Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > Energy and Civilization: A History > Status Update

The development of the service sector as a result of fewer people being needed to produce basic necessities such as food and clothing.

Economic growth and energy intensity -- and urbanization, which has its own effects upon energy generation and utilization.

Patterns of growth in various industries. Moore's Law and its effect upon information technology. Comparing cell phones and automobiles. Looking at ordinary things in new ways.

The development of modern communications systems, especially telephony and radio.

Electricity and transportation

How the Industrial Revolution was more of a process than an event. Not a sharp break, but evolutionary development

The growing importance of *control* of transportation and other technology. A runaway team of horses could cause damage but a runaway train or an airplane crash could cause widespread havoc because of the far greater amounts of energy involved, requiring procedural rules to prevent such disasters.

The growth in the size and capacity of jet airliners (with the Concorde as an outlier), as power to mass ratios of engines improved.

Development of modern electrical grids and of hydrocarbon fuel transmission pipeline networks. The development of hydroelectric generation from Westinghouse's first generators at Niagra Falls. The beginning of nuclear energy in the wartime effort to produce a weapon of unparalleled power by releasing the binding energy of the nucleus, as opposed to chemical energy of electron bonds.

Tesla's critical AC patents, which are the foundation of the modern electrical grid.