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(Download PDF) Energy and Society An Introduction Second Edition Harold H Schobert Author Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
(Download PDF) Energy and Society An Introduction Second Edition Harold H Schobert Author Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
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SECOND EDITION
H ar o ld H. S c h o b e r t
SECOND EDITION
Energy Society
and
AN INTRODUCTION
SECOND EDITION
Harold H. Schobert
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts
have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume
responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers
have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to
copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has
not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.
Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmit-
ted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publishers.
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Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................... 1
Energy and Us....................................................................................... 1
Energy and Nations............................................................................... 5
Where We’re Going............................................................................... 7
References............................................................................................. 9
Further Readings................................................................................. 10
Chapter 5 Fire...................................................................................................... 45
Early Uses of Fire................................................................................46
The Process of Burning....................................................................... 49
Further Readings................................................................................. 55
v
vi Contents
Chapter 6 Firewood.............................................................................................. 57
How Does Wood Burn?....................................................................... 57
Where Does the Energy in Wood Come From?.................................. 59
Problems Associated with Wood Combustion.................................... 61
Energy Crises Made of Wood............................................................. 62
Wood in the Industrialized World Today............................................66
Wood in the Developing World........................................................... 69
References........................................................................................... 73
Further Readings................................................................................. 74
Chapter 8 Waterwheels........................................................................................ 91
Kinetic Energy.................................................................................... 91
Potential Energy..................................................................................92
Spontaneous Change and the Energy Diagram...................................94
Waterwheels in the Ancient World......................................................96
Waterwheels in the Medieval World................................................. 101
Waterwheels in the Early Modern World.......................................... 104
Water “Power” as a Form of Solar Energy........................................ 107
Water “Power” and the Environment................................................ 107
References......................................................................................... 109
Further Readings............................................................................... 109
xv
xvi Preface
human or animal muscles and ending with the early twenty-first century. Because of
this approach, the book as a whole can also serve as a history of technology, albeit
with special focus on energy technologies.
However, I have tried also to make the chapters, or short sequences of chapters,
accessible so that they can be read on their own or form the basis for a course more
narrowly focused than a broad-brush history of energy technology and its impacts on
society and on the environment.
I have benefitted greatly from the help of the many people listed in the
Acknowledgments, from student feedback on course evaluations, and from informal
discussions with colleagues at Penn State, North-West, and elsewhere. Any errors or
shortcomings are entirely my responsibility.
8 Energy and Society
an electric utility were to propose to construct a nuclear power plant in your town?
Likely, you would be bombarded with an entire range of arguments, pro and con,
ranging from the assurance that nothing can ever possibly go wrong to the asser-
tion that if this reactor is built, you and your families will be exposed to so much
radiation that you’ll glow in the dark. How can we determine where the truth lies?
(Perhaps it’s already obvious to most readers that in this specific example the truth
lies somewhere between these extremes—but where, exactly?) In fact, rather than
being at their mercy, you can become very frightening to the politicians, salesmen,
hucksters, and demagogues of this world, because by far the most truly dangerous
person is someone equipped to think for herself or himself.
Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against infection of people by mass myths,
which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed
into bloody dictatorships.
—Sakharov2
Because the world and the way we use energy are changing at such an incredible
pace, it is vital to be able to continue to learn throughout our lives. Fifty years ago,
digital watches and calculators didn’t exist. Forty years ago, these items cost multiple
hundreds of dollars each. Now, either can be purchased from displays at the checkout
stands of discount stores for less than ten dollars. Fifty years ago, vinyl records dom-
inated the music industry. Since then, we have seen a progression from vinyl records
to tape cassettes to compact disks to music downloaded from the “cloud.” Adding
compounds of lead to improve gasoline performance was an industry standard for
close to fifty years. Leaded gasoline vanished in about a decade.
It’s hoped that this book will help the reader feel confident to continue read-
ing elsewhere, continue learning, and continue probing. When we visit another
country, we can better appreciate its culture and customs if we can understand
something of the language. Unfortunately, it seems to many people that science
itself has now become another country, or another culture.* The technology of
energy and the issues surrounding energy use are all around us. Many energy-
related terms are in common use: acid rain, greenhouse effect, cold fusion, the
China syndrome, meltdown, and semiconductors are a few examples. This book
helps the interested reader to understand what these terms mean. This is especially
so because, as we will soon see (Chapter 2), a scientist sometimes uses a word in a
slightly different way or with a more restricted meaning than when the same word
is used in everyday conversation.
The second point is that there are limits as to what can be accomplished with
energy. We can’t create energy out of nothing. The best we can hope to do is to
utilize the amount of energy available to us and convert it from one form to another.
Ideally, we would hope to be able to convert energy completely from one form
to another, with no waste or losses. As we’ll see, we’ll never really be able to
* The concept of a society divided into two cultures, of which one is science, has been argued eloquently
and most famously by the British writer and physicist C.P. Snow (1905–1980) in his appropriately titled
book, Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, first published in 1959.
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Tori suur' oli muuan varsinkin,
taloin ympäröity uhkein;
oli palatsi, asunto kuninkaan,
näkö jonka on mitä muhkein,
Isobritannilaisille tavoilleen
muka täällä ahdasta niin on,
ihan pelkää vaan, että silmukkaan
hänet vielä saattava spleen on.
Ei kilpikonna-lientänne
pidä liiaksi pippuroittaa,
nuo lihavat suomukarppinne myös
voi terveyttä vahingoittaa.
On juutalaista ja kristittyä,
niin kauas kuin muisti kantaa,
väki Hampurin; — jälkimmäistenkään
tapa juur' ei ilmaiseks antaa.