Reply to post: Re: Where's Worstall?

THE DEATH OF ECONOMICS: Aircraft design vs flat-lining financial models

itzman

Re: Where's Worstall?

We can in principle add an infinite number of zeros to anyone and everyones bank account.

That is not what is at stake here however.

We can also define value as 'man hours achieving nothing of any value' as well.

That is not what is at stake here however.

To create something of use - say a house - takes either man hours of labour or a certain amount of entropy (free energy).

That is what is at stake here.

Growth in a post industrial society of anything of real value - I don't count shiny new thing as being of real value, when you are starving and thirsty and cold, as any street beggar will tell you (a hot meal and shelter is far more valuable than an I-phone) - is utterly dependent of cheap, in terms of energy and human effort, energy to power the machinery that makes everything else you actually need.

And low cost free* energy (of which renewable energy so called is not a member) is something we are running out of**.

Globally.

If the price of food rockets, because the price of diesel and fertiliser rockets, because both are in fact packaged energy, and furthermore we now have 30 people between farmer and consumer, who all need to be paid more and more to have a decent lifestyle, when it used to be just two or three... then we are in a downward spiral.

*free in the thermodynamic sense, i.e. at low entropy

** except nuclear, which we have a huge amount of left.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon