Landscapes of energy acquisition: the getting of power

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Atkins, P.J., Simmons, I.G. and Roberts, B.K. (1998) People, Land and Time London:

Hodder Arnold ISBN: 0340677147 and 0470236590

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780340677148/

CHAPTER 14. LANDSCAPES OF ENERGY ACQUISITION: THE GETTING OF

POWER

‘Pylons ... however well designed and carefully routed, are too large, too alien,

too unmistakably organized for a mechanical world ever to be absorbed in

small-scale landscapes. They stride across our intimate countryside like files

of linked giants ... I meet people who admire them, but I am not one. I

abominate pylons as I do the Eifell Tower and the old Forth Bridge and all

such fidgety cross-cross Meccano-like constructions.’ Fairbrother, N. (1972)

New lives, new landscapes Harmondsworth: Penguin

INTRODUCTION

As made clear in the Introduction to Part 3, being modern means having access to stores of

energy which are not derived immediately from the sun. The main sources of such energy

are coal, oil, natural gas, falling water and nuclear power and these are then applied to

machines, once as steam power and now more often as electricity, though internal

combustion engines rank high among the main consumers of oil and its refined products.

Many places in the world, however, are still dependent on biomass energy, especially

woodfuels (Table 14.1).

Table 14.1 Proportion of traditional fuels in selected economies

(Measured in calorific content, not volume)

Region/Country % of total

consumption

High-dependence

examples

% of total

consumption

WORLD 6 Botswana 100

Africa 43 Mali 90

Europe 1 Zaire 91

North and Central America 1 India 41

South America 30 China 11

Asia 15 Papua New Guinea 70

Oceania 6

Source: extracted from Data Table 12.2 of World Resources Institute et al. (1996) World

Resources 1996-97 Oxford: Oxford University Press

In order to have culturally acceptable energy at our fingertips (literally in the case of most

electricity supplies) or at the gasoline pump, the materials of nature have to be extracted and

transformed. As with the garnering of most resources, this entails the transformation of the

pre-existing landscapes, and so new landscapes of energy acquisition and transformation are

created. These are both prior to, and co-existent with, the new landscapes that the energy

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permits to be created. Thus the presence of a factory using steam power is not part of the

landscape of energy acquisition but is made possible because of the getting of energy.

Table 14.2 Commercial energy production 1993, Petajoules

Total Solid Liquid Gas Geothermal

& Wind

Hydro Nuclear

337,518 91,748 134,060 78,146 1463 8554 23,646 PJ (1015)

100 27 40 25 0.5 2.5 7 %

Notes:

(1) These are data for calorific content and as such do not relate directly to bulk and hence to

landscape presence. But the relationship, with liquid (ie oil) dominant, does not look

unreasonable.

(2) The percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding errors.

(3) Only commercial energy is counted, not traditional fuels.

Source: extracted from Data Table 12.1 of World Resources Institute et al. (1996) World

Resources 1996-97 Oxford: Oxford University Press

Common to all landscapes of power development is a simple piece of accounting: that over a

long period of time, more energy must be gained from the tapping of the source than is

invested in getting it out and making it available. Thus the energy involved in sinking a

shaft, extracting coal and transporting it to a steam boiler in a nineteenth century factory must

be exceeded by the energy made available to drive the pulleys in the factory. One of the

problems with some of the alternative energy sources of the late twentieth century, such as

photovoltaic cells and passive solar collectors, is that so far more energy has been put into

their manufacture than has been made available to their end-users. Eventually, of course, the

balance will swing to the positive but in the early stages of a new technology, such

considerations may well affect the economics of the project. Measured examples of energy

input and output from modern power systems are rare but one example of open pit mining of

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coal in Indiana (U.S.A.) suggested that the energy in/out ratio was about 1:64, which is highly

satisfactory in economic terms.

The core of the industrial revolution was coal and it is still a very important fuel in many

regions of the world. It can be mined from large open pits or from galleries running off

vertical shafts (Figure 14.1). Indeed its importance in the core developed or industrialised

nations is such that special attention is devoted to it below and the emphasis here is on the

other sources of industrial-scale power. Table 14.2 shows the recent position of coal

production in relation to other major fuels.

HYDRO-POWER

The nearest of these sources to solar-derived energy is the generation of electricity from

falling water (Figure 14.3). The development of plant which channelled water so as to drive

a turbine which generated electric power is a 19th century technology and one early instance

was its use to light La Scala opera house in Milan. Roughly speaking, any flow of water can

be used but the greater the head of water, the greater the amount of power to be generated.

Thus the typical development is a dam across a valley which impounds water so as to provide

a constant head and hence a reliable output of electricity. The turbines are usually built into

the dam structure and the electricity is taken to its end-users via power lines which are strung

between pylons. Even though many suitable sites have now been taken up, the 1973-1993

period witnessed a rise of 86 per cent in the quantity of energy generated by this method.

There is therefore a major transformation of the landscape when a new plant is installed.

Inevitably, the dam impounds a large lake which drowns the pre-existing landscape. There

may be displacement of agriculture, for example. In mountain and other upland areas, the

valleys to be drowned may be the best land and the holdings are simply not viable without

them. Along with the cultivated land, settlements may vanish beneath the water, only to

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emerge at times of drought and then form a singular tourist attraction. Communities have to

be relocated and even in the late 20th century, a few governments have proposed hydro-

electric projects that have ignored the future of local people. In the case of some of the large

dams in Africa, areas of savanna were flooded and many wild animals had to be rescued from

islands and taken to drier areas; inundated forests yielded dead trees which choked the

turbine inlets; rotting vegetation however added to the productivity of fish populations so

there was a temporary boom in lake fisheries. There are always costs and benefits therefore

of large projects.

Secondary landscapes may of course include the use of the controlled water for irrigation,

with all the subsequent changes elaborated in Chapter 13. The downstream nature of the

river will also be affected since its silt content (and hence erosive power) will be radically

lowered by its sojourn in the low-energy environment of the reservoir. The temperature of

the watercourse may also be subject to change since thermal stratification occurs in large,

still, water bodies and the draw-off into the turbines may come from a particular temperature

level. This can affect the flora and fauna of the river below the dam.

The primary landscape is also changed by the technology of electricity transmission. It is

rare for the end-users to be located near the generating plant itself (which obviously tend to

be in relatively remote and steep places) and so high voltage lines have to be constructed

from the generating plant to the towns, cities and factories that use the power. In developing

countries the lines of pylons and cables are often welcomed as evidence of modernisation; in

densely populated industrial nations they are often despised as being ugly intrusions into

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cherished landscapes; where the populations of such regions are less dense then the

opposition is generally much less since the choice of routes is greater and places of

acknowledged beauty can usually be avoided.

The classic example of a major dam and its effects is that of the High Dam at Aswan on the

Nile, impounding Lake Nasser. It was the latest in a series of dams on the Nile and was built

primarily to provide electricity to help industrialisation of the Egyptian economy but also to

improve irrigation water supply. The effects have been clear: the Nile valley’s irrigated

areas have been deprived of silt and have instead had to buy fertilisers; the silt loss has meant

increased erosion of the Nile delta and decreased productivity of the fisheries of the eastern

Mediterranean where the phytoplankton depended on the silt for mineral nutrition. The gross

amount of water in the lower Nile has decreased because of the evaporation from the surface

of Lake Nasser, which also drowned many relics of ancient Egypt, with UNESCO finding

funds for the relocation of monuments like the temples of Abu Simpel. Overall, though, the

creation of this landscape had a symbolic importance in proclaiming a national identity for

post-monarchic Egypt which probably transcended its economic role.

OIL AND NATURAL GAS

Geology has bequeathed a situation in which these two resources are often found together,

though it is not always the case that both are exploited in the same place. The sedimentary

basins which contain them are however located both under the land surfaces and under the

sea. The term landscapes of power must here include seascapes as well. The technological

sequence for oil is usually that of pumping from the rock strata, transport by pipeline to a

refinery and then by tanker or further pipeline to power stations, to industrial plants that use

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some of the products (e.g. for plastics and pharmaceuticals), or to vehicle service stations.

The utility of oil products is such that world production has risen 11 per cent in the last 20

years in spite of a relatively low price during most of that period. Gas is even more popular in

some contexts and so in the same period production has gone up by 72 per cent.

Part of the landscape of power extraction may therefore be hidden: pipelines are often

underground except where the costs of burial would be too high, the terrain unsuitable or

where terrorist damage seems unlikely. The classic case of an above-ground oil pipe is the

Alaska pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska to Valdez, where the oil is transferred to

super-tankers. Because of the climate, the oil is heated and so the entire pipeline is built on

gravel pads so that the permafrost does not melt.

Oil extraction on land can present rather different appearances in the landscape, depending

mostly on the legal arrangements over landownership. Where this ownership is fragmented

and every landowner or lessee wants a share of the oil revenues, then there tends to be a

forest of small derricks or the reciprocating pumps known as nodding donkeys. If the state

owns the land or the mineral rights then larger derricks tend wider areas of strata. At sea, the

investment costs are so high that very large rigs, serviced by special boats and by helicopters,

are scattered across the oilfield. They announce their presence, especially at night, by flaring

off surplus methane, often to the detriment of migrating birds.

The most significant landscape element is probably the oil refinery. A cluster of metal tubes

and emission stacks is usually adjacent to a series of storage tanks (known, curiously, as a

‘tank farm’), with safety requiring that it be lit at night. The crude oil is stored in one set of

tanks and the refined products in another; the pipes are basically parts of a large distillation

plant, with cooling water being a necessary input. The stacks emit a number of waste gases

into the atmosphere and badly maintained plants tend to leak at pipe joints with occasional

fires and explosions. There is usually an unacknowledged cordon sanitaire around a large

refinery, where housing, for instance, is discouraged.

In fact the most common unplanned landscape of the oil system is the tanker accident. There

have been a series of accidents all round the world in which laden oil tankers have been in

collision with other vessels or have run aground. The level of damage has been such that

many millions of tonnes of oil have been shed into the sea, with consequent ecological and

aesthetic effects and huge costs incurred in trying to clean up. The immediate consequences

usually depend upon the grade of oil (the lighter grades may largely evaporate) as well as

local conditions of wind, tide and coastal topography. The longer-term effects are not as well

known because of the costs of monitoring but it seems likely that sessile plants and animals

bear the marks of population change for decades. The oil thus spilled adds to the oceanic

totals of the stuff which derive from smaller spills, illegal washing of tanks at sea, and

seepage from natural outcrops on the sea-bed.

The great secondary landscape of oil is the ubiquity and cheapness of motor transport. In

Germany, more land is devoted to the motor car (in terms of manufacturing, roads, servicing,

gasoline stations and parking) than to housing. A car-oriented city like Los Angeles may

devote about a third of its surface area to the car, plus multi-storey parking areas. Cheap oil

underwrites a whole life-way in the West and in NICs, with a great degree of penetration now

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into LDCs as well.

Natural gas is simpler to chronicle, for the methane which comprises it does not need

refining and is usually conveyed across land in pipelines like oil and at sea in liquid form in

tankers. Accidents are less frequent and less disastrous to the surrounding areas since the gas

evaporates, though explosions are possible. The secondary landscape is that of cheap

electricity made by gas-powered turbines and the low-density housing with central heating to

which gas van be cheaply piped.

NUCLEAR POWER

The civilian nuclear power cycle consists of the extraction of uranium and its concentration

into fuel rods, the insertion of these rods into a reactor and the generation of electricity from

turbines, the reprocessing of the wastes and the eventual storage of radioactive materials

while they decay. Capital needs are high and the skill level needed to operate a plant is also

high, not to mention the talent needed to program the computers that control, e.g. the safety

systems. These problems (and those of public acceptability) notwithstanding, the last 20

years to 1993 saw a rise of 1365 per cent in power thus generated.

The actual landscape of nuclear power generation is not spectacular; uranium mines look like

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most other open pits and reactors (Figure 14.5) are not much bigger than thermal power

stations though they may look different if they are of the PWR type that has a domed

containment structure for the reactor. From the plant, electricity is led away just as from

other generating sources. People unfamiliar with the different types of reactor may

sometimes mistake thermal power plants for nuclear plants: the author has heard the piles of

coal at Didcot described by fellow passengers (bound for Oxford) in the train as ‘say, there’s,

like, gross heaps of uranium’. One other phenomenon apparent inland is the presence of a

large water body since the need for cooling water per unit of power generated is much larger

for nuclear plants than for thermal generation. By the sea, this is not noticeable, but inland

there is likely to be a lake or pipes from a river or lake. EdF has built many kilometres of

canal to supply its plants in central France, for example, but in dry weather is still forced to

reduce operating capacity.

The reprocessing plant is large and like the reactor heavily protected: even in countries like

the UK it is customary to have armed guards. It emits planned releases of radioactive

particles to the air and the water and stores low- and medium-level wastes while they lose

significant amounts of their radioactivity. It is responsible too for holding high-level wastes

(which may need to be sequestered from any form of life for 250,000 years) awaiting their

final storage in an underground repository. The main characteristic of that installation is that

there is no landscape at all except the headgear of the shaft; we all hope that nothing leaks

from it in any shape or form.

