Prologue:Energy Interconnections

As classically defined from the early industrial era, energy is “the capacity to do work.” However, in the modern context, that definition seems very limited compared with what energy actually offers society. Taking a broader and updated view, energy could be defined as “the ability to do interesting and useful things.” Energy brings illumination, information, heat, clean water, abundant food, motion, comfort and much more to our homes and factories with the turn of a valve or the touch of a button. It is the potential to harvest a crop, refrigerate it, and fly it around the world. It is the ability to drive across the country or fly across the world in the fraction of the time it would take to walk, ride or row. And it also facilitates education, health and security. 

Energy’s importance was noted by late Nobel laureate Richard E. Smalley of Rice University in a lecture he gave in 2003 highlighting the “Top Ten Problems of Humanity for the Next 50 Years.” His list was organized in descending order of importance, with energy at the top. Developing plentiful sources of clean, reliable, affordable energy, he argued, enables us to tackle all the subsequent problems of humanity, related to water, food, democracy, war, and so forth. I agree. Energy is a vital part of our world.

Our civilization is founded on access to energy; the corollary is therefore that a lack of energy would lead to its collapse.

Energy cuts across all the sectors — water, food, health, security, the environment and the economy — that matter for a peaceful, prosperous life. It is complex, intertwined and dynamic. It is connected to all parts of our lives and societies and, arguably, we couldn’t live without it. In that way, energy itself has become one of our most basic needs. Energy is also part of every one of the five main human needs.

For that reason, I have organized this compendium of essays I’ve written over the past decade and a half according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Physiological needs: Energy, food and water;
Garbage in and garbage out

Safety needs: Energy and education;
Energy and the environment

Connection needs: Energy and the global economy;
Energy and transportation

Esteem needs: Old versus new energy; Energy and innovation.

Self-Actualization needs: Energy and society;
Energy and culture; The folly of predictions.

For developing economies, energy is often still a wish. Energy, water,