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The major stakes: what future will energy have? |
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| Just what is economic growth? Simplifying things, it is the capacity to produce more goods, products, merchandise and services each year than in the year before. And what is the best means of ensuring an outlet for this ever-increasing production? Quite simply by taking these products and services to the greatest number of people possible, that is to say, to each and every one of us. There, in a nutshell, is the principal of the consumer society in which we live. For that society to work well, three fundamental elements are required:
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The consent and the support of the people in the system: that is why we work and
receive a salary. In this way, we can buy the products and services resulting from our work and ensure material comfort
in our everyday life, over and beyond our basic needs for survival.
Money, that we call capital, for the construction, upkeep and development of
factories, production units and service companies.
This invested capital earns money through production and the growth of companies.
A part of the money that is generated is used to finance new productive investments, and so the cycle continues. This is the principle (highly simplified) of capitalism, the predominant economic system in the greater part of the world.
Energy to make the system work: producing and ensuring the transport and
distribution of the products, merchandise and services, consumes energy. Oil is the form of energy that permitted the rapid economic development observed in the thirty years following the Second World War (the “Thirty Glorious Years”): It is an energy form that is liquid and hence easily transportable, has a high energy content and, at the present time is still relatively cheap. |
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