How Infrastructure Works
Metadata
- Author: Deb Chachra
- ASIN: B0CC4Q4CJW
- ISBN: 0593086597
- Reference: https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CC4Q4CJW
- Kindle link
Highlights
In fact, access to more resources leads so universally and predictably to an increase in artificial light that researchers have even used it as a proxy for economic growth, — location: 640
But even more saliently: in 1950, a housewife could single-handedly produce a middle-class standard of living for her family while her 1850 counterpart would likely have had one or many servants—“hired help”—to do the same. — location: 698
The Embodied Energy of Objects — location: 776
While it’s a messy, imperfect conversion, we can estimate our power consumption from daily caloric intake, since calories are a unit of energy and days are a unit of time, and it works out to roughly the same as a modern television, 100 watts or so. — location: 837
That power consumption also defines our maximum output, because we can’t put more energy back into the world than we can get from our food except over short periods — location: 840