Nip Impressions logo
Fri, Mar 29, 2024 02:56
Visitor
Home
Click here for Pulp & Paper Radio International
Subscription Central
Must reads for pulp and paper industry professionals
Search
My Profile
Login
Logout
Management Side
Week of 2 May 2016: Energy is always political

Listen to this column in your favorite format

iTunes or MP3

As we start Energy Trends month here at Paperitalo Publications, I want to make sure those of you with a few less years of experience than I have understand that energy is probably the most concomitant political and scientific subject you will ever face. It is indeed an interesting one, for it does have much science to it, and at this late date in the industrial revolution (spawned by harnessing cheap sources of energy), we do know a great deal about thermal energy, its forms of use (radiant, convection and conduction transfer) and its effects on changes of phases of various compounds, those of water being the most practical and interesting to us. Of course, also, electrical energy ranks right up there in our scientific knowledge and ability to harness it for both power and control. The impact of electricity was summed up in a statement I heard about thirty years ago, when an actor whose name I cannot remember and whose career spanned many, many decades when asked the most significant change in the theater in his century long lifetime promptly answered, "Electric lights." So much for the old lime lights, the previously predominant form of theater lighting, as far as he was concerned.

That energy has always been a political subject I can prove to you promptly.

Early economical forms of conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy were developed by Boulton and Watt by about 1790. Prior to that, all mechanical energy had been sourced from water, wind and muscle. Muscle energy, of course, came from animals and slaves, which had been in use for millennia.

Muscle energy was expensive, under any circumstances. Muscle energy had to come from animals who were willing to be subjected to exerting their muscles to do tasks to their master's liking. Slaves were a better source, from a cold hard fact point of view, because they were intelligent and could be instructed to do the tasks the master desired under the threat of punishment up to and including death if they did not perform. Slaves also had dexterity which made them useful for tasks other than just the raw exertion of mechanical energy.

****

Listen to industry news on Pulp & Paper Radio International!

****

We like to think slavery, at least in the United States, was abolished because of some great enlightenment of people such as William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe and others of that era. I will submit that these people and others of their era came along and were able to make their case, not only because it was the absolutely correct humanitarian case to be made, but also because they lived in an era when an alternative was available--the steam engine. William Lloyd Garrison began publishing The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, in 1831, when the Boulton and Watt steam engine was about forty years old and was coming into its own. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1851, a mere twenty years later, when the practical steam engine was approaching sixty and reaching widespread use in both railway and stationary applications.

When it comes to cruelty to animals, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1824. Again, curiously within the timing of when other sources of cheap energy were coming into widespread use.

You are possibly totally at a loss to how I am going to get the pulp and paper industry's use of energy in this column, but hang on, and hang on for a surprising ending, too.

My objective up to this point is to demonstrate that the abolition of slavery and the prevention of cruelty to animals, while noble and right political causes in their own right, conveniently gained traction only when other economical sources of energy appeared. There were other qualities about these other sources of energy that were keys to the conversion as well. Simply, these other sources of energy did not inflict pain on living tissue (unless you make the leap to the miners working in wretched conditions, a situation conveniently out of sight of those consuming the energy). Coal is inanimate. So is oil (discovered in abundance in Pennsylvania in the late 1850's, how convenient to my thesis). Extracting the energy from coal and oil does not inflict pain on these compounds.

Modern society refuses to accept pain suffered by living tissue. Not only is this important when it comes to slavery and the treatment of animals, look at the arguments put forth by the Pro Choice and Pro Life factions in the never ending discussions concerning abortion--they center around the ability of tissue to feel pain as much as anything else (and don't write to me saying I came down on one side or other of this issue in this column; I worked very hard to write an absolutely neutral sentence on the subject).

So, energy is political. I'll not bother to go over the modern examples that enforce my thesis that energy is political--you should know these for they are in the news nearly every day, from the recent observance of Earth Day to the United Nations to the recent bankruptcy of Peabody Coal of St. Louis, Missouri.

My point is simply this--just because we know all the science we know today about energy generation and its use, and just because we have access to myriads of micro and macro data about the past economical impacts of energy sources, do not expect energy decisions in the future to be made on cold, hard facts. They never have been and I am convinced they never will be--energy decisions on some level are always political.

In other columns I have stated that if you have various energy consumption units on your facility's asset list, I urge you to mothball those not in use, not destroy them in favor of the energy source du jour. This goes against what I normally say about removing equipment not being used. However, I have lived long enough to see swings back and forth over time. What makes sense today may not make sense tomorrow and the likely reason will have a political base.

****

Is the industry doing all it can with cheap energy and cheap money? Check out the latest edition of Strategic & Financial Arguments.

****

Now for the surprise ending. Recall what I said a few paragraphs back about feelings and sensitivity when it comes to muscle energy. Today, we are facing a world that will soon be filled with robots with lifelike characteristics. Early reports are that humans who interact with these robots bond to them as if they were dealing with another human or animal. My prediction is this: these lifelike robots will engender enough human bonding experiences to ultimately end up with some sort of protective framework code of their own, not unlike societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Write it down--you heard old Jim say it first and I am convinced some of you will live long enough to see it come to pass. Just remember HAL from "2001--A Space Odyssey."

What do you think? Is energy political? Express your views in our quiz this week which you may take here.

For safety this week, we know energy sources can be dangerous. It is a good month to talk about energy in your safety meetings.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


Printer-friendly format

 





Powered by Bondware
News Publishing Software

The browser you are using is outdated!

You may not be getting all you can out of your browsing experience
and may be open to security risks!

Consider upgrading to the latest version of your browser or choose on below: