[syphor]

I would like to raise the notion of a future hypothetical currency being backed by the ability to produce energy. So for instance one unit of such a currency could be pegged to some specific amount of energy produced over time, say 1 kWh.

Through increasingly the total energy supply you increase the money supply, decrease the energy supply and you do the opposite. You directly link available energy with your available wealth creating a foundation for more a sustainable approach to future growth and development.

I'd be interested in some thoughts on this.

[bratticus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar

[syphor]

The notion of the 'petrodollar' has nothing to do with this. US dollars are not backed by anything save the confidence of the market. I'm talking about a currency backed by a unit of energy, pure and simple.

To be perfectly honest I'm more interested in seeing such an 'energy currency' be backed by renewable sources of energy, rather than resources like oil, coal etc.

[Delphis]

There has been discussion on this topic before, perhaps an admin can post the link?

I beleive the basis was a calorie based currency where your worth is based on how much energy in the form of calories you could produce...

I will search and see if I can find it.

Good topic though!

[Alcassin]

The notion of the 'petrodollar' has nothing to do with this. US dollars are not backed by anything save the confidence of the market. I'm talking about a currency backed by a unit of energy, pure and simple.

To be perfectly honest I'm more interested in seeing such an 'energy currency' be backed by renewable sources of energy, rather than resources like oil, coal etc.

It can be also covered in joules/calories, as a parameter of physical energy.

[ReverseEngineer]

I would like to raise the notion of a future hypothetical currency being backed by the ability to produce energy. So for instance one unit of such a currency could be pegged to some specific amount of energy produced over time, say 1 kWh.

Through increasingly the total energy supply you increase the money supply, decrease the energy supply and you do the opposite. You directly link available energy with your available wealth creating a foundation for more a sustainable approach to future growth and development.

I'd be interested in some thoughts on this.

I wrote about the concept of using Calories in the Solutions to Global Monetary System Meltdown thread, and also paranthetically in the Collapse of an Economic Tower of Babel Thread. You might try reading either of these threads to find some of the issues and problems with using Oil or Energy as the basis for an economic system. I'm sure there are others that came prior to this that I am not aware of.

Now, clearly a complete fiat monetary system does not work, we gotta base the value of currency on SOMETHING besides the "faith in the Gooberment".

Since ALL currencies EVERYWHERE, and all governments are going to be pulled down into this Black Hole, as a WORLD we have to Reboot and start over. All debts wiped off the books for everyone. We then need a new currency with which to work for Trade purposes. So all the World Leaders need to get together and establish a World Currency Unit, based on the equivalence of Work and Heat in thermodynamics, and call the new currency unit the Calorie.

Then we issue to each person in the world say Cal&1M Calories, enough to get them through the next year and since right NOW the world has enough calories in food to do that in storage and growing somewhere.

Now, long as you produce in some manner more Calories than you eat over the next year, as a human being you are a going concern. You could do that in any number of ways, from directly producing food calories yourself growing them on the land (for which you get a 1:1 Cal& Note), to providing energy calories which are accounted for by subtracting from the caloric energy of a gallon of oil actually needed to produce a calorie of edible foodstuff. So if the tractor and the transport process use up a big part of the oil calories, the oil producer only gets Cal& Notes for the end resulting food calories. While it would still be profitable to have a lot of oil in the ground, it would not be quite so profitable as it is now.

The biggest problem I see is that simply having Oil isn't wealth, the oil has to work symbiotically witht he land to produce food. It would artificially make Saudi Arabia, which has lots of Oil left in the ground outrageously wealthy, but they really aren't because the land is too poor to grow food on. So you have to weih in land productivity to your new currency system. How you might do this could be a good discussion point.

Reverse Engineer