Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Energy and Exponentials

  • Chapter
Ariadne’s Thread

Abstract

The vague presumption that modern technology is overcoming our dependence on the physical universe is sufficiently widespread to cause alarm, for it signals a general ignorance of the laws of matter and energy. This chapter, which relates the principles of energy to modern life, should dispel any such misconceptions.

Man seems to have no function except that of dissipating or degrading energy … of accelerating the operation of the second law of thermodynamics. Henry Adams, 1910†

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes and References

  1. Henry Adams, A Letter to American Teachers of History (privately published by the author, 1910) pp. 131, 155.

    Google Scholar 

  2. For a discussion of the multiple environmental consequences that may result from the building of very large dams, see C. Sterling ‘The Aswan Disaster’, Environmental Journal, National Parks and Conservation Magazine, 45 (1971) pp. 10–13.

    Google Scholar 

  3. numerous articles in M.T. Farvar and J. Milton (eds), The Careless Technology (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1972).

    Google Scholar 

  4. and D. Deudney, ‘Hydropower: An Old Technology for a New Era’, Environment (September 1981) pp. 17–20, 37–45.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. Stobaugh and D. Yergin (eds), Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (New York: Random House, 1979) p. 232.

    Google Scholar 

  6. E. Teller, Energy from Heaven and Earth (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1979) pp. 292–3.

    Google Scholar 

  7. B. Russell, quoted in S.M. Blinder, Advanced Physical Chemistry (London: Macmillan, 1969) p. 300.

    Google Scholar 

  8. W.L. Thomas, Jr (ed.), Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth vol. 1, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). See p. 188 f for Europe, p. 416 f for China. This book and its companion vol. 2 are among the most comprehensive and fascinating accounts of the role humans have played from prehistory to the present in altering ecosystems, communities of organisms and even climate, by assorted conscious and unconscious manipulations. It is drawn on further in Chapters 3 and 4.

    Google Scholar 

  9. A.A. Bartlett, ‘Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis’, American Journal of Physics 46 (1978) pp. 876–88. A central article for this chapter.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bartlett, ‘Forgotten Fundamentals’, p. 876.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Thomas, Man’s Role, p. 200.

    Google Scholar 

  12. See S. Goodwin, ‘Hubbert’s curve’, Country Journal (November 1980) pp. 56–60, for an account of the history of Hubbert’s predictions.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hubbert’s data are available as follows: M. King Hubbert, Chapter 8 in Resources and Man, issued by the National Academy of Science and the National Research Council (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1969); Energy Resources of the Earth (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1971); A National Fuels and Energy Policy Study, Serial 93–40 (92–75) Part I (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1973).

    Google Scholar 

  14. W. Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1977) pp. 88 ff. Ophuls outlines the environmental perils and costs of going after low-grade fossil fuels. For recent estimates of US oil reserves, see Science 226 (1984) p. 426, and Science 228 (1985) p. 974. Amounts remaining to be found will last 10–15 years at present rates of consumption.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bartlett, ‘Forgotten Fundamentals’, quotes on p. 881 from ERDA (Energy Research and Development Agency) report of 1975 and 1976: ‘Coal reserves far exceed supplies of oil and gas, and yet coal supplies only 18% of our total energy. To maintain even this contribution we will need to increase coal production by 70% by 1985, but the real goal, to increase coal’s share of the energy market will require a staggering growth rate’.

    Google Scholar 

  16. L.R. Brown, State of the World, 1984 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984) p. 36.

    Google Scholar 

  17. D.L. Meadows, W.W. Behrens, III, D.H. Meadows, R.F. Naill, J. Randers and E.K.O. Zahn, The Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World (Cambridge, MA: Wright-Allen, 1974). See also Figure 5. 1.

    Google Scholar 

  18. H. Kahn, W. Brown and L. Martel, The Next 200 Years (New York: Morrow, 1976) p. 101 f.

    Google Scholar 

  19. From the entropy of mixing, defined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we know that the minimal energy required to separate a mole of pure substance is inversely proportional to the natural logarithm of its mole fraction in the mixture.

    Google Scholar 

  20. C.A.S. Hall and C.J. Cleveland, ‘Petroleum Drilling and Production in the United States: Yield Per Effort and Net Energy Analysis’, Science, 211 (1981) pp. 576–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. The same may be true for natural gas — see C.B. Hatfield, Science, 219 (1983) p. 10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. and J. Cason, Science, 220 (1983) p. 359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. For use of steam to express oil see P.R. Riva, Jr, World Petroleum Resources and Reserves (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983) pp. 89–109. Up to 35 per cent of the energy recovered may have been expended in generating the steam to force it out of the ground.

    Google Scholar 

  24. For use of compressed (supercritical) CO2 to express oil, see P.H. Abelson, ‘Oil Recovery with Supercritical CO2’, Science, 221 (1983) p. 815.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. R.H. Romer, Energy — An Introduction to Physics (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1976) p. 5. A readable text for anyone who wishes to grasp the meaning of energy and work.

    Google Scholar 

  26. R.L. Sivard, World Energy Survey (Leesburg, VA: World Priorities, 1981) p. 5. A massive amount of information from diverse sources has been put into easily understandable graphs, charts and tables.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Compare Table 14.1, p. 292, in Teller, Energy with Table 8.1, p. 232, in Stobaugh and Yergin, Energy Future. Although Teller favours nuclear energy while the Harvard group pushes eventually for more conservation and more solar and other renewable resources, their short-term predictions about the mix of energy resources and of energy consumption in the United States are almost identical.

    Google Scholar 

  28. T.B. Johansson, P. Steen, E. Borgren and R. Fredriksson, ‘Sweden Beyond Oil: The Efficient Use of Energy’, Science 219 (1983) pp. 355–61. See also the revised 1980 edition of Stobaugh and Yergin, Energy Future published by Ballantine, New York, which emphasises conservation.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Stobaugh and Yergin, Energy Future, p. 157 f.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Stobaugh and Yergin, Energy Future, p. 159.

    Google Scholar 

  31. N. Seidman and J. Heels, ‘Waste Management: Beyond the Throwaway Ethic’, Environment (November 1981) p. 32f.

    Google Scholar 

  32. P.H. Abelson, ‘World Energy in Transition’, Science, 210 (1980) p. 1311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. C. Norman, ‘Boom and Bust in Energy’, Science, 221 (1983) p. 443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Costs of reclaiming land in terms of a fraction of the energy contained in the extracted coal vary widely according to the topography and richness of the seams being mined and their depth. ‘Guesstimates’ range from 1 per cent to perhaps 30. For dollar costs see Reclamation Cost Inputs for the Resource Allocation and Mine Costing Model 30 November 1984 (DOE Paper/OR/ 20837–2, Washington DC: US Department of Energy). As pointed out by Denis Hayes (Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-Petroleum World New York: W.W. Norton, 1977, p. 40), ‘[E]ven reclaimed land, while ransomed from aesthetic oblivion, is often worth less… than in its virgin state’. It is useful for pastures, but seldom crops.

    Google Scholar 

  35. J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind and G. Russell, ‘Climate Impact of Increasing Carbon Dioxide’, Science, 213 (1981) p. 966.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. R.D. Lipschutz, Radioactive Waste: Politics, Technology and Risk (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1980) pp. 34–6, 135–8.

    Google Scholar 

  37. D. Ford, The Cult of the Atom (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982) p. 238.

    Google Scholar 

  38. D. Egger, ‘Chernobyl’s Cup Runneth Over: West Germany Pours Hot Milk’, The Nation (28 March 1987) pp. 392–3. This describes the attempts in Western Europe to sell radioactive foods to unsuspecting Africans and others. An early Soviet account of the Chernobyl disaster appeared in Soviet Life (September 1986) pp.34–41. Nearby wells have been permanently closed.

    Google Scholar 

  39. A.M. Weinberg and I. Spiewak, ‘Inherently Safe Reactors and a Second Nuclear Era’, Science, 224 (1984) pp. 1398–1402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Lipschutz, Radioactive Waste. This book amplifies clearly and unemotionally this entire problem.

    Google Scholar 

  41. M.L. Wald, ‘Steel Turned Brittle by Radiation Called a Peril at 13 Nuclear Plants’, New York Times (27 September 1981) p. 1.

    Google Scholar 

  42. E. Marshall, ‘Reactor Safety and the Research Budget’, Science, 214 (1981) pp. 766–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. C. Norman, ‘A Long-Term Problem for the Nuclear Industry’, Science, 215 (1982) pp. 376–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. C. Norman, ‘Isotopes the Nuclear Industry Overlooked’, Science, 215 (1982) p. 377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Marshall, ‘Reactor Safety’.

    Google Scholar 

  46. International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook (Paris: OECD/IEA, 1982) p. 338 f.

    Google Scholar 

  47. See Ford, The Cult of the Atom, p. 54 f. However, as Edward Teller points out in his book (Energy, pp. 190ff), another nuclear alternative is possible. Canada has developed a fission process that uses thorium as fuel and deuterium (in heavy water) to absorb neutrons and control the rate of the reaction. Once under way, the thorium cycle is self-regenerating, but is less dangerous than the plutonium breeder cycle. Since thorium is more abundant than 235U, the fuel problem could be postponed, perhaps for several centuries. All the other drawbacks of nuclear power would of course remain.

    Google Scholar 

  48. I. Barbour, H. Brooks, S. Lakoff and J. Opie, Energy and American Values (New York: Praeger, 1982) p. 112. See also Hayes, Rays of Hope, pp.6174.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Hayes, Rays of Hope, p. 207.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Hayes, Rays of Hope, p. 180. See also Deudney, ‘Hydropower’, for citation of problems.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Hayes, Rays of Hope, p. 207.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Hayes, Rays of Hope, p. 158.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Y. Hamakawa, ‘Photovoltaic Power’, Scientific American (April 1987) pp. 87–92.

    Google Scholar 

  54. J.B. Tucker, ‘Biogas Systems in India: Is the Technology Appropriate?’, Environment 24 (October 1982) pp. 12–20, 39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. P.H. Abelson, ‘Energy and Chemicals from Biomass’, Science, 213 (1981) p. 605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. S. Ferrey and M.-C. Baker, ‘United States May Block Solutions to World Energy Problem’, Albuquerque Journal (27 October 1981) p. A–5.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Quanta, ‘Magma Power’, The Sciences (May-June 1982) p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Haynes, Rays of Hope, p. 159.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Diego State University, California, USA

    Mark E. Clark (Professor of Biology)

Authors
  1. Mark E. Clark
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1989 Mark E. Clark

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Clark, M.E. (1989). Energy and Exponentials. In: Ariadne’s Thread. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20077-1_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation