Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1.4 Left to right: Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932), Nobel
prize in chemistry, 1909; Frederick Soddy (1877-1956),
Nobel prize in chemistry, 1921; Albert Einstein (1879-1955),
Nobel prize in physics, 1921. All photographs
8
The Nobel
Foundation.
it takes about 235 kJ/mol to form H
2
O and about 911
kJ/mol to synthesize C
6
H
12
O
6
. In a spontaneous pro-
cess DG is negative. For the two critical reactions sus-
taining life—hydrolysis of ATP to ADP and inorganic
phosphate, and oxidation of glucose—DG is, respec-
tively, about
31 kJ/mol and
2870 kJ/mol. The
second law exercised a powerful influence on scientists
thinking about the energetic foundations of modern civi-
lization. Edward Sacher (1834-1903), a little-known
Austrian science teacher, viewed economies as systems
for winning the greatest possible amount of energy from
nature, and he tried to correlate stages of cultural prog-
ress with per capita availability of fuels (Sacher 1881).
He ascribed 12.5 GJ/a to foragers, 25 GJ/a to nomadic
societies, roughly 60 GJ/a to agriculturalists, and close
to 85 GJ/a to contemporary Central Europe.
In 1892, Wilhelm Ostwald, a leading German chemist
and Nobel laureate (fig. 1.4), began his manifesto on the
Fundamentals of General Energetics (1892) by stressing
energy's unique position:
The concepts that find application in all branches of science
involving measurement are space, time, and energy. The
significance of the first two has been accepted without ques-
tion since the time of Kant. That energy deserves a place be-
side them follows from the fact that because of the laws of its
