3 World Energy
5.1Man’s progress has been paced by his increasing ability to control and shunt natural energies into preferred forms of use. His own role as a ‘mechanical’ energy converter has become obsolete in the past hundred years, and he has come to function mainly as a controller and designer of high energy conversion patterns.
5.2 The earth surface receives energy from three main inputs - one, radiant solar energy: two, the kinetic and potential energy of the earth in the gravitational system: three, geothermal energy from the earth interior. Other energy sources are sub-cycles of these, e.g., the fossil fuels are stored solar energy deposits, water power taps the local hydrological cycles and wind power the atmospheric circulations. The fossil fuels are ‘capital’ energy and exhaustible, the other two examples are ‘income’ energies,regenerative cycles.
5.3 Energy consumed in the industrial process since its inception has been largely based on coal, oil, gas, and electricity generated from water power. There has been a phenomenal growth in high energy conversion ratios of output to input in the use of these fuels in the past fifty years.1 About 80% of all such energy is consumed within the industrially advanced countries and only about 20% in less developed areas. It is this type of energy consumption which particularly distinguishes high living standard areas in the world from those still limited to low grade energy converters of the biological type, i.e., human and draught animal energies extractive of plant and crop energy yields through craft tools of various types.
5.4 This sharp division will be particularly evident with reference to the energy slave map and table included in this section. As the ‘have and have not’ proportion within this map shows, the prime problem of world energy resources is to even out the present inequalities in industrial energy distribution - in effect to design ways of including within the fully developed industrial network those world areas which are on the ‘have not’ side of the scale. This is a problem which can only be solved by competent design science ingenuity. The degree of its complexity is immediately evident but analysis of the charts of various increases of production and consumption over longer periods and in particular those which show cross trendings will give major indication of the prior ways in which this may be done. It is also evident that such ‘have not’ areas will not simply repeat the historical development of those already industrialized, but may immediately take off higher on the technological scale - with a faster acceleration of development adoption than the ‘older’ area. They have no great
5.5 backlog investments of tools, factories and other industrial network systems to retard their integration of the latest scientific and technical advance and, indeed, will find themselves capable of installing systems far in advance of those already in operation in the present highly industrialized areas.
5.6 It may be noted also from inspection of energy slave distribution charting that the cycling of present world tensions relates directly to its inequable distribution frequency. Another potent indicator of the necessity for ‘new forming’, comprehensive scientific design strategy as against the ineffectuality of reforming strategies!
5.7 In discussing such possible upping of living standards in global terms, most persons will refer to the depletable nature of energy resources now sustaining our present high standard industrial nations. As previously mentioned these operate largely on ‘capital’ rather than ‘income’ resources - on the finite reserves of fossil fuels rather than on the relatively in-finite and direct tapping of the great universal energy cycles of solar, tidal and waterpower energies. Redirection to use of recycling ‘income’ may then be the second stage priority in the world energy picture. It will phase in with the more urgent redistribution of industrialization.
5.8 The prospect of future energy resources do, in the main, belie most local resource estimates. Much work is already in hand, and great progress made in the use of solar power converters. Tidal power is already harnessed in various parts of the world and rivalled by other potential inland water powers as yet undeveloped. Electric power generation development from geothermal heat has been under way for some time in various areas. Nuclear power plant development has already widened its scope in terms of multinational cooperative exploration and use, e.g., ‘Euratom’. It will possibly soon become one of our main energy transformations. Relative to this development is, of course, the now largely latent capacities of the oceans for providing enormous fuel sources. Controlled thermonuclear reactors using deuterium or heavy hydrogen as their main source of transformative material have been under experiment since 1945. One part of this hydrogen isotope is available in every six thousand parts of sea water. On the scale of ocean volumes present it has been estimated, that “there is enough deuterium in the sea to generate a thousand times more energy for the next million years than is generated in the world today”.2 The above comments by no means exhausts the list of possibilities in the present extending range of technical developments in energy conversion advantages. Certain of the most recent technical advances such as the fuel cell, afford more ‘mobility’ as energy converters and higher energy conversion efficiency, 80% in this case, than many of our present ‘engines’.
5.9 The picture therefore of world energy resources is simply another facet of our total element inventory transformations. It is one of potentially inexhaustible sources which require only the sustained and accelerated application of scientific design competence for their full availability to all men. The cooperative powers necessary for their fully successful phasing in to our universal use require the prior industrial accrediting of all the have not millions still outside of the world industrial network. We need their upped living so that they may in turn contribute to the fullest developments of all mens’ necessary advantage.
5.10 Asia: 1,212,000,000 | 1,389,000,000 | 1,679,000,000 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 2,565,000,000 | 3,090,000,000 | 5,050,000,000 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 108 | 110 | 168 | 2 | 2 | 3
5.11 Europe: 573,000,000 | 576,000,000 | 641,000,000 | 25 | 23 | 21.4 | 16,720,000,000 | 18,544,000,000 | 52,100,000,000 | 42 | 34 | 52 | 756 | 736 | 1,747 | 29 | 32 | 81
5.12 Africa & Medit. Wld.: 172,000,000 | 209,000,000 | 254,000,000 | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 523,000,000 | 961,000,000 | 2,515,000,000 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 18 | 44 | 67 | 3 | 5 | 10
5.13 North America: 146,000,000 | 168,000,000 | 199,000,000 | 6 | 7 | 6.4 | 19,350,000,000 | 29,850,000,000 | 36,800,000,000 | 48 | 55 | 37 | 864 | 1,195 | 1,243 | 151 | 177 | 185
5.14 South America: 90,000,000 | 112,000,000 | 140,000,000 | 4 | 4 | 2.2 | 512,000,000 | 954,000,000 | 1,472,000,000 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 44 | 34 | 6 | 9 | 10
5.15 Central America: 41,000,000 | 51,000,000 | 66,000,000 | 2 | 2 | 4.7 | 312,000,000 | 577,000,000 | 1,850,000,000 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 18 | 22 | 67 | 8 | 11 | 28
5.16 All Others: 11,300,000 | 13,000,000 | 16,500,000 | 1. | 1 | .5 | 466,000,000 | 760,000,000 | 855,000,000 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 22 | 34 | 41 | 58 | 52
5.17 World: 2,246,000,000 | 2,518,000,000 | 2,995,000,000 | 100% | 100% | 100.0% | 40,448,000,000 | 54,736,000,000 | 100,642,200,000 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 1800% | 2173% | 3360% | 18.00 | 21.73 | 33.6
5.18 Use of World Energy Map
5.19 An “energy slave” is determined as follows: In addition to the energy spent from his metabolic income in “working” his own body, one man in one 8 hour day can do approximately 150,000 foot pounds of work. A foot pound of work equals the amount of energy required to lift one pound one foot vertically. This additional work might be called net advantage in dealing with environment. The “net advantage” potentially to be gained by each human each year, working 8 hours each of 250 days per year, is 37 1/2 million foot pounds.
5.20 Stated with a probable error of less than 10%, the world consumption of energy from minerals fuels (coal, oil, gas) and water power for the year (1960) is 94.4 quintillion (94,429,000,000,000,000,000) foot pounds. Assuming man’s efficiency in converting his gross energy consumption into work to average an overall 4% he will net therefrom, 3.7 quintillion (3,769,960,000,000,000,000) foot pounds.
5.21 Dividing this figure by 37 1/2 million foot pounds (each man’s net annual energy advantage), we receive the figure 100.6 billion man year equivalents of work being done for him. The 100.6 billion man equivalents we will call 100.6 billion energy slaves. 100.6 billion energy slaves / 2.995 billion World population = 33 1/2 energy slaves per capita.
5.22 However, these energy slaves were not divided up equally in their service to each man on the face of the earth as the tables above will show. Marked contrasts are to be seen in the table, -e.g. each of the 199 million “North American” inhabitants is served by 185 slaves (460 per family) while each of the inhabitants of “Asia” is now limited to the services of 3 slaves.
5.23 To furthur appreciate the significance of this table, it must be noted that “energy slaves", though doing only the foot pound equivalent of humans, are enormously more effective because they can work under conditions intolerable to man, e.g. 5000° fahrenheit, no sleep, ten-thousandth of an inch tolerance, can see at one million magnifications of man’s vision, 400,000 pounds per square inch sinuosity, 186,000 miles per second alacrity, etc. Because the slaves have become 50% more efficient between 1940 and 1960 the world’s overall mechanical efficiency has been improved from 4% to 6%.
5.24 WORLD ENERGY MAP
5.25 per cent relation – energy slaves per capita in terms of human equivalents
5.26 1940 1950 1960
5.27 ASIA NORTH AMERICA CENTRAL AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA EUROPE AFRICA & MEDIT. WORLD
5.28 WORLD: ENERGY SLAVES ENERGY SLAVES/CAPITA HUMAN POPULATION
5.29 As of World War II energy slaves enormously increased but data classified and curve shows only slaves assigned to domestic economy.
5.30 ENERGY SLAVES in Billions
5.31 ENERGY SLAVES per capita
5.32 HUMAN POPULATION in Billions
5.33 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
5.34 This chart shows part of the automation picture. Human ‘employment’ now comes before and after the facts of ‘manufacture’ - first as an initiation of the new trending of technological advance invention, discovery, research and development: secondly as regenerative consumer. The ‘employment’ curve is in reality an independent line from a certain point in automatic control development. It represents regenerative investment of the wealth created by automation. Our present method of ‘pay for work’ through which we now distribute the wealth represents a timid fraction of such re-investment capacity. Un-employment is actually time secured, and should be re-invested in education. If only one person in one million made one new discovery or prime invention this would pay for all
5.35 MAN, ANIMAL, MECHANICAL ENERGY IN PRODUCTION (U.S.)
5.36 Hours worked/week
5.37 Animal
5.38 Mechanical
5.39 Man
5.40 #Employees
5.41 Gross National Product Per Capita in current Prices $165 $300
5.42 Energy Supplied By: Mechanical 1” = 10% Animal 1” = 10% Man 1” = 10% Total #Employees 1” = 10 million Hours worked/Week 1” = 10 hrs
5.43 1850 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960