China’s Blackouts Are Shining Light On A New Problem | Economics Explained

[@nickyliu8762]

As a Stellaris player, I'm comfortable imagining energy credits as currency.

[@powersettingsm7172]

Beat me to it

[@EconomicsExplained]

Did not know that was a thing, gonna have to check it out

[@boneappletee6416]

@@EconomicsExplained Stellaris is an awesome game :)

[@Rdburnzy]

@@EconomicsExplained You should definitely try Stellaris, it's right down your street. A real-time strategy game wherein you control and manage your space-economy while expanding your space-empire and researching new technology.

[@altair5000]

Technicians in generator districts carrying your entire galactic empire economy on their backs until you Dyson Sphere an entire star to basically have infinite energy credits and turn your empire into a post scarcity utopia… That or you are an all consuming hivemind hellbent on destroying anything alive. In any case awesome game.

[@duo496]

Paradox was right! Energy credits are the future!

[@claxvii177th6]

Let's hope the extremist xenophobic empires aren't as successful as they are in the game. but i do like them mega-structures

[@nathanmaxon4692]

@@claxvii177th6 HUMANITY FIRST!

[@jaffa6711]

I think the concept was originally introduced to scifi by Olaf Stapleton a century before Paradox

[@admiral_waffles533]

@@claxvii177th6 Not unless we exterminate them first *B R O T H E R*

[@lupo10]

It’s been the plan all along. Create a crisis, provide a ‘solution’.

[@IsidorosEduardos]

Fun fact: the gold coins shown at 15:20 are old coins from the United Kingdom of Brazil, Portugal, and the Algarves, which existed from 1815-1822, with its capital in Rio de Janeiro, bearing the face of His Royal Majesty King Dom João VI.

[@loki-of-asgard7877]

That is interesting. Surprised your comment didn't get more likes

[@ptrck_]

Bom saber que não fui o único que notou.

[@Redactedredacted5837]

Why is Algarves regarded as separate from Portugal?

[@Vic_Trip]

I knew they were familiar! I saw them somewhere here in Brazil

[@ZinvictanGamer]

@@Redactedredacted5837 full of englishmen

[@sheldoniusRex]

I want to point out that a few notable industries which have completely collapsed in the U.S. are also *EXTREMELY* expensive in terms of electricity vs. value of economic output. For instance steel mills. This industry has almost completely moved to China. It also requires an absolutely extreme amount of electricity to actually make steel. This factor needs to be taken into account when talking about industry in the U.S. vs. industry in China. The U.S. is more efficient in using electricity to create value because we are making high value products, not using our electricity to refine metal. We've also almost completely stopped mining for metals and coal. We don't build as many ships as we once did. We don't make household appliances here anymore. We manufacture fewer cars and components, with even domestic automobile companies moving many major operations to Mexico. All of these industries make durable goods or simply mine or refine resources all of which are lower value per energy usage than goods like medical equipment or aerospace components which are still heavily made in the U.S. This phenomenon is almost exactly like the value comparison of the agricultural sectors of California vs. various Midwestern states. California produces a very high value of agricultural production, but these products are almost exclusively luxury goods like avocados and wine. One would be hard pressed to survive on these goods alone, and the whole population of the state definitely could not, whereas Missouri and Iowa are able to feed themselves completely and export staples such as grain, pork, and chicken all over the world. Their value may be low, but their impact is tremendous. China's heavy industry is the same. Their energy usage per dollar value is indicative not of inefficiency, but of potential.

[@ThatsMrPencilneck2U]

You make gutting our industrial base, and becoming dependent on a potentially hostile power sound like a good thing.

[@akaku9]

@@ThatsMrPencilneck2U alright Paul Kent for 2024 he knows what he's talking about. For the new politically moderate party but still votes republican

[@frankkobold]

@@ThatsMrPencilneck2U more giving background on how to interpret data. E.g. you can't compare energy efficiency of US with China. You would have to compare similar industries with similar output. There is a reason economics is less of science and more philosophy ^^

[@xenozeta6229]

California is the largest agricultural producer in the United States. "California produces almost all of the country's almonds, apricots, dates, figs, kiwi fruit, nectarines, olives, pistachios, prunes, and walnuts. It leads in the production of avocados, grapes, lemons, melons, peaches, plums, and strawberries. Only Florida produces more oranges. The most important vegetable crops grown in the state are lettuce and tomatoes. Again, California leads the way. Broccoli and carrots rank second followed by asparagus, cauliflower, celery, garlic, mushrooms, onions, and peppers. Only Texas grows more cotton than California. Hay, rice, corn, sugar beets, and wheat are also grown in large quantities. Livestock and livestock products include milk, beef cattle, eggs, sheep, turkeys, hogs and horses. Dairy products are California's most valuable products followed by cattle and calves and chicken eggs. California is the second ranked producer of livestock products behind Texas." www.netstate.com/economy/ca_economy.htm#:~:text=Crops%20include%20grapes%2C%20almonds%2C%20strawberries,peaches%2C%20plums%2C%20and%20strawberries. data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844#P672329ce41684985b823b1541fa73057_7_251iT0R0x0

[@geraldfrost4710]

China produces aluminum, which is so energy intensive it is often called "solid electricity". US has so many environmental laws that it's cheaper to export the chore than it is to comply.

[@AlexSchendel]

14:30 Fun fact, copper is a better conductor than gold. The reason gold is used in electronics (specifically for contacts in sockets to connect separate components) is because gold is much less susceptible corrosion from exposure to the air than copper is.

[@matt_glista]

Thank you, SimCity, for teaching me the difference between Commercial and Industrial looong ago. 👨‍🎓

[@thaliacrafts407]

And putting your coal plants on the corner of the map so half your pollution goes to the neighbouring NPCs. Good times.

[@moorcake]

@@thaliacrafts407 imao

[@Green-cactus.]

@@thaliacrafts407 like stfu stop complaining on the noise and had to move them again lol

[@terrycoontz]

Sim city is for the “woke” people try city skylines

[@benjaminmeusburger4254]

@@thaliacrafts407 3/4 in the corner - 1/2 at the edge ;-)

[@klakier19901]

When I was 18 years old I knew nothing. But I did know what Kardashev scale is - measure of advancement of civilisation based on energy. So I went on to study energy engineering. Best. Decision. Ever.

[@lisalph8922]

Have you graduated and started working yet? What's your opinion of nuclear?

[@klakier19901]

@@lisalph8922 Yeah, that choice was made over a decade ago. Nuclear was what I specialised in and the year of my graduation was the worst year in nuclear after Chernobyl - Germany, Switzerland phasing out, France years behind schedule etc, so I had to reinvent myself in automotive. I'd love to work as nuclear engineer and I can talk for hours about a closed reprocessing cycle that can lasts for millenia, but I don't think the world where money is everything is a place ready for nuclear power.

[@klakier19901]

@blarg blargon for instance?

[@ivan200804]

Thank you my brother.

[@nicebars]

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That is the power behind it.

[@unintentionallydramatic]

Pretty interesting how little coverage this has been getting.

[@EconomicsExplained]

Yeah I found that weird too.

[@victoriap1561]

Because it goes against green ideas i think. The fact that there is a prize to pay for stopping global warming and it is pretty steep makes the equation way more complicated.

