There is a pattern in the history of human civilization that becomes impossible to unsee once you notice it

Every era of flourishing, every golden age, every period of sustained innovation and expanding prosperity, coincides with access to more energy per person than the era before it. Every collapse, every dark age, every period of stagnation and contraction, coincides with declining energy access, whether through resource depletion, infrastructure failure, or disrupted supply chains.

The Roman Empire at its peak organized vast quantities of energy: forests across the Mediterranean basin, grain from North Africa, water moved through hundreds of kilometers of aqueducts by the energy of elevation and flow. Roman cities of half a million people required energy systems of extraordinary complexity to feed, heat, and supply. When those energy systems, the forests, the distant farmlands, the aqueduct infrastructure, began to fail, the civilization contracted toward what could be sustained on local energy budgets. What we call the fall of Rome is, in significant part, an energy accounting story.

The Dark Ages weren’t intellectually dark because Europeans suddenly became less intelligent. They were materially constrained because the complex energy systems that had supported Roman urban life had degraded. Population concentrated in areas with enough remaining forest for fuel and enough local agriculture for food. The scale of organization that requires surplus energy, large cities, long-distance trade, monumental architecture, specialized scholarship, became impossible to sustain.

The Renaissance and the centuries that followed it were powered by incremental energy gains: better water wheels, more efficient wind mills, improved agricultural techniques that increased food energy per hectare. More energy per person meant more people could specialize, could create, could build things that outlasted a single lifetime.

Then the industrial revolution accessed the deep storage of ancient sunlight in coal, and everything changed.

The scale of what happened between 1750 and 1900 is genuinely difficult to comprehend from inside the world it created.

Before coal-powered steam, the energy available to a craftsman was limited to his own body, perhaps an animal, perhaps a water wheel if he was fortunate enough to be near a suitable stream. A skilled blacksmith working at maximum sustained effort might produce the equivalent of a fraction of a kilowatt of useful mechanical output, about the same as a large dog.

A steam engine of 1820 produced perhaps 20 kilowatts of continuous mechanical power. By 1870, large industrial engines produced hundreds of kilowatts. By 1900, the most powerful steam turbines approached megawatt scales.

One person tending such a machine now directed more useful energy than a hundred, then a thousand, then ten thousand human laborers. The multiplication of human capability through energy access is what we call industrialization. The prosperity it enabled, the cities, the medicine, the education, the reduction of grinding physical labor, was energy prosperity translated into human terms.

This is the pattern: gain access to more energy, and civilization expands. Lose access to energy, and civilization contracts. Not always immediately, not always visibly, but reliably and eventually. Energy is the carrying capacity of civilization, the way water is the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. You can temporarily exceed it through stored reserves, but the reckoning comes.

We are living through the most important energy transition in human history, and we’re navigating it with monetary instruments that cannot see what’s happening clearly.

The transition is this: we are shifting from ancient sunlight, fossil fuels accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, to current sunlight, captured in real time by solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable technologies. This isn’t primarily a political or environmental story, though it is those things too. It’s fundamentally an energy economics story.

Fossil fuels have been extraordinarily useful precisely because they are concentrated ancient solar energy. Millions of years of accumulation, available to burn in decades. But they are finite. We are drawing down a geological savings account that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate, at a rate that will exhaust it within centuries. In energy terms, we are spending principal, not income.

Renewable energy is income. The sun delivers 173,000 terawatts to Earth continuously. Humanity currently uses approximately 18 terawatts in total — roughly 0.01% of daily solar input. Even if human energy use grew a hundredfold, we would still be tapping less than 1% of the daily solar budget. The resource isn’t finite. It renews every morning.

The economics of this transition, viewed in energy terms, are clearer than monetary measures make them appear.

A solar panel requires approximately 1,000 kilowatt-hours of energy to manufacture to produce the silicon, fabricate the cells, frame and install the panel. Over its 25-to-30 year operational life, a typical panel generates approximately 30,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The energy payback period is roughly two to four years. For the remaining 20-plus years, the panel generates energy at essentially zero marginal energy cost.

Coal-fired electricity, by contrast, requires continuous energy input. Extracting coal from mines, processing it, transporting it, burning it, each kilowatt-hour of electrical output requires approximately 0.3-0.4 kilowatt-hours of energy investment in fuel extraction and processing, plus the amortized energy cost of the plant itself. There is no point at which the fuel cost drops to zero. The extraction continues as long as the plant operates.

In energy terms, the transition to renewables isn’t just environmentally preferable. It’s economically inevitable. You are replacing a system with high and perpetual fuel costs with a system with high upfront costs and near-zero ongoing costs. Once the upfront energy investment is recovered, which happens within a few years, renewable energy is genuinely free in energy terms.

Monetary markets are discovering this, slowly, through falling costs and rising deployment. But monetary measures obscure the underlying energy reality behind interest rates, subsidy structures, currency fluctuations, and capital availability. An energy-based economic system would make the transition obvious, immediate, and self-accelerating, because the energy math is unambiguous.

Here is what the Priced Watt economy does to this picture.

In a monetary economy, the transition to renewable energy depends on: government subsidies (political, reversible, varying by country), interest rates (which affect the financing of high-upfront-cost infrastructure), oil and gas prices (which fluctuate wildly and affect the competitive position of renewables), and currency values (which affect the cost of imported equipment in developing countries; the Cairo baker problem, applied to solar panels).

In an energy economy, the transition depends on one thing: does building a renewable energy system return more energy than it costs to build? If yes, and for modern solar and wind, the answer is unambiguously yes, the transition makes sense everywhere, for everyone, regardless of currency, regardless of monetary policy, regardless of which government is in power.

The innovation cycle accelerates. Every improvement in solar panel efficiency reduces the energy cost of manufacturing relative to the energy generated. Every improvement in battery storage technology increases the value of renewable energy by making it available when the sun isn’t shining. Every efficiency gain in transmission reduces energy lost between generation and use.

Each improvement can be evaluated directly, in energy terms, and adopted wherever the energy math makes sense — which means everywhere simultaneously rather than in wealthy countries first and developing countries decades later.

The Priced Watt doesn’t just change how we measure value. It aligns economic incentives with physical reality. Waste becomes immediately expensive. Efficiency becomes immediately profitable. The incentives finally point in the same direction as what’s actually good for human civilization and the planetary systems that support it.

I want to return, at the end of this series, to where it began.

A tent in the desert north of Saudi Arabia. Stars filling every inch of sky. A podcast playing through car speakers on a supply run back to camp. A thought arriving complete, uninvited, undeniable:

Energy is the price.

What I saw on that desert road wasn’t a new idea. It was a very old truth that the accumulated layers of monetary abstraction had buried. The farmers who traded grain knew that their grain represented captured sunlight. The metallurgists who first coined gold understood that its value came from the effort, the energy, required to extract it. The industrial engineers who built the first great factories knew they were harnessing ancient stored sunlight in coal.

Somewhere along the way, as the abstractions multiplied, from commodity money to metal coins to paper backed by gold to fiat currency to derivatives on derivatives, we lost the thread. We started treating the map as if it were the territory. We started measuring monetary transactions and calling them prosperity. We started printing currency and calling it wealth.

The energy was always there underneath. The laws of thermodynamics never changed. The sun kept delivering 173,000 terawatts every day. The wheat kept capturing it. The coal kept storing it. The factories kept transforming it. The prices kept, in their confused and distorted way, trying to point at it.

We just stopped looking at what the prices were pointing at.

The Priced Watt is not utopia. Implementing it would be profoundly disruptive. Every monetary revolution in history was disruptive, the adoption of metal coinage, the invention of paper money, the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971. Disruption at the scale of changing how value is measured is real, and it deserves serious engagement rather than dismissal.

But here is the question that matters: is the current system sustainable?

Inflation steadily eroding savings. Debt spiraling at every level, personal, corporate, governmental, because when money can be printed, the incentive to borrow is essentially unlimited. Inequality compounding because those closest to the monetary creation mechanism capture its benefits while everyone else pays its costs. Environmental destruction remaining profitable because the energy cost of waste isn’t honestly priced. Geopolitical tension rising because currency reserve status gives some nations structural advantages over others that have nothing to do with productive capacity or human ingenuity.

These are not separate problems. They are symptoms of a single underlying condition: an economic system whose measuring instrument has become decoupled from physical reality.

The Priced Watt is not a guarantee of better outcomes. But it is a foundation built on something that cannot be manipulated, cannot be printed, cannot be inflated, cannot be sanctioned, and cannot be decreed into meaninglessness.

Physics. Thermodynamics. The one kilowatt-hour that equals itself everywhere, always, without exception.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve seen the vase become two faces.

You’ve seen that prices lie but energy tells the truth. That money is fiction but thermodynamics is not. That GDP measures transactions while energy consumption measures productive reality. That no country has ever achieved human flourishing without energy access, and none ever will. That every product you’ve ever bought is frozen sunlight, and every transaction you’ve ever made was, at its foundation, an exchange of transformed solar energy.

You can’t unsee it now. The three bakeries, Manhattan, Cairo, Riyadh, selling the same kilowatt-hour of transformation at prices that differ by a factor of a thousand, the difference made entirely of monetary fiction.

The Egyptian baker who knows exactly what to do and cannot do it because the currency is wrong.

The civilization you live in, built on exactly the same foundation as every civilization before it: access to more energy per person than the previous arrangement permitted.

You won’t be able to go back to seeing just the vase.

The question now isn’t whether energy is the true foundation of economic value. The evidence is overwhelming, the logic is airtight, the data confirms it at every scale.

The question is what we choose to build on that foundation.

And that is a question worth every moment of thought you give it.

Stand outside on a clear day and feel the warmth on your face

That warmth is 173,000 terawatts of power arriving continuously from a nuclear fusion reactor 150 million kilometers away. Every second of every day, the sun floods our planet with more energy than human civilization has used in its entire history. Most of it reflects back into space or warms the oceans. A tiny fraction, about 0.02%, gets captured by plants through photosynthesis.

And that tiny fraction built everything you see around you.

Your breakfast this morning: sunlight. The device you’re reading this on: sunlight. The clothes you’re wearing, the chair you’re sitting in, the building around you: sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. Your own body, the thoughts in your head, your ability to read these words: sunlight, transformed and stored and released through countless steps across billions of years.

Every economic transaction, every human achievement, every bit of wealth ever created is just moving sunlight from one form to another.

This is not poetry. This is physics. And understanding it changes how you see every price, every product, and every claim about economic value.

Let’s trace the path from fusion reactor to your breakfast table, because the chain is more literal than most people realize.

Deep in the sun’s core, hydrogen atoms fuse into helium under unimaginable pressure. This fusion releases energy. Photons carry that energy outward, taking thousands of years to work their way from the core to the surface, then just eight minutes to cross space and reach Earth.

When that light hits a green plant, something remarkable happens. Through photosynthesis, the plant captures photons of sunlight and uses that energy to split water molecules, pulling carbon from CO₂ in the air, reassembling these atoms into sugars, starches, and cellulose. Light energy becomes chemical energy, stored in molecular bonds.

A wheat plant grows in a field, capturing sunlight through the season. By harvest, each kilogram of wheat seeds has stored approximately 3.8 kilowatt-hours of solar energy in those bonds. When you grind the wheat into flour and bake it into bread, you’re releasing that stored energy, converting it to heat, to the mechanical energy of your digestion, ultimately to the energy that powers your body and brain through the day.

You are, quite literally, running on this morning’s transformation of ancient sunlight.

Animals eat plants, transforming that stored chemical energy into the energy they need to move, grow, and live. A cow grazes through summer, converting solar energy stored in grass into chemical energy stored in muscle and fat. The cow becomes a mobile battery, concentrating energy from many kilograms of grass into a more compact form. When you eat beef, you’re eating stored sunlight, transformed through an additional conversion step, but sunlight nonetheless.

Humans added something no other species has done at scale: we learned to harness energy beyond our own bodies.

The most consequential discovery in this chain was fossil fuels, and understanding what they actually are changes everything about how you think about the modern economy.

Coal, oil, and natural gas are not mysterious resources from the earth. They are sunlight from the deep past, stored in chemical bonds.

During the Carboniferous period, roughly 300 million years ago, massive forests covered continents. Trees grew, fell, and were buried before they could decompose, under conditions that prevented the normal carbon cycle from returning their stored energy to the atmosphere. Over millions of years, heat and pressure transformed that buried plant matter, that ancient stored sunlight, into coal. Each ton of coal represents thousands of tons of ancient forest, each tree of which captured years of solar energy.

Oil and natural gas formed differently but from the same origin. Tiny marine organisms, algae, plankton, photosynthesized in ancient oceans, capturing sunlight, dying, sinking, accumulating in seafloor sediment. Heat and pressure over geological time transformed their remains into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons.

When you burn gasoline in a car, you are releasing sunlight from the Cretaceous period, energy captured by marine organisms approximately 100 million years ago, stored perfectly for longer than multicellular life has existed in its current forms, and now released in your engine to move you forward.

This is why fossil fuels are so extraordinarily energy-dense. They are millions of years of accumulated solar energy, compressed into concentrated form. A single liter of gasoline contains about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy. To generate that much energy from today’s sunlight using typical solar panels, you’d need roughly 10 square meters of panels operating in full sun for an entire day.

Fossil fuels are not fundamentally different from renewable energy. They are simply very old renewable energy, ancient solar, stored in chemical form across geological time.

Your smartphone illustrates the full chain with startling clarity.

The aluminum frame started as bauxite ore, mined from the earth and refined using massive quantities of electricity, much of it generated from coal in countries where aluminum smelting is concentrated. That electricity released ancient sunlight captured hundreds of millions of years ago.

The glass screen began as silicon dioxide, sand, heated to approximately 1,700 degrees Celsius using natural gas or electricity. Ancient sunlight providing the heat to transform sand into transparency.

The lithium battery contains lithium extracted from brine pools or hard rock deposits, processed using energy-intensive chemical techniques. The cobalt comes primarily from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, many powered by diesel generators burning ancient sunlight.

The rare earth elements in the phone’s electronics, neodymium, dysprosium, dozens of others, were extracted, chemically separated, and refined in processes requiring enormous energy inputs. The microchips were fabricated in cleanrooms maintained at precise temperatures and humidity by energy-intensive systems, manufactured using equipment that itself required enormous energy to produce.

The plastic components are derived from petroleum, ancient marine organisms, their stored solar energy transformed by geological time into liquid hydrocarbons, extracted, refined, and polymerized into the shapes that house your electronics.

Every component was assembled in factories running on electricity. Every component was shipped on vessels burning bunker fuel, crude oil barely refined from its raw extracted state, ancient sunlight in nearly undiluted form. Every component was transported to assembly and then to distribution centers and then to retail and then to you, each step burning fuel, each fuel trace of ancient solar energy.

All of it, in every step, the same fundamental thing: sunlight captured at various points in Earth’s history, transformed through countless intermediate steps, released to produce a device that fits in your pocket.

Here’s what makes this more than a fascinating origin story: sunlight is the only new energy Earth continuously receives.

Nuclear power splits atoms formed in stellar explosions billions of years before Earth existed, ancient energy released on human timescales. Geothermal energy draws on radioactive decay in Earth’s core, also from ancient stellar processes. Tidal power captures the angular momentum of the solar system’s formation.

But 99.9% of the energy human civilization uses traces back to our sun. And 100% of biological energy, all food, all ecosystems, all organic materials, comes from current or stored sunlight. The economy isn’t built on money. It isn’t built on gold or oil or any specific resource. It is built on the continuous transformation of solar energy into ordered, useful forms.

This is why pricing in energy is not arbitrary. It’s not a clever metaphor or a useful approximation. It’s recognition of what production actually is: a chain of energy transformations, from sunlight to useful work, with every step in the chain consuming energy and every product representing frozen energy in organized form.

Money obscures this. Money makes it look as if value appears from nowhere, from clever financial engineering, from market sentiment, from the printing press. But peel back any product, any service, any economic activity, and you find energy every time. The sunlight was captured. The energy was transformed. The product is frozen transformation.

Every civilization in human history that advanced, advanced because it gained access to more energy.

Hunter-gatherers could harness only the energy their own bodies captured from food, about 2.3 kilowatt-hours per person per day. Life was uncertain, population stayed low, everything was constrained by how much energy could be gathered from the immediate environment.

The agricultural revolution didn’t change the fundamental energy source. Sunlight still powered everything, through plants, through animals, through wood for fire. But it made the capture far more efficient and predictable. Farming a fixed plot of land could support 50-100 people per square kilometer. Hunter-gathering the same area might support one or two. More energy captured per unit of land meant more people could survive, settle, specialize.

Then the industrial revolution accessed ancient sunlight stored in coal. Steam engines could direct the energy equivalent of hundreds of human workers. One person operating a steam engine controlled more useful energy than a small army of laborers. Energy per person in industrializing nations jumped to 20-30 kilowatt-hours per day. Life expectancy increased. Child mortality fell. Education spread. Leisure time appeared. Not because anyone decreed it. Because more energy per person enabled it.

Today, an average American uses approximately 211 kilowatt-hours per day when all energy use is counted, heating, cooling, transportation, food production, manufacturing, infrastructure, everything. That’s roughly 100 times more energy per person than a hunter-gatherer. And quality of life is dramatically better by almost every measurable dimension: health, longevity, education, freedom from physical drudgery, access to information and experience.

This is not coincidence. It is causation. More energy enables better life. The correlation between energy access and human development isn’t statistical noise, it’s the mechanistic reality of what energy does. It is the prerequisite for everything that makes modern life modern.

If this is true, and the physics and the data both confirm that it is, then an economy priced in energy isn’t just a clever alternative to money. It’s an economy built on the actual substance of value, rather than symbols of symbols pointing at that substance from a growing distance.

Karl Marx was not a stupid man

When he developed his labor theory of value in the mid-1800s, he was trying to solve the same problem I’d been wrestling with for a decade: what is the real cost of making something? Strip away the monetary price, the market fluctuations, the speculation and manipulation, what’s actually underneath?

His answer was time. Specifically, the amount of human labor time required to produce something. A coat that took twice as long to make as a pair of boots was worth twice as much. Value was stored labor. Labor was measured in time. Time was universal.

It was a serious attempt at a serious problem. And it failed, not because Marx was wrong to look for a physical foundation beneath monetary prices, but because he chose the wrong physical foundation.

