Energy and Empire

Energy and Empire
Author: Crosbie Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 906
Release: 1989-10-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521261739

This study of Lord Kelvin, the most famous mathematical physicist of 19th-century Britain, delivers on a speculation long entertained by historians of science that Victorian physics expressed in its very content the industrial society that produced it.

Energy and Empire

Energy and Empire
Author: George A. Gonzalez
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2012-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438442955

What set the United States on the path to developing commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s, and what led to the seeming demise of that industry in the late 1970s? Why, in spite of the depletion of fossil fuels and the obvious dangers of global warming, has the United States moved so slowly toward adopting alternatives? In Energy and Empire, George A. Gonzalez presents a clear and concise argument demonstrating that economic elites tied their advocacy of the nuclear energy option to post-1945 American foreign policy goals. At the same time, these elites opposed government support for other forms of energy, such as solar, that cannot be dominated by one nation. While researchers have blamed safety concerns and other factors as helping to arrest the expansion of domestic nuclear power plant construction, Gonzalez points to an entirely different set of motivations stemming from the loss of America’s domination/control of the enrichment of nuclear fuel. Once foreign countries could enrich their own fuel, civilian nuclear power ceased to be a lever the United States could use to economically/politically dominate other nations. Instead, it became a major concern relating to nuclear weapons proliferation.

Private Empire

Private Empire
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1101572140

“ExxonMobil has met its match in Coll, an elegant writer and dogged reporter . . . extraordinary . . . monumental.” —The Washington Post “Fascinating . . . Private Empire is a book meticulously prepared as if for trial . . . a compelling and elucidatory work.” —Bloomberg From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, an extraordinary exposé of Big Oil. Includes a profile of current Secretary of State and former chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson In this, the first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil—the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States—Steve Coll reveals the true extent of its power. Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation’s recent history and its central role on the world stage, beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and leading to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The action spans the globe—featuring kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin—and the narrative is driven by larger-than-life characters, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass” Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005, and current chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump's nomination for Secretary of State. A penetrating, news-breaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

Powering Empire

Powering Empire
Author: On Barak
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520973933

The Age of Empire was driven by coal, and the Middle East—as an idea—was made by coal. Coal’s imperial infrastructure presaged the geopolitics of oil that wreaks carnage today, as carbonization threatens our very climate. Powering Empire argues that we cannot promote worldwide decarbonization without first understanding the history of the globalization of carbon energy. How did this black rock come to have such long-lasting power over the world economy? Focusing on the flow of British carbon energy to the Middle East, On Barak excavates the historic nexus between coal and empire to reveal the political and military motives behind what is conventionally seen as a technological innovation. He provocatively recounts the carbon-intensive entanglements of Western and non-Western powers and reveals unfamiliar resources—such as Islamic risk-aversion and Gandhian vegetarianism—for a climate justice that relies on more diverse and ethical solutions worldwide.

Coal and Empire

Coal and Empire
Author: Peter A. Shulman
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2015-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421417073

The fascinating history of how coal-based energy became entangled with American security. Since the early twentieth century, Americans have associated oil with national security. From World War I to American involvement in the Middle East, this connection has seemed a self-evident truth. But, as Peter A. Shulman argues, Americans had to learn to think about the geopolitics of energy in terms of security, and they did so beginning in the nineteenth century: the age of coal. Coal and Empire insightfully weaves together pivotal moments in the history of science and technology by linking coal and steam to the realms of foreign relations, navy logistics, and American politics. Long before oil, coal allowed Americans to rethink the place of the United States in the world. Shulman explores how the development of coal-fired oceangoing steam power in the 1840s created new questions, opportunities, and problems for U.S. foreign relations and naval strategy. The search for coal, for example, helped take Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in the 1850s. It facilitated Abraham Lincoln's pursuit of black colonization in 1860s Panama. After the Civil War, it led Americans to debate whether a need for coaling stations required the construction of a global empire. Until 1898, however, Americans preferred to answer the questions posed by coal with new technologies rather than new territories. Afterward, the establishment of America's string of island outposts created an entirely different demand for coal to secure the country's new colonial borders, a process that paved the way for how Americans incorporated oil into their strategic thought. By exploring how the security dimensions of energy were not intrinsically linked to a particular source of power but rather to political choices about America's role in the world, Shulman ultimately suggests that contemporary global struggles over energy will never disappear, even if oil is someday displaced by alternative sources of power.

Energy and Civilization

Energy and Civilization
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262536161

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

King Energy

King Energy
Author: Bruce Raphael
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 730
Release: 2000-05-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 059500427X

The modern energy industry grew out of the rubble of the Middle Ages and the American Civil War. It quickly grew into a bewildering assemblage not only of mines, fields, pipelines, utilities and their overlapping directorates but of public and private policies and intrigues throughout the world, one broad enough in scale to rival the most powerful democracies in determining the ultimate fates of nations. Its priorities set the stage for the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. If the industrys rise to power was unexpected by the traditional establishments of nation and state, its crash was equally breathtaking, involving actors and players in unexpected locales and venues, from backyard inventors to the concrete canyons of Wall Street. King Energy is the story of the companies and personalities that defined the 20th Century and set the stage for the economic, political and social agendas leading up to the new millennium.

Oil, Power and Empire

Oil, Power and Empire
Author: Larry Everest
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781567512465

How U.S. intervention is reshaping the world.

Energy Reality

Energy Reality
Author: Peter Cabana
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Total Pages: 507
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1480856088

In 1963, he began work as a civil engineer working on the California State Water Project, and he went on to develop large energy projects throughout the worldcapping his career working with Bechtel on the Big Dig in Boston. Energy Reality reveals how energy, politics, and power are intertwined. Highlights include power struggles between United States of America and Russia/the Soviet Union to be the worlds largest producer of petroleum, which began after the Rothschilds took a shortcut through the Suez Canal, secretly opening the Asian market to kerosene; John Watson Foster, his son-in-law, Robert Lansing, and Uncle Berts two nephews, John Foster and Allen Dulles, who made certain that Sullivan & Cromwell clients retained control of Middle East oil; and Germany and Japan and how they were excluded from sharing oil wealth from the Middle East. The author also examines five postwar oil crises, including the taking of American hostages in Iran by the Khomeini regime in 1979, and how Vladimir Putin is seeking to turn Russia into a powerful petro state.

Energy, the Subtle Concept

Energy, the Subtle Concept
Author: Jennifer Coopersmith
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2015-05-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0191057509

Energy is at the heart of physics and of huge importance to society and yet no book exists specifically to explain it, and in simple terms. In tracking the history of energy, this book is filled with the thrill of the chase, the mystery of smoke and mirrors, and presents a fascinating human-interest story. Moreover, following the history provides a crucial aid to understanding: this book explains the intellectual revolutions required to comprehend energy, revolutions as profound as those stemming from Relativity and Quantum Theory. Texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Bernoulli, d'Alembert, Lagrange, Hamilton, Boltzmann, Clausius, Carnot and others are made accessible, and the engines of Watt and Joule are explained. Many fascinating questions are covered, including: - Why just kinetic and potential energies - is one more fundamental than the other? - What are heat, temperature and action? - What is the Hamiltonian? - What have engines to do with physics? - Why did the steam-engine evolve only in England? - Why S=klogW works and why temperature is IT. Using only a minimum of mathematics, this book explains the emergence of the modern concept of energy, in all its forms: Hamilton's mechanics and how it shaped twentieth-century physics, and the meaning of kinetic energy, potential energy, temperature, action, and entropy. It is as much an explanation of fundamental physics as a history of the fascinating discoveries that lie behind our knowledge today.