Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
THE GROSS SOCIETY
SEEING ONLY ITS TITLE, A PROSPECTIVE READER MIGHT GUESS this essay is about our nation's
epidemic of obesity. Or could it be a sarcastic observation on the evolution of Lyndon John-
son's Great Society? Might it be a jeremiad about the gross (i.e., offensive and disgusting) ways we
waste and overconsume natural resources, or a comment on current television trends? There's
plenty to be said on all those scores.
No, the definition of gross I have in mind is “exclusive of deductions,” as in gross profits versus
net profits . The profits we'll be considering come in the forms not just of money but, more crucially,
of energy. Sound boring? Well, you may be surprised.
Here's my thesis: As a society, we are entering the early stages of energy impoverishment. It's
hard to overstate just how serious a threat this is to every aspect of our current way of life. But the
problem is hidden from view by gross oil and natural gas production numbers that look and feel just
fine—good enough to crow about.
President Obama did plenty of crowing in his 2014 State of the Union address, where he touted
“More oil produced at home than we buy from the rest of the world—the first time that's happened
in nearly twenty years.” It's true: US crude oil production increased from about 5 million barrels
per day (mb/d) to nearly 7.75 mb/d from 2009 through 2013 (with imports still over 7.5 mb/d). And
American natural gas production has been at an all-time high. Energy problem? What energy prob-
lem?
While these gross numbers appear splendid, when you look at net numbers things go pear-
shaped, as the British say.
Our economy is 100 percent dependent on energy: with more and cheaper energy, the economy
booms; with less and costlier energy, it wilts. When the electricity grid goes down or the gasoline
pumps run dry, the economy simply stops in its tracks.
But the situation is actually a bit more complicated, because it takes energy to get energy . It
takes diesel fuel to drill oil wells; it takes electricity to build solar panels. The energy that's left
over—once we've fueled production of energy—makes possible all the things people want and need
to do. It's net energy, not gross energy, that does society's work.
Before the advent of fossil fuels, agriculture was our main energy source, and the average net
gain from the work of energy production was minimal. Farmers grew food for people—who did a
lot of manual work in those days—and also for horses and oxen, whose muscles provided motive
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