Understanding exactly why time fails is what makes the alternative, energy, so compelling. Because energy passes every test that time fails, and it does so not by accident but because of something fundamental about what energy actually is.

Let’s run the thought experiment properly.

Imagine we’re trying to price a loaf of bread using time as our universal unit of value. The baker works for three hours and produces 100 loaves. Simple enough: each loaf required 0.03 hours of baker time, roughly two minutes. We’ve assigned a time cost.

But immediately, complications arise.

The oven ran for six hours while the baker made those 100 loaves. Do we count oven time? The oven wasn’t sitting idle, it was doing work in parallel with the baker. If we add the oven’s six hours to the baker’s three hours, we get nine hours for 100 loaves, or 0.09 hours per loaf. But the oven and baker were working simultaneously, not sequentially. Did the bread really cost nine hours? Or three? Neither answer is clearly right.

It gets worse. The wheat required a farmer to work approximately 200 hours across six months, planting, tending, harvesting, threshing. How do we allocate that time across the bread it eventually becomes? Divide 200 hours by all the loaves made from that harvest? But the farmer was working on the wheat while the baker was baking completely different wheat from a previous harvest. Their activities weren’t connected in time at all. They happened months apart, in different places, by different people.

The truck driver who spent one hour delivering flour from the mill to the bakery also contributed time. That hour is real. But it happened simultaneously with the farmer growing wheat somewhere else, and the equipment manufacturer somewhere else again, and the flour miller in between.

Time is sequential for each individual but economic activity is massively parallel across individuals. You cannot simply sum up time when different people are working simultaneously on different stages of the same eventual product.

Marx tried to solve this with what he called “socially necessary labor time”, not the actual time any specific worker took, but the average time a reasonably efficient worker would require. This eliminated the inefficiency problem (a slow baker doesn’t make more valuable bread just by taking longer) but left the parallelism problem entirely unsolved. How do you add up the socially necessary labor time of the farmer, the miller, the driver, and the baker when all four are working simultaneously in different places?

You can’t. Not without arbitrary assumptions about how to allocate parallel activities, and every arbitrary assumption introduces distortion.

There’s a deeper problem too. Capital equipment, the oven, the mill, the tractor, took time to design and manufacture. That time is real. Someone spent months designing the oven, weeks fabricating it. Do we amortize that design and manufacturing time across every loaf ever baked in it? Over what period? A decade? The oven’s entire operational life? And what about the time to manufacture the tools used to build the oven?

The regress never bottoms out. Every time allocation points to another time allocation upstream, and there’s no principled way to decide when to stop counting.

Time, as a universal measure of economic cost, has four fundamental failures:

First, parallel processes can’t be linearly summed, baker and oven work simultaneously, but their time can’t be simply added. Second, different agents work simultaneously, farmer, miller, driver, and baker all contribute time concurrently, making total time calculation arbitrary. Third, efficiency isn’t captured honestly, slower work isn’t more valuable work, but summing actual time penalizes efficiency. Fourth, capital allocation is irreducibly arbitrary, there’s no principled way to amortize the time cost of tools and equipment across the products they help make.

Marx patched some of these problems. He couldn’t patch all of them. The theory eventually collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

But there’s something deeper here that Marx didn’t fully grapple with, and that I didn’t appreciate until I’d spent enough time thinking about it:

Time itself is a human construct.

Not in a mystical sense, seconds and minutes exist. But how we divide and measure time is entirely arbitrary. The 24-hour day exists because ancient Egyptians liked the number 12 and divided day and night into 12 parts each. We could have chosen 10 hours, or 20, or 100. The second is defined as “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom”, an extraordinarily precise definition that is nonetheless a completely arbitrary human choice of what phenomenon to count.

This should sound familiar. Money is also a human construct. We invented currencies. We decided a dollar or a riyal or a yuan would be the unit. The unit is arbitrary, defined by human agreement, changeable by human decision.

Both time and money are useful fictions. Both help organize economic activity. Both work as long as everyone agrees they work. But neither is grounded in physical reality the way energy is.

You cannot change the laws of thermodynamics by agreement. You cannot vote to make a kilowatt-hour mean something different next year. You cannot redefine the joule through monetary policy. Energy is what it is, independent of human opinion, human convention, and human institutions.

This is the fundamental reason time fails as a universal economic measure, and money fails for the same reason. Both are social constructs. Energy is bedrock reality.

Now run the same thought experiment with energy, and watch what happens.

The baker expends approximately 0.01 kilowatt-hours of energy per loaf, his caloric expenditure while working, about 2.3 kilowatt-hours per day divided across 200 loaves. This is measurable, objective, and consistent across bakers anywhere in the world running on the same biological fuel.

The oven burns approximately 0.3 kilowatt-hours of natural gas or electricity per loaf. Measurable. Objective. Doesn’t matter that it runs in parallel with the baker, we simply add the energy inputs. No parallelism problem. 0.01 + 0.3 = 0.31 kilowatt-hours so far.

The wheat required energy to grow: sunlight captured through photosynthesis (calculable as solar energy equivalent), diesel for the tractor (measurable), energy to produce fertilizer (measurable). Approximately 0.4 kilowatt-hours allocated to the wheat in one loaf. The truck used diesel to transport flour, approximately 0.15 kilowatt-hours per loaf. Milling required electricity, approximately 0.1 kilowatt-hours per loaf.

Total: 0.31 + 0.4 + 0.15 + 0.1 = approximately 1.0 kilowatt-hours per loaf.

All four failures of time-based measurement dissolve immediately:

Parallel processes sum correctly: it doesn’t matter whether activities happened simultaneously or sequentially. Energy inputs are simply added regardless of when they occurred or who performed them. Energy is objective: a kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour regardless of who used it, where, or when. Efficiency is captured naturally: a baker with a modern efficient oven uses 0.8 kilowatt-hours per loaf; a baker with an old inefficient oven uses 1.2. The cost correctly reflects actual resource consumption. Capital amortization is principled: the energy used to manufacture the oven gets divided across its operational life and allocated per loaf. No arbitrary assumptions required; just energy accounting.

An efficient baker can charge less, gain market share, and be rewarded for efficiency. An inefficient baker faces higher costs and must improve or lose customers. The incentives align with reality.

Why does energy succeed where time fails?

Because energy is not just correlated with production. Energy is production.

Every manufacturing process is an energy transformation. Making bread transforms chemical energy in natural gas into heat energy in the oven. It transforms solar energy captured by wheat into chemical energy in flour into mechanical energy of mixing into heat energy of baking. It transforms chemical energy in diesel into kinetic energy of trucks. It transforms chemical energy in food into mechanical energy of human work.

Every single step is an energy transformation. Remove the energy and the transformation doesn’t happen. The bread doesn’t get made. The product doesn’t exist.

Time is a constraint on these processes, they take time, they can’t be done instantaneously. But time is not the substance of what happens. You can’t make bread faster by adding more time. You make bread by adding more energy.

Money is a representation of value, an accounting system layered on top of production. But money is not the value itself. A bread manufacturer who loses access to money but retains access to energy can still make bread. A bread manufacturer who loses access to energy but retains access to money cannot.

Energy is the substance. Everything else is accounting.

Once I understood why time failed, I understood why energy had to be the answer.

Not because energy is a convenient alternative. Not because it’s a novel idea worth trying. But because economic activity, traced back to its physical foundation, is energy transformation. Every product is frozen energy. Every service requires energy to perform. Every human capability depends on energy to sustain.

The Priced Watt, pricing everything in kilowatt-hours, isn’t creating a new abstraction. It’s removing layers of abstraction to expose what was always there underneath.

Marx was right that there had to be something real beneath monetary prices. He was right that the answer had to be physical, not just social. He chose time because it seemed universal. It isn’t, it’s another human construct.

Energy is what he was looking for.

And once you see that energy is the foundation of all economic value, you start to see something remarkable: every product you’ve ever bought, every meal you’ve ever eaten, every building you’ve ever entered, all of it is the same thing, transformed.

The question first formed properly in 2015

I was standing in a manufacturing hangar in Riyadh, in the brutal heart of summer. Industrial air conditioning was fighting the 45-degree heat outside, filling the space with constant mechanical noise. My colleagues and I were arguing about something that seemed like it should have an obvious answer: why couldn’t we calculate the real cost of producing something in a way that worked universally, across countries, currencies, contexts?

Why did the same product cost wildly different amounts in different places? Why couldn’t we just know what things actually cost to make?

“Exchange rates,” someone said. “Labor markets,” said another. “Regulations. Taxes. Supply chains.”

All true. All unsatisfying. Every answer explained the price difference without explaining what the price was actually measuring underneath. We were describing the surface without finding the floor.

I didn’t solve it that day. The question just filed itself away and started following me.

I’d become an engineer partly by accident. When I started university in 2007, electrical engineering promised solid job prospects. What I actually wanted, I couldn’t quite articulate it, was to understand how the world worked. Not just the technical parts. The systems underneath. The invisible architecture that determined why things cost what they cost, why some places were rich and others weren’t, why identical effort produced such different outcomes in different places.

Engineering gave me tools for understanding physical systems. It didn’t give me a framework for understanding economic ones.

When the engineering jobs didn’t materialize as expected, I did what seemed logical: I studied finance. If I couldn’t understand how things were built, perhaps I could understand how they were valued. From 2015 to 2017, I immersed myself in capital markets, derivatives, risk management, and portfolio theory. I learned the mathematics of option pricing, the theory of efficient markets, the mechanics of discounting future cash flows.

I learned a great deal about moving money around. What I didn’t learn was what money actually represented.

Every financial model I studied began with monetary inputs and produced monetary outputs. Cash flows, interest rates, exchange rates, inflation assumptions. The dollar, the riyal, the euro, treated as fundamental units, the way a physicist treats the meter or the second. But they’re not fundamental. They change value constantly. They’re social agreements, not laws of nature.

Finance couldn’t answer my question. It just pushed it one level deeper.

After my master’s, I turned in a different direction entirely: systems thinking.

I studied architecture, not to practice it professionally, but because architecture forced me to think about how physical things were organized and why. How the placement of a wall, the orientation of a building, the relationship between spaces affected the energy flows through a structure. What worked and what fought against its own environment.

This led me to permaculture, the discipline of designing sustainable systems that work with nature rather than against it. Permaculture taught me to see everything as energy flows. A good design routes water downhill, using gravity rather than fighting it. It places elements that produce heat near elements that need heat. It cycles nutrients, energy stored in organic matter, from one part of the system to another, so nothing is wasted and everything feeds something else.

The best permaculture systems are elegant because they align with physical reality. You cannot cheat thermodynamics. You cannot print more sunlight. You work within the constraints and possibilities of actual energy flows, and when you do, systems sustain themselves with minimal external input.

I started a company focused on analytics, finding hidden patterns in data, identifying where value was being created or destroyed in ways that weren’t visible on the surface. The work reinforced what permaculture had started to teach me: underneath every number, there’s a real phenomenon being measured. Good analysis means understanding what you’re actually measuring, not just manipulating the data.

But I still hadn’t found the answer. I had better tools. Better frameworks. A clearer sense that I was looking for something physical and fundamental, not another layer of abstraction. But the specific answer, the universal measure I’d been circling for a decade, hadn’t arrived.

In 2021, I made a decision that felt impulsive at the time but turned out to be necessary.

COVID had turned the world inside out. The noise of modern life, the constant connectivity, the manufactured urgency, the comfortable illusion that screens and schedules constituted reality, had become overwhelming. I needed to strip things back. To see what remained when the abstractions were removed.

I drove north from Riyadh and set up a tent in the desert near Hai’l. Winter in the Saudi desert is cold at night and clear in a way that cities never are. I planned to stay for a month. I stayed longer.

The desert is a rigorous teacher. It doesn’t explain things, it just removes the layers that normally prevent you from seeing them.

In the city, the energy behind modern life is invisible. You flip a switch and light appears; you never think about the power plant, the transmission lines, the infrastructure investment behind that switch. You turn a tap and water flows, already heated, already pressurized. You adjust a thermostat and the temperature changes, the energy expenditure invisible behind a monthly bill you pay without much thought.

In the desert, energy was honest. Every cup of water I consumed was water I’d carried, using fuel energy in my car. Every meal required fire, literal combustion, ancient stored sunlight being released to heat food. Every degree of warmth at night was a degree I maintained through caloric intake and appropriate shelter. Every hour of light after sunset was an hour of candle or lamp.

The connection between energy and comfort, which the city had spent decades helping me forget, became visceral and immediate.

One afternoon I set up a simple folding table outside my tent. Nothing significant. But the moment it was up, something shifted. Instead of kneeling on sand, straining my back for every task, I had a surface. My coffee cup sat level. I could write without sand in everything. I could organize my supplies. The table probably cost a few kilowatt-hours of energy to manufacture, the aluminum, the fabrication, the shipping. But it delivered value every hour I used it. It saved me energy. It prevented wear on my body. It enabled work I couldn’t do comfortably without it.

How do you price that in money? The shop had decided 100 riyals. But was that right? Was that a fair representation of the value? How would I even know?

And, for the first time, the question shifted slightly. Not how do we price this in money? but what if we priced it in energy?

The table cost perhaps 5 kilowatt-hours to produce. It saved me perhaps 0.1 kilowatt-hours per day in reduced physical strain and avoided inefficiency. In fifty days, it paid back its energy cost. It would last years. The value proposition was clear, concrete, and required no currency conversion to evaluate.

The decade-old question was beginning to find its floor.

Several weeks into my time in the desert, driving back from a supply run one night, a podcast was playing through my speakers. Podcasters discussing systems and value and the architecture of civilization. I wasn’t paying close attention.

And then, without announcement:

Energy is the price. Not “energy has a price.” Not “energy determines price.” Energy IS the price.

I pulled over.

The manufacturing hangar. The finance models that never explained what money represented. The permaculture systems that worked because they aligned with energy flows. The tent. The table. The invisible energy behind every moment of modern life.

It assembled, all at once, into a single coherent picture.

The universal measure I’d been looking for wasn’t a new currency or a better index or a more sophisticated economic model. It was already there, underneath every transaction, every price, every product ever made. The question wasn’t how to find it. The question was how we’d managed to build an entire global economic system on top of it without naming it.

Everything required energy. Every price, traced back far enough, was an energy price. Money was the abstraction we’d built on top of that reality, and we’d built so many layers that we’d lost sight of what was underneath.

But the foundation hadn’t changed. It was still there. It had always been there.

One kilowatt-hour, everywhere, always.

Next: why time, the first candidate for a universal measure, fails the test that energy passes, and the thought experiment that makes the difference undeniable.

There is a fact about human development that should be more famous than it is

It’s not complicated. It doesn’t require advanced economics to understand. It’s been visible in the data for decades, confirmed across every region of the world, with no exceptions:

No country has ever achieved high human development with low energy consumption. Not one.

This isn’t a trend or a correlation with notable outliers. It’s a hard boundary. Cross a certain threshold of energy access per person, and human flourishing becomes possible. Stay below it, and regardless of monetary wealth, monetary policy, or monetary growth figures, the fundamentals of quality life, health, education, longevity, opportunity, remain out of reach.

If this is true, and the data confirms that it is, it has enormous implications for how we think about poverty, development, and what economic progress actually means.

First, some definitions, because precision matters here.

The Human Development Index, created by the United Nations, combines three things into a number between 0 and 1: how long people live (life expectancy), how educated they are (years of schooling), and their income adjusted for local prices. An HDI above 0.8 is considered very high human development. Below 0.55 is low human development. It’s not a perfect measure, but it’s considerably better than GDP alone because it looks at outcomes people actually care about, health, education, opportunity, rather than just monetary transactions.

When researchers plot HDI against GDP per capita, they find a meaningful correlation. Richer countries tend to have higher human development. The relationship is real but imperfect, the R² sits around 0.60 to 0.65, meaning GDP per capita explains roughly 60-65% of the variation in human development outcomes. Significant, but leaving a great deal unexplained.

When researchers plot HDI against energy consumption per person, the correlation is stronger. Multiple studies have found R² values between 0.64 and 0.84 for the relationship between electricity consumption and human development. The relationship is especially tight at lower energy levels. Below roughly 14,000 kilowatt-hours per person per year, energy access is an extraordinarily reliable predictor of human development outcomes.

Energy predicts human wellbeing more reliably than money does. And there’s a clear mechanistic reason why.

Energy enables everything that creates quality of life in the modern world.

Clean water requires energy, to pump from sources, to treat so it’s safe to drink, to pressurize so it reaches homes and hospitals. Healthcare requires energy, to power hospitals, run diagnostic equipment, refrigerate medicines, maintain sterile environments. Education requires energy, to light schools, run computers, print textbooks, train teachers who must eat and travel. Food security requires energy, modern agriculture is deeply energy-intensive, from planting machinery to irrigation pumps to refrigerated transport. Climate control, heating in cold climates, cooling in hot ones, requires energy, and without it, human productivity and health suffer dramatically.

These aren’t conveniences. They’re the physical prerequisites of a decent life. And every single one of them requires energy before it requires money.

Money can help organize and distribute these things. But you cannot buy your way to a functioning hospital if there isn’t enough electricity to run it. You cannot grow an efficient food supply without energy for modern agriculture, regardless of how much currency flows through your economy. The energy has to come first. The development follows.

This is why, below 5,000 kilowatt-hours per person per year, poverty is nearly universal. And why no country has ever crossed the threshold into high human development, HDI above 0.8, without also crossing a corresponding energy threshold. The two move together because one causes the other.

The country comparisons make this vivid.

Consider Norway and Saudi Arabia, two wealthy nations by any monetary measure. Norway’s GDP per capita is approximately $89,000. Saudi Arabia’s is around $31,000. By GDP, Norway appears nearly three times richer.

But electricity consumption per capita: Norway uses about 23,000 kilowatt-hours per year per person. Saudi Arabia uses about 10,500. Norway uses roughly twice as much.

Human development: Norway’s HDI is 0.966, first in the world. Saudi Arabia’s is 0.875, thirty-fifth. The gap is real, but dramatically smaller than the raw GDP comparison suggests.

Both countries have high living standards, excellent healthcare, strong education systems, and modern infrastructure. Norway’s higher energy use reflects its cold climate (more heating required) and older housing stock (less efficient insulation) rather than dramatically higher prosperity. The energy comparison is actually a more honest account of the lifestyle difference than the monetary comparison, which is distorted by Norway’s currency strength and oil wealth invested in financial assets.

