How much do you know about the history of human use of energy?

1. From Prometheus stealing fire to Suiren drilling wood to make fire

Whether in the legend of Prometheus stealing fire in ancient Greek mythology or in the process of early humans discovering fire, the discovery and use of fire is undoubtedly a turning point in the evolution of human culture. In the myth of Prometheus, he stole the fire from the sun god Apollo and gave it to humans, driving away darkness and cold for humans and bringing them light and warmth.

In early human society, the use of fire was of extraordinary importance to the evolution of human culture. The use of fire allowed humans to cook food and obtain protein and carbohydrates from heated food. Fire also provided warmth, allowing humans to move around in cold nights and cold climates. Fire provided an alternative to natural light sources and gave humans the ability to resist the invasion of foreign carnivores.

There is a process from human beings discovering fire to using fire. Initially, our ancestors were ignorant of the blazing fires caused by lightning or other reasons in nature, and even feared them. But when our ancestors picked up and ate wild animals, wild vegetables and wild fruits that had been burned by wildfires, they found that such food was not only easy to chew and tasted better, but also less likely to cause illness. So our ancestors gradually dared to approach fire. At the same time, they also found that the light and heat generated by fire could help them resist the cold and guard against the invasion of wild animals.

Our ancestors lit natural fire with torches and brought it back to the cave where they lived. People living nearby would come here to borrow fire. Such fire was called fire. After taking back the fire, people had to take good care of it to prevent it from going out or causing a fire. But at that time, people were still in a relatively passive state in the use of fire, because once the fire went out, people might have to go to a far place to borrow or find fire. But this was quite inconvenient, so humans tried to make fire based on their own experience. In the process of continuous attempts, humans gradually mastered the method of using stones to knock and rub to make fire. Later, humans discovered that once holes were drilled in wood at a faster speed, sparks would be produced, and thus further invented the method of drilling wood to make fire.

In ancient China, there was a person named Suiren who drilled wood to make fire. In fact, Suiren may not have really existed, but the invention of this method brought great convenience to human beings in using fire. In order to commemorate this great creation, humans created the legend of Suiren drilling wood to make fire. In short, the discovery and use of fire was the first time that humans controlled a natural force. From the emergence of primitive agriculture with slash-and-burn farming to the firing of pottery and the smelting of copper, the discovery and use of fire are inseparable. The discovery and use of fire played a great role in human productivity and social progress.

Firewood is the first generation of human energy. After humans learned to use fire, they first used branches and weeds as fuel for cooking and heating. Fire also gave humans light, allowing them to move around at night. Fire can also burn ores, smelt metals, and make tools. When evaluating the role of fire, Engels said: "For the first time, friction-generated fire allowed humans to control a natural force, thus ultimately separating humans from animals."

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans learned to use fire. For a long time, firewood was the main source of energy for life, and fire was used for cooking, heating and lighting. Later, they gradually learned to use natural power such as animal power, wind power and water power for production and transportation. This primary form of energy utilization did not make much breakthrough until the mid-19th century. In the world's energy consumption structure in 1860, firewood and crop straw still accounted for 73.8% of total energy consumption.

2. Hydropower and wind power with a long history and unlimited prospects

From the perspective of energy, flowing water and air can do work and have mechanical energy. The flowing water and the wind in nature are inexhaustible natural energy sources, and humans have long used water and wind energy to meet their energy needs.

Human beings have a long history of using water energy, and China is one of the earliest countries in the world to use water energy. As early as 1900 years ago, the wise ancient Chinese people invented wooden water wheels, which allowed the running water to hit the water wheels and turn them, thus converting the mechanical energy of the running water into the kinetic energy of the water wheels, which further drove other devices to complete tasks such as pumping water, grinding flour, grinding grain, irrigation, and drainage. The work "Heavenly Creations" by Song Yingxing, a scientist in the Song Dynasty of my country, recorded in detail the use of water energy by ancient people.

As for the use of wind energy, it was even earlier. Before the invention of the steam engine, wind energy was used as an important power source for ship navigation, farmland irrigation, drainage and flour milling. The earliest way of use was "sailing". Egypt is considered to be the first country to use wind energy. Thousands of years ago, the sailboats of the ancient Egyptians sailed on the Nile River. my country is also one of the earliest countries to use sailboats and windmills. Li Bai, the poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his poem: "There will be a time to ride the wind and waves, and set sail to cross the sea." It can be seen that sailboats were widely used in river navigation in the Tang Dynasty. As for the most glorious period of sailboats, it was the Ming Dynasty in China. During the Ming Dynasty, the eunuch Zheng He made seven voyages to the West and spread the country's prestige. The mature sailboat manufacturing technology played an indispensable role. After the Ming Dynasty, windmills were widely used in China. Song Yingxing's book "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature" records: "Yang County uses several sails to turn the car when the wind blows, and stops when the wind stops." This is a relatively complete description of windmills. In the 16th century, the Dutch used windmills to drain water, compete with the sea for land, and developed on low-lying beach land, gradually becoming a country with a fairly developed economy. Today, the Dutch regard windmills as national treasures, and the Dutch windmills preserved in Nordic countries have become a historical witness to human use of wind energy.

