Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Energy and the Financial System: What Every Economist, Financial Analyst, and Investor Needs to Know

Energy and the Financial System: What Every Economist, Financial Analyst, and Investor Needs to Know

Boyd, Roger

Paperback

Business GeneralEconomicsInvesting & Finance

ISBN10: 3319042378
ISBN13: 9783319042374
Publisher: Springer
Published: Feb 17 2014
Pages: 80
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.19 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

The modern financial system was developed to support the rapid economic growth that took off about 200 years ago with the phenomenal amounts of cheap energy made available through the exploitation of fossil fuels. As a result, its viability is completely dependent upon the continuation of that growth. Unfortunately, the more recent fossil fuel discoveries, especially for oil, have tended to have lower production levels than earlier ones. In addition, greater amounts of energy are required to extract the fossil fuels leading to less net energy available for society. The Energy Return On Investment (EROI) for oil has fallen from 30:1 in the 1970's to 10:1 today. Thus, newer energy finds produce lower extraction rates and more of the energy provided is offset by the energy used in the extraction processes. The result has been economic stagnation or even contraction, with growth in China and India etc. only possible due to the extensive use of local coal reserves, and recession-induced drops in OECD country energy use. Renewable sources of energy will not be able to expand fast enough to replace the 87% of energy supplies provided by fossil fuels, and apart from hydro and wind, tend to have very low EROI rates. They are also critically dependent upon the cheap energy infrastructure provided by fossil fuels. The phenomenal amounts of path-dependent energy infrastructure will also greatly inhibit any move away from fossil fuels.

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