As a follow-up
to last month’s satirical entry here at Kyotomotors on the fantasy for free
energy, I thought I’d offer some further reflection as to why I suspect we tend
to believe that free energy is a realistic objective, despite what science
tells us. Somewhat paradoxically I’d like to add to that train of thought, an
explanation as to why I actually consider that there is good reason to believe
perpetual motion will be at our disposal in the future.
But let’s start
at the beginning.
Like the
protagonist in my satire from last month, when I was young, I convinced myself at one point that I had
invented perpetual motion. I was hopeful that it could save my parents a whole
lot of money, if we could only convert our Plymouth Fury according to my
specifications. What happened next I don’t recall exactly, but needless to say,
my invention never quite made it off the drawing board, even though, to the
twelve-year old mind, it involved the seemingly air-tight logic of cause and
effect where the forward motion of the car would
capture wind power, and in turn, power the forward motion of the car!
It wasn’t until
high-school physics class that I learned about entropy, and why the invention
would never work. The truth of the matter is summed up in the second law of
thermodynamics, which essentially states that (in this case kinetic) energy eventually
dissipates across the board, and that my invention, no matter how
well-intentioned, or well-engineered, would inevitably come to a stand-still.
It turns out
that I, and the countless other young would-be inventors were not the first to
dream of free-energy machines, but rather, we were participating in a fantasy
that goes back at least four hundred years, when inventors were thinking of how
best to grind their corn.
Work, work, work…
I’ve always
found it curious that Science, in all its abstract and theoretical
magnificence, defines energy as “the ability to do work”. It’s a definition so
rooted in the real world of material things and human needs that it seems
almost out of place next to theories of space time continuums and
multiplicities of dimensions. To be sure, science’s cousin, technology has
ensured that the former’s discoveries have been doing useful work for a long
time now. I suppose ever since humans have made things to do work for them,
we’ve extrapolated with the Faustian dream of not having to do any work
ourselves whatsoever. From a purely lazy point of view, it seems reasonable to
dream of free energy.
Similarly, from
a business standpoint, where labour is expensive, and energy costs are on the
rise, the incentive is there to come up with the holy grail of thermodynamics:
perpetual motion.
In actual fact,
we have had to settle for the next best thing, which is to say, we’ve come pretty
close. I’d even go so far as to say we’ve been experiencing the illusion of
free energy for at least a couple of generations now. I’m not talking about
high-tech megaprojects like nuclear energy, which never lived up to the promise
of being too cheap to meter, nor the perpetually-beyond-reach technology of
nuclear fusion, (with its legacy price tag already spent, it can never be free).
No, I am talking about an invention that came along quite some time ago, and
has transformed the present civilisation so astoundingly by delivering
amplified energy to the masses with the turn of a key.
Okay, so I’m
simplifying here, but as you’ve probably guessed I’m talking about that regular
object of extensive scrutiny here at Kyotomotors: the combustion engine. And of
course I’m not just talking about the personal car, here: more broadly, I’m
talking petroleum. Considering the present high price of gasoline (which
despite the recent plunge, is still pretty high in historical context), most
readers would probably protest at this statement. But take a step back and
consider the bigger picture: have a look at the Twentieth Century, and you’ll
see the story of cheap and abundant and accessible energy for pretty much all
of the West, and even much of the developing world where industry has made its
inroads on the path toward globalisation of the modern economy.
Think of the few
short decades from the time of the first long distance automobile trip in 1888, to the business model and
assembly line production by Henry Ford in 1913, to the ramping-up of
production in the post war era. Sure there were a few kinks, and quite a lot of
room for improvement, but the basic technology, (and more importantly the
nature of the energy source) was rapidly perfected, and profoundly
unprecedented.
Unlike
subsequent attempts, such as nuclear fusion, and even nuclear fission, not to
mention the suite of green technologies from hydrogen fuel cells to PV solar,
the combustion engine was never anything like “rocket science”. From the start,
there was an immediate return on investments, and a widespread suite of
supporting technologies emerged: Mechanics and gas stations, highways and
drive-thrus all cropped up in lock-step with the production of crude oil.
Never before was
the ability to do work so amplified, and so accessible – as in, available to
just about any working participant in the modern economy.
The phenomenon
can be measured in terms of Energy Returned on Energy Invested; it can be
described metaphorically in terms of harnessing “horse-power”(an industry
standard) , or as some commentators have chosen to do, in terms of having
“energy slaves” at your disposal. No matter how you slice it, gasoline’s “bang
for the buck” is beyond considerable; it’s mind blowing.
It’s as close as
we’ll ever come to having free energy.
But I should
qualify this last statement, for it is only true if your idea of free energy is
trapped by an especially Cartesian way of thinking about perpetual motion
machines and the like. If free energy has to serve the modern industrial
paradigm, then, well then yes, this is as good as it gets. If on the other hand
you have different expectations about how and why humans might want to harness
energy, then the possibilities open up enormously. But perhaps I’m getting
ahead of myself.
First, you might
ask, what does it matter if the combustion engine is an almost-half-decent, but
not-quite-really, perpetual motion machine? It has served quite well, you say?
Or maybe you’re of the mind that it’ll just have to do.
Well of course
regular readers of this blog will know where I stand on that, which could be
summed up by saying the combustion engine has already done quite enough, thank
you very much.
What’s more, the
joke is on us. It turns out that petroleum is cheap and ever-abundant no more.
And with enormous and profound investments in all things petroleum, our
dependence has slowly transformed into a great albatross around our neck. In
other words, after being hooked on almost free energy, we are now stuck with
much more expensive energy, and the spectre of global economic contraction. In
the meantime, we have developed such a culture of entitlement combined with a
collective faith in technology that our expectations speak more of our wishes
and our emotions, than they do of any great understanding about how energy is
concentrated to do work on an industrial scale. Of course we hope that something will come along to sustain and
maintain what we’ve come to take as normal.
A lengthy
discussion as to why this hope is likely to be met with disappointment belongs to another series of
posts, which I am happy to mention exists already in the ongoing blog of John Michael
Greer, The Archdruid Report [why not start here!].
For here and
now, at the risk of over simplifying, I’ll just sum it up by suggesting that
technology in the advanced stages of the petro-modern industrial civilisation
that we know, is subject to a heavy dose of the law of diminishing returns;
that even industrial society is subject to ecological cycles and therefore limits,
and that while we may have limitless imagination, Nature is by no means obliged
to provide us with the means to realise every fantasy we come up with.
Fortunately for
those of us who are willing to look outside the industrial model for the future
of human existence, there is reason to believe in perpetual motion. If you are
willing to accept continued production should adopt a human-scale, that economic
activity should operate within the limits of Nature, and that, in the big
picture you’re willing to accept a few billion years as approaching infinity,
well, then you can confidently assert that the much sought-after perpetual
motion machine already exists in the form of the solar system we happen to live
in.
Each and every
day we can count on the rising sun, the tides, prevailing winds and the
changing seasons. We know how these cycles can work in our favour. We know what
these cycles will always demand of us. These cycles of nature are the closest
thing to constant we can possibly know. Once our attempts at perpetual motion
and incessant motoring slowly fades into the history of the future, we can
possibly put the fantasy of triumph over Nature where it belongs, roll up our
sleeves and get to working with the only perpetual motion machine we could ever
know.
Between the here
and now, and that point in the distant future, there is a lot of ground to
cover. I suspect it will be a bumpy ride…
