Thread by @max_gagliardi

1/ The history of energy transitions and why we are not in a new one right now

🧵

2/ Throughout human history energy transitions happen when there are new energy technologies that offer substantial increases in the quality & quantity of energy. These transitions only happen when energy efficiencies gain orders of magnitude

3/ All life on earth is a derived from solar energy. We are made from the stars and from the stars we get the energy needed for life. Plants harvest energy from sunlight using photosynthesis and animals eat plants and use metabolism to extract the energy

4/ In the ancient past Humans used their own bodies as the primary source of energy. Humans consumed calories from eating plants & animals, and converted those calories into muscle work for hunting and foraging, this wasn’t a very efficient use of energy

5/ The 1st Energy Transition is believed to have happened when human’s ancestors first mastered the use of fire around 800,000 years ago. Fire allowed for cooked food which provided more calories to be extracted, fire also allowed for the beginning phases of climate mastery

6/ The transition to using fire gave humans a massive advantage over other animals & over time humans stopped using just “human energy” and started using animate prime movers (animal energy) for agriculture roughly 10,000 – 30,000 years ago

7/ The use of animals & basic inanimate prime movers (plows, etc.) decreased the amount of human energy needed to create the same amount of crop yields. The harnessing of fire & domestication of animals kicked off the agricultural revolution & the subsequent rise of civilizations

8/ The 2nd Energy Transition started a few millennia ago when humans invented basic inanimate prime movers such a windmills & watermills for agriculture and sails for ship transportation. This was the energy transition to using “renewable energy”

9/ Ancient & medieval societies used inanimate prime movers for demanding tasks like water pumping, grain milling, oil pressing, wood sawing, & powering furnace bellows. Transportation was revolutionized during this time using square sails that unlocked world travel & exploration

10/ The 3rd energy transition began centuries ago with the shift from biomass, animate & inanimate prime movers to using coal & and renewables to power mechanical prime movers like steam engines & water/wind turbines. Many 3rd world countries are still at this transition

11/ Steam engines were the quintessential energizers of the early industrial revolution. Coal was a main driver of steam, but hydro power played a large role in the textile industry, and wind energy was also critical for rural development during America’s Great West expansion

12/ The 4th Energy Transition was the electrification of society & the use of liquid hydrocarbons. Humans invented commercial systems of electricity generation, transmission & use. Steam engines gave way to electric motors which by 1929 accounted for 80% of all mechanical power

13/ The age of crude oil was launched during the same decade as electricity. The combustion engine allowed for another transportation revolution with modern automobiles and aviation. By 2000 oil, gas & coal represented 90% of the world’s energy, with nuclear & hydro the remainder

14/ The hydrocarbon revolution has had the biggest impact on humanity, including quality of life increases, human lifespan, modern medicine, and the massive increase in human population over the last century from 1.6 billion people growing to almost 8 billion

15/ The 5th Energy Transition started in the 1940s with the development of the Nuclear Bomb & development of commercial nuclear power generation in the 1960s. Unfortunately, this energy transition has slowed & reversed due to bad governmental regulation & public misconceptions

16/ Powering the future of humanity will undoubtably be done at the quantum level using nuclear power and eventually quantum computing technology to drive efficiency. Nuclear energy is cheap, emission free, and the safest form of power generation that we have available as humans

17/ Energy transitions only happen when new forms of energy drive material gains in efficiency & have a strong deflationary effect to industry and consumers. A push to “decarbonize” by using legacy energy sources (renewables) is not an energy transition, it's an energy regression

18/ For a real energy transition to happen we have to focus on energy technologies that lift humanity up & provide for cheaper & more abundant energy sources. A combination of new Nuclear tech + low carbon fossil fuels (ie. natural gas) is the clearest path to a new energy future

19/ If you enjoyed this thread you should check out my podcast Talk.Energy where I explore all things energy with episodes dropping twice a week

Subscribe here:
youtube.com/c/TalkEnergyPo…