We hear there’s an energy crisis ... The energy crisis is bullshit. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! s5e9: Nukes Hybrids & Lesbians, Showtime 2007
Electricity is derived from many non-renewable energy sources like oil, natural gas and coal. Lamar S Smith
The idea that the growing demand for energy worldwide can be met with energy from nuclear power is nonsense. Sigmar Gabriel
A massive uptake of renewable energy and the adoption of energy efficiency are the only ways to combat climate change. Greenpeace International April 2007
This is a replica of Murdoch’s model. A top-secret design for a vehicle that could pull carriages along the road ... Murdoch continued developing his model vehicle throughout the 1780s ... He was fascinated by high-pressure steam. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e3: Gas on Wheels, Discovery 2005
This time extracting gas from coal ... He soon became so successful that he lit his own house. The first house lit by gas in the world. And Murdoch’s employers soon turned gas-light into big business. From 1805 mills and factories were to work shifts around the clock using their own gas generating plants. It wasn’t long before everyone wanted the new light. ibid.
One of the most extraordinary pieces of machinery in the entire industrial age in my opinion – this is a Scrubber. The idea in our computer-dominated nano-technology world that the way to remove ammonia from gas is to scrub it with brushes underwater seems fantastic. But that’s what the machine does: gas is bubbled through water and scrubbed by slowly revolving brushes, and this is how town gas was cleaned throughout the whole of its life as a fuel supply. ibid.
200 years later Murdoch’s coal gas was readily available. It could be fed into an engine and ignited again and again and again. ibid.
Everybody’s energy comes from the same limited source: this planet. James Burke, Connections s1e6: Thunder in the Skies, BBC 1978
Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy. Dick Cheney
It’s only recently that we’ve come to accept that our species – humans – are capable of dramatically altering the composition of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. We are doing so because we’ve come to rely on one particular type of fuel for all our energy needs – fossil fuels. Attenborough Explores our Fragile World, BBC 2009
Tonight from Drax – the largest power station in Britain. The Genius of Invention I, BBC 2013
75% of power stations worldwide, including nuclear ones, use steam to generate electricity. ibid.
1712: The atmospheric steam engine: Thomas Newcomen … His first engine was installed at a coal mine near Birmingham in 1712. ibid.
James Watt: A separate condenser … allowed Watt to build steam engines that were more powerful, more efficient, more portable. ibid.
Queen Street Mill in Burnley: It’s home to over three hundred power looms, and it’s one of the first factories in the world. ibid.
By 1860 Lancashire produced half the cotton in the world. ibid.
Scientists were experimenting with Volta’s battery. ibid.
What Faraday had created here is the world’s first electricity generator. ibid.
The Savoy Theatre in London became the first public building in the world to fully exploit the wonders of electricity. ibid.
A golden age of electricity had begun. ibid.
The turbine is the last of our story of great inventions. ibid.
By curious accident of history and geography, the world’s major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They’re a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf. Noam Chomsky
Control over energy is a lever for global dominance; the actual price and production levels gain significance within this context, and the economic effects of fluctuations are not a straightforward matter. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
In the Middle East, the major concern was (and remains) the incomparable energy reserves of the region, primarily in the Arabian peninsula. These were to be incorporated within the US-dominated system. ibid. p53
The United States did not then need Middle East oil for itself. Rather, the goal was to dominate the world system, ensuring that others would not strike an independent course. ibid.
Few issues in world affairs are so important as control of the world's energy system – or so threatening to world peace ... As long as it was possible, the ‘Soviet threat’ was brandished to justify US actions to ensure its dominance over Middle East oil. ibid.
Control over Middle East energy provides leverage in world affairs and guarantees a substantial flow of capital to the economies of the United States and Britain. ibid.
Now an officially US-run global intervention force … controlling the crucial infrastructure of the global energy pipeline and so on … Noam Chomsky, lecture 7th June 2011, ‘The Evolving Global Order: Prospects and Opportunities’
The core of the problem is the massive production for private profit, not for need, and the use of the fossil fuels when we have to be phasing them out and moving towards total sustainable energy, no emissions, within decades. Noam Chomsky, interview Going Underground, RT September 2020
There is one electrical genius who was nearly forgotten. A man who dreamt of giving the world an unlimited supply of energy: his name was Nikola Tesla. And he was the master of lightning. Tesla: Master of Lightning, PBS 2000
This is the story of a modern Prometheus. ibid.
It was Tesla who patented the technology for wireless communications that is used in all radio and television broadcasting. ibid.
The electrical equivalent of the wheel; and all this was achieved with alternating currents. ibid.
Twenty-two US patents were awarded to Nikola Tesla. ibid.
The war of the currents was over and Tesla was the winner. ibid.
Tesla was at the height of social acclaim. ibid.
Tesla’s life-long obsession: the wireless transmission of energy. ibid.
To his dying day Tesla believed it could be done. ibid.
Scientists still disagree on whether beam weapons are realistic. ibid.
What if we were to learn there exists a new form of clean energy in virtually unlimited supply? Phenomenon: The Lost Archives: Heavy Watergate: The War Against Cold Fusion, Prime 2018
University of Utah 23 March 1989: Two distinguished chemists, Dr Martin Fleischmann and Dr Stanley Pons announced to the amazement of the world that they had detected a nuclear-like reaction that could turn water into a powerful new fuel – their discovery became known as Cold Fusion. ibid.
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of science. ibid.
MIT bombshell knocks fusion ‘breakthrough’ cold. ibid. Boston Herald front page
Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century. ibid. John R Huizenga
Cold Fusion pioneers carried on. ibid.
A massive and well coordinated cyber attack on the electric grid could devastate the economy and cause a large-scale loss of life. American Blackout, Dr Richard Andres, 2013
Reports are coming in of a massive grid failure that has taken power out along the east coast of the United States. ibid. Fox News
In recent years a silent revolution has taken place: we thought the age of fossil fuels was coming to an end … The United States firmly back on the map as an oil and gas producing super-power. Thanks to the shale revolution … has opened up a huge reservoir of fossil energy. Shale Cowboys: Fracking Under Trump, VPRO 2017
A few men in Texas are turning the energy supply industry on its head. ibid.
It looks as though fracking heralds a golden future for the American energy market. But there are major differences of opinion about the safety of the technique. It is said to pose several dangers to the environment: to cause earthquakes, and to contaminate the underground fresh-water reserves. ibid.
The future of central Asia lies in these vast oil and gas reserves – the largest untapped energy reserves on the planet. Simon Reeve: Holidays in the Danger Zone: Meet the Stans: Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan, BBC 2003
We witness forests being chopped down to make green electricity for millions of British homes. And we see habitats rich in wildlife under threat … Are we actually making matters worse? Dispatches: The True Cost of Green Energy, Channel 4 2018
The truth behind your rocketing energy bills. We reveal how many British families are being pushed to the brink. How the multi-billion pound collapse of the energy market will be paid for by us. Dispatches: Why Are Your Energy Bills So High? Channel 4 2022
We expose the energy regulator OFGEM has failed to ensure suppliers are up to the job. ibid.
48 companies have gone bust, 29 of them in the last year. ibid.
The energy companies’ failing costing you dear. Were the warnings ignored? ibid.