Energy and Society: Chapter 1: Energy & Society

Published: March 4, 2009, 7:55 pm

Topics:

Energy (main) Energy Policy (main)

This article is a revision of my original work published in 1955, and is designed to re-examine the proposition “The energy available to man limits what he can do, and influences what he will do.” Much of what I said a quarter of a century ago does not need to be changed. However, of course things have happened that require an update. Those familiar with the first edition may want to skip the unchanged material, but it had to be included for the benefit of those who have never read the 1955 edition.

The oil embargo of the 1970s and the corresponding enormous increase in the price of fuel impressed many people with the significance of energy in our lives. Nevertheless, the great majority of them regard what has been going on as a temporary aberration. Given the right incentives or the proper action by government, the problem will go away. What we are experiencing is a political, economic or technological problem. Certainly if we can put a man on the moon we can deal with the “energy crisis.”

The fact that basic science demonstrates that we have entered on a new phase of our relations with nature is blithely denied. To accept the idea that man is limited by “the material world” goes against the idealists assertion that man is either completely free to work out his own salvation, or he is controlled, thus absolved of all his responsibility for what happens.

Energy is regarded as being a part of the material world so it can have no influence on values that are ultimately matters of the spirit. Therefore, the idea that it can influence what man will do violates very deep-seated truths “we hold to be self-evident.”

Scientists, for their part tended to give ultimate sanction to the generalizations they have made from empirical evidence. Anything that seemed to contradict the conclusions they had made at a particular time was classified as superstition, or other form of dangerous error. The law of cause and effect superseded divine purpose as the ultimate sanction. Cause was ultimately reduced to the continuing consequences of the collision of atoms. Eminent scientists held that the idea that human though, purpose or evaluation was a variable which was independent of what was physically determined was an illusion that would be destroyed as man learned more through the use of the scientific method. For them there appeared to be no possible way to avoid the consequences of the physical events that must inevitably follow one another. Physical determinism reigned supreme among many of the most advanced scientists.

Over time as science itself advanced, the simple conception of cause became less and less useful. The new realization came to be that all that we do through scientific research is increase the accuracy with which we can predict the probable results of introducing new variables into a real or simulated set of conditions. This permitted the analysis of many situations where a great many variables operated, some directly found in nature, some of which had their origin in culture, some in unique human experience. A great many of these influencing factors owed their discovery to newly developing technology and science itself. With the use of new concepts, new models, new experimental apparatus, what had been though to be ultimately determined by the nature of fixed physical structures was shown to result from interaction between a whole series of “forces.”

Therefore, scientists generally have come to recognize that they, no more than ecclesiasts, have been dealing with “ultimate truth.” But this position has threatened basic beliefs about “free will” as much as had the set of absolutes the scientists once espoused.

So, there continues to be a struggle between ancient beliefs and new discoveries made by scientists. I am not attempting in this series of articles to resolve it. I do not deny, I affirm, that the outcome of the interaction between energy and other factors operating at any place and time is only predictable when these other factors are known. But I also insist that ignorance about various aspects of the energy involved in a situation reduces the accuracy with which the probable future can be learned. Put another way, I am not trying to show how physical force is always the ultimate determinant of anything. However, in some situations the demonstration that the energy necessary to do some things is not available may make it useless for us to analyze what other things might have affected the outcome if the needed energy was available. Sometimes then, we can say positively some things cannot happen and thus avoid expensive error involved in trying to do the impossible. The first question to be answered is, then:

Does energy set limits?

In our day-to-day experience, we find ample reason to accept the idea that what we can do is limited. There are many things we would like to do but cannot. We have a pretty good idea of how much we can lift, how far we can run and how fast, how long we can work at a given pace, and so on. Therefore, while we may not know exactly what the limits on our conduct are, we do know very well that there are some. If it is important to know just what we can do, we can use various kinds of tests that will pinpoint for us some of the limits. Nevertheless, some tests will show that many of them are not physical.

We know that there are things that we are physically capable of doing that we just cannot do. These same limits may be characteristic of almost everybody we know. We can say that this happens because we have been taught limits sanctioned by our common culture, or because the constraints established by government or others whose control over us forces us to comply with them. Sometimes, however, the limits result from our having personally had specific unique experiences that forever thereafter limit our behavior but do not affect other people the same way. Some derive from physiological trauma such as are produced by disease or accident. Some derive from psychological experiences. We may or may not know just what they were.

So it is hard to know how many of the limits we live within are a result of insufficient energy and how many are not. If in some special circumstances, such as an accident, somebody does something nobody thought he could do, like lifting an automobile that is pinning down a passenger, we are apt to think that he has transcended the physical limits of his body. We may say, “This shows that you can do anything if you want to badly enough.” But, there is no record of any one man lifting a locomotive, even to save the life of a loved one. Therefore, it is often difficult or impossible to prove that in a particular situation insufficient energy is or is not the limiting factor.

Until very recently little effort was made to analyze social situations in terms of the energy changes involved. This results from aspects of Western culture that I just pointed out. In most cases where the concept “energy” has been used it has been classified with technology and material things. On the other hand, human behavior is said to be largely controlled by “the mind.” Such human characteristics as can be measured by instruments that are used by the natural sciences (like thermometers) were classed as functions of “the body.” This dichotomy – mind/body – runs as a major part of the way we think.

So since choice is said to be a function of the mind there is great resistance to the idea that material things do affect human choice. We disregard or deny any analysis of cause that gives priority, in terms of time or in terms of significance, to “material things.”

However, as I just mentioned, in hard sciences “cause” was regarded as being a physical phenomenon. Everything could ultimately be reduced to tiny atoms that collided with one another, with predictable consequences. There was no room for influence by mind or choice. The amount of matter in the universe was constant; it could not be increased or decreased. Moreover, the same was true of energy. Of course, almost everybody knows that these axioms are not absolutes. Matter can become energy, and the reverse. And energy can be demonstrated to be involved in all human processes, including thinking, dreaming, creating, worshipping and all the other “higher” elements of human behavior. The dichotomy that seemed to be forced on us by nature is now seen to be instead a product of human thought.

What we now see is that all the elements of nature interact. Ecological sciences hold that changes in such things as climate, soil, mineralization and other physical and chemical factors result in changing systems among plants and animals, including man.

What is the proof that available energy limits man?

How can we establish whether or not energy puts limits on what man can do? One way is to start with the negative case, in which we say, “there is no evidence that, in the absence of this amount and kind of energy, certain specific things have happened.” If we wish, we can examine all of human history. In addition, we can rely on the tremendous development in the natural sciences. One fundamental idea of modern physics and chemistry is that certain definite amounts of energy are involved in specific kinds of change. If there is not sufficient energy in the right form, these changes will not take place. This rule holds everywhere. So even historic studies of the astral universe can be used to test the basic proposition that energy has always and everywhere served as a limiting factor.

We can also examine the changes involved in the evolution of man. Historic evidence of ecological factors that accompany the appearance of homo sapiens will show the way these factors were involved both in the survival of some of his predecessors and extinction of others. Even such things as a slight decrease in the average temperature of the earth (as during the ice age) can be used to account for great changes in the kinds of flora and fauna, including man’s ancestors, that appeared and survived or were extinguished. In fact, one whole body of research in man’s origin examines the idea that the forms of life that survived in a particular situation were those that maximized energy flux.

Nevertheless, we do not have to go back that far to make the case that what man can do is limited by available energy. We know that for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of years, men and their predecessors survived where the only mechanical energy available to them was that provided by their own bodies. If we were to find that in any of such society’s people did things impossible to those who have only this source of mechanical energy, then the idea that energy limits man has failed its critical test.

I know of no such evidence. Folk myth is of course full of miracles where gods intervene and violate natural law. But, rigorous research hasn’t been able to establish credible evidence that would support those myths.

What we can also do is examine the apparent likenesses and differences among all kinds of men, in various times and places, who are alike in that they use the same kinds and numbers of converters of energy. However, to do that we have to learn the basic laws that scientists have found govern energy conversion. Only then can we look at human history to see how various social systems have changed along with changes in the energy available to those who used those systems. We must examine just how specific kinds and uses of energy have affected specific cultures, social systems, and value hierarchies. This will be the object of the rest of the book.

What good does it do to know the impact of energy?

Many advantages come from studying the way energy is involved in what people do and think. First of all we can develop numbers we can use in comparing cultures operating at any time, any place. For example, we can convert things like food and fuel into a common denominator, such as calories. We can determine the energy yielded by plants that directly transform element of the soil and atmosphere, and radiant energy from the sun, into food. So we can test propositions about the limits that have been and are being imposed on the physical productivity of a given people. We then know their capacity to do things that require the use of energy no matter when or where they live(d). We can compare different sets of prime movers, such as horses and oxen with others like steam, diesel, or electric locomotives; sailing and motor-driven or man-powered vessels, automobiles, trucks and tractors; wind and water wheels and electric motors driven by power derived from all kinds of fuels, including nuclear sources. The primary advantage is that in comparing them we do not have to resort to index numbers like prices that are dependent upon the different values attached to things by men in various times and places.

Some of the ends men seek require the use of physical means. To the degree that this is so, we can predict whether a given set of goals is likely to be achieved with the energy available at a particular place at a given time. On the other hand, we can discover whether or not a given flow of energy is necessary to maintain certain kinds of social systems. Furthermore, we can see whether or not a given change in a society depends upon the attainment of a certain level of energy flow. In addition, we may be able to see what kinds of social conditions are required to operate given types of converters that are in their turn necessary to achieve and maintain an energy flow from a given energy source. And, we may be able to predict something about what will happen when a given source of energy is reduced, exhausted, or is made inaccessible to a culture that was built up with its use. So we can certainly say, “if these propositions are true they are significant.”

Are they true?

I don’t know anything that will establish absolute truth. Nor will I attempt to give universal superiority to science over traditional wisdom. I think, however, that scientists have produced more and more reliable knowledge about most of the things we are investigating here than have traditional wise men, though there are cases where it is not clear that even this is so. I’ll try to rely as much as possible on such knowledge of science as I can command because I think it probable that science, which has been defined by one writer as “The utmost use of intelligence” will give more reliable answers than any other body of knowledge with which I am familiar.

Energy and ideologies?

The whole question of the nature of man’s relation to the physical world is enmeshed in the struggle of ideologies that beset us.

Conflict between social organization in the patterns found in the Free World and those used by other social organization models, such as communism, shapes our day. Free enterprisers hold that the political and economic ideas developed largely in the British Commonwealth, the United States, and Northwest Europe have demonstrated their unique capacity to deal with industrial society. Communists, on the other hand, believed that only through use of the Marxian model can man fully realize the potentialities of modern technology. Variations on the communist model exist today, such as in China. Each school holds that if its system is adopted, eventually all the world will share a standard of material well-being equal or superior to that now enjoyed in the wealthiest states. Each is expected by its proponents to bring into being a society largely free from toil and poverty. All this is supposed without taking into account the historic and cultural, geographic and demographic facts, or the technological equipment available to a particular people. Here I make no such predictions.

If I am right it will be up to these ideologists to show how the systems they propose will convert and distribute energy so that man everywhere will do what they hold he will be able to do. They must also prove that nothing involved in the process of producing and using more energy is likely to influence men to distribute it unequally – or, more specifically, to deny to great areas of the world of the wealth it would be possible for them to have if energy were “properly” distributed.

Thus my findings are likely to raise questions about the reliability of certain propositions which are basic to the policies of any society.

The issues are not academic. They are critical to the outcome of the struggle. The method by which one attempts to resolve them has therefore much to do with the solutions that will be offered for mankind to adopt.

I have chosen to use science wherever possible. Whether the outcome of the investigation supports any particular ideology will be determined as the argument proceeds.

My choice to use science is based on the idea that this reduces the errors we are likely to make in dealing with new situations.

The scientist’s contribution to action can be summed up in the formula: “If under these conditions you do thus and so, this will follow with this degree of probability.” In other words, science prescribes the conditions necessary to bring about change and predicts their consequences. Whether or not a person can be influenced deliberately to perform or to eschew certain acts in order to achieve or to avoid their predicted consequences cannot be learned from the scientific position alone. We must also know what his values are. So if we are to predict whether or not a particular set of people will wish to change in the manner required to make use of new fuels and converters, we shall also have to know just what, in the particular situation we are looking at, has to be changed so that these fuels and converters can be used. This means also that a careful effort must be made to distinguish between those social relationships that are dependent upon the use of present converters and others that may be expected to continue even though new sources of power are used to provide the necessary energy. Only to the degree that we know what must be changed can we know what will be the costs as well as the benefits of change and so estimate man’s willingness to alter his society.

Many kinds of labels have been used to explain why people persist in or modify their behavior. Man has been variously classified as child of God, a power-seeking or political animal, a money-seeking or economic being, a being endowed by blood and soil with racial instincts which guide his choices, the helpless puppet of physical or biological forces which move him, an anarchistic element in time and space guided only by reason and his will, and many other kinds of creature.

The makers of these labels, having endowed man with a basic nature, then proceed to infer how such a creature should act and predict with only limited success how in fact he will act. Here I provide no such scheme. I am trying only to establish the connections between the sources and the converters of energy men use, the kind of society they build, and the life they live, even though I know that this is only one parameter of any society. To find the place that energy holds, I will have to move back and forth between the physical and biological sciences that show the nature and the amount of energy that can be secured from a given fuel or converters, and other sciences that show how men have used or may be able in the future to use them.

I can estimate how he might act if he were to make the most efficient^[1] use of these sources. He almost never does. I have to try to see just why. It’s a complicated business and I don’t pretend to know the complete answer in even one case. But I may be able to reveal new paths to discovery that are useful.

A multidisciplinary approach

The approach I use cuts across many of the academic disciplines. When the energy concept was first introduced it was a factor previously neglected in some of the hard sciences. Its use forced people in one discipline to learn about others. Only by doing this could they understand what part energy played in what each of them was trying to understand. New fields like physical chemistry, bio-physics and bio-chemistry developed, and whole new universes of discovery followed. As a result each of the scientific disciplines was itself involved in some confusion and conflict. For example, the growth of nuclear physics forced or permitted wide reaching examination of phenomena which had hitherto been unknown, or their casual significance unsuspected. The same thing will undoubtedly be true as the analysis of many social situations comes to include the part that energy plays in their survival, change, or extinction.

Many people, including some social scientists, have almost no knowledge of the specific laws of the hard sciences that we will be talking about. So I have made some references here to elementary science. I hope that if you find them redundant, you will excuse me.

Energy defined

I should be able to give an exact definition to a term that I will be constantly using. Unfortunately, while energy is a word that is in constant use, nobody can say just exactly what it means. It is used differently by various sciences, the most common is probably “the ability to do work.” But I am forced to admit that in many places where I use the word this definition doesn’t help much. In many situations it is difficult to show whether or not work is being done.

The scientist must examine various situations where he can discover that some kind of change is going on, either directly by his senses, or as a result of the use of various kinds of instruments designed to test abstract theory. He must examine what he regards as being relevant conditions that existed before and after the change. He must determine whether or not there were changes in such things as temperature, pressure, mass, velocity, and acceleration. In all such changes there is a common factor involved to which we give the name energy. We say, “it” was the casual agent that “did the work.” But there are also many other situations where “work” cannot be directly measured but the same factor that we have called energy was apparently involved. So we call that energy too. In each case what we can observe is a change in the form or location of something. Among other things energy is classified as gravity, heat, light, sound, radio, radar, sonar, T.V., electricity, magnetism, mechanical energy, X-rays, laser beams, radioactivity, growth and even matter. When one of these forms is converted into others, energy can be measured. Always part of it becomes entropy – that is it becomes formless and apparently it is lost to man forever. Sometimes the rest may be largely converted into a single different form, but usually it assumes a number of forms. All of these kinds of energy except entropy can theoretically be converted at known ratios into the others.

This is hard for most of us to believe, even when we experience the fact that electricity (60 cycle alternating electro-magnetic current as the standard in the United States) comes into our homes and is there converted into many other forms of the same thing, energy. However, we are charged in terms of kilowatt hours (Watt-hour) of electricity for all the kinds of energy into which it is changed by various appliances. It should then be obvious that there is a specific relationship between each of the various forms of energy and all the others.

Scientists have measured the ratios between them, and calculated theoretically exactly how much of a given form, say heat, is the equivalent of another, say mechanical energy. The fact is, as we have noted, that we are never able to convert one form entirely into another. In addition to the form we want, we get others that we did not wish to produce. However, with knowledge of the theoretical limits to use as a guide, we can design energy converters that up to a fixed theoretical limit change more and more of the energy we presently control into other forms that we want more.

I have called anything that changes one form of energy into another a converter. Among them is of course the human body. It changes energy in the form of food into many other forms including mechanical energy, sound, heat and waves of various forms, amplitude and frequency, such as those developed by the nervous system, including the brain.

Man’s efficiency in converting the energy potentially available from a given form of food into work can be measured using the same instruments that are used in determining the input-output ratio of other converters. That is not to say that in every situation the most significant thing about a man is that he is an energy converter but, when he ceases to be so he is dead. And as long as he converts energy his output can be physically measured.

How much energy can man's body convert, and how much must it convert, in a particular period of time?

Even the most elementary knowledge of physiology and of thermodynamics makes it clear that man can exist only where he is able to replace the energy which he uses up in the process of living. He must regularly be in control of energy equal to or in excess of this minimum. A permanent deficit makes life impossible.

Beyond this biologically set minimum the amount of energy required by man is set by the goals he seeks. There are few, if any, societies in which men choose to exert no more energy than is required to maintain a supply of food, protection from the elements, and procreation. Rather, there is a wide range of values which induce man to strive for a large number of goals requiring for their achievement control over varying forms and amounts of energy.

Man also makes use of converters other than his own body to achieve his ends, and the energy these converters make available to him is also measurable. Thus wherever other converters can be used to replace or supplement the energies of man, the relative advantage, in energy terms, of using them over using his own physical effort can be calculated. However, such calculations will not alone serve to indicate whether the more or the less efficient converter as so measured will, in fact, be used. One of the problems incidental to this study will be to discover some of the conditions under which man will be likely to continue to pursue a course demonstrably “wasteful” of energy in preference to a more efficient way. Man seems frequently to follow such a course. For this reason I do not accept the idea that inevitable man will “in the long run” modify his culture in the direction of making life physically less difficult. In fact, there are some very old practices which are deliberately continued in use as if in response to an urge to do things “the hard way.”

Measurements of energy

To calculate the costs and gains of any action requires the use of common measures and accepted concepts. For convenience some of those frequently used in this book are presented in this chapter.

Newtonian physics assumes that material objects will keep their existing relationships unless acted upon by an outside force. In other words, [[work|work]] is defined as a factor responsible for some sort of change in physical relationships. This may be a change of form, time, or place, or all three. Energy, in turn, since it is defined as the ability to do work, is involved in any change in physical relationship. A good deal of the time we shall be dealing with potential energy, the energy of place. This energy sets the limits on any possible source. Such energy as at a given time is actually involved in doing work is called kinetic energy. Kinetic energy takes many forms, each of which can be measured. For example, mechanical energy is measured by setting up an arbitrary unit to measure force and another to measure distance. These two measurements are multiplied to give a composite figure. So, for example, a force adequate to lift one pound a distance of one foot is a foot-pound; that capable of lifting one kilogram a distance of one meter is a kilogram-meter, etc. These measurements have in turn been converted into other convenient units. Thus when Watt (Watt, James) was attempting to sell his steam engines he found it necessary to state the relative capacity of his engine as compared with that of a horse, which the engine was often expected to replace. Watt set out to determine the strength of his engines as compared with that of the horses then in use in England. By testing them he discovered that the average horse could do 22,000 foot-pounds of work per minute for as long as 10 hours a day. To insure that the user of his machines would get as much power as he was accustomed to get from a horse, Watt called a “horsepower” the ability to deliver half again as much – 33,000 foot-pounds of energy per minute, or 550 foot-pounds per second. This measure came into wide use with the adoption of the steam engine.