Now consider China and India, both developing rapidly, often compared.

China’s GDP per capita is approximately $12,700. India’s is around $2,600, China appears nearly five times richer by monetary measure. Electricity consumption: China uses about 5,700 kilowatt-hours per person per year. India uses about 1,200. The ratio is nearly identical to the GDP ratio.

Human development: China’s HDI is 0.788, high human development. India’s is 0.633, medium human development. A significant gap.

Here the monetary measure, the energy measure, and the development outcome all tell the same story, because China’s economic growth was built on factories, power plants, electrification, and physical infrastructure. The energy and the development came together because they always come together when growth is real.

Venezuela tells a different and important story, one about what happens when monetary collapse doesn’t equal physical collapse.

In 2013, Venezuela’s GDP per capita was approximately $14,000. By 2023, after hyperinflation and economic crisis, it had fallen to around $3,300. By monetary measures: total catastrophe.

But energy consumption per capita fell from about 3,500 kilowatt-hours in 2013 to about 2,700 in 2023, a significant decline, but not the cliff-edge the GDP numbers suggest.

Venezuela still produces oil. Still generates electricity, unreliably but meaningfully. Still has refineries, engineers, farmers, doctors. The physical capacity didn’t disappear when the bolivar became worthless. Life became desperately hard, but society didn’t completely collapse, which the GDP numbers alone would lead you to expect.

This gap between monetary collapse and physical reality is exactly what energy consumption reveals. When the fictional monetary layer breaks down, it breaks completely. When physical productive capacity declines, it declines slowly, because physical things, power plants, farmland, hospitals, roads, don’t evaporate overnight the way currency values can.

Energy consumption is a more honest indicator of what’s actually happening on the ground.

Beyond about 14,000 kilowatt-hours per person per year, the correlation between energy and development weakens. Norway at 23,000 kilowatt-hours isn’t living vastly better than Germany at 6,500. There are diminishing returns, past a certain threshold, more energy brings marginal rather than transformational improvements in wellbeing.

But below 5,000 kilowatt-hours per person, energy poverty and human poverty are nearly synonymous. The relationship at the low end is as close to a hard law as social science produces. No exceptions. Not in Africa, not in Asia, not in Latin America, not historically in Europe before electrification.

This is what GDP consistently obscures. A country can have impressive monetary figures, through financial engineering, resource extraction revenues, debt-fueled government spending, while the energy access that actually determines quality of life for ordinary people remains insufficient. The numbers look good. The lives don’t match the numbers.

Energy consumption can’t be faked in this way. Either the power plant generated the electricity or it didn’t. Either the hospital has reliable power to run its equipment or it doesn’t. Either the irrigation pump runs reliably enough for farmers to plan around it or it doesn’t. The physical reality is verifiable in a way that GDP never is.

Want universal literacy? You need energy, for schools, lighting, printing, and training teachers who must travel and eat. Want long life expectancy? You need energy, for hospitals, medical equipment, clean water, refrigerated medicines. Want food security? You need energy, for modern agriculture, refrigeration, and transport.

Every single indicator of human flourishing correlates strongly with energy access. Some correlate with GDP, but less reliably, and with more room for the measurement to lie.

Energy is the foundation. Money is the accounting system layered on top. And when the accounting system diverges from the foundation, which fiat money does, increasingly, over time, you end up using the accounting ledger to evaluate a building’s structural integrity rather than actually checking the foundations.

The foundations are energy. They’ve always been energy. The data has been saying this for decades.

But if energy is the true foundation of economic value, how did one engineer from Riyadh spend a decade searching for this answer, and what did he have to eliminate before he could find it?

Every year, governments announce their GDP figures with the gravity of a verdict. Economies grow or shrink. Political careers rise and fall. Central banks move interest rates. Trillions of dollars in investment shift based on whether a number came in above or below forecasts.

GDP is the closest thing economics has to a single, universal measure of how a country is doing. It shapes policy, drives decisions, and defines the terms of every serious conversation about development and prosperity.

There’s just one problem: it’s measured in money.

And as we’ve established, money is a fiction; an inflating, manipulable, politically managed fiction that has become almost completely detached from physical reality. So what happens when you build your primary measure of national prosperity on top of that fiction?

You get a mirage. Numbers that look impressive but don’t reflect what’s actually happening. A measuring tool that can be gamed, inflated, and manipulated, and frequently is, not through fraud, but through the simple fact that the unit of measurement itself is unstable.

Let me show you what this looks like in practice.

Imagine two countries, starting from identical positions in the year 2000. Over the following 25 years, both grow, but in completely different ways.

Country A grows its GDP by 150%. Impressive on paper. But look at what drives it: financial services, banks lending to banks, derivatives trading, mortgage-backed securities. Real estate speculation, houses changing hands at higher prices without anyone building new ones. Government spending funded by borrowing. Legal services managing the complexity of all the above. Meanwhile, energy consumption per person stays flat. Manufacturing’s share of the economy shrinks. Infrastructure ages without replacement.

Country B grows its GDP by only 80%. By monetary measures, it’s the underperformer. But look at what drives that growth: new factories producing actual goods, massive infrastructure, ports, roads, power plants, built from scratch. Rural electrification. Industrial capacity expansion. Energy consumption per person doubles. Manufacturing output triples.

Which country’s citizens are actually better off? Country B, obviously. They have more productive capacity, better infrastructure, more real goods being produced, more reliable access to energy. Their prosperity is tangible, physical, verifiable.

But by GDP measures, Country A looks more successful. Because GDP doesn’t distinguish between productive activity and financial games. A million dollars of mortgage-backed securities trading counts exactly the same as a million dollars of steel production. The numbers don’t know the difference.

This isn’t a hypothetical. This is roughly what happened between the United States and China from 2000 to 2025. One country grew more on paper. The other grew more in reality.

The data is worth sitting with directly

In the United States between 1973 and 2023, energy consumption per capita actually fell, from a peak of about 98,000 kilowatt-hours per person per year to around 77,000. A decline of roughly 21%. Over the same period, manufacturing dropped from about 25% of GDP to around 11%.

Yet GDP, in both nominal and inflation-adjusted terms, appeared to grow substantially.

What happened? The economy shifted toward finance, services, and asset-based activities that inflate monetary measures without requiring proportional energy or producing proportional physical output. A billion dollars in derivatives trading adds to GDP and uses almost no energy, employs relatively few people, and produces nothing you can hold. A million-dollar stock trade adds to GDP and took perhaps a few seconds of computing time.

Meanwhile, the energy-intensive manufacturing that actually produces physical goods moved to other countries, primarily China. The energy consumption moved with it. But GDP accounting treats imported goods as if they appeared magically, as consumer spending rather than as production elsewhere.

In China over the same period, the story looks entirely different. Energy consumption per person grew from roughly 6,700 kilowatt-hours per year in 1978 to about 30,000 in 2023, an increase of more than 350%. Manufacturing grew to represent 27% of GDP. The country built more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined. Electricity access went from 88% of the population to essentially 100%.

China’s GDP growth tracked closely with energy growth because the growth was real, factories, cities, infrastructure, productive capacity. All of it requiring energy. All of it measurable in physical terms. All of it actually improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

One country was growing on paper. The other was growing in reality.

Here’s what makes this more than just an interesting comparison: it reveals a structural flaw in GDP as a measurement tool.

GDP was designed to measure the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy. It was meant to be a proxy for productive capacity, for how much real output a society generates. And for a while, when money was still tethered to physical reality, it served that purpose reasonably well.

But after 1971, when the last link between money and physical reality was severed, GDP and actual productive capacity began to diverge. Financial activities that generate monetary flows without producing physical output became increasingly counted in GDP. Asset price inflation got measured as wealth creation. Government borrowing to fund current spending looked like growth.

The measuring stick had decoupled from what it was supposed to measure.

Before 1971, GDP growth and energy consumption growth moved together closely. When real output increased, energy consumption increased proportionally — because producing real things requires real energy. After 1971, the divergence began. GDP started growing faster than energy consumption in many developed countries. At first glance, this looked like efficiency. Closer examination reveals something else: the economy was shifting away from producing real things.

The divergence between GDP and energy consumption since 1971 is not evidence of miraculous efficiency gains. It’s evidence that our monetary measure became unmoored from physical reality. Energy kept telling the truth. GDP started telling comfortable stories.

The defenders of GDP will note, correctly, that economists have tried to patch these problems. Real GDP adjusts for inflation. Purchasing power parity tries to make fair comparisons across countries. GDP per capita accounts for population size.

These are genuine improvements. They’re also corrections applied to a fundamentally flawed foundation.

Real GDP requires measuring inflation accurately, which means deciding what goes in the “basket of goods” used to track prices. Governments control this. They have incentives to understate inflation, which makes growth figures look better. The inflation a poor person experiences (concentrated in food, housing, and energy) differs from what wealthy people experience (spread across discretionary spending). There is no one true inflation rate.

Purchasing power parity requires surveying prices across countries; expensive, infrequent, and based on samples. More importantly, it still converts everything to monetary measures, inheriting all the instabilities of currency.

GDP per capita averages output across an entire population, hiding distribution. If nine people earn $30,000 and one person earns $1 million, average income is $127,000. That number reflects no one’s actual experience.

These are fixes applied to a broken instrument. The instrument itself remains broken.

Energy consumption requires none of these corrections. A kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour. It doesn’t inflate. It’s identical in Turkey, Norway, and Kenya. It can be measured precisely and objectively. No government committee decides what a kilowatt-hour means this year versus last year.

GDP tells us the financial value of transactions. Sometimes those transactions represent genuine value creation, building a factory, growing food, providing healthcare. Sometimes they represent pure financial activity, refinancing debt, trading securities, government borrowing to fund current spending. GDP counts both identically.

Energy consumption tells us something different: how much physical activity actually happened. How much real transformation of resources took place. How much productive capacity the economy actually deployed.

It’s not a perfect measure of prosperity either, you can waste energy, and some energy uses are more valuable than others. But it measures something real in a way that monetary GDP fundamentally cannot.

The country that grew its GDP through financial engineering while its manufacturing base hollowed out and its infrastructure aged was not getting richer in any meaningful sense. The numbers said otherwise. The numbers were wrong.

And if the numbers we use to measure national prosperity are wrong, we should ask: what do the honest numbers actually show about what creates quality of life?

Why physics doesn’t care about your monetary policy?

In 2012, Venezuela was the wealthiest nation in South America by GDP per capita. It held the world’s largest proven oil reserves. By conventional measures, it should have been fine.

By 2019, a cup of coffee that had cost 450 bolivars in 2016 cost 2.5 million bolivars. People used stacks of currency notes as napkins, because napkins cost more. Inflation had reached, by some estimates, 10,000,000%.

Ten million percent!

The coffee hadn’t changed. The energy required to grow, harvest, roast, and brew it hadn’t changed. The physical reality of Venezuela, its oil, its refineries, its land, its people, hadn’t disappeared. What collapsed was the monetary fiction. And when the fiction collapsed, real people starved. Real children went hungry. Real medicine became inaccessible.

This is the fragility that lives inside every fiat currency system, lurking beneath the surface. Venezuela was an extreme case. But it was not a different type of case. It was just the same failure, accelerated.

To understand why, we need to examine what money is actually supposed to do, and trace exactly where it breaks.

Money has three jobs. It’s worth being precise about them, because the failure of fiat money isn’t random. It fails in specific, predictable ways, and understanding those ways is what makes the alternative; pricing in energy, so compelling.

Job one: store value.

If you work hard today and want to use that value next year, or in retirement, money is supposed to hold what you earned. This is perhaps the most fundamental promise money makes to ordinary people.

Fiat money breaks this promise slowly enough that most people don’t notice until it’s too late.

Consider someone who saved $10,000 in 1971, a serious sum at the time, representing genuine discipline and sacrifice. By 2025, that $10,000 had lost approximately 87% of its purchasing power. Not because the person spent it. Not because they made poor investments. Simply because the government issued more dollars, diluting the value of the ones already in existence.

At 2% annual inflation, the target most central banks publicly aim for, money loses half its value every 35 years. At 7%, which many countries experience regularly, every decade. At Venezuelan levels, the savings of a lifetime can evaporate in a matter of months.

Energy doesn’t do this. One kilowatt-hour in 1971 equals one kilowatt-hour today. The laws of thermodynamics have no printing press. If you could hold your savings in energy credits rather than currency, the value of your saved labor would remain exactly what it was when you earned it.

Job two: facilitate exchange.

Money as a medium of exchange works when everyone agrees on its value. But in a world of competing national currencies, each controlled by governments with different incentives, that agreement breaks down constantly.

Currency wars are the first symptom. When one country weakens its currency to make exports cheaper, trading partners respond in kind. It becomes a race to the bottom, everyone loses purchasing power, but no one gains competitive advantage for long, because everyone is playing the same game simultaneously.

Exchange rate manipulation is the second symptom. Countries are routinely accused of deliberately holding their currencies at artificial levels to advantage their exporters. Whether the accusations are true or not, the fact that they’re credible, that monetary systems can be manipulated this way, reveals how far money has drifted from neutral measurement.

But the most revealing symptom is the ultimate weapon fiat money created: financial sanctions.

Cut a country off from the dollar-based financial system and you’ve crippled their ability to trade internationally, regardless of what they actually produce. This works only because modern money is a political system, not a physical one. Access to the medium of exchange is controlled by governments and financial institutions with their own interests.

Energy can’t be sanctioned in the same way. You can block oil tankers physically, but you cannot ban a nation from the laws of thermodynamics. You cannot revoke a country’s access to kilowatt-hours by political decree. Energy-based trade would be dramatically more resilient, because it’s grounded in physical flows, not in permission from financial gatekeepers.

Job three: measure value consistently.

A unit of account should be stable. This is the most basic requirement, the one so obvious it rarely gets examined until it fails.

Imagine if the meter changed length every year. Sometimes 100 centimeters, sometimes 94, sometimes 107, depending on which country you were measuring in and what their central bank had decided to do that quarter. Engineering would become impossible. Plans drawn in one year wouldn’t match reality the next. You couldn’t build anything that needed to last.

That’s what fiat currencies have become as units of account.

The dollar of 1971 and the dollar of 2025 share a name and a symbol. That’s nearly all they share. Long-term contracts become unreliable. Infrastructure projects spanning decades get warped by accumulated inflation assumptions that rarely match reality. Pension funds make promises in today’s dollars that they’ll need to honor in future dollars, and the gap between those two things can be enormous.

Across countries, the problem compounds. Different currencies inflate at different rates, fluctuate against each other, and are subject to entirely different political pressures. Comparing the real cost of production between two countries becomes an exercise in stacking one layer of fiction on top of another.

Energy provides what fiat currencies have abandoned: a unit that doesn’t change. One kilowatt-hour in China equals one kilowatt-hour in Brazil equals one kilowatt-hour in Norway. Not approximately. Exactly. The energy required to lift one kilogram one meter against gravity is the same everywhere in the universe. This is physics, not politics.

The defenders of fiat systems will acknowledge the failures and respond: but we need flexibility. Crises require response. Monetary policy allows governments to act when markets freeze, when banks collapse, when unemployment spikes. The ability to print money is the shock absorber.

This argument has some truth in it. But notice what it’s actually saying: we need a measuring stick that changes when it’s convenient. We need the ability to redefine the unit of account in response to political pressure.

And ask the next question: convenient for whom?

When central banks create new money, those closest to the source benefit first, large financial institutions, governments, those already holding assets. By the time the new money filters through to ordinary workers and savers, prices have already adjusted upward. The purchasing power has already been redistributed. The intervention has happened. The saver holding cash is the one left holding less.

When currencies are devalued, those with savings in that currency suffer. Workers whose wages don’t keep pace with inflation suffer. Retirees on fixed incomes suffer. Those with hard assets, property, stocks, foreign accounts, are largely protected. Monetary flexibility is not neutral. It has winners and losers, and the losers are consistently those with the least power to protect themselves.

Venezuela is the extreme case, but not the exception. It’s the clearest illustration of a failure mode that exists in every fiat system at every scale.

The country still had oil. Still had refineries. Still had engineers and farmers and bakers and doctors. The physical capacity to produce value didn’t disappear. What disappeared was the monetary architecture through which that value could be organized and exchanged.

When collective belief in the currency collapsed, the entire economic coordination mechanism broke down, not because anything real had changed, but because the fiction everyone had agreed to believe suddenly became impossible to believe.

This is the fundamental fragility of money as fiction: it works until it doesn’t, and when it stops working, the consequences are real and devastating even though the cause was entirely abstract.

Energy can’t hyperinflate. You cannot print kilowatt-hours. You cannot decree that one kilowatt-hour is now worth ten million kilowatt-hours. The physical world doesn’t permit it. A currency grounded in energy expenditure doesn’t fail the way a currency grounded in collective belief fails, because its foundation isn’t belief. It’s physics.

Three jobs. Three failures. One alternative that doesn’t share any of the same weaknesses.

But if money is fiction, what does that make GDP, the number built entirely from money that we use to judge whether entire economies are succeeding or failing?

Money is the most successful fiction in human history

Think about what’s actually in your wallet. Or in your bank account, the numbers on a screen that represent your savings, your labor, your security. You can’t eat it. You can’t burn it for warmth. It has no intrinsic value whatsoever. And yet we’ve built our entire civilization on this fiction. We work for it, fight over it, structure our societies around it, measure our success by it. Wars are fought over it. People die for lack of it.

How did we get here? And more importantly: how did money go from being real to being nothing but collective agreement?

The story is longer than you’d expect, and the ending is more recent than most people realize.

In the beginning, there was no money. There was only barter. I have three chickens, you have a basket of grain. We trade. Simple and direct. The value is obvious because the things themselves are useful.

But barter has a fatal flaw. What if I need grain but you don’t need chickens? What if I want to buy something large, a cow, a plot of land, but can only offer small, divisible things? What if what I produce (say, a house) can’t easily be broken into small trades?

So humans invented money. A medium of exchange. Something everyone agrees has value, even if it doesn’t have immediate use.

Crucially, the earliest forms of money were things with their own energy content. Cattle were money; the Latin word pecunia (money) comes from pecus (cattle). Your wealth was literally the animals you owned. Cowrie shells were money in coastal societies: beautiful, durable, requiring human energy to collect and sort. Salt was money; hence salary, from the Latin salarium, the salt allowance given to Roman soldiers. Tobacco was money in colonial Virginia. Cocoa beans were money in Mesoamerica.

All of these had something fundamental in common: they required energy to produce. The money was real because it represented real effort, real resources, real physical reality.

Then came metals. Copper, silver, gold. More durable than cattle (which die), more divisible than shells, more portable than salt. And critically, they required enormous energy to produce. Mining ore from deep in the earth. Smelting in furnaces hot enough to melt rock. Refining to purity. Shaping into coins. Every gold coin represented a large, verifiable expenditure of human and fuel energy.

This made precious metals perhaps the best form of money humanity has ever had. Not because gold is inherently useful, it’s too soft for tools, you can’t eat it, but because it was a reliable store of energy expenditure. To have gold was to have proof that real work had been done, real resources consumed, real effort invested. The measurement was honest.

For thousands of years, this worked.

Then came the first abstraction: paper money.

Governments began issuing notes, pieces of paper that said, in effect, I promise to pay the bearer X amount of gold. The paper itself was worthless. But it was more convenient than carrying heavy metal. You could still walk into a bank and exchange your note for actual gold. The connection to physical reality remained.

But the paper created a temptation that proved irresistible.

What if we print more paper than we have gold?

After all, not everyone would demand their gold at the same time. Most people were happy with the paper. So why not issue more notes than the metal in the vault? You could buy more things, fund wars, build palaces. As long as everyone kept believing the paper had value, what was the harm?

This was the beginning of fractional reserve banking. The paper was only partially backed by actual gold. But it mostly worked, because of collective belief. Everyone agreed to pretend the paper was valuable.

The temptation to print more proved chronic. During wars, governments would print money to fund armies. During economic crises, they’d print to stimulate spending. Each time, the link between paper and gold became more tenuous. The abstraction layer thickened.

The final break came on a specific date: August 15, 1971.

US President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold. The gold standard was dead. The last connection between money and physical reality was severed.

From that moment forward, the dollar, and by extension, since the dollar was the world’s reserve currency, effectively all currencies, became pure fiat. From the Latin fiat lux: let there be light. Money by decree. Money because the government says so. Paper backed by nothing but government promises and collective belief.

Money had completed its journey from cattle (actual energy stored in living form) to gold (representing energy expenditure in mining and refining) to paper backed by gold (a symbol of a symbol) to pure abstraction (a symbol of nothing).

The fiction was now complete.

Money is supposed to serve three purposes: store value for later, facilitate exchange now, and measure value consistently. Without those three functions, the whole system falls apart.

And here’s what happened after 1971: fiat money began failing at all three.

As a store of value, it started quietly losing. Imagine you were a careful, disciplined saver in 1971. You put away $10,000, a substantial sum, representing years of work. By 2025, that $10,000 had lost approximately 87% of its purchasing power. Not because you spent it. Not because you made bad decisions. Simply because you held dollars while governments printed more dollars.

This is inflation. At a seemingly modest 2% per year, money loses half its value every 35 years. At 7%, which many countries experience, every 10 years. Your saved energy, your deferred consumption, your stored effort silently evaporated. Not stolen by thieves but diluted by printing presses.

Energy doesn’t do this. One kilowatt-hour in 1971 equals one kilowatt-hour today. The laws of thermodynamics don’t have a printing press.

As a medium of exchange, fiat money introduced currency wars. When every country controls its own currency, the incentive to weaken it, making exports cheaper, is constant. One country devalues, another responds in kind, a third follows. Everyone loses purchasing power but no one gains competitive advantage for long.

It also created the ultimate weapon: financial sanctions. Cut a country off from the dollar-based system and you’ve crippled their ability to trade internationally. Modern money is a political tool, not a neutral medium of exchange. Energy can’t be sanctioned in the same way. You can block oil tankers physically, but you cannot ban a nation from thermodynamics.

As a unit of account, fiat currencies are measuring sticks that change length every year and differ in every country. The dollar of 1971 and the dollar of 2025 are the same in name only. Long-term planning becomes unreliable. Infrastructure projects spanning decades get distorted by inflation assumptions. Pension funds struggle to meet obligations because the money they saved isn’t worth what they planned for.

Defenders of the system will say: we need flexible money. We need to be able to respond to crises. We need monetary policy. This argument reveals the core problem. They’re saying we need a measuring stick that can change. A ruler that shortens when it’s convenient, lengthens when necessary, and shifts length based on political decisions.

Convenient for whom, exactly?

When central banks create new money, who gets it first? Large financial institutions, governments, those already connected to the system. By the time it filters to ordinary people, prices have risen. The wealth transfer has already happened. When currencies are devalued, who suffers? Those holding savings in that currency. Workers whose wages don’t keep pace. Retirees on fixed incomes.

The flexibility of fiat money isn’t a feature. It’s a bug that’s been rebranded as a feature by those who benefit from the bug.

Some argue for a return to the gold standard. But gold has its own problems: new mines can flood the market, supply is geographically concentrated, and gold mining is environmentally destructive. Others point to cryptocurrency. Bitcoin solves some problems, it can’t be printed at will, its ledger is transparent, but it’s still an abstraction. Its value depends on collective belief. The energy used to mine it produces nothing useful; it’s energy spent purely to create artificial scarcity.

What if instead of using energy wastefully to create artificial scarcity in digital tokens, we simply used energy itself as the measure?

Energy is perfectly scarce, you can’t create it from nothing. Energy is universally useful, everything requires it. Energy is objectively measurable, kilowatt-hours are the same everywhere. Energy is the fundamental input to all production.

Most importantly: energy is real. It’s not a social construct. It’s not a collective fiction. It’s woven into the fabric of physical reality. You cannot vote to change the laws of thermodynamics. You cannot print kilowatt-hours into existence.

The story of money is the story of increasing abstraction, moving further and further from physical reality in search of convenience, until the connection to what’s actually real became so thin that it snapped entirely.

1971 was not just a policy change. It was the moment the map declared itself more real than the territory.

We’ve been navigating by that broken map ever since.

And nowhere does the confusion show up more clearly than in the numbers we use to measure whether an entire economy is doing well, a measure called GDP, which turns out to be built on the same fiction, all the way down!

The Cairo baker knows his oven wastes energy

He can feel it when he stands near the door and the heat bleeds out unevenly. He can see it in his fuel costs, which are higher than they should be for the bread he produces. He’s heard about modern commercial ovens, German-made, precisely insulated, digitally controlled, that use 30% less energy for the same output. He’s done the rough math in his head. A better oven would pay for itself within two years in saved fuel alone.

He knows exactly what to do. He just can’t do it!

The efficient oven costs around $15,000. It’s manufactured in Germany, priced in euros, a hard currency, stable, internationally recognized. The Cairo baker earns in Egyptian pounds. Over the past several years, the pound has lost more than half its value against the dollar. The oven that once represented 150,000 pounds now costs 450,000 pounds. The price in dollars didn’t change. The price in his currency tripled.

He didn’t make any bad decisions. He didn’t fail to work hard. He wasn’t inefficient or lazy. He was simply trapped in the wrong currency at the wrong time, and the monetary system punished him for it.

This is the Cairo Trap. And it’s not just about ovens or bread. It’s one of the clearest illustrations of how our monetary system doesn’t just fail to measure value accurately, it actively prevents value from being created.

Now consider what happens on the other side of the equation

The baker in Manhattan needs to replace his oven. He calls a supplier, gets a quote in dollars, applies for a small business loan at a reasonable interest rate, and two months later has a modern, efficient oven installed. His energy costs drop. He can either lower his prices slightly to attract more customers or hold his prices and improve his margins.

The baker in Riyadh does the same, Saudi Arabia’s currency is pegged to the dollar, energy is subsidized, and business credit is accessible. The upgrade makes obvious sense and happens without drama.

Both of these bakers are now operating more efficiently. Their energy cost per loaf has dropped. In a competitive market, this eventually pushes prices down or quality up.

The Cairo baker, meanwhile, stays with the old oven. He stays less efficient. His energy cost per loaf remains higher. He cannot compete on price with importers who have access to modern equipment and hard currencies.

Not because of physics. Because of money.

In energy terms, the case for the efficient oven is identical in all three cities. The oven requires roughly 15,000 kilowatt-hours of energy to manufacture. It saves approximately 30% on baking energy, let’s say 0.09 kilowatt-hours per loaf. At 300 loaves per day, that’s 27 kilowatt-hours saved daily. The oven pays back its energy cost in under two years and then keeps saving energy for a decade or more. This calculation is the same in Manhattan, Riyadh, and Cairo. The physics doesn’t change. The math doesn’t change.

Only the currency changes. And the currency makes all the difference.

This is where the Priced Watt, the idea of pricing everything in energy rather than money, begins to show its most practical advantage.

In an energy-based economy, the efficient oven costs 15,000 Priced Watts to manufacture. That’s the same whether you’re in Cairo, Riyadh, or Manhattan. The Cairo baker earning in energy credits has the same purchasing power as any other baker. If the upgrade makes sense in energy terms, which it clearly does, he can afford it. There’s no currency exchange rate to triple the price overnight. There’s no weak local currency inflating the cost of imported equipment. There’s just the energy math, and the energy math is the same everywhere.

The moment someone invents a more efficient oven, bakers worldwide can evaluate it on its actual merits, its energy payback, rather than on whether their national currency happens to be strong enough to make the import affordable.

Early adopters in any country gain a cost advantage. They price lower or earn better margins. Others see this and follow. Eventually, everyone upgrades. Bread gets cheaper everywhere. Then someone invents an even better oven, and the cycle continues.

Innovation spreads based on merit, not monetary privilege.

The Cairo baker’s situation is one example of a much larger pattern. Throughout the developing world, the same dynamic plays out across industries and sectors.

A textile manufacturer in Bangladesh knows that newer looms would reduce his electricity consumption by 25%. He can’t afford the upgrade because the looms are priced in euros and his margins, already thin, are being squeezed further by currency depreciation.

A farmer in sub-Saharan Africa knows that drip irrigation would cut his water and pumping energy use in half. The equipment is accessible in theory but unaffordable in practice because it’s priced in dollars and his crop revenues are in local currency that loses value every year.

A hospital in an emerging economy knows that modern diagnostic equipment would catch diseases earlier and reduce expensive late-stage treatments. But the equipment is imported, priced in hard currency, and the hospital’s funding is in a currency that buys less of it every year.

In every case, the person on the ground understands the problem. They know the solution. The energy economics are sound. The upgrade makes obvious sense. What stops them isn’t ignorance or lack of effort. It’s the monetary architecture of the global economy, the fact that efficiency improvements are consistently priced in strong currencies while many of the people who need them most earn in weak ones.

This isn’t an accident or an unfortunate side effect. It’s a structural feature of a system where value is measured in currencies rather than physics.

Here’s what a currency-based system does to the world’s innovation gradient: it ensures that efficiency improvements flow preferentially toward those who already have monetary advantage.

Rich countries get more efficient. They use better equipment, produce more with less energy, lower their costs. Their goods become more competitive. Meanwhile, developing countries stay stuck with older, less efficient technology, higher energy costs per unit of output, and less competitive goods.

The monetary system doesn’t just measure this inequality, it creates and perpetuates it. The rich get more efficient partly because they’re rich. Efficiency reinforces their advantage. Poverty makes efficiency inaccessible, which deepens poverty.

In an energy-based system, this cycle breaks. Efficiency is priced in energy. Energy is the same everywhere. A baker anywhere in the world evaluates an oven upgrade the same way: does the energy saved over the oven’s lifetime exceed the energy cost to manufacture it? If yes, the upgrade makes sense. The currency you happen to earn in is irrelevant, because you’re not earning in currency, you’re earning in energy credits that have the same purchasing power everywhere.

The playing field isn’t just leveled. The incentive structure is fundamentally changed. Efficiency becomes universally accessible because it’s priced in the one thing that’s genuinely universal.

The old oven in Cairo is still running

Every loaf it bakes costs a little more energy than it should. That extra energy is wasted, dissipated as heat through poorly insulated walls, lost in inefficient combustion. Multiplied across thousands of bakeries with old equipment across the developing world, it’s an enormous amount of waste.

Waste that would disappear overnight if efficiency improvements were priced in energy rather than in currencies whose values are set by people who have never stood near an old oven in a narrow Cairo alley.

The baker isn’t failing physics. He’s failing a monetary system that was never designed to serve him.

And that monetary system has a longer history than you might think, a history that explains exactly how we got here.

Picture three bakeries.

The first is in Manhattan. The baker arrives at 4 AM, turns on German-made ovens, works through his grandfather’s recipe. By 7 AM, the smell of fresh bread draws a queue of commuters. A simple loaf: $4.00.

The second is in Cairo, down a narrow alley where the call to prayer echoes off ancient stone. The baker uses an oven that’s been repaired so many times the original parts are barely recognizable. He sells traditional baladi flatbread for 20 piastres, less than half a cent! His customers still complain the price is too high.

The third is in Riyadh, a small shop with a tandoor where fresh tamees bread emerges every few minutes, crispy at the edges and fluffy in the center. Plain tamees: 1 riyal. About $0.27.

Three bakeries. One number that should stop you cold: the Manhattan loaf costs 1,000 times more than the Cairo loaf.

Not 10% more. Not twice as much. One thousand times more. For bread.

The usual explanations arrive quickly. Rent is higher in Manhattan. Labor costs more. Regulations, taxes, overhead. All true. All, as I’ll show you; unsatisfying. Because none of them answer the actual question. They just push it back one level.

Let’s go to the physics

Wheat grows by capturing energy from the sun through photosynthesis. This process is remarkably consistent everywhere on Earth. A wheat plant in Kansas converts sunlight into grain with roughly the same efficiency as a wheat plant in Ukraine or Argentina. The sun doesn’t charge different rates based on geography.

Harvesting requires machinery, tractors, combines, running on fuel. The energy content of diesel is the same whether you buy it in America, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia. One liter of diesel contains approximately 10 kilowatt-hours of energy. Physics doesn’t do exchange rates.

Milling wheat into flour requires electricity. One kilowatt-hour of electricity in Manhattan does exactly the same work as one kilowatt-hour in Cairo. The laws of thermodynamics are not negotiable.

Baking requires heat. An oven must reach approximately 200 degrees Celsius. The energy required to create that heat is determined by physics, not monetary policy. The baker must be sustained while working, a human body needs roughly 2,000 kilocalories per day, which equals about 2.3 kilowatt-hours. This is true for the baker in Manhattan and the baker in Cairo equally. We’re all running on the same biological operating system.

So let’s trace the energy cost of one loaf, from seed to shelf:

• Growing the wheat (sunlight captured, tractor diesel, fertilizer production): ~0.4 kWh

• Milling (electricity to grind grain into flour): ~0.1 kWh

• Baking (oven heat, bakery lighting, climate control): ~0.3 kWh

• Transportation (farm to mill to bakery to customer): ~0.15 kWh

• Human labor (baker’s caloric expenditure per loaf): ~0.01 kWh

Total: approximately 1.0 kilowatt-hour per loaf.

Now, electricity in the United States averages about $0.16 per kilowatt-hour. So the energy cost of that Manhattan bread is roughly $0.16. The baker charges $4.00. The gap, $3.84 is real in the sense that someone has to pay it. But none of it changes the fundamental energy cost of creating the bread.

In Cairo, using older equipment, the energy cost might be slightly higher, perhaps 1.2 kilowatt-hours per loaf instead of 1.0. But electricity there costs about $0.04 per kilowatt-hour, making the energy cost roughly $0.05. Yet the price charged is $0.004, less than the energy cost alone!

How is this possible? The Egyptian government pays the difference. It absorbs about 105 piastres per loaf in subsidies, multiplied by tens of millions of citizens getting multiple loaves per day. Nearly $3 billion in annual bread subsidies, just for this one staple.

Why? Because in Egypt, bread is called aish, the word for “life.” In 1977, President Sadat tried to reduce bread subsidies. The resulting protests forced him to reverse course within days. Every government since has been terrified to touch it. The monetary price is political fiction, held artificially low to prevent revolution.

The energy cost remained real. Only the price was fiction.

This brings us to the revealing question. If the fundamental inputs, wheat, heat, milling, transport, human labor, cost roughly the same energy everywhere, why does bread cost 1,000 times more in one city than another?

The answer is that the price difference exists almost entirely in the monetary layer we’ve built on top of physical reality.

“But rent is higher in Manhattan.” True. But what is rent? It’s money paid for access to space, denominated in dollars that can be printed, inflated, and manipulated. The physical building didn’t become more energy-intensive. The monetary measurement changed.

“But labor costs more in America.” Does it? Or do we pay workers in dollars that have a different exchange rate with other currencies? The baker in Manhattan and the baker in Cairo both work similar hours, exert similar physical effort, and require the same caloric energy to function. The actual energy cost of their labor is nearly identical.

“Regulations, taxes, overhead.” Real factors. All denominated in money. All subject to the arbitrary decisions of governments and central banks that can inflate or deflate currency at will.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: we’ve been measuring value with a ruler that keeps changing length. Imagine building a house with a measuring tape that randomly expanded and contracted. Sometimes a meter is 100 centimeters, sometimes 80, sometimes 120, depending on who’s holding it and where you’re standing. You’d never build anything stable.

That’s our monetary system.

But energy? Energy is a ruler that never changes. One kilowatt-hour today equals one kilowatt-hour in 1971 equals one kilowatt-hour in 2071. The laws of physics are the same in Manhattan, Cairo, and Riyadh. The bread that costs $4.00, $0.27, or $0.004 in different currencies all costs roughly 1 kilowatt-hour to produce.

That’s the real price. Everything else is commentary.

Tomorrow morning, when you buy your coffee or your breakfast, try asking yourself a different question. Not what does this cost? but what did this actually cost to produce? Not in dollars or riyals or euros. In energy. How much sunlight captured by the coffee plant? How much fuel to ship the beans? How much electricity to roast, grind, and brew them? How much energy to heat the water, light the café, keep it cool enough to sit in?

Start seeing through the monetary price to the energy reality underneath.

The bread in Manhattan, Riyadh, and Cairo stops being three wildly different things. It becomes one thing, roughly one kilowatt-hour of transformation, with different layers of monetary fiction, subsidy, and currency games piled on top.

