Cheap energy against efficiency

We can grow exactly ten times as much food on our land today as we did a hundred years ago, only we forget that we use a hundred times as much energy.

I read this idea in Gergely Böszörményi-Nagy’s book Nonconform, and I think it’s worth thinking about because the same pattern is present in so many areas of our lives.

Cheap energy has
made us comfortable.

So, according to complexity scientist Peter Turchin, we produce ten times more efficiently in our factories, travel a hundred times faster on low-cost flights, and build houses five times more quickly, still, all of this comes at a considerable energy cost.

Yet we don’t bother because we’re used to it and now it’s natural. (If you’re interested in modern efficiency, I recommend Amused’s YouTube channel, a great insight into the technology used by different sectors).

But one of the main dangers of our time is that cheap energy has made this habit possible.

This is the only real regulator.

Investors and producers are not driven by sustainability, but by profit.

Developments are frozen, efficient construction is halted, fast low-cost airlines are down and far fewer strawberries are sold in December.

For all the speed, efficiency, and amazing technology, consumption is taking the place of consideration.

And that’s good.

Because deliberation, or conscious planning, really does point towards sustainability.

If I look at the construction industry, it is a special industry.

Mass production does not work here. Individual systems have to be built and it is absolutely true that even a minimum acceleration requires many times the energy investment.

Consideration and good organization
are of huge importance here.

If the wasteful, on-site fire-fighting, disorganized scrambling, and irritable troubleshooting on the physical reality are replaced by virtual construction and human programming, then an unprecedented improvement will be seen.

The basic tool for this is BIM and the software ecosystem built on it. It brings together the world of designers, engineers, contractors, and operators.

When I imagine and carefully consider my house and build it in advance in a virtual space. Aztán egy intelligens eszközzel koordinálhatom a munkásokat, és elmagyarázhatom, mit, hol és mikor kell építeni. Then I can use this information to maintain the house, then a tool is created that rewrites the way an industry operates.

The beauty of it is that it requires more complex digital systems and more attention on the human side, but it also delivers brutal savings on energy and costs, as well as speed.

That’s why I love working in a field that becomes viable in this environment.