The Industrial Revolution and Infinite Energy
The image in my head of the Industrial Revolution has always been factories and big clouds of smoke. But what made us suddenly build these huge factories?
The industrial revolution was, at its root, an energy revolution.
For millenia, humans learned to harness plenty of energy sources: fire to heat my house and cook, water flowing to move my boat, or even wind blowing to move my boat. What changed since then?
Converting Energy
Until the 18th century, energy was seen as a limited resource. We couldn’t take one type of energy and convert it into another at will. The only way we did that was by eating (energy) and using our muscles to complete other tasks, or else we used animals to do the same (feed an ox and make it pull carts). We couldn’t harness the sun’s energy to power a battery like we can today.
The first energy conversion was steam-powered engines. They were used in coal mines. They would heat coal, which they had in abundance, to heat water until it created steam. The steam would create pressure and move a piston, along with anything attached to the piston. Eureka!
That was the beginning of infinite energy.
Our perceptions of raw materials and energy changed fundamentally with the invention of the steam-powered engine. We began using the technology to move trains. Then to move bigger trains and to power huge factories. The technology was continually refined and we started to look at energy as infinite… because it was.
Finding Energy and Resources
The new mentality was that energy and raw materials are infinite, so long as we invent the proper tools and machines.
That’s the reason the world population has exploded and the average energy consumption of humans has exploded too. That’s non-obvious. If resources and energy were actually scarce, that would have been impossible.
“But Noah, there’s only so much lithium or oil in the world to make batteries or fuel cars.”
Inventing New Materials
Yes! But as we’ve continued to do, we invent new materials and new energy-capturing processes. There was a finite amount of wood and coal to power the world’s trains and then we invented a slew of new ways to power the trains.
We don’t need to stop having babies to save the world. We aren’t close to “out of resources”. What we need is more inventors. We need more innovation. We need new ways to harness energy, new materials, new solutions. And that sounds to me like MORE babies and more education.
It’s easy to fall into the doomsday trap. But we’re at the beginning of infinity. Our only limits are the laws of physics themselves. We will continue to solve problems in ways we can’t even fathom today. There are problems of course.
But the world is not ending.
Only your own life is.
So stop worrying so much.
You’re gonna die soon anyways.
Question of The Day
When was the last time you used coal to power something? Exactly.
Your Friend,
Noah “BigNerd” Sochaczevski