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> And our energy demands are not shrinking.

I think they should be, but even if they aren’t, there still is the observation that a kWh of electricity often can produce more of what we really want (light, motion, compute power) than a kWh of oil (about the only thing we can efficiently convert that into is heat)

For example, Google tells me

- petrol is about 12 kWh/kg,

- the modern fiat 500 has a 47l gas tank,

- Tesla sells cars with 50kwh batteries.

Yet, that Fiat doesn’t have ten times the rang of the larger Tesla.

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Energy consumption is an indicator of living standards. I hope we harness and use much more reliable energy!

Energy consumption is a bad indicator of living standards. Everything that defines my living standard has become much more energy efficient during my lifetime. I have for example more light in my house than I used to and consume about 20% of the energy I used to. My induction stove uses a lot less energy than the wood fired stove my grandma had at her house. My current computer uses about a tenth of the electricity of my computer twenty years ago and does much more. An electric car uses about a third of the energy of a gas car. A heat pump uses about a fourth of the energy of a fossil furnace.

Induction stove. Electric car. Heat pump. Those are indicators of being born in privilege. What about your AC in car and hotel and home?

USA setting off nukes and Britain fire bombing Dresden are examples of energy use which is wasteful and polluting. There are always exceptions to one broad indicator, in this example energy usage.

Technology improvement typically brings more efficient use of resources and less pollution. Energy consumption, as one indicator, tracks with increased GDP and increased standard of living.

Many advanced economies have decoupled energy use from economic growth.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy-gdp-decoupling

USA, and some western Europe, exported dirty manufacturing energy use and pollution outside the borders. Any nation rich or strong enough to export pollution of manufacturing will tend to show the numbers you highlight.

I recommend you read the short linked article before making strong statements.

> It would be wrong to assume that rich countries have only achieved this by offshoring manufacturing overseas – which would simply mean that other countries are consuming this energy on their behalf. Consumption-based energy use – which adjusts for the energy used to produce the goods we import and export – has also plateaued or fallen in many countries. We see this clearly in the chart for Sweden.

My point is that maximizing energy demand in no way leads to improved living conditions.

Can we agree that energy released and used in war fighting is wasteful? In the general view of war fighting "over there". Britain did not improve the living conditions of those in Dresden.

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