It may be well to state here the equivalence of some other measures of heat and mechanical power that will be used. One kilowatt hour is equivalent to 1.34 horsepower-hours and to 860 Calories; one horsepower-hour equals about 641.56 Calories. (Technically the great calorie, or the kilogram-calorie, this is the unit in which diets are commonly stated; it will be referred to throughout simply as the Calorie.)

Acceleration

It was stated above that mechanical energy is calculated in terms of motion — force and distance being used as parameters. However, force itself was arbitrarily described in terms of pounds, a measure commonly used in the United States to express weight or mass. To measure force in motion we use velocity, measured in terms of time in [[second]s] and distance in feet or meters. To these we must add a new dimension. This is acceleration, the rate of change in speed of movement. The specific relationship between rate of motion and the energy required to produce it has been established empirically: it is equal to one-half the mass times the velocity squared. If the mass remains unchanged, it is clear that to increase the rate of motion of an object requires energy in proportion to the square of the velocity. Thus, at high speeds fairly large increments of energy may have only slight effects in altering the rate of motion as compared with that obtained by operating at lower speeds.

Another of the laws of physics with which we shall be concerned is the principle of the conservation of energy. Newtonian physics holds that the amount of energy in the universe is a constant, and thus energy is never lost or gained. It is particularly important for us to remember that it is the whole universe, not some particular part of it, like the Sun or the Earth, that does not lose or gain energy. Part of the mass of the sun is constantly being converted by fusion, into energy. This energy is dissipated into other parts of the universe. Similarly the Earth constantly receives energy from the sun, some of which is converted into plant life, but a great deal of it is reflected back into the universe. Another part is lost in the form of heat as plants and their product, such as the fossil fuels, are oxidized.

For a long time the mass of the earth was increasing as plant life created more matter than was being lost in the form of heat. But much of the stored energy is increasingly being released through the burning of fossil fuels. The heat that is generated this way is, like that of the Sun lost somewhere in what physicists call “the heat sink” although they don’t know where it is.

I emphasize this loss because a lot of the thinking about how man uses nature has been based on the comfortable assumption that the energy available to man does not change as a result of the way he lives. Newtonian physics and classical chemistry did not take into account the laws of thermo dynamics. The second law declares that energy always moves from a higher to a lower level. Common sense accepted the idea that some processes are irreversible. Nobody in his right mind would try to reuse ashes as fuel. But for a time scientists did not measure the amount of matter that was being lost in the form of heat when things burned. They weighed the ash and the gases that resulted from oxidation and found that the total mass was equal to the fuel spent. So both mass and energy were constant. Today everybody in contact with science knows part of the meaning of [[E=MC²]]. We know that mass can be and is constantly being changed into energy through radioactivity. But the amount of mass lost in the form of heat when energy moves from a higher to a lower form is so extremely tiny that it is regularly disregarded by chemists and those using Newtonian mechanics to design the converters men use to do work.

Today many people are greatly concerned that the fuels used so abundantly in the last century will be used up. But there is general reliance on the belief that basic science supports the idea that technology can be designed either to recover the energy lost in the past or to replace it at no greater cost than that we now must pay to get the fossil fuels. This way they can hold on to the idea that “progress” utilizing ever increasing amounts of energy is ordained by God as revealed by the truths that they “hold to be self-evident,” even though it still remains true that the laws of thermodynamics ordain that the road to heat death is a one way street.

This position develops from the language we commonly use that implies that many can create energy. What we usually mean by that is that man takes energy in the form, time and place it is found in nature and converts it into the time, place, and form he wishes. He consumes energy when what he does reduces the amount left under his control to serve future purposes. He measures the efficiency of a converter by comparing what is fed into it as compared with what emerges in the form, time and place he desires. Efficiency is thus not only a physical measurement, it is also a social estimate. For example, blood sugar is converted into various forms of energy by the human body. Part goes for muscular exertion, and the changes that take place as the sugar is used up in providing energy results in giving off heat. In the winter this is often desired, but in summer would be avoided if it were possible. Thus efficiency of the body in converting food into energy would vary from season to season with the change in the ends desired.

Usually the engineer simply assumes the social objective of the system in which he is working and measures in terms of it without further concern. If, for example, he is designing a light bulb he seeks to minimize heat; but in making a heating element he reduces to the lowest possible point the proportion of light rays being generated. Without knowledge of what forms of energy are being sought he has no means of determining efficiency.

Energy as a field

There are a number of other concepts with which we will have to work. As I have indicated above, the fact that the energy available to man determines what he can do means that it sets limits on him. Energy is often thought of, as a thing, a force operating at a single point, it is hard to accept the idea that it can be simultaneously influencing anything at other than that point. Like most other scientists I have found it useful to think of energy not as a single stream of things impacting on a point, but as a field, which can have effects at more than one point at a given moment.

The concept of a field needs to be carefully examined. As I indicated earlier, scientists have for a very long time thought that matter is composed of tiny units, often called atoms. If they were in motion they collided with one another, or if at rest could be put in motion only as a result of a collision with another moving atom. Greek thinkers worked out a geometric formula which later scientists used to predict both the direction and the velocity which would arise from the collision of two bodies each of whose mass, velocity, and direction were known. So, reasoning from the idea that masses in motion move in a straight line unless acted upon from without, it was theoretically possible to regard all movements as a product of previous collisions.

Subsequent knowledge produced conflict among scientists. Some of their observations led to the conclusion that the old “corpuscular” or atomic theory of matter was inferior to wave theory as a means of explaining or predicting some things. This led to further examination and in turn to the development of field theory. The essential idea here is that energy exists as fields that have differing patterns. These patterns are basic natural forms; they do not have to be explained as being the result of collision between atoms in motion along straight lines.

This kind of thinking requires a major revolution in reasoning about things. I could not of course deal with it substantively. I brought it up because in so far as I am able to do so, I am using field theory as basis for my thinking.

There are differences in the way scientists define the meaning of “field.” Einstein adopted an “operational” approach. That is, he thought of things in terms of the way they were discovered and analyzed. He defined field as “the sphere of an operation.” That a field exists is evidenced by the fact that an instrument designed to reveal the existence of a form of energy does in fact show that energy in that form is present. Whenever the instrument fails to indicate that energy in that form exists, the instrument is said to be outside the limits or beyond the boundary of that field. Other instruments that were designed to reveal other forms of energy might demonstrate that their boundaries did not coincide with those of the first. So, at a given place and time, we might find a number of intersecting or overlapping fields of force.

Some scientists must rely upon their senses, with or without the aid of instruments, to determine whether or not a field exists, Einstein described fields in terms of those operations. Other scientist think of the field as a thing, which is only revealed by its effects; that is, they emphasize energy substantively as a force creating an effect, rather than in terms of the process by which man discovers and measures it. I find it easier to use Einstein’s definition and approach, but of course I know that instruments reveal something that is “out there.” They do not create it, and I presume that it exists even though only the evidence I ultimately rely upon is that which comes to me through my senses and inferences about that evidence.

So I will be talking of energy that exists in the form of fields that have boundaries, and also exhibits patterns that affect what is going on inside their limits.

Limits

The concept of limit is one very familiar to us. As applied to the discovery and measurement of energy, it is the point at which the energy being examined ceases to have an effect upon the instrument used to discover and measure it. A Geiger counter shows the presence of radioactive substances; when it fails to manifest any change in the presence of a substance we say we are outside the boundaries of a field of any radioactive substance, or beyond the limits of such a field. A battery yields a flow of electricity; when it ceases to affect an instrument designed to reveal a flow of current, we say that so far as that instrument is concerned the battery is no longer creating a field. If a thermometer placed in or near a furnace shows no perceptible change from the temperature which it exhibited at a more distant point, we say that the fuel which the furnace contained has been exhausted or the fire otherwise extinguished. Perhaps nothing more need be said about this familiar aspect of the concept, which relates to the total amount of energy.

However, there is often another type of limit involved: the rate at which a converter can change energy. Enlarging the gas tank will not make a car go faster. A man who can easily lift a thousand bricks one at a time may find himself totally incapable of lifting all of them at once. Obviously the factors limiting the rate of conversion are other than those controlling the total amount of energy yielded.

Since we are so frequently confronted with limits – on the amount we can lift at one time, on the speed at which we can run, on the amount of light yielded by a bulb, on the distance we can go in a given time in a car – perhaps this form of limit needs no further amplification.

A great deal of thinking, particularly abstract thinking, is done through the use of visual images. If we want to get a visual image of what we discovered to be the limits of a field of force we have to plot the locations where limits were established and join them with lines. We thus establish the boundaries of field, and can see what pattern it takes. If we discover that within the range so established energy varies from point to point we can also plot these positions. Fields are often recognized by the patterns we are able to observe. The shape of the field of one form of energy can be projected on a plane and compared with the pattern of another field projected the same way. Thus we can determine whether or not more than one form of energy is at work in the situation we are trying to examine.

