Confronting the Status Quo – Dr Susan Krumdieck

In this great little talk Dr Susan Krumdieck speaks about our energy conundrum through a lens that is rarely used: financial return. Presumably talking to business leaders she quickly dismisses the relevance of peak oil, climate change and sustainability as reasons to change and goes straight to the formula for a resource base that is consumed by exponential growth and how everything inevitably follows a path of boom and bust. In other words the same curve as what peak oil describes.

She then goes into depth about the falling levels of EROI (Energy Return on Investment) and has some great sankey diagrams showing how as the rate of return drops so to does the amount of energy available to service the economy, particularly the energy levels needed to grow the economy. Her conclusions are clear and stark. Economic growth will not continue and economic survival will be dependant on the ability to adapt. The communities/companies/people who change the most to a low energy consumption pattern will be the most successful in the future.