ABSTRACT
Society's use of energy and technology is at heart of many of the most significant environmental problems of recent years, including problems of health, global warming and acid rain. Use of technology has been a major cause of environmental problems but new technology offers many solutions. Energy, Society and Environment is an introduction to energy and energy use, and the interactions between technology, society and the environment. The book is clearly structured to examine: * key environmental issues, and the harmful impacts of energy use * new technological solutions to environmental problems * implementation of possible solutions * implications for society in developing a sustainable approach to energy use. Social processes and strategic solutions to problems are located within a clear, technological context with topical case studies and informative diagrams illustrating key issues. Energy, Society and Environment examines the potential and limits of technical solutions to environmental problems and suggests the social, economic and political changes necessary to avoid serious environmental damage in the future.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |1 pages
Sustainability
The basic issue is one of environmental sustainability: can the planet’s ecosystem survive the ever-increasing levels of human technological and economic activity? The planetary ecosystem consists of a complex, dynamic, but also sometimes fragile, network of interactions, some of which can be disrupted or even irreversibly damaged by human activities.
chapter |1 pages
A model of interactions
What follows is a very simplified model of the conflicting interests that exist in society which may help our discussion in that they may influence interaction between humanity and the environment. Put very simply, there would seem to be three main human ‘domains’ which interact on this planet with each other and with the rest of the natural environment. First there are
chapter |1 pages
The environmental part of interaction
So much for the human side of the model. The other element is the natural environment: the source of resources from which producers can make goods for consumers and profits for capitalists. The natural environment has no way of responding actively to the human actors, unless one subscribes to the simplified version of the Gaia hypothesis, as originally developed by
chapter |1 pages
The model reviewed
The model is now complete: there are the three conflicting human groups, (producers, consumers and investors/shareholders), locked into economic conflict; governments active nationally and globally to varying extents; and the natural environment. The environment is mainly dependent for protection on the interventions of people and governments, but perhaps it is also able
chapter |2 pages
Negotiating conflicts of interest Social equity
We shall be returning to some of these questions in Part 4 of this book, but for the moment it seems clear that, assuming that human beings can act usefully to protect the environment, there will be a need to find some way in which the conflicting interests of the four main ‘domains’ in the model can be balanced. The battles among the three human elements can no longer be
chapter |1 pages
The growth of environmental concern
The social and political dimensions of the problem of devising a sustainable future may become clearer if we look back to the beginnings of the contemporary environmental debate. In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a perhaps unique concurrence of ideas from a number of social and political movements.
chapter |1 pages
Alternative technology
This line of argument was put forward by a British writer, David Dickson, in Alternative Technology: The Politics of Technical Change (1974). However, Dickson, along with many members of the counter-culture, also felt that a simple switch of technology would not be sufficient. Technology and society interacted, so there was a need for an alternative society as a base for the
chapter |1 pages
The current ‘green’ debate
These debates are relevant to our contemporary situation in that the issues are now much clearer. Some alternative technology has been co-opted, some technical fixes are being offered as solutions to our environmental problems, while at the same time some radicals in the contemporary ‘green’ movement, are still arguing that only a radical transformation of society will be sufficient.
