additional energy
required per unit of GDP growth in half. Suppose that, in order to support annual GDP
growth of 3 percent, primary energy consumption only needed to increase 1 percent
instead of 2 percent. In that case, we would need to consume 1.1 times as much energy per
year in ten years as we do today, 2.7 times as much in a hundred years, and 20,959 times in
a thousand years. While 20,959 is a lot less than 398,264,652, it is almost as absurd to
imagine that we could increase our consumption (and production) of energy by a factor of
20,959 in a thousand years as it is to imagine that we could increase it by a factor of
398,264,652. In recent decades, economic growth and energy consumption have been
relatively “decoupled,” which means that the amount of additional energy required per unit
of growth has decreased. However, in order for economic growth to continue in perpetuity,
it would have to be the case that growth and energy consumption can be absolutely
decoupled. This seems wildly implausible.
Better, Not Bigger
The economic problems caused by peaking oil, coal, and natural gas production will
eventually begin to call into question, in a much more obvious way than previously,
conventional notions of “growth.” It is commonly assumed that an increase in the
production and consumption of goods is associated with a higher quality of life. Peak
energy will call into the idea that quality of life and economic health are necessarily tied to
more. A “growth economy” is typically characterized by an increasing GDP. However, a
growing GDP does not necessarily imply a comparable improvement in quality of life, as it
does not account for income distribution, social factors such as health, and ecological
factors – not least of which is energy scarcity. It is possible to have a "prosperous" economy
which is not based on perpetually rising production and consumption. In other words,
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force
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