Guest essay by Roger E. Sowell, Esq.5
Recently on WUWT, a post1 by Willis Eschenbach was made advocating the almost doubling of energy consumption worldwide, by increasing energy use per capita in the poorest countries. This post addresses the issue of increased energy consumption and poses a few questions. I say at the outset that I agree that improving the quality of life is an important goal, and energy consumption per capita is probably a good indicator of quality of life.
First, what do the following countries all have in common? Nigeria, Indonesia, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Mexico, Russia, Canada, and United Kingdom?
Each country is a major oil producer and exporter, but with Indonesia and UK experiencing decreased exports recently. The first seven countries all are, or were, a member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.2 Yet, all but the last two, Canada and United Kingdom, have below-average GDP per capita, gross domestic product, according to the World Bank statistics.3
Second, while it is true that a correlation can be made between energy consumption per capita and quality of life, there must be something else at work that prevents the oil-rich countries Nigeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, and the others from enjoying that high quality of life. There are fundamental issues that prevent energy-poor countries from copying the success of another energy-poor country, Japan. Japan has essentially no natural energy resources, but found the means to import energy as oil, coal, and liquefied natural gas, LNG, to power its industry, commerce, and residences.4
Until some fundamental issues are resolved, simply increasing energy consumption in the poorer parts of the world will not improve the quality of life.
Among these fundamental issues are, in no particular order, economic system, a fair justice system, and the political or governing system. I don’t imply that I am an expert on any of these countries, or their economic systems, justice systems, or political systems. I have done a fair amount of study, and also have traveled to and worked extensively in five of the countries mentioned above: Indonesia, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and UK.
Perhaps the most important issue is the political system, for the justice system and economic system may depend on who is in power and the type of power exerted. It may be that a representative constitutional democracy is a favored political system. It may be that the degree of official corruption is a major factor. It may also be that civil discord is a major factor. Having a modest degree of government regulation to ensure fair treatment, but not an onerous burden, is surely important.
A fair justice system ensures that those with a legal grievance will be heard, and treated fairly according to laws that do not change on someone’s whim. Having a contract honored, or being allowed to bring a lawsuit for breach of a contract, are important issues. Having a means to collect on a judgment is also important, as it does little good to win a lawsuit, be awarded money as damages, and be unable to collect the money.
A brief anecdote to illustrate the importance of a justice system: during my time in law school, US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke to an assembly of professors, staff, students, and guests. Justice Kennedy spoke on many things that night, but what I most remember is him telling us that he had met recently with members of Iraq’s judiciary. It was soon after the war to remove Hussein ended and Iraq was building up its new government and judicial system. According to Justice Kennedy, the Iraq delegation thanked him tearfully for bringing to the world the US Constitution and its many provisions for legal rights, especially the first ten Amendments known as the Bill of Rights. They intended to copy as much of those rights as they could into their new governing documents.
The economic system may be important, perhaps not as important as other issues. Economic systems in the oil exporting countries range from absolute monarchies to dictators to elected representative.
It is interesting to note that OPEC has existed for more than 50 years, having been founded in 1960, so ample time has passed to allow oil-rich countries to improve their standard of living. A few have, such as Saudi Arabia, but most have not. Clearly, other factors must be addressed besides access to basic energy, if the goal is to improve quality of life.
It is further interesting to note that even within a country with high energy consumption per capita, such as the United States, enormous differences exist between citizens and their energy consumption. It may be that energy per capita in the US is distributed according to a bell curve, with a few percent of the population consuming vast amounts of energy in their mansions, jet airplanes, and fast motorcars. Likewise, a few percent of the population are poor and have very low energy consumption. The majority of the population likely fall in the middle, with about average energy consumption. Clearly, again, other factors must be at work that prevent the poorest from achieving a better quality of life along with higher energy consumption even in an energy-rich nation like the US.
Citations
1 WUWT, article of August 21, 2013 “Double The Burn Rate, Scotty”
2 OPEC membership at www.OPEC.org
3 World Bank GDP per capita, 2012 data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
4 EIA data for Japan www.eia.gov
5 The author is an attorney in California, practicing in engineering, science and technology law. He is a frequent speaker on climate change, energy, and engineering issues. He worked worldwide as a chemical engineer in the energy industry with oil refining, petrochemicals, basic chemicals, and power plants. He blogs at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com
Free market capitalism, constitutionally limited republics (no more than 10% of GDP), low taxes (no income taxes, just a flat consumption tax EVERYONE pays), balanced budgets, limited: rules, regulation and mandates, equal justice, Austrian economic policies (Keynesian economics deserves to be in the trash along with CAGW), free trade, market based healthcare (socialized medicine is an awful system), strong currencies backed by gold/silver (fiat currencies don’t work), entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, maximum individual freedom, a strong work ethic, an ethical and moral people, are all the necessary building blocks required for a thriving, free, prosperous and sustainable
America used to have all those attributes until about 120 years ago, but through the slow cancer of Progressivism, the Constitution was gradually destroyed until America became just another failed Socialist state, currently on the precipice of economic and social collapse.
Rather than being that shinning city on the hill and being a sterling example of what free people and free markets can achieve, we’re a mere translucent shadow of our former self, slowly fading into the pages of history, like so many great civilizations in the past.
Socialists, dictatorships, Islamic theocracies, tyrants, warlords, anarchists, state-run crony Crapitalism in various forms and flavors now enslave their people and their resorces on the twisted road to serfdom.
Whatever man has done can be undone by men of honor, wisdom and perseverance willing to make a stand and restore and rebuild that which has been razed to the ground.
If enough people get exasperated with the failed status quo and rebuild Constitutional Republics, then the power source of the future will most likely be thorium. If the status quo continues on its present course, man’s future energy source may well be broken pieces of furniture….
And so it goes……until freedom is restored.
“””””……A fair justice system ensures that those with a legal grievance will be heard, and treated fairly according to laws that do not change on someone’s whim. Having a contract honored, or being allowed to bring a lawsuit for breach of a contract, are important issues. Having a means to collect on a judgment is also important, as it does little good to win a lawsuit, be awarded money as damages, and be unable to collect the money…….””””””
Well Roger, isn’t this an oxymoron. ? If you cannot collect on a legal award, then it is asinine to call the justice system fair.
The criminal Justice system (theoretically) is fair, in that once a miscreant is sentenced, the “justice system” promptly carries out that sentence, and punishes the criminal as prescribed by the court.
Well that of course is a joke. Lawyers plea bargain to get their client off with a wrist slap, and the parole system lets criminals out before they have served their time, often served very little of it. In my view, anyone convicted of a parole violation, should be required to serve 100% of all outstanding sentences, that they have been let out from, before they even start to serve any new sentence. Time off for good behavior should be reinstated for not good behavior.
It is claimed that studies show that the death penalty does not deter crime. Without exception, all such studies systematically exclude persons who have actually been subjected to the death sentence. The recidivism rate is actually zero.
I don’t see why the courts can’t just as easily enforce the collection of judgements against miscreants. Not that it matters, but I was once awarded a judgement against a crooked lawyer; another oxymoron. Not a chance in the world of collecting on it (so I was actually out, the amount he scammed me for. Well he also scammed an acquaintance, and she got him disbarred.
But a hearing Roger, plus 62 cents, will get you a senior coffee at MacDonalds. Fair justice system my arse !
And those laws are simply changed by a judges whim, even by such as the chief justice of the Supreme court. The President of the United States simply rewrites laws passed by the Congress, without anyone in the fair justice system even questioning it.
The Congress of the US passes into law, a multi-thousand page “affordable care” act, which not one of 535 elected members of the Congress even bothered to read before signing it into law, from which they then excluded themselves; but the President, who signed it, himself without reading it, then simply rewrites it as he stumbles along; even though no President has ever been granted a line item veto, even though many have tried to exert one. This one simply thumbs his nose at the law, the Congress, and the people, and the public information “media” never calls him on it, et alone suggest it is time for the House to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Fair justice is a joke Roger; and you of all people should know that.
“””””……jrwakefield says:
August 23, 2013 at 10:03 am
“. the methane deposits on the ocean floor suggest natural gas production by the earth is both ongoing and quite large.”
Methane on the sea floor is from decaying organic matter…….””””””
So your point is ?????
I’ve even heard that coal under the earth is from decaying organic matter. So that would make methane on the sea floor, a renewable green energy source; wouldn’t it ?
“””””…….jrwakefield says:
August 23, 2013 at 9:58 am
“however, if they are the result of the reduction of water and fossilized CO2 in the presence of iron, then the resource is likely much larger than believed.”
Abiotic oil formation has been well debunked. Every oil field can be shown to be of a biological source. For example, the Bakken deposit is a source rock. That means the organic source for the oil formed in that formation. Oil and gas shale show that it must be biological, because they are so tight the rock has to be fractured to get it out. Hence the oil and gas cannot have migrated from below……..”””””””
So before there was ANY biological source of any kind, just where did all that carbon come from ?
Diamonds, and graphite are most certainly not biological, so purely geological processes are and were capable of processing carbon, just like any other mineral.
Petroleum, is simply a liquid rock; not a dinosaur molecule to be found anywhere in it.
Roger, good points. Despotic governments will (eventually!) disappear much as they did in Europe – the genie is out of the bottle on that one. I’m sure withholding cheap energy from their own citizens in the energy-rich nations you name is one of the controls they exercise. CAGW proponents of the ideological type that would like to withhold cheap energy from those who have it now certainly understand this mechanism.
“””””……SasjaL says:
August 23, 2013 at 4:29 am
Little Norway have become dirty rich on oil resources … Standard of living? Not better then Sweden, but in most cases far more expensive … (rent, food, energy, transportations …)……””””””
Classic case of inflation (of the currency).
Time magazine once ran an article about a study of the consumer price index going back to the year 1066 (Battle of Hastings). Using all sorts of recorded transactions, and historical accounts, the authors were able to reconstruct the CPI, and show how it varied through history.
As time proceeded, the index went up and then went down again, driven by events; this war, and that war; this catastrophe, and this discovery. The average trend of the index was zero for about 500 years, but with 10-30 year ups and downs about the mean. Then the CPI took off and climbed a slope, up to a level six timers the previous base line in about 75 years, and then it leveled off again, and remained at the new level for the next 400 years. Again it took off climbing at about the same rate as the earlier event, and it has been climbing on that slope ever since.
So What’s up with that ?
Well in 1492, Columbus discovered the New World, and the Spanish came and vandalized the new world, and ripped off the treasures of the Americas, and hauled them back to Europe to gorge themselves on.
Well there was all this new money and wealth, but the lazy bums, weren’t about to create anything of value with it, so they just partied, and the price of everything in Europe sky rocketed, to absorb all that new currency pursuing the same amount of goods and services.
Well that didn’t happen in the British Isles. While the Spanish pirates were raping the new world, the English pirates like Francis Drake, were out raiding the Spanish pirates, and seizing as much loot as they could and taking that back to England.
But instead of spreading that all around like popcorn, Queen Elizabeth I, seized it all, and tossed it in the royal coffers, so the peasants couldn’t gorge on it.
Instead, the English set about buying up the British Empire, and expanding their influence to the four corners of the globe. So England in the Elizabethan era, avoided the rampant inflation of Europe, and built the biggest thing to come along in eons, including the founding of something even better; The United States of America; which Lizzy’s followers were too dumb, to allow it to flourish, under their umbrella. Almost lost Canada the same way, until some sanity prevailed.
Well the second inflationary climb in history, began in the 1930s, when the USA went off the gold standard, and once again, the printing press, became the de facto producer of the illusion of wealth.
Well we now have Obama, and an equally profligate Congress, applying positive feedback unlimited to the inflation machine; there is no limit to how much paper they will print to buy votes to retain their worthless hides in dictatorial power over the people, who gladly will hold on to the coat of the rascal who is about to hang them.
You see you cannot force progress upon people, who simply have no concept of what you are talking about.
If you give free food to the starving masses of an over-populated destitute people, they simply will increase their numbers to absorb that largesse, and they still won’t act to alter their own traditional ways, to better themselves.
You cannot force people to be successful.
Mother nature forces success on all, by simply eating those who are unsuccessful.
Dear Roger, first sorry for my mistakes in English.
I do not agree with his críica to the work of Eschenbach, at the same time not critical few things in your post.
There are two stories in one book.
Something is a condition “sini qua non” posed by Eschenbach, another thing is to have energy and not use it in a convenient way.
Each country has its own history, and if we do not look for anything they do not understand.
In mathematics we have two expressions that show the problem, necessary and necessary and sufficient.
Eschenbach spoke of the necessary condition, and your article has taken as necessary and sufficient. There is a big difference.
Always dangerous to use words like unique … Finland’s mining royalties, such.as they are, are also paid to the land owners. The USA is not unique in this respect. This is but one example off the of my head.
To jrwakefield:
You wrote:
“…started explicitly with the pretense of being free…?”
PRETENSE? Did you really mean to use that word? Are you sure you
didn’t mean PREMISE?
There are many influences that cause people to take one road versus another. The fact that we, the generically technological advanced with a relatively high standard of living, live one type of civilization while others endure a different type of civilization is part and parcel of different belief systems.
England developing the Magna Carta was a major step out of the feudal society, followed by many improvements and losses in the march to people that are ‘free’.
One of the things we skeptics need the most is a huge contributing factor towards a country’s citizens becoming free; that is a free and active press. Honest fact digging and checking performed by reporters and journalists would stem much of the hype surrounding CAGW.
In reviewing the countries you’ve listed, there is a major difference between the those countries improving their standard of living and those who maintain high standards of living. That difference is a free press. Not just freedom of speech, but allowing citizens to seek and publish the facts they find or uncover.
Roger, this is not criticizing your article, but my two cents about contributing factors. The freedom of the press or of speech is not sustainable without the justice system and governing principles you’ve outlined.
Quoting:
“Japan has essentially no natural energy resources, but found the means to import energy as oil, coal, and liquefied natural gas, LNG, to power its industry, commerce, and residences”
Commenting:
While that is true today, there will be a change within the decade that will find Japan with a considerable energy resource base. I can’t give you any details. Trust me.
Paliamentary democracy is a much better choice for most developing countries that trying to copy the bizarre US model. In a parliamentary system the prime minister can and is often ejected from power in a non-violent manner part way through his or her term and there is a mechanism in parliament allowing ongoing political change between elections. The winner takes all “elected king” presidential system used in America is too rigid making it dificult to change leader between elections short of civil war. Which is why Egypt is in such strife at the moment. They would have been a lot better off with a powerful prime minister and not a powerful president.
“Free market capitalism, constitutionally limited republics (no more than 10% of GDP), low taxes (no income taxes, just a flat consumption tax EVERYONE pays), balanced budgets, limited: rules, regulation and mandates, equal justice, Austrian economic policies (Keynesian economics deserves to be in the trash along with CAGW), free trade, market based healthcare (socialized medicine is an awful system), strong currencies backed by gold/silver (fiat currencies don’t work), entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, maximum individual freedom, a strong work ethic, an ethical and moral people, are all the necessary building blocks required for a thriving, free, prosperous and sustainable”
I drool at your list, if only it would happen… True Utopia.
“In a parliamentary system the prime minister can and is often ejected from power in a non-violent manner part way through his or her term and there is a mechanism in parliament allowing ongoing political change between elections.”
Canada is a parliamentary system, but never has a PM been ejected part way through terms. Only in a minority government can the opposition defeat a government and force an election, and only when a monetary bill comes before the Commons.
We actually have a flaw in our system. The Provincial Liberals here in Ontario have a minority, their leader, our Premier, quit last fall. The Liberals held a convention and elected a new leader, who automatically become Premier. She was not elected by the masses. The Liberal Party decided who would run the Province.
“PRETENSE? Did you really mean to use that word? Are you sure you
didn’t mean PREMISE?”
Damn, LOL. Yeah…
“So before there was ANY biological source of any kind, just where did all that carbon come from ?
Diamonds, and graphite are most certainly not biological, so purely geological processes are and were capable of processing carbon, just like any other mineral.”
What carbon? Precambrian rocks have little free carbon, a few graphite deposits, and diamonds with a known, sort of, origin. How do those relate to methane and oil formation?
Every oil formation has trace mineral markers which can be traced back to the source rock, which in every case is a biological deposit of some kind. Read the book Oil 101. It’s explained nicely and clearly.
West HoustonGeo says…
So Japan has a way of extracting their methane clathrates?
Is it the idea of dropping balloons over them and fulfilling them with polystyrene then floating them up?
I was never sure that was cost effective as the polystyrene (or other pseudo-clathrate) is not renewable and so an extra cost. But it might be a goer.
If it’s just shake-and burn then forget it. Wasteful, dangerous and uneconomic unless we reach Mad Max oil prices.
SasjaL says:
August 23, 2013 at 4:29 am
////////////////
I have lived in both countries, and whilst not wishing to be critical of Sweden, Norway does have the better standard of living.
Since it has not squandered the money that the oil reserves have provided but has instead saved a consideably part of these revenues, It also has by far the better long term prospects. If only the UK had been so prudent.
ferdberple says:
August 23, 2013 at 8:59 am
The ability to “keep the fruits of your labors” is an impediment to progress worldwide….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>…
I think you meant “The INability…” and you are correct. The underground economy in the USSR is credited with keeping that country going. (Individuals growing food on a little patch and taking it to the city to sell for example.) We are already seeing a growing Underground Economy in the USA in response to government SNAFUs USA: $2 trillion underground economy aids recovery “The growing underground economy may be helping to prevent the real economy from sinking further, according to analysts….Estimates are that underground activity last year totaled as much as $2 trillion… That’s double the amount in 2009”
Note the tone of the following article:
Carbon is the fourth most common element in the universe. It does not require or have a biological source though biology does tend to differentiate it from natural compounds it is commonly associated with.
