The timing for fossil-fuel

A predominant driver for climate change is the intensive use of hydrocarbons. When they are burnt, Co2 gets rejected into the atmosphere. It traps infra-red radiation that would normally escape to space, and reflects it back to earth.

The consequences of human-based activities have grown dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. The latter refers to the transition period from an organic economy to a fossil-fuel economy.

Let me contrast the two epochs. In an organic economy, human beings derive energy from solar radiation. The land captures the heat which is then converted into food. The sun’s energy also drives wind and water fluxes which are transformed thermodynamically. However these processes are lengthy and the energy produced is low in density.

Conversely, fossil fuels constitute huge supplies of energy. Indirectly, it is also solar radiation that produced this energy (through organic matter decaying). They were formed over millions of years, but over time they became very dense energy reserves (Jones 2010).

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Thus it is not that hydrocarbons contain “more” energy than the energy used in an organic economy. If energy cannot be created, it can be transformed (Bejan and Kutz 2009). The transformation process has already taken place in the case of fossil-fuels. Whilst it is an ongoing process for organic energy sources.

The key difference, then, is that fossil-fuels provide energy that is “available for immediate use” (2010, 453). Energy density grew as a function of time. The transition process from solar energy to readily usable energy has already been broken down.

Clearly this availability is very attractive: why wait for a relatively small energy supply when we have condensed energy we can use right away?

In a way, should we expect a new energy shift, that is, towards more sustainable energy supplies, to be so evident in that context?

I argued that the time component played a crucial role in the transition from organic to fossil-fuel economy. I relied on Jones' findings. His argument focuses on how hydrocarbons' dense energy enabled the transport of goods and people in a particular context. It is a local example, that we can hardly generalize. That is why I ignored the social component of his paper. However, his observations on the energy transition mechanisms were clear and more general.