Abstract
Securing reliable energy resources is, ultimately, a matter of securing the survival of humanity. In other words, the indefinite prolongation of human activities, all of which require energy, requires sustainable energy resources. The laws of thermodynamics already place some constraints on what is achievable in this respect, but fortunately the Earth is an open system and can afford a certain profligacy. This situation is analysed in this paper to a suffcient level of detail. Nevertheless, such knowledge only gives very general prescriptions for energy policy matters. What is needed is a universal methodology for deciding what resources are affordable. Since the provision of such resources has to compete against other demands, some of which might be less indispensable in the long-term but more urgent, general affordability has to be measured against the actual benefits. The previously developed judgment (J)-value, designed to achieve regulatory consensus on health and safety expenditure, is adapted for this purpose. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the J-value for assessing possible energy supply options.
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As evinced by, for example, the correspondence in the magazine Cam, issue 66 (Easter 2012).
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Of course, apart from relatively insignificant amounts of geothermal energy, the ultimate source of all available energy is the Sun.
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The literature suggests w ≈ 1/8, implying q ≈ 0.14. Thomas et al. [1] found their results to be insensitive over 0.12 ≤ q ≤ 0.2.
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The definition of “work” is, therefore, any activity which generates income but which is not intrinsically enjoyable. A substantial fraction of the population is, however, are engaged in activities that they find enjoyable, but for which they are also remunerated. Nevertheless, if such activities take place under some kind of involuntary constraint (such as an obligation to be present in a certain place for a certain interval each day), they can still be reckoned as “work” for the purposes of the J-value calculation.
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Cf. a policy of compulsory medical insurance that, in effect, gets healthy members of the population to pay for their weaker brethren; and in most developed countries everyone contributes to the costs of state education through taxation, even families without children.
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Burning hydrocarbons releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is refixed, mostly as carbohydrates, via photosynthesis. The timescales for generating fuel hydrocarbons are generally considered to be too long for oil and natural gas to be considered as renewable resources.
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Ramsden, J.J. (2013). Rational Cost-Benefit Analysis for Optimizing Future Energy Resources. In: Veziroğlu, A., Tsitskishvili, M. (eds) Black Sea Energy Resource Development and Hydrogen Energy Problems. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6152-0_6
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