Energy, Ecology and Economics

• Article: Energy, Ecology and Economics. Howard Odum. Ambio (No. 6, 1973)

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Description

In 1974, the article was reprinted by Mother Earth News with the following introduction:

“In early November of 1973—during a visit to MOTHER's new home in the mountains of western North Carolina—New Alchemist John Todd gave the magazine's editors about the 14th-generation Xerox copy of what can conservatively be described as a dynamite paper.

We had only to glance at this extraordinary document to realize that the paper (originally written at the request of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) is one of the most concise—yet most sweeping—examinations yet made of the real problems of the world.

The man who produced this work is Howard T. Odum, Ph. D. . . . Director of the Center for Wetlands and a Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In the past, he has been Professor of Ecology at the University of North Carolina, Chief Scientist for the Puerto Rico Nuclear Center and Director of the Institute of Marine Science of the University of Texas at Port Aransas. Professor Odum has many other environmental credits to his name including the book, Environment, Power and Society (John Wiley, 1972).”

Excerpt of the Royal Swedish Academy Introduction:

“Many are beginning to see that energy, ecology, and economics form a single, unified system, states the author, who gives twenty points to explain the energy control of our economy and the relationship to the environment…He offers a general answer to the present world situation, where ‘boom and bust’ economies may soon be forced toward a steady state: reject economic expansionism, stop growth, use available energies for cultural conversion to steady state, and seek out the condition now that will come anyway.”

Odum’s Introduction:

As long-predicted energy shortages appear, as questions about the interaction of energy and environment are raised…, many are beginning to see that there is a unity of the single system of energy, ecology, and economics. The world's leadership, however, is mainly advised by specialists who study only a part of the system at a time.

Instead of a single system's understanding, we have adversary arguments… Many economic models ignore the changing force of energy, regarding effects of energy sources as an external constant; ecoactivists cause governments to waste energy in unnecessary technology; and the false gods of growth and medical ethics make famine, disease, and catalytic collapse more and more likely for much of the world. Some energy specialists consider the environment as an antagonist instead of a major energy ally in supporting the biosphere.

Instead of the confusion that comes from the western civilization's characteristic educational approach of isolating variables in tunnel-vision thinking, let us here seek common sense overview which comes from overall energetics…

With major changes confronting us, let us consider here some of the main points that we must comprehend so we may be prepared for the future.” (http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/energy-ecology-and-economics?)

Discussion

Odum's 20 Points

Modified / Interpreted / Plagerized by David MacLeod

1. The true value of energy to society is the net energy. ..

Net energy is the Energy Returned on the Energy Invested (EROEI). It takes some amount of energy to get more energy, and you have to carefully account for all of the energy expended to make sure you actually “Obtain A Yield” (Permaculture Principle #3).

For example, conventional crude oil is a very dense energy source. In the past all you had to do was put a hole in the ground in the right place, and up came “the bubblin’ crude.” The International Energy Agency now tells us that conventional crude peaked in 2006, so now we have to go after more “unconventional” sources, such as drilling in deep ocean water, and converting tar sands into oil. We have to expend much more energy upfront to capture these unconventional resources, therefore the net yield of these resources is less than it was for conventional oil. As Odum says, “Much energy has to be used directly and indirectly to support the machinery, people, supply sytems, etc. to deliver the energy. “ For alternative technologies such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines, we need to account for the fossil fuels used to mine the materials, to construct and maintain the manufacturing process, and to deliver and install the systems. We often tend to just measure the yield and value of the amount of energy obtained from these sources, but Odum is telling us that we really need to pay attention here to the fact that it is the net yield after accounting for all of the energy expended that is the true value to society.

2. Worldwide inflation is driven in part by the increasing fraction of our fossil fuels that have to be used in getting more fossil and other fuels.

As we expend more and more energy to get energy, the net yield declines (point #1). Expending more energy also means spending more money. Spending more money, even as the net yield is declining results in a decrease in value of that money, which is basically the definition of inflation. It is easy to be misled here, and miss the forest for the trees – the economy and the total energy use may be expanding, even as net yield is declining, and more money might therefore be allowed to circulate, which results in us digging a deeper hole. The number one rule when you’re stuck in a hole is to stop digging (as Matt Simmons used to say), but that is a problem if we don’t realize we’re in a hole.

As we attempt to Catch and Store Energy (Permaculture Principle #2), we again need to make sure we are Obtaining A Yield (Principle #3).

3. Many calculations of energy reserves which are supposed to offer years of supply are as gross energy rather than net energy and thus may be of much shorter duration than often stated.

Fossil fuel reserves tend to be overstated for a variety of reasons. Many of the publicly stated reserves will never be economical to actually extract. If these reserves were calculated as units of net energy, the numbers would be much lower and closer to the reality of what could actually be useful." (http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/energy-ecology-and-economics?)

4. Societies compete for economic survival by Lotka’s “Maximum Power” principle: the system that gets the most energy and uses it most effectively survives in competition with other systems.

We learn from points 4, 5, and 6 that “survival of the fittest” competition is very natural, and useful in the development of any ecosystem. There is no need to engage in moralistic judgments on human systems that do this. There is a time to maximize power and to utilize available energy effectively (“Obtain a Yield”) and to be less wasteful as compared to competitors or alternatives (“Produce No Waste”).

5. During times when there are opportunities to expand one’s power inflows, the survival premium by Lotka’s principle is on rapid growth even though there may be waste.

“Dog-eat-dog growth competition” occurs in pioneering species, whether that be new vegetation colonizing bare ground, or the last 200 years of humankind colonizing growth. Perfectly natural, but only when energy resources are plentiful.

6. During times when energy flows diminish and there are no new sources, the systems that win are those that do not engage in a fruitless attempt to continue to grow.

Instead, they use all available energies to develop diverse and resilient steady state systems. When an ecosystem matures, the rapid growth specialists are replaced by a new team of higher diversity, higher quality, longer living, better controlled, and stable components. This is the “climax team,” which is able to maximize the limited amount of energy available, becoming much more efficient than those that specialized in fast growth.

“Our system of man and nature will soon be shifting from rapid growth as the criterion of maximizing one’s work for economic survival to steady state non-growth as the criterion of maximizing one’s work for economic survival.”

It is here that the Permaculture Principles such as “Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback,” “Produce No Waste,” “Use and Value Diversity,” and “Creatively Use and Respond to Change,” become very important (as well as all of the other principles).

Most of humankind’s million year history was close to a steady state, but economists have all been trained during a rapid growth state and most don’t even know there is such a thing as a steady state. Although 200 years is a long time from our perspective, we are experiencing the tail end of a short pulse or blip in the history of the world – “a temporary use of special energy supplies that accumulated over long periods of geologic time.”

7. High quality of life for humans and equitable economic distribution tends to be a positive characteristic of steady state periods.

During competitive growth periods instability, inequality, and poverty more commonly occur, but during steady state periods competition is controlled, and replaced with regulatory systems (“Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback“), diversity of labor (“Use and Value Diversity”), and uniform energy distributions (“Catch and Store Energy”). “Love of stable system quality replaces love of net gain.”

8. The successfully competing economy must use its net output of richer quality energy flows to subsidize the poorer quality energy flow so that the total power is maximized.

In ecosystems, a diversity of species allows for a greater variety of energy sources to be utilized, and to varying degrees. Some species are “subsidized” by getting some of their energy indirectly from multiple sources. For example, leaves on top of trees get more energy than they need, and leaves lower on the tree need more energy than they are getting from the sun. The leaves on top transport fuel to leaves lower on the tree that are more shaded, providing the “subsidy.” The ecosystem as a whole benefits, because resources are maximized and more total work gets done.

In similar ways, fossil fuels are used in many places of our economy to subsidize activities that would otherwise not yield net energy. Many examples could be named, from subsidizing our educational systems to subsidizing the manufacture of wind turbines and solar photovoltaics, which leads to the next point.

9. Energy sources which are now marginal, being supported by hidden subsidies based on fossil fuel, become less economic when the hidden subsidy is removed.

Related to the previous point of using rich energies to subsidize marginal ones: marginal energies will yield less in the future when the subsidy is no longer available. Economists often don’t recognize this change in energy quality, because the subsidy remains hidden to their view. They will often say that a marginal energy source will be economic in the future when the rich sources become unavailable. However, the yield from a marginal energy source will decline as the subsidy from the richer energy source declines. An energy source is not a source unless it can contribute a net yield.

10. Increasing energy efficiency with new technology is not an energy solution, since most technological innovations are dependent on a supply of cheap energy (a hidden subsidy) to support complex energy-expensive structures.

Much of our progress of achieving increased efficiencies over the last 100 years has been based on a subsidy from a second energy source. “We build better engines by putting more energy into the complex factories for manufacturing the equipment. The percentage of energy yield in terms of all the energies incoming may be less not greater.”