Light Has Burst Forth in Astonishing Abundance

Every one percent increase in population corresponds to a 79,773 percent increase in global light abundance.

Gale L. Pooley — Jul 30, 2021

Summary: From fire and candles in the past to LEDs and solar panels in the present, artificial light has been a pivotal factor in human civilization and well-being. This article explores the unprecedented surge in the availability of affordable and reliable light around the world, encouraging readers to acknowledge and celebrate the advancements made despite the challenges that remain.

Economics professor Deirdre McCloskey has said the Great Enrichment from 1800 to the present increased per capita incomes by 3,000 percent. She is being conservative. An index of 26 basic commodities found that abundance increased by 5,762 percent.

Measured in time prices, which are the hours and minutes it takes to earn enough money to buy something, many prices have dropped by 99 percent. A 99 percent decrease means the time it took to earn the money to buy one item will now get you 100, or 9,900 percent more. From 1850 to 2018, the abundance of rye, tea, and rice increased 9,840 percent, 10,552 percent, and 11,049 percent, respectively, for blue-collar workers. Nickel abundance increased 18,046 percent, and sugar increased 22,583 percent.

The one commodity that has exceeded them all in increasing abundance appears to be light. Nobel prize-winning economist William Nordhaus reported that earning enough money to buy one hour of light in 1830 required around three hours of labor . Today with advanced LED technology, one hour of light costs less than 0.16 seconds. This represents a 6,749,900 percent increase in personal light abundance.

Calculating Changes in Global Resources

Calculating the size of a global resource pie can be done by multiplying the resource abundance (how much of a resource one hour of labor will buy) by the population size. Comparing these pies at different points in time will reveal changes in abundance. One can simplify the analysis by indexing personal resource abundance and population to a value of one in the start year.

Let’s look at light abundance. Personal light resources increased from an indexed value of one in 1830 to 67,500 in 2020. Over this same period, the global population increased 550 percent from 1.2 billion to 7.8 billion. Indexing population to a value of one in 1830 would indicate a value of 6.5 in 2020. Multiplying 67,500 by 6.5 would put the 2020 global light resource pie at a value of 438,750. This represents a 43,874,900 percent increase from 1830’s value of one. Light has been increasing at a compound annual growth rate of around 7 percent over the last 190 years. At this rate, light abundance doubles every ten years.

Resource Elasticity of Population

In economics, elasticity compares the percentage change in one variable against the percentage change in another. From 1830 to 2020, the global light resource abundance increased by 43,874,900 percent. During this same period, the population increased by 550 percent. Dividing 43,874,900 by 550 is 79,773. Every one percent increase in population corresponds to a 79,773 percent increase in global light abundance. We have experienced an exponential efflorescence of illumination.

The next time you turn on a light switch, please take a moment to appreciate the free and creative people who toiled to bring us out of the darkness. Compared to the abundant light of our world today, all of our ancestors really did live in the dark ages.

This excerpt from our forthcoming book, The Age of Superabundance, was originally published on Gale Pooley’s Substack.

Curiosities | Energy Prices

Firewood in the American Economy: 1700 to 2010

Jul 2, 2025

“Beginning in the last decade of the 18th century, firewood output increased from about 18% of GDP to just under 30% of GDP in the 1830s. The value of firewood fell to less than 5% of GDP by the 1880s. Prior estimates of firewood output in the 19th century significantly underestimated its value.”

From National Bureau of Economic Research.

Blog Post | Energy Prices

The Declining Time Price of Kilowatt-Hours

We're getting more energy for less time.

Gale L. Pooley — Jun 2, 2025

Summary: Energy powers economic progress, and it has become much more abundant since 1980. Despite nominal price increases, electricity is more affordable in terms of labor. A blue-collar worker today can buy much more electricity per hour worked than in 1980. Thanks to rising productivity and innovation, we’re getting significantly more energy for less time.

Energy is essential to creating abundance. Whether it’s used to organize and move atoms or to store and transmit information, economic development depends on energy. Although energy is available in many forms and measured in various units, the kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a common standard of comparison, especially in electricity-related contexts. A kWh represents the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power sustained over one hour. For perspective, a standard 42-gallon barrel of crude oil contains approximately 1,700 kWh of energy, though the exact amount depends on the oil’s grade.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks average electricity prices over time in nominal terms. The chart below shows the U.S. average price per kWh from 1980 to the present—rising from about 6 cents per kWh in 1980 to 17.6 cents today.

To convert the money price into a time price, we compared the US blue-collar hourly compensation rate for each year, indexing 1980 as the baseline (1.0). The result shows that the time required to purchase a kWh of electricity has declined by 26.6 percent since 1980.

Another way to understand electricity prices is to ask: how many kWh can you buy with one hour of work? This chart illustrates that relationship. In 1980, an hour of US blue-collar labor could buy 152 kWh; today, it buys 207 kWh—a 36 percent increase in energy abundance.

The regression line plotted on the chart suggests a steady gain of about two additional kWh per year for the same amount of work. Although time prices have spiked in the past three years, the long-term trend still indicates growing abundance..

If you started your first job as an unskilled worker in 1980 and “upskilled” to a blue-collar job by 2024, your time price for electricity would have dropped by 67.3 percent. For the time it took to earn enough to buy 100 kWh in 1980, you could now purchase 306 kWh—representing a 206 percent increase in electricity abundance.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

News | Energy Production

Fusion Breakthrough Could Reduce Cost of Future Power Plant

Apr 21, 2025

“TAE Technologies, a private fusion energy company developing the cleanest and safest approach to commercial fusion power, has achieved a first-of-its-kind breakthrough that fundamentally advances the performance, practicality and reactor-readiness of the company’s proprietary fusion technology.

Experimental results published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications prove TAE has invented a streamlined approach to form and optimize plasma that increases efficiency, significantly reduces complexity and cost, and accelerates the company’s path to net energy and commercial fusion power.”