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FROM TECHNOCRACY TO NET ENERGY ANALYSIS: ENGINEERS, ECONOMISTS AND RECURRING ENERGY THEORIES OF VALUE
This 51 page research paper is attached as a PDF
"Pragmatically, a way to begin would be to set up a capability in government to budget according to flows of energy rather than money. Energy is the all-pervasive underlying currency of our society."
In 1974 the Congress of the United States passed Public Law 93.577, the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act, in which it was stipulated that all prospective energy supply technologies considered for commercial application must be assessed and evaluated in terms of their "potential for production of net energy"2 – energy output minus the energy costs of producing that output. This is a rather interesting piece of legislation, for in effect it states that engineering-based net energy analysis should provide the criterion for evaluation of prospective commercial energy supply technologies, rather than conventional economic cost-benefit analysis, even when the latter is adjusted for externalities and market imperfections.