Olduvai Theory - Details of Theory

Details of Theory

Industrial civilization is defined in Duncan's paper as the time between energy production per capita rising above 37% of its eventual peak value, and it falling back below 37% of the peak value later. In 1996 he estimated this period to be from 1930 until approximately 2025, with the per capita peak having occurred in 1977. In 2009, he considered separately the peaks of standard of living in OECD countries, non-OECD countries (specifically China, India and Brazil), and the USA. He found that the standard of living in the US peaked in 1973, that of OECD countries in 2005, while that of the non-OECD countries was still rising in 2007. He predicted a global peak in standard of living 2010, followed by a decline to the 1930 level by 2030.

The Olduvai theory claims that exponential growth of energy production ended in 1979, that energy use per capita will show no growth through 2008, and that after 2008 energy growth will become sharply negative, culminating, after a Malthusian catastrophe, in a world population of 2 billion circa 2050.

The Olduvai theory divides human history into three phases. The first "pre-industrial" phase stretches over most of human history when simple tools and weak machines limited economic growth. The second "industrial" phase encompasses modern industrial civilization where machines temporarily lift all limits to growth. The final "de-industrial" phase follows where industrial economies decline to a period of equilibrium with renewable resources and the natural environment.

The decline of the industrial phase is broken into three sections:

• The Olduvai slope (1979–1999) - energy per capita 'declined at 0.33%/year'
• The Olduvai slide (2000–2011) - 'begins ... with the escalating warfare in the Middle East... marks the all-time peak of world oil production'.
• The Olduvai cliff (2012–2030) - 'begins ... in 2012 when an epidemic of permanent blackouts spreads worldwide, i.e. first there are waves of brownouts and temporary blackouts, then finally the electric power networks themselves expire'. This is partly connected to fossil fuel production, as coal and natural gas are significant fuel sources in electricity generation, but it is unclear how nuclear power generation fails, if at all.