Editor’s Note: Master Resource’s founder and editor, Rob Bradley, is currently struggling with the aftermath of torrential flooding in the Texas Hill Country. Until he can return to work, he has asked me to post “classic” MR entries. A blog post explaining Vaclav Smil’s concept of “power density” surely qualifies. This is the key concept for understanding a civilization’s energy needs.

Unfortunately, our MR files contain no concise explanation of the concept in layman’s language. (We have many explanations that no conceivable lay reader—myself most definitely included—could possibly understand or appreciate.) The closest thing I could find to a useful journalistic entry was a blog post by Kent Hawkins—a retired electrical engineer in Ontario—published on February 20, 2013. It is reprinted below.—Roger Donway, Managing Editor.

Power Density Separates the Wheat from the Chaff

By Kent Hawkins — February 20, 2013

“Power density (W/m²) is perhaps the most revealing variable in energetics…”[1]- Vaclav Smil

It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that understanding power density may be all the average person requires to put our energy sources and needs into perspective, but there is some merit in this argument.…

This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** How the House cut off new solar and wind subsidies in the “Big Beautiful Bill”
Leading Florida power provider blasts solar/wind subsidies

Unreliables (General):
*** Short good video: America in the Dark
*** The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout
Reliance on ‘Renewables’ Makes Widespread Blackout Nightmare More Likely
Global Tally of Alternative-Energy Rejections Passes 1,000
15 Hidden Hazards of Green Energy that Get Ignored

Wind Energy — Offshore:
Showdown looms for Empire Wind (NY Offshore)
Ruling that could doom its Irish Sea wind projects

Wind Energy — Other:
*** New Study: “The presented research rejects the typically held view that wind power is a sustainable energy source.”…

“… model-observation discrepancies can arise from three causes: the observations could be wrong (unrealized biases etc.), the models are wrong (which can encompass errors in forcings as well as physics), or the comparison could be inappropriate…. [I]t may well be that these discrepancies will resolve themselves in the course of ‘normal’ model development … Or not….” – Gavin Schmidt, Real Science, May 31, 2025.

One of the most enduring themes of the popular discussion of a man-made warming globe has been sea level rise as a result of the melting of ice from the planet’s two frigid poles.

Former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” featured images of icebergs calving off the Antarctic continent. He proclaimed that if the world proceeded to warm at its current rate, worldwide sea levels would rise “20 feet.”…

This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** Epstein: Why the proposed “phaseout” of IRA subsidies is unacceptable
*** Victory for energy freedom: the House (finally) limits IRA subsidies
*** New report: The true affordability of net zero
The truth about power bill increases

Unreliables (General):
*** The Achilles Heel of Wind and Solar
Economic prosperity demands continuous and uninterruptible electricity
Wasting Away in Wind-and-Solarville

Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Allies Sue Federal Agencies Over Unlawful Authorization of Empire Wind Project
Letitia James has ‘no leg to stand on’ in lawsuit against Trump offshore wind order, experts say
Rest in Peace, Nils Stolpe, Fisheries Guru
After nearly four decades, Jerry Schill bows out of N.C.…