Inconvenient Energy Realities: The Math Behind the "New Energy Economy" | Economics21

Inconvenient Energy Realities: The Math Behind the "New Energy Economy" | Economics21

• The math behind “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking”

"...Regardless of one’s opinion about whether, or why, an energy “transformation” is called for, the physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future. 

Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.”

He’s right. 

So, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,” I did just that.
Herein, then, is a summary of some of bottom-line realities from the underlying math. (See the full report for explanations, documentation and citations.)

• Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand

...3. When the world’s four billion poor people increase energy use to just one-third of Europe’s per capita level, global demand rises by an amount equal to twice America’s total consumption.
4. A 100x growth in the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace 5% of global oil demand.
5. Renewable energy would have to expand 90-fold to replace global hydrocarbons in two decades. It took a half-century for global petroleum production to expand “only” 10-fold...Read it all!