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Impact of energy demands

DEC 01, 1970
Noise. Dirt. Air and water pollution. Bad odors. Must all these accompany production of the power we need? Not if we develop imaginative technologies.
Ali B. Cambel

A fundamental difference between Man and other animals is Man’s ability to develop methods and devices that increase his energy supply far beyond what his muscles can provide. Whereas early man consumed about 2000 calories per day, the average US citizen currently uses about 200 000 calories daily. This tremendous increase in energy consumption affects our life style not only in degree but also in kind. We can no longer treat energy as a subject in physics alone but must consider it as a social force.

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References

  1. 1. The American Almanac: The Statistical Abstract of the US Department of Commerce, Grosset and Dunlap, New York (1970).

  2. 2. National Power Survey, A Report by the Federal Power Commission, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1964).

  3. 3. P. H. Rose, Science 170, 267 (1970).https://doi.org/SCIEAS

  4. 4. R. S. Morse and others, The Automobile and Air Pollution, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1967).

  5. 5. V. E. MeKelvey, “Contradictions in Energy Resource Estimates” in Energy, Northwestern U.P., Evanston, Illinois (1968), page 13.

  6. 6. H. Lane, private communications.

  7. 7. The Climate of the Cities, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1969).

  8. 8. A. B. Cambel, “Energy for a Restless World,” in Science and Technology in the World of the Future, (A. B. Brownell, ed.) Interscience, New York (1970).

  9. 9. A. B. Cambel, “Ecological Aspects of the Affluence and Effluents of Energetics,” Archives of Environmental Health 18, 276, Feb. 1969.

More about the authors

Ali B. Cambel, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 23, Number 12

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