[@OhSome1HasThisName]

​@@victoriap1561 the reason china is having power shortages is largely due to market failures and its overreliance on coal, the least green fuel source. How exactly does that go against green ideas??

[@notnilc2107]

Media wants to make money. Can't really fear monger if the enemy is weak.

[@victoriap1561]

@@OhSome1HasThisName apparently there have been less investment in coal and other sources of energy that aren't green if i remember it well it makes everything more expensive. There is also goals of energy consumption per province in China and part of the reason why there were cutting the supply was due to this. Those are related to climate change goals, and it was the main reason cited for the energy rationing when they were reporting this at first. Aslo part of the green platform is to make people pay a tax for using carbon based energy and here we can see the effect of more expensive electricity.

[@BuddyLee23]

9:58 “if you are confused about the difference between the commercial sector and industrial sector, don’t worry; I was too.” No one who played even a little SimCity as a kid shared in this confusion 🏭🏢👍🏻

[@vincent_hall]

Guess I should have remembered this from my old gaming days.

[@nietzschesayshi2569]

Hey i just wanted to say that i like your channel a lot, especially the way you explain everything. You do it really detailed but also explains theories or technical terms so even I, someone with no idea of economics whatsoever (Im a german lawstudent), can follow you and even is inspired to learn more about it.

[@chipseal9403]

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

[@dontcallthemliberals3316]

big feelz

[@geraldfrost4710]

"May you live in interesting times!" a curse. "Interesting Times" By Pratchett.

[@timesathousand]

Nine barrels of oil for Americans, doomed to eat pie.

[@mighty-roman]

Tbh, I don't think anything would happen in our time. It would most like affect our grandchildren's generation or our children's generation. We screwed nature and nature would screw back our descendants. The main problem isn't global warming - it's population, and the whole world doesn't seem to want to address this problem. While those who recognized this problem are making their way into mars. People complain about the investment on mars but they don't realize that it's easier to save 1000 people on mars than saving millions(if not billions) on earth.

[@timproc9355]

@@mighty-roman Nations are facing negative population growth actually. China being the leading country.

[@mcneelynorman1]

Physics teacher; loved it. I always tell my students, “understand two things in this life; energy and money.”

[@Zero.X]

Whats have energy and Money in common? Both are Power! One powers a city the other powers a group

[@kakalimukherjee3297]

Then throw a coin at them ang give them a taste of kinetically energized money

[@qty1315]

Fun fact: The E and M in E = MC2 are energy and money. The C is cash.

[@pathcoinfirst8936]

Both are targets for destruction by the LEFT. The underlying foundation is Power.

[@qty1315]

@@djer7712 You should throw those car batteries into the ocean, as a treat.

[@KavanVII]

EE: ...gold is a little bit more tangible as a store of value, especially since it can't just be created out of thin air. Alchemists: Not yet.

[@shadowshots9393]

Still not yet

[@swordsman1137]

Well it can but nobody live long enough when having direct contact to the "synthetic" gold because its radioactive.

[@anmolpatel793]

Energy does not come out of thin air and even if it does then it will render arbitrage useless as people will be self sufficient

[@matheussanthiago9685]

just wait a few decades when space mining finally happens on scale scarcity based currencies will mean nothing

[@mindofmark742]

@@matheussanthiago9685 I envy your optimism - I see mass de-globalization and a "great leap backwards" in terms of access to reliable commodities of any kind, destabilized international economies of scale are required for the world we have (had?) access to.

[@swngwyrdd3552]

"Energy as currency" is definitely a thing in a lot of dystopian fiction. e.g stuff like Mad Max where they fight over fuel.

[@mephistoss238]

It doesn't have to be that dystopian, another alternative is digital currencies that are produced by expanding energy, such as bitcoin. You can store energy into the blockchain and then move it anywhere across the world in minutes, no wires requirex

[@thorveim1174]

And another alternative is what Stellaris does: energy becomes a currency because any spacefaring specie will value energy regardless of culture

[@BOG0690]

Or *DUNE* where *SPICE* controls the galaxy

[@BOG0690]

@@mephistoss238 *collect the ENERGON CUBES*

[@josephpmitchell8394]

Or Enron

[@13cheekymunky]

Interesting: as a building manager I know that commercial buildings, by design, are only safe for occupation for approx. 1 hour in the event of a power failure. Down to the tangibility of emergency lighting, which is designed to last two hours, so occupants need to exit before hand to avoid walking in darkness. Transpose this across entire cities: the business losses caused by power failures costs $$$$$$ let alone health and safety issues created, causing more strife to add to the problems created by power failures/outages and supply chain and industrial issues that exacerbate them

[@axeandtimber4650]

Or everyone could just have a flashlight to avoid walking in darkness. The goal of so many of these situations these days is to create an atmosphere of shortage and inflation to justify the implementation of the new financial replacement system. It may well be energy credit focused, but will certainly remove freedoms we used to hold and take for granted.

[@13cheekymunky]

@@axeandtimber4650 true, but then employers would be responsible for supplying all employees with flashlights and ensuring the regular replacement of batteries, training, use etc. Its the silly litigious world we live in unfortunately where practicality is not necessarily reality.

[@axeandtimber4650]

@@13cheekymunky Well I live in the country where we all take personal responsibility on a daily basis. So I cannot really relate to that mindset, but Im sure there is a simple solution to that problem.

[@13cheekymunky]

@@axeandtimber4650 all good, I'm a small town mountain bloke who's been in city life for too long. Most days surprised cities actually function with a lot of the self centered mindsets about

[@arthas640]

Theres an insane amount of effort that goes into emergency lighting. After 90 minutes or so those big commerical buildings become a large above ground tomb, especially office buildings which are often designed to have as little windows as possible so employees dont become distracted or have to see natural light. I've been in buildings so large you could basically live inside them until you collapsed from rickets. That emergency lighting have unswitched circuits, batteries, and sometimes even their own backup generators all so you can GTFO before you get trapped and that's all without getting into things like panic bars in doors and such

[@Ashadow700]

16:34 "Theoretically, any economic problem can be solved with unlimited energy" Issac Arthur approves

[@onlypranav]

If brute force isn't cutting it - you're not using enough of it

[@richdobbs6595]

Utter bullocks. With unlimited energy what ever else is a limiting factor becomes the economic problem. By itself energy is of little value. It takes machines and material also to utilize energy to create value.

[@trent6319]

Unlimited energy would make engineering easier but not nearly trivial

[@nikdonobody1327]

@@richdobbs6595 yeah but most of todays and future economical and technological problems are created by very limmited energy we have on our disposal. With unlimited energy you no longer care about emmisions because you can pull them right from air and make plastic from them you can acces ridiculous amounts of materials from sea water or other ores with minimal amounts of usefull elements you can easily use vertical farming to increase our food production while decreasing agricultural land. It will take hundreds mayby even thousands of years before we hit hard cap on our growth again.

[@AvoidTheCadaver]

@@richdobbs6595 Having access to unlimited energy gives you the biggest bargaining chip of all. I sell my limitless supplies sof energy to your country, which has energy production limitations, to make goods to sell back to me and to run society. Our countries fall in to a bad patch and I stop selling you energy to make things. Instead I sell my energy to another country who I am friendly with to make things for me. Who has the more powerful bargaining position? Your country can make things for me but my country controls the very ability of your society to function Slightly extreme example but it makes the point that energy is fundamentally valuable

[@stevenspencer306]

As an engineer, I've often thought about this view of money. Since it takes energy to produce goods or services, money is just another form of energy. Currency is how we transport that energy from one person to another. And the cost of goods and services are related to the expected amount of energy to produce that good or service.

[@evennot]

You can trace every economic transaction chain to the payment for the energy. Thus more money spent = more energy spent, including burnt oil. However services don't directly use energy in a proportional manner to their cost. Lawyers offices rarely are equipped with Tesla coils and Van de Graaf generators. Their energy usage is deferred to their lifestyle, I think

[@stevenspencer306]

@@evennot The service that lawyers provide is a reduction in entropy. I.e. they make order out of disordered information. This is the case with most white collar jobs. White collar jobs are paid in proportion to the energy it takes to learn the background material that allows quality delivery of the service. I.e. years of learning and work experience. By specializing, they can efficiently deliver the service compared to a layperson. So the expected energy required to perform the service is high, making the cost high, even though the present energy consumption of the provider is low. ... And that's how you make money, produce an in demand good or service more efficiently than the expected cost.

[@evennot]

​@@stevenspencer306 I can feel a "zero sum game" in the foundation of this reasoning. Simplifying: 100 watts of electricity equivalent will give you 100 wats of lawyering (multiplied by lawyer efficiency coefficient, lol). But it's totally not the case in social systems, except for political systems. In politics power is a constant in any given moment, cause you can't have two politicians raising and lowering the same tax at the same time. In other social systems you can have contradictory results and pricing of artists' works, religious activities, caretaking, etc. A lot of white collar jobs are intersecting or complementing these systems. So I don't think they can be translated into a currency strictly tied to the energy equivalent I'm not disagreeing, just contemplating

[@oldvlognewtricks]

@@evennot To take a game theoretic interpretation, I wouldn’t call it a zero-sum game. The power of good dispute resolution is in creating more value than currently exists, or eliminating overtly deleterious activities. Analogy: The best way to divide a cake between two people is the way where each person believes they have the ‘better’ half - in terms of amount, each person believes they have more than half a cake. As a result, the total amount of cake increases as it is divided, and you end up with more than whole cake. In the case of damaging actions, you are doing something like stoping someone eating cake that doesn’t belong to them, or a similar remedy - you still end up with more cake in the end. In practice it’s not this straightforward, it’s not always a division of value as such, and the lawyer also takes a cut. The theory is still valuable in illustrating that a zero sum game doesn’t really describe what is happening.

[@StuffandThings_]

The problem arises when some people figure out they can siphon off a lot of that energy through those transactions.

[@scar6073]

This is why kardashev scale is based on energy

[@Elfaia]

Didn't know they have an energy scale as well. Always thought they only did reality tv.

[@Veylon]

@@Elfaia It's not just about TV anymore. You have to keep up with the Kardeshevs!

[@noodlehat3250]

It's based on that reality show with the sisters?

[@TheJBerg]

@@noodlehat3250 kardashev, not Kardashian

[@logman4948]

@@TheJBerg r/wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh

[@margueritehuggett440]

Really interesting: Living in England, with soaring domestic electricity prices [driving many people into 'fuel poverty' I have realised for several years that the UK power companies are really 'financial companies' who masquarade as power suppliers by 'selling a bit of domestic electric/gas on the side'!

[@stuartbogle1722]

"Energy might be the de facto currency of the future." That statement is 50 years too late. The petro-dollar started in 1971.

[@m2heavyindustries378]

I've only ever heard americans talk about a petro-dollar, shortly followed by a poorly spelled, crazed conspiratorial rant. Go ahead sir, do your worst.

[@seanthe100]

@@m2heavyindustries378 I've never heard Americans talk about Petro dollar I typically hear this from people in the middle east praying for the fall of the US.

[@daniell1483]

The first time I was exposed to the idea that energy could be a type of currency was from the videogame, Stellaris (a sci-fi strategy game). It is interesting to think that energy may someday become the currency of the future, or arguably of the present as well.

[@thatclintguy]

energy and especially water will be the currencies of the future

[@m2heavyindustries378]

@@thatclintguy Water?? One of the most common substances in the solar system? The only reason we're short of water is because there isn't enough energy to make it available to everyone

[@callowaysutton]

Bitcoin is a store of energy. You're paying for the work that has gone into creating a new coin which can take terawatts of power. Of course, it would be more useful if it was a system more like Gridcoin where a task is actually being done to make a coin

[@kyle6899]

​@@callowaysutton that's litterally like burning cash to make a massively less valuable coin from the ash, then saying it's a good store of value because the coin is worth 0.000001% of the cash

[@callowaysutton]

@@kyle6899 value is a human construct made off of scarcity and time, so no it’s not making a ‘worthless’ ash since there’s only a finite amount and it takes a lot of work (energy) to make new ash.

[@SimonTangers]

I'm a bit surprised that you didn't talk more about the Chinese government's policies on banning Australian coal and their policies preventing the price of power from increasing, causing the power stations to just decide not to provide power.

[@carlosandleon]

it's not that they decide they don't, they just can't

[@dean_l33]

@@carlosandleon Or they'll go bankrupt

[@berry292]

He did though?

[@TangSuijin]

@@dean_l33 powerplants are state owned. and they don't work on profit. ffs.

[@dean_l33]

@@TangSuijin Oh well

[@DaveGIS123]

@17:29 For the record, you called Vaclav Smil an "economist". In fact, he's a geographer, and distinguished professor emeritus from the University of Manitoba in Canada. Smil is a genius and a polymath who invented his own field of study: "Energy Energetics".

[@aviksaha2746]

In the supply demand curve you explained sticky price, There's one more property of that graph, The demands are more instantaneous compared to supply. Most of us have the understanding that demand and supply adjust each other instantaneously, in reality, as demand soars, supply husterics picks up, production takes time, then as markets becomes saturated, the price should drop, but in reality due to sticky prices, the produce evolves to entice consumers.

[@renacimientoargentino7515]

Energy is a currency, is -the commodity- everything that requires to add value needs energy, applied energy is work, work allows you to take something with low value and making it higher value

[@olbradley]

The chocolate ration has always been 10 grams! Also good reference.

[@baahcusegamer4530]

Also, the ration is higher than it was last week and wildly ahead of projections.

[@olbradley]

@@baahcusegamer4530 The tea rations have increased, we must've captured India or something.

[@gigalipufpokemon1799]

Don’t speak too much big brother is watching 👁👁

[@FarFo_]

I don't get it

[@matheussanthiago9685]

@@FarFo_ just for the record 1984 is a pretty heavy political satire with elements of psychological and body torture all over if you're new to the genre, but still interested I recommend reading something lighter in themes and content, like brave new world, or animal farm before jumping in 1984 as it is still a pretty important book, with everlasting relevance

[@bobwinters5572]

In physics, another word for "energy" is "work". That word, "work", gives a much broader view with a much longer historical time horizon, to understanding what is the most important factor in any economy. Without it, nothing is done and material assets (even land) have little if any real value.

[@Stymphalidus]

that's why the most valuable asset must be that which stores work. and here comes Bitcoin and prove of work ;)

[@TheRayMotorsport]

@@Stymphalidus Bitcoin is a great idea and does provide 'proof of work'. However the work aka energy that is used is pretty wasteful. Even if it is 'green' or renewable hydro power, it is still consuming power that doesn't result in anything permanent (like a product/building/physical item even though these do slowly deteriorate). That energy could be used to transport people or product or create products. Quick transfer and portability is a nice perk but it does come at the cost of being short lived (compared to something held in a hand).

