Arithmetic, Population, and EnergyDr. Albert BartlettReflections in 1998 on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Paper, "Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis"Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy CrisisAdditional and Updated InformationUnderstanding the Concept (and Effect of) Constant GrowthOil Reserves in the United StatesWorld Oil SupplyCoal Reserves in the United StatesFinal NotesArithmetic, Population, and EnergyDr. Albert BartlettDepartment of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, 80309-0390Office, (303) 492-7016: Department (303) 492 6652: Home: (303) 443 [email protected]. Bartlett is a retired Professor of Physics. He joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulderin September 1950. His B.A. degree in physics is from Colgate University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics are from Harvard University. In 1978 he was national president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science. In 1969 and 1970 he was the elected Chair of the four-campus Faculty Council of the University of Colorado.In the late 1950s Al was an initiator of the citizens' effort to preserve open space in Boulder, and this ultimately led to the establishment of the City of Boulder's Open Space Program which by 1999 has purchased over 26,000 acres of land to be preserved as public open space. He is a founding member of PLAN-Boulder County, an environmental group for the City and County.Since the late 1960s he has concentrated on public education on the problems relating to and originating from population growth. More recently he has written on sustainability, examining the widespread misuse of the term, and examining the conditions that are necessary and sufficient for sustainability in any society.________________________________________________AbstractThis talk examines the arithmetic of steady growth, such as 5% per year, the doubling time for such growth,and the large numbers one gets when steady growth continues over modest periods of time. The examination then turns to what happens when one has steady growth in a finite environment. These concepts are applied to populations and to fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. A series of recommendations is given for dealing with the problems that are revealed by the very simple arithmetic.A copy of the original (1978) paper is also included.________________________________________________Reflections in 1998 on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Paper,"Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis"Albert A. Bartlett University of Colorado at Boulder Background Around 1969, college and university students developed a major interest in the environment and, stimulatedby this, I began to realize that neither I nor the students had a good understanding of the implications of steady growth, and in particular, of the enormous numbers that could be produced by steady growth in modest periods of time. On September 19, 1969 I spoke to the students of the pre-medical honor society on"The Arithmetic of Population Growth." Fortunately I kept my notes for the talk, because I was invited to speak to other groups, and I gave the same talk, appropriately revised and enlarged. By the end of 1975 I had given the talk 30 times using different titles, and I was becoming more interested in the exponential arithmetic of steady growth. I started writing short numbered pieces, "The Exponential Function," which were published in The Physics Teacher. Then the first energy crisis gave a new sense of urgency to the need to help people to gain a better understanding of the arithmetic of steady growth, and in particular of the shortening of the life expectancy of a non-renewable resource if one had steady growth in the rate of consumption of such a resource until the last of the resource was used.When I first calculated the Exponential Expiration Time (EET) of U.S. coal for a particular rate of growth of consumption, using Eq. 6, I used my new hand-held electronic calculator, and the result was 44 years. This was so short that I suspected I had made an error in entering the problem. I repeated the calculation a couple of more times, and got the same 44 years. This convinced me that my new calculator was flawed, so I got out tables of logarithms and used pencil and paper to calculate the result, which was 44 years. Only then did I begin to realize the degree to which the lifetime of a non-renewable resource was shortened by having steady growth in the rate of consumption of the resource, and how misleading it is for leaders in business and industry to be advocating growth of rates of consumption and telling people how long the resource will last "at present rates of consumption."This led to the first version of this paper which was presented at an energy conference at the University of Missouri at Rolla in October 1976, where it appears in the Proceedings of the Conference. In reading other papers in the Proceedings I came to realize that prominent people in the energy business would sometimes make statements that struck me as being unrealistic and even outrageous. Many of these statements were quoted in the version of the paper that is reprinted here, and this alerted me to the need to watch the public press for more such statements. Fortunately ( or unfortunately ) the press and prominent people have provided a steady stream of statements that are illuminating because they reflect an inability to do arithmetic and / or to understand the energy situation. As this is written, I have given my talk on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" over 1260 times in 48 of the 50 States in the 28 years since 1969. I wish to acknowledge many constructive and helpful conversations on these topics I have had throughout the 20 years with my colleagues in the Department of Physics, and in particular with Professors Robert Ristinen and Jack Kraushaar, who have written a successful textbook on energy. (Energy and Problems of a Technical Society, John Wiley & Sons, New York City, 2nd Ed. 1993) Reflections on the "Fundamentals" Paper Twenty Years Later As I read the 1978 paper in 1998, I am pleased to note that the arithmetic that is the core of the paper remains unchanged, and I feel that there are only a few points that need correction or updating.1) When I derived my Eq. 6 in the Appendix, I was unaware that this equation
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