A few examples may make these statements clearer. If a stone is dropped into a body of still water, concentric circles spread across the surface. These reveal the way the energy resulting from the collision of the moving stone with the still water is being dispersed. The waves make concentric circles around the point of impact. But if it is raining or a boat is passing nearby these circles will be distorted and, in turn, if we see distortion we can infer that something is causing it. Similarly if one places a magnet beneath a sheet of paper on which iron fillings have been sprinkled at random, the fillings will shift into a pattern we recognize as being that of a magnetic field. Again, weather maps made from observations of clouds show how variations in atmospheric pressure and temperature are moving the clouds about. In the northern hemisphere high [[pressure]s] result in air mass movement in a clockwise direction and low ones in the reverse. By looking at the way clouds are moving, we can infer the kind of change taking place among them. All kinds of scientist use similar “mapping” techniques. They permit us to visualize what energy is doing. Using them we discern the characteristic forms that energy of various kinds take. Sometimes, as in visualizing the form of organic molecules, we construct three-dimensional models.

There are many kinds of ways to discover, describe, simulate, and denote the character of fields of energy. Many of the results support the idea that energy is an aspect of discrete things like atoms, electrons, and swarms of other newly discovered phenomena. Other evidence supports the idea that energy is pervasive continuously throughout an area. So, for example, almost everybody accepts the idea that there is a universal gravitational field. We predict that there will be no exception to the rule that everything in the universe attracts every other thing with a force directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. In this case we predict that distance will affect the amount of energy present that results from gravity. The farther away something is the less its gravitational effect. So even if gravitational fields are without limits, we can plot on a piece of paper the points of equal gravitation attraction and also predict differences between two sets of points so mapped. We can see how velocity affects the predicted locations. We can see for example just how fast a given mass must be moving in order to “escape” (more accurately, balance or exceed) gravitational pull. All of us have watched this demonstrated in the moon shots. So prediction as to what will happen depends not only upon knowledge of what would happen if in any situation everything but what we are observing was inert, but since, in every case, there are other energy fields operating, none of the actual events we observe corresponds exactly with those presumed in our idealized projection. Knowing how one sort of energy will operate alone we can often discover what its influence in a given situation is, and through identifying various forms and their influence, come up with a more or less accurate statement about what the probability is that some particular thing will occur in a given set of circumstances.

The process of identifying energy through the form its boundaries take is very helpful, but sometimes it is not particularly useful in showing what goes on within the structure we have envisaged. We have talked about the way the influence of energy may change with changes in position, as with the influence of gravity, or with time, during which the initial stock of energy involved is dispersed by being converted into other forms, as when the waves produced by a stone falling into water become lower and lower as the energy transmitted at impact declines. The rate of change including the portion going to entropy may be as significant as any other fact about it.

If we climb a steep mountain at the same rate as we walk on the level, we use up energy more quickly. The heat from a furnace is dissipated more quickly in a cold room than a hot one. If we drive at seventy miles an hour we use more fuel per mile than at, say thirty. If we measure these kinds of things, and plot them on a pair of coordinates we find that we generate a line that has a steeper or less steep slope. The coordinates can represent on one axis, say, a supply of energy, and on the other the time or distance within which a given fraction of that energy is converted. Or it can show how the rate of conversion is affected by velocity, or acceleration. So we can demonstrate on a map how far a car driven at a given rate of speed can go on a gallon of gasoline and then show how far it can go at various other speeds, and so on.

Such graphs are very familiar. Commonly they are so constructed that the slope of the line joining the coordinate points becomes a significant indicator of the facts which are being portrayed, and a calculation of that slope can be made in terms of a mathematical equation. Since the slope of the line resembles an inclined plane, or what we call when we are climbing a hill a “grade,” many sciences use the word gradient to indicate this relationship. Usually a rapid rate of conversion of energy is represented by a steep grade and a slower rate by a gentler grade. (Most commonly however, the word gradient is used as applying to rates of conversion in terms of space.)

A single line may serve to show the particular gradient of a specific operation. To represent the potential effects of an action, or the range of possible actions, another kind of representation is necessary. If, let us say, our automobile was in the middle of a perfectly flat plane (for example, the Utah salt flats), so that it could equally well move in all directions, we would, in order to show all of its potential movement (assuming in each case that the path taken would be a straight line) have to revolve our single line, marked off into segments showing the rate of energy use, about the point of departure. We would thus generate a series a series of concentric circles. A high rate of consumption would result in a set of circles close together, and to show a field with a gentler gradient we would place the circles farther apart. The outermost circle would represent the boundary, the point of exhaustion of our original supply of energy, and the others would show the proportion or amount of energy which would be consumed by the car in reaching that series of points represented by a particular circle. Thus we could visualize the whole potential field. As we shall see, the comparison of the gradients and the fields of different converters gives us a means of discovering the degree to which actual behavior conforms to optimum behavior in energy terms.

