Energy Grades and Historic Economic Growth

[phantom power]

I don't completely agree with his taxonomy of nuclear power. He categorizes it as a "field" source, like wind or solar. And yet, strictly speaking, it is a solid-phase non-renewable resource, like coal. But then again it's energy density is in a different world than any other source. For instance, coal has an energy density of around 25GJ/ton: Uranium ore has an energy density of 470,000 GJ/ton. In other words, the "weight grade" of uranium ore is almost twenty thousand times that of coal. And, of course, it stacks up similarly against other fossil fuels. (Sources like wind and solar have lower energy densities yet). It's just doesn't behave like other energy sources.

But it's still a good read. Probably some useful crosstalk between this and the "energy/population" debate too.

Energy is the driving force behind industrial production and is indeed the driving force behind any economic activity. However, if an economy's available energy resources have low grades, i.e. low potential productivity, then new technology will not be able to stimulate economic growth as much. On the other hand, high grade energy resources could magnify the effect of technology and create tremendous economic growth. High grade resources can act as magnifiers of technology, but low grade resources can dampen the forcefulness of new technology. This leads to the conclusion that it is important to emphasize the role of the inherent nature of resources in economic growth more fully.

To see better how this very subtle idea is a not so subtle cause of the industrial revolution, and possibly other economic epochs, we must look at some simple physics of energy resource characteristics. We believe that the most important resources for economic achievements are energy resources, therefore, we look at ways to compare energy resources.
The Energy Resource Characteristic Grade

In order to understand why some energy resources are better than others, we need a way to compare them. One way to compare energy resources is the energy grade concept defined here. This concept identifies the physical characteristics of competing energy resources that allow the economy to more cheaply extract services from each BTU (3) of energy. There are four grades.
1. Weight Grade (BTU / lb.)
2. Volume Grade (BTU / cubic foot)
3. Area Grade (BTU / acre)
4. State Grade (Liquid, Gas, Solid, Field)

Consider these grades in detail...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2913