Tag Archives: energy density

Energy density and the prospects for renewably-powered societies

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In the post prior to last week’s, I looked in some detail at the energy densities associated with each of the conventional fossil fuels that together account for over 80 percent of global primary energy supply. As I pointed out, the highly concentrated nature of these energy sources is a fundamental enabling factor in relation to the forms of social and economic organisation that have evolved over the course of the industrial age. The norms, expectations habits and tendencies with which we live together today—and that for most of us, most of the time, remain largely below our thresholds of awareness—are intertwined in various ways with the characteristics of our energy sources. Different energy sources necessarily entail differences in these characteristics. In transitioning between energy source regimes, if key characteristics associated with an emerging regime differ sufficiently from those with which our major techno-economic infrastructure and socio-cultural institutions have developed, then at some point the infrastructure and institutions will themselves need to change for the process of transition to proceed. When such transition points are reached, the connections between energy resources and cultural expectations can no longer remain submerged from view: we’re required to confront the changing situation, and in many cases, we too must undergo our own transformations, individually and collectively. Continue reading →

In praise of fossil fuels—Part 2: the remarkable legacy of ancient life

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Over the past quarter century, the justifiably deep concern held by many of us about climate change has led to a shift in humanity’s relationship with fossil fuels—burning of which accounts for well over 60 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This relationship seems to have shifted from what  might be roughly characterised as ‘appreciative ambivalence’ (as long as the supply spigots remained open) towards uneasiness at first and more recently, even open animosity. Given the bad rap that fossil fuels get from many of us now, there’s more than a little irony in the fact that, even beyond the idea that the modern human identity is shaped—as I suggested last week—in the image of fossil fuels, we humans and the energy sources that enable our present ways of living are expressions of the same Earth-centred and carbon-based life continuum. As the remnants of vast accumulations of deceased organisms laid down over millions of years, fossil fuels are in a manner of speaking a gift left to us by our ancient selves. Granted, holding such a view requires that we first adopt a bio-centric sense of identity—an identity with all Earth-based life across evolutionary time. Assuming such a default mode of self-understanding may be taking things just a little too far for some readers. In the interests of advancing the systemic intent of our inquiry though, this is perhaps not an entirely unreasonable suggestion, at least as a provocation to new thinking about our collective situation i.e. a perspective with which to experiment in order to see what it might reveal. Continue reading →