Beyond Jevons: the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics - The Maximum Power Principle

[GliderGuider]

16. I guess I agree, but I don't see the conclusion that might follow

Last edited Sat Jan 12, 2013, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)

If we are on the rising part of that curve before power is maximized, then increasing our efficiency is moving us up the curve and enabling more power to be dissipated in doing "useful" work. My concern is that increasing the amount of human-useful work we can do with each unit of energy simply increases the rate at which we degrade the rest of the world.

My mother had a firm belief that what the world needed was less efficiency. From her social-justice point of view the value of inefficiency was that it put more jobs in the hands of the local working class. But at lower efficiency levels we also do less overall damage to the planet because we harness less power.