Energy & Civilization

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A peat bank cut back in clean steps on open moorland, its exposed face showing the full depth of the deposit, with a worn steel peat iron standing in the top step and one freshly cut turf balanced half off its blade above a weathered timber barrow

Power Density and What It Permits

Watts per square metre of land is the least fashionable number in energy analysis and one of the most revealing. It explains what pre-fossil societies could not build — and it is contested in ways worth understanding.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 9, 2026 · 18 min read

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