Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
little need to heed Ostwald's energetic imperative or
to do complex energy studies. As a result, synthesizing
approaches to energy were rare during the first two
post-WW II decades. Works by Ubbelohde (1954),
Cottrell (1955), and Thirring (1958) were the excep-
tions. M. King Hubbert's (1903-1989) innovative anal-
ysis of the cycle of mineral production was limited to
forecasting the course of nonrenewable resource re-
covery, but his model (Hubbert 1962) became especially
influential when it correctly predicted the peak of crude
oil production in the contiguous United States. And
a new generalizing path was opened up by Howard
T. Odum (1924-2002) with his ecoenergetic approach
to environment, power, and society (Odum 1971).
He subsequently refined this approach and extended
it to include the concept of emergy (embodied energy)
expressed in units of one type of energy, often in terms
of solar emjoules (Odum 1996; Odum and Odum
2000).
The first oil price ''crisis'' (1973-1974) gave rise to an
unprecedented interest in energy affairs and to a flood of
new publications. Even leaving aside naive or poorly
researched publications by instant experts, most of this
attention still remained very particularistic (dominated
by traditional sectoral studies of coal, hydrocarbons, and
electricity), too beholden to the rapidly changing percep-
tions of the day (hence the widespread anticipation of
continuously rising prices), preoccupied with immediate
and improperly interpreted problems, and as result highly
error-prone in its ignorance of broader settings and
implications. Virtually all forecasts produced at that time
became obsolete almost instantly (Smil 2003). At the
same time, our understanding benefited from syntheses
that ranged from delineating the history of prime movers
(Needham 1954-1986; L. White 1978) to pioneering
accounts of primary biospheric productivity (Lieth and
Whittaker 1975) and the intricacies of human nutritional
requirements (FAO 1973).
The second ''energy crisis'' (1979-1981), triggered by
the fall of Iran's Pahlavi dynasty, finally led to a number
of syntheses that appraised realistically both the prevail-
ing global energy situation and the technical opportuni-
ties, and economic and environmental implications, of
possible solutions (Gibbons and Chandler 1981; Rose
1986; Smil 1987). The 1980s also brought many inter-
disciplinary surveys and syntheses of geoenergetics (Ver-
hoogen 1980), atmospheric energetics (Kessler 1985),
systems ecology (Odum 1973), animal scaling (Schmidt-
Nielsen 1984), and human nutrition (FAO 1985). This
multifaceted interest has continued with contributions
ranging from analyses of energy efficiency (Schipper and
Meyers 1992; Sorrell 2004) to surveys of principal
resources and conversion techniques (Odell 1999; Søren-
sen 2004; Zahedi 2003; Miller 2005; da Rosa 2005) and
explorations of their environmental and social conse-
quences (ExternE 2001; Goldemberg 2000).
This enormous heterogeneity of energy studies—be it
in disciplinary coverage, preferred concepts, or practical
preoccupations—is fascinating but makes synthesis diffi-
cult. There is a need for defining and imposing a man-
ageable set of variables that would apply across the vast
field of general energetics. Such a quantification would
support meaningful attempts at grand generalizations,
which must almost always be modified by important
qualitative caveats. An understanding of basic SI units
(see appendix) is indispensable before embarking on sys-
tematic inquiries in general energetics. The remainder of
this chapter outlines all the common measures I use in
this topic in order to reveal the grand processes and pat-
terns of general energetics.
