Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, 2021a

2 Economic Growth Limits 25
energy expenditure, or perhaps even less than before. In this way, the
economic scale could keep rising while physical resources are held
flat.
If the economy is to continue to exp<strong>and</strong> on the basis of decoupled
activities, a greater fraction of it must go toward these non-physical
sectors. This means more monetary flow is associated with low-impact
activities. In practical terms, then, a greater fraction of one’s income is
directed toward experiences not tied to energy or other physical dem<strong>and</strong>s.
In Figure 2.4, we see, at point 6, the percentage of the economy in the
non-physical sector starting at 25%: not dominant, but not negligible. The
magenta curve must rise as the red <strong>and</strong> blue lines separate, until at point
7 it approaches 100% non-physical <strong>and</strong> continues to drive arbitrarily
close to 100%.
During this process, the obvious converse consequence is that the
energetically or physically costly activities—like transportation, food,
heating, cooking, manufactured items—become an ever-smaller fraction
of the economy, or an ever smaller fraction of monthly expenses, to put
it more personally. In other words, they become cheap.
Now, in our imagined scenario of continued economic growth, the
ruthlessness of the exponential grabs the reins <strong>and</strong> drives the gulf ever
wider, so that physical goods become arbitrarily cheap <strong>and</strong> dem<strong>and</strong>
an ever-smaller fraction of income. By the time we reach the right side
of Figure 2.4, the economic scale is over 1,000 times as large as the
physical scale, meaning that the physical component is less than 0.1%
of the total economy. Table 2.2 illustrates the progression under the
foregoing growth rate of 2.3%. If in the year 2000, 50% of one’s income
(<strong>and</strong> thus about half of one’s work hours) goes toward physically intense
products, this becomes ever smaller until by the end of the table it only
takes 6 minutes of your annual work to earn enough for the physically
intense goods: all your food, clothing, transportation, heating, cooking,
manufactured goods.
If this is starting to feel like unrealistic fantasy, then good: your intuition
is serving you well. How can essential, non-negotiable, life-sustaining
commodities that are in finite supply become essentially free? The idea goes
against another, more fundamental economic principle of supply <strong>and</strong>
dem<strong>and</strong>. A limited life-essential resource will always carry a moderately
high value. Limited supply <strong>and</strong> inflexible dem<strong>and</strong> dictate a floor to the
price.
This, we will argue, is unrealistic.
Again, seems unrealistic.
Clearly absurd result.
Table 2.2: Cost of physical goods.
Year % income hours
2000 50% 1,000
2100 5% 100
2200 0.5% 10
2300 0.05% 1
2400 0.005% 0.1
Box 2.4: Monopoly Made Easy
One way to highlight the absurdity of the scenario is that if the
physically-limited but essential (life sustaining) resources became
arbitrarily cheap in the fullness of time, a single person could buy
them all for a pittance, <strong>and</strong> then charge a hefty price for anyone
© 2021 T. W. Murphy, Jr.; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Lic.;
Freely available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions.