The above graph is taken from the latest writing critiquing energy use and discussing all of the latest energy infatuations by Canadian professor Vaclav Smil, titled "Global Energy: The Latest Infatuations - In energy matters, what goes around, comes around—but perhaps should go away."
His writing challenges the U.S. and Canada to start using less energy since we are far past the point of it contributing to our level of well-being. Conservation is the key for the future, not pie-in-the-sky ideas forever hopeful of maintaining the status quo.
Dennis Dimick wrote a post about the writing which I highly recommend here and the NYTs green blog covered it here.
K. McDonald