Learn about diverse and integrated markets for primary energy, and the essential considerations driving business leaders and policy makers in development of global energy resources.
Innovation and Demand for Energy
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來自 University of Colorado System 的課程
全球能源业务基础
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從本節課中
Demand for Energy
Energy is the capacity to do work. In this most essential sense, energy is a basic human need. We will consider how technological innovations have increased the ability of mankind to do work, but only by increasing our demand for various sources of energy. We will examine the determinants of demand for primary energy resources as well as the distribution of demand around the globe.
與講師見面
Michael J. OrlandoLecturer
Global Energy Management, Business School
[MUSIC]
Our last video provided some of the basic building
blocks for understanding energy and our demand for energy.
In this video, I'd like to discuss how
innovation changes the nature of our demand for energy.
How did we go from getting the vast majority of our energy
from food calories, to the broad portfolio of energy sources we use today?
And
the answer is technological progress.
Some of our innovations have allowed us to do more with familiar resources, so they
basically allowed us to leverage the manual
work that we can do with our bodies.
Other innovations have allowed us to make use of new resources to do more
work or more consumption activities like, like play.
So let's return to our
ancestor essentially from
pre-history, where we're getting all of our energy from
let's say a relatively easy to acquire form of food calories.
Well you could imagine you know a first step being
innovation that allowed us to do a different kind of work.
A different kind of
a, a different way of, of expressing our manual labor.
So that opened up a different type of food calorie to us, which, presumably, may-,
was, maybe was a bit more richer in
food calories, for the amount of effort expended.
So there is one way in which innovation allowed us to do more.
More with the amount of effort we put in, more work for the amount of effort.
But we're still here using the same type of calorie.
Now, eventually, our
ancestor would evolve to the point
that they're making much more sophisticated types of innovations.
So let's say at this point now, we're basically instead of building tools
exclusively manually, we've come up with some
technologies to build our tools or technologies.
And those methods, may have required new forms, of energy.
So in the illustration, what we're doing is we're harnessing, the
power, in, falling water, hydro-power.
To run our factory to produce you know, many more of
the tools that we use to more effectively use our manual labor.
And that of course is going to give us much more access
to, in, in the simple illustration the food calories that we're seeking.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
And so, throughout history, basically, that's been
the interaction between man and energy and technology.
You know, we'll come up with new ways to harness existing sources
of energy, to do the kinds of work that we need done.
So I, I used in my illustration the water wheel, just using force of falling
water and typically, we would have seen those
water wheels used for, let's say, milling operations.
In, in modern times, are actually noticing those, you know,
using those water wheels to do things like run turbines to
create electricity because that's actually the end form of energy
that, that we're con, that we consume to the largest degree.
You know, again for a long time we were using let's say,
wind mills to do a certain type of work, maybe mechanical work.
Like, like, pulling up water with a pump.
But again, with windmills.
Modern windmills are used to do different kind of work.
Converting mechanical work into electrical work by spinning wind turbines.
Steam engines were, were a technology where we were able to make use of
the energy inside some carbon based forms of energy like let's say firewood.
We could use that to do thermal work to heat
up water, and then through this machine, the steam engine, we're
able to utilize the steam, the, the force of the
expanding steam to actually run an engine and do mechanical work.
And then you can, you know, tell a similar story that kind of detailed chain of
human work going, transforming, or moving some source of energy to put it in
a position to be able to, for that piece of energy, to do some work for
us to then acquire whatever desirable kind of work we want at the end.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
So in this final slide what I, wanted to do was just provide
a selection you know, not comprehensive in any sense of different types of different
technologies that have been used throughout history
to do the different types of work
just to give you a bit of a typology so to, so to speak.
And you'll notice I, I didn't even put energy in here yet.
You can imagine, and I'd like you to think about what type of energy source is being
used through that technology to do that type of work in, in each case here.
So for instance, as I mentioned in the
previous slide, we have mint windmills at one
point in history we primarily use wind, of
course, was the energy source, just the blowing wind.
We use this mill to capture that energy source.
traditionally, we would have used that to do mechanical
work, let's say to lift water from a well.
More recent innovations have put
turbines into those windmills so we can use that wind energy to
do the mechanical work necessarily, necessary to spin
the windings to do electrical work and create electricity.
So in each case, what I, what I'd like you to do is be thinking about
how to sort of disassociate the energy from the work it is
doing, and what is the technology that is being used to convert that
energy that, that energy into a particular desired type of work.
Ultimately of course, it's the work that we demand so
our demand for any particular type of energy is going to
be completely derived from the kind of work that we
can do at that energy through a particular type of technology.
So in successive videos this week, we're going to
get into finally talking specifically about demand for energy.
But I, I think it's important to understand this linkage between the
type of work that can be done, and the, the primary source of energy.
[MUSIC]
