Energy Slaves
Buckminster Fuller was the first to use the term “energy slave” in 1940. At the time, he estimated there were 36 billion energy slaves, or 17 per person, serving modern but mostly (~80%) pre-industrialized humans.
Per Tourane Corbière-Nicollier in 2001: “an energy slave works to produce energy 24 hours a day. He produces an average power output of 100 W (876 kWh per year).” If per capita primary energy (all sources) use is 96,000 kWh/year, then each person is served by 110 energy slaves working 24/7 by this definition.
For the number of healthy-human-slave equivalents:
According to Bucky Fuller, a healthy individual producing 75 watts working 40 hours per week (or 3,000 Wh per week at 75 W usable energy) is a 3 kWh/week x 50 weeks/year = 150 kWh/yr per energy slave, assuming two weeks of sick leave per year. This means that the 96,000 kWh/year required to live like an American in 1980 requires 640 fit rural energy slaves per hyper-modern human.
Based on speed of average bicyclists on flat ground, a modern healthy human could be made to generate maybe 50 W of mechanical work (e.g. turning a shaft). So, 96,000 kWh/year = 960 modern-human energy slaves if only worked 40 hr/week, or to equal fit rural slaves, work them 60 hr/week average (or until they meet their quota of 3 kWh/week or 600 Wh/day, 5-days week, 12-hr/day if able to produce 50 W of exergy, or if 75 W, then an energy slave works a 8-hr/day as most wage-slaves do today). Within a few years, human slaves would be fitter and 75 W would be producible during a 40 hr/week at today’s level of whip cracking, so I’m going to go with Fuller’s definition.
Modern life (e.g. average European), without hundreds of energy slaves per citizen, is not possible. If not living within one of three megacities, you will seek to enslave as many animals/humans as possible if unable to adapt to a low energy society of enough (<20 energy slaves serving you), and if you don’t seek to possess slaves, figure you’ll be one. Or not.
In 2022, global per capita energy consumption averaged 21,039 kWh, i.e. the average modern human (rural+urban) is served by 140 energy slaves (so there are currently about 1,136 billion energy slaves on Earth — for a time, and 80% are fossil fueled, with most of the rest (e.g. nuclear, solar PV, wind), except biomass, dependent on the fossil fueled industrial-growth hegemon, e.g. mining, transportation, manufacturing, storage, supply chains…).
Hunter-gatherers require about 11 GJ/capita/yr, but this includes total food and exosomatic energy (e.g. wood). Exosomatic energy from wood consumed is twice that of food gathered, so 7 GJ or 1,944 kWh/person/year of energy (13 energy slaves equivalent). For 2 million years, humans have been the high-energy ape.
Lizards may bask in sunshine to warm themselves, but other primates don’t use significant exosomatic energy, e.g. wood, to cook and keep warm. Our doing so allowed a sub-tropical ape to live almost anywhere, within environmental limits of mass+energy flow, e.g. the Arctic. About 2 million years ago, hominins lived without energy slaves, as had their ancestors (and ours) for about 4 billion years. What we moderns depend on (e.g. technology and ideology), we must serve as domesticants.
On average, metabolic rates in agrarian societies are 3–4 times higher per capita than those of hunter-gatherers, but agriculture can support 10 times the population in a region each consuming 3–4 times more (hence agrarians ‘displace’ foragers, no choice involved).
Large-scale agrarian societies, competing to build empires, may be served by 80 energy slaves per person per year or more, maximizing the exploitation of commoner/slave/animal labor, deforesting regions, and maximizing their populations (commoners/slaves/animals) to maximize warriors empowering conquest (e.g. the Haida in Pacific Northwest). We moderns have added fossil fuel energy, for a time, to greatly increase the number of energy slaves serving us.
In 1979, U.S. per capita primary energy consumption was 105,001 kWh/person/year (700 energy slaves/person), or a bit more than Jack Alpert’s megacities will provide equitably for all citizens (U.S. peak per capita energy consumption was 1979, global peak hasn’t happened yet due to rapid growth in China, India, Asia fueled by fracking in U.S. and Australian coal).
Meanwhile, in 2022, total U.S. primary energy consumption per capita was 88,325 kWh/person/year (589 energy slaves/person), or slightly less than Jack Alpert’s megacities will provide equitably for all, meaning about 44% of today’s U.S. citizens would decrease their current energy wealth while most increase it, but the condition should not be fatal. Some US citizens currently served by 6,400 to 64,000 energy slaves will be able to get by with only 640 energy slaves, far more than most ancient kings and queens could imagine.
Have a nice Anthropocene. Or not.
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Oh, and the average modern human who has 140 energy slaves today has a household income of $9,733 per year (adult personal $6,455 per year). Energy is the wealth of individuals, families, communities, and nations. So, as inequality activist/economist Gary Stevenson will have to agree, we can solve all our inequality issues by one global policy. Tax any personal (corporations are people too, so they are included) income over $6,455 per year at 100%, give it equitably to whose who earn less (who could stop working to help grow the economy).
From the POV of almost all life on Earth, things will just get better and better. No modern human will be able to buy and maintain a car after existing cars stop running, and personal (and business) flying will stop. Unsustainable extraction of resources (e.g. metals, minerals, fossil fuels) will end. Food production will plumet, ending the major driver of mass extinction.
The only rich people will be the former subsistence farmers who used to make $1/day. They will still grow all of their food, and make $4.87/hr or $38.93/day, almost 39 times more than they used to. And the 1%ers who think they have something to complain about will be told tough titty. For good people, life will just get better and better — until the world socioeconomic-political system collapses in a puff of history.
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Oh, but everything above is misinformation. Art Berman knows enough to tell the truth:
And he cites a higher authority: Nate Hagens.
A barrel of crude oil contains the energy equivalent of about four-and-a-half years of human work (Figure 1). In 2022, the world used 85 billion barrels of oil equivalent from coal, natural gas and oil. At four-and-a-half years of work per barrel, that means that society has 383 billion fossil energy slaves working for us all the time.
And from the source:
One barrel of crude oil can perform about 1700 kWh of work. A human laborer can perform about 0.6 kW h in one workday (IIER, 2011). Simple arithmetic reveals it takes over 11 years of human labor to do the same work potential in a barrel of oil. Even if humans are 2.5x more efficient at converting energy to work, the energy in one barrel of oil substitutes approximately 4.5 years of physical human labor.
0.6 kWh/working day = 5 days/week x 50 weeks or 150 kWh/year of labor or 1700/150=11 years / 2.5 = 4.5 years of human labor.
This energy/labor relationship was the foundation of the industrial revolution. Most technological processes requires hundreds to thousands of calories of fossil energy to replace each human calorie previously used to do the same tasks manually. Consider milking a cow using three methods (see Fig. 2): manual (human labor energy only), semi-automated electric milking machines (1100 kW h per cow per year), and fully automated milking (3000 kW h per cow-year). The manual milker, working alone, requires 120 h of human labor per year per cow; semi-automated machines require 27 h of labor; and full automation, 12 h. We’ll estimate that the human milker generates economic value of $5 an hour working alone. Using electric milkers at $0.05 per kWh, output rises significantly and — because cheap electricity substitutes for so many human hours of labor — the revenue increases to $19 per hour with semi-automated milkers and to $25 per hour with the fully automated technologies. (Note: this large economic benefit could go to the owner of the dairy farm, the employees, or to consumers in the form of cheaper milk — or any combination) (Hagens, 2015). This same principle extrapolates to most modern industrial processes: we save human labor and time by adding large amounts of cheap fossil labor (Cleveland et al., 1984; IIER, 2011).
The “A human laborer can perform about 0.6 kWh in one workday” claim cited leads to a source I can’t read, but one author published in a form I can read, Is green growth an oxymoron? But no mention of how much energy one worker can perform per day.
Fuller used 150 kWh/yr/worker divided by 250 workdays/yr = 0.6 kWh/workday/worker, so Hagen’s expert agrees with or is Fuller.
Modern workers are weaker compared to those in Fuller’s day. So in modern human slave equivalents, “billions” sounds about right. Whatever the number, “zero” will be a noticeable change.