Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
plained that the baby had suffocated in utero. If only they had had enough power to use the ultrasound
machine for each pregnancy, he would have detected the problem earlier and been able to plan the C-
section.Withoutearlydetection, theC-sectionbecameanemergency,moreover,thesurgeryhadtowait
for the generator to be powered on. The loss of precious minutes meant the loss of a precious life. At
that time, in that place, all I could do was cry.
Andlater,whenthematernitywardwastoohushed,Icriedagain.Afull-terminfantwasbornweigh-
ing only 3.5 pounds. In the U.S., the solution would have been obvious and effective: incubation. But
without reliable electricity, the hospital did not even contemplate owning an incubator. This seemingly
simple solution was not available to this newborn girl, and she perished needlessly.
Reliable electricity is at the forefront of every staff members' thoughts. With it, they can conduct
tests with electrically powered medical equipment, use vaccines and antibiotics requiring refrigeration,
and plan surgeries to meet patients' needs. Without it, they will continue to give their patients the best
care available, but in a country with an average life expectancy of only 54 years of age, it's a hard fight
to win.
2
This story should remind us of how “unnatural” our lives are—and why that's a good thing. It's easy to
take for granted that we have the ability to detect early problems with babies—not thinking that absent the
machine that can detect them and the energy to power that machine, human beings past and present have
lost untold millions of babies. It's easy to take for granted that we have the ability to keep a three-and-a-
half-pound baby alive—not thinking that absent the machine that can incubate it and the energy to power
that machine, most of people's beloved children who were underweight babies would have died.
This is a microcosm of the central idea of this topic—that more energy means more
ability
to improve
our lives; less energy means less ability—more
helplessness
, more suffering, and more death. Of course,
this topic is focused on
fossil fuel
energy—but only, as you'll see, because I believe that it is the most es-
sential technology for producing energy for 7 billion people to improve their lives, at least over the next
several decades. If there was a better form of energy and it was under attack in a way that wildly exagger-
ated its negatives and undervalued its positives, I'd be writing the moral case for
that
form of energy.
There are two facts about energy that are missing from our discussion: one, people around the world
need much, much more energy, and two, it's extremely difficult to produce that energy cheaply and reli-
ably.
MACHINE CALORIES
Humanity needs as much energy as it can get.
First: What exactly is energy? The technical definition is “the capacity to do work” but my favorite way
to sum it up is with two words: “machine calories.”
Every human being runs off the calories he or she consumes; those calories are our
energy
, our
ability
to act.
If we run out of calories, we can't act—we die.
The same is true of the machines we use to improve our lives. Whether we're talking about the ultra-
sound and incubation machines that enable us to save babies, the computers that enable us to gain or dis-
cover knowledge, the planes that enable us to visit family members across the globe, or the factories that
make it possible for all of those things to be affordable, every aspect of our lives is improved dramatically