Anthony Watts says:
August 23, 2013 at 7:45 am
/////////////
Anthony
A couple of weeks ago, I started experiencing problems with your site. I have no problems with any other site that I visit.
I access your site by way of search engine. When I click the link for your site (in a new window – so the original returned search results are kept minimized), sometimes (in fact usually) when your home page loads, it loads partly and then immediately forwards to some advert that is inserted in your home page. As soon as that begins to happen, I close down the page, ie., before it goes to the transferred page. I then re-click on the link from the search engine to open your site in a new window and the home page loads perfectly. It has always loaded perfectly on the second attempt.
The same happens on the articles that you are running. Often when I click the link to an artilcle to open in a new window, the page starts to load properly and then transfers to some embedded ad. Again, if I close down whilst it is transferring and again click on the link to the article to open, on the second attempt it always opens properly.
It is all rather tedious. As I say, I have only experienced this problem on your site, no others, and the problem started about 2 weeks ago (and I noted that some other commentators were making comments of a problem at this time). Since it is only your site that causes this issue, I do not consider it likely that it is due to some adware/malware on my computer.
I run Windows Vista and IE 9.
@richard verney
Try clearing your cookies or using a different browser.
Dunno why some people have problems and others dont’ but generally it boils down to nuances of individual machines since the problem is scattered around and is often solvable with updates to machine and or clearing of cache etc.
This was an interesting essay but as a rebuttal, it misses the point of Mr Eschenbach’s original which is that quality of life is correlated with energy CONSUMPTION.
Mr Sowell is correct that it is entirely possible for a country to PRODUCE a great deal of potential energy while still denying the majority of its citizens the right to consume the energy that they produced. (And I agree that the political and judicial factors listed above are key to that tragedy. Distribution inequities will always be a problem in societies which do not value the rule of law.)
But that wasn’t the question posed in the original essay. Mr Eschenbach’s essay asked only how much additional energy would have to be consumed to bring the entire world to a ‘good enough’ level and is it feasible in aggregate to produce enough energy to match that consumption. Mr Eschenbach was attempting to validate the claim that ‘good enough’ would require 10 times the current consumption (and the implication that because 10x is impossible, we shouldn’t try – that we must therefore lower our standards of living).
The 10x standard was disproven. The fact that distribution inequities will still exist does not change that conclusion.
I disagree with most of the commenters praising this article.
Roger Sowell has been busy arguing against any “nuclear power” for any reason. It’s “too expensive” he says even though lawyers like him have helped create that very self-fulfilling prophecy by building roadblocks at every step of the process. Up here in NY Lawyers like him, the previous Cuomo for example, managed to kill the fully completed Shoreham nuke plant after it was completely built and ready to operate. Now they are hard at work trying to scuttle the remaining Indian Point plant.
I have him pegged as a typical anti-nuke kook and this article is merely an elaborate pre-emptive blocking action to prevent giving power to any people anywhere. Actually this is even worse than that, transparently worse because the attacks on our power here at home is dwarfed by the evil of attacking it in poor undeveloped lands. It reeks of western ivory tower elitism willing to entertain any fantasy except for empowering poor people in the 3rd world.
Requiring a bullet list of pie-in-the-sky dreams in prior to any power development is just evil. It is not our place to pick their legal, political, or any other system, nor does it have anything to do with their prosperity. In fact it is a chicken and egg argument, the opposite case being that a poor people with available energy to increase their living standards might evolve these other items later in their own way.
Color me not impressed.
jrwakefield says:
Eagle Ford is a minor play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Ford_Formation
the flow rate is very small, in the US 52,000b/day. Such is the nature of shale deposits.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Mr Wakefield,
Your data source is incorrect. Texas oil production is reported to the Railroad Commission, not Wikipedia.
You are off by more than a factor of 10.
No wonder your posts are so far from reality!
The current production from the fractured tight reservoirs in the USA (Bakken, Utica, Eagle Ford. Miss Lime, Wolfcamp etc)is about equal to the entire production of Kuwait.
Oil production in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale formation rose 60 percent in June from the same month the year before.
The nine fields that make up the majority of Eagle Ford yielded 617,884 barrels of crude a day, according to preliminary data released by the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas drilling in the state.
Doug, I see that now. http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/128520/Eagle_Ford_June_Oil_Output_Up_60_from_Year_Ago
Someone needs to update Wiki.