Lecture 2

SEE211
Energy, Climate Change and Sustainability
Recap
➢ What is energy?

➢ Importance in human civilizational development

➢ Manifests itself in various forms

Energy
➢ Conservation of Energy

➢ The extent of useful work available

• Entropy

➢ Example:
• an incandescent bulk
• Burning of wood vs coal vs petrol
 Quantification of Energy
➢ Units for measuring: Calorie or Joule
➢ Power: the rate of energy flow (Watt or W)

(named after James Watt, Steam Engines vs Horses)

Thomas Savery, The Miner's Friend (1702)

So that an engine which will raise as much water as two horses,
working together at one time in such a work, can do, and for
which there must be constantly kept ten or twelve horses for
doing the same. Then I say, such an engine may be made large
enough to do the work required in employing eight, ten, fifteen,
or twenty horses to be constantly maintained and kept for doing
such a work...
(Source: Wikipedia)
A healthy human: ~1.2 hp (0.89 kW) briefly, 0.1 hp (0.075 kW) indefinitely
Athletes: ~2.5 hp (1.9 kW) briefly, 0.35 hp for a period of several hours
Usain Bolt: ~3.5 hp (2.6 kW) (9.58 second 100-metre world record, 2009
 Energy density
i.e.
Energy per unit mass

Human requirement

~2500 kCal/day or
~10 MJ/day

(Reference: Chapter 1, Vaclav Smil - Energy and Civilization: A History, The MIT Press (2017)
Power Density
➢ Power density: rate at which energy is produced or consumed per unit of area: fuels

➢ Dry wood power density: ~0.6 W/m2

• Wood yield: 5-10 t/ha
• Energy density of dry wood: 18 GJ/t

➢ A 18-century city requirements

• Cooking
• Heating (if in colder regions)
• 1-30 W/m2 depending on the location

➢ Wood vs Charcoal vs Coal vs Liquid or Gaseous Fuels

Efficiency of energy conversions

➢ Efficiency of energy conversion

• Stoves
• Engines
• Light sources

➢ Improved efficiency does not necessarily imply lower

consumption
Energy returns
➢ Energy returns in food production, fuels etc
➢ Calculation of efficiencies
➢ Traditional vs modern: need to account for energy spent in creating modern systems

➢ Example:
• Food production by natural means
• Food production by animals powered agriculture
• Food production by machines
Energy Intensity

➢ Cost of food, produce etc in energy units

➢ While the cost of an item may be lower, the

energy cost may be significantly high
Energy in Prehistorical times (< 10000 BC)
➢ Bipedalism was a critical evolutionary change related to the energy and size of our brains
• Brain consumes more specific energy than skeletal muscles, 16 times higher

➢ Diets of early hominins: mix of meat, insects, leaves, nuts, and fruits

➢ Use of wooden/stone tools for hunting

➢ Invention of fire: cooking and agriculture

➢ Dependence on agriculture: growth in numbers, food storage, large energy needs, clearing of
jungles
• Animal pastoralism
• Better nutrition due to grains, vegetables and fruits, lesser infections due to cooked food
Game changers in ancient history
➢ Bipedalism and ability to sweat faster
➢ Invention of tools and Hunting
➢ Fire and cooking
➢ Agriculture

➢ What is the correlation with energy?

(Extinction of the Late Pleistocene megafauna)

(Reference: Chapter 1, Vaclav Smil - Energy and Civilization: A History, The MIT Press (2017)
Agriculture (after 10,000 BC)
➢ Increasing land productivity: increase digestible energy yield
➢ Solar energy for food production
➢ Grains: high carbohydrate and moderate protein levels
• Easy to store for long durations
• Double cropping
• Food for both animals and humans
➢ Clearing of forest and grasslands
➢ Use of human and animal labour
➢ Use of waste for fertilization and fuels
➢ Renewable traditional farming
Agriculture: Intensification
➢ Use of animals
➢ Development of irrigation methods
➢ Fertilizers
➢ Crop diversification
• Grains, legumes, tubers, vegetables
➢ Intercontinental diffusion of crops
➢ Planning and organization of labour
➢ Energy requirement for food processing
➢ Mechanization and reduced use of human labour
➢ Intermittent famines, droughts and floods
➢ Despite all this, the food variety was very little, with meat being a small part of the diet
 Preindustrial technologies and animals

Fig. 3.2, 3.3: Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil

 Comparison of water lifting devices

Fig. 3.9: Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil

Fig. 3.17, Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil
Pre-industrial Prime Movers
➢Two crucial factors

• Multiplication of small forces: Reorganization

• Technical Innovations
Animal and Human Power
➢ Major source of power until the invention of steam engine

➢ Use of technology
• Wedges
• levers
• Pulleys
• treadmills
 Mechanical Advantage

Fig. 4.4, 4.8: Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil

Water Power
➢ Use of kinetic energy of moving water to harness energy
• Power = KE per unit volume * flow rate
• ½ kW to a few kW output

➢ Horizontal Configurations

➢ Vertical Configurations

Fig. 4.9, 4.10: Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil

Wind Power
➢ Using winds to harness energy

➢ Wind power: 0.5ρAV3

➢ American windmills
• 0.1–1 kW for the nineteenth-century
American designs
• 1–2 kW for small and 2–5 kW for large
post mills
• 4–8 kW for common smock and tower
mills
• 8–12 kW for the largest nineteenth-
century machines

Fig. 4.12, 4.13: Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil

Biomass based Fuels
➢ Wood and Charcoal
➢ Crop residues and dung
➢ Household needs
• Food preparation
o Grain milling
• Heating in cold climates
• Light