ENERGY

Energy, from the Greek energeia or activity, denotes the capacity of acting or being active. Aristotle used the term to denote the activity of tending toward or enacting a goal, which differs from the modern understanding of energy as the capacity to do work. To a certain degree energy functions as the abstract equivalent of fire, one of the Aristotelian four elements. The modern concept of energy can engender either physical or psychological activity and be analyzed in one or more of three senses: scientific, technological, and ethical.

Science of Energy

In modern science, the term energy has become a precise technical concept with such distinctions as kinetic (energy related to the motion of a body) and potential (stored energy of position). Other important distinctions pertain to the different forms of energy, including thermal, mechanical, electrical, chemical, radiant, and nuclear.

The history of the modern science of energy reveals that developing a precise technical concept of energy is a convoluted process, one that raises controversial tensions between constructivist and realist interpretations of scientific knowledge (Crease 2004). To what extent did the phenomenon of energy precede the development of the concept itself? And to what extent do the cultural and technological contexts in which energy came to be represented actually shape that natural phenomenon in terms of intersubjective agreement? The modern concept of energy arose through both purely ahistorical theories and a changing social context, marked especially by the development of different energy technologies. This means that the contexts of discovery and justification cannot be isolated from one another, because energy cannot be justified without the use of historically given concepts (e.g., work and heat) and technologies (e.g., steam engines). Energy is at once real (i.e., not an artifact of language and culture) and constructed (i.e., inextricably embedded in human history).

The modern science of energy originated with the development of thermodynamics in the nineteenth century and efforts to understand the dynamics of steam engines and other mechanical devices. In 1842 Julius Robert von Mayer (1814–1878) calculated the caloric equivalent of mechanical work. This Kraft (force or power) was the precursor of energy as a scientific concept that denoted the quantitative equivalence between physiological heat and mechanical work. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was experimentally well established that such physical phenomena as electricity, heat, electromagnetism, and even light were interconvertible at determinate rates of exchange (Kuhn 1959). To German scientists in particular, the fixed rates of exchange governing the conversion of diverse phenomena suggested the existence of a single underlying substance. They postulated a metaphysical Arbeitskraft (workforce) behind physical manifestations.

In 1847 Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) formulated the first law of thermodynamics by stating that Arbeitskraft can be neither created nor destroyed. So enshrined in the "law of energy conservation," energy denotes an unknowable substance manifest in the transformations of matter and measurable in units of work. Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) formulated the second law of thermodynamics on the notion of entropy (a measure of disorder or the quality of energy) in 1850. The scientific concept of heat was reduced to the kinetic energy of theoretically postulated particles and divorced from the commonly experienced primal element of fire.

Work by Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) and others further removed the concept of energy from common experiences, but Ernst Mach (1838–1916) argued that energy and other concepts in physics ought to be grounded in practical and experimental experience rather than theoretical abstractions. Albert Einstein (1879–1955) utilized Riemann's mathematically constructed curved "space-time" to formulate an "energy-momentum tensor" according to which mass and energy are interconvertible in the equation E = mc²;, where c is the speed of light. This means that a small amount of matter (mass) is the equivalent of a large amount of energy, so that matter can be thought of in scientific terms as frozen energy.

Thus, E began as a principle of equivalence between the phenomena of physiological heat and mechanical work. First forged as a bridge between incommensurable domains, E slowly shed any reference to everyday experience. The scientific elaboration of an insensible E occurred through the interplay of mathematically formulated theories and controlled experiments set within evolving social and technological contexts.

Technologies of Energy

As an engineering concept, energy may be related to the primal element of fire, and insofar as fire has played a key role in civilizing human beings (as described in the myth of Prometheus), so energy development is described as central to human progress.

Although water mills and windmills have been in use for well over a thousand years, ancient and medieval technologies of energy were primarily animate (human and animal) in nature. Indeed many in the ancient Greek world viewed slavery as an indispensable means of providing the necessities of a civilized life. The domestication of draft animals roughly 10,000 years ago spurred the agricultural revolution. The transition from wood to coal, made first in England beginning in the sixteenth century, heralded vast social and technological changes. Coal powered the Industrial Revolution and its attendant energy technologies, especially the steam engine. Oil and natural gas were developed extensively in the nineteenth century, and nuclear energy for civilian and military purposes developed after World War II. These changes have led to the widespread use of modern energy technologies, including the heat engine, fossil fuel and nuclear-powered electricity generating plants, and dams, wind turbines, photovoltaic cells, and other forms of renewable energy generation.

The use of these technologies raises important distinctions among the terms energy, power, and work in their mechanical or technical senses. Energy (E) is the capacity for doing work. Work (W) is defined as the energy transferred to an object by a force as that object moves; it is the result of converting energy from one form to another. Power (P) is the rate at which work is done, that is, the rate at which energy is converted. So, E = Pt,, and P = dE/dt, where t is time. In terms of electricity generation and consumption, the most common units for power (demand or capacity) are the watt (equal to one joule per second) and kilowatt, and the most common unit for energy (consumption) is the kilowatt-hour. For example, a 100 watt lightbulb left on for ten hours will use 1 kilowatt-hour of energy.

Power and energy are central to the classical definition of engineering, which the English architect and engineer Thomas Tredgold (1788–1829) formulated as "the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man." This highlights the fundamental human condition that in order to accomplish one's ends, energy must be exerted. The hardships endured have long fueled the utopian dream of infinite energy availability. Modern engineering has undoubtedly unlocked vast stores of energy for human use and convenience. But the quest for limitless energy has yielded dangers in the form of pollution and threats of nuclear war. This quest is apparent in the past hoax and future hope of cold fusion and the development of renewable energy technologies to replace nonrenewable forms.

Ethics and Politics of Energy

Engineer and physicist William Rankine (1820–1872) popularized energy as a technoscientific term in the mistaken belief that the Greek energeia meant work. In fact, in contradistinction to slave labor and craftwork, energeia originally indicated political and moral activity (Arendt 1958). But once the term was defined scientifically in the early 1800s as the power to do work, the lived meaning was relegated, against its own etymology, to secondary or metaphorical status. References to personal energy, psychic energy (e.g., Sigmund Freud's libido), spiritual energy (e.g., Hindu prana, Hebrew rauch, and Daoist qi), aesthetic energy, social or political energy, and more are all thought of as less rather than more concrete, and often interpreted in technological terms. Thus the meaning of the term was somewhat purged of its original ethical and political connotations.

But contemporary issues surrounding energy extraction and use have refocused attention on the fundamental connection between energy and ethics. Energy cannot be considered a neutral instrument, but rather an integral component of political and ethical ends. As the Industrial Revolution and countless other events in history demonstrate, the availability and use of different energy sources reciprocally interacts with social and technological developments. One major practical consequence of this derives from the heterogeneous global distribution of energy reserves (e.g., oil fields) and the unequal demands for energy consumption. Stores of energy and the resulting wealth generated by their extraction and sale can contribute to unequal wealth distribution, violence, war, corruption, and coercion both within and between nation-states.

Within this context, national energy policies inevitably manifest ethical values about distributive justice, health, and equity and raise geopolitical concerns about national security. The disproportionate energy consumption by developed countries causes transboundary environmental problems. Most controversially, the carbon dioxide produced from the combustion of fossil fuels contributes to rising sea levels, which negatively affect many developing countries that have not benefited from the goods and services provided by those fuels. Many of these countries cannot afford the adaptation measures necessary to mitigate their vulnerability, and the question becomes to what extent developed nations are responsible for helping the rest of the world cope with the consequences of their large energy appetites. Another political and ethical dilemma posed by proposals to shift away from fossil fuels is the status of nuclear energy. Do its attendant risks and benefits present an acceptable tradeoff as a transitional source of energy in the move from fossil fuels to renewables?

Questioning the dominant assumption that social progress depends on increases in per capita energy consumption raises deeper ethical issues about the good life. It is commonly believed that high civilization depends on high energy use, which explains the modern quest for new and greater reserves of energy. There is a correlation between quality of life, as measured by the Human Development Index, and per capita energy consumption, but this is not a linear relationship. Indeed the improvement in quality of life levels off when per capita electricity consumption equals 4,000 kilowatt-hours. Yet some countries have per capita consumptions over 20,000 kilowatt-hours. This relates to issues in development ethics (e.g., neocolonialism and cultural homogenization), because metrics of progress are often tied to energy consumption.

Although the rise of "energy slaves" (the use of mechanical or inanimate energy sources to replace animate forms) has brought enormous benefits (including the replacement of human slaves), it has also created risks and concerns about environmental sustainability. Furthermore it contributes to the questionable assumption that living well requires increasing dependence on these energy slaves. A. R. Ubbelohde (1955) characterized the modern ideal society as based on a large proportion of inanimate energy slaves as the "Tektopia." The Tektopia brings both new possibilities and new moral dilemmas resulting from such factors as increased luxury, changes in the administrative state, displacement of workers by machines, and difficulty in controlling, regulating, and distributing energy.

Ivan Illich (1974) also critiqued this image of the good life by noting that as the number of energy slaves increases, so rises not only inequity but also social control and personal stress, alienation, and meaninglessness. He challenged the energy crisis focus "on the scarcity of fodder for these [energy] slaves," preferring instead "to ask whether free men need them" (p. 4). He argued that energy policies (whether capitalist or socialist) focused on high energy consumption will lead to technocracies that degrade cultural variety and diminish human choice. For Illich, "only a ceiling on energy use can lead to social relations that are characterized by high levels of equity. ... Participatory democracy postulates low-energy technology" (p. 5). Beyond a certain threshold, increased energy affluence can come only through greater concentration of control, and thus greater inequality.

Failure to differentiate the technoscientific concept of energy from its older political meaning can lead to dangerous ideologies that reduce the plural, lived energies of human interaction to manipulable technical constructs. People are reflected as mere human motors in the mirror of energy slaves (Rabinbach 1990). The technical notion of energy begins to blur distinctions between nature and machines, living organisms and persons, mechanical work and human action. Efficiency subverts more human goals. The resulting blindness to the distinction between the technoscientific and political versions of energy partially maimed moral judgments about the use of the atomic bomb. Consideration of ethical and political issues associated with energy thus becomes an opportunity to redistinguish what may have been improperly united: energy as a basic concept in science, as a resource, and as an ethical issue.

JEAN ROBERT
SAJAY SAMUEL

SEE ALSO Automobiles;Einstein, Albert;Fire;Oil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arendt, Hannah. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Crease, Robert P. (2004). "Energy in the History and Philosophy of Science." In Encyclopedia of Energy, ed. Cutler J. Cleveland. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Illich, Ivan. (1974). Energy and Equity. New York: Harper and Row.

Kuhn, Thomas S. (1959). "Energy Conservation as an Example of Simultaneous Discovery." In Critical Problems in the History of Science, ed. Marshall Clagett. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Rabinbach, Anson. (1990). The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. New York: Basic.

Ubbelohde, A. R. (1955). Man and Energy. New York: George Braziller.