chapter |1 pages
The battle of the units
As can be seen from the previous discussion, measuring energy use is not as simple as it might seem. Given that there are many ways in which energy is generated and used, it is not surprising that there are many different, often confusing, ways in which it is measured and many devotees of rival systems of measurement. We have mentioned kWh, which is the most familiar unit to
chapter |4 pages
National and global energy use
Having now established some of the basic energy units, we can move on to look briefly at how energy is actually used. Primary energy figures can be derived at various level – for countries, or for the world as a whole. Within the national context, primary energy use is often broken down in terms of its final destination, i.e. in terms of its eventual end use in each sector of the
chapter |1 pages
The oil crisis
The 1973–4 oil crisis was precipitated by the Yom Kippur War between Israel and the Arab states. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which at that point was dominated by the Arab states, objected to the West’s support of Israel and imposed a sudden increase in oil prices. This had a dramatic effect on the industrialised economies: they suddenly
chapter |3 pages
Environmental problems emerge
Although environmental issues became prominent in the early 1970s, some of the key issues had emerged earlier. For example, environmental pollution from coal burning became a key issue in the UK as a result of a series of disastrous smogs in the 1950s, when there were many deaths. One smog in London in December 1952 lead to an estimated 4,000 deaths in the following
chapter |2 pages
Political reactions
In the 1990s the threat of global warming and climate change has been taken increasingly seriously by governments around the world, although not all are as yet prepared to adopt the ‘precautionary principle’, which would suggest that action should be taken now despite the absence of full scientific identification of the scale of the problem. However, some governments are
chapter |2 pages
Alternative energy options
Rather than try to create little artificial suns on the earth in the form of fusion reactors, many environmentalists believe it is more immediately credible to make use of the natural fusion energy that the sun already produces and which reaches us as sunlight. Ever since the 1973–4 energy crisis, research on solar power and other forms of renewable energy has expanded and led to
chapter |1 pages
Reserves
Energy resource and fuel reserve issues are clearly of central importance for any sustainable energy system: we have to be able to rely on having continued access to energy sources. It might be reasonable to accept the use of fossil fuels in the interim, while alternative sources are developed, but the fossil fuels do not represent long-term options.
chapter |1 pages
Conserving energy – or generating more?
Some enthusiasts for energy conservation argue that it can achieve so much by way of energy saving at the point of use that the energy supply side becomes more or less irrelevant, at least in the short to medium term. There is talk of savings of up to 90 per cent or more in some sectors. Certainly if this could be achieved it would be much easier to imagine
chapter |1 pages
Using energy efficiently
Although there may be limits to what can be achieved by energy conservation measures on their own, improving the efficiency with which fuel is used is nevertheless vital and urgent as part of a wider strategy for achieving a sustainable energy supply and demand system. This is particularly clear when we look at the way power generation has been carried
chapter |1 pages
Combined heat and power
Fortunately, however, use can be made of some of the heat otherwise wasted from power stations – for example, by feeding it to ‘district heating’ networks, with power
chapter |1 pages
Matching supplies to uses
This brings us to the next issue – matching the mode of energy provision to energy requirements in society generally. It seems foolish to use high quality energy in the form of electricity just to heat houses. Certainly this is an expensive option, in part due to the huge losses in conversion described above, which remains true even if combined cycle gas turbines are used. It is
chapter |1 pages
Local impacts of renewables
Given that the use of renewable energy sources might be a key element in a sustainable future, it is worth exploring the issue of potential local impacts in more detail. As you will see in subsequent chapters, this turns out to be a complicated issue and may well determine the success of renewables in becoming a major energy source.
chapter |1 pages
Renewable energy flows
Energy flows in nature in a variety of ways, for example, in the winds, waves and tides, and it is worth considering what happens when we make use of these natural flows. The first point to note is that the extraction of energy from natural energy flows does not significantly affect the overall thermal balance of the planet: the incoming solar energy is simply redistributed to
chapter |1 pages
Local environmental limits
The nature of the natural energy flow will need to be taken into account in the process of selecting, designing and locating systems for extracting this energy. In particular, there is a need to relate the way in which specific technologies interact with the natural energy flows in their local contexts (Clarke 1995).
chapter |1 pages
Overall energy limits
The final criterion for sustainability is the most complex: it concerns overall energy resource limits. Looking back at Grob’s chart (Figure 3.1), you will see that he has indicated a natural energy limit for renewables, by which he means the maximum level of energy provision that renewables can supply. Grob’s natural energy limit concept needs some further analysis to see the
part |2 pages
Part 2 Sustainable technology
part |2 pages
Part 3 Problems of implementation
part |2 pages
Part 4 Sustainable society
