Introduction

Abstract

Our everyday lives are completely dependent upon energy. Normally, we do not give a thought as to how the food on our table, the comfortable temperature of our household, our daily travel, or nearly everything else around us can be related to different forms of energy. We started modestly, using twigs and branches to fuel fires for use in preparing cooked food. Modern celebrity chefs still use the heat from burning wood to cook food but more often they use heat from burning natural gas or from electricity generated in coal-burning power stations. Meals today are prepared from ingredients obtained from all over the world and transported to us using oil. We also need oil for our personal transportation, for heating our homes, and as a raw material for plastics and other chemical products. In fact, our dependence on oil for production and transportation of food and other essentials from far away means that we now cannot live without it.