Energy use limits global economic growth: Study
By ANISaturday, January 8, 2011
WASHINGTON - A new study has found that energy use has a direct impact on economic activity.
Researchers have concluded that an “enormous” increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected world population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing standards of living in most developed countries.
A team of ecologists led by James H. Brown of the University of New Mexico conducted the study based on data from the International Energy Agency and the World Resources Institute
The team found the same sort of relationship between energy consumption per person and gross domestic product per person as is found between metabolism and body weight in animals.
Brown’s group suggested the similarity is real: cities and countries, like animals, have metabolisms that must burn fuel to sustain themselves and grow.
The study has also suggested that variables relating to standard of living, such as the proportion of doctors in a population, the number of televisions per person, and infant mortality rate, are also correlated with both energy consumption per person and gross domestic product per person.
These correlations lead the authors to their conclusions about the increases in energy production necessary to sustain a still-growing world population without drops in living standards.
The findings were published in the journal BioScience. (ANI)
