ENERGY ACCOUNTING


Humanity's cosmic-energy income is solar- and gravitation-derived, taking the forms of water-power, tidal power, wave power, wind power, biologically-produced alcohols and gases, vulcanism, etc. Fuller estimates that humanity's rate of consumption is one four-millionth of 1% of the rate of this energy income (Critical Path, p.xvii). The unit of accounting which Fuller proposes is the kilowatt-hour.

The obstacles to such an energy-accounting system are principally the state and capitalism. "If people are served directly and individually by daily cosmic-energy-wealth income", says Fuller, then the state will lose a major source of taxes with which to finance its bureaucracy.

Similarly:

"Money-makers cannot find a way of putting meters between people and the wind, Sun, waves, etc." (Critical Path, p.219).

In this context, Fuller takes another side-swipe at the banking system's routine chicanery (Critical Path, p.213).

Boyden (p.61) offers a useful discussion of human energy-accounting:

"It has been estimated that the per capita use of extrasomatic energy in the form of fire in hunter-gatherer societies is roughly the same as that flowing through human organisms as somatic energy, that is, about 104 kJ per day, bringing the total energy flow through human communities to about 2 x 104 kJ per capita per day."

See Wealth, Energy Slaves, and Energy of Production.



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© Paul Taylor 2001