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Where Energy Modeling Goes Wrong There are a huge number of people doing energy modeling. In my opinion, nearly all of them are going astray in their modeling because they don’t understand how the economy really operates. Please share this article - Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons. The modeling that comes closest to being correct is that which underlies the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows and others. This modeling was based on physical quantities of resources, with no financial system whatsoever. The base model, shown here, indicates that limits would be reached a few years later than we actually seem to be reaching them. The dotted black line in Figure 1 indicates where I saw the world economy to be in January 2019, based on the limits we already seemed to be reaching at that time. ....
Today s Energy Problem Is Different From Peak Oil Many people believe that the economy will start going badly wrong when we run out of oil. The problem we have today is indeed an energy problem, but it is a different energy problem. Let me explain it with an escalator analogy. Please share this article - Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons. Figure 1. Holborn Tube Station Escalator. Photo by Wikimedia Commons. down escalator that citizens of the world are trying to walk upward on. At first the downward motion of the escalator is almost imperceptible, but gradually it gets to be greater and greater. Eventually the downward motion becomes almost unbearable. Many citizens long to sit down and take a rest. ....