ABSTRACT
Even after the price increases in the last few years, energy remains extremely cheap. Petrol may cost nearly a pound a litre, and electricity may reach 10 pence a kilowatt hour (kWh) in some parts of the UK; but even at these prices fossil fuels are astonishingly good value for money. A strong human male, working at peak efficiency, can sustain an energy output of about 0.8kW for a few hours a day. To employ this muscular individual as a labourer at the minimum wage costs something over £5 an hour. Even when working at his best, and without adding any ancillary costs, this man's work is at least 60 times as expensive as electricity and 200 times the price of gas or petrol. This is the root of all our problems. Fossil fuel energy is so cheap and so convenient that its use permeates every aspect of our lives. And as more and more of the world's people move into the market economy, they will want to replace their labour with petrol or electricity.
