Friday, June 13, 2008
ELECTRICITY, GDP & OUR CURRENT ECONOMIC BUBBLE
"The response of governments and financial authorities by making ever more credit available to failing banks may buy a temporary alleviation but in the longer term is only likely to make matters worse unless the world's energy supply is increased accordingly. The root cause of the problem is not a lack of credit but fears of a lack of energy and in particular of electricity. The governments of the industrialised countries must restore confidence that the supply of electricity will always be available at an affordable price to fuel the economic expansion that is required to carry the mountain of debt.
There is a causal relationship between energy usage and economic growth"
This is from a paper by Supporters of Nuclear Energy (SONE) which you can join here
It got me thinking about how directly close our electricity supply is to our national wealth & there does seem to be general agreement among economists that "Electricity demand is pretty much a linear function of the gross national product" (GNP). Not an absolute one to one relationship since there are other factors but still close.
I am going to put up some figures on this in the next day or two. Even the free market won't work without electricity.