Energy Isnt Easy

by Norman F. Smith

Explores new and alternative sources of energy upon which mankind must depend in the future, as fossil energy sources are depleted, and explains the difficulties involved in gathering and converting... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0698205847
• ISBN13: 9780698205840
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 203 Pages
• Age Range: 11 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 6 and higher

Customer Reviews

Required Reading for the Concerned Citizen/Environmentalist

Unlike most writers in the renewable energy field who promote idealized and unrealistic solutions for our energy problems to a largely uninformed public, Mr. Smith provides the reader with a cogent and realistic evaluation of our energy alternatives. He clearly and simply explains many of the technical and economic concepts associated with energy and its utilization, and provides the reader with a brief and concise historical perspective on the development and evolution of energy systems. From the book, we learn that almost all energy systems both past and present take advantage of either energy of motion or heat energy to provide some form of useful work to society. Because we can not direct, store and completely capture heat energy and must use heat immediately at the point where it is generated or captured, scientists view it as a low-grade energy source. Unlike heat energy, electrical energy is considered among scientists to be a high grade energy source because it can be directed, stored and used far from where it has been captured or generated. Lastly, one can derive electrical energy from either the conversion of heat energy or energy of motion, but as Smith tells the reader, conversions between the two energy forms can never be perfect, and likewise while one can generate one form of energy from another, one can never create energy from nothing.From the text, we also learn that energy is not free in the economic sense. You must always pay something to gather and convert energy. There are three key costs associated with energy- economic, environmental and energetic costs. When evaluating energy systems, one must ask two (2) pertinent questions. The first question asks what one can do with the system, while the second question asks what one must do in order to get useful work out of the system. Thus, the evaluation of energy systems not only hinges upon how much energy is obtained from the process/system, it more importantly rests upon the amount of effort and resource expenditure that is required to obtain the energy. As such, proper evaluations of energy systems must look at not only the economic cost, but also the convenience of such systems for doing useful work. Every attempt must be made by the scientist, the politician, the environmentalist, and the concerned citizen to gauge and assess the practical limitations imposed by processes to produce energy.For many reasons, efficiency- defined as the ratio between useful work output and energy input, is not a good indicator of an energy system's practical utility. Efficiency measures can only tell you how much of the available energy is lost, or how much of it is actually useful. Furthermore, efficiency numbers can be easily manipulated up or down to suit the whims of proponents or detractors, and thus it is very important to know the basis for their calculation. All energy systems, especially those for electricity generation, require considerable amounts of supporting infras