Surplus energy

There is one other general concept used throughout the work which should be defined here – the concept of what I call surplus energy (often shortened to surplus). This is the energy available to man in excess of that expended to make more energy available. To be sure that there will be no question as to what is meant by the term, I shall elaborate on my definition. At any given moment of time a person, a group, or any other socially functioning unit has available a limited supply of energy. This can be utilized immediately in its present form. It can also be used in an operation designed to increase the future supply of available energy. The simplest example would be grain, which may be eaten or planted. It is obvious that if the planter does not even get his seed back from the harvest, he has less energy at his disposal than he previously had: he has incurred a deficit. On the other hand, if he harvests enough grain to replace the seed, to supply the amount of energy expended making the tools or machines he used in planting, cultivating, and harvesting his crop, plus his labor and something more, he has gained energy beyond that which was previously his to command: he has surplus energy. A stroller eating blackberries growing wild along the road expends in the operations necessary to secure the berries only a small part of the energy he receives from them. He has gained surplus energy. On the other hand, a man who runs down a jackrabbit in an 80-acre field will probably expend more energy than he will gain from the operation.

In the more complex activities of modern society it is sometimes extremely difficult to discover all the costs and all the gains, energy wise, which are involved in a particular transaction; yet it is clear that the same propositions about energy hold for complex actions as hold for the simplest examples given above. The continual undertaking of projects that produce less energy than they consume inevitably leads to a deficit. This must be made up from other operations in which there is a surplus if the society is not to find itself with less total energy available than it had before the projects in question were begun.

As will be shown, in the older societies deficits were rather quickly detected. Either steps designed to correct energy deficits were taken quickly or the culture soon disintegrated. In societies that are more modern the facts are extremely difficult to come by. The struggle to determine the point where energy output exceeds input or to assure that surplus energy from some operations can be depended upon to supply the deficits from others, is inconclusive and is usually prolonged until some crisis forces recognition of the deficit or results in the collapse of the system.

It is hard to get acceptance of the idea that there are only a very few ways that man can increase the amount of energy available to him. We are accustomed to measurements in terms of value. So, we say that we have produced something if it is worth more than its costs of production. But, this involves making all judgments in terms of the values involved. Very often, what is produced comes because of using up enormously greater quantities of energy than could be obtained from the potential energy stored in the new article. In fact almost everything man does leaves him in control of less energy than he had before he did it.

Surplus energy becomes a key factor in any social system but there are only a few ways to get it. All of them are limited. To get those surpluses man has to discover the sources and build converters that will change their potential into forms of energy that man can use. So he is dependent both upon his ability to find and possess the raw materials furnished by nature, and to design and create converters that will make the energy in them available to man in the forms and at the times and places he wants them. The energy expended in doing this must be subtracted from the energy resulting from it. Only the result is net surplus.

As I shall show later, control over the creation and distribution of such surplus becomes a key factor in understanding the very rapid rate of change that has occurred at various times in history, particularly in the last century.

Surplus energy may be used to reward people for continuing to do what the norms of society dictate. It can also be used to seduce them into violating those norms. It can be used to corrupt those in authority so they use it for purposes not approved or condoned by traditional thought. And of course it becomes a major factor producing force that can be used to physically coerce those who would oppose the course of action that those who control it wish to pursue.

A great proportion of recent economic thought has been devoted to providing means to rationalize and justify control of newly available surplus energy. A lot of this theory totally disregards the energy flows involved, since what is produced and consumed in the process of production is estimated only in terms of the price measured value placed on both the output and the input. The resulting distortion is, in my judgment, responsible for a lot of our failure to deal wisely with our problems.

This does not mean that I am proposing that men should abandon the effort to explain the human evaluation, and human institutions that effect what is going on. It does mean that we can no longer attempt to explain human behavior without careful consideration of the way physical and ecological factors are involved in it.

I have attempted to use concepts and measurements found in the hard sciences in ways that are commonly used there. They will have exactly the denotations that they carry in those sciences. I hope that some of them will acquire new connotations as they are related to social phenomena in real situations.

Among the concepts I have introduced here are kinetic and potential energy; field, limit, and gradient; and such measures as the Calorie, the kilowatt and the kilowatt-hour, the horsepower and horsepower-hour. We shall assume a knowledge of the concepts of mass, acceleration, distance, and the energy relationships that exist between them, of the law of the conservation of energy, and the concepts of efficiency and surplus energy. If they are kept clearly in mind and re-examined from time to time, it will add to the book’s readability and serve to keep the reader on his guard against the errors that inevitably creep into a work of this kind.

Other concepts, particularly some from social science, will be brought in as needed. It seemed advisable to define them as we go along, in the context in which they are used, rather than to introduce them here.

Note

This is a chapter from Energy and Society: The Relationship Between Energy, Social Change, and Economic Development (e-book). Previous: Foreward (Energy and Society: Foreword)|Table of Contents (Energy and Society: Chapter 1: Energy & Society)|Next: Chapter 2: Organic Energy and the Low-Energy Society (Energy and Society: Chapter 1: Energy & Society)

Citation

Cottrell, F. (2009). Energy and Society: Chapter 1: Energy & Society. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Energy_and_Society:_Chapter_1:_Energy_&_Society