🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 92Jun10220409@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com,
slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com (Mark Slagle) writes:
>In article <l3aq66INNlep@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>, jdr@starflight.Corp.Sun.COM 
>(Jon Roland) writes:
>
>> Most of the progress that has occurred during the last century is the
>> result of improving the efficiency of conversion of energy from one
>> form into another by a factor of about 50, from less than 1 percent to
>> about 90 percent of the thermodynamic limits. Further improvements
>> are possible, and will be made, but not by another factor of 50.
>
>Some of the progress, but not most.  I would say that most of the
>progress of the last century is a result not of improving the
>efficiency of energy conversion, but rather a result of improving
>the efficiency of energy utilization.  We do far more with less
>energy than our forebears, regardless of the efficiency of the
>conversion process.

Those alternative ways of using energy are made possible by the
new ways we have found to convert energy more efficiently, and
are themselves often ways of converting energy more efficiently
when you examine them more closely.

---

jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com, starflt@uunet.uu.net
Jon Roland
Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A,
Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141