The accidental landscapes of nuclear power are well documented. The source is nearly

always the reactor and in more cases than not human error is held to blame for the accidents

in which the reactor core gets overheated and begins to melt, with subsequent releases of

radioactive materials. The case of Chernobyl in the Ukraine (1986) is one of the best

documented, especially its effects at a distance as the cloud of radioactive materials was

swept to and fro across western and northern Europe with differential scavenging out of

radioactivity, and the immediate sterilisation of a zone round the stricken reactor plant. The

effects in terms of areas of upland Britain from which sheep may not be sold off are still with

us, as is the zone where nobody can live and work, as are the many people who have and will

develop cancer from the radiation.

WIND POWER

The usefulness of the windmill in pre-industrial societies has been previously mentioned

(Chapter 9). In windy places such as uplands and along coasts, the technology is being re-

evaluated so as to offer a free energy source in the face of concerns about atmospheric

warming. The machines are still basically pillars with sails on them but the gearing has

lower levels of friction and the blades are, like aircraft propellers, angled for maximum

presentation of surface to the wind.

The usual way of generating electricity from such tower installations is to place a wind farm

(Figure 14.6) in an appropriate place and lead off the electricity from each pylon to a central

collection point from which it is fed to a regional or national grid. Depending on the

topography, towers are about 100 m apart and most farms have 20 plus of them. There is no

doubt that they form a distinctive landscape and one which is normally an abrupt change

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from the pre-existing scene. If placed in uplands and along coasts they are likely at some

point to conflict with people who prefer the previous landscape and controversy ensues.

Apart from the visual changes, they do not produce many other transformations: if on

grazing land, that use can continue. Although not customary, they could be placed in

cultivated land if due care is taken with underground cabling. They do, however, produce

noise: a kind of perpetual soughing accompanies the rotation of the blades. Like most

noises, this is received differently by different people. Those who have fled to the hills to

escape the city (either permanently or at weekends) are likely to be antagonistic to both sight

and sound; their teenage offspring brought up on high decibel levels at the disco are unlikely

even to notice. In Denmark for example, large wind generation plants make a significant

contribution to the national supply; elsewhere such plants exist usually only where

alternative energy sources receive a government subsidy or where indeed they are part of a

demonstration designed to awake people to non-polluting energy sources. Ask enthusiasts

how they are made and when the energy balance becomes positive.

CONCLUSION: CONCENTRATIONS

A last word on landscapes of power notes the uneven spread of phenomena. As noted

elsewhere at several points, the developed countries are energy-rich in terms of per capita

usage. They thus form islands of power consumption in a world of generally much lower

values. Infra-red photography from satellites shows too that the actual sites of generation

show up as islands of heat emission which are above the general level. So do areas of dense

consumption (such as New York City in winter) but to a lesser degree. So the landscape of

power getting is one of points of, in general, no great spatial area. These are joined by the

all-important phenomena of transmission: today the pipeline and the high-voltage power line

are key features not only of the visual scene but of the functioning of the economy: not for

nothing are they sometimes compared with the blood vessels and the nervous system of their

human creators.

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FURTHER READING AND REFERENCES

Foley (1987) is an accessible text and Smil (1994) is very good on the historical aspect of the

energy issue.

Debeir, J-C., Deléage, J-P. & Heméry, D. (1991) In the servitude of power: energy and

civilization through the ages London: Zed

Foley, G. (1987) The energy question 3rd edition Harmondsworth: Pelican

Hall, C.A.S., Cleveland, C.J. & Kaufman, R. (1986) Energy and resource quality: the

ecology of the economic process New York: Wiley

Hill, R., O’Keefe, P. & Snape, P. (1995) The future of energy use London: Earthscan

Smil, V. (1987) Energy, food, environment: realities, myths, options Oxford: Clarendon Press

Smil, V. (1991) General energetics: energy in the biosphere and civilization Chichester:

Wiley

Smil, V. (1994) Energy in world history Boulder: Westview

Soussan, J.G. (1988) Primary resources and energy in the Third World London: Routledge

Soussan, J.G. (1992) World energy picture, pp 131-46 in Mannion, A.M. & Bowlby, S.R.

(Eds) Environmental issues in the 1990s Chichester: Wiley

Stern, R. (Ed.)(1996) Rural energy and development Washington DC: World Bank

World Resources Institute (1996) World resources 1996-97 Oxford: Oxford University Press