The Historical Perspective

The twilight of civilization was perhaps marked by the first fire lit by a primeval caveman. Making fire was the first conscientious utilization of the world’s energy resources. Before the use of fire, no doubt, there was intelligent life. Human life, like that of the animals, was made possible and was maintained by the sun. Perhaps the subconscious realization of this fact has given rise to religious veneration of the sun in most known early civilizations all over the world (65). The primordial father of gods before the first Egyptian dynasty at Heliopolis (Sun-city) was the sun god, Re. In Assyria and Babylonia, Gibil—the fire god—was the son of Anu—supreme god of the highest heaven. The god of light, from Heimdall of the Teutons to Atea of the Marquesas Islanders, was revered. Sun goddess Arinna of the Hittites in the Fertile Crescent and Amarasu of Japan were in a central position in the religious hierarchy. Sun gods of the most diverse nations include Svarog of the Slavs, Isten of the ancient Hungarians, Istanu of the old Turks, Inti of the Peruvian Indians, Zeus of the Greeks, Jupiter of the Romans, Varuna Mitra and Dyanus Pitar of the Indo Europeans. According to native legends in New Zealand, on the Marquesas and on the Chatham Islands, fire was borrowed from the gods. Slavonic rural folk still retain a mystic respect for fire—a sacred character. Their old forbid the young to swear or shout when fire is lighted in the house. Old Slavs (before Christianity, it is said) have prayed to fire, calling him Svarogich.

Prometheus the Titan, the originator and supporter of mankind according to ancient Greek legend, stole fire from heaven and gave it to man. A similar legend of the Sunka tribe of the South Seas gave this honor to a man called Emakong. He brought fire from the land of the snakemen. In Kyoto, Japan, pure fire is made by friction of pieces of Hinoki wood (Kiri-Bi fire) or by priests at the temple of Gion striking stone with steel (Uchi-Bi fire). On New Year’s Day the people carry this pure fire home to light their hearth, thereby receiving the god’s protection throughout the year.

A less religious approach was taken by the ancient Greeks, who considered fire to be one of the four elements (together with Water, Earth, and Air) making up the world. Primitive man, before the use of fire, used energy only in the form of the food he ate. At best, he used about 2000 kilocalories* daily—if he found it. Hunting man had more food. The use of fire, for over 100,000 years, provided more energy. Man has used about 5000 kilocalories per day, some of it in the form of firewood. The first agricultural man (about 5000 B.C. in the Mediterranean area) used the sun’s energy in growing crops and used animal energy as well. (Animal energy is also derived from the sun.) He probably used about 12,000 kilocalories. Use of animal oil (whales, etc.) by Eskimos, and naphtha by those who found it, is shrouded in antiquity. The Chinese drilled bore holes 3000 feet deep for natural gas as early as 1000 b.c. They used bamboo for piping and burned the gas for light and heat and for the evaporation of brine.

Primitive wheels harnessed water power in ancient Babylon as well as on the Nile in Egypt and on the Yellow River in China. Wind was used to move ships thousands of years before Christ, although manpower in galleons was the prime mover for about a thousand years thereafter.

The advanced agricultural man (through the Middle Ages of our civilization) used about 7000 kilocalories as food, 12000 in his home and commerce, 7000 in his agriculture and primitive industry, and 1000 for transportation—a total of 27,000 (31) per day.

In contrast to these figures, by 1870 the daily consumption of energy reached 70,000 kilocalories per capita in Western Europe and the United States. In 1970, this figure rose to about 230,000 kilocalories per capita per day in the United States (19). This data is depicted in Fig. 1.1.

The sophistication of energy converters paralleled man’s development. The flint stones of the caveman concentrated his power. The lever and the block and tackle magnified man’s force. The wheel overcame friction losses while dragging heavy objects. Man’s technical knowledge increased rapidly during the Middle Ages. Medieval Europe saw the development of water power to harness the power of creeks, rivers, and even the tides of the Atlantic. The development of modern hydraulic turbines dates back to 1750, when J. A. Segner built a mill driven by an impulse turbine. J. B. Francis, an American, made significant progress in hydraulic turbine design in 1849.

Coal was introduced for heating and metallurgy in England during the 12th century and it spread rapidly to the continent. The need for pumping large amounts of water from deep mines provided the impetus for research. By 1698, Thomas Savery developed the first steam-driven pump. In 1712 Thomas Newcomen created a steam engine to drive pumps. Theoretical and practical progress went hand in hand. Joseph Black, a Scottish chemist, explained the theoretical concepts of steam and heat energy in 1764. His friend, James Watt, used these concepts in 1769 to develop his rotary steam engine, which was to revolutionize technology. By 1802, Richard Trevithick built a locomotive. This was improved by George Stephenson in 1814, who used it to transport coal from the mines. Soon these developments started the phenomenal expansion of rail transportation. In 1787 John Fitch of Connecticut built and operated the first steamship on the Delaware River. Invention of the screw propeller, by J. Ericsson of Sweden in 1836, made it possible for steamships to cross the oceans.

In 1832, the year after Faraday announced the theory of electromagnetic induction, Frenchman Hippolyte Pixii exhibited a hand-cranked generator. American Thomas Davenport built the first electric motor in 1834, only two years later. The invention of the modern electric generator by Anyos Jedlik of Hungary in 1861 (and by E. W. Siemens of Germany five years later) signaled the start of the electric utility industry. In 1881 Thomas Edision built the world’s first central electric generating station along with a public distribution system in New York City. The construction of a 110-mile long high-tension transmission line between Lauffen and Frankfurt, Germany, in 1891 was the first step in moving electric energy to great distances.

Petroleum was produced from shallow dug wells for many years in Poland, Romania, and Russia. The first refinery was built by three Russian peasants—the Dubinin brothers—in 1823, using a crude distillation method that produced 16 buckets of kerosene from each 40 buckets of crude oil. Polish pharmacist Ignacy Lukasiewicz developed the kerosene lamp in 1852. Due to the declining whale population, by the time of the American Civil War a shortage developed of whale and sperm oil used previously for lighting. Prices rose from 43 cents a gallon in 1823 to $2.55 a gallon in 1966. This great increase in whale oil prices gave an impetus to the petroleum industry. The first drilled oil well was made by E. L. Drake in Pennsylvania in 1859. After a frantic search of petroleum fields, kerosene took the place of whale oil as an exclusive source of illumination for a period of nine years. Soon petroleum took its place in powering transportation. The improvement of the internal combustion engine by Gottlieb Daimler, and the invention of the diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel, made oil the lifeblood of transportation within a few decades after the end of the 19th century.

The growth in energy utilization in the world during the 20th century is shown in table (82) over.

The phenomenal rate of growth in the use of some of these energy carriers put great strains on production. Oil scares, much like the 1973 “energy crisis” (11), occurred in 1921, 1923, 1935, and 1947.

The increase in energy consumption by the United States seems to parallel the growth of our gross national product (GNP). For each dollar of the GNP, about 95,000 BTU’s of energy were used during the past few decades. The ratio of commercial energy consumption seems to be in...