18
2.1.1 Powering the Four Industrial Revolutions
We are now living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and while current production
methods have materially changed in scale and complexity, they have not changed in
kind, since the First Industrial Revolution as all energy conversion technologies follow fundamental discoveries about the principles that govern the natural world. The
First Industrial Revolution (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) was set in motion
largely by newly codified thermodynamic laws. These laws, taken together, state
that each form of energy at work is a conversion process where nothing is created
and nothing is lost but also where utility is diminished over time as dense complex
forms of energy are transformed to low-grade heat energy unable to affect any more
physical changes.
Early twentieth century production methods relied on First Industrial Revolution
techniques, such as large scale, high energy, metal refining, and process mechanization, but refocused them through new labor organization systems, like the factory
production line, to increase output yields on an unprecedented scale. Fordist assembly line systems were hallmarks of the Second Industrial Revolution, which drove a
globalizing economy with increasing efficiency until well into the third quarter of
the last century. Large features of this Second Industrial Revolution persist today as
traditional factory output of tangible goods continues to increase in absolute
amounts. Information technology started reshaping the flows of matter and energy
on a small scale in the 1950s and grew to become a dominant force in the Third
Industrial Revolution, generally referred to as the “Information Age.” Networked
computer technology tracks, records, and stores massive amounts of data as products in themselves as well information about things and their relationships within
complex systems. Each Revolution has built upon, rather than fully supplanted, the
previous one. Each subsequent development depends on the infrastructure laid
down by previous ages. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is further synthesizing
developments of the first three and reshaping global economic activity in the process (Schwab 2017). A key feature of this latest turn is the simultaneous increase of
energy, data, and material flow, to produce the abundance of goods and services, as
well as the inclusion of sensors and transmitters designed to link all of it together as
the physical and informational merge in the Internet of Things.
From First to Fourth, scientific discoveries and technological advances drove
massive growth in industrial as well as agricultural production, and all share in
simultaneously increasing the standard of living and life expectancy for more and
more people on the planet.
2
These increases would be impossible without a constant
increase in the conversion of energy from carbon-based fuel and the concomitant
negative environmental impacts that follow. The thermodynamic principles that
explain this relationship have been clearly understood for centuries. They are
2 The early twentieth century Haber-Bosch process, for example, produces ammonia-based fertilizer by heating air to over 700 degrees F and pressurizing it to over 2000 psi to extract nitrogen that
is readily available for plants (Smil 2008).
2 The Energy Essential: Physical Forces Animate All Things
2.1.1 Powering the Four Industrial Revolutions
We are now living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and while current production
methods have materially changed in scale and complexity, they have not changed in
kind, since the First Industrial Revolution as all energy conversion technologies follow fundamental discoveries about the principles that govern the natural world. The
First Industrial Revolution (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) was set in motion
largely by newly codified thermodynamic laws. These laws, taken together, state
that each form of energy at work is a conversion process where nothing is created
and nothing is lost but also where utility is diminished over time as dense complex
forms of energy are transformed to low-grade heat energy unable to affect any more
physical changes.
Early twentieth century production methods relied on First Industrial Revolution
techniques, such as large scale, high energy, metal refining, and process mechanization, but refocused them through new labor organization systems, like the factory
production line, to increase output yields on an unprecedented scale. Fordist assembly line systems were hallmarks of the Second Industrial Revolution, which drove a
globalizing economy with increasing efficiency until well into the third quarter of
the last century. Large features of this Second Industrial Revolution persist today as
traditional factory output of tangible goods continues to increase in absolute
amounts. Information technology started reshaping the flows of matter and energy
on a small scale in the 1950s and grew to become a dominant force in the Third
Industrial Revolution, generally referred to as the “Information Age.” Networked
computer technology tracks, records, and stores massive amounts of data as products in themselves as well information about things and their relationships within
complex systems. Each Revolution has built upon, rather than fully supplanted, the
previous one. Each subsequent development depends on the infrastructure laid
down by previous ages. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is further synthesizing
developments of the first three and reshaping global economic activity in the process (Schwab 2017). A key feature of this latest turn is the simultaneous increase of
energy, data, and material flow, to produce the abundance of goods and services, as
well as the inclusion of sensors and transmitters designed to link all of it together as
the physical and informational merge in the Internet of Things.
From First to Fourth, scientific discoveries and technological advances drove
massive growth in industrial as well as agricultural production, and all share in
simultaneously increasing the standard of living and life expectancy for more and
more people on the planet.
2
These increases would be impossible without a constant
increase in the conversion of energy from carbon-based fuel and the concomitant
negative environmental impacts that follow. The thermodynamic principles that
explain this relationship have been clearly understood for centuries. They are
2 The early twentieth century Haber-Bosch process, for example, produces ammonia-based fertilizer by heating air to over 700 degrees F and pressurizing it to over 2000 psi to extract nitrogen that
is readily available for plants (Smil 2008).
2 The Energy Essential: Physical Forces Animate All Things