Fossile Fuel (Energy Week)

Cheap energy is the current whipping boy. But some understanding of it must be conceded as well. 

Thomas Newcomen in 1712 produced the most important single technological advance of the industrial age. He invented a crude steam engine that ran on coal. It was by most subsequent standards terribly inefficient but it was efficient enough to allow British miners to work in coal mines; it was able to pump the mines dry so the miners could work safely. Thus began the incredible modern industrial age, a machine that enabled men to produce more energy than the machine needed.

By every means this improved the lives of men. The famous wealth chart is the most dramatic. The wealth of the Western man was virtually flat through history; wealth was transferred, not developed, by theft or, worse, war. Except for those rare episodes--like the Spanish stumbling on South American gold, the wealth of the West was stagnant through history. Until Newcomen. Then the wealth curve became a hockey stick.

And everything changed. We no longer froze in the dark, died of heat prostration or starved. Machines cut lumber for good houses. Irrigation and fertilizer nourished increasing crops. Relief efforts arrived in hours or days, not months or years. 

Climate-related deaths are down 98 percent over the last 80 years. Affordable and abundant energy is the cornerstone of human progress. And fossil fuels are the most affordable and abundant — alternative energy sources are either too expensive, too difficult to access or simply inefficient. There may be trouble now with fossil fuels. It may hide some significant downsides. But they can not be replaced at their availability or cost. That gap must be considered. And it is the third World, those trying to take advantage of the available and cheap energy sources that the West has enjoyed for the last two centuries, that will suffer most from its decline.