Before the advent of the steam engine, hydraulic machinery and wind power machinery were both important power machinery. Later, with the large-scale exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas and the availability of cheap electricity, the wind and hydraulic machinery that were once widely used gradually lost their mainstream status due to high cost, low efficiency and inconvenience in use.

However, hydropower and wind power, as inexhaustible and abundant sustainable energy sources in nature, have regained new vitality after being neglected. At the end of the 19th century, the Danes first developed wind turbines and built the world's first wind power station. Wind power stations have played a very important role in solving the electricity problems of people in farming and pastoral areas without electricity. Especially after the 1970s, the use of wind power has entered a stage of vigorous development, and many wind power stations have been built in different parts of the world. As for hydropower stations using water energy, they are spread all over the world in areas with rich water resources, providing a large amount of clean and sustainable energy for mankind. It can be foreseen that hydropower and wind energy, as extremely abundant, clean and pollution-free natural energy, will surely have further development and become an important part of the multi-energy structure.

3. From ancient life to modern fossil fuels

Fossil fuels are also called mineral fuels, and the natural resources they include are coal, oil, and natural gas, etc. These resources are non-renewable fuel resources buried underground and under the ocean.

Coal Age More than 2,000 years ago, humans knew that coal could be used as fuel. In 500 BC, ancient Chinese people discovered "black stone" (coal), and the use of coal as fuel has a history of more than 1,000 years. The coal mining industry in China in the 14th century and in Britain in the 17th century was quite developed, but coal has long failed to occupy a dominant position in the world's energy consumption structure.

In the 1770s, British inventor Watt invented the steam engine that used coal as fuel. The widespread use of steam engines made coal quickly become the second-generation main energy source. The proportion of coal in the world's primary energy consumption structure increased from 25% in 1860 to 62% in 1920.

In the middle of the 17th century, as coal production and use technology became increasingly mature, human energy consumption gradually replaced charcoal with coal. The use of gas lamps and the invention of steam engines made coal the second generation of main energy and pioneered the industrial civilization of the 18th century. Steam engines fueled by coal enabled the textile, metallurgy, mining, and mechanical processing industries to develop rapidly. At the same time, the emergence of steam locomotives and ships made great progress in the transportation industry.

Since the 19th century, the discovery of electromagnetic induction has led to the emergence of generators powered by steam turbines, and coal as a primary energy source has been converted into a secondary energy source - electricity - which is easier to transport and use.

Humans discovered petroleum very early, and it was described in the Book of Han and Mengxi Bitan. In 250 BC, the Chinese first discovered that petroleum was a flammable liquid.

From the invention of the kerosene lamp by the Swiss in 1782 to its widespread use around the world in 1853, the function of oil was almost exclusively lighting. In 1854, the world's first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania, USA, and the oil industry began. At the end of the 19th century, people invented internal combustion engines that used gasoline and diesel as fuel. Ford successfully developed the first car. Since then, cars, airplanes, diesel ships, internal combustion locomotives, oil power generation, etc. have rapidly advanced mankind into the era of modern civilization. The extraction and consumption of oil and natural gas began to increase significantly, and continued to grow at a rate of 200 million tons per year. Although there have been many oil crises and oil prices have soared, there has been no trend of a decrease in oil consumption. It has now become the third generation of main energy. The world has entered the "Oil Age".

In 1886, Germans Benz and Daimler developed the first car fueled by gasoline and driven by an internal combustion engine, ushering in the era of large-scale use of oil in automobiles. Oil and natural gas gradually replaced coal and occupied a major position in the world's energy consumption structure. In 1965, in the world's energy consumption structure, oil surpassed coal for the first time and became the third-generation main energy source. By 1979, the proportion of oil reached 54%, equivalent to three times that of coal.

Natural gas Natural gas refers to all gases that exist naturally in nature, including gases formed by various natural processes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere (including oilfield gas, gas field gas, mud volcano gas, coalbed methane and biogenic gas, etc.).

The definition of "natural gas" that people have long used is a narrow definition from the perspective of energy, which refers to a mixture of hydrocarbons and non-hydrocarbon gases naturally stored in the strata. In petroleum geology, it usually refers to oilfield gas and gasfield gas. Its composition is mainly hydrocarbons and contains non-hydrocarbon gases.

On May 6, 2020, PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gas Field Company disclosed that it had recently discovered a new zone rich in natural gas, with potential resources estimated to exceed one trillion cubic meters.

The main component of natural gas is methane, with a small amount of ethane and propane. It is a high-quality energy source and has played an increasingly important role.