[@johnmorrell3187]

@@Stymphalidus there is a difference between proof of work done and stored work. The work done to mine bitcoin is turned into heat, and is basically unavailable. Stored energy is almost exactly the opposite; it is energy in the lowest possible entropy state. Both stored energy and bitcoin have proof of work, but stored energy has inherent value whereas bitcoin has only extrinsic, derived value.

[@StuffandThings_]

@@johnmorrell3187 Perhaps then batteries will become the currency of the future. Or shares in a solar or wind farm, or other power producing enterprise. Then you genuinely have ownership over some quantity of energy with the capability to do work.

[@sarahcollins190]

Land does have value, depending on it's quality you can have a forest or a desert. Forested land has the right abiotic factors for trees to capture sunlight and convert is to chemical energy in the form of wood. A desert on the other hand doesn't have the right abiotic conditions to do this and consequently plants cannot store much in the way of chemical energy (wood). The way we value/price land is a clear indication of this. Forested land would have a large energy return on the energy invested (EROI) to cut down the trees. A desert would not have a favorable EROI. So even land can be thought of in term of energy.

[@fornana]

An economics channel putting out a "how to speak Australian" guide on skill share was not what I expected but it was so weird and interesting it got me to sign up

[@superdpat]

love the break at 6:28 to rub in your Nostradamus like insights

[@andrewlambert7246]

Very good videos. This guy knows what he talking about. Energy is everything.

[@marcodamato9951]

Just wanna say that I minored in economics and this channel has taught me more about econ than 2 years of econ classes

[@stapleman007]

Good education teaches you how to learn and think critically. Of course, learning actual stuff is part of the process. Not just fill your head with garbage mnemonics and give you some certificate, in exchange for 100k's of $.

[@Assassin_Droid]

6:30 the prophecy

[@pjrt_tv]

I always thought Stellaris' Energy Credits were chosen due cuz any random "flori" or "gold" would make no sense as a currency for space-based empires. So they picked Electricity, as it is universal. Turns out they may have been on to something :D

[@peaksingularity3032]

It isn't exactly a new idea in science fiction...

[@larrycarter1192]

There is no electricity on mars unless you bring it. It doesnt have a molten iron core I reckon to make an electric field or magnetism maybe. That's why it lost it's atmosphere. No magnetism to protect it probably from leaking away it's atmosphere.

[@larrycarter1192]

@@peaksingularity3032 it's real maybe. You don't use Google news much maybe. The big G on the top of your page stands for good news available to anyone for free. Well, I avoid the cookies. Science news is free on Google news.

[@10-AMPM-01]

It's faster than cryptocurrency...

[@jeremiahh.3383]

@@peaksingularity3032 If you get the please provide more information on this subject.

[@BBBrasil]

That Energy and Wealth relation is very insightful, the tip on Vaclav Smil alone is worth this video already :-)

[@BobBob-kr5wr]

Thanks for explaining this. I was fairly confused why China was so short on energy.

[@timmedcalf4596]

the main problem I see with energy being a currency is what happens if we get a quantum leap in energy production that would devalue almost everything else. Wouldn't that be like a great reset. For example if we made a dyson sphere. Everyone holding what would of been a lot of money instantly becomes incredibly poor.

[@PlayedbyInstinct]

Building a Dyson Sphere would be incredibly energy intensive, which would increase demand for power. If an energy credit system was being used then anyone holding those credits would see a huge amount of short term appreciation due to demand.

[@PlayedbyInstinct]

Short term meaning over multiple decades, possibly even a lifetime, as that is how long it would take to produce something like that. Then you would do what anyone does with lots of money or generational wealth - transfer it into hard assets like property.

[@CosmicDarwinist]

Quantum leaps are actually incredibly small

[@vincent_hall]

Good point, with the disclaimer that a "quantum leap" is extremely small. It's an electron jumping from one orbit around an atom to a higher one. This usually results in it immediately falling down and emitting a photon of light. A different photon of light being the reason it jumped up to begin with. But the photons are usually different wavelengths or energies.

[@timmedcalf4596]

quantum leap noun a huge, often sudden, increase or advance in something. "there has been a quantum leap in the quality of wines marketed in the UK" Quantum leap is an expression to talk about a giant leap in something. For instance us moving to quantum machines would cause a quantum leap in cryptography. Which would cause old hashing methods to be irrelevant. It might not been a scientifically accurate term but it's meant to highlight a technological leap.

[@joshc1394]

This published in the middle of my off day random China interest

[@EconomicsExplained]

Must have been reading your mind

[@rahul_siloniya]

"And humans fight for oil fields." Bravo EE

[@maximilian19931]

Just the US is fighting everyone to get the oil for cheap.

[@pmr5336]

@@maximilian19931 They are fighting for the petro-dollar

[@valdomero738]

Most wars in the Middle East were fought primarily for Israel and the American Military Industrial Complex. Oil is the 3rd or even 4th reason of the wars.

[@johnl.7754]

I think more human wars have been fought for gold

[@JimmyMon666]

@@johnl.7754 or religion. Or because some guy gets killed in the Balkans.

[@noplansplease4345]

very yogic approach to seeing economics, well done

[@robinsoto2700]

"Something Something the chocolate ration has alway be 20g" thank you for this

[@vinniechan]

I'm quite tempted to install wind turbine and solar panels at home in a few yrs when battery and power storage tech got better

[@craigthebrute2848]

You & literally everyone else

[@evilotto9200]

need a tax credit? may be worth it even if the tech's not yet there

[@uramalakia]

Might not want to wait years to do it.

[@davidshipp623]

Just do it. Did solar 5 years ago and it’s already paid for itself. It’s cheaper now.

[@vinniechan]

@@evilotto9200I'm thinking about that There are some portable turbine available and it makes a lot of sense I'm the UK I don't need to install the full suit of solar like Tesla I think it complement wind here I'm still on the fence about solar and power storage and might also wait for a while until more government policies Also by the time the infrastructure for EV should be better as well

[@amvkarthik]

If you think about it carbon credits is a version of energy currency.

[@elektrotehnik94]

Or better yet, Bitcoin ^^ carbon credits are, as name states, only the price of pollution of carbon

[@aleonflex6611]

@@elektrotehnik94 you can't use Bitcoin to power houses tho

[@evilotto9200]

@@aleonflex6611 you can choose to mine bitcoin _or_ power your house, though

[@peaksingularity3032]

@@evilotto9200 heh, at least you'll be heating your house in the process !

[@aleonflex6611]

@@evilotto9200 why mine something that's doesn't have any tangible value other than people view it as valuable that waste actually valuable resources like electricity?

[@giantpanda7231]

"our own energy shortages in the coming..... decades?" You means coming months my friend. It's about to get real spicy real quick.

[@LegendaryMercDC]

Especially out in the westren us when the water in the rivers & reservoirs runs low enough that hydro power dams fail.

