Ed. Note: Also see Part I (on wind); Part II (on water, biomass, and geothermal); and Part IV (on energy efficiency) in this series.
Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities. It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times. (Jevons, below)
Each renewable energy, W. S. Jevons explained, was either too scarce or too unreliable to fuel the new industrial era (see previous posts on windpower and on waterpower, biomass, and geothermal).
The energy savior was coal, a concentrated, plentiful, storable, and transportable source of energy that was England’s bounty for the world.…
Continue ReadingEd. Note: Also see Part I (on wind); Part III (on coal); and Part IV (on energy efficiency) in this series.
We cannot revert to timber fuel, for ‘nearly the entire surface of our island would be required to grow timber sufficient for the consumption of the iron manufacture alone.’
The internal heat of the earth … presents an immense store of force, but, being manifested only in the hot-spring, the volcano, or the warm mine, it is evidently not available. (Jevons, below)
W. S. Jevons in his early day recognized a central problem of windpower for powering machinery–intermittency. The wind does not always blow, and it cannot be known when this will occur, making an even flow of power (as from conventional sources) impossible short of cost-prohibitive battery backup.…
Continue ReadingEd. Note: Also see Part II (on water, biomass, and geothermal); Part III (on coal); and Part IV (on energy efficiency) in this series.
“The first great requisite of motive power is, that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire. The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour, for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.”
The most important book written on energy economics was the first: William Stanley Jevons’s The Coal Question (London: Macmillan and Company, 1865, rev. 1866). This classic is available in its entirety on the Internet.
Jevons’s remarkably sophisticated treatment of energy sustainability remains pertinent today.…
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