Abstract
Energy is the keystone of nature and society. All life on Earth is made possible by incident solar energy captured and stored by plants and passed through ecosystems. Human civilization was spawned by innovation in acquiring and using diverse sources of energy, first by cultivating plants and domesticating animals and eventually by building machines that could use energy stored in fossil fuels. In fact, each phase of the advance of civilization was triggered by changes in energy use that provided opportunities for growth of human populations and economic systems.
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A slight complication is that GDP is measured in two ways, both based on U.S. dollars. GDP at market exchange rate (mer) simply takes GDP in a nation’s currency and applies current exchange rates. This method often undervalues the local purchasing power of currencies. GDP at purchase power parity (ppp) adjusts GDP, still in dollars, to comparable local purchasing power. For the U.S., GDPppp/GDPmer = 1. In this decade, for the world GDPppp/GDPmer = 1.35, for Brazil 1.75, for China 2.4, and for India 3.0. Energy intensity using GDPppp in the U.S. is 26% less than in China, 6% more than in India, and 20% more than in the rest of the OECD.
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© 2018 John Randolph and Gilbert M. Masters
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Randolph, J., Masters, G.M. (2018). The Energy Imperative and Patterns of Use. In: Energy for Sustainability. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-821-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-821-3_1
Publisher Name: Island Press, Washington, DC
Print ISBN: 978-1-64283-034-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-61091-821-3
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