The really long-term equation of Growth, Resources and Energy

Our entire economy is based on continuous growth. Growth makes our society increasingly prosperous in monetary or material terms, and growth has increasingly become the measurement of success.

In a market without growth our pension systems collapse, the employment market collapses, and all desired investments disappear. Not a very attractive scenario to a government or to the population of a country.

So, we are highly dependent on continued growth.

Yet, at the same time, growth is in a way a drug which kills us. Economic growth is based on an ever increasing flow of economic transactions, which are in turn based on a similar increased flow of products and services. These products and services consume physical resources, whether it is in the form of fish, water, mined minerals and metals, or fossil fuels. The current growth paradigm is highly unsustainable and we are seeing how many resources are becoming scarce or shrinking on a global scale. Ecosystems are under heavy pressure with accelerating art extinction. Fossil fuels are becoming more and more risky and expensive to explore, as are many desirable minerals.

"Sustainable growth" is seen as the answer. Sustainable growth sounds compelling, but how much do we really know about sustainable growth? The truth is that noone has managed to prove that it can be achieved on a larger scale and for a a longer time. 

Yes, we can think of products or services which add to financial growth while making the planet more sustainable. I e, we can find products, which replace other products and use less of limited resources.

This is called "relative decoupling". It means that we do things that make our accelerated overuse of limited resources go slower. It is based on the assumption (or fact?) that all products or services use limited resources to some extent. "Absolute decoupling" means that a product actually uses a negative amount of resources, or that it frees more resources than it uses. 

We can think of such products or services too. A recycling service which takes products, separates them into useful resources and returns them. Wouldn't that be an example of "absolute decoupling"? Well, it could be. But we have to look at that service from a systems perspective. The energy and other resources consumed in delivering the service needs to be produced sustainably too. Services that demonstrate "absolute decoupling" can be constructed, but can we create an entire society based on "absolute decoupling"?

In theory, we can think of a society, where we become increasingly better at recycling everything and returning the resources, and that we also get faster and faster at spinning this resource recycling wheel. Growth comes from increasing throughput of material resources and energy. This would be a society built on growth and yet sustainable from a resource perspective. Is this society possible or is it a purely theoretical construction?

Well, today it is theoretical, of course. We are very far away from this society. To transform our current society in this direction is a tremendous societal endeavor. The greatest challenge in achieving such a society is energy, because recycling is an energy intensive process. What is more, the need for energy in the process is exponential. When we move from recycling 80% of the resources to recycling 90% we don't do it by adding 10% more energy. We probably need 100% more energy. This is an estimate to serve as an illustration, the point being that the energy need grows exponentially. When almost all our finite resources on the planet shall be recycled in a fast spinning wheel, then it is going to require a LOT of energy. 

Do we have sufficient sources of renewable energy to solve this equation in a sustainable way?

I am afraid that is unlikely. Calculations have been made on the available sources of renewable energy. Studies show that even if we add all the different sources together in e g UK, it would still not add up to provide the energy needed at current level of consumption, and this is not including a transformation to a recycling society. The population is too big compared to the land area. In e g Sweden, the equation is  easier, since the population is smaller while the land is bigger. The available resources by capita for wind power, solar power, hydro power, wave power, biofuels etc are much bigger. There is of course a great potential for becoming more efficient in how we use energy in all parts of the world. If this potential was used, the energy would last longer, but not indefinitely. 

Globally, we could possibly make it work at today's level of consumption, with unsustainable flows of material resources. However, if and when we transform to a recycling economy requiring immense and ever increasing quantities of energy for the recycling of all material resource flows, it is doubtful how long the planet's renewable energy resources would last.

Are there any other ways?

Yes of course. One way is to use nuclear. Next or next to next generation of nuclear holds the promise of being much more efficient, with Thorium reactors and other new nuclear processes. This kind of breakthrough would certainly be needed, because at the current  efficiency of nuclear power, that energy source won't last very long. Current estimates show that we reach a peak for the production of Uranium in about 60 years, depending on the growth in that industry. And we have still not solved the huge problem of nuclear waste in any way, which means that the nuclear road is not very attractive in the really long-term perspective until we have seen some major scientific breakthroughs.

Another way is to look at outer space. Enormous solar panels in space beaming down the energy to earth is an interesting proposition with lot's of benefits. The panels can in principle be as big as we wish, with no limitations in land use, and they would constantly be facing the sun. Is it realistic? Can we get the whole system to work safely, and with high energy efficiency? We don't know. But the technology could be reality ten years from now.

The final way then, would be to tweak our global financial and economic systems so that we become less dependent on continued economic growth and increasing physical throughput of products. The economy is invented by man and part of our social system. Can it be harder to change than to beam down the future earth energy supply from outer space? 

Can we mentally decouple from increased flow of material products?