2023–07–15

Reframing our dependence on the condensed energy of fossil fuels

Nate Hagens, the director of the Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future, ran the numbers: “One barrel of oil has the same amount of energy of up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, which is 12.5 years of work. At $20 per hour, this is $500,000 of labor per barrel.” A barrel of oil costs about seventy dollars at this week’s market price.

What do our lives and our world look like without fossil fuels? For example, imagine the full process and energy that goes into the flour used in a simple loaf of bread.

To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower? | The New Yorker