Nice graphic here Todd. Energy and income are intertwined because what we call “material wealth” is really just complex arrangements of atoms informed by knowledge.
But we need energy to be able to manipulate atoms in beneficial ways. There is no way around it, except for using energy more efficiently, which we also do.
The logarithmic scale doesn’t really convey the core message of this dataset. I understand you need to spread out the points on the low end, but might I suggest linear scale would be better?
In short, energy is work and if you have access to a lot of energy then you get more work done-productivity. Counterintuitively, the more energy you are allowed to waste determines your standard of living.
Great graphic! Tells us too that wind and solar are not the energy sources the world needs. Only fossil and nuclear and some hydro here and there can get countries to cluster towards upper right.
Not a mystery, but a rebuttal to the widespread notion that small household systems that deliver ~100 kWh/yr are enough for poor people. That only works if you want them to stay poor.
Nice graphic here Todd. Energy and income are intertwined because what we call “material wealth” is really just complex arrangements of atoms informed by knowledge.
But we need energy to be able to manipulate atoms in beneficial ways. There is no way around it, except for using energy more efficiently, which we also do.
I reshared this on our new facebook page as well.
For comparison; what was the previous r-squared for the earlier version of this plot.
Lovely visual storytelling in a single image by the way.
0.80 using 2014 data
I think it shows ‘that’ these countries don’t exist and not ‘why’.
Imprecise language like this leads people to confuse causation with correlation.
Todd, Here's older data on our website. https://thorconpower.com/prosperity/ Can I substitute your newer graphic? In return you can use this one. https://thorconpower.com/power/ OK?
our post is CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 so feel free to repost with attribution.
Done. Thank you. https://thorconpower.com/prosperity/
The logarithmic scale doesn’t really convey the core message of this dataset. I understand you need to spread out the points on the low end, but might I suggest linear scale would be better?
In short, energy is work and if you have access to a lot of energy then you get more work done-productivity. Counterintuitively, the more energy you are allowed to waste determines your standard of living.
Great graphic! Tells us too that wind and solar are not the energy sources the world needs. Only fossil and nuclear and some hydro here and there can get countries to cluster towards upper right.
Energy is a good thing that people want more of as they get richer. Why is this posed as a mystery?
Not a mystery, but a rebuttal to the widespread notion that small household systems that deliver ~100 kWh/yr are enough for poor people. That only works if you want them to stay poor.