Energy Past, Present and Future: A Series Introduction

By Kristen Abels

What drives you? Perhaps this question provokes reflection on your passions, beliefs and values that motivate you, but let’s think about it differently – what actually drives all of us? What is the source of energy that keeps us going? Coffee? Perhaps. Chocolate? Definitely (for me, anyways). As Albert Crosby puts it in his aptly titled book, “Children of the Sun”, we are ultimately fueled by sunlight. Plants capture solar energy, converting it into chemical energy to grow and thrive, and when animals eat these plants (and perhaps other animals), they use this chemical energy to fuel their activities. Humans are no different; the energy we derive from our food ultimately comes from the sun, and it has been this way since the dawn of humanity.

Original image can be found here.

Of course, the answer to ‘what drives us’ today, or perhaps more appropriately ‘what fuels us’, is likely a lot broader than what it was for our prehistoric ancestors. For them, energy from food was sufficient for the average person to perform sustained, useful work at a rate of 50-90 watts [1]. This may still be true for us, but nowadays we have light bulbs that consume energy at higher rates than that! Yes, I know LED light bulbs are much more efficient than their 100-Watt incandescent counterparts, but just think about all the high-power, energy-consuming appliances, machines, and vehicles we have at our disposal today. In 2017, Canadians used 11,489 PJ (that’s 11,489 quadrillion joules!) of energy for industry, transportation, residential and commercial uses [2]. For residential use alone (13% of this total), this is equivalent to every Canadian consuming energy at an average rate of about 1,285 watts throughout the entire year! If our entire energy landscape is considered (industrial, transportation, and commercial uses included), this average power consumption rate approaches 10,000 watts per capita – orders of magnitude beyond the amount of useful work the average person can deliver! This would not at all be possible without the extrasomatic forms of energy we’ve learned to exploit. Refined petroleum products (e.g. gasoline), natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power, and biofuels are just some of the possible answers to ‘what fuels us’ today, and though we may take it for granted, they have truly revolutionized society as we know it.

While our ancestors may have survived purely on manpower using energy derived from food, our species has since discovered and exploited these other energy currencies to sustain us. In this monthly article series, we’ll examine these forms of energy that have kept our society running (and growing) throughout the centuries, starting at the dawn of human history with the domestication of fire and animals. We’ll work our way through the centuries, past the discovery of mechanical energy captured through waterwheels and wind, through the shift to more concentrated forms of energy from biomass to charcoal to coal, all the way to the advent of the steam power and eventually electricity, finally reaching the energy landscape as we know it today.

As we progress through this series, keep this in mind: technological innovation has allowed our ability to deliver sustained power to rise by a factor of 15 million over 10,000 years, with the vast majority of this innovation (>99%) occurring in the last century alone [1]. This incredible growth has been both a blessing and a curse; correlation of per capita energy use with the human development index suggests that some minimal level of energy use is associated with an elevated quality of life. However, our excessive energy dependence has also resulted in some of the biggest global challenges outlined by the United Nations, such as responsible consumption and production, and climate change [3]. A thoughtful look at our energy landscapes of the past and how they have both improved and worsened various aspects of life on Earth will be vital to informing our decisions as we work to build our energy landscape of the future.

References

[1] V. Smil, “World History and Energy,” Encyclopedia of Energy. Elsevier Inc., pp. 549–561, 2004.

[2] “CER – Provincial and Territorial Energy Profiles - Canada.” [Online]. Available: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-canada.html#s3. [Accessed: 11-Oct-2020].

[3] “Take Action for the Sustainable Development Goals – United Nations Sustainable Development.” [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. [Accessed: 11-Oct-2020].