For thousands of years energy technologies have advanced as knowledge expanded for discovering, transporting, processing, fuels, along with other advances in material sciences. From burning wood to water wheels to turn falling water to grinding grain.
Tomas Pueyo’s Uncharted Territories Substack page features an illustrated series of overviews (may require payment, but 7 days free):
• What Can We Learn About Energy from Ancient Energy Revolutions?
Students need not agree with Pueyo’s claim that: “We know that we need to transition out of this paradigm as fast as possible” to benefit from his charts and graphs of current energy sources around the world. It’s good to know where we are and explore how we got here.
Though CNN and others report warnings on likely blackouts this summer:
Americans have access to vastly more energy than most in the developing world. Recommended video for energy perspective: Poverty is Energy Poverty
Here is link to energy policy overview video recorded some years ago when energy was the NCFCA policy topic: Energy Economics, Part One.
Many past Economic Thinking posts on energy policy here.
• MasterResource.org post on wood pellet misadventure from federal biofuel subsidies.
• Natural gas: A wellspring for the US and global energy future (The Hill, Nov. 12, 2022)
• EconomicThinking Energy page on Facebook (though not much updated until recently).
