27 July 2008

This video was created by Jay Hanson - creator of www.dieoff.org and www.warsocialism.com. He explains how and why economic growth is limited by declining energy returns (EROEI).

Under a one-for-one scenario, even if the price of oil reaches $5,000 a barrel, it won't make energy-sense to look for oil in the lower 48 because that would consume as much energy as it would recover.

Even if one paid a ton of gold per barrel, one still could not get net energy out of a well that consumes as much as it produces!
The high resolution version can be found here:

http://www.warsocialism.com/limitsToGrowth.htm

YouTube Version

The term "lower 48" in the video refers to the 48 states of the USA in the North American continent - excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

As you watch this video, ask yourself: do our political and business leaders have any inkling of our limits to growth? A casual reading of the newspapers will provide you with some insight to the current zeitgeist - the cultural and intellectual spirit of the times - that growth is imperative and it must not and cannot be stopped. These "growthists" are going to fall flat when they confront declining global oil production and exhaustion of our natural resources.

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