And once you see it that way, you start to wonder: what if we removed the fiction?

What if price and cost actually meant the same thing?

Share Desert Jungle الغابة الصحراوية

Mine happened on a desert road north of Saudi Arabia, in the winter of 2021, with a podcast playing through my car speakers and stars filling every inch of sky above me.

I pulled over. My hands were shaking.

I’d been living in a tent for several weeks by then. COVID had turned the world inside out, and I needed to step away, from the noise, the connectivity, the comfortable illusion that modern life was the natural state of things. So I drove north from the city and set up camp in the desert near Hai’l city.

The desert taught me quickly

Every cup of water became precious. In the city, you turn a tap and water flows, already pumped, already treated, already pressurized. You never think about the energy behind that tap. In the desert, every liter I had was something I’d carried in containers using the chemical energy stored in my car’s fuel tank. The connection was immediate and impossible to ignore.

Every meal required planning. Every night required fire. Every degree of warmth in my sleeping bag was a degree I had to earn by managing my caloric intake, my shelter, my fuel supply. The energy behind every comfort of modern life, which had always been invisible to me, abstracted away behind walls and wires and monthly bills, was suddenly honest. Visible. Real.

One afternoon, I carried a small folding table from my car to my tent. Just an aluminum camping table, nothing special. I’d bought it for about 100 riyals. But the moment I set it up, my quality of life transformed. Instead of kneeling on the ground, straining my back, getting sand in everything, I had a surface. A place for my cup, my book, my phone.

I sat with that for a while. The table probably cost a few kilowatt-hours of energy to manufacture, mining the aluminum, stamping the frame, shipping it to a shop. And yet it delivered enormous value. It saved me energy every day. It prevented back pain. It let me write comfortably.

How do you price that in money? The shop had decided 100 riyals. But what does that number actually mean? How do I know if it’s fair? How does it compare to anything else?

The question went nowhere. Not that night.

I’d been asking versions of this question for years

I grew up in Riyadh, but I’m originally from the Asir mountains in southern Saudi Arabia, green peaks where it rains, where the air is cool, where you could live comfortably with stone walls and a breeze. Every summer of my childhood, we’d drive or fly south, from the furnace of Riyadh to those mountains. The contrast was total. In Riyadh, survival required enormous amounts of energy just to keep human beings alive in a place that naturally wanted to kill them. In the mountains, life was just; possible. Naturally.

That contrast filed itself away somewhere in the back of my mind.

In 2013, as a young electrical engineer, I stood in a manufacturing hangar in Riyadh in the brutal heart of summer. The industrial air conditioning was fighting against 45-degree heat outside, filling the space with a constant mechanical hum. My colleagues and I were arguing about something that had bothered me for years: why couldn’t we calculate costs universally? Why did the same product cost wildly different amounts in different countries?

“Exchange rates,” someone said. “Labor costs,” said another. “Regulations. Taxes. Shipping.”

All true. All unsatisfying. None of it got to the bottom of the thing.

I looked around at the machines humming with electricity, the lights blazing overhead, the air conditioning units fighting the desert. And a thought flickered: All of this is energy. But I couldn’t finish it. I filed it away and went back to work.

Then came a finance master’s degree, from 2015 to 2017. If engineering couldn’t answer the question, maybe markets could. I learned capital structure, derivatives, option pricing, portfolio theory. I learned the elaborate mathematics of moving money around. What I didn’t learn was what money actually represented. Every model started with monetary inputs and produced monetary outputs. The dollar, the riyal, the euro, treated as fundamental units, like meters or seconds. But they’re not fundamental. They change value constantly. They’re social agreements, not laws of physics.

The question kept following me.

That night in the desert, Raoul Pal and Jordan Peterson were talking through my car speakers, economics, systems, the architecture of civilization. I wasn’t paying close attention. My mind was wandering the way it does on long, empty roads.

And then it happened.

Not a voice. Not a revelation. Just a thought that arrived complete, as if it had been waiting there all along:

Energy is the price. Not “energy has a price.” Not “energy determines price.” Energy IS the price.

I pulled over.

Everything assembled at once. The manufacturing hangar, why can’t we calculate costs universally? Because we’re using money, which differs in every country. But energy is universal. One kilowatt-hour in Riyadh equals one kilowatt-hour in New York, in Cairo, on Mars. The finance confusion, what does money represent? Energy. The ability to make things happen, to move things, to transform things. That’s energy. Money is just the abstraction we built on top of it, and we’ve built so many layers we’ve lost sight of what’s underneath.

The mountains versus the desert. The tent. The table. The hangar.

All of it, finally, a single picture.

I sat on that desert road working through the implications. If energy is the fundamental substance of all economic activity, why aren’t we pricing things in energy? What if we created a currency based directly on energy expenditure? One unit equals one kilowatt-hour. A loaf of bread costs the energy required to grow the wheat, mill it, bake it, transport it. A smartphone costs the energy to mine its materials, manufacture its components, ship it around the world. Same price everywhere, because the energy requirements are the same everywhere. Because physics doesn’t do exchange rates.

The laws of thermodynamics don’t care about your monetary policy.

I’ve been developing this idea since that night, testing it against every objection, refining it, trying to find where it breaks. So far, the more I examine it, the more it holds.

This series is my attempt to share what I saw on that desert road. To take you through the evidence, the history, the data, and the logic, step by step, until you can’t unsee it either.

We’ll start where every good argument starts: with bread.

Three bakeries. Three countries. A 1,000-times difference in price. And the same fundamental question: why?

Two weeks ago, a series of strikes changed the Middle East forever. But buried beneath the geopolitical shock, the casualty reports, and the oil market chaos, something quieter is happening: a realization that has been building for years and needed only one brutal catalyst to become impossible to ignore

Energy is not a commodity. It never was. It is the only real currency the world has ever run on

When the lights flicker, everything else does too

The moment the Iran conflict began, the consequences were not measured in ideology or territory. They were measured in barrels, kilowatt-hours, and shipping routes. Oil futures lurched. Airlines suspended flights. The International Energy Agency held emergency meetings. Insurance markets pulled back from the Strait of Hormuz overnight!

This is not how we react when a commodity is disrupted. This is how we react when money itself is threatened. And that is precisely the point. Every currency on earth, whether dollar, yuan, riyal, or euro, is ultimately a claim on energy. The economy moves because energy moves. Food is grown with energy. Goods are manufactured with energy. Data is processed with energy. Strip away the financial abstraction and what you find underneath every transaction, every supply chain, every act of economic production is a quantity of watts

The Iran war did not create this reality. It simply made it undeniable

Artificial intelligence just changed the stakes

Here is where the story gets significantly larger than one war

The global race to build, train, and deploy artificial intelligence is the most energy-intensive technological transformation in history. The compute required to run frontier AI models is staggering and growing. Every query answered, every model trained, every inference served draws from a power grid somewhere. And as AI becomes embedded in financial systems, healthcare, logistics, defence, and daily life, the energy underpinning it stops being an operational detail and becomes a matter of national and economic security

For years, the question of where to build AI data centres was answered by familiar variables: tax incentives, fibre connectivity, proximity to engineering talent. The Iran conflict has injected a new variable that quietly outweighs all the others, which is geopolitical energy risk. A data centre dependent on energy supply chains that run through conflict zones, chokepoints, or politically unstable regions is not just expensive to operate. It is fragile in a way that no serious long-term infrastructure can afford to be. When compute goes dark, it is not a nuisance. It is an existential problem for every system that depends on it, and increasingly that means everything

The rational response is already beginning to take shape in investment flows and infrastructure decisions that have not yet made headlines. Compute is gravitating toward energy abundance. And energy abundance, in the coming decades, will not be found primarily in the places that held power in the last century

From exporting fuel to exporting intelligence

There is a profound shift embedded in this moment that deserves to be stated plainly

For the better part of a century, the Gulf’s role in the global economy was defined by a single image: tankers loaded with crude oil making slow, expensive, risk-laden journeys across tens of thousands of kilometres of open sea. Energy was heavy. It was physical. It had to be moved. That model is ending, not because oil is running out, but because a far more powerful way to export energy is becoming available. When a country generates electricity from sunlight and transmits it across continents via high-voltage direct current cables, energy travels at the speed of light and arrives with minimal loss. When that electricity powers data centres running AI systems, it does not just move watts from one place to another. It exports intelligence itself: reasoning, prediction, optimization, creation

Saudi Arabia is sitting at the centre of this transition. The resource is extraordinary. The geographic position connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe is unmatched. The infrastructure ambition is real and accelerating. The opportunity is not simply to remain an energy exporter but to become something categorically different: a nation that sells the world not barrels of fuel carried on ships, but continuous streams of computation powered by the sun

The tanker was the delivery vehicle of the last century. The subsea power cable and the data centre are the delivery vehicles of the next one. The product being delivered shifts from crude oil to processed intelligence, and the value captured per watt rises by orders of magnitude

The geography of the next economy

Renewable energy is not evenly distributed. Solar irradiance, wind corridors, and the physical geography that makes large-scale clean energy generation viable are concentrated in specific parts of the world. The Middle East sits at an extraordinary intersection of all three advantages: generation potential, geographic reach, and the political will to invest at scale

What the Iran conflict accelerates is the urgency of this transition. Every week that global AI infrastructure remains tethered to vulnerable energy supply chains is a week of compounding systemic risk. The pressure to relocate compute to stable, energy-abundant geographies is not ideological. It is actuarial. Insurance underwriters, sovereign wealth funds, and hyperscale technology companies are all running the same calculation and arriving at the same conclusion

Currency reimagined from the ground up

Step back from the immediate crisis and a longer arc becomes visible

The dominant monetary system, built on floating fiat currencies managed by central banks, has delivered two things reliably over the past fifty years: extraordinary financial complexity and persistent, asymmetric vulnerability. When reserve currency nations make policy mistakes, the costs are exported to everyone else. Exchange rate volatility consumes trillions in hedging activity that produces nothing. Monetary policy can be weaponized, and increasingly is

Energy offers a fundamentally different foundation. A kilowatt-hour performs the same work in Nairobi as it does in Oslo. It cannot be printed. It cannot be conjured by a committee decision. Its value is not a matter of confidence or convention; it is a matter of physics. And in a world where the productive economy is increasingly digital, and digital infrastructure is increasingly energy-defined, the case for energy as the true denominator of economic value becomes harder to argue against

This is not an abstract monetary theory. It is already playing out in practice. Nations are negotiating energy deals that bypass dollar settlement. AI companies are signing decade-long power purchase agreements that function more like currency reserves than utility contracts. The price of compute, and therefore the price of intelligence itself, is converging on the price of energy

The Iran war has made visible what was already structurally true: whoever controls stable, abundant, affordable energy controls the terms on which the next economy operates

A new kind of neutrality

There is something worth noting for anyone watching this conflict from any political vantage point

The transition toward energy as the foundation of economic value is not owned by any ideology. It does not favour any nation by birthright. It is not a tool of empire or resistance. It rewards efficiency, penalizes waste, and distributes its benefits in proportion to productive contribution rather than monetary privilege

In a world priced in energy, innovation that reduces consumption is rewarded directly and immediately. Nations that develop clean generation capacity gain economic standing without needing to manipulate exchange rates or accumulate debt. The incentive to go to war over energy chokepoints diminishes precisely because the new energy order is not a chokepoint; it is a network, i.e. the internet

The Iran conflict is a tragedy. But every crisis of this kind carries embedded within it the evidence for what comes next. What it is showing the world, with unusual clarity, is that the current system is not merely imperfect. It is structurally fragile in a way that only becomes visible when something breaks. Something has broken. The question now is what we choose to build in its place.

The author is developing the Priced Watt framework: a proposal to reground global economic exchange in energy as the universal unit of value

تخيل معي هالموقف: تدخل مقهى من المقاهي أحد الأصباح، تطلب قهوتك المفضلة، وبدال ما تطلع جوالك تدفع بالفيزا أو كاش، تدفع بالواط الوطواط! تقول كيف؟ خلني أوضح لك الفكرة اللي صارت اليوم أقرب للواقع من أي وقت مضى

كل شيء حولنا، حرفياً كل شيء، يحتاج تحويل لطاقة ما، عشان يقدم لك. القهوة اللي تشربها؟ احتاجت طاقة لزراعة البن، طاقة لحصاده، طاقة لتحميصه ونقله، وطاقة لتحضيره. الجوال اللي بيدك؟ مصانع كاملة اشتغلت بالكهرباء لصناعة كل قطعة فيه. حتى الخدمات اللي تستخدمها كل يوم، من نتفلكس و يوتيوب إلى أبشر و توكلنا، كلها تشتغل على سيرفرات ضخمة تستهلك كهرباء بكميات هائلة

الحين، شوف وش سوّا الذكاء الاصطناعي. تشات جي بي تي وكلاود وكل هالبرامج اللي صارت جزء من حياتنا اليومية، تعرف وش أكبر مشكلة تواجهها؟ الطاقة. مو القدرات التقنية ولا البيانات، لا، المشكلة الحقيقية هي محدودية الكهرباء. الشركات الكبيرة زي مايكروسوفت وجوجل تبني مراكز بيانات بمليارات الدولارات، وأكبر همّ عندهم: من وين نجيب كهرباء كافية لتشغيل كل هالأجهزة؟ هذا الشي خلى العالم كله يفيق على حقيقة واضحة: الطاقة هي العملة الحقيقية للاقتصاد

لما نقول بكرة بندفع بالكهرباء “الواط الوطواط”، مو قصدنا خيال علمي أو فكرة مستقبلية بعيدة. لا، الفكرة منطقية جداً ومبنية على واقع نعيشه اليوم جلياً بعدما كان تجريدياً، والبركة في الذكاء الاصطناعي الي كشف هالحقيقة. كل منتج، كل خدمة، لها “تكلفة طاقة” حقيقية. السؤال: ليش ما نستخدم هالتكلفة كمقياس مباشر للقيمة؟ بدال ما نقول هالشي بعشرين ريال، نقول خمسين كيلوواط. شفت كيف الموضوع بسيط؟

تخيل لو بيتك فيه ألواح شمسية تنتج كهرباء، الكهرباء الزايدة اللي ما تحتاجها، تقدر تستخدمها تدفع فيها مشترياتك. راح يكون عندك محفظة رقمية في جوالك، بدال ما تعرض رصيدك بعملة من العملات الحالية، تعرضه بالكيلوواط. الجميل في الموضوع، إن هالنظام النقدي العالمي الجديد، راح يخلي الناس تهتم أكثر بإنتاج الطاقة النظيفة. كل ما أنتجت طاقة أكثر من مصادر نظيفة زي الشمس والرياح، كل ما صار عندك قوة شرائية أكبر. يعني صرت مو بس مستهلك، صرت منتج ومشارك في الاقتصاد بشكل حقيقي

طبعاً، فيه تحديات. كيف نحدد سعر الأشياء بالطاقة؟ كيف نتعامل مع التقلبات في إنتاج الطاقة المتجددة؟ هذي كلها أسئلة مهمة، بس الحلول موجودة. التقنية تطورت بشكل كافي، البلوكشين والشبكات الذكية والعدادات الرقمية، كل الأدوات جاهزة

اللي يخلي الموضوع أقرب للواقع اليوم هو إن العالم كله بدا يشوف محدودية الطاقة كتحدي حقيقي. مو بس في الذكاء الاصطناعي، حتى في الصناعات الثانية. الدول تتسابق لبناء محطات طاقة، الشركات تستثمر مليارات في مصادر طاقة جديدة، والناس صاروا يفهمون إن الطاقة هي المحرك الحقيقي لكل شي. هالوعي المتزايد بأهمية الطاقة هو اللي بيسهل الانتقال لنظام نقدي جديد يعتمد عليها كعملة

الحين، خلني أطلب منك طلب بسيط بس راح يغير نظرتك للعالم: لاحظ الطاقة في كل شي تشتريه، في كل قرار تتخذه. لما تشتري شيء جديد، لا تفكر بس في السعر بالريال، فكر كم كيلوواط احتاج عشان يُصنع وينقل لك. لما تطلب توصيل أكل، فكر في الطاقة اللي استُهلكت في الطبخ والنقل والتبريد. لما تقرر تسافر، احسب الطاقة مو بس الفلوس بالعملات الحالية

هالنموذج الذهني، هالطريقة في التفكير، راح تخليك متقدم على غيرك بخطوات. لما تبدأ تفهم القيمة الحقيقية للأشياء من منظور الطاقة، راح تاخذ قرارات أذكى، راح تستثمر في الأماكن الصح، وراح تكون جاهز للتحول قبل ما يصير عُرف عام. تخيل لو بديت تستثمر في مصادر الطاقة المتجددة الحين، أو تركب ألواح شمسية في بيتك أو مشروعك، أو حتى تشتري أسهم في شركات الطاقة النظيفة. لما يجي اليوم اللي يصير فيه التسعير بالطاقة واقع، انت بتكون من الرابحين الأوائل، مو من اللي يلحقون القطار آخر لحظة

الفرص موجودة لمن يراها. الناس اللي يفهمون هالتحول قبل غيرهم، هم اللي يستفيدون. مو بس مادياً، لا، حتى في طريقة تفكيرهم وقراراتهم اليومية. لما تبدأ تحسب الطاقة في كل شي، راح تلاحظ إنك صرت تقدّر الأشياء البسيطة أكثر، وتبعد عن الاستهلاك العشوائي، وتركز على اللي فعلاً يستاهل قيمته، بالطاقة، نموذج التسعير الكوني، تحكمه الفيزياء لا مطابع الدولار!

في النهاية، الموضوع مو بس تغيير في طريقة الدفع. لا، هذا تغيير في طريقة تفكيرنا عن القيمة نفسها. لما ندرك إن كل شي حولنا في الأساس طاقة متحولة، نبدا نفهم الاقتصاد بشكل أعمق وأصدق. والأيام الجاية، مع استمرار تطور الذكاء الاصطناعي وزيادة الطلب على الطاقة، الفكرة هذي راح تصير مو بس منطقية، بل ضرورية. فابدأ من اليوم، درّب عقلك على رؤية الطاقة في كل شي، واقتنص الفرص قبل ما يفوت الأوان. لأن المستقبل أقرب مما نتصور، وبكرة فعلاً قد نشتري قهوتنا بالكيلوواط بدال الريالات، والذكي اللي يكون مستعد من الحين، ويفهم نمط الواط الوطواط!

