Energy and Population: Transitional Issues and the Eventual Limits

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An NPG Forum Paper
by Paul J. Werbos
August 1990

This is the ninth in a series of NPG FORUM papers exploring the idea of optimum population—what would be a desirable population size for the United States? Without any consensus even as to whether the population should be larger or smaller, the country presently creates its demographic future by inadvertence as it makes decisions on other issues that influence population change.

The approach we have adopted is the –foresight” process. We have asked specialists in various fields to examine the connection between alternative population futures and the national or social objectives in their fields of interest. In this issue of the FORUM, Dr. Werbos examines U.S. energy requirements and the U.S. population size that would be compatible with a plentiful supply of environmentally benign energy.

The question does not lend itself to formal proof. There are too many variables and value judgements. Yet it must be addressed.

Dr. Werbos is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation. He was with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a decade, He served on the interagency Task Force on Models and Data convened to respond to the problems identified in the Global 2000 Report to the President.

This paper was drafted before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Some of the developments presented as contingencies have now become realities. Any person interested in understanding the long-term implications of that invasion and the subsequent rise in oil prices would do well to read this essay.

—Lindsey Grant, Editor

Overview

The editors of this series have asked me to address what appears to be a straightforward set of questions: what U.S. population size is compatible with the environmental consequences of energy use? What levels of population would lead to maximum efficiency in the energy sector, as a guesstimate, in long-term equilibrium?

Many energy analysts tend to ignore the population question, or to treat population as a minor background variable in forecasting twenty years into the future. A few analysts, following the first report to the Club of Rome, decry all forms of economic and population growth. Both sides—the pessimists and the defenders of the status quo—have built elaborate models and theories to defend their viewpoints, often based on questionable hidden assumptions. After years of working through this maze of theories and building a few models myself, I would make the following personal judgements’ about energy and population:

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