The global apparatus of human industry is shifting its weight from the deep, dark carbon deposits of the Carboniferous era to the crystalline lattices of the silicon age.
For two centuries, the primary kinetic driver of civilization was the extraction of ancient sunlight trapped in fossil fuels. This was a process of combustion where coal, oil, and gas were pulled from the earth to be burned, vanishing into the atmosphere as energy and exhaust. This was the era of volume and thermal power.
