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The Bottomless Well
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The Bottomless Well

Cornucopians vs. Lethargists

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Mark P. Mills returns to Decouple to challenge our understanding of energy scarcity and efficiency. In this episode, he unravels the paradox of how pursuing energy efficiency often leads to increased consumption, and explains why he believes our energy resources are functionally limitless.

Mark P. Mills is executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics and a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He has authored several books on technology and energy, including "The Cloud Revolution" (2021), and his articles have appeared in major publications like the Wall Street Journal. Mills served in the White House Science Office under President Reagan and began his career as a physicist and engineer, holding a physics degree from Queen's University, Ontario.

We talk about

  • The context and motivation behind writing The Bottomless Well

  • The concept of "lethargists" vs. "cornucopians" in energy debates

  • Misunderstanding of “energy efficiency” and "waste"

  • The economics of energy transitions and renewable technologies

  • The future of oil and mineral resources

Some takeaways

  • Energy is fundamentally abundant in our universe, and technological progress continually improves our ability to access and utilize it

  • Efficiency improvements often lead to increased energy use, not decreased consumption

  • According to Mills, the pursuit of renewable energy often results in the need to construct parallel energy systems, which can increase overall costs

  • Mills states that technological advancements are likely to continue making oil and mineral extraction more efficient and cost-effective

In Mills’ words

"Increasing the cost of energy is, in our view, a priori immoral. It is a reversion to prehistoric, pre-modern times, which is very bad." - Mark P. Mills

Deeper Dive

Mills argues that the concept of energy waste is often misunderstood. He explains that what's commonly perceived as waste in energy conversion processes is actually a necessary cost of refining energy into more useful forms. For example, in laser technology, a significant amount of energy is used to convert thermal photons into highly organized laser photons. This process, seemingly inefficient, is in fact necessary to produce a form of energy with unique and valuable properties.

The Bottomless Well challenges the notion of peak oil, suggesting that technological advancements continually improve our ability to find and extract oil. Mills points out that the shale revolution has transformed oil extraction from an exploration project to a manufacturing process. He argues that known shale resources far exceed our needs, and the main challenge is developing technology to extract it at acceptable prices.

Mills also critiques the current push for renewable energy, particularly wind and solar. He argues that these technologies often result in the creation of parallel energy systems, increasing overall costs. Using Germany as an example, he notes that despite massive investments in renewables, the country's absolute consumption of hydrocarbons has remained largely unchanged over the past two decades.

Regarding efficiency, Mills explains that improvements often lead to increased energy use due to reduced costs and increased utility, a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. He argues that this is not a problem but a sign of progress, as it indicates that the improved efficiency has made the technology more economically valuable and widely used.

References

Keywords

energy efficiency, peak oil, renewable energy, shale revolution, thermodynamics, energy economics, technological progress, energy waste, cornucopians, lethargists, energy transition, fossil fuels, energy density, Jevons paradox

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