What Happened to the Future?

[gregb777]

@olenzekm

Your First question:
This is easily answered. It's your time frame. If one goes back to 1990 that was before Pres. Clinton made the biggest economically treasonous act in US history by granting Permanent Normal Trading Realtions to China. 
So, part of your time frame includes the huge increase in energy by an industrializing China. I only hope that your post was not intended to deceive us.

 
Your answer to my question is actually not correct.  I did some more research on the data, and actually global energy use per capita has been increasing just about every year since 1980 (except for recession years like 2008-2009.)   In 1980 world energy usage per capita was 63.6 million BTU per person; in 2010 it was 74.4 .  You can look at the data yourself here, at EIA.GOV:
 
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=44&pid=45&aid=2&cid=regions&syid=1980&eyid=2011&unit=MBTUPP
As mentioned, in the US this has actually been dropping, but globally is has been RISING. 
I don't know what you mean by my post being "intended to deceive us."    Confused about that one.
 

[gregb777]

@cmartenson

There are lots of places where we are getting less per capita and the data is quite easy to come by.   
Some examples include:
Arable farmland.  First, the amount of arable land is fixed and second it's being steadily degraded/lost over time.
Oceanic fish stocks and resultant harvests.
Potable water, especially in water poor regions.
Net energy from crude plus condensate (traditional oil) as new, lower net energy forms of it replace prior stocks and flows and as population growth exceeds new oil production (since 2005).
In short, anything that is not expanding by the rate of population growth (~1.2%/yr) is declining on a per capita basis, and that's a lot of things.
Even with something like coal where there's a whole lot left, and we are mining more each year, we find that the grades of coal are declining and/or the new deposits are deeper and/or thinner, requiring us to put more effort into procuring each new additional unit of energy.  
This means that up until about 1970 -1980, somewhere in there, humans always had more and better stuff to use which provided a great tailwind.  Since then we've been 'nosing over' and that tailwind is in the process of quartering about to become a headwind. 

I can't argue with Chris on any of this very much. 
However, my question was SPECIFICALLY about per capita energy use ONLY.   The data I've read does not correlate with what Gregor stated, that per capita energy use is FALLING.
Where is the data that shows that?  What I found actually shows the opposite.
See this link:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=44&pid=45&aid=2&cid=regions&syid=1980&eyid=2011&unit=MBTUPP
 
(I do have a quibble with the arable farmland point.  While obviously if we don't increase the net number of acres we farm and yet population increases, then acres farmed per capita declines.  However, we have been increasing farmland YIELDS for decades.  See the following graph.  In 1980 we were producing about 100 bushels of corn per acre in the US; in 2010 we produced 165, a 65% increase in 30 years.   US population has not increased by 65% in the same time period, so, actually, we are now producing more corn per person in the US than we were 30 years ago, by a wide margin. 
 
http://www.agweb.com/assets/import/images/Farmland%20Forecast%20-%20USDA%20NASS%20US%20Corn%20Yield%20Per%20year%201979%20to%202009%20wasde%20report%20164_9%20bhushels%20per%20acre.gif

[gregb777]

My conclusion after reading Gregor's article again is that his main point is in this sentence he wrote:  "The NET energy available to society is in decline."   The data I found is, perhaps, presented as a different thing.  While total energy used per capita is actually INCREASING, this does not present NET energy used per capita AFTER accounting for the energy you used to get the rest of the energy.
 

In short, EROEI is declining even while TOTAL energy per capita is increasing.

I'm not actually SURE this is what Gregor meant, but it's my best guess.