The History and Culture of Energy

Energy is the lifeblood of any civilization. Throughout history, the most successful civilizations have been those that have maximized their energy throughput and made good use of the resources at their disposal. Accessing this energy, however, is not always easy; in order to have access, it has to be cheap enough for the average person to afford and it has to be readily available. Without this access, people are condemned to live in poverty, without technology, and with a menial standard of living.

One of the major concerns of society today is the shortage of energy. People feel that the world is running out of cheap energy (particularly oil) and that there is a potential for energy wars in the future. These wars will be waged as civilization struggles to get access to the remaining sources of energy needed to fuel its economies and lifestyles. Moreover, as shortages develop, people feel that western civilization is being held hostage to hostile regimes (mostly in the Middle East) that control the energy supplies. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is plenty of cheap energy still available; however, circumstances are demanding that as cheap conventional oil runs out, there will be a need to switch to alternative energy sources.

Another major social concern is the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere which could potentially lead to runaway global warming. In order to solve this problem, some believe there is a need to switch to clean renewable sources of energy—particularly wind power, solar power, ethanol, and biomass. The truth is that all sources of energy, no matter how “green,” impact the environment. This leads to a principle that I propose and will return to repeatedly in this book: Energy is the essence of the universe, and it is not possible to extract energy from the environment for use without having an impact on the environment. This is a fundamental principle that I call the Towler Principle.

The Towler Principle

There are many forms of energy that can be converted into other forms of energy according to our needs and requirements. By examining the various forms and sources of energy, you will see that each of them has an impact on the environment as we extract them and use them; however the undesirable effects can be changed or minimized according to our needs. For example, the carbon dioxide problem may be reduced or eliminated by switching to wind power, solar power, ethanol, and biomass. Unfortunately, the end result is that these actions may have other intolerable effects that will be discussed later in this book.

What can we do to ensure minimal effect to the environment regardless of the energy sources chosen? How do we protect our environment and sustain it for future generations? An alternative solution to the carbon dioxide problem could be carbon capture and sequestration. The technology for this already exists and can be further improved. This technology only applies to point sources of carbon such as coal and gas-fired power plants. There is also a need to develop greener and more efficient building technologies and add cleaner renewable energy sources into the mix. In order to reduce the carbon effect of automobiles, there may be a greater need to move toward electric vehicles so that any carbon dioxide generated in the process can be captured at the point where the electricity is generated. The future is bright; there is plenty of energy available, but much change is afoot. This is the preeminent technical challenge of our time, one that will require significant political will and technical drive.

The History of Energy Use

According to physicists, the universe began with a “big bang.” About 14 billion years ago, all the mass and energy of the universe was concentrated at a single point. This mass exploded, commenced expanding from that point and is still expanding today. Physicists have identified four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force. They also identified the physical principles that govern all the processes in the universe. Two of these physical principles are that mass and energy are always conserved. According to Albert Einstein, there is an equivalence between mass and energy and, under certain processes and circumstances, these two entities can be converted into one another. When he discovered this equivalence and published his famous equation (E = mc2), Einstein was demonstrating that the very fabric of the universe is energy. If we extract energy from a source and use it, something will be left behind as a result of that action.

When homo sapiens first evolved in Africa, their great advantages were their large brains and their ability to outwit the fierce creatures that considered them prey. This large brain required increased energy resources to fuel itself, energy resources that came from an omnivorous diet of meat, grain, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. As civilizations developed about 15,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, the successful civilizations were the ones that learned how to perform their tasks efficiently. To do this, they had to maximize the energy throughput of their society.

In his book The Evolution of Culture (1959), anthropologist Leslie White acknowledges the key role played by the harnessing of energy in the development of civilizations. Initially, energy fueled the human bodies that provided the labor to hunt and gather and then to work the fields as mankind turned to agriculture. The next step in energy utilization was the domestication of animals such as horses and oxen that could be trained to do most of the heavy lifting and pulling that was required. This relieved some of the labor required of humans and also increased the energy throughput in the society. The animals required their own energy input in order to get them to do useful work; however, these animals generally ate foods that were inedible for humans, thus increasing rather than decreasing the efficiency of society.

Energy can be used for many different purposes and comes from many different sources. The principle uses of energy are for: doing work, heating buildings, cooking (a special use of heat), transportation, and communications. For early civilization, work and heat were separate functions of energy. The work was provided by human and animal labor and heat was provided by burning biomass. This heat was used to warm the living space and to cook food. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that mankind started to understand that heat and work were both forms of energy and that engines could be developed that converted heat into work.

As civilization further developed, some societies captured slaves to provide some of the labor. These slaves also required energy in order to do work, but they were able to perform tasks that animals could not. It took a long time before the immorality of slavery was recognized and bans on slavery were instituted; however, slavery is a significant part of human history that played a role in the rise of civilization.

The strength of a society is very dependent on its energy sources. The more human and animal labor that was conducted by a society, and the more fuel that could be gathered to provide heat, the more successful the society became. These societies knew they had to provide a source of energy to make the civilization work. Usually, this consisted of human labor (both free and slave), animal labor (usually horses and oxen) and biomass (usually wood). The human and animal labor had to be fed and efficient agriculture lay at the heart of its success. This was the fuel for the primary energy sources. The wood had to be cut and gathered and the energy for this process came from human and animal labor.

Some great societies collapsed when their energy sources failed. The Romans, Mayans, and Mesopotamians are examples of civilizations that failed in this manner. The Mayans were an extremely successful society that ruled around Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula from about 100 to 900 AD. They built many large cities with elaborate temples, surrounded by a network of buildings for living, agriculture, art, and manufacturing. They had the only well-developed written language of pre-Columbian America. They had a highly advanced mathematical system and very advanced astronomical knowledge. Their society was fueled primarily by the lush forests surrounding their cities and by their fields devoted to agriculture. Around 900 AD, the forests became severely depleted. Deprived of a...