Implications of trends in net energy return of energy sources for climate and society: revisiting H.T. and Elisabeth Odum’s “a prosperous way down”

A Prosperous Way Down, a book by H.T. and Elisabeth Odum, was published nearly 25 years ago. It contained important predictions for the future of energy use and society. This work revisits some of those predictions and the global trends and scientific principles that were presented supporting them. While the guidance and fundamental theory underlying the book of system self-organization for maximum (em)power are just as relevant today as when the book was published, there are significant developments not foreseen, such as the rapid technological improvements in solar and battery storage and the rise of hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels. While Odum’s foreseen global pathway of peak energy with a steep decline in energy use and related social elements such as the human population have not yet occurred, it remains plausible. The present work theorizes that a more likely future will be characterized by slow growth or steady state in global energy use/economies, compared to the steep descent or crash predicted in A Prosperous Way Down. This conclusion is made based on the observed and expected declining trend in energy return on investment for the global energy base, driven by declining quality of fossil fuel and shifting to renewable energy sources, that have improved in energy return, but have not and are not likely to achieve the historical rate of return observed in fossil fuels during the period of explosive global growth in energy use over the past 150 years.