Bob Tippee
Editor

Politics and physics have disparate meanings for the word "energy" yet adhere in their treatment of the subject to natural laws with interesting similarities.

Defining "energy" with technical precision is difficult, of course. Defining the word politically is impossible.

Technically, energy relates to the ability to perform work and transfer heat. Engineers and physicists discuss it in terms such as ergs, joules, and degrees.

In politics, "energy" means whatever anyone needs it to mean. This flexibility frees political discussion of worry about the physical world's thermodynamic constraints. The basic political terms applicable to energy include dollars, euros, and yuan.

Despite these contrasts, parallel laws do seem to be at work.

The physics of energy, for example, concerns itself with shifts between varying degrees of energy usefulness. It employs tools such as engines, turbines, and batteries.

The politics of energy concentrates on shifts, too: of money. Its tools are taxes, mandates, and subsidies.