Jeu-de-Joule: a conceptual earthly energy model

نویسنده

  • Anton W. Trijssenaar
چکیده

Present fuel prices trigger a renewed interest in the energy debate. The paper extends the debate beyond the present boundaries with a descriptive model that maps two parallel processes on earth: (1) the stocks & flows of energy, developing between the earth’s main energy source: the sun, and its main energy sink: outer space, and (2) the accumulation of a collective memory on earth in the form of genetic information in living organisms (DNA), and in the increasing number of Bytes of information created by humans. The model makes it possible to “think through” the parallel developments of energy and information, and of the parallel growth of activities that goes with it. It also provides a tool to distinguish the stocks and flows of energy that drive the economic activities on earth. This may help the debate to go beyond the stage where all energy remains equated to non-renewable resources. Limits to Oil Revisited Developments of the last years have revived concerns about the limits of the world’s oil reserves. The focus is now on the maximum rate of what can ever be produced. These are the “Peak Oil” questions that give further weight to the depletion theories of the nineteen fifties. At that time, the geophysicist Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted correctly that the oil production of the Lower 48 states of the USA would peak in 1970. (Deffeyes 2001, 2005) System dynamics communicates the Hubbert theory as a stock-flow process. (Radzicki 1997) This method of conceptualising could further facilitate the discussion about peak oil and its repercussions. Yet a stumbling block is the way in which most models depict the conservation technologies. The World3 model (Meadows 1991) is often referred to in peak oil circles. It depicts the conservation technologies as a stock that remotely affects the flow of non-renewables. With that, the energy that the earth receives from the sun remains equated to the non-use of non-renewable energy. This leads to the paradox that comfortable solar homes are called zero energy houses. And it feeds into the conventional mental model in which conservation leads to a zero energy economy and hence a zero growth economy.

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تاریخ انتشار 2006