Fossil fuels have become an indispensable part of modern social life. However, the impact on the environment that comes with it is also something that we humans cannot ignore. After humans discovered fossil fuels, they need to mine and process them before they can be used by humans. The most typical impact on the environment during mining is coal mining. According to incomplete statistics, on average, every 10,000 tons of coal mined so far will cause 0.2 hectares of farmland, and groundwater will be polluted during mining. In addition, gases such as methane and dust released during mining have damaged the air environment to a considerable extent. In the process of fossil fuel utilization, the carbon in fossil fuels is converted into carbon dioxide and enters the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and causing the so-called greenhouse effect. As a major problem in the contemporary environment, the greenhouse effect is accompanied by environmental problems such as global warming, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and the extinction of biological species. At the same time, due to the large-scale use of fossil fuels, sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides produced, after complex chemical reactions, form sulfuric acid or nitric acid, which further forms acid rain, corroding buildings and harming farmland, and has a great impact on the environment.

For these reasons, human beings should learn to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and it is imperative to develop sustainable, pollution-free and environmentally friendly energy such as solar energy, electricity, hydropower, and wind energy. The alleviation and resolution of the energy crisis should also start from this aspect.

4. Universal electricity that changes human life

As a secondary energy source, electric energy is easy to obtain from many sources, such as hydropower, thermal power, nuclear power, solar power and other new energy sources, and it is also easy to convert into other energy forms to meet the various needs of social production and life, such as electric power, electric heat, electrochemical energy, electric light source, etc. Compared with other energy sources, electric energy is easier to control in production, transmission and use. This series of advantages makes electric energy the most ideal secondary energy source and has attracted people's attention.

The development and widespread application of electric energy has become the core content of the second technological revolution in modern history after the invention of the steam engine. The large power system that emerged in the 20th century constitutes the main artery for transmitting energy in industrial society; the information and control system based on electromagnetics constitutes the neural network of modern society. The development and application of various emerging electrical materials have enriched the content of modern materials science. The understanding of the unity of the material world, the birth of modern physics, and the development of system cybernetics are all directly or indirectly affected by the development of electrical engineering. At the same time, the achievements of various adjacent disciplines have continuously promoted the development of electrical engineering to a higher level. Therefore, the level of electrical engineering development is an important indicator of the degree of social modernization, and it is a powerful lever to promote social production and scientific and technological development and promote social civilization.

Since the application of electricity in the 1880s, almost all technical sectors of social production and people's lives have gradually shifted to this new technological basis, which has greatly promoted the development of social productivity, changed mankind's social lifestyle, and made the 20th century go down in history as the "Electric Century".

Electric lighting brings the most significant convenience and benefits to human beings. It eliminates the restriction of night on human life and production labor, greatly prolongs the working time for human beings to create wealth, improves working conditions, and enriches people's lives. This also lays the broadest social foundation for the application of electric energy and becomes a powerful driving force for promoting electric energy production.

Electric drive is the most extensive and diverse field of electric energy application. As the most important power source, electric motors have fundamentally changed the face of the primary industrialization based on steam power in the 19th century. The development of electric heat, electrochemistry, and electrophysics has opened up new industrial sectors and scientific research fields one after another. In short, the application of electricity not only affects all aspects of material production, but also penetrates more and more into all aspects of human life. Electrification has become a synonym for modernization to some extent, and it has also become an important symbol to measure the level of development of material civilization in our human society.

5. Einstein and the use of nuclear energy

Nuclear energy refers to the energy released when the nucleus of an atom changes. For example, the huge energy released when heavy nuclei fission and light nuclei fusion. In 1905, the great physicist Einstein proposed an incredible theory: the mass and energy of matter can be converted into each other, that is, mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass. He pointed out that any object with mass stores invisible internal energy, and the energy stored by mass is so large that it is unimaginable.

In the 1930s, people began to study how to obtain energy from atomic nuclei. In the 1940s, nuclear reactors were built, and in the 1950s, nuclear power plants were built. Since then, nuclear energy development technology has become increasingly mature.

In 1942, the United States built the world's first nuclear reactor.

In 1954, the Soviet Union built the world's first power generation reactor and officially put it into use.

The first nuclear power plant in the United States was put into operation in 1956.

The use of nuclear energy has developed rapidly and has occupied an important position in the world's energy structure. Due to the impact of the oil crisis, the use of nuclear energy developed fastest in the 1980s. According to statistics, the world's nuclear energy consumption increased by 90% from 1980 to 1985, while the former Soviet Union increased by 121%. As of December 2007, there were 439 reactors in operation in the world, a slight decrease from 444 in 2002, but the power generation capacity has steadily increased, with a total power generation of 37,117GW. The world's nuclear power supply has reached 16% of the total power supply, and many countries have reached 1/3 of the total power supply.