Solar Energy, Renewables, Economics, Sustainability, Fossil Fuels.
i.e. some 166,440 Trillion watt-hours). The orange sliver shows the useful work actually derived from that huge surge of primary energy use — i.e. only 12% of the total. Let this sink in. Early steam engines circa 1750 were about 1% to 5% efficient. 270 years later, the current, global, almighty