[ RadSafe ] global warming

[Clayton J Bradt]

On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 Jess Addis wrote:

"With a much smaller portion of the earth's population we use a very large
portion of the world resources and emit a very large portion of the
world's atmospheric pollution. Could we do just a little better?"

This statement (and question) misses the point of US energy consumption.
Remember  "Energy is the capacity to do Work" (the good old work-energy
theorem).  Energy isn't  just "consumed" by an economy, it is converted
into useful work.  The US uses more energy because it does more work than
any other economy.  The ratio of energy use to population is not the
appropriate number for comparison.  Rather it is the ratio of energy used
(i.e. work done) per unit of GDP.   From that perspective (the correct one
I would argue), the US is pretty efficient compared with other contries.
It's not the most efficient energy-to-work converter but it is far from the
least efficient.


Clayton J. Bradt
dutchbradt at hughes.net


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