تخمّر في ذهني هذا السؤال لعقد من الزمن، حتى سُكَّ الحلّ!

في نوفمبر 2022، وأنا مختلي في خيمة في صحراء حائل شمال السعودية، ضمن تجربة للخلوة بالنفس ومغادرة المدينة بعدما اجتاحتها الجوائح، الإجابة ظهرت جلية واضحة في طريق مظلم و سماء صافية تلمع بالنجوم: الطاقة هي العملة، لمستقبل العالم. وقتها، الذكاء الاصطناعي في بداياته ولم يتشكل كما هو الآن

كتبت أول تدوينة عن الحلّ في بداية يناير 2023 في مدونتي السابقة ونقلتها إلى هذه المدونة بعنوان:

العجيب، اللي ما كنت أعرفه وقتها: إني وصلت لشاطئ، وقف عليه عمالقة قبلي

خذ التسلسل لفهم حتمية الحلّ:

بعد ما نشرت أفكاري القادمة من خيمة في صحراء السعودية، اكتشفت آثار أفكار لأعظم العقول في التاريخ:

توماس إديسون وهنري فورد (1921-1922) اقترحوا “عملة الطاقة” بدل معيار الذهب. فورد تخيل نظام الساعة من الطاقة المبذولة تساوي دولار واحد. إديسون دعم فكرة “دولار الطاقة” كأساس أثبت من الذهب!

باكمنستر فولر (1969) راح أبعد، واقترح “الكيلوواط دولار” وشبكة طاقة كهربية عالمية (خريطة دايماكسيون توضح كيف أن العالم مترابط باليابسة أكثر مما نتصور). كان شرارة هذا الجواب، لما طفل عمره 11 سنة سأله كيف نحل مشكلة العنف، قال الحل شبكة كهربائية عالمية حيث “أساسنا الاقتصادي الجديد ليس ذهب أو دولارات؛ بل كيلوواط-ساعات”

وبعدين، في 2013، برايان ماكونيل اقترح “معيار الجول”، واقتصاديين بيئيين قضوا عقود يجادلون إن النظريات الاقتصادية التقليدية تتجاهل الطاقة كقيد أساسي

وبعدها، في 2026، إيلون ماسك تكلم عن الواط كعملة المستقبل، وإريك شميدت (الرئيس السابق لقوقل) تحدث إن الكهرباء، وليس رقائق/شرائح الكمبيوتر، هي المحدد الحقيقي لتقدم الذكاء الاصطناعي

كل هالوصولات للحلّ، ما كانت صدفة. ولا كانت عبقريات منفصلة. كانت إدراكات بواقع الكون وطريقة عمله.

ليش هالفكرة تطلع كل مرة

فكرة الطاقة كعملة ما تطلع من الذكاء، تطلع من حاجة وحدود فيزيائية مهمة تطلب حلّ بهذه المحددات

كل شخص وصل لهالنتيجة كان يستجيب لنفس الحقيقة الأساسية: كل قيمة في الأساس ناتجة عن تحويل الطاقة. ما تقدر تبني، تنقل، تتواصل، تفكر، أو تعيش بدون ما تحول طاقة ما. كل نظام عملات يتجاهل هذا الشي، مبني على طبقات تجريدية تنهار بتناقضاتها

إديسون وفورد شافوا هذا في عشرينيات القرن الماضي، لما العملة المقومة بالذهب خلقت ندرة صناعية بينما وفرة الطاقة صارت ممكنة تقنياً

فولر شافها في 1969 لما عصر الفضاء خلى الترابط العالمي متخيّل، والعشوائية في العملات العالمية صارت واضحة

الاقتصاديين البيئيين شافوها لما أزمات النفط في السبعينات كشفت كيف الاقتصادات الحديثة تعتمد كلياً على تدفقات الطاقة، وليس تدفقات المال

وأنا شفتها في 2022 لما خرجت من المدينة لأعيش في خيمة بالصحراء. ميكانيكية الإنتاج الأساسية صارت واضحة: الوقت يختلف، العمالة تختلف، المواد تختلف. لكن استهلاك الطاقة حقيقة جلية للنجاة!

والحين ماسك وشميدت يشوفونها في 2026 لأن الذكاء الاصطناعي خلى هالتناقض مستحيل تتجاهله: عندنا ذكاء لا نهائي لكن طاقة محدودة!

لماذا اليوم وهذه اللحظة مختلفة في تبني الفكرة؟

اللي يميز هالتقارب الحالي عن كل الإدراكات السابقة:

1. أخيراً، التقنية موجودة

شبكة فولر العالمية للطاقة كانت خيال علمي في 1969. اليوم، عندنا:

• أنظمة طاقة متجددة موزعة

• سجلات بلوكتشين لامركزية

• شبكات ذكية وحساسات IoT تقيس تدفقات الطاقة في الوقت الفعلي

• ذكاء اصطناعي يحسّن توزيع الطاقة على نطاق ضخم

البنية التحتية اللي تخلي عملة قائمة على الطاقة، ممكنة اليوم أكثر من أي وقت سابق، مفتاح رؤية هذا بوضوح، تسابق الكثير من دول العالم في تعدين خام النحاس، تتوقع ليش؟

2. الحاجة ملحّة

الذكاء الاصطناعي ما يمكّن الطاقة كعملة، بل يفرض ضرورتها للمستقبل. لما الذكاء الاصطناعي يولّد تصاميم لا نهائية، يكتب كود لا نهائي، وينتج تحليل لا نهائي، الطاقة تصير القيد الوحيد اللي له معنى. عنق الزجاجة انتقل من “ايش نقدر نفكر فيه؟” إلى “ايش نحتاج لتشغيله؟”

عشان كذا ماسك وشميدت يقولون هذا الحين. مو لأنهم أذكى من فورد أو فولر، لكن لأن الواقع التقني والاقتصادي أخيراً لحق المنطق الفيزيائي

3. تقاطع اللامركزية

نسخة ”الواط المسعّر Priced Watt” تضيف شي للرؤى السابقة ما كان واضح فيها: تكامل صريح مع الأنظمة اللامركزية. مو بس شبكة فولر العالمية المركزية، لكن شبكة ممكّنة بالبلوكتشين حيث:

• ما فيه سلطة مركزية تتلاعب بالعملة مثل الدولار حالياً (ما تقدر تطبع طاقة على الورق فقط)

• المعاملات شفافة وقابلة للتحقق (استهلاك الطاقة يقاس)

• المزايا الجغرافية تصير مزايا تنافسية حقيقية (مو هندسة مالية للعملات)

• تحسينات الكفاءة تخلق انكماش سعري فوري على مستوى العالم للمنتجات والخدمات

هذا مو بس نظام طاقة-كعملة. هذا نظام لامركزي، يمكن التحقق منه، ويوازن نفسه حسب احتياج العالم للانتاج والاستهلاك

نمط الاكتشاف المستقل

اللي يلفت نظري أكثر في اكتشاف هالسلسلة مو إن غيري فكر فيها قبلي، لكن إننا كلنا اضطررنا نكتشفها بشكل مستقل (أو على الأقل أتكلم عن نفسي، ما أدري عن الآخرين)

هنا تعرف إن الفكرة حقيقية مو بس ذكية: عندما يعاود اكتشافها من جديد كحلّ لنفس المشكلة

إديسون وفورد ما كانوا يعرفون إنهم يكررون مبادئ استكشفها تيسلا. فولر على الأرجح عرف عن فورد لكن طور رؤيته بشكل مستقل من خلال التفكير المنظومي. الاقتصاديين البيئيين وصلوا عبر الديناميكا الحرارية. أنا وصلت عبر الهندسة والسؤال عن قياس التكلفة العالمي. ماسك وشميدت يوصلون عبر قيود البنية التحتية للذكاء الاصطناعي

مسارات مختلفة، نفس الوجهة. لأن الوجهة حقيقية

ليش الحين هو الوقت المناسب؟

لمدة قرن، رؤية الطاقة-كعملة كانت صحيحة فلسفياً لكن عملياً مبكرة. العالم ما كان جاهز. التقنية ما كانت موجودة. الحاجة ما كانت ملحة كفاية لتبنيها

الآن:

• مراكز الذكاء الاصطناعي تنتقل على أساس توفر وسعر الطاقة

• تعدين البيتكوين يتبع أرخص كهرباء (ليس عملة على فكرة)

• مراكز البيانات هي المصانع الجديدة، والواطات هي تكلفة مدخلاتها الأساسية

• الفجوة بين القدرة المعرفية (لا نهائية) وتوفر الطاقة (محدود). القيد الاقتصادي في الطاقة وليس المعرفة

“الواط المسعّر” ما عاد تنبؤ. هو وصف لما يحدث الآن!

السؤال ليس ما إذا كانت الطاقة تصبح العملة الأساسية. السؤال هل بنبني الأنظمة الي تمكّن هالتحول للمجتمعات والاقتصادات، بدل من التركيز على الصراع في السيطرة على الطاقة والذكاء الاصطناعي (فنزويلا؟! كمثال على تحركات أمريكا قبل التخلي عن الدولار لإتلاف ومسح الديون الأمريكية للعالم؟!)

السعودية في سياق تاريخي للطاقة كعملة

السعودية، بميزاتها وقدراتها النفطية وحصاد الطاقة المتجددة الضخمة، تقف عند نفس المفترق اللي وقفت عنده أمريكا في 1921 لما فورد اقترح عملة الطاقة

لكن الفرق: السعودية عندها ميزات إضافية، منها طاقة شمسية هائلة، ربما الأعلى في العالم. في نظام الواط المسعّر، هذا مو بس ميزة، هذا أساس الاقتصاد الجديد، طاقة متجددة يعني مصنع عملة حقيقية

المستقبل ليس في تصدير برميل الطاقة كسائل مخزن في السفن عبر البحار و بسعر متذبذب. المستقبل في:

• تحويل الطاقة الشمسية لواطات رخيصة

• استضافة مراكز بيانات الذكاء الاصطناعي العالمية

• إنتاج منتجات كثيفة الطاقة بتكلفة أقل من أي مكان

• تصدير الواطات في شكل منتجات وخدمات، مو في شكل خام

رؤية 2030 تتكلم عن التنويع. لكن التنويع الحقيقي في عالم الواط المسعّر: تحويل الميزة الطاقوية لميزة إنتاجية دائمة، ما تتأثر بأسعار عالمية أو قرارات سياسية

فولر حلم بشبكة طاقة عالمية. السعودية تقدر تكون عقدة رئيسية في هالشبكة، والوسيط الأساسي ومركز التبادل التجاري العالمي الجديد!

الصحراء والنمط

أنا ما اكتشفت الطاقة كعملة “الواط المسعّر”

أنا أدركته، الإجابة الي أدركها إديسون، و فولر، و الاقتصاديين البيئيين، و الآن ماسك و شميدت. الفكرة كانت دايماً موجودة، مسطّرة في رياضيات الديناميكا الحرارية، و منطق الإنتاج، و فيزياء التحويل

الصحراء ما أعطتني الإجابة. بل أزالت الضجيج، لتصل إجابة، يستحيل تجاهلها. الطاقة كانت ولازالت ولن يصبح غيرها كعملة مستقرة على أساس كوني. الي سواه الإنسان في آخر القرون، بنى طبقات تجريدية معقدة عشان يتجنب التعامل معها مباشرة، ربما لأن أدوات الحلّ لم تكتمل إلا اليوم!

اليوم، ذابت الطبقات التجريدية للعملات وبقيت الطاقة واضحة جلية لقيمة الشيء. عمالقة التقنية والتاريخ، ما وصلوا لهالاستنتاج عشوائياً. وصلوا لأنهم نظروا بوضوح للواقع، حتى كشف الواقع بنيته الأساسية

وبنية الواقع أساسها: الطاقة العملة لأن القيد طاقة

كل شي ثاني مجرد أوراق، تحمل طاقة الورق، من شجر أو بلاستك!

بماذا تعرّف جودة الحياة؟

في ويكيبيديا، تعرّف على أنها:

“كل ما يتمتع به الفرد من مسكن وملبس ومأكل ومشرب“، وركز لي على كلمة >يتمتع< لأنها مفتاحية في فهم جودة الحياة

ولما نشوف برنامج جودة الحياة في رؤية السعودية 2030، نلقى أهداف استراتيجية مهمة لتحقيق رؤية البرنامج، مثل:

• تعزيز ممارسة الأنشطة الرياضية في المجتمع

• تحقيق التميّز في عدة رياضات إقليمياً وعالمياً

• تنمية المساهمة السعودية في الفنون والثقافة

• تطوير وتنويع فرص الترفيه لتلبية احتياجات السكان

• تحسين المشهد الحضري في المدن السعودية

• …

لو تلاحظ، الإنسان محور مشترك بين هذه الأهداف. خلنا نرجع لكلمة “يتمتع”، كيف يتمتع الإنسان بالمسكن والملبس والمأكل والمشرب؟

بأعطيك أمثلة فيها متعة وأمثلة العكس (وش عكس المتعة؟)، عاد أنت وضميرك، وش دخل؟ مدري!

الاستمتاع بالملبس

قديماً، كان الطفل يستمتع بالملبس مرة واحدة في السنة، وغالباً في يوم العيد، عندما يكسوه والده بثوب جديد أو فستانٍ جميل في حال كانت طفلة. هنا، الأطفال في أعلى درجات المتعة باللبس الجديد، وتستمر الفرحة فترة طويلة، تتعدى الأسابيع

اليوم، تدخل بعض الملابس للبيت وتنام في الدولاب ويكبر الطفل ولا يلبسها. بل يلبس بعض الأطفال “أغلى الماركات” ولا يحسون بأي متعة بالملبس، أو ربما متعة لثواني معدودة، وينتقل الطفل إلى استهلاك “دوباميني” آخر!

طيب تخيل معي، أن تلبس لبساً تعرف من صنعه، ومما صنعه، وكيف صممه، وربما تشارك في حياكته أو يشارك في حياكته من يكنّ لك بمشاعر، كيف ستستمتع بهذا الملبس؟ ملبس له قصة

يطرأ على بالي بعض الأسئلة بخصوص الملابس عموماً، وكيف ضاع تأثير البيئة والمهنة على شكل الملبس، بل كيف تلاشت الإضافات الفنية المتفردة لكل شخص على ملبسه. تقريباً العالم كله يلبس نفس الملابس، وهذا شيء عجيب في تاريخ البشرية وربما يحدث لأول مرة

من أكثر الأشياء متعة في الملبس، أن تلبس شيئاً يلائمك، فيزيائياً وروحياً. لا محاكاة للموضة ولا بحث عن معجبين ومعجبات! غالباً ستجد المتعة في ملبس “مكروف” وربما مهترئ، تعرف ليش؟ من كثر ما لبسته! هنا أعلى درجات جودة الحياه في الملبس، “بجامة نوم مشققه”

الاستمتاع بالمأكل والمشرب

اطلب من هنقر الدبابات، هههه، لا أمزح، والا لا ما أمزح؟! الصراحة مشهد تغذية البطن و”الكرشة” اليوم، غير ممتع أبداً، وراح أقول لك ليش. وين المتعة في إنك تفتح تطبيق، وتشقلب مخك في وش تطلب، ثم آخر شيء تطلب أسرع مطعم يوصل لأنك جعت زيادة من كثر ما الصور مليانه زيت وسكر! ثم ياخذ الطلب مدة تكون وقتها فقدت اتزانك وقواك العقلية والنفسية، وعساه ما يفاجئك المندوب ويسحب عليك والا يصدمه “راعي السييرا”. أبداً، لا متعة في هذا، ولكن أنت مضطر، تدري ليش؟

خلني أعلمك، أنت تدري أن الطبخ بالبيت أفضل (صحياً واقتصادياً)، ولو كنت ذو مهارة بالطبخ أحسن وأحسن، لكن فيه مشكلة متعددة الأوجه:

• غالباً ماعندك وقت، عشان الدنيا زحمه وجدول حياتك “الله بالخير”

• ماتعرف تطبخ أو ما عندك أحد يطبخ لك

• ماعندك مطبخ لأنك ساكن بـ “استوديو” كان غرفة بشقة، شقشقوها لاستوديوهات!

• كل الي فوق، وزيادة...

الله يلطف بحالك وحال راعين الخوذات، أكلك يجيك بنكهة كربون الشوارع، وزين إذا وقف على كذا

طيب وين المتعة بالأكل؟ كيف استمتع؟

خلني أعلمك لحظات أنت تعرفها زين، فيها متعة بالمأكل والمشرب:

• لما تطلعون للبر، حتى لو كان الطبخ نص استواء أو الطباخ “جاب العيد”

• إذا رحت لمطعم شعبي رخيص وأكله لذيذ وأكلت محلي

• برّاد شاي على الجمر في أجواء ممطرة

• …

لاحظ، أنه كلما ابتعدت عن المدنية وميكنة عمليات إعداد المأكل والمشرب، كلما استمتعت به. ربما هنالك حالة قمة، للمتعة بالمأكل والمشرب، وهي أن تعيش في مزرعتك وتحصد منها مواردك الغذائية، وتعد الطعام مع الأهل والأحباب خلال اليوم، وتجربون وصفات جديدة وابتكارات معظمها ستفشل. لكن المتعة هو في رحلة التغذية، ليست تغذية بطن و “كرشة” فقط، بل فيها نوع من الدفء والأمن الغذائي

الاستمتاع بالمسكن

وهذا فيه المعضلة الأكبر، ليس لارتفاع الأسعار فقط، بل يتعدى هذا. بغض النظر عن قدرة شخص ما على شراء مسكن، فالمتعة ليست مرتبطة بسعر أو بحجم بل بأشياء تكاد تكون معدومة في مساكن اليوم

المسكن هو أقرب ما يكون، إطار يحوي عمليات حياتية لك ككائن بيولوجي يحتك مع كائنات بيولوجية أخرى في بيئة فيزيائية معينة. عندما تشاهد مسكن في مدينة ساحلية، يشبه مسكن في مدينة صحراوية، يشبه مسكن في مدينة جبلية، تعرف أن “الدنيا ضايعة” وما عندنا عمارة للإنسان والمكان

عشان تستمتع بالمسكن، لا بد أن ينمو بشكل عضوي، بمعنى أن تنمو العناصر حسب الاحتياج، وأن تشارك فيه بيدك وخيالك وأحاسيسك وفنّك. هذا لا يعني شرطاً أن تبنيه بنفسك، ولكن أن ينمو المسكن كما تنمو أنت وعائلتك، هذه هي قمة الاستمتاع بالمسكن. أن يتوافق المسكن مع المكان ويتكيف مع الحدود الفيزيائية والطبيعية

طبعاً ليش صعب تستمتع بالمسكن؟ لأنك يالله تحصل لك مسكن إيجار، خل باقي تنمو بشكل عضوي في مسكن ملك. المدينة بقوانينها وأنظمتها >وأدت< أي مساحة للنمو العضوي للمسكن. اليوم تسكن في سكن مصمم بشكل صناعي تجاري بحت، إذا كنت محظوظ، تختار لون الجدار وبلاط الحمام!

