This past Friday I attended an event organized by Evolver where an ex-financial trader, Alex Gordon-Brander, made an interesting proposition: the use of a new currency, a form of paper money, which would be backed by energy. The value of this money would be measured in joules, which is a measure of energy.

The idea behind his proposal is that the value of joules-money is directly linked to the energy spent. Historically paper money has been a token, a promissory note, backed by gold or silver, or other precious metals. It would be interesting to envision how energy backed money would work. However, I wonder whether such a currency would in any way develop a dependency or even encourage an increase in the current production of energy worldwide.

This past Monday night, I attended a meeting with members of a TINY, a Time Bank group based in New York City. I first heard of Time Bank as a concept, from close British friends. In the UK and Canada the system is also known as LETS or Local Exchange Trading Systems.

(more…)