Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.
Fracking is also not very energy efficient compared to quite a lot of other methods of getting energy. The issue is that as long as we drive oil powered vehicles, that doesn't matter. We don't want energy, we want gas. That's why so much slander and outright lies has been heaped on things like the Tesla Roadster. Its deathly frightening to oil companies. The thing they have is that the US relies on oil engines for our transportation, not only in every single human in the US's daily life, but for a large portion of moving goods. Its what they've got. If they didn't have that, well oil isn't the most energy efficient, it's not clean, it's not in the interest of national security, they have nothing.
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Date: 2014-03-16 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-18 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:01 pm (UTC)http://gizmodo.com/nasa-backed-study-says-humanity-is-pretty-much-screwed-1544660726 (http://gizmodo.com/nasa-backed-study-says-humanity-is-pretty-much-screwed-1544660726)
(although fracking isn't very dangerous at all in certain geologic strata. Indiscriminate fracking- who knows)?
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Date: 2014-03-16 04:09 pm (UTC)I knew the sky was falling.
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Date: 2014-03-16 04:49 pm (UTC)That would be Jevons' Paradox, not Malthus'.
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Date: 2014-03-16 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-17 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-17 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 06:56 pm (UTC)The ads for that film (I never saw it, I was a child at the time) scared me through worriment at the time.
NSFW language
Date: 2014-03-16 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 11:53 pm (UTC)