“لا تقتل المتعة يا مسلم!!”

لو فيه داء يخنق المتعة في كل مساحات الحياة، فهو شيء واحد اليوم: اتساع حلبة المصارعة، قصدي المقارنة! مع انتشار “الإنفلونزرز”، أصبح داء المقارنة مثل الإنفلونزا، يفتك بالمتعة في كل مكان. غالباً الجانب الي في حياتك مافيه متعة، موبوء بداء المقارنة.

عشان تسترجع المتعة في حياتك، اختر أين تعيش، وكيف تعيش، ومع من تعيش. لن تندم، وإن ندمت، فتذكر أنك اخترت.

لماذا نسأل، في هذه الحياة؟

الإجابة المختصرة، نريد معلومة نستعين بها على تحقيق مصلحة. مثال، شخص ما، عنده مشكلة بعيونه يسأل آخر: كيف عملية عيونك؟ من الدكتور اللي سواها لك؟ مثال آخر، وش نوع جهازك الي تستخدمه وكيف ماشي معك؟ الهدف الأساس هو تقليل تفاوت المعلومات (information asymmetry) عن جودة سلعة أو إمكانات مقدم خدمة ما، حتى يستوفي السائل أكبر منفعة بسرعة وطمأنينة. الكلمة المفتاحية هنا، هو تفاوت المعلومة، وهي فجوة مؤثرة على جودة قراراتك في هذه الحياة. الكل يبحث عن رفع جودة قراراته في هذه الحياة، ولكن هذا ليس السبب الوحيد!

هاه! أجل؟

فيه جانب آخر، نسأل لنطمئن أننا نتوافق مع محيطنا. مثال هذا، طالب يتواصل مع زملائه في أيام الاختبارات ويسألهم: كيف درسوا فصل معين؟ كم ساعة ذاكروا؟ بنت تسأل قريباتها: كم مرة بالأسبوع تطبخون؟ طالبة في المرحلة المتوسطة تسأل زميلاتها: من وين تشتري المكياج؟

فنلاحظ هنا، قد يكون الهدف من السؤال أحد أمرين، الاستعانة على تحقيق مصلحة وكذلك الاتساق مع المحيط. هنالك من يريد أن يبدأ بالسؤال لحظة تواصل مع شخص يهمه التواصل معه. من الأمثلة، الزوج لزوجته: وش الغداء اليوم؟ شخص لزميله: وش صاير بإيران؟ هنا يأتي السؤال كوسيلة للتحقق من رضى الطرف الآخر أو يطمئِن السائل الطرف الآخر أنه راض (عادة بعد تماعط الشوش!).

هنالك شكل آخر له، مثل السؤال عن أحوال الشخص وأهله كعرف اجتماعي قبل الدخول في طلب ما. وهذا الأمر يقصد منه جزئيًا، أن سؤالي عنك وعن أهلك، وجوابك لسؤالي عن نفسك وأهلك، يوحي أن علاقتنا مستقرة، فأفترض أن تستمع إلى طلبي وأسترسل بالحديث. عكس ذلك، قد يستدعي طرف جوابًا، من الطرف الآخر ليستطيع أن يعرض عليه المساعدة. مثال، خلصت من التشطيب؟ أنا أعرف لك مقاول/معلّم ممتاز! أو يقيم مدى إمكانية تقديم المساعدة له، بدون حصول ضرر على السائل.

ومن مجالات السؤال، لغرض الاطمئنان عما لا يمكن الاطمئنان عنه عمومًا كالمستقبل، وتراها جلية في طلبات تفسير الأحلام. وجه آخر للسؤال، لغرض بعيد المدى واستراتيجي، عندما يعلم السائل أن الجواب الصحيح/المباشر سيضر بقدرة الطرف الآخر التفاوضية. أوضح أمثلتها جلية في مقابلات التوظيف للأعمال، عندما يتيقن رب العمل أن الشخص مناسب، يحاول أن يسأله في غير مجال تخصصه، ويترقب أن يجيب طالب العمل بلا أعلم أو يرتبك، ومن ثم يكون لرب العمل التفاوض من مكان أفضل.

لماذا يجيب الآخر؟

أحد أوجه الإجابة، يريد أن ينفع الآخر لوجه الله، ويريد المجيب أن يتخذ السائل القرار الصحيح، مثالها الأب عندما يشارك خبرته مع أبنائه. هنالك من يجيب الآخر ليشعر بقيمته أو أنه يستمتع بمشاركة علمه أو تصوره، وأمثلتها كثيرة. هنالك أيضاً، من يجيب بتعاون ليخلق لحظة تواصل، مثل الزوجة عندما تجيب زوجها عن الغداء، والزميل عندما يجيب عن الوضع في إيران. قد يريد المجيب أن يطمئن السائل أن ليس بينهما شحناء، أو يريد ملاحظة ردة فعل السائل على الجواب بدافع الحب/الاحترام، مثال الزوجة جوابًا على سؤال وش الغداء: اليوم طابخين ... إذا كانت أول مرة تطبخ الطبخة، وما تدري هل زوجها يحبها، بتهتم ترى ردة فعله.

وقد يجيب ويكون مقصده ما يجنيه من جوابه في الحال أو المآل. كأن يحصل على منفعة مالية مباشرة من الجواب، مثل السمسار العقاري/الخطابة/المدرس الخصوصي… إلخ. وقد يكون للإجابة صورة سلبية باستغلال اللحظة للانتقاص من السائل وإظهار علوه، بقول مثلا: ما مر عليك قبل؟ أو التأخر في الجواب، أو الجواب بإيجاز مخل بقصد اللعب في ديناميكية العلاقة وإظهار عدم أهمية السائل له أو أن السائل هو الذي يحتاجه. هناك شكل آخر للمقصد من الجواب كاستدعاء ردة فعل عن طريق الجواب، ومن ثم ملاحظة ردة فعل السائل، بقصد التفاوض. مثالها في البائع إذا سئل عن سعر سلعة وعرض رقمًا يريد أن يستخلص انطباع المشتري المحتمل، كذلك الموارد البشرية لمن يعرضون على موظف راتب معين يحاولون يكلمونه بالتلفون يستشفون انطباعه. وقد تكون الإجابة على سؤال ما، كمنفعة مستقبلية/رصيد عند السائل، خدمة مقابل خدمة لاحقاً. هنالك من يجيب استراتيجياً؛ ليتمكن من إظهار مزية فيه أو في منتجه، يتفاوض على أساسها، أو عندما يضطر إلى الجواب وإن كان تجنب الجواب أفضل؛ ليتفادى الشكوك بخصوص مواصفات أو قدرات معينة.

الآن، لماذا لا؟

لماذا يحجم الناس عن السؤال في الحياة الواقعية؟

باختصار، خوفًا من الرفض ومن ثم انخفاض قيمتهم الاجتماعية. قد يحجم شخص عن خطبة امرأة بالكلية لهذا السبب، أو يتجنب شخص البحث عن عمل عن طريق زميل له لذات السبب. قد لا يحجم الشخص عن السؤال بالكلية. وقد يجسر/يجرؤ شخص على السؤال، لكنه – حفاظًا على قيمته الاجتماعية - يسأله بنبرة غير مهتمة؛ حتى لا يكون للرفض أثر على قيمته الاجتماعية. جانب آخر من تجنب السؤال، خشية فقد جزء من القدرة التفاوضية، مثال من يريد أن يشتري شيئا، ويعلم أن به ميزة، لن يسأل عن هذه الميزة حتى لا يرفع الطرف الآخر السعر إلا إذا اضطر للتحقق من وجودها، مثل ذلك رب العمل وأهل المخطوبة لا يسألون عن مزايا الموظف أو الخاطب التي يعلمونها.

هنالك من لا يسأل، لأنه لا يريد استنزاف رصيد المصالح مع بعض الأشخاص. بعض الناس في إجاباتهم عليك، يظهرون أن ما استنزف من سؤال واحد قدر كبير من هذا الرصيد، ليحققوا لنفسهم من نفس الشخص مصالح أكبر مما يعطوا، فيتجنب الشخص سؤالهم إلا في أحلك الظروف. أيضاً، هنالك جانب آخر يمنع الناس من السؤال، تكمن في نوعية السؤال. فمن المستحسن تجنبها مع غير المقربين/المختصين/ذوي التجارب المشابهة. مثلا، السؤال عن أفضل دكتور عملية بواسير، وسؤال شخص عن تجربته في جامعة معينة أو مكان عمل معين، عشان ما "يشوف نفسه عليك"! وسؤال شخص عما إذا كان قد فعل أمر معين مثلا: خضع مثلا لعملية تخسيس وزن فقد تحرج نفسك وتحرجه، جلها تقع في الأسئلة الشخصية. هنالك أسئلة من المستحسن تجنبها، ولكن أيضًا لتوقعك أنك لن تحصل على إجابة حتى تسأل عدد كبير من الناس، وعندها تكون قد استنفدت قيمة اجتماعية كبيرة. لذا، حتى وإن كان السائل لا يراعي قيمته الاجتماعية في نوعية السؤال، فحتما سيراعيها عند تكرر عدم إجابة الناس عليه، لعدم علمهم أو عدم رغبتهم بالإجابة.

الآن، بعدما عرفنا لماذا لا يسألون، ماذا عن: لماذا لا يجيب الناس عند سؤالهم؟

لأن الجواب مع إظهار الرغبة في إجابة السائل إجابة شافية، قد تقلل من قيمة ما تقدمه والفضل فيه، أو يزيد طمع السائل فيما عندك وما تستطيع أن تقدمه له. هذا يفسر جزئيًا لجوء بعض الناس إلى الإيجاز المُخِلّ في الجواب في أحيان كثيرة، وعدم التعاون مع السائل بإجابته إجابة شافية.

أيضاً، الجواب قد يقلل من قيمتك الاجتماعية. بعض الناس قد يرفض الإفصاح عن خضوعه لعملية سمنة، أو مشكلة عقم لديه وقد يتحمل ضغوطات رهيبة "ليش ما تجيبون عيال؟" على أن يجيب على السؤال. مثال آخر، عندما يسأل شخص عن قدر راتبه أو تجربته مع إبر التخسيس، يمتنع معظم الناس عن الإجابة لأمور في جلها نفسية. والسبب؟ أولاً، لأن الجواب قد يضعف من موقفهم التفاوضي في عملية تفاوض. مثلاً، لو عرض المشتري سعر منخفض جدًا، قد يسكت البائع، لأن البائع لو تكلم حينها وقال: "لا، السعر اللي تقول بعيد" فهو كأنه يتيح للمشتري أن يرفعه قليلاً، في حين أن سكوته وإعراضه قد يكون أفضل للتفاوض لأنه كأنه يقول "أنت مجنون"! ثانياً، لأن الجواب قد يلزمهم/يحملهم مسؤولية أو يعيق حريتهم مستقبلاً، كما لو قلت لأحد سبق سويت كذا، أو لي تجربة مع كذا، حتى وإن كان المخاطب غير مهتم، قد يظهر مستقبلا في حياته شخص محتاج معلومات عن هذا الأمر الذي جربته، ومن ثم يحيله عليك، وتكون حينها ملزم بالإفادة. أيضًا لو أفصحت لزوجتك عن جميع أملاكك، وكانت غير عاقلة، قد تحملك ما لا تطيق. كذلك الأمر مع النصائح، حينما تنصح شخص بشيء، قد تترتب عليك مسؤولية ضمنية حول هذا الأمر.

كيف حلّ الإنسان معضلة السؤال والجواب؟

حلها بخلق علاقات وطيدة بصديق مقرب، أو قريب موثوق، أو استشارة مهنية محاطة بالسرية. هذه الروابط، مبنية على ماهو أبعد من أن تكتشفه "نظرية التبادل الاجتماعي Social Exchange Theory" وفي هذا الزمن تغيرت الأدوات ولكن الاحتياج هو نفسه. اليوم يستخدم الناس حسابات أونلاين مجهولة على مواقع مثل reddit، وحديثاً، سؤال الذكاء الاصطناعي بدلا من سؤال أشخاص حقيقيين!

ماذا يجد الناس في السؤال والجواب "أونلاين"، مقارنة بالواقع؟

إمكانية البقاء مجهول في “الأونلاين”، فتحقق مصلحتك بتقليل فجوة التفاوت المعلوماتي، وتتسق مع محيطك، وتتجنب عدد من السلبيات المذكورة آنفاً. قد تسأل "أونلاين" للحصول على معلومة يعجز عن الحصول عليها من معارف الواقع لتجنب بعض السلبيات المذكورة أعلاه، أو لأن المعلومة غير متوفرة لديهم. بالتأكيد لسرعة الحصول على المعلومة مقارنة بالواقع، فالواقع قد تضطر للانتظار أيام حتى يجيبك الشخص، أو حتى يسأل الشخص غيره ثم يأتيك بمعلومة، وكذلك الراحة والسهولة بدون ما تطلع تقابل الشخص أو تتواصل هاتفيًا معه. من الأسباب أيضاً لامتناع الناس عن السؤال في الواقع، تجنب الاحتكاك و"تماعط الشوش" إن صح التعبير. لو بنت تبي تسأل أمها عن إكسسوار غالي، الأم بتقول ليش حرام، اشتري ذهب أحسن من إكسسوار. نفس الشيء إذا السؤال عن سفر، أو تعليم معين. البعض أيضاً يفترض موثوقية معلومة أعلى "أونلاين" عن الواقع (يا بنات، هل هذه النقطة صحيحة عندكم؟ افتراض موثوقية أعلى للأونلاين عن الواقع؟)؛ لأنهم لا يعلموا عن الشخص الذي أجاب (عمره، تجاربه، عقله) فتكون موثوقيته الافتراضية عالية لغياب هذه المعلومات عن الشخص مقدم المعلومة.

في جانب الجواب أيضاً، البقاء مجهولاً يتيح للشخص أن يجيب ويستمتع بإجابته بدون تحفظات؛ مما يعطيه قيمة معنوية أعلى، دون تحمل تبعات الجواب. لن يطلبك أحد شيء بعدما تجيب بأيام لأنهم لا يعرفون من أنت. القيمة تلتمس من خلال ردود الناس أو انطباعات. أتصور المتقاعدين، العاطلين/الفاضين، النساء أكثر الفئات التي تجيب للحصول على قيمة معنوية. وبما أننا في عصر الذكاء الاصطناعي، فهذا رأي "تشات جي بي تي"، يقول: بعض المجيبين أونلاين يبنون سمعتهم الرقمية، الأمر الذي يمكن أن يؤول بهم إلى كسب مالي! وهذا واقعي فعلاً، فالتواجد الرقمي يتيح للمهنيين طلب مقابل مالي. فكر بمفسر الأحلام والمحامي عندما يتواجدون بالاستراحة؟ وقارنه بتواجدهم أونلاين على تطبيقات تفسير الأحلام والاستشارات القانونية؟ أيها أسهل أن يطلب مقابل مالي على الإجابة؟

الآن، هل لديك أسئلة لم تجد لها جواب؟ ربما لأنك لم تسأل، أو سألت وانسحب عليك!

لا عليك، هذا هو واقع العالم، فربما يحفزك هذا على اكتشاف جواب يغير العالم من حولك.

Electricity is currently the most efficient way to transfer energy, it moves at the speed of light, making it an ideal medium for settling transactions in an energy-based currency system. But this raises a practical question: How can such a global settlement network be built; physically?

One major challenge is geographical: Earth’s vast oceans make it seem difficult to connect continents with electrical infrastructure. Or... is it really that hard?

As Johny Harris says, “all maps are wrong”, but there is one map projection that offers a more accurate view of land proportions on a 2D surface: the Dymaxion Map, developed by Buckminster Fuller. Interestingly, Fuller used this map to demonstrate the feasibility of a global energy grid!

I came across the Dymaxion Map while reading an article titled “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally – And Vice Versa” by Greg Watson.

Here is the map:

The map clearly reveals how landmasses are more interconnected than we typically assume, something that also helps explain ancient human migration routes.

What are your thoughts?

Energy is the currency—no doubt about it.
To explore this idea further, check out my previous article:

ما يلزم لإطعام البشرية بأغذية متكيفة مع الصحراء

يستهلك البشر مجموعة واسعة من الأطعمة لمد أجسامهم بالطاقة اللازمة للحياة. ولكن ما الذي يتطلبه الأمر، من حيث السعرات الحرارية والمساحة الأرضية، لإطعام فرد واحد، أو عائلة، أو حتى قرية صغيرة؟

تستكشف هذه المقالة الأطعمة الغنية بالسعرات الحرارية التي يمكن أن تشكل العمود الفقري للأنظمة الغذائية في المناطق الصحراوية، وتحدد احتياجاتنا الكمية، وتقدير البصمة الأرضية المطلوبة لتلبيتها، مع التركيز بشكل خاص على التحديات والفرص للمجتمعات التي تعتمد على مصادر غذائية مستدامة محليًا

الأطعمة الغنية بالسعرات الحرارية

نبدأ أولاً، بتحديد الأطعمة الرئيسية الغنية بالسعرات الحرارية التي تُستهلك عادةً في الصحراء. ولابد أن يتناسب النظام الغذائي ويتكيف مع المناطق الصحراوية. تشمل الأطعمة الرئيسية الغنية بالسعرات الحرارية: الزيوت (مثل الزيتون أو السمسم)، الزبدة/السمن، البذور، الجبن/الإقط، الفواكه المجففة (خاصة التمور)، قطع لحم الإبل الدهنية، وعسل الصحراء. هذه الأطعمة غنية بالدهون والسكريات المركزة، مما يوفر طاقة فعالة، وهو أمر حيوي لتلبية الاحتياجات اليومية من السعرات الحرارية في المناخات الصعبة مثل الصحراء

فهم احتياجات الإنسان من السعرات الحرارية

في المتوسط، يحتاج الإنسان البالغ إلى ما يقرب من 2,250 سعرة حرارية يوميًا، أي ما يعادل حوالي 821,250 سعرة حرارية سنويًا. لتسهيل الحساب ومنظور أوسع، يمكننا تقريب هذا الرقم إلى ما يقرب من مليون سعرة حرارية سنويًا للفرد العادي. يعد هذا الأساس ضروريًا لتخطيط ميزانيات الغذاء لأي حجم من السكان.

لاحظ أن "سُعرة حرارية cal"، هي بالحقيقة علمياً "ألف سُعرة حرارية kcal”، لكن الناس اعتادوا على استخدام المصطلح كما هو. لذا، من الآن فصاعدًا، فإن كلمة "سعرة حرارية" في هذا المقال تعني "ألف سعرة حرارية" من حيث المعنى العلمي للطاقة المختزنة بالغذاء

علميًا:

1 سعرة حرارية (kcal أو Cal) = 1,000 سعرة حرارية (cal) ≈ 4,184 جول (J) ≈ 1.163 واط-ساعة (Wh)

تصميم ميزانية غذائية سنوية متوازنة بأغذية متكيفة مع البيئات الصحراوية

لتلبية هذه الاحتياجات من السعرات الحرارية بطريقة متوازنة ومغذية، يعد النظام الغذائي المتنوع أمرًا بالغ الأهمية. بالنسبة لميزانية نظرية تبلغ مليون سعرة حرارية سنويًا، موزعة على فرد يهدف إلى استهلاك ما يقرب من 2,740 سعرة حرارية يوميًا، فإن النظام الغذائي المتوازن في منطقة صحراوية قد يتكون بشكل مثالي من:

• الحبوب (متحملة للجفاف): حوالي 60 كجم (مثل الشعير، الدخن، الذرة الرفيعة، القمح حيث تتوفر المياه والمناخ)

• التمور/الفواكه المجففة: حوالي 100 كجم (عالية السعرات الحرارية، متكيفة مع البيئات الصحراوية مثل السدر)

• الخضروات (متكيفة مع البيئات الصحراوية في أوقات معينة من السنة): حوالي 350 كجم (مثل الطماطم، القرع، الباذنجان، الخضروات الورقية)

• البقوليات: حوالي 30 كجم (مثل الحمص، العدس، مصدر بروتين نباتي حيوي)

• لحم الإبل: حوالي 30 كجم (مصدر بروتين قليل الدهن، متكيف مع الأراضي الصحراوية)

• حليب الإبل: حوالي 150 لترًا (غني بالمغذيات، منتج حيواني عالي التكيف)

• عسل الصحراء: حوالي 10 كجم (طاقة مركزة، محلي طبيعي مثل عسل السدر والطلح)

• الزيوت الصحية (مثل زيت الزيتون شمال المملكة/السمسم بتهامة): حوالي 10 لترات

• البذور: حوالي 10 كجم (مثل بذور عباد الشمس)

• منتجات حيوانية: حوالي 30 كجم (مثل لحم الماعز/الضأن، منتجات ألبان الأبقار بشكل محدود)

  تحتوي هذه الميزانية الغذائية على مجموعات أغذية مناسبة للبيئات الصحراوية، ومستدامة. لماذا؟ لأنها من المحاصيل والحيوانات عالية الكفاءة المتكيفة مع المناخ، مع ضمان التنوع من حيث النوع والكمية لتشمل الكربوهيدرات والبروتينات والدهون، والعناصر الدقيقة من الفيتامينات والمعادن

البصمة الأرضية: من الفرد إلى القرية بالزراعة المتكيفة مع البيئات الصحراوية

أحد أكثر الجوانب إثارة للاهتمام في إنتاج الغذاء هو المساحة الأرضية المطلوبة، خاصة عند التفكير في المصادر المحلية المستدامة في البيئات الصعبة

للفرد الواحد: لإنتاج مليون سعرة حرارية سنويًا بهذا النظام الغذائي المتكيف مع البيئات القاحلة، سيحتاج الفرد نظريًا إلى ما بين 0.8 إلى 1.5 هكتار (8,000 - 15,000 متر مربع) من الأراضي الزراعية. تظل البصمة الأرضية كبيرة للمنتجات الحيوانية (لحم وحليب الإبل) بسبب متطلبات الرعي والأعلاف، لكن التحول إلى نباتات أكثر كفاءة في استخدام المياه مثل التمور والحبوب المقاومة للجفاف يرفع من كفاءة الإنتاج

لعائلة مكونة من 5 أفراد: عند التوسع، ستحتاج عائلة مكونة من 5 أفراد إلى ما يقرب من 5 ملايين سعرة حرارية سنويًا. نظرًا "للوفورات في الحجم" في الزراعة والاستهلاك، قد تحتاج عائلة مكونة من 5 أفراد إلى ما يقرب من 3.5 إلى 6.8 هكتار (35,000 - 68,000 متر مربع). لا يزال هذا يمثل قطعة أرض كبيرة، لكنه يوضح كيف يمكن للموارد المشتركة واختيار المحاصيل/الحيوانات المناسبة أن تخلق كفاءة في الإنتاج بسبب اقتصاديات الحجم

لقرية صغيرة تضم 10,000 نسمة: لإطعام مجتمع بهذا الحجم، يتطلب حوالي 10 مليارات سعرة حرارية سنويًا، تتصاعد احتياجات الأراضي بشكل كبير. ستحتاج قرية تضم 10,000 نسمة إلى ما يقدر بـ 7,000 إلى 13,600 هكتار (70 إلى 136 كيلومتر مربع) من الأراضي الزراعية المحيطة لتلبية احتياجات السكان الغذائية

ماذا تعتقد المساحة المطلوبة لتغذية سكان مدينة مليونية؟

التحديات والفرص لإنتاج الغذاء محلياً في المناطق الصحراوية

في المناطق الصحراوية، الاكتفاء الذاتي له تحديات وربما توجد فرصًا فريدة لأنظمة غذائية مبتكرة

ندرة المياه الشديدة: الماء هو المورد الأكثر أهمية في الصحراء. تعد أنظمة الري واسعة النطاق وعالية الكفاءة ضرورية للغاية، وقد تعتمد على المياه المحلاة أو مياه الصرف الصحي المعالجة بإعادة تغذية الخزانات الجوفية المدارة. زراعة المحاصيل المقاومة للجفاف، مع استخدام تقنيات الري الدقيق (التنقيط، تحت السطح)، والزراعة في البيئات الخاضعة للرقابة (CEA) مثل المزارع العمودية والبيوت المحمية، أمرًا بالغ الأهمية لزيادة الإنتاج لكل قطرة ماء

تدهور التربة والتملح: التربة الصحراوية معرضة لانخفاض المواد العضوية وزيادة الملوحة، خاصة مع الري. يعد تطبيق ممارسات الزراعة المتجددة التي تبني صحة التربة (مثل التسميد، الفحم الحيوي، محاصيل التغطية المتحملة للملوحة) أمرًا بالغ الأهمية

الظروف المناخية القاسية: تعد درجات الحرارة المرتفعة وأشعة الشمس الشديدة والعواصف الترابية تحديات مستمرة في الصحراء. تعد الزراعة المحمية (البيوت البلاستيكية أو الشبكية) حيوية للعديد من المحاصيل، حيث توفر التحكم في درجة الحرارة وتقليل التبخر. كما أن البحث في أصناف المحاصيل التي تتحمل الحرارة أمر أساسي، مع أن البيوت المحمية ستستهلك الكثير من الطاقة للتبريد ولكن المياه أهم

اختيار المحاصيل والحيوانات المناسبة: يعد إعطاء الأولوية للأنواع المتكيفة جيدًا مع الظروف الصحراوية أمرًا ضروريًا. وهذا يعني تفضيل التمور، الزيتون، التين، بعض الحبوب (الدخن، الذرة الرفيعة)، والبقوليات للأغذية النباتية. أما بالنسبة للمنتجات الحيوانية، فإن الإبل، الماعز، والأغنام تعد خيارات أكثر استدامة بكثير من الأبقار بسبب بصمتها المائية المنخفضة وقدرتها على الازدهار على النباتات الصحراوية

دمج الإنتاج المحلي: يمكن لنظام غذائي محلي مزدهر في منطقة صحراوية الاستفادة من:

• المزارع شبه الحضرية: مناطق زراعية محيطة لإنتاج المحاصيل الأساسية والماشية المتكيفة، مصممة بكفاءة عالية في استخدام المياه والمرونة

• الزراعة الحضرية: حدائق تتخلل المجتمعات السكانية، وزراعة الأسطح، وأنظمة الزراعة المائية/الأسماك المائية المتقدمة داخل المدن لإنتاج المواد الطازجة سريعة التلف، مما يقلل تكاليف النقل ويزيد من إعادة استخدام المياه من خلال دورة مغلقة للمياه البلدية

• بنية تحتية قوية للغذاء: مرافق تخزين مركزية (مخازن مبردة، صوامع للحبوب والتمور)، مرافق معالجة (مطاحن، مصانع ألبان لحليب الإبل/الماعز، مسالخ)، وشبكات توزيع فعالة (الأسواق المحلية) لتقليل الهدر وضمان الإمداد على مدار العام

• إعادة تدوير الموارد: التأكيد على تخمير النفايات العضوية لإعادتها كمغذيات للتربة، واستكشاف تقنيات إنتاج الغاز الحيوي من النفايات الحيوانية والمخلفات العضوية

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  البصمة الحرارية والأرضية والمائية لاستهلاكنا الغذائي، يدل على أبعاد هائلة لتلبية احتياجات غذائية للحفاظ على حياة الإنسان في الصحراء

على الرغم من التحديات، خاصة بالنسبة للتجمعات السكانية الكبيرة في المدن وفي البيئات ذات الموارد الحيوية الطبيعية المحدودة مثل المناطق الصحراوية، فإن التخطيط الاستراتيجي، وتبني التكنولوجيا، والتركيز القوي على الأنظمة الغذائية الموفرة للمياه والمناسبة للمناخ والملائمة ثقافيًا يمكن أن يمهد الطريق لمجتمعات أكثر مرونة وأقرب للاكتفاء ذاتيًا

هنا تساؤل مهم عن تأثير هذه الأداة على محور معين، وهو: ما تأثير هذا على قدرة صناديق التقاعد بالوفاء بالتزاماتها على المدى الطويل؟ وربما القصير والمتوسط!

لنفهم هذا، تخيل مستقبل العمل، ماهي احتمالات شكل سوق العمل؟ كثير يتوقع تحييد البشر من جلّ منظومة “الإنتاج” بإحلال من أنظمة الذكاء الاصطناعي. وآخرون يتوقعون الإحلال، من بشر آخرين تمكنوا من استخدام الذكاء الاصطناعي كأداة لتضخيم إنتاج الفرد المتمكن من التقنية. الكل متفق تقريباً أن للذكاء الاصطناعي يد في تغيير ديناميكية الأسواق وخصوصا سوق العمل. طيب، هل هذا يعني بالضرورة انخفاض أعداد العاملين، وبالتالي دخل أقل لصناديق التقاعد؟ ربما، وهنا مشكلة “عويصة” حلها مستعصي. هذا يطرح تساؤل آخر، لماذا أصلاً لدينا صناديق تقاعد؟!

إذا كان هذا صحيح، أن صناديق التقاعد ستتفاقم مشكلتها، (أجل! تحسب أن الذكاء الاصطناعي هو المشكلة؟ لا، ربما يكون القشة التي تقصم ظهرها فقط، والا مشاكل صناديق التقاعد في تزايد منذ فترة) هل ستسعى الصناديق لحلّ المشكلة؟ كيف ستحلها؟ ترفع نسب الاشتراك أم تحاول صد موجة تبني التقنية بأعذار مطاطية؟ هل الأعذار الحالية المحذرة من خطورة الذكاء الاصطناعي تخفي ورائها ما نجهله اليوم؟ أم ستستسلم الصناديق وتطلب من الذكاء الاصطناعي حل لتقليل عمر الإنسان الافتراضي؟ أو ربما ترسل مسيرات مبرمجة بالذكاء الاصطناعي، للتخلص من المتقاعدين!

الحقيقة، أن صناديق التقاعد قد تواجه أكبر أزمة واجهتها في التاريخ، وهذا لا يقتصر على صناديق في مكان جغرافي معين، بل يطول جميع صناديق التقاعد في دول العالم، وتقترب أكثر من كونها “Ponzi Scheme“!

السوق المحلي

عند النظر للسوق المحلي، نجد أن السوق هيكلياً به خلل، فمعظم العاملين به من الأجانب، وهم ليسوا من مشتركي صناديق التقاعد (المؤسسة العامة للتأمينات الاجتماعية). لأنه يتوقع من الأجنبي المغادرة بعد تقاعده وعودته إلى بلده. وهذا الخلل، في سوق جل العاملين به من غير المواطنين، “يزيد الطين بله”! فتخيل سوق محلي معظم العاملين أجانب ويدخل عليه الذكاء الاصطناعي، فيصبح المواطن البسيط يتنافس مع مواطن يستخدم ذكاء اصطناعي، وأجنبي ينافسه بقاعدة تكلفة منخفضة بسبب عملة بلده الزهيدة وجودة حياته البئيسة!

هدف: مليون سعودي يستخدم الذكاء الاصطناعي

لا يوجد شك، صناع القرار في السعودية اليوم (قطاع حكومي وخاص)، أكبر المتبنين والداعمين لهذه التقنية. فهي فرصة لنا للمرة الأولى، أن نكون جاهزين عند حدوث حدث اقتصادي جوهري يغير شكل العالم. فهذه الثورة التقنية الأولى التي يمكن لنا أن ننافس فيها على المراكز الأولى، مثلها مثل رياضة جديدة أدرجت إلى قائمة الألعاب الأولمبية، الكل يبدأ من نفس المستوى تقريباً للمنافسة.

لا يفوت على المنتبه، أن ثورة الذكاء الاصطناعي كان لها الأثر على تحييد موظفين كان يعتقد أنهم آخر من سيطولهم سوط هذه التقنية. فتأثر الأطباء والمحامين والمحاسبين وغيرها من المهن “المرموقة” بينما لم تتأثر مهن حرفية بنفس الحدة وربما لن تتأثر في المسستقبل القريب، بل ستستفيد من الذكاء الاصطناعي في خلق منظومات صغيرة خفيفة تعمل بكفاءة عالية وبرافعة تقنية. وهنا فرصة، لتصحيح سوق العمل من العمالة المتكدسة الرخيصة، المتربعة على زوايا الشوارع وفوق الأرصفة والاقتصاد! فربما مع الذكاء الاصطناعي، هذه الأسواق الحرفية، هي من سيدعم صناديق التقاعد ويؤجل تحدياتها.

ما يؤكد أن أسواق الحرف اليدوية ستتفوق في المستقبل القريب على أسواق المهن المرموقة، هو “الأب الروحي” لتقنيات الذكاء الاصطناعي، يقول أنصحك خلك سبّاك! بيبطي الذكاء الاصطناعي حتى يصبح سبّاك ماهر:

وش رأيك، هل فعلاً الخطر حاصل لأسواق العمل، والا الوضع سواليف؟ لما تتأثر أسواق العمل، وش تتوقع آثارها الاقتصادية والاجتماعية وغيرها؟

Kingfisher

الرفراف "الملك الصياد"

بعد بحث تعرفت على نوعه

(Halcyon leucocephala)، ذو الرأس الرمادي

عجيب كيف الإنسان استلهم من هذا الطائر الكثير من الحلول، هنا حكاية أحدها:

في التسعينات الميلادية، كان المهندس الياباني 🇯🇵 "إيجي ناكاتسو" يقف أمام تحدٍ محيّر!

قطار 🚆 الشينكانسن فائق السرعة، الذي يُعتبر رمزاً للتقدم الياباني، كان يُصدر صوتاً انفجارياً مرعباً كلما خرج من نفق. لم تكن المشكلة تقنية فقط، بل كانت بيئية أيضًا، فالصوت كان يزعج الأحياء السكنية القريبة من السكك الحديدية

وبينما كان ناكاتسو، المهندس والمحب لمراقبة الطيور، يتأمل طائر الرفراف (الكنج فيشر) يغوص في الماء لاصطياد فريسته دون أن يثير أي رشّة تُذكر، لمعت في ذهنه فكرة عبقرية: ماذا لو صمّمنا مقدمة القطار على شكل منقار هذا الطائر؟

وبالفعل، بدأ الفريق الهندسي العمل على الفكرة، وبعد التجربة، النتائج مذهلة! انخفضت مقاومة الهواء بنسبة 30٪، وتراجع استهلاك الكهرباء بنسبة 15٪، وتلاشى الصوت الانفجاري عند الخروج من الأنفاق. بل وتمكن القطار من الوصول إلى سرعات أعلى دون أن يكون مزعجًا. لم يكن هذا مجرد تحسين في التصميم، بل كان انتصارًا للتناغم بين الطبيعة والتكنولوجيا.

ومن هنا، أصبح طائر الرفراف مصدر إلهام ليس فقط للقطارات، بل للطائرات والغواصات والطوربيدات وحتى الكاميرات. فشكل منقاره الانسيابي أصبح نموذجًا لتصميم الأجسام التي تحتاج إلى اختراق الهواء أو الماء بسهولة. كما ألهمت قدرته على الرؤية الدقيقة المطورين لتقنيات التركيز البصري وأنظمة التتبع السريع. وحتى ريشه المقاوم للماء أصبح مرجعًا في صناعة الأسطح ذاتية التنظيف.

وهكذا، أثبت طائر صغير يعيش بين الأشجار وعلى ضفاف الأنهار، أن الطبيعة تحمل في طياتها حلولًا لمشاكل أعقد مما نتصور. فقط نحتاج أن نراقبها بعين مفتوحة وقلب مبدع

(افهم وانسخ الطبيعة)

"فيكتور شاوبرقر"