Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
power for farm machinery and for land transport via carts and carriages. Because margins were
small, most people had to toil in the fields in order to produce enough surplus to enable a small
minority of folks to live in towns and specialize in arts and crafts (including statecraft and soldiery).
In contrast, the early years of the fossil fuel era saw astounding energy profits. Wildcat oil
drillers could invest a few thousand dollars in equipment and drilling leases and, if they struck black
gold, become millionaires almost overnight. If you want a taste of what that was like, watch the
classic 1940 film
Boom Town
, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
1
Huge energy returns on both energy and financial investments in drilling made the fossil fuel
revolution the biggest event in economic history. Suddenly society was awash with surplus energy.
Cheap energy plus a little invention yielded mechanization. Farming became an increasingly mech-
anized (i.e., fossil-fueled) occupation, which meant fewer field laborers were needed. People left
farms and moved to cities, where they got jobs on powered assembly lines manufacturing an explos-
ively expanding array of consumer goods, including labor-saving (i.e., energy-consuming) home
machinery like electric vacuum cleaners and clothes washers. Household machines helped free wo-
men to participate in the work force. The middle class mushroomed. Little Henry and Henrietta,
whose grandparents had spent their lives plowing, harvesting, cooking, and cleaning, could now
contemplate careers as biologists, sculptors, heart specialists, bankers, concert violinists, profess-
ors of medieval French literature—whatever! Human ambition and aspiration appeared to know no
bounds.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with fossil fuels. The first is that they cause cli-
mate change and thereby cast a pall over the prospects of civilized human existence on planet
Earth—but let's set that irritating thought aside for a moment. The other problem is that these fuels
are finite in quantity and of variable quality; we have extracted them using the
low-hanging fruit
principle, going after the highest quality, cheapest-to-produce oil, coal, and natural gas first, and
leaving the lower quality, more expensive, and harder-to-extract fuels for later. Now, it's
later
.