[@pissyourselfandshitncoom2172]

I mean Texas, Lousiana, Cali It's already happening. We could have moved to any alternate sources of energy, to supplement.. But alas, our infrastructure is dying and nobody will fix it ; other energy sources are possible, but our gov is paid by ExxonMobil etc ; and boomers don't even believe in climate change or resource scarcity in the first place, so they'll continue voting in their republican coal barons

[@jordanrossi3553]

I live in California. We're covered in solar panels and wind turbines 😅 If we end up with an energy crisis it's because we hate fossils fuels and nuclear. It won't be for lack of effort in solar and wind.

[@JimmyMon666]

U.S. should be fine (Texas aside if they have another ice storm). Europe on the other hand... There will be plenty of energy in the U.S., and because it's regulated your bill won't be higher...yet. Eventually those costs will be passed down. If you have a lot of natural gas plants in your area, expect those costs to be passed down. I live in Nevada, and we do have a lot more natural gas plants than before. Harry Reid successfully got our coal plants down South shut down. I see that as largely a good thing. But I see the gas and electric companies as having no choice but to raise rates next quarter. For the record, we don't get electricity from the dam, that goes to California. And as mentioned above, at 32% capacity, it doesn't provide much electricity anymore. And soon won't provide any electricity at all.

[@pissyourselfandshitncoom2172]

@Dapper Canuck No Apple sucks bro. I have a Samsung. Also Obama and Biden sucked

[@Jaxar20]

Great use of the shot of the dam when referencing stored energy.

[@mechadaku6868]

I’m actually living in sichuan right now and I can say that the real reason for the power outages were the intense heat wave we experienced for those 2 weeks. Rivers were drying up and had a major effect on hydro-electric power plants. As soon as the heat wave passed power supply was back to normal again.

[@Christian_Mechwart]

Amazing video! A lack of cheap renewable energy can be traced back to most of the problems in society. Thats why we should be actively trying to become a type 1 civilization, which can control and store all the energy on Earth.

[@gregs3845]

There are only 2 things that have real value, time and energy and of those time is the more important, because for each person time is a finite resource, Energy is also locally finite (possibly not on a universal scale) but there is a lot more of it around even locally which makes it functionally infinite. China's energy problem is lack of self-sufficiency. Having to import coal at global market prices makes it terribly vulnerable and reliable on a source of energy that is locally finite. Transition to a locally infinite (practically speaking) source of energy and things get back to a better and less polluting) state of energy equilibrium.

[@DandinXY]

Very insightful

[@whereswaldo5740]

China put a new coal fired power plant on line everyday Obummer was in office. And they continued well afterwards. Where was Greata and AOC. Globalist media shills. Too bad they didn’t use their nuclear for industry instead of threatening everyone with it. Oh well. Now they’re polluted as heck and their people suffer and nobody likes them.

[@robertoatallabjj]

@@whereswaldo5740 For me they are essentially stupid to not be full on in nuclear by now. They have the resources and power to simply put them everywhere, unlike here in the west where people will claim is dangerous and all the nonsense. Now the are paying the price, things will become hectic as their need for energy will only grow.

[@Akshay-id9tn]

@@robertoatallabjj Nuclear power takes a lot of time to built. Also it needs uranium which not available in abundance.

[@dannydaw59]

Renewable energy would be better for the Chinese since they can make the energy in their own back yard.

[@notabene9804]

It's been brought up with Stellaris, but consider also Dust from the Endless series; in any event, energy has some pretty obvious downsides as a store of value. It's worth it's directly correlated to how efficient its use and output is. It's one thing to say a dollar goes further in Virginia than New York, but when energy goes further in Texas than Arizona you are going to find that's because of the more expanded infrastructure that can use this energy.

Or because of less distance traveled cutting that down.

[@antonnurwald5700]

Just thinking out loud here: isn't the exact same thing true for money? Think of aid money pouring into places that simply don't have an entrepreneurial sector able to really use it. I'm thinking if Southern Italian villages with a gold and marble plated plaza because construction is really the only economic sector they have. Or think of places that don't have the infrastructure for consumption, no wifi, no food delivery services, no stores nearby.

@@antonnurwald5700 Exactly, money is an ai system that adjusts weights relative to inputs. But it's still limited to the levers around.

@Olaf Sigurson Well I mean it's more the opposite, we take influence from systems and then once it's important we notice the pattern everywhere else. The same way you might see something every day but the brain filters it, until it has much more direct application to you at which point you notice it everywhere.

[@TheKjtheDj]

That’s exactly the point. Societies that are better organized will be able to produce energy more efficiently and thus cheaply and will be richer. This is basically how money has worked throughout all of human history.

[@kevinmcguinness6526]

6 minutes in he admits he was wrong about something. Much respect my friend, that's why I'm subscribed.

[@SuperLusername]

How was he wrong? He was right in predicting doom for China so he doesnt want to do it any more so he doesnt destroy it.

[@Insight-.-]

According to some theorists, electricity is all around us, but we don't use items that can connect to it. We use items connecting to alternating current or direct current.

[@cmdr1911]

Nothing matters more than energy in the modern world. Money and resources mean nothing without power. You can't move/treat water, grow food, transport anything or provide medical services. A country needs to be able to provide a majority of their power domestically and hedge with interconnections over a wide area, looking at you Texas.

[@米空軍パイロット]

Same with the ancient world. Grains used to be a common currency, and food is energy

[@whywhy7299]

Can you explain how it applies to texas

[@cmdr1911]

@@whywhy7299 Not being interconnected to a larger area meant they were susceptible to events in on region. While less effcient Maine is conmected to Florida and they can help each other. Europe is interconnected, less wind in Ireland and the UK can be covered by French nuclear.

[@米空軍パイロット]

@@whywhy7299 To backup what Wojtek said, look up a map of the Texas power grid. Most of the state is isolated from the rest of the country.

[@patrickjanecke5894]

Texas was a nasty event, and certainly a learning opportunity for the state. California is in worse shape and nobody notices.

[@illusive-mike]

While increasing energy generation capacities do suggest a natural inflation driver, I think consumption-side efficiency still needs to be addressed. As energy usage improves in efficiency, you can actually create more value per unit of energy, so while investing is still overall better than not investing, the value yield of the "currency" actually increases over time in absolute terms. It's just that instead of the choice between getting poorer and getting richer the choice would be between getting richer and getting much richer. Plus societies have ways of pressuring people into consuming.

[@YoRHaUnit2Babe]

Energy: *becomes a currency* That one asshole who's goanna sell planets in systems that will go Supernova soon: "it's free real estate"

[@stapleman007]

Order a pizza delivery, taser the delivery man for payment.

[@robmack519]

I took a physics course in highschool with no calculus, and I remember a lot of Newtonian mechanics equations being difficult to understand and use at first. then we got to the unit on energy equations and how easy those were to use. it seems like viewing things in terms of energy is often easier.

[@DSCM0725]

That skilshare transition at the end was smooth as butter

[@dragonboyjgh]

"If you're looking for a new business idea... think of a better way to make and save energy, in the long run it's going to be more valuable." I see you, Musk.

[@maximilian19931]

Some people only start changing if it hurts their bottom line.

[@bitcoinisfreedommoney.fckt2663]

It was invented 12 years ago. It’s called Bitcoin.

[@CyrusEstavillo]

@@bitcoinisfreedommoney.fckt2663 have you ever looked into how much energy bitcoin mining and transactions require?

[@TheRt711]

@@CyrusEstavillo this video is about energy as currency. That is the whole point.

[@putyograsseson]

@@CyrusEstavillo that’s the point lol

[@rizzoforgo865]

Getting Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri vibes. Also, I like playing as Nwabudike Morgan. "Energy is the currency of the future." he said.

[@etherwing]

Everyone going on about Stellaris, but SMAC did it first.

[@rizzoforgo865]

@@etherwing Yeah, SMAC was quite legendary. I use that as a picture for the future. That and Pandora: First Contact. Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth seemed like a bit of a far fetched version of the future.

[@FireHax0rd]

During my PhD studies, I was always fascinated by the promise of nuclear fusion. Whoever cracks this one will own the world. (Maybe you can do a video on the international cooperation and economics regarding ITER?)

[@calanjameshunt]

mmm im keen on all countries taking up nuclear energy dude... every time i hear someone advocate for "green" energy sources i point out the toll they take on wildlife and the waste of resources keeping them going... the dangers of repairing turbines... the noise pollution lives of rural people ruined over the roars of turbines... then i always hear about the nuclear waste being a issue man... but its really not... i dont see why we couldnt just ship it off in a rocket or ditch it deep in the earth... meh...

[@jon9103]

Not the ones who crack it, the ones who finance it...in other words the ones who already own the world.

[@Croz89]

Fusion is kind of like fixed wing aviation before the Wright brothers, there's a lot of players, some with more wealth than others, and we have no idea who might be the ones who have the Kittyhawk moment.

[@benedict6962]

Nuclear is less about cracking the science and more about cracking public perception about it. If you can get enough support for nuclear without going full cheapo, it only becomes a waiting game.

[@Croz89]

@@benedict6962 That's fission, not fusion.

[@bp7206]

Love your videos. Great stuff to watch while eating dinner.

[@paddyjoe1884]

I've always argued for an alcohol based currency. Where every unit of currency is linked to say a a shot of whiskey. Which can also be used for energy production.

[@Thalanox]

4X games figured out Energy as a universal currency a long time ago. Glad to see that this is filtering down to ideas in normal economics.

[@copano2012]

Sid Meier had this in Alpha Centauri. Definitely prescient.

[@Veylon]

The problem is that you can't store a meaningful amount of energy. It's not like you can put a bunch of gigajoule energy spheres on the shelf for when you need them later.

[@Thalanox]

@@Veylon I think that that's only because we've never really tried yet before.

[@rvahi]

Henry Ford proposed an energy currency in the 1910s.

[@rvahi]

'Ford Would Replace Gold With Energy Currency and Stop Wars'

[@DrAlfredNUmar]

Our very own “Prophet of Economics” predicting the future. #Aussie #Economics explained… Thanks 😊 a lot guys

[@presidentshe8904]

Saying 'guys' is wraysist 👎🏼

[@RealCherry8085]

@@presidentshe8904 Hello pooh👋👋

[@Thegreatescapegb]

Loving the more frequent videos!

[@nicebars]

Nah, you're lying. You hate the more frequent videos.

[@robertoluis9238]

greetings from bolivia---excellent presentation---big brains at work

[@blakebarber4158]

Bro, congratz on the wicked calls. Love your channel

[@yajatsen2657]

What a video brother, made a masterpiece out of clutter.hats off to your teaching skills to be frank you are my true economics mentor.looking forward for your channel to grow more rapidly to millions of followers because you add value to their lives

[@calculuscondensed812]

Unfortunately your figures breaking down how China and the USA use energy in different sectors are not directly comparable. This is because the US figures are "electricity consumption by sector" while the Chinese figures are for "energy consumption by sector", including direct use of fuels for transportation, heating and industrial processes. This likely bias the numbers towards China seemingly using a larger share of energy for industry/transport, as both transportation and many industrial processes(eg steelmaking) mostly use fuels directly, while residential and commercial energy use is much more electricity centric. Otherwise, very nice video!

[@andersonklein3587]

I've been using energy consumption/production a benchmark for economic development for years now. And after countless hours of analysis, I've concluded the developed countries have been living in a post apocalyptical oil crunch since the 1970s. Development and energy was skyrocketing up to them, but 50 years later we consume about the same amount of energy per capita, purchasing power as measured by the number of barrels of oil a worker can buy is similar, and in fact our economies are still deadly addicted to oil which does not bold well for our struggle with decarbonizing our economies in the next 30 years.

[@LeftThumbBreak]

It seems Satoshi Nakamoto understood this energy commodity also a long time ago although his conclusion was different.

[@BadbitStudios]

...must say, that segue to the skillshare ad at the end was flawless 👍

[@justuseodysee7348]

Assuming fusion power will catch on, I could easily imagine the heavy water being great store of value - it's both extremely difficult to extract and has absolutely mind boggling energy density, meaning storage is very cheap.

[@navneetnair3314]

Cant wait for fusion energy really!!!

[@patrickjanecke5894]

We are in the next few years (after waiting about sixty) about to make the leap to actual positive energy output (for a fraction of a second) by a fusion reactor. That's all very nice, but that is only the first of multiple hideously difficult hurdles to cross. Don't hold your breath.

[@bl0bl1bl4]

@@patrickjanecke5894 Fusion energy as been a few years off of a breakthrough since the beginning, or so I've hard :P . You can't really trust this info since it seems to come from private company that need investment to continue existing. They are creating hype for investment. Still fusion would still indeed be a game changer.

[@roboticgamer8990]

another more near term option would be enriched nuclear fuel for compact nuclear fission reactors

[@cdorman11]

@@bl0bl1bl4 To elaborate on your point, the world record for Q was set back in 1998 by JT-60. The Q that gets quoted in articles is for the plasma, not the whole process. Many world records have been reported lately, but the record for Q_plasma hasn't fallen. Q_net is still way, way below 1. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gnuXiGSdYpt9n7s

[@Yenz30415]

Oddly enough, this explained a recent change in attitude in the tech industry. Recently, the idea that performance will continue to double has sort of been brought into question. The new concept the industry seems interested in is power usage, with a focus on reducing power usage while maintaining performance. ARM processors are already fairly good at this, while Intel might as well open a bar and grill with some of their more recent attempts. I originally thought this was gonna be a bad move, but your video makes it make more sense. Sure, I want a longer battery life, that would be super neat, but I was under the impression that people would definitely get less hyped about "Your phone can last 3 days" vs "Your phone can run Crysis", and so it was of less value. But I focus the game industry and often forget that video games are not the whole reason people by PCs, and that the thousands of corporate people would probably be dramatically happier if their laptop didn't die in 17 hours, which being those people tend to have more money, then this move by the industry will only create even more value. On another note, hand crank power is the only currency I will accept in the future.

[@LinasVepstas]

Hey, if one cpu chip can run twice as long for a given battery, but you want more speed, then use two chips. One of the limiting factors for the cloud is cooling. If you generate half the heat, then you can pack twice as much stuff into a building of the same size.

[@kmhkennedy]

Your laptop lasts 17 hrs?! What magic is this?

[@robertyang4365]

There are science fiction books that have proposed energy as a currency, though I can’t recall which book I got that from.

[@douglasheld]

10:37 whoa there! You contrasted "electricity" use in the USA with "energy" use in China. A huge proportion of industrial energy must come from elsewhere than the electricity grid. No? I'm actually completely lost after that point.

