A forceful reckoning with the relationship between energy and power through the history of what was once East Asia’s largest coal mine.

The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality.

In Carbon Technocracy, Victor Seow uses the remarkable story of the Fushun colliery to chart how the fossil fuel economy emerged in tandem with the rise of the modern technocratic state. Taking coal as an essential feedstock of national wealth and power, Chinese and Japanese bureaucrats, engineers, and industrialists deployed new technologies like open-pit mining and hydraulic stowage in pursuit of intensive energy extraction. But as much as these mine operators idealized the might of fossil fuel–driven machines, their extractive efforts nevertheless relied heavily on the human labor that those devices were expected to displace. Under the carbon energy regime, countless workers here and elsewhere would be subjected to invasive techniques of labor control, ever-escalating output targets, and the dangers of an increasingly exploited earth.

Although Fushun is no longer the coal capital it once was, the pattern of aggressive fossil-fueled development that led to its ascent endures. As we confront a planetary crisis precipitated by our extravagant consumption of carbon, it holds urgent lessons. This is a groundbreaking exploration of how the mutual production of energy and power came to define industrial modernity and the wider world that carbon made.

Audiobook edition

A forceful reckoning with the relationship between energy and power through the history of what was once East Asia’s largest coal mine.

The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality.

In Carbon Technocracy, Victor Seow uses the remarkable story of the Fushun colliery to chart how the fossil fuel economy emerged in tandem with the rise of the modern technocratic state. Taking coal as an essential feedstock of national wealth and power, Chinese and Japanese bureaucrats, engineers, and industrialists deployed new technologies like open-pit mining and hydraulic stowage in pursuit of intensive energy extraction. But as much as these mine operators idealized the might of fossil fuel–driven machines, their extractive efforts nevertheless relied heavily on the human labor that those devices were expected to displace. Under the carbon energy regime, countless workers here and elsewhere would be subjected to invasive techniques of labor control, ever-escalating output targets, and the dangers of an increasingly exploited earth.

Although Fushun is no longer the coal capital it once was, the pattern of aggressive fossil-fueled development that led to its ascent endures. As we confront a planetary crisis precipitated by our extravagant consumption of carbon, it holds urgent lessons. This is a groundbreaking exploration of how the mutual production of energy and power came to define industrial modernity and the wider world that carbon made.

Microgrids are electric power grids composed of loads and distributed energy resources which provide electricity to villages, university campuses and other entities usually smaller than cities which are capable of operating independently from the larger grid if necessary. Such systems are gaining importance in times of rising shares of renewable power and desire for energy resilience.

Clean energy provision and usage has a long history from an engineering perspective. This perspective can help understanding past and current developments at a time of increasing concern about climate change. Over many hundreds of years human beings have been extracting energy from their environment in various ways, many of which could also be acceptable in the future for achieving a lower energy carbon footprint.

If there are two phrases we have come to know very well, they are 'environmental awareness' and 'credit crunch'. The world is looking for ways to decrease the emission of CO₂ into the atmosphere, without incurring major costs in doing so. By increasing efficiencies up to about 90 per cent using well-established and mature technologies, cogeneration represents the best option for short-term reductions in CO₂ emission levels.

District energy (DE) systems use central heating and/or cooling facilities to provide heating and/or cooling services for communities and can be particularly beneficial when integrated with cogeneration plants for electricity and heat. This book provides information on district energy and cogeneration technologies, and the systems that combine them, with a focus on their modelling, analysis and optimization.

Cogeneration, also called combined heat and power (CHP), refers to the use of a power station to deliver two or more useful forms of energy, for example, to generate electricity and heat at the same time. All conventional, fuel-based plants generate heat as by-product, which is often carried away and wasted. Cogeneration captures part of this heat for delivery to consumers and is thus a thermodynamically efficient use of fuel, and contributes to reduction of carbon emissions. This book provides an integrated treatment of cogeneration, including a tour of the available technologies and their features, and how these systems can be analysed and optimised.

The Smart Grid is a modern electricity grid allowing for distributed, renewable intermittent generation, partly owned by consumers. This requires advanced control and communication technologies in order to provide high quality power supply and secure generation, transmission and distribution. This book outlines these emerging technologies.

The intermittency of renewable energy sources is making increased deployment of storage technology necessary. Technologies are needed with high round-trip efficiency and at low cost to allow renewables to undercut fossil fuels. The cost of lithium batteries has fallen, but producing them comes with a substantial carbon footprint, as well as a cost to the local environment.

The book introduces the reader to the major components of a high voltage system and the different insulating materials applied in particular equipments. During a review of these materials, measurable properties suitable for condition assessment are identified. Analyses are included of some of the insulation fault scenarios that may occur in power equipment. The basic facilities for carrying out tests on the internal and external insulation structures at high and low voltages are described. Tests and measurements according to specifications, on-site requirements and research investigations are considered. Advances in the application of digital techniques for detection and analyses of partial discharges are discussed and methods in use, or under development, for service condition monitoring are described. These include the utilization of new sensors, the solution of online problems associated with noise rejection and the adaptation of artificial intelligence techniques for incipient fault diagnosis.

Condition monitoring of engineering plants has increased in importance as engineering processes have become increasingly automated. However, electrical machinery usually receives attention only at infrequent intervals when the plant or the electricity generator is shut down. The economics of industry have been changing, placing ever more emphasis on the importance of reliable operation of the plants. Electronics and software in instrumentation, computers, and digital signal processors have improved our ability to analyse machinery online. Condition monitoring is now being applied to a range of systems from fault-tolerant drives of a few hundred watts to machinery of a few hundred MW in major plants.

Condition monitoring of engineering plant has increased in importance as engineering processes are automated and manpower is reduced. However, electrical machinery receives attention only at infrequent intervals when plant is shut down and the application of protective relays to machines has also reduced operator surveillance.

This book aims at a theoretical and practical treatment of both conduction and induction heating. They share a common theory, one being the 'mirror image' of the other, and so one gets two for the price of one.

Control circuits are a key element in the operation and performance of power electronics converters. This book describes practical issues related to the design and implementation of these control circuits, with a focus on the presentation of the state-of-the-art control solutions, including circuit technology, design techniques, and implementation issues.

Variable speed drives and the associated electrical motors play a central role in industry as well as the buildings in which we live, work and are entertained. They are arguably the most potent tool we have in the quest to save energy and thereby reduce our carbon footprint. Their rate of development has been rapid and today's product is in many ways unrecognisable from its ancestors of even twenty years ago. Development continues apace for the components used in the products, the products themselves and the ways in which the products are used.

Thermal management is an issue with all electrical machines, including electric vehicle drives and wind turbine generators. Excessively high temperatures lead to loss of performance, degradation and deformation of components, and ultimately loss of the system.

Coordination of Distributed Energy Resources in Microgrids: Optimisation, control, and hardware-in-the-loop validation provides a structured overview of research into techniques for managing microgrids with distributed energy resources (DERs). The DERs including distributed generators, energy storage systems, and flexible loads are posing both challenges and opportunities to microgrids' security, planning, operation, and control. Advanced operation and control techniques are needed to coordinate these components in the microgrids and maintain power quality, as well as keeping the system economically feasible.

Our future depends on what we do about energy. This stark fact, clear since the oil embargo of the 1970s, has been hammered home through crisis after crisis—and yet our government has failed to come up with a coherent energy policy. John Deutch, with his extraordinary mix of technical, scholarly, corporate, and governmental expertise in the realm of energy, is uniquely qualified to explain what has stood in the way of progress on this most pressing issue. His book is at once an eye-opening history of the muddled practices that have passed for energy policy over the past thirty years, and a cogent account of what we can and should learn from so many breakdowns of strategy and execution.

Three goals drive any comprehensive energy policy: develop an effective approach to climate change; transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies; and increase the efficiency of energy use to reduce dependence on imported oil. Why has every effort in this direction eventually fallen short? Deutch identifies the sources of this failure in our popular but unrealistic goals, our competing domestic and international agendas, and our poor analysis in planning, policy-making, and administering government programs. Most significantly, The Crisis in Energy Policy clarifies the need to link domestic and global considerations, as well as the critical importance of integrating technical, economic, and political factors. Written for experts and citizens alike, this book will strengthen the hand of anyone concerned about the future of energy policy.

Microgrids use ICT to intelligently deliver energy and integrate clean generation. They can operate independently from a larger grid and can help to strengthen grid resilience. Applications include remote as well as urban areas, hospitals, and manufacturing complexes. Cybersecurity challenges arise, exposing the microgrids to cyber-attacks, possibly resulting in harm to infrastructure and to people. Research has classified attacks based on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and most countermeasures focus on specific attacks or on protecting specific components. A global approach is needed combining solutions that can secure the entire system and respond in milliseconds.

Cyber-physical-social systems (CPSS) integrate computing, physical assets, and human networks. Divided into four application areas to the electric grid, this book describes state-of-the-art CPSS in electric power systems, including detailed approaches on social constructs which are a critical aspect of the end-user realm. The book covers: