The Economics of Energy

Kenneth E. Boulding
Additional contact information
Kenneth E. Boulding: Program of Research on General Social and Economic Dynamics of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1973, vol. 410, issue 1, 120-126

Abstract: The economics of energy refers to its aspect as a commodity. It is usually significant as an intermediate good. It becomes a commodity because energy is an essential input of processes of production which increase goods or diminish bads, such as pollution, since goods tend to be improbable material structures. The input of energy is necessary to overcome material entropy. Economic develop ment has gone hand in hand with increased energy input per capita, beginning with solar energy embodied in plants and animals and continuing through draft animals, wind energy and fossil fuels. Energy input always involves pollu tion, simply because bads are jointly produced with goods. Exhaustion is a critical problem if the source of energy is exhaustible, as it is in the case of fossil fuels. However, the availability of energy depends on society's level of knowl edge : energy input has risen as a result of increased knowledge. There are interesting problems in the economics of energy transportation: we do not simply want energy; we want it at certain times and places. The question of economic organization of energy supplies—whether they should be public or private—is part of the larger question of the evaluation of public versus private enterprise. There are no simple answers to this problem.

Date: 1973
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271627341000112 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:410:y:1973:i:1:p:120-126

DOI: 10.1177/000271627341000112

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().