[@stapleman007]

Natural gas to heat buildings? Direct coal burning for smelting? Gasoline and other fuels for transportation? All contribute to energy usage, but that gets away from the main problem at hand, electric blackouts.

[@kalaupun]

Yes the video becomes nonsense at that point. He cites data on electricity use in 'industry and transportation' but then only talks about industry, even tho obviously China uses infinitely more electricity in transportation than the US.

[@stephenwatson2964]

Yeah, that's exactly why the numbers look so different. Most energy used in industry isn't electricity...

[@later928]

Actually if it was pure gold then the gold brick is way more valuable on a desert island. Gold is soft enough to be worked with simple tools and at relatively low temperatures. Gold is also an effective reflector. If I were stuck on a desert island the cash would be good as a fire starter and possibly as a means to barter with whoever comes across me first. The gold brick can be used as a chopping and digging tool until it can be worked into more useful tools with the fire that you create. And then when you are able to work it effectively you can pound a large portion of the gold into a reflective plate used for long distance signalling to rescuers. Just because you don't know how to utilize a valuable material doesn't mean it has no value. Few metals are as simple to utilize as gold is, it was used for many things before

[@drakekoefoed1642]

stainless steel knives, fishooks, mirrors would be worth more than a nugget. gold is not worth as much inherently as iron, not by a long shot

[@HashimotoDatsu]

@@drakekoefoed1642 you're a actually dead wrong. Gold is more reflective than iron, softer, and significantly easier to bend without the use of tools. A fishing hook is less valuable without a looking string and a spear would be more useful, but you fashion a hook out of gold. If I had a brick of iron and a brick of gold, the iron is only good for being a blunt object. You're not going to find a method to reach 2800 degrees to melt it and there's no shot you're going to bend or warp it. There is a feasible chance you can find a quality coal to make your fire get up to 2000 degrees, making it possible to melt the gold down, or at least reach a high enough temperature to easily mold it. Personally, is take the gold over both iron and money any day, iron beingthe least useful of the three, depending on what its shape is stuck as.

[@SukacitaYeremia]

Man, the physicists must be overjoyed when they hear you say "Energy (...) the unrecognized global currency"

[@the23er]

Another level to think about this is bitcoin, where essentially more money is coined with the usage of lots of energy....

[@TheCat48488]

6:35 EE: "Sometimes my genius is... its almost frightening"

[@reflecting6189]

your videos will always take my back to eating soup in college cuz this was my entertainment

[@chriswondyrland73]

Insightful. Keep the good work!

[@ZacksScraps]

Came here to say that haven't SciFi worlds had energy-based currencies for decades now...and everyone has already said that.

[@rubiboy90]

Here it goes all EE social credit score.

[@pdf-file]

-10000000 👀

[@EconomicsExplained]

:(

[@pdf-file]

@@EconomicsExplained Aplogy video coming soon?

[@pdf-file]

@@erratic2458 What historical events? I don't remember much happening. 🙄

[@claxvii177th6]

EE is going to lose Social Credit after this video and be prompted by winnie the pooh to apologize in mandarin...

[@EconomicsExplained]

Will need to take lessons from John Cena.

[@jerrywatson1958]

This was great, you earned a new sub today. Thanks for all your hard work.

[@MatchaMoji]

ad transition is just 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@sfb38seanbruno22]

Love this video... except when the government was asked to regulate energy past safety. I do remember a long time ago when the explosion of Bell Atlantic and other monopolies lead to the creation of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and the world was improved. Keep up the good work

[@mirzaahmed6589]

This isn't market failure. It's a function of misguided government policies.

[@MisterKackhaufen]

*Market failure given the restrictions

[@llary]

"communism with Chinese characteristics" oops

[@Scoots1994]

California has rolling blackouts too, but they are a result of poor regulation of the power monopoly

[@Scoots1994]

@@janofb Yep. And pg&e is bold enough to blame the weather and the government for their decades of failures and mistakes.

[@jordanrossi3553]

PG&E has been given a government monopoly 🤦‍♂️ but let's keep pretending business is the problem and not government

[@AxeMan808]

That's a nice segue at the end, sir!

[@martind349]

Recently a full chested white Anglo-Saxon Protestant came around my backyard and called it a sector. I have taken the time to research his comings and goings.

[@Millenial.Edition]

Energy is the fundamental currency in literally every branch of science.

[@RavenWolf654]

And why don't we use it as currency? It would be the perfect currency for my opinion.

[@arvindmahesh2877]

@@RavenWolf654 Because of economics and human behavior. Making it a currency would mean people would try to create more of it at all costs. It's taken literally over 30 years to reduce the usage of coal, despite all the climate change scarce it creates. Plus not being able to control the inflation/deflation rates by the government would make economic planning aspect very difference.

[@rafaelarelin7778]

"Something something, the chocolate ration has always been twenty grams" LOL

[@maltha9857]

Actually, there is something even more interesting that is underlying in what you've just pointed out. It is possible to reveal a tripartite relationship between GDP, Energy and human-made CO2 emissions. The link between energy and CO2 is quite well-known : to produce energy, you must one way or another emit CO2, even more so when burning fossil fuel such as coal (that's also one of the problems in China, one of its pillars of development consists in reducing their emissions, thus further complexifying the situation with the production of electricity based on coeal) The link between GDP and CO2 can actually be seen quite easily by putting them both on a same graph : they clearly do appear correlated, with the increase in CO2 emissions accompanying the general growth during the last century Which is why those three subjects are tightly linked, and many are asking to stop the ever-going frenzy around maintaining economic growth as it is defined currently (with pure GDP and not "social/human" wealth), because it would not be sustainable. The problem would not be for the planet, which would find an other equilibrium one day or another, but us that could not survive in this newly-found equilibrium... Thus explaining the emphasis around sobriety, which a lot of politicians have chosen as their new flag (and without always acting their words, but that's another problem), and the need of a reevaluation of our current indicators of the well-being of our societies

[@perihelion7798]

AGW is a myth. Two countries, China and India, produce about 85% of global carbon emissions, yet they are effectively exempt from any Paris accords until 2030, while the US is meeting those accords right now. Both China and India understand that electricity is the most profound way to lift a population out of abject poverty, second being a reliable and far-reaching transportation system. Both countries are working hard on both systems. The land needed for wind farms and solar displays is not trivial either. I'm all for renewable energy, but it must be affordable to the average citizens, and reliable, and it fails both criteria at the present time. But research goes on, so maybe it will be.

[@mobilityproject3485]

If there is a tripartite relationship, why do anthropogenic CO2 emissions hover around 0 before the 1700s? Clearly, GDP and energy would be zero too? Nope! People have been making things of value for millennia before we even touched coal. The answer is that food fed to animals and people was the energy source that powered all that production. That little jump in CO2 emissions to match economic activity? That was the industrial revolution. It was when we started using fossil fields instead of other fuels I'll finish the story for you. There have been several Industrial revolutions, each of which have been an industry wide transition. Production- the first massive economic expansion, this one worked from about 1800 to 1850 Pre industrial production: Slaves, artisans The transportation industrial revolution (1890 to 1940) Pre-industrial transport: horses, water, foot. Industrial transport: diesel trains, planes, automobiles, trucks, and the powered watercraft that connect our economy. Information: Pre-industrial information: Housewives, slaves, paper messages. Industrial information: Calculators, computers, internet Pre-industrial energy: Fuels, food (via livestock/slaves) Industrial energy: Solar, geothermal, nuclear(temporary). Each of these transitions required a substantial investment period before they took root. The time from these investments to payoff has been about 20 years. Whether the time was from Slater's mills to clothing price reductions, Anglo- Persian oil company to Model T, vacuum tube rooms in universities to Apple I, or Energiewende to gas crisis and flow batteries, the 20th year is when it gets real. My prediction is that battery storage and nuclear will be the winners of the gas crisis. Call me optimistic, I don't think Ambri will be willing to miss out on his billions.

