Editor’s Note: Master Resource’s founder and editor, Rob Bradley, is currently struggling with the aftermath of torrential flooding in the Texas Hill Country. Until he can return to work, he has asked me to post “classic” MR entries. A blog post explaining Vaclav Smil’s concept of “power density” surely qualifies. This is the key concept for understanding a civilization’s energy needs.

Unfortunately, our MR files contain no concise explanation of the concept in layman’s language. (We have many explanations that no conceivable lay reader—myself most definitely included—could possibly understand or appreciate.) The closest thing I could find to a useful journalistic entry was a blog post by Kent Hawkins—a retired electrical engineer in Ontario—published on February 20, 2013. It is reprinted below.—Roger Donway, Managing Editor.

Power Density Separates the Wheat from the Chaff

By Kent Hawkins — February 20, 2013

“Power density (W/m²) is perhaps the most revealing variable in energetics…”[1]- Vaclav Smil

It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that understanding power density may be all the average person requires to put our energy sources and needs into perspective, but there is some merit in this argument.…

It never should have happened. Politics, magical thinking, and corporate rent-seeking tried to reverse the physics of energy density to transition away from consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral hydrocarbons.

After decades of waste, the politics have changed. So much for not-so-green energy in the U.S.

Renewable advocate George Lawrence reported on LinkedIn, quoting Canary Media:

Trump is killing the country’s clean-energy manufacturing momentum.” This is all about momentum indeed, + the few yrs we have to turn things around.

“In the first three months of this year, firms have already abandoned plans to build nearly $8 billion worth of clean energy projects—mostly factories that would have produced everything from grid batteries to electric vehicles, per new data from E2 [consulting engineers].”

This draconian reversal contrasts with the Biden era, where from 2022 to 2024 only a cumulative $2.1 billion in investments was canceled.…

“Government as engineer for top-down planning or bottom-up incentives is a fatal conceit. Misidentifying the problem and imposing (government) solutions is error upon error–and in this case on a global scale. What about here-and-now economics? Consumers matter. Taxpayers matter. Energy freedom matters.”

Susan Krumdieck, an “energy transition engineer,” posted an open invitation to her network about a March 16 online discussion hosted by Insight Committee for Convergence, “Global Solutions and Outreach Programs – Our Best Chance to Resolve Global Warming.” The invitation read:

Humanity is staring into the face of an existential threat of its own making. Humanity must collaborate to minimize the risk from this threat. Current global collaboration efforts are failing.

The pitch:

We are now locked into a paradigm that prevents us from resolving this threat.…

“The data make it clear that the only possible rationale for renewable energy—making significant reductions of CO2 emissions—cannot be achieved. The costs of attempting to do this are already imposing heavy costs on economies across the world.”

By the 1800s, wind and solar were both mature and successful technologies. Yet as soon as Western society developed the wealth and technology to take advantage of fossil fuels, they were discarded—along with batteries for electric cars—with no place in the modern world for grid-scale generation of electricity.  

Renewable energy still cannot compete with the efficiency, affordability, and reliability of fossil fuels. But this has not stopped it from making a comeback on the backs of American taxpayers and consumers who have paid for hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies from federal, state, and local governments.…