Energy is one of the essentials for life, along with air, water and food. Indeed, food is the fuel that supplies energy for all humans. Energy comes in many different forms but these can all be considered under three major categories: solar, chemical and nuclear. Of these, only solar can be regarded as essential, in that without the energy radiated from the sun life on earth would be impossible. However, the chemical fuels coal, oil and natural gas, are obtained from the fossilized remains of prehistoric organic material that had grown by capturing solar energy; and the sun produces its energy by the nuclear fusion process. Thus, on a philosophical level, only nuclear energy is essential.
In real life, however, nuclear proponents are generally concerned with whether nuclear energy is preferable to energy from the chemical or fossil fuels; while nuclear opponents argue that the various forms of solar energy, plus geothermal energy (a form of nuclear energy since it results from radioactive decay deep underground) and energy conservation render nuclear energy unnecessary. If costs and effects on health, the environment and society are ignored, no single energy source is essential: we could get by without any one and rely on the others. Thus, any real discussion of whether nuclear energy is needed has to consider its advantages and disadvantages compared with the alternatives, as well as how much energy is needed.
Health, wealth, energy use and electricity use are all interconnected. Life-expectancy statistics for North America and Europe during the past three centuries show that as society's wealth has increased so has its individuals' longevity. Since we are now living longer than our forefathers, the world must be safer, not riskier. All the horrors of the Industrial Revolution and modern industrialization were accompanied by a doubling in the life span. In more recent times, the relative death rate of social groups in the U.K. decreased as the income rose; the infant death rate in Canada was higher in the poorer provinces than in the wealthier ones until a national health-insurance program was introduced; and life expectancy in the U.S. for unskilled labourers was 6.5 years less than for corporation executives, with professional, technical, administrative and managerial workers coming somewhere between. For a forty-five-year-old man working in U.S. manufacturing, a 15 per cent increase in income has been estimated to have about the same risk-reducing value as eliminating all hazards in the workplace. Cholera epidemics are usually attributable to poor sanitation and occur among the poor. Cholera is a plague of poverty.
Statistics show a strong correlation between wealth, measured as gross domestic product (GDP) per person, and energy consumption per person. A correlation does not prove a causal relation: wealth does not cause, but allows, health. Plentiful energy is essential for most of the developments that have contributed to a longer life. For many diverse countries, life expectancy, ranging between 40 and 80 years, correlates with GDP per person: doubling the GDP per person adds 6 years to the life expectancy. General improvements in living standards, such as better sanitation, better housing, a readier supply of clean water, better nutrition and better means for food preservation, have been more important than medical developments that cure diseases once they occur. Engineers may have saved more lives than doctors. If, together, they are to continue saving lives they will need plentiful energy.
Globally, all countries follow the same general trends in the development of their GDPs, their energy consumptions and their electricity consumptions. Individual countries develop at different rates, and the development takes off at different times, but the shapes of the curves are similar. Over the past two centuries the countries of Western Europe and the U.S. steadily increased their GDP per person, by a factor of about ten: within generally similar rates, the U.S. overtook the U.K.'s lead around 1900. Following World War II, the GDPs per person of the U.S.S.R. and Japan increased rapidly, so that these are now within the range of those of other developed countries. (History suggests that the recent break-up of the Soviet Union and the economic troubles in Asia will be barely detectable in the long-term trends.) All these countries, which collectively account for about one billion people, have GDPs per person still rising at a rate such that they would be expected to double in about 40 years.
China, with another 1.3 billion people, had an average increase in its GDP of 9.6 per cent per year over the period 1980 - 2000. This economic growth is associated with it having taken over from more developed countries energy-intensive heavy industry and manufacturing. It currently has a GDP per person about one-third that of the leaders, but rising rapidly with a doubling time of 10 to 20 years, depending on assumptions in the calculations. India, with roughly another billion people, is coming along behind China, delayed by perhaps 20 years but with much the same doubling time. Globally, extreme poverty, defined as less than $1 per day per person, decreased from 40 per cent of the population in 1981 (1.5 billion) to 21 per cent (1.1 billion) in 2001. Most of the increase was due to economic development in China, with a lesser contribution from India. However, there is no cause for complacency since there were 2.7 billion people living below $2 per day in 2001.
The U.N. estimates that the present global population of six billion will increase to eight billion by 2025. A reduction since the previous estimate is attributed to the emancipation of women in developing countries leading to lower fertility rates. Therefore, unless there are major changes in trends established over a couple of centuries, by the middle of this century we should be prepared for a population of about nine billion, of whom roughly one-third would enjoy a GDP per person at least that to which we are accustomed today.
Given the correlation between GDP per person and energy consumption, the consequence is that by the year 2050 the world will have to find energy supplies at least twice those of today. The enormity of this challenge is such that it matters little if the estimate is out by a factor of two either way. The prospect is even more daunting when one realizes that the time available is about that required to bring a new energy source to market in appreciable quantities. In the U.S., for instance, coal, oil and natural gas took 66, 52 and 95 years respectively to penetrate from one to fifty per cent of the market. Thus any source, such as nuclear fusion, not already contributing one per cent or more is unlikely to be significant. We already know what the options are and can reject the wishful thinking of some magic new energy source.
Those challenging this projection have an obligation to explain just where they disagree. If the population growth is overestimated, are they assuming that AIDS or World War III will wipe out half the world's population? Are they implicitly condemning the people of China and India, and later Indonesia and others, to continuing poverty for the rest of their lives while these people are increasingly aware through modern communications of how developed countries live? Do they expect the GDP per person of the developed countries, which has been rising steadily for two centuries to level off suddenly, i.e., within fifty years? Do they expect the GDP/energy correlation to change sufficiently in the same period?
Contrary to common belief, globally the gap between rich and poor is narrowing: three fifths of the world's population is catching up with the leading one fifth, leaving only one fifth virtually untouched by industrialization. There are other reasons for optimism: the world can feed 10 billion, and more, and enough minerals are available. Much more energy is needed but the growths in energy and electricity per person, unlike the growth in GDP per person, are indicating saturation for the developed countries. The U.K., having been first to experience the Industrial Revolution, was the first to exhibit saturation. Industrial energy consumption per person in the U.K. has remained constant over the past century while economic output per person has increased five-fold. Thus increasing energy efficiency is a continuing phenomenon, not greatly affected by economic factors such as the oil crises of the 1970s or the resulting conservation ethic. Electricity consumption per person, although not yet demonstrating saturation, exhibits prospects for it by 2050 in the developed countries. However, two billion people are still without electricity.
Currently, China's annual growth in energy consumption is 8 per cent, accounting for two-thirds of the world's growth rate. If China's energy consumption follows that of other countries it can be expected to saturate around 2050. However, other developing countries with large populations, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico are following. Thus increasing global energy consumption will probably occur throughout this century.
The good news is that we probably do not have to provide for indefinite exponential increase in demand for energy and electricity: the bad news is that nevertheless we still have to provide much more. An international body, the World Energy Council (WEC), as the result of a detailed study, considers that the most pragmatic scenario is for global energy consumption in 2050 to be two to three times today's.
According to Statistics Canada, Canada's energy use per person has doubled over the past four decades, despite increases in efficiency. Over the same period, Canada's population has been increasing by about one per cent per year, further increasing the national energy use.
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