History

An Energy History

At least two pivotal moments in human history can be viewed as advances in our use of energy. Agriculture was the organized conversion of solar energy to chemical food energy in a way that reduced the calories humans had to expend to harvest that food. With reduced energy going into food production, societies could advance in new ways. The industrial revolution was based on the conversion of coal, ancient fossilized plants, to mechanical energy. The energy output of a human being could be replaced by pile of black rocks. Machines could produce goods that required human energy and an explosion of both human wealth and threats to health began.

Learning Objectives

• Understand energy as an organizing principle in human history

Energy in Antiquity

Energy in Antiquity

• For much of human history, we used renewable sources of energy

Biological Energy Conversion

• Plants convert radiant energy into chemical energy

• Humans convert chemical energy into human activity

Food Gathering Techniques

• Foraging

• Hunting

• Agriculture

• Livestock

• Which of these is our current energy system most like?

Fire

• Stored chemical energy in wood to heat

• Allowed for tool making

• Allowed for cooking

Fire Sources

• Wood, biomass, dung

• Coal

• Coke

• Oil

• Gas

Amplifying human power and energy

• Ancient machines

  • Lever

  • Spring

Hunting Machines

• Bow and arrow

  • energy is stored in bow and released quickly

• Spear and Lever

  • Lever allows hunter to impart more kinetic energy to the spear

    than with the arm alone

• Guns

  • Chemical energy converted to kinetic energy in bullet

Human Thermoregulation

• Our superior ability to remove heat energy from our bodies allows us

  to outrun prey animals

Livestock

• Oxen

• Horses

• Allowed humans to cultivate more land, but required more land for food

Water power

• Water wheels

  • converts kinetic and potential energy in water to rotational

    motion

  • estimated 500,000 waterwheels in Europe

Water Wheel

Syria Water Wheel

Wind power

• Windmills

  • converts kinetic energy in the wind to rotational motion

  • Dates to Ancient Greece

  • 12th century in Europe

  • estimated 200,000 windmills at peak in Europe

  • estimated 600,000 windmill waterpumps at peak in 1930 in United States

• Sailing

  • Allowed long distance travel

Ancient Windmill

Estonian Windmill

American Pumping Windmill

South Dakota Wind Pump

Modern Electric Windmill

Oregon Wind Farm

Industrial Revolution

Energy in the Fossil Fuel Era

• The modern era is marked by the enormous productivity gains provided

  by fossil fuel energy

• We can purchase the equivalent of one person's labor for a day for about 10 cents

Steam Engine

• Invented by James Watt in approximately 1770

• Converts of chemical energy to heat to motion

• Created shift in manufacturing technology

Internal Combustion Engine

• Inventions in the 1800s lead to first automobile patent by Karl Benz

  in 1886

Electrification

• Pearl Street Station

• Steam-powered, coal-fired electricity generator

• Fossil fuel is still widely used for electricity generation

Discussion

• Choose on of these technologies and discuss

  • Positive effects

  • Negative effects

Consequences of Fossil Fuel Use

Global Warming

• Widespread use of these fuels causes an increase in fossil carbon in

  the atmosphere

• Arhennius in 1896 calculated how changes in the levels of CO~2~ could

  alter surface temperature

Nuclear Energy

• Mass converted to thermal energy

• 1950s see the first nuclear power plants

Solar Energy

"I'd put my money on solar energy...I hope we don't have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that." Thomas Edison

Solar Energy

• Photoelectric effect discovered in 1916 by Millikan

• 1950s solar photovoltaic cells used on satellites

• Today, widespread use in private and commercial generation

Solar Adoption

• 40 years to get to 50 GW of PV capacity

• 50 GW again in the last 2.5 years

Future Energy Technologies?

• What technical and financial innovations will allow for more low

  carbon energy solutions?