Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 31 August 1984:
Vol. 225. no. 4665, pp. 890 - 897
DOI: 10.1126/science.225.4665.890
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Energy and the U.S. Economy: A Biophysical Perspective

Cutler J. Cleveland 1, Robert Costanza 2, Charles A. S. Hall 3, and Robert Kaufmann 4

1 Graduate research assistant in the Department of Geography, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801.
2 Associate professor in the Coastal Ecology Laboratory, Center for Wetland Resources, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 70803.
3 Assistant professor in the Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.
4 Research scientist in the Complex Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham 03824.

A series of hypotheses is presented about the relation of national energy use to national economic activity (both time series and cross-sectional) which offer a different perspective from standard economics for the assessment of historical and current economic events. The analysis incorporates nearly 100 years of time series data and 3 years of cross-sectional data on 87 sectors of the United States economy. Gross national product, labor productivity, and price levels are all correlated closely with various aspects of energy use, and these correlations are improved when corrections are made for energy quality. A large portion of the apparent increase in U.S. energy efficiency has been due to our ability to expand the relative use of high-quality fuels such as petroleum and electricity, and also to relative shifts in fuel use between sectors of the economy. The concept of energy return on investment is introduced as a major driving force in our economy, and data are provided which show a marked decline in energy return on investment for all our principal fuels in recent decades. Future economic growth will depend largely on the net energy yield of alternative fuel sources, and some standard economic models may need to be modified to account for the biophysical constraints on human economic activity.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Value Problem in Ecological Economics: Lessons from the Physiocrats and Marx.
P. Burkett (2003)
Organization Environment 16, 137-167
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)