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Where will it all come from?
So, you’ve been doing your part to be energy efficient at home, and maybe even at work. You’re even driving less. But sadly, even if everybody on this planet was as energy-saving as you, it’s not going to satisfy the growing energy demand.
Dr.William Glassey, author of the book, Geothermal Energy: Renewable Energy and the Environment, provides an eye-opening look at what the future holds for energy demand. In the transcript below, he talks to Kathleen about why we need to make sustainable energy solutions a priority now.
Kathleen: Why is simply being more energy efficient not the total answer?
William Glassley: It has to be part of the answer, absolutely, but there are several reasons. One is that depending upon what study you look at, the best that we are going to be able to do is probably something along the order of saving about 20 percent of the energy that we are consuming right now. That’s a big amount of energy, no doubt, but it isn’t enough to really satisfy the needs that we have. Whether it’s in terms of our heating and cooling buildings and maintaining a comfortable lifestyle, or in terms of fuel and transportation, or in terms of industrial activity, the energy demands in this country are immense. Even conservation can’t provide us with the security we need.
Kathleen: The bottom line is being more energy efficient is not enough to offset the population growth that is going on in the world. Like you said, you can save 20 percent but if the population continues to explode you’re still going in the wrong direction.
William Glassley: That’s right, because the only thing you’re doing is stepping back a few years on that growth curve. There’s another important point about this too, which I don’t think most people realize. Everyone is aware that the population on the planet is growing and depending upon the projections you look at it may stabilize by 2050, it may not. Population may be around 8.5 billion, it may grow to 12. It’s a very big number of people. At the same time, if you look at the per capita energy consumption on the planet, how much energy each person consumes, that too is going through and exponential growth development. What that means is that even a 20 percent decrease on the amount of energy we save right now is going to have a minuscule impact on the long term energy need that we have to satisfy.
Kathleen: So, not only is the population growing putting pressure on the demand, but each one of us is using more and more energy every day. Whether it’s our iPad’s, our iPod’s, or all the gadgets that come with modern day living, each of us are using more and there’s more and more of us on the planet.
William Glassley: That’s right. Interestingly the United States, for the last couple of years, had level per capita energy consumption. Last year was the first year on record that there actually was a very small drop in the per capita energy consumption.
Except it probably happened because of the economic meltdown. The likelihood is we’ll go back to some relatively flat or maybe modest growth. If you think about what’s happened globally, there are a lot of people on this planet, and most of them don’t have anywhere near the standard of living we have, and they want it. Why not? If you lived on some other part of the planet and you saw what we had, why wouldn’t you want that too? The energy demand throughout the world is growing very fast. It’s not anything we’re going to be able to change, at least not in a dramatic way. It’s another reason why we need to be thinking in terms of sustainable energy resources, not just for ourselves but for everyone else.
Listen to Kathleen’s interview with Dr. William Glassley about the benefits of geothermal energy:
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