Energy <> Technology

Even if in our lifetimes we don't run into any liquid fuel shortage, every single forecasting entity, no matter how Conservative, forecasts permanent depletion in thirty years' time. Not one, not one!, forecasts that the current rate of extraction can continue beyond when my son is my father's age. Of course, by permanent depletion I'm not implying we'll have no oil, just that our extraction rate will, year over year, be less and less.

The expectation is that technology will ride to our rescue by then. But avert your eyes, children! for technology may take on other forms: fusion, nanosolar, horizontal drilling, algae-diesel, hybrid and all electric motoring, clean coal...

But the Monologues know, from every past example, that greater efficiencies in the production of energy have only led to more energy production, not less. And every example of greater efficiency in consumption has only led to more consumption, not less. You can say what you want about selling the Denali and buying a Yaris, and how much less fuel you're using and how much a better planet saver you become, but the planet doesn't give a shit about your fuel economy: the earth responds to gallons, not miles per gallon.

This mantra of technology is a guise. It's cloaking the underlying energy consumption that feeds it, and by masking it with terms like 'efficiency' and 'conservation', we don't change the fact that the energy source driving it still reigns. Technology is not energy.

What we have done is squandered every bit of efficiency gain we've made in the past thirty years. Cars are more efficient than in 1978, yes, but now they accelerate faster and we drive them farther. Computer monitors are more efficient, yes, but now we use 20" flat screens instead of 16" CRTs. Toy manufacturing is more efficient, yes, but now we ship the raw materials 9,000 miles to be manufactured by cheap foreign labor then ship them 9,000 miles back and deliver them by truck to the box store, where we drive by private automobile to buy them. Refrigeration is much more efficient, yes, but now we have one fridge in the house, and the spare and a chest freezer in the garage. Technology is only important if we can use it to consume less energy, never more. And we have failed in every respect.