[@mobilityproject3485]

A final endnote: Energy and CO2, especially CO2, have already begun c. 2010 diverging from GDP. This is happening. And the shift from nat.gas plus renewables hybrid to renewable plus nuclear grid upcoming will accelerate this.

[@johnmorrell3187]

I've been coming around to this idea as well. To me it comes down to this; I, as an American, don't need any more stuff than I already have. I don't even really want any more stuff. I'd be perfectly happy with less stuff. Many growing nations are not at this point yet but for the wealthy in developed nations we are already well past the point of having enough to be happy. There is no need for the economy to grow for us, it doesn't make us any happier. That's not to say there are no advancements in technology or social structure that would help us (better medical treatments with more accessible pricing, for example, would be a good thing). But we don't need MORE for that to happen.

[@DavidSmith-nx3zw]

@@perihelion7798 yet the US per capita CO2 emission is twice that of China and more than 4x that of India...

[@devinnall2284]

A battery bank? No I'm really curious what that heist movie would be like.

[@impures]

Great content, great script , subscribed !

[@fullmetaltheorist]

EE : "In many instances they are government run." Me : "Sweats in ESKOM."

[@hikaru-senpai3684]

Bro

[@blazingbeast1943]

Ik the feels

[@ManintheArmor]

As I once said before, energy is the currency of the universe.

[@sarahcollins190]

So glad to see you recognize energy as a currency. You missed one vital point though. Energy when used can be transformed but what it's transformed into it critical. Most energy is lost as heat to the atmosphere and it cannot be recapture in a usable form. Think of the heat given off by you car engine, that heat energy was originally the chemical energy in the fuel, but do absolutely nothing in helping get the car from A to B and is lost to the atmosphere. This creates energy inefficiency and it ultimately why a perpetual motion machine is impossible to create. The consequences of this is that high density forms of energy that can be captured and/or stored are constantly needed to replace the energy lost as heat. The result is those that control the sources of high density energy effective have control of the wealth on this planet (hence the reason the oil giants are giants) because everyone need to buy energy from them. Thus high density potential energy sources = wealth. Currency is the mean by which we direct the use of energy and value a measure of the energy needed to make something or perform a task. Trouble is we exchange energy in making or doing something but then lose most of the energy as heat, but the currency use to direct the energy in that endeavor is not lost, it accumulates in someone's bank account. Hence as energy trickles down to society to be lost as heat as society works to sustain itself the money trickles up and is never lost giving ever more control to those that already control the sources of energy.

[@richardconway6425]

You've touched on some very interesting things there, and although you didn't mention it by name, you were clearly referring to that subject beloved by all physicists..... entropy. And of course, the natural law that 'entropy ALWAYS increases'. This is so fundamental to every process we observe, that we take it for granted, but without it, the universe, and life, could not exist. Yes, it sucks that an internal combustion engine is only 25% efficient (petrol), but that's the price we pay for using heat energy to directly drive a piston. It's a very lossy way, thermodynamically speaking, to convert one form of energy into another. In fact, that particular method hasn't changed since the steam age. It's also somewhat astonishing, that steam turbines are still the method used to extract useful energy from a nuclear reactor. One interesting little consequence of all of this, is the difficulty faced by engineers trying to power a machine that must operate in an extremely hot environment, like Venus. Here, thermodynamics are definitely not on our side. For exactly the same reasons that car engines work so well at sea level on Earth (although admittedly not with great efficiency), they wouldn't work at all on Venus. Someone in the comments mentioned Elon Musk.... now there's a chap who really gets the fundamentals. But, sorry, I digress. Everything you say about all the money trickling into vast pools owned by companies and rich individuals, and all the energy flowing away from us like sand running through our fingers is true, and a very interesting observation. That has really been the paradigm of society since the industrial revolution, but.... times, they are a changing. Now, there's two sides to this equation that you describe; the question of energy, and the question of money. The question of energy is a fundamental one, and I mean fundamental, as in the laws of physics. Whenever we convert energy from one form into another, we will always lose some of it. Sometimes a lot. So here's what technology is doing: it's making *everything* more efficient. Absolutely everything. Think about the old technologies that we used to use, and then think about the new technologies which have replaced it. The first thing that came to mind, for me, was the television. Remember those horrible old CRT devices that we used to watch? It took 25,000 volts just to drive the cathode electron emitter, (yes, that's correct, 25 kV), and yet today, we can watch 'television' on a battery powered mobile phone or tablet. Equally, the transition of steam>diesel>electric has been a demonstration of increasing efficiency. It won't be long before we are all driving electric cars, and one of the things that is most impressive about electric motors, is just how incredibly efficient they are. They are amazing, typically ~90% efficient. It's just a shame that the rest of the show isn't quite there yet. But.... and here's the thing, it's important to remember, that as a species, technologically speaking, we are still in our infancy. There are so many incredible developments which will surely evolve, which will change everything, and completely upend the existing status quo. Our ability to generate clean energy, to transport it, and to store it. All of this will progressively undermine the power and wealth of the oil companies, and distribute wealth among a very different group of people. Tech innovators, I think. However, as this fascinating video shows, anyone who is a significant player in energy is most likely to end up very wealthy. That, I think, will never change. But, in the meantime, thanks to technology, we can all make what energy we do pay for go much, much further. That's something to be positive about, hey?

[@pugdad2555]

@@richardconway6425 is it though? Because that is all good in a vacuum but reality lends itself with a more drastic look. Climate change. True, we may be in our infancy, but those that have the wealth (yes, this does include Elon Musk) also know that we are destroying our habitat. And instead of stopping their most destructive activities, they just accelerate it. And then use "legalese" to create a whole other persona to continue to do said destructive activities while keeping their image clean because remember shell corporations are people too... At least corporations won't die due to it being too hot and too humid for sweat to evaporate off the human body.

[@lynlee6861]

@@richardconway6425 I disagree. Combustible engines are very efficient, and u could literally breathe the exhaust for a bit, and be ok. You smell nothing coming from my car. As opposed to older cars that so pollute. Natural gas also is efficient and clean. In 10 years there qill not be an empty spot on earth, not filled with non degradable solar panels, wind turbines, and useless batteries. And it cost 4 times more to produce electric cars than combustible ones. How many of those batteries will last 30+years. Some people are either deceived or living in lala land

[@auraguard0212]

Translation: it will never be currency, because it disappears if used.

[@pieceofschmidtgamer]

"I hate being right all the time..." Well, so long as you don't end up being mauled by raptors like the Australian from _that_ movie, it should be fine.

[@Mic_Glow]

4:25 it's "A" reason but not "the reason". There is reason why rail, electricity, water, landline phones, natural gas, a lot of roads, airports etc. are under strict government control (and/or owned or partially owned by govt. itself) and not entirely subject to free market. It's strategic infrastructure....