Everything runs on energy. From the lightest atom to the heaviest black hole, every organism, every system, cannot exist without some means of excitation, some motive force that allows it to act, that allows it to survive. Without energy, our universe would be a cold, dark, empty space, a lifeless cavern of scattered debris that once was something. And if this truth applies to galaxies, then it certainly applies to human civilizations which are just as voracious, just as greedy, merely on an considerably smaller scale. It follows, then, that few things are as vital to civilization's continuity than energy, the harnessing of which can be complicated both conceptually and morally. This much Barbara Freese captures well in her engaging biography of one of humanity's oldest and most powerful sources of energy.
For centuries now, coal has quite literally lit the world. The condensed remains of organic life millions of years dead and buried, it was once considered nothing more than an ornamentation, indistinguishable from jet by past civilizations that never made insight into coal's enormous potential. For when burned, coal releases its dense storage of hydrocarbons in the form of heat, energy that not only ignited stoves and empowered steamships, but lend its might to the Industrial Revolution. Over the subsequent generations, coal became a ubiquitous, and seemingly endless, source of energy which eventually culminated in a move out of the homes of everyday citizens and into the mighty fire chambers of powerplants which converted this energy into electricity for advancing societies.
Initially, coal was used without compunction by people who saw only its potential, not its price. Gradually, though, with our improving understanding of science and the environment, as our many, historical delusions fell before objective truth, we came to understand that coal was not only limited in supply but terrible in nature. For along with energy, the burning of coal releases immense amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas that, traditionally, has been kept in careful check by a climate accustomed to balancing Oxygen and CO2 levels across geologic timescales. However, with the wholesale use of the planet's store of coal, that climate check is being threatened with an unmanageable amount of CO2 that might well have the power to forever transform our world.
From its earliest moments on the human stage to its most recent threats to destabilize the climate, Coal is a fascinating chronicle of humanity's relationship with this most advantageous and dangerous resource. Ms. Freese engagingly narrates centuries of human history as it pertains to coal, culminating in a fascinating and sobering description of the powerplants which, today, devour it at a frighteningly unsustainable rate. She highlights how coal once darkened every industrialized sky and hardened every industrialized lung, an inescapable scourge that occupied the thoughts and fears of millions. This sets up a potent punchline, that the centralization of coal burning -- its movement from homes to powerplants -- allowed the people to forget its costs while enjoying its benefits, a Faustian bargain that may well be fatal for our civilization.
Coal is inarguably at its best, however, when detailing the social price of coal's extraction. Ms. Freese devotes entire chapters to the conditions under which coal was literally unearthed by countless miners who risked life and limb to excavate it, not to mention the children who were tasked to keep such mines operational at a time before technology saved us from our lack of conscience. None of the facts presented here are entirely unknown to us, but their presentation wonderfully illustrates just how much of our ethics humans are willing to sacrifice in the name of comfort, convenience and power.
Coal is not without its flaws. Ms. Freese devotes entirely too much time to coal's evolution in the west, in particular, Britain and the united States. Other than an all-too-brief chapter on the Chinese relationship with coal, her account makes it seem as though only these two nations have had any influence on coal, its excavation and its use. This seems awfully narrow for a tome that purports to contain the human history of coal. What's more, the geological roots of coal, while explained, are skimmed over, especially relative to the environmentalism which, while welcomed and well-argued, is less interesting than evolution and hydrocarbons.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Coal is a brief and edifying look at a material absolutely essential to the production of electricity that our civilization uses in such abundance. In this, Ms. Freese's work succeeds on its merits. Engaging if somewhat limited... (3/5 Stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment