The average reader of Albert Bartlett’s article “Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie” (Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 57 7 2004 53 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1784303 July 2004, page 53 ) may not know that Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published “An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society” in 1798. In it, he argued that population tends to increase faster than food supply and that, consequently, humanity should anticipate a future of subsistence living unless extraordinary measures are taken to control population growth. In a later revision of the essay, Malthus was somewhat more sanguine. Now, 200 years of history have certainly proven his thesis incorrect, at least in the context of market economies. Food has never grown scarce in modern market economies. Today, more people are fed more affordably and with larger varieties of food than ever before. Rather than starvation, the greatest food-related problem of modern societies is obesity!
It is therefore inexplicable that some people cling to the Malthusian logic when discussing modern economic issues. Bartlett argues that the conditions of the energy market call for a halt in population growth. Yet no economic data exist to support his claim. Although market dynamics occasionally impact the world economy otherwise, the downward overall trend in the real price of energy indicates faster growth in the supply curve than the demand curve.
In the past decade, energy has been cheaper than in previous decades even as total energy demand has grown to historic highs. Bartlett presents data indicating that world per capita petroleum consumption grew steadily through the period of US energy price regulation in the 1970s and has declined since the Carter administration’s deregulation late in that decade. He incorrectly suggests that the data are evidence of production limitations “as production struggles to keep up with growing demand.” However, his suggestion could only be supported if prices had been rising during the entire period. In fact, the declining price trend during that time is evidence that per capita demand for petroleum was slowing even while supplies were plentiful. Bartlett unwittingly contradicts his own thesis.
An important lesson following the deregulation policy of the late 1970s is that energy demand is quite elastic, meaning demand is flexible and responds readily to price (supply) change. Markets can accommodate limitations in energy resources without a halt in population growth. However, conventional fossil fuel resources are quite substantial: one hundred to several hundred years of current world consumption rates and growing, as technologies improve. Additionally, as Bartlett notes, unconventional fossil fuels, such as heavy oil, tar sands, shale oil, represent an even larger resource. Although those resources are accessible with modern technology, future prices and improved technology will dictate when they may be produced profitably. Nuclear fission technology brings another vast energy resource to market. The combined energy resources that are accessible with modern technologies, including breeder reactors, represent at least 1000 years of world energy demand, more than enough to accommodate market-controlled consumption growth for a long time.
Physicists and engineers continue to work on promising new energy technologies. Thermonuclear fusion technology will some day bring a well-known but presently inaccessible energy resource to market. The deuterium in the world’s oceans represents an energy resource equal to 10 billion years of current world annual energy consumption.
Just as Malthus could not envision modern agricultural productivity, the most advanced scientists of his time couldn’t possibly have been cognizant of the vast energy resources available today, much less the concept of nuclear energy. It is superfluous to suppose a Malthusian thesis today in the case of energy resources and conclude that population growth must halt.
Nonetheless, market economies have a vital part in our avoiding the world that Malthus predicted. In the alternative—socialism—shortages can be expected regardless of population size; witness North Korea and the former Soviet Union. The tragedy of the periodic reemergence of the Malthusian thesis is that its advocates may have an impact on people unprepared to understand its flaws. The response can hamper liberal market economies and encourage socialist policies.
