The Law of Supply and Demand

The law of supply and demand isn't really a law. It's a theory. But even though it's not a law, it does seem to do a pretty good job of explaining how the world works . . or at least an aspect of how the world works. Take the subject of human energy use. The energy used by human civilization is subject to the law of supply and demand. Supply equals demand. Sems fine, completely believable, not much to argue about.

So why do we tend to focus almost exclusively on supply as we develop our energy policies? Demand, after all, is half the issue, yet we barely discuss it. We hear of energy conservation and energy efficiency, but these don't really address demand. We hear of things like 'projected demand', or 'expected growth in demand', but seldom about how these things come to be. It would certainly be nice to be as familiar with the nature of energy demand as we are with its supply. What are the natural and artificial factors and forces that affect its composition, development and size? Are there any ways we can even hope to modulate or control it? Demand is half the ball game.

Energy conservation does not directly address energy demand. The word 'conservation' - the act of conserving - more aptly describes a process of not changing or consuming something. We conserve forests or national parks by leaving them alone. We conserve things like oil, coal, and natural gas by not burning them, or by not burning so much of them so quickly. So for the most part when we propose to conserve energy, we are hording existing energy stockpiles. Energy conservation does not directly address our energy demand. It merely regulates the rate at which we use our energy supplies.

Energy efficiency is different, at least in that it sounds so much more positive and even patriotic. First off, who would ever argue against being more efficient? Being more efficient is almost always a worthy goal. Energy efficiency is how much energy we use for whatever we do. But, like conservation, it only affects how much of our energy supply we devote to accomplishing the task at hand. It does nothing at all to address the origin or existance of that task, but only on how cleverly we accomplish it.

We demand the energy we need. How we come to need it is the crux of the issue. Politicians can't talk about that. It is far too delicate a question. They quite reasonably fear evoking responses like: 'Nobody can tell me what to do!', 'It's a free country, and I'll do what ever I want!', or 'I can want whatever I want to want, and nobody can stop me from going after it!'

The fact is, all sorts of people tell us what to do all the time.

Oh forget it. Let's just focus on supply!